Heart of Balance

FEBRUARY POEM-UNSAID

2012-02-16T09:13:00.004Z

UNSAID

So much between remains unsaid.

So much space between heart and head.

And you say: Is this life? And I say: Is it?

The way we dreamed it would always be?

And each wonders: Can you ever, and will you?

And can you ever and might you?

Just once, even in a moon that’s blue,

touch the fear in me with the fear in you?

The Boat of my Dreams

2012-02-13T12:55:00.018Z

For a while now I've been thinking and planning for a craft for expeditioning on the sea. My Isle of Skye semi-circumnavigation round the South West Coast aboard a Valley Canoes Avocet Kayak some years ago really sold me on the idea of simple, light but super-reliable craft for one person which included an ability to sleep aboard. It was a big ask because it needs to include the possibility of towing the craft behind a bicycle! Which also had to be stowed aboard when underway! For a while I've thought that a rowing boat has the edge over a kayak as well as providing a massive cardio-vascular workout with a sliding seat that benefits the whole body, it also provides a stable platform for fishing, eating, filming, or just day-dreaming, which you just can't get in a kayak. Well finally I appear to have found the boat of my dreams and here she is:

Perfect for island hopping off the West Coast of Scotland, the canals of Europe or even bigger trips on The Med and further afield. Brilliant work from Angus Rowboats. Just look at that beautiful wineglass stern!

New law will be for the children « This Is Guernsey

2012-02-09T12:16:00.002Z

Gosh I just came across this!

New law will be for the children

Monday 19th May 2008, 1:00PM BST.

Head of Safeguarder Services Tony Dougan at the opening of its Rue du Manoir offices. (Picture by Adrian Miller, 0579790)

CHILDREN will be better represented thanks to new services being introduced in Guernsey.

Safeguarder Services, which is States funded, has been set up to represent the interests of children and young people in public and private legal proceedings under The Children (Guernsey and Alderney) Law, 2008, and to provide an advisory service to the courts.

It will also offer conciliation and mediation to people involved in family law proceedings. The man heading the service, Tony Dougan, said the law would officially be enacted in October 2009 but the services were now available to those seeking help.

‘The law will actually reflect the realities of modern-day family life, such as divorce and the impact it has on the children involved.’ He said laws that protect or affect children date back to the 1930s. The new one brings Guernsey into line with the UK’s Protection of Children Act 1999.

Permaculture In Phuket! Wow!!!

2012-02-03T12:42:00.001Z

Nuclear vs Nuclear vs Nuclear by George Monbiot

2012-02-03T11:40:00.008Z

I think this is one of the most important posts on the issues of nuclear waste disposal I've read in a long time. My favourite scientist James Lovelock has long supported Nuclear Power as the only conceivable way to generate sufficient energy while addressing Co2 emissions. George here proposes support for one of the three options on the table to do with dealing with nuclear waste in the long term. Integral Fast Reactors were recently mooted by the Government's Chief Scientist as capable of producing all our energy needs for the next 500 years (!!! My italics!)
This needs serious attention. The other two options of burying it in a big hole and 'Moxing' it have few advantages and many negatives. At last there's something of a technical fix in actuality rather than on the horizon. It should be supported and encouraged by all of us...vigorously.
Nuclear vs Nuclear vs Nuclear

From The Guardian's Duncan Clark 2.212 "In the proposal currently under discussion, a pair of Prism reactors would be installed at Sellafield and optimised to consume the plutonium stockpile as quickly as possible. If, however, the government decided to prioritise low-carbon power generation rather than rapid waste disposal, a larger number of Prism reactors could theoretically be combined with a fuel recycling system to extract as much electricity as possible from the plutonium and depleted uranium.

According to figures calculated for the Guardian by the American writer and fast reactor advocate Tom Blees, this alternative approach could – given a large enough number of reactors – produce enough low-carbon electricity from Britain's waste stockpile to supply the UK at current rates of demand for more than 500 years.

MacKay (The Government's Chief Scientist HoB) confirmed this figure. "As an upper bound on what you could get from those resources in fast reactors I think it's a very reasonable estimate. In reality you'd get all kinds of issues so you wouldn't achieve the upper bound but I still think it's a reasonable starting point."

But he added that free or low-cost fuel was not in itself sufficient to make inexpensive nuclear energy. "When you think about the economics of the low-carbon transition, it isn't the nuclear fuel that's the expensive bit – it's the power stations and the other facilities that go with them."

The cost of any Prism installation would depend on unknown quantities, including the details of the licensing requirements. However, Eric Loewen, chief engineer at GE Hitachi nuclear, claims that the technology should be economically competitive due to its small and fixed-size modular design, which allows it to be produced in an off-site factory.

MacKay said, "I think it's credible that it could be cheaper [than Mox] but it's up to GE to tell us the price tag". He added that the alternative option of making Mox would not be easy either. " You have to make a big facility to make the Mox fuel and you need to have a load of reactors that can accept the Mox fuel, and we don't have either of those in place yet."

MacKay also said that he supported "long-term research and development" into new reactor technologies that could be safer and more efficient than current designs.

He argued that such research should not be seen as a threat to renewable technologies such as wind and solar, which were crucial but not sufficient on their own to meet the UK's ambitious carbon targets."

"If you've seriously looked at ways of making plans that add up you come to the conclusion that you need almost everything and you need it very fast – right now. You need all the credible technologies that can develop at scale … I don't think anyone serious would say that we only need nuclear … but similarly I think it's unrealistic to say we could get there solely with renewables."
At last some bright people are starting to talk some sense. Let's just hope our benighted politicians don't screw it up!

NOT THE WAY TO LOOK WHEN YOU'RE PLAYING THE UKULELE! Picture by my daughter-Lauren. This person is Evil! He uses the Ukulele as a wave bending tool to control the thoughts of all unfortunate enough to hear his tainted tunes!

2012-02-02T00:36:00.003Z

Kids are not affected by Video games! Errr...well maybe?

2012-01-25T18:21:00.003Z

The country has a problem. Senator Bernie Sanders says it like it is!

2012-01-24T15:19:00.000Z

FORCED SIMPLICITY

2012-01-07T11:01:00.000Z

“The only way out of the trap, as I’ve argued here rather more than once, is to accept a steep cut in your standard of living before it becomes necessary, as a deliberate choice, and to use the resources freed up by that choice to get rid of any debts you have, get settled in a location that has a fair chance of keeping a viable degree of community life going, and get the tools and learn the skills that you will need to manage a decent life in an age of spiraling decline. To those who cling to the idea that they can maintain their present lifestyles, admittedly, it’s hard to think of any advice less welcome, but the universe is in no way obligated to give us the future we want—even if what we want is a sudden blow that will spare us the harder experience of the Long Descent.”

From the blog of John Michael Greer Archdruid USA. On the continuing post peak oil decline. It’s good advice! Please take it!

Readers of this blog will know that I quote often and extensively from the Archdruid’s blog. That’s because, like George Monbiot, he is a truth teller to power and a rigorous fact checker and referencer-two attributes often missing from the current state of the world debate.

However I do think that both John and George are a tad pessimistic. It is no doubt true that a slow spiralling decline in the global fossil-fuelled economy will continue for the foreseeable future. It’s also true that, in the West, food prices will start to rise significantly and the social impact of the decline among the most vulnerable will start to spread to the swollen middle (great phrase!) I also agree that we will see the much publicised exit of certain countries from the Euro though whether the currency will survive, I think the jury is out. I for one am not so sure the return of the Deutschmark and the Franc might not be a good thing. And perhaps we actually might rethink the European Community as more community and less market.

To date the ‘crisis’, if that is what it is, has forced the hands of the banking/military/big pharma/agri business industrial sector to reveal its true power more clearly than ever before. We have seen entire countries political leaders removed and replaced with accounting technocrats without a vote (Greece), and entire political policies delivered wholesale by the International Monetary Fund. (Spain, Ireland, Greece, Italy.) Then thrust upon the working people and the most vulnerable while it’s business as usual with the banks and the fat cats. And all without serious comment and analysis in the mass media.

One inevitable effect of all this sound and noise is going to be the return to a peasant type existence, what I am choosing to call Forced Simplicity. This will be a return to ‘back to basics’ and for a lot of people lost in the dream of capitalism and endless growth in a finite world, it will come as some kind of disaster-a waking nightmare, a slow drift back to barbarism and ignorance.

However Forced Simplicity can be a major life enhancing process of our lives and I suspect that where capitalism turns us into passive and uncritical consumers, obsessed with trivia, Forced Simplicity will turn us towards deeper meaning, poetry, song, community, slow food, slow travel, wood rather than plastic, the fire rather than the radiator, our own musical instruments rather than a CD, tools rather than tradesmen, community members rather than social workers and policemen, the wisdom of elders rather than career politicians. It will give us a sense of how utterly precious is this world and all that is in it. And it will force us by intractable events to re-evaluate our lives and its meaning and our relationship to the Earth and each other.

As we watch the great fossilised western democracies unravel it’s just possible that the post-industrial, post tv, post motorised, localised, slowed down, small community, permacultured, straw-baled, forest gardening and horse driven future, may be the best thing that’s ever happened to us.

A Happy and Prosperous New Year!

2012-01-01T15:27:00.000Z

I wish all my family, friends and readers a positive and peaceful 2012 and success to all your aspirations, hopes and dreams.

Aum. Ha!

Logo discussions!

2011-12-29T00:54:00.002Z

The Art of Balance

2011-12-29T00:51:00.001Z

Christopher Hitchens RIP and Vaclav Havel too.

2011-12-18T15:27:00.001Z

'Hitch' as he liked to be known inspired adoration and loathing in seemingly equal measure. Simon Hoggart in yesterdays Guardian addressed this Janus like aspect of the man.

He was, to put it courteously, a trifle devious with money. When the late Alan Watkins left the New Statesman he helped raise £98 for a leaving present, a fortune in those days. Alan had asked for a copy of Gibbon's Decline and Fall, and was surprised to be given the cheapest edition. Hitchens cheerfully admitted that he had put the rest in his Abbey National account. He liked to organise big lunches and dinners; a hilarious one in Washington was to decide the "Osrics", named after the fawning courtier in Hamlet, which went to the most obsequious political journalist in that town – a closely fought honour, as you might guess. Hitch's technique was to say, "look, you're all busy, why don't you go back to work and leave a blank cheque with me …" I actually fell for that twice.

He loved to attack anything that other people revered. Mother Theresa and Michael Foot enraged him, or so he claimed. He called himself a "contrarian", taking the opposite view to the received wisdom, but I sometimes felt he was more of a "turnip" – a victim of "terrified you're not in the papers" syndrome. He adored publicity – admiration or vilification, it didn't matter. Yet his rejection of Islamofascism and support for Dubya must have taken courage, when you are the darling of the American left, such as it is.

But he could write. Heavens, he could write. He could drink three times as much as anyone else at lunch (four large scotches, followed by a whole bottle of red was typical) then when mere mortals would be in urgent need of a nap, he could produce a dazzling comparison between PG Wodehouse and Raymond Chandler, or a tremendous exegesis of Orwell's later works, or a ferocious assault on Churchill as a war leader. His book God Is Not Great is an astonishing example of sustained and persuasive rhetoric (I suspect his lack of faith was a great source of comfort in the final illness).'

In the same paper on Friday we saw:

Salman Rushdie took to Twitter to mourn the passing of a "beloved friend", writing "A great voice falls silent. A great heart stops." Richard Dawkins said he was "one of the greatest orators of all time", and called him "a polymath, a wit ... and a valiant fighter against all tyrants including imaginary supernatural ones." The former prime minister Tony Blair, who Hitchens bested in a debate over religion at the end of last year, said he was "fearless in the pursuit of truth" and praised his "passion, commitment and brilliance".

Sadly I am unable to forgive any who supported the Bush junta in their despicable Iraqi adventure and consider all involved in the Neo-Liberal imperialist antics of that period to have been guilty by association. I dream one day we may see Bush and Blair in the dock to answer for their crimes. That truly would be a great day for Human Rights! How the dictators and their torturers would shudder in their cells!

Also this mechanistic materialism so energetically espoused by Hitchens, Dawkins, Crick, Diamond et al. This sense of matter as inertly subject to the whim of evolutionary development. The haughty dismissal of alternative medicine and all that is spiritual as infantilism. What a sad bunch of born again atheists they really are. He was a bit of a toff. A poor Balliol toff with his donkey jacket in the 60's liberating the poor workers. A metropolitan toff. A name dropper. But a bit of a dude as well.

But Hitch was a colourful and slightly enchanting monster, a great drinking companion and an excellent writer, and I guess in a world of letters that comes to seem ever more bland he'll be sorely missed.

Christopher Hitchens born 13 April 1949; died 15 December 2011

Breaking news today 18th December 2011- Václav Havel, the dissident playwright who led the Czechoslovakian "velvet revolution" and was one of the fathers of the east European pro-democracy movement that led to the fall of the Berlin wall, has died aged 75.

Reports quoted his assistant, Sabina Dancecova, as saying Havel died at his weekend house on Sunday morning, and the news was announced on Czech television during an interview with the current prime minister, Petr Necas.

Necas called Havel "the symbol of 1989" and said he did "a tremendous job for this country".

Havel's state funeral is likely to draw a crowd of leaders, artists and intellectuals from around the world. Havel was a renowned playwright and essayist who, after the crushing of the Prague spring in 1968, was drawn increasingly into the political struggle against the Czechoslovakian communist dictatorship, which he called Absurdistan. His involvement in the Charter 77 movement for freedom of speech won him admiration around the world.

His commitment to non-violent resistance helped ensure the velvet revolution was bloodless. It also help ensured that the "velvet divorce" three years later, when the country split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia, was equally peaceful.

Havel opposed the split and stepped down from his position as president in 1992, rather than oversee the process. However, he stood for the presidency of the Czech Republic early the following year and won. It was a non-executive position but Havel brought to it both moral authority and prestige on the world stage. He stayed in the position, despite bouts of ill health including lung cancer, until 2003.

His role in the east European revolutions of 1989 was second only to Lech Walesa's in Poland. As the twin inspirations of the pro-democracy movement, they were strikingly contrasting figures: Walesa a flamboyant, brash, working-class union agitator; Havel a soft-spoken intellectual from a well-to-do family, who was a reluctant politician.

He was one of a generation who came to political consciousness in the 1960s. Rock stars such as Frank Zappa were among his heroes and late in life he continued to sign his name with a small heart-shaped flourish.

His motto was: "Truth and love must prevail over lies and hate."

I recently interviewed a Czech woman and asked her if Havel was truly as great as he's made out, 'oh yes' she replied ' he was the greatest of men.'

A Sonnet for Whitbarrow Moor.

2011-12-10T13:49:00.002Z

WHITBARROW

Soft is the wind on Whitbarrow this day,

As if it’s breath just blesses as it flows,

Follows sheep-tracks to ancient groves

Where the wild orchids and the juniper grows.

That’s where I burned old wounds in fire

And laid me down in arms of sculpted oaks.

As after that midge-ridden solstice rise

At Swindale Stones; it seemed the rising sun

Had pierced me with some wild, transforming touch.

I had to stop my ears up to the screaming

Of the grass, and by the fallen larch,

I sensed the terror of the Over-Soul:

A single, vast, and acute sense of pain.

In spectral mist howling out Thelema!

Ghost Story In Fragmento

2011-12-04T13:35:00.002Z

It is only now, some twenty years after the event that I can bring myself to record the terrible events of that grim November night. Recently I found myself stranded at Southampton station having missed my last connection to London. I booked into a rather shabby hotel nearby fully intending to depart for London first thing in the morning. I could not have suspected that a late night conversation over a single malt would alter my plans so dramatically.
The owner of the hotel called Three Roods was a rather rough looking chap called Henry Diggins. I could see from his sunken eyes and the burst blood vessels in his face that he had too much of a liking for the drink. He was not the kind of man with whom I would normally engage in any deep conversation. So when he casually mentioned that he had been a pupil at Dauntless College in the nearby village of Romsey I was amazed and it was with genuine surprise that I explained that I too had been a boarder there and we exchanged memories like the survivors of some grisly accident bound together by shared trauma.
Diggins, it transpired was some years younger than I and when he remarked that he was the pupil who had stayed over on the Christmas holidays at the time of the Great Fire I was greatly intrigued to hear his story and he only too keen for the telling of it.

New motto of the Day: Grace Under Pressure

2011-12-04T13:32:00.000Z

Grace is my favourite word. Grace under pressure is my motto and despite my clumsiness. Only the other day...It doesn’t matter.
There have been some very strange things happening in this neck of the woods of late. Me? I’m a watcher. I see what goes on-it is after all my purpose. It is what I have been trained for. To the untrained eye it might look like ordinary people going about their business but I know better. I have, as I say been trained to see beneath the surface of things.
Dr Chaudhuri is not a watcher. She thinks she is but clearly she is not. In my experience psychiatrists rarely are in fact watchers though clearly they are intelligent people. Very intelligent people or they wouldn’t be psychiatrists though there can be too much emphasis on that cleverness. The intelligence of a watcher is different. We must have endless supplies of patience.

Ramblings from old Notebooks Pt 1V

2011-12-04T13:29:00.000Z

Dreams ideas and strange thingies

30/12/00: A fragment after watching Luc Besson’s Jean of Arc and lit like the film-dark and brooding. There is a barman-tall, swarthy insolent and arrogant looking. Long hair and a dirty unshaven face. He is completely naked and sports a huge erection and is strutting up and down behind the bar.

15/7/01: The Social Worker-first chapter done////
Reiko & Shinji/ The Questors/ Sea Kayak trip/ Barcelona trip/ Cephalonia trip/

20/9/01: Reading The Crossing by Cormac McCarthy on the train I am struck repeatedly by images of profound horror. The German officer sucking the eyeballs of the revolutionary out of their sockets and leaving them to dangle on their cords and the retelling of it with the blind man saying how he could see his chin and body from another angle which gradually dimmed as the cords and eyeballs shrunk like grapes.

A phrase from Prospect Magazine OCT 2000 “The void of Pre-Birth.” From essay The Eggshell by Paul Broks

Wherever was it that I heard that phrase? I just cannot remember. What was it now? The distribution of sadness as opposed to the distribution of blame.

The stigmata of perfectablility- From a documentary on Dusty Springfied-The trait of artists to always wish for everything to be absolutely perfect.

If I create nothing else but am at least declared to have been a good dad then I will consider my life to have been worthwhile. Lover, friend, husband-these are all important but Dad is best of all.

I do not believe in love at first sight. I believe that to be an error that confuses an immediate sexual or magnetic attraction with what arises from the slow casserole of relationship. Anything else is fast food. Now there isn’t even any time to fall in love.

Speed dating? Because they need time to do what exactly?

A day doodling in the Downs.

2011-11-23T08:35:00.001Z

I went out for a bike ride on 'Rocky' on Monday. He's like his owner-a bit old and cranky and prone to unexpected breakdowns these days. He needs a lot of tlc and some new parts (again like his owner!). Being from Cumbria and now living in the South East one is continually struck by how, well...flat it all is. But the rolling hills of the Downs are just a 10 minute ride from the front door and thus I ventured out to do a bit of exploring. It was beautiful and empty. I saw two people the whole day and hit the main path to Ditchling Beacon which is just beautiful gently rising singletrack. On the way I came across the Chattri War Memorial to the fallen in the first world war from India and Pakistan. Quite an amazing thing to see in the middle of nowhere. These were wounded soldiers hospitalised in Brighton who died of their wounds. The dome is the actual site where the bodies of the dead were burnt in accordance with their custom. It was a beautiful silent and meditative space where I enjoyed a cup of steaming minestrone. Heading off towards Ditchling I came across a rather splendidly handsome sheep with an impressive set of horns. She was not entirely happy about being photographed and, I think, suspicious of my motives. The sense of space was amazing and much needed. I don't do well in cities! Swinging back through Lower Standean I came upon a little piggery. These little beauties are where our bacon butties come from! It's enough to turn you vegetarian. So there we go. You get out and ride and never know what you might come across.

The Archdruid Report: A Gathering of the Tribe

2011-11-13T12:36:00.001Z

This is another great post from the Arch Druid of America, John Michael Greer. I think he's right. There is never going to be a wonderful river of cheap renewable energy-not now, that should have been planned for since the early 70's. No the oil and gas are on the way out and as fossil fules run out geopolitical instability will multiply. It's going to be a bug-out, survival future. Get a wood, Yurts and tents, a food and fuel stockpile, some allotment type vegetable production, a filtered water supply, dogs, horses, bicycles, windmills, solar panels and don't forget some weapons. Oh and a spiritual and ritual space. Mmmm...it sounds ok ish!

The Archdruid Report: A Gathering of the Tribe: I walk half a mile through a chill autumn morning to the bleak little cinderblock building that serves the old mill town where I live as a t...

The Dougans hit the recording studio!

2011-11-06T17:46:00.000Z

The first two verses of Tony's 'The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight' recently chosen as favourite music for the Swiss Euthanasia Clinic. "It just makes you feel like you're making the right choice," said one recently terminated participant.

Saturday Poem: Bodhisattva Girl Binding Blues

2011-11-05T11:28:00.004Z

BODHISATTVA GIRL BINDING BLUES

The liminal spaces of the dusk and dawn

revealed her naked in her grace and power.

She was revealed to be a pure white swan;

then kissed me like a perfect alien.

That bodhisattva girl! She was the drum that

beat the measures of my fractured heart.

The cracks and fractures of those endless beats
drained out the dirt from all my darkest dreams.

Precious as health and wise as moonlit woods

down she dove as deep as Langdale Tarn.

By lonely lakes practisingTai-Chi

till watching stars threw down silver spears.

Then they watched her wave her silver strings,

and bind me with them, to a burning wheel.

Fwd: Fw: 2 spaces left on Paint Your Art out

2011-10-17T15:27:00.000+01:00

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: delcia Mcneil <delcia.mcneil@virgin.net>
Date: 15 October 2011 12:28
Subject: Fw: 2 spaces left on Paint Your Art out
To: Delcia McNeil <delcia.mcneil@virgin.net>

PAINT YOUR ART OUT! two spaces left ...

painting by Caroline Steven

Paint Your Art Out workshop March 2011

Dear Everyone

for those of you who have been putting off putting paint to paper, exploring your creativity, or feel blocked in some way, this is to let you know that there are two spaces left on my next Paint Your Art Out workshop day on Sunday 20 November 2011 (10.00am – 4.30pm) in Muswell Hill, North London.

Just imagine having a day in a space with a small group where you feel safe and supported and free to express yourself. And imagine experiencing yourself becoming comfortably relaxed through hearing soothing music and gentle meditative words. See yourself discovering whole new things about yourself. Our theme this time is Painting Mandalas. Mandalas (circular shapes) are symbols of both infinity and containment and provide a wonderful way into self exploration. You do not need any artistic talent - just a desire to be open, explore, play, discover, develop, heal and learn.

Recent feedback from participants:

"I liked the friendliness, and I enjoyed the new freedom I felt when I put brush to paper.

"Great fun, great depth" "Brilliant, accessible and informative ... helped me be freer"

"It was a spiritual experience for me; it has given me a release and a sense of optimism, wonder, anticipation, energy ..." "This workshop feeds the soul."

Full details are on the attached flier.

all good wishes,

Delcia

Delcia McNeil, CQSW, BA(hons), ITEC, DipTH, UKCP
www.themcneilpartnership.com
www.chakrapsychology.co.uk
www.delciamcneilgallery.turnpiece.net
empowering people with integrity
psychotherapy & counselling
dynamic healing
chakra psychology
therapeutic channelling
professional support
therapeutic art
015395 62420
07515 807366

The Archdruid Report: The Peak Oil Initiation

2011-10-08T18:38:00.000+01:00

The Archdruid Report: The Peak Oil Initiation: I sometimes wonder what historians of the far future will think as they pore over what’s left of the records of our own time. It’s unlikely ...

October Poem-Anger Ritual in the Field of Dreams

2011-10-08T10:26:00.002+01:00

ANGER RITUAL IN THE FIELD OF DREAMS

I say: ‘Let’s get this out into the World!’
And you; a little scared, ask how it’s done.
And...with a wild war-cry I charge the bales!
A glinting sword cleaves the morning air!
Massed ranks of shitheads fall apart and flee
into the woods while I, grimly pursue,
slashing back and forth and widow-making
in the hay, and screaming all the while.
Your face breaks into smiles to see man’s rage
revealed without some covering cloak of shame.
And then you shout and charge...yourself in turn!
A swirling sword flailing in your hand
like a true warrior my son! That day
we slew our foes upon the Field of Dreams.

Some photos from Brighton's 2011 Gay Pride march.

2011-08-15T15:30:00.007+01:00