Will we thrive, die or barely survive?

The photo states a fact... plain, simple, unavoidably true.

Sadly we're in a world where it's politics that dictates if our children have any future at all and even how many more will suffer this year with asthma and that politics is clearly corrupted.

Evidence of the corruption is all about us from the selling off of publicly paid for services to the power of lobbyists pushing more fossil fuel industries into our lives as well as opening more runways, softening regulatory safeguards, dumping toxic waste that will pollute long into the future and other profit-driven, cost-cutting exercises that only serve the very few who already hold the power and wealth.

The corruption is clear too in the fact that we'll bail out banks - but won't bail out our NHS, our education system or even the most important bail out of all - an environmental one that would see us get a renewable sector up, a fossil past down and a thriving future with jobs in new sectors, home insulation, public transport, tech for futures fit to live in etc.

Joining a party is a statement (not yet a vote)...

Joining the Green Party of England and Wales makes clear what YOUR priorities are and the more members we have, the more we can do to further the Green future the planet is screaming out for. Voting is something we do in secret to achieve an outcome (usually to get the worst out and least worst with-a-chance in)... but our membership is visible and shows our ideals.

The Green Party has always been the warning light at the heart of the system we rely on to sustain us and our members represent a clear vision and truth about what's important: clean air, safe water, a thriving renewable sector, forward thinking agricultural practices that nurture our soil and the future and jobs in sectors that are rewarding ...not harming the world we live in.

Woven through this is a passion for social justice, fairness, kindness, humanity and the determination to improve the world ..not stand by and watch it further ruined. The brighter future WILL come when we focus on our living world as the priority over pandering to polluters.

Joining is your statement that you want our positive vision for the future to be heard in government... give it a go? It's not like it's a matter of life or death ...*oh actually x

https://register.greenparty.org.uk

Literally Youth...

I recall as a young child that there was a hole in the sky caused by my mother’s over-use of hairspray as she tried to maintain the structural integrity of hairstyles not designed to survive the wilting Australian heat we’d recently emigrated to. It was all over the news that the ozone hole would bring danger and action needed to be taken. I blamed my mother but apparently others were involved.

As children we take things literally – I also recall the absolute fear I was numbed by when I sounded out the words of a newspaper headline that indicated the animals were now organising and would be attacking humans! “Guerrilla Violence on Streets” would be less worrying when I learned to spell lol.

In our youth, things are only as clear as they’re explained and so it is quite natural I think that this uprising of the young comes in response to the (finally) clear message that within 12 years… we reach a tipping point that makes future suffering for them, a certainty – IF we don’t act literally right now. There is finally some clarity in the words and evidence all about.. amidst the years of denial, spin and lies and that is why the young are rising.

The stern adults in government and some schools tut-tutted and tsk-ed the loss of a day at school – reprimanded them for their ‘folly’ and showed themselves to be so out of touch with reality. What part of “we made a mess of the environment with industrial processes, overuse of pesticides, polluting industries, air travel, waste dumping, plastics, indulgence, greed and ignorance” isn’t something that should have the attention of ALL of us right now? I think Greta Thunberg summed it up best with:

“Why should I be studying for a future that soon may be no more, when no one is doing anything to save that future? And what is the point of learning facts when the most important facts clearly means nothing to our society?”

I walked with the #YouthStrike4Climate #SchoolStrike4Climate in Preston, Lancashire and it was one of the most inspiring actions I’ve witnessed. Nearly all the young people striking from school, were doing an action for the first time and there was a beautifully stubborn determination in each that brought optimism to the rest of us.

They may have been new to this but rebellion + youth is a match made in good places… they worked it out as they went along, got ideas for improving the next one, made connections that will reinforce the bonds and aid the planning and… what’s most important (at least in my heart) – they truly SELF-empowered as individuals. Bloody beautiful <3 span="">


*Meanwhile… in the corridors of power and media politics… there’s a #Brexit and a #Wall distracting those who DO know better!

Wrestling with Pigs & Stalkers...

Attacks, abuse, accusations and vile memes on Twitter and FB are such a cowardly way to deal with anything... I've seen the attacks break and damage some and am witnessing now as they land on young Greta Thunberg too. Seems every time a kind voice calls calmly for unity, action and solutions - some with violence at their core, call for ridicule, mockery and attack :(

I have had a stalker and his small gang following my every move for years now - putting out videos many times per week, painting graffiti on the road where I walk most days in protest, hanging slanderous signs (27!) on lamposts on the same road (PNR), slandering each group I work with... letters sent to any I have done actions or events with: Greenpeace UK Green Party of England and Wales Lush Charity Pot UK Ecotricity and social attacks even on photographers and writers who deemed me worthy of quotes or images.

I know that the stalker thrives only on conflict - so I don't interact. I find the sad part though that I am now less willing to put up details of great events etc that I'll attend or speak at - because the stalker will try to come and feast on disruption. I also interact less on friends' posts because he will target who I am speaking to.

The police are updated on this case regularly with videos and posts as I am not the only target - there are sadly at least 5 women I love and value who will no longer come roadside because of him.

But it is what it is and in the end... the real enemy and the real fight are for the future for our children. My advice to Greta would be to walk your walk, be your truth and KNOW that those who matter, will be right beside you <3 span="">



*APOLOGY to lovely pigs... I actually probably respect them more than some humans really :) x

LOVE LETTERS TO GOD

After John Ashton's wonderful talk at Green Monday this week... I wrote on an old receipt "Love Letters to God - Nahko & Medicine for the People"


He just texted his gratitude and this it was beautiful. It is. It may be one of the finest songs I've ever heard - not just the lyrics and music but what it does here at PNR when we play it... there's a sway that starts up and all about I can see lips moving in synchronicity as we know the words so well and feel them deeply I think.


There's much that happens to us humans when we first take up positions of newly discovered self-empowerment and start on a road of Activism... the encounters with others we'd never have met under any other circumstances... the ideas, thoughts and observations beyond the realms of what we thought in our much smaller worlds of existence... skills, talents and creativity we discover in ourselves or learn from others we journey with now... and the music - one of the finest gifts we share as we open up our favourites to each other or listen to the fine strumming of a guitar and a single voice by a campfire or the full on, deep throaty rumble of the Samba bands that drive us as masses...


Activism seems somehow to define 'community' and although it looks like we're giving - it always feels like we're receiving much more <3

So easy to be bad...

When you take away the waffle/spin/bull-shit - there's Truth. beautiful in it's clarity and simplicity... a short must-watch: Rep. Ocasio-Cortez - "It's pretty easy to be a pretty bad guy"

www.c-span.org/video/?c4778214/rep-ocasio-cortez-its-pretty-easy-pretty-bad-guy

Gifting Ourselves...

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-happening ‘regulars’ of our shared feasting …Monday morning hot dogs hot from Gate Camp complete with ketchup, mustard and love/ Flapjacks and shortbread.. quiche and Goulash on Wednesdays/ sweets and treats shared over moments behind police kettles and cordons… the stuff of culinary delight that no Bake Off could match . The level of participation in our work, mirrored in the level of catering to match it.

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/responsibility; abuse of innocent people by police; abuse of police by government; who holds power (and where are we in that structure?); media bias and lies and why/when/how the role we perceived it to play, got so corrupted; then there’s capitalism, corporatism, rebellion and the future of life itself (for starters!) – it used to be far simpler in ignorance.
…
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 <3 span="">

Should have left some breadcrumbs...

Before it all gets too much and the hopes, dreams, pains, hardships and friendships of 717 days overwhelm – along with this kind gifted wine – I wanted to declare my immense gratitude that we all showed up. Whatever comes as we approach year 3 of standing together at this roadside – I’ll be forever both anguished and in debt, to fate that brought us to this ghastliness …so filled with beauty, humanity and life passionately lived. Someone said activists see the negatives and are pessimists but that is clearly BS… we fight for life, for the bloody intense love of it, for the way we KNOW it could be if we were free from the damned shackles of someone else’s economy… …away from the conformity of days spent in normality, we’ve discovered other ways to be, other ways to see and there’s a realisation of just how wrong-shaped maybe we used to be. I find it awkward to walk back toward the former life that percolates in the background of the now more common, daily life at the roadside… returning reveals the messiness of the way it is under a system skewed toward the few. News stations are like horror channels churning out bad times, wrong moves, political fools, selfishness and no hope. Roadside… it’s all about lifting ourselves up, standing with absolute purpose, not giving up, never giving in… nothing is trivial – even the stuff that sounds like it is. The humour comes easy because it’s so needed, and though the smiles are genuine, we know they're sometimes all there is that's holding back the tears of dismay and burning rage that come when the brutality and assault all get too much. Generosity, kindness and sharing come as standard now - now that we've come to understand more fully who we each are. Trust has built as we each unfolded to each other over so many many days... impossible to hide yourself in this arena. And there’s nourishment easily found when we seem too few... as now-familiar names and avatars appear on livestreams and timelines to urge us on, tell us thanks, show support, share our plight and enhance us in unseen but always ‘felt’ ways. I have such certainty in what we do because when I look at the faces next to me or read the words that support our actions – they’re all attached to people I’ve come to admire, respect and feel honoured to call friend. How can ‘authority‘ compete with the honesty, solidarity and determination of us? Don’t get me wrong, I want this done. Want this ugly reason to get up every day… gone. It’s what then comes that makes me wonder – we all see so differently now; we know that the system that caused the threat that brought us here, will not stop harming, even when we win this one. There’s a worrying realisation that even if I’d left breadcrumbs to get me back ‘home’ – that I wouldn’t recognise it or be able to relax in it again. ... We're acting in truth and obligation and that's the better road... even if it's 'destination unknown'. So here’s to what’s next and all the best in love and solidarity. Namaste xxx