A New Weekend begins

The sun is shining!  It feels like years since we have seen it.  Spring is sneaking in and today I can almost smell it.  

Need to find the balance

Lift my head from this rut of endeavour

And see the way ahead

So grateful to God for this chance

So desperate to make a go of it

But confused as to why

I seem ever destined

To be doing something

That I am ill equipped

To cope with

Always alert to the scent of failure

And defeat

Feeling a heavy footed fool

On thin crackling ice

Be calm

Be calm
Find the peace
that puts in place
the thoughts
that run riot
be still
and find the place
within that is
the centre of you
Be sure
that with peace in this place
all the pieces of you
will find their place
at peace

Choosing your Hat

Thoughts on science stuff - our brains mainly!

It has been long generally accepted that while the skin, liver, heart, kidney, lungs and blood could generate new cells, the brain and the spinal cord could not.  Neurologists have just discovered within the last five years that this is not in fact the complete story.  Our brains change throughout life and the variety of challenges we face as individuals often contribute to that mechanism of change.  This has led to new hope for repairing brains following injury or disease and also even opened the door to enhancing healthy brainpower.  Adult brain cells, contrary to old beliefs, do generate new cells and the proof is emerging that this is both a cause for celebration and a call for action.

It seems our brains create new brain cells periodically, but less than half of the neurons created successfully migrate to areas to form useful connections.  Interestingly, it seems it takes a month from the formation of new neurons until they become fully functional and able to send and receive information.  In response to a stroke the brain immediately sets about repairing and produces more neurons in an attempt to heal damaged brain tissue, and in the cases of small minor strokes, is so successful that the victim does not notice that any damage has actually occurred.  One study has suggested that depression is linked to a decrease in the production of new neurons in our hippocampus in the brain.  Chemicals designed to increase the production of neurons to treat disorders such as Huntington’s disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and Parkinson’s have been investigated and there is an urgent need to understand the whole process of neuron production and migration. 

The production of new neurons - neurogenesis also occurs in the brain of adult mice when they are moved to a more stimulating cage with exercise wheels, etc, provided.  Regular exercise has been shown to decrease depression in humans, which could be evidence of neurogenesis at work.  Although the details of how to chemically induce neurogensis is still under investigation and there are dangers - brain tumors, etc - evidence is emerging that choosing a mentally challenging and physically active life enhances the ability of the brain repair processes.  The brain repair kit also responds positively to not only exercise, but also a good diet and adequate sleep.  All these activities are found to increase the number of neural connections, improve memory and reasoning ability.  It would seem our very environment affects how our brains are wired!  Self repair and self-enhancement is not only possible, it is beginning to emerge that it is how the brain was designed to work. 

All the recent research would seem to indicate that the brain was constructed to change.  Every time we learn a new mental/physical skill we change the construction of our brains in a very real and dynamic way.  Magnetic resonance imaging has revealed the new maps with different areas illuminated.  Task shifting of the brain has been accomplished by a series of intense mental and physical exercises.  Patients who have lost speech or limb mobility have managed to undo the effects of injury.  Some patients whose strokes occurred 20 years previously have been able, via exercise-based tasks, to regain mobility again.  Plastisticity of the brain is now being demonstrated beyond doubt and it gives much hope for advances in recovery from a wide range of complaints previously thought irreversible. While science is already beginning to overshoot, looking for how to use this new factor to create a smart pill to enhance normal brain performance - a sort of viagra for the brain - several valuable lessons have been learned.  To summarize these:

Read daily a thought provoking piece of writing.

Learn a new skill and/or tackle a new physical activity.

Be creative on a daily basis.

Eat a balanced diet.

Sleep well

Live in a stimulating environment both socially and intellectually

Meditate every day

All these sound old hat, but according to the recent neurological research, they all encourage important parallel processes in our brains.  It would seem less relevant to sit and wonder why we have been given the brains/life we have, but far more practical and expedient to realize it is more important what we choose to do with the matter under our hat.  An understanding of the dynamism going on in our brains might just spur us not to lethargy and passive acceptance, but to change and growth and hope.  New neurons are waiting to be created and spurred into useful production, not decimated by inactivity.  We really are what we choose to do in a very fundamental sense. Our old ‘gray matter’ is being renewed and we can cultivate more growth and more connections by how we choose to live.  Your life/brain is in your hands!

Friendship with Oneself

To have a good and trustworthy friend is a mighty gift.  It brings such solace in times of difficulty.  To periods of joy such friendship heightens the experience, spreading and magnifying it.  The importance of such friendship cannot be over estimated.  It forms the backbone of our lives strengthening our progress in all things.  But as with all relationships it is the very closest and most intimate that are the spinal column.  The vital channel that enables major limbs and organs to function.  This relationship is not an external one but an internal one.  Our most intimate friendship, our sweetest relationship is the one we forge with ourselves.  For this bond is what defines us, as for example our DNA decides the colour of our eyes.  Unlike our DNA this friendship with ourself is not encoded and unchangeable.  It is dynamic and ever changing.  So that when it breaks down even our physical existence becomes untenable, unbearable.  Suicide used to be defined as the deliberate taking of one’s own life and in many countries considered a crime.  Kinder interpretations suggest that suicide happens not when someone desires to be dead but when a person feels that continuing to live is no longer an option.  In this mindset taking one’s life is not a positive choice, it has become the step taken because the person concerned genuinely feels they have absolutely no alternative left open to them.

Whatever has happened has severed that intimate relationship we have with ourselves.  The only way forward is divorce and the only way to implement that is by taking one’s own life.  When this vital relationship has floundered, death is seen as the kinder option – indeed the only one.

There is no place for judgement or condemnation.  We need to understand that our relationship with ourselves lies at the heart of everything we do, everything we are or will become.  It colours not only us, but every person who comes across our path.  It even shapes the people around us, the community we live in, the environment and this world of ours. 

This private relationship is fundamental to everything.  Like every relationship certain factors enhance its quality.  Knowledge of oneself, nurturing oneself, understanding and forgiveness all play a role.  But also the realisation that this relationship we have with ourselves must be dynamic.  It changes and without conscious effort it will deteriorate.  In all the distractions that surround us this friendship with ourselves must be sustained and strengthened.  But how? 

Well every day that passes is a possibility, a chance to reflect.  By examining this person, thinking about their actions, their words, their deeds we understand ourselves and even more importantly we discover our strengths and weaknesses.  Then we can learn and make the subtle changes and decisions that become the turning points.  Bringing oneself to account each day is not a negative exercise.  It is an opportunity to focus on that most intimate relationship and coax out of life’s challenges and confusions some sense.  Having spent some time understanding ourselves we can then make the tiny daily decisions that will bring health to ourselves, love to our lives and light to find the right path ahead.

The Ecstasy of Coffee

What can I say, I love the stuff and am searching for the perfect bean - so let me know yours!

It started out rocky I didn’t like the taste

Could only take coffee with shovel loads of sugar

Watched weirdoes with coffee fetishes

Who would put a teaspoon of coffee

In a cup along with a splash of milk

And beat it for five minutes like whirling dervishes

Until smooth like brown treacle

Then satisfied, adding the water hot and steamy

They sighed content with the world within the brown sludge

Or the sniffers, those who pour whole beans

Into grinders and stand in ecstasy

As pulverised beans release their heady aroma.

Ah, the anticipation

The coffee ceremony begins and their hands shake a little

Even as they reach for the container of brown gold beans.

But now I search for the right bean

I’m ashamed to say

I store them carefully in a special container

I’ve bought a grinder

And yes my hand has begun to shake in anticipation of my coffee fix.

More elaborate than any Chinese tea ceremony and much more important.

This Fleeting Instant

Things are often far from what they seem

People are rarely what they claim

The moment you read this will never return

Even when remembered, it will be different

Who you are now, you will never be again

You are not your parents and cannot be

The friends you have not may not be yours tomorrow

The health that is yours today

Cannot be guaranteed

The thoughts, the hopes, you have at present

Will move with the wind

All that you think you have achieved can melt like snow in the sun.

All is not as it seems

Be sure of this

But in the quiet moments of prayer and contemplation

You will find the space to grow

And instead of holding onto things

like a frantic man with fists full of sand

you will let go of your will and feel the breeze upon your cheek,

the sound of birds singing

the heartbeat of you and be content

that things are often far from what they seem.

The Shame of it

It is Women's Day and here is a really angry piece I wrote some years back. 

There are times in your life when you know without a shadow of a doubt that something is wrong and everything inside you screams at the injustice of it.  This past week I have watched a brave friend who has been violently abused by her husband for fourteen years find from somewhere the courage to walk away from that house of horror.  She tried to find help from the police from the hospital from doctors from social workers from anyone who would listen.  She carries the two-inch scar on her forehead from where he attacked her last summer.  Her legs are black and blue from his kicks and her spirit beaten down so that she is terrified of him and the violence he is capable of.  Every time a van passes she visibly flinches in case it might be his.  Her hair has turned completely gray in the last year.  From where has she found the courage to leave? 

Because he began to beat her in front of the children.  Even waking up the four and ten year old in the middle of the night so that they could see her be beaten and thrown out of the house.  He realized that sheer violence could not force a mother to leave her children and so he turned that violence and intimidation on to the older son, knowing that she could not bear that.  He has no interest in the older son. Like so many abusers, he has no qualms or morals about who he hurts as long as he gets what he wants.  She did all the legal things.  She went to the lawyer, the police etc etc.  Scared and worried about the consequences, nevertheless she reached out for help. 

The system has not responded.  Action has been filed against him for assault and he has not even been interviewed by the local police.  A few days ago he attacked me in my car and when I too pressed charges against him this too was met with no result.  I know this man has money and position but does that mean he is untouchable?  He has beaten his wife so that the whole side of her face is black and blue.    

This man has attacked others in the past and has a history of violence.  He beat and abused his first wife until she was forced to flee back to Denmark with two children under five.  He has never contributed any financial support to that family and does not even allow the two now grown young men to meet with him, as they requested this year.  This man is without scruples.  He has convinced himself that he is the innocent party and genuinely believes it.  His violence is not a matter of regret; he is proud and feels justified in all that he has done and is doing.  This does not matter.  What he thinks or believes is immaterial.  What matters, is how you and I and the whole system respond.   This bully has got away with his behaviour and is now almost fifty and yet acts like a two-year-old with a tantrum.   I have been to the police I have helped her as much as physically possible.  She is living in my home.  My family is traumatized by the violence and fear they see before them.  She has lost her four year old, her home, and when her ten year old returns from camp, to what horror will he return?  She has been so brave and yet now there appears no option.  Even though she has official custody of the children he is refusing her even a say in what school they attend or where they live. 

All of you seem to shrug your shoulders and say talk it out.  I wish the chief of police here could have been there when she followed his advice and got punched for her pains.  This man is unreasonable and dangerous; the authorities needed to step in and say stop.  They have failed and I want it on record that they and you failed her.  I want the whole community to know what pathetic specimens are out there beating their wives and feeling macho and manly.  Shame on you.  Shame on all of you.  But mostly shame on all of us who fail to help when these victims of abuse actually get off their knees long enough to cry for help.  I want you to hear their cries when you try to sleep at night.  I want you to visualize those children caught up in that abuse who are being twisted and damaged because of your acceptance of what goes on.  Lastly, for you the abuser:  I believe our deeds are written in stones of crystallite and that one day we will answer before God for our deeds.  For your sake I hope you meet some measure of punishment while here on earth to mitigate in some way what will no doubt come.