Sorry I was late...

It’s been a heck of a year…

Well for a season of goodwill and all that... it worked out fairly challenging for so many I know. Sickness and injury, the need for more protection camps in a hurry and in freezing conditions, tempers pressed and friendships frayed. For me, I had a hint of the illness my poor sister had and that was enough to floor me for a bit and I think, after the court case etc. it was almost to be expected that my body would put the brakes on and hold me still and quiet as long as it could. For those not yet recovered, I wish you healing as we approach what I think is the pivotal year for the stand to keep the UK frack free.

More than anything, the one key resource we should all ensure is in plentiful supply... is our solidarity with each other. Nothing matters more.

Thanks to the friendship and love in our movement... my personal worst bit passed with a beautiful outcome at court and although I needed to physically recover, I certainly got mentally carried through without too much stress; the pressure was eased along with the burden, by the broad shoulders and warm smiles of those around me - in life and online.

‘Thanks’ will never be enough to reflect my deep gratitude to our movement. It is the love and true nature of people that sustains me in all this.

In the beginning though it was anger that powered me into activism. My faith in a lot of things, most things – had been shot to pieces when I first started to really look beyond my life and into the effect of life on others.  I stood up, too angered, too disenchanted, too incredibly pissed off to take it as a member of some unheard bloody audience any longer…  I had no idea what to do or how to do it but staying in place and in acceptance wasn’t an option any longer.

At first it was isolating amidst family, work colleagues and friends… conversation had less joviality when it comprised of questions to which answer were impossible to fathom. Just getting on with life would have been easier …but there comes a point where the realisation of suffering both current and impending, is too much to ignore any more and to act is the only option.

I said when I walked through the door marked ‘activism’ that I realised two things:
1- I had been in the wrong room all my life
2- There were a lot more doors now

What led me here was an accumulation of realisations I think, over time and I feel I got here late when I see others who have strived to alert us to issues for many more years. Ignorance is no excuse we’re often told but I disagree… when our ignorance is as a result of being fed lies and having reality kept out of sight and when everything from our education to our media …  allows myths to masquerade as true… and even ‘freedom of information’ comes with redactions; it’s a wonder we all found our way here at all.

There is a word sometimes used ‘sheeple’  –  it is supposed to indicate people who just go along with things… but it’s wrong. Those not yet here are the lied to, the misled, the hoodwinked, the distracted, the exhausted enough trying to fathom what seems like reality, without looking for a new one to worry about… just us, before we realised there were concerns that could not be ignored and obligations and responsibilities beyond ourselves and our immediate surroundings.

 The awareness of suffering and the awareness that it has a cause and we can have impact, is both horrid and empowering. My faith in beautiful possibility is reliably renewed when I see who I walk beside in activism – so many amazing, intriguing people that I could not have encountered on any other path. So I am grateful for the painful realisations that eventually got me here:

When the media kept insisting the ever-more-obvious lie of WMDs in Iraq and despite millions and millions standing up and saying to government ‘Don’t do this’…watched as families were blown to pieces on primetime television; live images of death from Bagdad.

When the banks got a bail out from our taxes but disabled people had their incomes and consequently for many, their lifespans cut.  Essential services too were told to economise, tighten belts and trim health, education and care services… so those bankers could breathe easy with relief.

When an industry so dirty, so ugly and so toxic, hired the most expensive spin-masters to weave a fictional tale of nature and sustainability and wealth and goodness – then tried to flog this to real people, in real communities, raising real families, sensing real risks – reality though, was never part of the story of fracking.

When industry showed its true power in the House of Commons as I watched the *infrastructure bill glide smoothly through to become laid down in law… a law that served to facilitate ‘progress’ by permitting deep down drilling under family homes, without the bother of telling the families. A law that made it ok to ‘store & leave’ ANYTHING in those deep down holes under family homes.

When as a result of the infrastructure bill that became law, my acceptance of the statement ‘the Rule of Law’ was shown to be a mockery, made me feel an idiot, made me wonder how this had come to be… that our imagined sanctity of the legal system, could have law books filling with items not remotely about what is fair and just, simply to help a shareholder make greater profit, without the sound of us imagining we have a say.

There is more now that I realise – but I see these things as symptoms of a disease at the heart of our systems of government (all over the world) that appear to have been hijacked for purpose of power and profit - no longer to serve the people - intervention is needed. Although with fracking we are fighting a symptom rather than the disease… it serves to show the disease I think and is a way for those not yet here, to find their way.

If there was a job description for ‘activist’ it should include:

“You can’t resign, can’t take retirement”

… because once you know truths, you can’t unknow them, in fact far worse… once you begin to know what you didn’t know… you start wondering what else you don’t know! You don’t want to of course, no-one really wants to keep seeing bad things but once you see one, the others become more clear and you KNOW, that if they can *change laws without due regard to the health of our children for goodness sakes… then all sorts of ghastliness is possible.

Every step in the direction of what is true and fair …is the better way. To me it makes sense and feels like ‘the plan’ when we walk in-step with each other, growing the weight of our direction and being the change we wish to see.

I wish to see… the true core of each person - the bit that is acting for the good of our young and on this path, that happens every day.

All my love to all our lot. 2017 is going to be a bumpy ride but I think we succeed xxx