Happy New Year to those we loved and those we lost, those who were healed and those who were not… To the kind souls, the brave ones, the gentle and the strong… and too, the ones we know are still getting it wrong.
Be nice if we all stumble into truth too obvious to ignore and work together this year. Wishing more than ever for a wise, respectful & understanding 2019 x
(below – randomly arranged thoughts on the year)
……………………………………………………………
GIFTING ourselves…
Awash still with the ebbs and flows of another year passing in its back and forth of ups and downs and roundabouts of hopes and fears, dread and cheer.
A year where the deep, much needed, always-valued love of friends, blends seamlessly with the sharp jagged edges where fresh wounds weep and reality, like acid cuts deep; ‘highs and lows’ doesn’t begin to describe this life… this obligation. Each of us giving what we can in our own ways as ‘Protectors’ of our daily-damaged world. Knowing how much is being ruined if we stay on this fossilised path with its phony democracies, corporate greed and disregard for you and me.. and how much is left to do to make it right and true for our children… grateful they’ll be - or despised will we.
…
Emerging out of 2018, raw but not ruined; so much lost along the way but the treasures found… surround the pain and eventually out-ratio it; as vision sharpens in its quest to seek the good in a bad scene.
The daily sight of the harm being done here, makes me want to scream with the pain of it and I feel that, as I close my eyes and look back over the year… but the pain shrinks to miniscule against the mighty flood of memories of laughter, knitting, silences, songs, dancing, running, bus journeys over hills and dales in the best of company, London streets (OUR streets), Yorkshire streets (OUR streets), Birmingham streets (OUR streets), uniting, linking arms, clinging on to truth and each other …oooo and the finest dining: from full on catering 3-times daily at times of intense activity involving hundreds of Protectors on camps and roadside.. to intimate, warm ‘family’ dinners (with dumplings was the best) in the dining tent at Maple Farm community hub.
And the no-matter-what-else-is-hap
Eyes still closed I can feel this year too… amidst the bruises, sharp hedges and dark edges of various police encounters – are the strong hugs that lift you over the caverns of deep sadness of knowing - that this is reality and it’s becoming our new ‘normality’.
..
We’re born with ‘our lot in life’ through no choice of our own – thrown onto a path dictated by matriarchs and patriarchs, peers and pressure, pleasures we believed to be real and thoughts created by influences unnoticed – education and media dictating what was seen to be the reality… and stuck in place with a life plan not of our making until one day… there’s a pause in proceedings, a moment that lets in some other light from someone else’s life-view – and you know, just instantly feel and know that where you’ve been, what you believed and the story you were in – isn’t and maybe never was, true.
This year again I’ve watched those I hold so very dear – face courts of injustice, theft of liberty and threats of worse to come… I can’t bear what I now know to be true of life, can’t bear what it denies us… we get one bloody go-round on this journey and to have so much of it stolen by the fights we have to undertake to seek justice… the fights faced daily to fight poverty, fight intimidation, fight hunger, fight for a home, fight for a sense of security, fight for a simple sense of hope and dignity on this journey – we work, we love, we care for those we created and those we’ve come to entangle with along the way …most I know tread gentle, don’t cause harm and constantly strive for a balance, a peace, a slice of tranquillity… these immeasurable treasures that we seek… time for loving, time for dancing, time for pleasure, time for fine flavours, fine views, fine sensory sensations.
The greed is not ours… that belongs to another breed of human… far fewer than we - maybe just 1% in reality – the rest just victims swept up into the bad stream to serve masters unseen – why? And more importantly.. why still today as yesterday and no plan for how it can be another way tomorrow… so stuck fighting the demons of now, that have us in perpetual fight to survive another unjust, government-sanctioned swipe...
Some people and situations come to test us to our limits… draw the rage out and flood the senses with intensity otherwise unknown …such hatred I have found I am capable of, such a taste for revenge and thirst for the blood of those who stole so much … BUT then comes love… impossible to drown, impossible to slaughter and impossible to ignore. If I serve one thing in life it’s probably this.. and no matter how much dark there is, the light wins, wins, wins.
Around me I see evidence that the deeper the wound, the stronger the force created within to handle it. The dips into the worst, ensuring the best we can muster is brought out to play… brought out to slay on equal footing? It’s a fierce thing is love… stronger than any hatred I’ve had the misfortune to come to know.
Internally are other wranglings still working themselves out in the background as I keep accumulating reasons to trust/mistrust, believe/unbelieve issues within issues I didn’t know I’d ever have to consider: academic independence/
…
I KNOW this to be true though...
It’s rare that we can say, with ABSOLUTE certainty …that a thing IS absolutely CERTAIN but I have a personally knowable truth… this one truth I've been encountering on and off throughout my life but more obviously, frequently and intensely since becoming an ‘activist’ for the past several years…
ALL problems, ALL suffering and ALL misunderstandings begin to heal when a ‘community full of differences’ stands together to face them.
There’s much about, about ‘sortition’ – one of the key demands of Extinction Rebellion that sent me off to discover more – I realised that it appears to be a more formal description of my ‘community full of differences’. It’s a way of solving problems normally hindered by our differences – a way of reaching solutions that aren’t one side or another but rather a better blend that produces previously unconsidered outcomes. Rather like what we see when we talk of ‘hive mind’ or ‘crowd sourcing’ – I think there is much more to come in this.
…………………
*A discovery that came as 2018 went
– Roadside we get so much support from passing motorists but every once in a while you get a “GET A JOB!” shout from an angry-faced driver as they lean out, all veins raging.
I used to journey this road regularly too – headed to work like they are and I guess I would have felt some rage if I was headed to a job I probably didn’t like – to give-over my day for someone else’s profits disproportionate to my labour… and passed by a sea of people waving, smiling, acting with complete autonomy and dictating how their days would be. Contrary to crazy theories – we are not paid by anyone, EVER to do this – we walk up that hill and each unpaid step is of our own making and reason. Strange paradox too is that I have more energy for what I do now than anything I’ve done before – especially as the whole ‘reward’ part that used to come with wages, no longer exists.
But I worked it out… made my discovery:
-when we’re roadside, we’re not SELLING our time – we’re GIFTING it and ourselves and that’s the ultimate power and it rests with us.
And not just roadside but every time we take time to inform, share and involve with others with the aim of Protecting what matters.
….
*Plan for next steps in 2019:
I suppose I’ll keep constantly questioning myself, attacking my motives, tearing down my judgements, reviewing my position and adjusting my aim according to what I know at any given time …but staying undecided enough on ultimate goals, in order to accommodate fresh information. Oooo and more pleasure seeking and joy-dwelling
Be nice if we all stumble into truth too obvious to ignore and work together this year. Wishing more than ever for a wise, respectful & understanding 2019 x
(below – randomly arranged thoughts on the year)
……………………………………………………………
GIFTING ourselves…
Awash still with the ebbs and flows of another year passing in its back and forth of ups and downs and roundabouts of hopes and fears, dread and cheer.
A year where the deep, much needed, always-valued love of friends, blends seamlessly with the sharp jagged edges where fresh wounds weep and reality, like acid cuts deep; ‘highs and lows’ doesn’t begin to describe this life… this obligation. Each of us giving what we can in our own ways as ‘Protectors’ of our daily-damaged world. Knowing how much is being ruined if we stay on this fossilised path with its phony democracies, corporate greed and disregard for you and me.. and how much is left to do to make it right and true for our children… grateful they’ll be - or despised will we.
…
Emerging out of 2018, raw but not ruined; so much lost along the way but the treasures found… surround the pain and eventually out-ratio it; as vision sharpens in its quest to seek the good in a bad scene.
The daily sight of the harm being done here, makes me want to scream with the pain of it and I feel that, as I close my eyes and look back over the year… but the pain shrinks to miniscule against the mighty flood of memories of laughter, knitting, silences, songs, dancing, running, bus journeys over hills and dales in the best of company, London streets (OUR streets), Yorkshire streets (OUR streets), Birmingham streets (OUR streets), uniting, linking arms, clinging on to truth and each other …oooo and the finest dining: from full on catering 3-times daily at times of intense activity involving hundreds of Protectors on camps and roadside.. to intimate, warm ‘family’ dinners (with dumplings was the best) in the dining tent at Maple Farm community hub.
And the no-matter-what-else-is-hap
Eyes still closed I can feel this year too… amidst the bruises, sharp hedges and dark edges of various police encounters – are the strong hugs that lift you over the caverns of deep sadness of knowing - that this is reality and it’s becoming our new ‘normality’.
..
We’re born with ‘our lot in life’ through no choice of our own – thrown onto a path dictated by matriarchs and patriarchs, peers and pressure, pleasures we believed to be real and thoughts created by influences unnoticed – education and media dictating what was seen to be the reality… and stuck in place with a life plan not of our making until one day… there’s a pause in proceedings, a moment that lets in some other light from someone else’s life-view – and you know, just instantly feel and know that where you’ve been, what you believed and the story you were in – isn’t and maybe never was, true.
This year again I’ve watched those I hold so very dear – face courts of injustice, theft of liberty and threats of worse to come… I can’t bear what I now know to be true of life, can’t bear what it denies us… we get one bloody go-round on this journey and to have so much of it stolen by the fights we have to undertake to seek justice… the fights faced daily to fight poverty, fight intimidation, fight hunger, fight for a home, fight for a sense of security, fight for a simple sense of hope and dignity on this journey – we work, we love, we care for those we created and those we’ve come to entangle with along the way …most I know tread gentle, don’t cause harm and constantly strive for a balance, a peace, a slice of tranquillity… these immeasurable treasures that we seek… time for loving, time for dancing, time for pleasure, time for fine flavours, fine views, fine sensory sensations.
The greed is not ours… that belongs to another breed of human… far fewer than we - maybe just 1% in reality – the rest just victims swept up into the bad stream to serve masters unseen – why? And more importantly.. why still today as yesterday and no plan for how it can be another way tomorrow… so stuck fighting the demons of now, that have us in perpetual fight to survive another unjust, government-sanctioned swipe...
Some people and situations come to test us to our limits… draw the rage out and flood the senses with intensity otherwise unknown …such hatred I have found I am capable of, such a taste for revenge and thirst for the blood of those who stole so much … BUT then comes love… impossible to drown, impossible to slaughter and impossible to ignore. If I serve one thing in life it’s probably this.. and no matter how much dark there is, the light wins, wins, wins.
Around me I see evidence that the deeper the wound, the stronger the force created within to handle it. The dips into the worst, ensuring the best we can muster is brought out to play… brought out to slay on equal footing? It’s a fierce thing is love… stronger than any hatred I’ve had the misfortune to come to know.
Internally are other wranglings still working themselves out in the background as I keep accumulating reasons to trust/mistrust, believe/unbelieve issues within issues I didn’t know I’d ever have to consider: academic independence/
…
I KNOW this to be true though...
It’s rare that we can say, with ABSOLUTE certainty …that a thing IS absolutely CERTAIN but I have a personally knowable truth… this one truth I've been encountering on and off throughout my life but more obviously, frequently and intensely since becoming an ‘activist’ for the past several years…
ALL problems, ALL suffering and ALL misunderstandings begin to heal when a ‘community full of differences’ stands together to face them.
There’s much about, about ‘sortition’ – one of the key demands of Extinction Rebellion that sent me off to discover more – I realised that it appears to be a more formal description of my ‘community full of differences’. It’s a way of solving problems normally hindered by our differences – a way of reaching solutions that aren’t one side or another but rather a better blend that produces previously unconsidered outcomes. Rather like what we see when we talk of ‘hive mind’ or ‘crowd sourcing’ – I think there is much more to come in this.
…………………
*A discovery that came as 2018 went
– Roadside we get so much support from passing motorists but every once in a while you get a “GET A JOB!” shout from an angry-faced driver as they lean out, all veins raging.
I used to journey this road regularly too – headed to work like they are and I guess I would have felt some rage if I was headed to a job I probably didn’t like – to give-over my day for someone else’s profits disproportionate to my labour… and passed by a sea of people waving, smiling, acting with complete autonomy and dictating how their days would be. Contrary to crazy theories – we are not paid by anyone, EVER to do this – we walk up that hill and each unpaid step is of our own making and reason. Strange paradox too is that I have more energy for what I do now than anything I’ve done before – especially as the whole ‘reward’ part that used to come with wages, no longer exists.
But I worked it out… made my discovery:
-when we’re roadside, we’re not SELLING our time – we’re GIFTING it and ourselves and that’s the ultimate power and it rests with us.
And not just roadside but every time we take time to inform, share and involve with others with the aim of Protecting what matters.
….
*Plan for next steps in 2019:
I suppose I’ll keep constantly questioning myself, attacking my motives, tearing down my judgements, reviewing my position and adjusting my aim according to what I know at any given time …but staying undecided enough on ultimate goals, in order to accommodate fresh information. Oooo and more pleasure seeking and joy-dwelling
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