Sometimes we make shit happen

There are dates that really stick in the mind.  Take 1844, in that year the blight that decimated the potato crop in Ireland arrived and one million people would die as a result.  Such times deserve closer inspection because they often signal a sea change.  Just as for all of us there are years that we remember for all sorts of emotional/practical reasons.  Ask anyone and they can usually site their own year to remember, often for catastrophic reasons.  The year everything went pear shaped.  So, I was fascinated to read of the history of the Great Auk.  The original penguin was originally so numerous that Iceland and Newfoundland were packed with these flightless birds.  Then humans got stuck in and used them for meat and mattress stuffing as pointed out in The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History by Elizabeth Kolbert

“You do not give yourself the trouble of killing them, reported an English sailor, “but lay hold of one and pluck the best …. You then turn the poor penguins adrift, with his skin half naked and torn off to perish at his leisure.”

It was June 1844 when the last of this unfortunate species was strangled by Icelandic hunters.  A sorry end to a once abundant species.  Of course we’ve been here before.  The Dodo’s are portrayed almost as a humorous creature deserving of extinction.  If you are careless enough to forget how to fly – you really deserve everything that comes to you, seems to be the bottom line.

But even those who fly are being wiped out.  Last year the usual millions of monarch butterflies that return to the mountainous fir forests of central Mexico every year for the first time in living memory did not appear on the 1^st November as usual.  Traditionally the butterflies are thought to be the souls of the dead returned and Mexicans celebrate it as a holy Day ‘The Day of the Dead’.  In 2012 there was concern when only 60 million of the butterflies eventually turned up.  By the end of Nov 2013 only three million arrived.  The spectacular migration, many think, could be approaching collapse.

The causes are human ignorance.  We cannot blame Icelandic hunters or cruel mid nineteen century sailors.  No, it is due to the way we choose to farm, ploughing every scrap of earth, the use of Roundup a herbicide that kills virtually all plants except the genetically modified to survive it.  Millions of acres of native species, especially Milkweed have been wiped out.  In one study Iowa was shown to have lost 60% of its milkweed and then another study depressingly claimed 90% was actually gone.  We have sterilized our agriculture landscape.  So what I hear some ask?  Well, 80% of our food crops are pollinated by insects primarily bees.  They like butterflies are in trouble.  The intricate food web that connects life forms on this planet is being ripped apart.  The intricacies of interdependence that we are only beginning to understand and wonder at, is being destroyed at a frighteningly wanton rate.

Some Monarchs finding themselves parasite laden, turn to more toxic types of milkweed which helps kill their unwelcome guests.  Bees have long used resins from aspen and willow trees to line their nests and these anti fungal, anti-microbial and antiviral substances help them fight infection and diseases.  Such wonders of nature are being treated with cavalier indifference and ruthless expediency.  When you insist on a nice green lawn you’ve created an insect desert.  Have a front yard with a wildflower meadow and the same area can accommodate 20/30 species of bees and butterflies.

But unfortunately it doesn’t stop at flightless birds and insects.  By recent estimation one third of reef corals, one third of freshwater molluscs, one third of sharks, a fifth of all reptiles, a quarter of all mammals and a sixth of all birds will be like the Great Auk, extinct this century. 

The last great extinction (the fifth) happened 66 million years ago.  It has been entitled with no exaggeration ‘The worst day ever on planet Earth’ and three quarters of all known species were wiped out. 

However, in truth, an even worse extinction happened 252 million years ago when 96% of all marine species, 70% of all terrestrial vertebrates and the only mass extinction of insects ever to have occurred.  In fact, it took life on our planet 10 million years to recover.  Extinctions do happen, they may be many millenniums apart but they are a feature of our planet.  One 450 million years ago was due to the movement of the earth’s plates into the southern pole region which caused global cooling and mass extinction.  Another extinction was caused by a collision of an asteroid.  I suppose the accurate summary here is, shit happens. 

It is no comfort to note that present extinctions are not something that has happened to us by chance or fate but by our own hands.  I suppose the truthful summary here is – sometimes we make shit happen.

Fast Dreams

Into the new day

From the dark night

Thoughts rise to you

Steel endeavours to obey

Urges heart to love

Clear the fog of indecision

From the path ahead

Allow the channels

Of inspiration to flow

Through this muddy

Waste pipe of life.

I stumble and fall

Far from where I am meant to be

Crawling ungainly over rough ground

Head low not high

Soaring over earthly business

Demeaned by apathies and appetites

Bemoaned by celestial forces

Unsure, hesitating

Sword sheathed.

While the battle rages

Fighting whimpering inner foes

Instead of the enemies without

That rob us of our birthright

Dreams of fear

Loved one covered in sores

Raw and pus filled

Missing parts of limbs

Melted my heart with horror

“Oh My dear one!”

I cry out in pity and pain

But he looked at me with such

Sweet long suffering

As if to say,

You only have to look

Imagine how it is for me!

And then tried to cheer me

Glad to be awoken from such a dream

Searching for a better me

Among the ruins of existence

Trying to clear a path

Remember the reason for this life

A glimpse of light ahead

Reminds me of a purpose

Long forgotten amidst

The futile business of life

Dreamt of a relative giving me tea

Special healing infusion

That strengthened

The elixir handed out so generously

So typical of her sweet nature

We were on a mountain slope

With epic journeys to be tackled

Her kindness anchored goodness in me

I awake to find it time to rise

My dreams and this world

Are fraying and meeting

At the unfolding edges

Each night another thread of the tale

Leads me on.

Awoke this morning

Another dream fresh

I scramble to remember

But it has evaporated

Like joy and pain

All things pass

Shadows on the cave wall

From the fire reflecting

The real life outside

Into this valley of darkness

I awake to the lack of light

Aware that just behind the veil

Lies everything worthy.

4000 corpse better looking than us

My husband worked in China for a year lecturing in the University of Urumchi.  If your geography is as weak as mine, let me explain that Urumchi is in the west of China, below Mongolia and above Tibet.  It also has the rather dubious distinction of being, on our planet, the city furthest away from the sea. See: furthest from sea calculations 

I spent a month in Urumchi visiting my husband who lived on the campus of the university.  From the moment I entered the departure lounge in Beijing for Urumchi departures I felt I was the only westerner in the whole building.  My foreignness proclaimed by my blondness in a sea of dark hair.  Its amazing what you notice when you feel you are the only foreigner.  Suddenly, your senses heighten, you become more alert.  You are aware you stand out and that vulnerability brings out older hunter-gatherer instincts.  A similar feeling was experienced in one of the National Parks in the States when I was walking through a forest late at night after an eloquent talk in the nearby lodge on the bears that frequent these very woods.  The audience of campers nearly all claimed to have seen grizzles/brown bears galore during their stay.  While returning to my campervan I found in the silence of the dark woods all my senses on full alert for the snap of a twig, the rustle of the undergrowth or the grunt of an angry bear.  I was a foreigner who had strayed into dangerous zones unwittingly.

Once the plane landed in Urumchi I noticed that many of its inhabitants looked more Persian than Chinese.  In fact, my husband was by now accustomed to being assumed to be an Urgur by street traders who refused to believe he did not speak their language.  He has suffered the same fate in Greece and other parts of the world.  I always blamed Alexander the Great, who in conquering so much of the ancient world managed to mess up its proper genealogy.  Little did I realize this situation predated even the ancient Greeks by several millennium.

I really enjoyed the campus routine.  Early morning the elderly would gather on the beautiful green grounds and in the dawn fifty or so would do Tai Chi exercises with meditative slowness as the sun rose behind them.  Chinese students worked diligently and treated staff with exaggerated respect.  The campus official at the gate would salute lecturers as they entered adding to the formality.  These students worked from morning to 10pm at night.  Their day filled with activities including dancing, choir singing, sports and outing in Gers, peculiar nomad tents erected on the mountain lake shores.  Learning was taken extremely seriously.  The peer group message was if you weren’t working as hard as everyone else you were betraying your parents’ investment in your education.  Once a month the entire student body downed pens and spent the day cleaning the university buildings and grounds.  Desks were scrubbed/sanded, gardens weeded, windows shined etc.  I thought it a remarkably clever way to reduce graffiti/vandalism.  After all, if you knew you would have to remove/fix such writing/damage it would be like aversion therapy.  On every corner there were plagues with statements from Confucius none of which anyone could argue with.  Here are some of his words – I hope you feel as inspired by them as I do.

Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.

Forget injuries, never forget kindnesses.

I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.

To see what is right and not to do it is want of courage.

What the superior man seeks is in himself; what the small man seeks is in others.

One of the Urgur students was from an area on the border with Mongolia and her father worked with the wild horses which they all rode bareback.  Talk about a different life.  Here the Chinese rule about one child families does not hold and all came from large extended families.  Their manners were impeccable and kindness consistent.

While staying in the city I went round the museum.  Along with fascinating artefacts explaining the many indigenous tribes that make up this part of China there was also a room full of mummies.  These mummies were blond and red haired with European features.  They had intricately woven clothes and elegant footwear.  Most had headgear that resembled cone shaped magician hats.  The most startling thing was that some were over 4000 years old.  This was no trading party passing along the Silk Road, after all the Silk Road did not exist until the Han Dynasty (206 BC – 220 AD).  More bodies were found in the remote Taklamakan desert and even early Bronze age settlements.  These tall blond/red haired Europeans had been perfectly preserved.  They had not been subjected to the brutal Egyptian brain out of the nose treatment with organs packaged nearby.  No, these blond ones, like the “Charchan man” who was six foot six inches tall had all their organs intact.  Their bodies had been preserved by the environment – salt/arid/dry conditions and by the skill of those that buried them.  Live oxen in some cases were slaughtered at the site and their wet skins used to wrap the coffins.  Once dried the hides were as tight as a drum sealing them from even one speck of sand.  Others were laid out in holes on hand made bricks with wood and sand above a space allowing air to circulate and in effect freeze drying the bodies. Oils were rubbed on to conserve the skin.  Such skill was not limited to their funeral crafts.  They had fine leather boots, woven clothes of usual precision.  Some even showed evidence of having undergone operations with neat incisions made in accordance with instructions found in later ancient Chinese texts.  They had wheeled carts, rode horses, made pottery and had knives and arrowheads.  One woman was buried alongside ephedra branches (a mildly psychoactive medicinal plant -  "herbal ecstasy.") which, if taken, could have eased the process of death.

It was strangely disheartening to wander around the 4000-year-old “Beauty of Loulan” who, with her long blond braids and fine bone structure and skin, was far more beautiful than all the many visitors that showed up that day.  It is an unsettling experience to be outshone by a 4000-year corpse!

It is now clear these Europeans were actually living in the Xinjang region of China and that they probably originated from eastern Europe Mesolithic or Neolithic cultures.  You do have to feel sorry for the Swedish archaeologist Folke Bergman who in 1934 explored the Xiaohe cemetery in the Taklimakan desert and reported his findings excitedly in 1939.   Who could have predicted that World War 2 would come along and subsequently China would be closed to foreigners.  Incredibly, It was not until the year 2000 when the Xinjing Archealogical Institute claimed to have “discovered it” the whole mystery re-emerged.  How frustrating for Bergman to stumble on such a find only to have it taken away from the world for 60 odd years.

What is even more amazing is that these blond/red haired European foreigners lived and survived in this far-flung part of the world so many millennium ago and became part of the complicated genetic crossroads that make up this corner of China.

Cloistered Nuns

Went with some friends on an outing including a tour of an extensive underground shelter here in Malta.  It also included a visit to the Benedictine Sisters of Birgu at the The Monastery of St. Scholastica,  the first Holy Infirmary of the Knights in Malta.  

There was a service there and behind the altar there were two windows with gratings on them.  I realised that behind these gratings sat the cloistered nuns.  

It seemed medieval to see these women secreted away.   And indeed the monastery has been in existence for five hundred and fifty years.  In fact this was the hospital in Malta for the Knights even before Valletta was built.  A real sense of history and I was able to enter and have coffee and cake with the nuns.  Some have been there 60 years and the day begins early with 4.30 am prayers and ends equally early at 9pm.  There is a whole lot of praying in between.  There is a shortage of women entering the order, it has been twenty years since the last novice entered.  So they have recently created a website to entice new entrants.  There is a peculiar grating through which the cloistered nuns are allowed once a month to have visits from family members.  

Ancient wooden swivel windows allow things to be given in and conversations to take place.  I couldn’t find an actual ancient version like those used but here is a modern equivalent.  

A sense of history surrounds the place and a quietness.  The nuns seemed nice and kind.  So fascinating to meet people who have such a different life to the norm.  But am struck by the truth of the words.

“People must live for one another, and not live in seclusion as do the monks and nuns. People should not live solitary lives. Light is of no value in an empty room.”

           (Compilations, Baha'i Writings, p. 440)

The Secret of Heart Surrender

Don’t let the storms that come, cloud your face so easily.  Many pass by, coming close, but missing us.  We cannot be worn down by these, as we need to conserve our energies for those blighters that hit us right between the eyes, force 9.  These monsters take us off our feet and the fallout/recovery in our lives can be months if not years.  None of us, thank God, know our future.  The fact that it is hidden is a real blessing.  I personally feel had I known what lay ahead even in 6^th grade it would have been a killer blow.  It’s not that my life has been a horror story (though at times!) its just, I am sure I am not the only one thinking, I barely got through that.  Imagine trying to cope with it knowing it all lay ahead in all its gruesome details.  Even a moderately unhappy school year would be unbearable.  But you need no lecture on dealing with tough days.  These past few years have been filled with all sorts of pain, akin to medieval torture but without the release of a swift execution.  I would not have had you go through any of this.  There are no lessons learned that can compensate me for seeing you suffer.  Reduced to being a spectator, as a loved one suffers, is horrid.  The powerlessness heightens anguish.  For some reason this line from Tolkien’s, The Lord of the Rings soothes slightly and helps provide the longer view.

“It is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till. What weather they shall have is not ours to rule.” 

I am curious to know if everyone over fifty has come to the same conclusions as I have.  I share mine with you in case they are of use.

1.      People will disappoint and surprise you.  Despite how carefully you arrange your defences, they will get through and hit you hardest.  Economically it can sting, physically it can leave scars but it is emotionally that you carry the real lasting wounds.

2.    The very moments of life you feel your happiest, your proudest, your greatest sense of achievement are invariably the days of distance from God.  Perversely, it is in our darkest hours that we painfully turn and open our hearts to the light.  Watch out for those veils between your own heart and the life giving sun.

3.    You will do small deeds that will influence other’s lives in positive ways that you will never know.  These little gems make your very existence worthwhile.  Don’t bother to try and figure them out, record or publicise them.  Their beauty lies in the unconscious good that has spilled over into the lives of others.  You may not even be aware of them but you should certainly prime the pump that fuels their emergence.  Doing good should be our automatic mode while doing harm should be like screeching gears into reverse putting your teeth on edge.

4.    You are destined for great things – all of us are.  The only way we fail to achieve them is because lethargy, missed opportunities, distractedness or addiction has stolen our true destiny.

5.    Love is not a limited commodity that you parcel out like a plate of sandwiches.  It is fed from an unseen aqueduct and in order to tap into it we need only use what we’ve been given.  Keep it fresh and free flowing.  Meanness of heart causes stagnation and smells up not just your life but also those around you.

6.    Don’t be afraid of mistakes.  Fear instead the inaction that robs you of growth.

7.    Being bombarded with entertainment, materialism or addictions is a constant peril.  Flee it as you would the Embola virus.  It kills possibilities so quickly and infects all within its radius so completely you don’t even realise it has you.

8.    Get busy with people, projects, crafts, art, service and allow creativity to keep you afloat in this mire of a world.

9.    People will come and go in your life.  Some that you don’t even deserve to be in their shadow.  Be infinitely grateful for the glow they bring, the happiness they create and the fragrance that remains even after they have gone.

Sending this, for what its worth, with much love

As you get older things grow on you

As you get older things grow on you.  I don’t mean as you age, you grow fond of things.  I mean they actually take root and grow on you.  For example, hair will suddenly sprout with unexpectedly luxuriousness from your nose and other areas where it never usually appears.  It is not an endemic phenomena as normal head hair becomes fragile, thin and sparse.  It is as if a gardener formally ordered and careful with his borders has suddenly decided to fertilise everywhere but the flower gardens.  He seems to have developed a sense of humour about where he finds to place seeds.  “This will be good for a laugh!” seems to be his overall horticultural intent. 

If it were only hair, things would not be so bad.  But other skin growths seem to have caught the gardener’s sense of humour.  They appear willy-nilly on a shoulder, forearm, under an eye or the back of a hand etc.  You examine them with poor eyesight wondering what is the punch line here?  Late at night if unable to sleep, they become harbingers of death and your thoughts run amok fear filled.  Perhaps these two jokers will combine against you – the hair and the growths?  So you wage a war against the hair so that you will be able to see the other enemy.  Clear away the undergrowth so that these lumps cannot sneak up under cover so to speak.  It’s quite exhausting and becomes a war of attrition with daily battles fought to stay on top of things.  At times, eyesight failing, you want to throw in the towel it is easy to succumb to the inevitable.  This taking care of oneself requires such continual effort.

My grandfather said it was vital during the war.  Coming back from the Somme and other horrors he rarely spoke of what went on in those fields of horror.  We knew he had been mentioned in dispatches, that he had been wounded in the arm but these did not come from him.  They were either said of him or done to him.  The only thing I remember him telling me about the war was the importance of looking after your feet in the trenches.  He told of trenches filled with muddy dirty water.  Of boots and socks soaked through.  The rats were as big as cats.  He said they had to be meticulous with cleaning your feet, washing and drying them as you would a new born babe.  Being careful of creases, drying them thoroughly.  Then using only clean dry socks cover them and lace on your boots.  Any small sore spotted required immediate action.  In those damp conditions ‘foot rot’ could easily set in.  The first sign would be a numbness followed by redness and blueness.  Gangrene would follow and amputation the only solution. 

As my grandfather told of his feet care in the trenches he said how his life depended on good foot care.  This extended to his boots which were polished and heated with candles to dry and let the shoe polish penetrate properly.  Then elbow grease did the rest.  I remember how his arm flew as he beat upon the shoe to demonstrate the technique.  “You have to see your face in it”, he explained.  Of course those boots would be sodden and caked in mud again soon enough but it seemed this ritual of feet cleaning and caring for this boots were his defense against the war and the elements.  His army tunic hung in the garage for years, stiff and bloodstained with the hole in the arm where he had been wounded.

Today, I tried to find out exactly what he was mentioned in dispatches for. I know it was on the 16 March 1919 from Sir Douglas Haig.  Loads of websites offered me information, if I paid, but I refused to pay.  I eventually found Douglas Haig’s entire collection of dispatches in book form and begin to download the huge file.  I am hoping to solve this mystery that occurred almost one hundred years ago, once and for all.    I am downloading the file as I write this. 

Reading of the battle of the Somme on 1^st of July 1916 there were 60,000 casualties on the first day.  The battle raged until 18 Nov 1916 and at its end neither side had advanced any further from where they had started on day 1.  But, in that short period 1.5 million were lying in the mud dead, wounded or missing.  Perversely, I learn, that the British soldiers were ordered to go over the top and walk (not run) to the German lines, so convinced were the generals that their earlier bombardment had taken out German artillery.  They were wrong and so 60,000 men simply walked into live rounds of ammunition and got mown down.  Anyone who refused to clamber out of the trenches was usually shot by their own officers for cowardice.  In this mindless battlefield the suffering cannot be imagined nor described.  The fear and horror hard to grasp.  My grandfather never spoke of it, perhaps because there were no words.  But focused instead on the one thing, care of his feet, that sustained him through it.  After the war he returned to his quiet village corner shop.  He was  a different man.  Whatever had happened on those dreadful dying grounds had made him lose all fear.  Nothing life sent changed that.  Two customers entered his shop with guns threatening to shoot each other.  He vaulted over the counter and threw both of them out off his shop, after cuffing them both, without a seconds thought.  He had crossed a line that most of us will not cross until our deathbeds.  It’s been said by Shakespeare that

"Cowards die many times before their deaths,
The valiant never taste of death but once." 

I am curious to know what happened that had caused the mention in dispatches from the front line on the 16 March 1919.  I search the file and there is no mention of my grandfather’s name.  I check the London Gazzette that records most of the names of those mentioned but not all.  Again no success, I read that regiment diaries often contain such details and check out his regiment’s account.  How thrilling to find Benjamin Stringer mentioned in an account in Spanbroekmolen on the 4 June 1917 were he is mentioned heading of with others to attack a trench of Germans.  They killed twenty and took prisoner a German officer and 31 prisoners.  My grandfather is wounded in the fight and I realise this is the bullet hole in the arm of his jacket.  It is as if the past is here again and my grandfather is polishing his shoes to a military shine and explaining the importance of caring for feet.  Today has been epic and moving in a strange way.  As if things have come full circle and I was meant to find this today.  Life threw horrors and difficulties his way but his answer was to focus on what he could do on a daily basis to strengthen himself.  So, perhaps all of us need to find those small precious rituals that will sustain us when we face the impossible.  May you find yours!

Hugging our treasure troves of identity

Returned triumphant today Identity Card in hand!  Spent the morning in a long line of Nigerian, Somalia, Eritrea and Syrians and waited for an hour to collect it.  Began by feeling very sorry for my fellow queue members.  It seems work permits/ID officers, the world over; seek to instill Job-like patience in their clients.  I remember in Greece having a practical suitcase of documents, wedding certificate, utility bills, passport, qualifications - translated in Greek and stamped by relevant authorities (25 pounds per document), my birth certificate, work contract, bank statement, drivers licence, rental agreement only to be asked for my grandmother’s birth certificate!  No wonder all around me people clasp to their chests their own paperwork.  Armed with documents signed and stamped, those without such armour gradually feel a growing fear as they approach the official window. Some lose heart and scurry away from the field of battle and with each one that flees the rest of us hug our precious paperwork a little tighter. How precious they have become, shielding us from the public humiliation of failure and defeat.

One Somali woman cloaked in a long chador dropped her papers by accident.  Her head covering had caught on the corner of a sheet causing an avalanche of documents in all directions.   Everyone is shocked by her carelessness and she throws herself on her knees on top of the paperwork obviously expecting others to seize this treasure trove of identity.  Frantically, she retrieves them eyes scanning in case she has missed a vital one.  The rest of us hug our armour a little closer to our hearts in case we too falter on the eve of battle.

By now I am not so sympathetic to my fellow ID hunters.  An hour has passed and the three men in front look and sound like a Nigerian drug cartel.  The large lady pushing me from behind, with a colourful head scarf, has not only a horrendous hacking cough (with my luck it is probably Ebola) and her face is covered in weeping sores especially around her mouth and nose.  Now, I am suddenly of the opinion there should be two queues one for EU citizens and the other for non-EU characters.  I have noted the lack of UK queuing etiquette in front.  One fidgeting man with a woollen hat filled with hair braids thinks he is entitled to allow all family members, friends and passing acquaintances to jump in beside him in the queue.  I am impressed at how quickly one’s sympathy can turn to resentment in the mist of inconvenience and discomfort.

Much of Southern Europe has experienced this sea change.  As the economic situation deteriorates people have turned on immigrants/refugees with depressing consistency.  It appears inbred in our species that when things become difficult we need to blame someone.  Usually, we round on our governments who in turn will find a convenient scapegoat to deflect that anger on.  The invading foreigners are a good bet.  Easily identified and fairly defenseless they make handy targets for our discontentment.

The Mediterranean islands are becoming the front-line of the exodus of despair from Africa and the Middle East.  Many don’t make it to these shores and meet a watery death instead.  We never hear their last gasp for air as the sea consumes them.  But the rotting corpses create their own gas and this final fermentation of the life force raises them from the depths.  Their rotting bodies expose the vile/violent regimes that they have fled from and the corrupt/distracted governments to whom they flee for safety.