BACK IN THE BUCKET

Norma Margaret Jenckes Bains (1943 - 2022)

noreply@blogger.com (Norma Margaret) — Mon, 02 Jan 2023 21:27:00 +0000

Obituary:

Norma Margaret Jenckes (1943 - 2022)

REMEMBERING JAGTAR SINGH GREWAL

noreply@blogger.com (Norma Margaret) — Thu, 06 Oct 2022 18:13:00 +0000

Jagtar Singh Grewal (1927 --2022)

The sad news of the death of a superlative Punjabi educator and research scholar reached us recently.

My husband Yashdip Bains recalls his relationship and long friendship.

I first met Jagtar when I was visiting in London enroute to take up a graduate Fellowship at Syracuse University.

Since I had never travelled outside of India, my friend Surjit Hans advised me to meet with Jagtar Grewal who was completing his doctorate in History at the University of London.

Both were appalled by my lack of a winter coat and advised me that it would be a very cold winter in Syracuse.They also warned me about the climate of racism in America.They told me to shake hands with a firm grip and never myself express any sense of racial difference. All good advice.

Before I went there, they found an old heavy coat which I was glad to have during the long snowy days in the Syracuse winter.

Three years went by. After finishing my own doctoral degree, I spent a few years teaching in Saskatchewan, Canada and then in Providence, Rhode Island. Through correspondence with Jagtar, I had learned of the establishment of a new university inAmritsar, Guru Nanak Dev University. My friend Surjit Hans was hired to teach Sikh Studies; he told me that a new English Department would be opened there.Would I be interested in returning to teach in Amritsar?

When I learned that Jagtar would create a new history department, I wanted to join this adventure in education in Punjab.

Jagtar was an admirable educater. He was immersed in his own research and writing and brought the fresh fruit of his labors into the classroom.

He was curious and enthusiastic, and he made the other faculty members feel that they were launching a great enterprise.

I was invited to join as Head of the new English Department and with that appointment Jagtar and I started a fruitful endeavor to raise the level of graduate education inAmritsar.

Jagtar had that rare talent that combined administrative ability and scholarly intellectual curiosity. His scholarly publications set a high standard for rigor and originality and were published over several decades from 1969 to 2012.

Grewal's long and productive intellectual productions mainly explored the history of Sikism and its impact on India's cultural life and development. The range of his interests and accomplishments is expansive and praiseworthy: an Indian writer, historian, scholar, and a vice-chancellor of the Guru Nanak Dev University (GNDU). After securing his Ph.D. and DLitt from London, he joined the GNDU, where he founded the Department of History. He was the first Dean of the Academic Affairs of the University and was a former member of faculty at the Panjab University, Chandigarh. After his superannuation from GNDU in 1984, he joined the Indian Institute of Advanced Study.

We will miss this superb scholar and wonderful friend.

Bibliography[edit]

J. S. Grewal (1969). Guru Nanak in History. Punjab University Press. p. 348.
J. S. Grewal (1998). Contesting Interpretations of the Sikh Tradition. Manohar Publishers. p. 315. ISBN 9788173042553.
J. S. Grewal (1998). The Sikhs of the Punjab. The New Cambridge History of India. Cambridge University Press. pp. 308. ISBN 9780521637640.
J. S. Grewal (2001). Maharja Ranjit Singh: Polity, Economy and Society. Guru Nanak Dev University. p. 112. ISBN 9788177700268.
J. S. Grewal (2004). Social and Cultural History of the Punjab. Manohar Publishers. p. 185. ISBN 9788173045653.
J. S. Grewal (2007). Sikh Ideology, Polity and Social Order. Manohar Publishers. p. 303. ISBN 9788173047374.
J. S. Grewal, Veena Sachdeva (2007). Kinship and State Formation. Manohar Publishers. p. 112. ISBN 9788173047183.
J. S. Grewal (2009). The Sikhs: Ideology, Institutions, and Identity. Oxford University Press India. p. 400. ISBN 9780195694949.
J. S. Grewal (2012). Historical Writings on the Sikhs (1784-2011). SAB. ASIN B00A3K71R2.

ONE OF MY FAVORITES---POEM ABOUT REMEMBERING OUR ANCESTORS

noreply@blogger.com (Norma Margaret) — Fri, 02 Sep 2022 21:31:00 +0000

Thinking of the sacrifices that have been made for Ireland. Here is a great poem and I am thinking of the recent sacrifices of the TenMen who died on Hunger strike and also the life of devotion to the cause of Joe Cahill.

BEARING WITNESS TO OUR ANCESTORS

HERE IS A POEM THAT REMEMBERS THE BELOVED DEAD. IT IS A SOLDIER'S STORY AND WAS ONE THAT WE MEMORIZED IN GRAMMAR SCHOOL. I LOVED THE LAST LINE.

The poet Robert Southey wrote an account of the battle and the burial events. His account was read by Charles Wolfe, a young country parson at a place named Donaghmore, in Ireland. Wolfe then wrote this poem, in 1814, when he was 22 years old.

The poem was published in a provincial Irish newspaper three years later. Lord Byron discovered it five years after that, admired it tremendously, but did not know who had written it.

Wolfe was not conclusively identified as the author until after his death from TB in 1823, at age 31.

The Burial of Sir John Moore after Corunna

The Burial of Sir John Moore after Corunna (1817)

Charles Wolfe

Oxford English Dictionary (OED) Links On

Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note,
As his corse to the rampart we hurried;
Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot
O’er the grave where our hero we buried.

We buried him darkly at dead of night,
The sods with our bayonets turning;
By the struggling moonbeam’s misty light
And the lantern dimly burning.

No useless coffin enclosed his breast,
Nor in sheet nor in shroud we wound him,
But he lay like a warrior taking his rest
With his martial cloak around him.

Few and short were the prayers we said,
And we spoke not a word of sorrow;
But we steadfastly gazed on the face that was dead,
And we bitterly thought of the morrow.

We thought, as we hollowed his narrow bed
And smoothed down his lonely pillow,
That the foe and the stranger would tread o’er his head,
And we far away on the billow!

Lightly they’ll talk of the spirit that’s gone
And o’er his cold ashes upbraid him,
But little he’ll reck, if they let him sleep on
In the grave where a Briton has laid him.

But half of our heavy task was done

When the clock struck the hour for retiring;

And we heard the distant and random gun

That the foe was sullenly firing.

Slowly and sadly we laid him down,
From the field of his fame fresh and gory;
We carved not a line, and we raised not a stone,
But left him alone with his glory.

MORE ABOUT JOE CAHILL

noreply@blogger.com (Norma Margaret) — Fri, 02 Sep 2022 14:47:00 +0000

Here is the way Wikipedia describes the life and career of Joe Cahill

Joe Cahill (Irish: Seosamh Ó Cathail;^[2] 19 May 1920 – 23 July 2004) was a prominent figure in the Irish republican movement in Northern Ireland and former chief of staff of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA).^[3] He joined a junior-republican movement, Na Fianna Eireann, in 1937 and the following year, joined the Irish Republican Army. In 1969, Cahill was a key figure in the founding of the Provisional Irish Republican Army. During his time in the Provisional IRA, Cahill helped import weapons and raise financial support. He served as the chief of staff in 1972, but was arrested the following year when a ship importing weapons was intercepted.^[3]

After his release, he continued to serve on the IRA Army Council and lead all financial dealings for Sinn Féin. In the 1990s, the IRA and Sinn Féin began to work on seeking peace. Cahill served on the council that called a cessation on 21 July 1997. Cahill attended several of the talks that finally led to the Good Friday Agreement on 10 April 1998. Shortly after the agreement was made, Cahill resigned as treasurer of Sinn Féin. To honour his service, he was made honorary Sinn Féin vice-president for life. Cahill served the republican movement in Ireland all his life, as one of the longest-serving political activists in Ireland of any political party.^[4]

Background[edit]

Cahill was born above his father's small printing shop at 60 Divis Street on 19 May 1920^[3] in West Belfast.

Cahill was the first child of eleven siblings born to Joseph and Josephine Cahill. Both of his parents supported republicanism. His father was involved with the Irish National Volunteers and would print republican material at his print shop. Joseph Senior applied to be a part of the Irish Republican Army but was asked to remain in the print business as his way of assisting the republican movement. He was arrested in 1932 for printing illegal material, but was acquitted for any crimes. Cahill's childhood was marked by hardship and his family was very poor. Cahill's grandparents were neighbours of the Scottish-born Irish socialist and Easter Rising leader James Connolly, who co-founded the Irish Citizens Army.^[3]

Cahill was educated at St. Mary's Christian Brothers' School, then located on Barrack Street. At age 14 he left school to assist in the print shop. Soon after, he joined the Catholic Young Men's Society, which campaigned on social issues with a focus on eradicating moneylenders from working-class areas of Belfast, as they often charged usurious interest rates.^[3] At the age of seventeen, Cahill then joined Na Fianna Eireann, a republican-orientated Scouting movement. Na Fianna Eireann was regarded as the "Junior Irish Republican Army".

Early paramilitary career[edit]

The following year, 1938, at the age of 18, Cahill joined the local Clonard-based 'C' Company of the Belfast Brigade of the Irish Republican Army. By 1942, Cahill was serving as second in command. That year, during an anniversary march by the IRA for the Easter Rising, Cahill got into a shootout with five other IRA men against four Royal Ulster Constabulary Officers.^[4] Several men were wounded and Constable Patrick Murphy was killed.^[5] Cahill and four of the other men spent time in prison in Belfast, where they were interrogated daily. Tom Williams, the sixth IRA man to be charged, spent time in the Royal Victorian Hospital due to his injuries. It was there that he made a statement taking full responsibility for killing Constable Patrick Murphy. All six men were found guilty and sentenced to death in August 1942. The men's legal team managed to suspend the execution date after the verdict. An appeal campaign began and 207,000 signatures were collected. The United States State Department and the Vatican also supported the campaign. As a result, the men's sentences were changed to life in prison, except for Tom Williams who was executed.

The IRA declared a formal ceasefire in 1945. Afterwards, republican prisoners began to be released. Cahill, Perry, Oliver, Cordner and Simpson, who had all been sentenced to life in prison, became free men in October 1949. Following his release from prison, Cahill got a job at the Harland and Wolff shipyards in Belfast.^[6] It was at the shipyards where he was said to have contracted the disease asbestosis, one of the causes of his death many years later.

In 1953, Cahill had an accident on the job when he was hit on the head by scaffolding. He subsequently spent time recovering in a convalescent home. After he recovered, he travelled to Leixlip near Dublin to visit his aunt. It was there that he met Annie Magee. Joe and Annie were married on 2 April 1956 in St John's Church on the Falls Road in Belfast. Together they had seven children.^[6] Annie was said to be his best friend.^[3]

The IRA launched a new campaign in 1956. The IRA border campaign attacked ten targets in six counties, damaging bridges, courthouses and border roads.^[5] By 1957, three RUC officers and seven republicans had been killed during the campaign. Cahill was arrested and interned in January 1957 with several other republicans. In the same year, Cahill's first son was born and was named Thomas, after Tom Williams. Cahill was released from internment in April 1961.

Founding the Provisional IRA[edit]

Following his release from prison, Cahill was disappointed at the direction of the IRA. They had given up armed struggle, and desired seats in elections. Failed campaigns led to the IRA becoming weak and disorganised. Cahill resigned from the IRA around 1962.^[5]

In August 1969, intense rioting broke out in Northern Ireland, the most violent being in Belfast. In the Northern Ireland riots of August 1969, Cahill, along with Billy McKee, tried to defend the Catholic Clonard area from attack, but was unable to prevent Bombay Street being burned by Ulster Protestant rioters. When he subsequently tried to organise the defence of the Ballymurphy area, he was initially chased away by its Catholic residents. The 1969 Northern Ireland riots displaced 1,800 families from their homes. It was a humiliation for the IRA and made evident that they could not protect their people. The slogan 'IRA: I Ran Away' was painted on walls all over Belfast. The riots were said to be the beginning of "the Troubles" in Ireland.^[5]

Later that year, Cahill was a key figure in founding the Provisional Irish Republican Army. Angry at the failure of the IRA (led in Belfast by Billy McMillen) to defend Catholic areas during the communal rioting, Cahill and McKee stated in September 1969 that they would no longer be taking orders from the IRA leadership in Dublin, or from McMillen. In December 1969, they declared their allegiance to the Provisional IRA, which had split away from the leadership. This action took 9 out of the 13 units of the IRA in Belfast into the Provisional IRA. The remnants of the pre-split IRA became known as the Official IRA. The Provisional IRA was created and an executive council of 12 men was elected. Of the executive members, seven, one of whom was Joe Cahill.^[7] were elected to serve as the Provisional Army Council. Cahill also served as the second-in-command to Billy McKee, OC of the Belfast Battalion.^[5]

Provisional IRA activities[edit]

In April 1971, after the arrest and imprisonment of Billy McKee, Cahill became the commander of the Provisional IRA Belfast Brigade. He held this post until the introduction of internment in August of that year. It was during this period that the Provisional IRA campaign got off the ground in the city. Cahill authorised the beginning of the IRA's bombing campaign as well as attacks on British troops and the RUC. He based himself in a house in Andersonstown and toured the city, co-ordinating IRA activity. The day after the British Army mounted Operation Demetrius, designed to arrest the IRA's leaders, Cahill held a press conference in a school in Ballymurphy and stated that the operation had been a failure. He said, "we have lost one brigade officer, one battalion officer and the rest are volunteers, or as they say in the British Army, privates". To avoid the propaganda defeat that his capture would then have entailed, Cahill fled to the Republic of Ireland, temporarily relinquishing his command of the Belfast Brigade.^[3]

In March 1972, Cahill was part of an IRA delegation that held direct talks with the British Labour Party leader Harold Wilson.^[3] However, although the IRA called a three-day ceasefire for the talks, no permanent end to violence was agreed upon. Upon his return to Ireland, Cahill was arrested in Dublin by Gardaí and charged with IRA membership. He went on hunger strike for twenty-three days and was subsequently released due to lack of evidence. In November 1972, Cahill became the IRA's chief of staff and held this position until his arrest the following year.^[3]

Cahill was then put in charge of importing arms for the IRA. He liaised with the NORAID group in America and with the Libyan dictatorship of Muammar al-Gaddafi to this end. In March 1973 he was arrested by the Irish Navy in Waterford, aboard the Claudia, a ship from Libya loaded with five tons of weapons. Cahill was sentenced to three years imprisonment by the Irish Special Criminal Court. Cahill stated at his trial that, "If I am guilty of any crime, it is that I did not succeed in getting the contents of the Claudia into the hands of the freedom fighters in this country".^[3]

Upon his release, Cahill again was put in charge of arms importation and to this end went to the United States. He was deported from the United States in 1984 for illegal entry (see Provisional IRA arms importation). He served on the IRA Army Council as late as the 1990s. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, he argued against proposals for Sinn Féin to stand in elections. However, in 1985, he spoke at the party's Ard Fheis in favour of republicans contesting elections and taking seats in the Dublin parliament, the Dáil.^[3]

Peace process[edit]

In his later years as honorary life vice-president of Sinn Féin, Cahill was a strong supporter of Gerry Adams and the Good Friday Agreement. In 1994, a controversial but central aspect of the IRA's ceasefire was the granting of a limited visa by then United States President Bill Clinton to Cahill, in the face of opposition by John Major's government,^[8] for the purpose of trying to win support for the new Sinn Féin peace strategy from Irish American IRA supporters.

In 1998 he stood in North Antrim in the elections to the Northern Ireland Assembly, but was unsuccessful.^[9]

Death[edit]

Cahill died at age 84 in Belfast. He had been diagnosed with asbestosis, which he probably developed while working at the Harland & Wolff shipyards in his twenties. He and several other former shipyard workers later sued the company for their exposure to the dangerous substances but only won minimal compensation.^{[clarification needed]} An Irish republican flute band in Glasgow is named after Cahill.^[10]

THE GHOST OF ROGER CASEMENT

noreply@blogger.com (Norma Margaret) — Thu, 01 Sep 2022 22:48:00 +0000

YEATS WROTE A POEM ABOUT CASEMENT

BORN ON THIS DAY IN 1864

The Ghost Of Roger Casement

O what has made that sudden noise? What on the threshold stands? It never crossed the sea because John Bull and the sea are friends; But this is not the old sea Nor this the old seashore. What gave that roar of mockery, That roar in the sea's roar? The ghost of Roger Casement Is beating on the door. John Bull has stood for Parliament, A dog must have his day, The country thinks no end of him, For he knows how to say, At a beanfeast or a banquet, That all must hang their trust Upon the British Empire, Upon the Church of Christ. The ghost of Roger Casement Is beating on the door. John Bull has gone to India And all must pay him heed, For histories are there to prove That none of another breed Has had a like inheritance, Or sucked such milk as he, And there's no luck about a house If it lack honesty. The ghost of Roger Casement Is beating on the door. I poked about a village church And found his family tomb And copied out what I could read In that religious gloom; Found many a famous man there; But fame and virtue rot. Draw round, beloved and bitter men, Draw round and raise a shout; The ghost of Roger Casement Is beating on the door.

On This Day: 1916 Easter Rising leader Roger Casement is born

Roger Casement, an Irish revolutionary leader, was born on September 1, 1864. Here, take a look at his life, as well as the only known footage of the Dublin native.

Roger Casement, pictured circa 1900, was one of the 1916 Easter Rising leaders. GETTY IMAGES

Irish revolutionary Roger Casement was born in Dublin on September 1, 1864.

Sir Roger Casement was the last to be executed of those involved in the organization of the 1916 Easter Rising. The Dublin native was a one-time darling of the British establishment. Of course, that was before he turned Irish Republican.

Casement worked in the British Colonial Service for many years and was knighted in 1911 for his investigation into Human Rights abuses in Peru, but on his retirement in 1913, he became increasingly involved in the struggle for Irish home rule.

When the First World War broke out, Casement hatched a plan to gain German assistance for home rule. He traveled to Germany in late 1914 to negotiate terms and to try and recruit Irish men held by the Germans as prisoners of war.

There are few images of Casement from this time and, up until recently, no video footage of him had ever been revealed.

Roger Casement, circa 1904 (Getty Images)

A documentary on England’s Channel 4 about the First World War included the footage featured below, which is believed to be the only film ever taken of Casement and shows him working at his desk and mailing letters.

Although only 40 seconds in length, the clip is still a welcome shot of one of the giants of Irish history who pledged his life to the country’s freedom.

The documentary clip tells of Casement’s attempt to win German support and how in August 1914 he wrote to the Kaiser Wilhelm II to convince him of Ireland’s commitment to the German cause.

“We draw your majesty's attention to the part that Ireland necessarily, if not openly, must play in this conflict. Ireland must be freed from British control,” he wrote.

“Thousands of Irishmen are prepared to do their part to aid the German cause for they recognize it is their own.”

As a result of Casement’s pleading, the Germans offered 20,000 rifles, if rather ancient, and ten machine guns to the Irish in the hopes of distracting the British on the Western Front.

Convincing the Germans to send him to Ireland with the weapons in a U-boat, Casement planned to halt the rebellion, however, as he feared the number and nature of the weapons they had procured would ensure the failure of a military action.

The mission to deliver the weapons was farcical. They were intercepted by the Royal Navy and Casement was captured on April 21, just hours after landing. Casement’s hopes of calling off the Rising were dashed and he was imprisoned before going through a scandalous trial. He was ultimately put to death by the British for treason.

Irish patriot and British Consular Official Sir Roger Casement (1864 - 1916) leaving the law courts during his trial in London, 1916. He was charged and found guilty of treason after trying to obtain German aid for Irish Independence. (Getty Images)

AS Maureen Murphy concludes in her essay on Casement,

" Shifting the lens from the dominating figures of the 1916 leaders, what Roy Foster named as “the distorting prism of 1916” a figure like Roger Casement has much to say to twenty-first-century Ireland, where Irish identity seems to have fragmented from the tight triangle of nationalism, Irish language and Catholicism to a period of confusion when Irish society is forced to deal with human rights, equality and a sexual revolution that has no clear guidelines. Perhaps, we are now more understanding of Casement’s human flaws and more mindful of the principles that shone through his frailties."

REMEMBERING JOE CAHILL

noreply@blogger.com (Norma Margaret) — Wed, 31 Aug 2022 23:24:00 +0000

Joe Cahill visited Providence to inspire support for the Hunger Strike in 1981.

Here is news of Joe Cahill's death and funeral as reported in the Belfast newspaper.

Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness carry the the coffin of Joe Cahill at his funeral in Belfast today

The funeral was held in west Belfast this morning of veteran republican Joe Cahill, who died last week. The ceremony, at St John's Church, Falls Road, was attended by thousands of Sinn Féin members and supporters from throughout Ireland.

Among those who carried Mr Cahill's Tricolour-draped coffin on the short procession from his home to the church were Sinn Féin's Mr Gerry Adams and Mr Martin McGuinness. The cortege was flanked by a number of men in black berets and combat uniforms.

Mr Cahill is being buried at Milltown Cemetery. It was one of the largest republican funerals in Belfast since the death of Bobby Sands in 1981.

Former taoiseach Mr Albert Reynolds was among those attending the funeral. Mr Reynolds described the republican as a hugely influential figure in moving the provisionals away from violence.

The ex-taoiseach said: "We worked together on the peace process. He was a remarkable man and he played a major part. The only thing I regret is he didn't last long enough to see the process completed. I'm sure it would have been his greatest satisfaction."

Joe Cahill flanked by Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams, poses for photographs during the launch of his biography in Belfast, in October 2002

Mr Cahill, who died on Friday aged 84, was an unapologetic physical-force republican and a pivotal figure in the republican movement in the second half of the 20th century.

A small, balding man invariably dressed in nondescript clothes, he cut something of an incongruous figure from a bygone age among the Sinn Féin elite of the last decade.

Despite this, he was regarded as an icon among the party faithful, a reminder of the historical context which fuels their ideology. Mr Cahill began his 60-year path of violent republicanism in the early 1940s.

He was convicted of the murder of a Catholic RUC constable in an ambush in west Belfast in 1942 and sentenced to death. His sentence, and that of three other members of his gang, was commuted to life imprisonment four days before he was due to be hung after the intervention of the-then Pope. Only the leader of the gang, Tom Williams, did not escape the gallows.

Mr Cahill was released from prison in 1949, whereupon he joined the predominantly Protestant workforce at the Harland and Wolff (H&W) shipyard in Belfast.It was during this time that he contracted the asbestosis that would eventually kill him. He was part of a large group of ex-shipyard workers who sued H&W, winning £30,000 in compensation last May.

Mr Cahill soon rejoined the IRA, finding himself interned without trial in 1956. He was eventually released after the IRA campaign collapsed in 1962.

He maintained a lower profile during the 1960s, until the advent of massive sectarian conflict towards the end of the decade. He was said to have been particularly affected by the abuse meted out to the IRA by Catholic communities for failing to protect them from loyalist mobs.

He said Catholics welcomed the British army with open arms because they regarded them as the only people capable of protecting them. "People collaborated with the enemy because the IRA had betrayed them," he said.

We have won the war, now let us win the peace
Joe Cahill at the Sinn Féin ardfheis in Dublin last year

He was instrumental in setting up the Provisional IRA in 1970 when the republican movement split. He was elected to the first army council and subsequently became the IRA commander in Belfast, overseeing a brutal campaign of bombings and shootings. The British authorities responded by re-introducing internment without trial.

Mr Cahill was jailed in 1973 by a court in Dublin for gun-running from Libya after the cargo ship Claudia was intercepted off the Waterford coast carrying a five-ton arsenal of weaponry. He was given a three-year sentence but released early on the grounds of ill-health.

He spent most of the 1980s involved in fundraising and training activities. He was arrested in Dublin cafe in possession of $80,000, which was confiscated. He was deported from the United States two years later in a bid to stem the flow of money from sympathetic Americans.

Despite receding from the republican limelight in his later years, he is regarded as being instrumental in securing the first IRA ceasefire in 1994 and the IRA's subsequent move into largely political means.

He was given the task of selling the political route to IRA's financial base in the United States and was granted a visa to visit that country by President Bill Clinton, despite British protestations.

Mr Cahill received a standing ovation at Sinn Féin's ardfheis in Dublin last year when he told delegates: "We have won the war, now let us win the peace."

Mr Adams last week described Mr Cahill as "both a leader and a servant of the republican cause" who spent a lifetime in struggle.

"He was an unapologetic physical force republican who fought when he felt that was the only option but he also significantly stood for peace and was a champion of the Sinn Féin peace strategy, travelling to the UN on many occasions on behalf of the party."

In 1956 Mr Cahill married Annie Magee. She survives him, along with their son and six daughters.

A POET from PAWTUCKET

noreply@blogger.com (Norma Margaret) — Mon, 29 Aug 2022 20:40:00 +0000

I am not the only poet from Pawtucket.

There is another who is really good.

GALWAY KINNELL.

My mother liked his work so it was quite a delight when she met Galway's mother at the Mobile Library that used to come to a parking lot near our house.,

She loved that his mother had used one of the names of the counties of Ireland as his first name. Her family is from County Tyrone and if she had been blessed with a son that would be his name.

She wished that she had named me Clare or Kerry or Mayo, but she had named me after my father, Norman, so there could be no confusion that I was his child.

Confusion and disarray had come into my father's life in 1918 when his mother and his grandmother died within a week of each other of the Spanish flu. He and his brother Irving and sister Grace became orphans all under the age of 6 years.

My mother is the other poet from Pawtucket.She wrote and published poems that I recall from my youngest years. She loved the poetry of Yeats and knew many of his poems by heart.She also loved the poems of Houseman publishd in the SHROPSHIRE LAD.

My mother was forced into Coats Mill the day after she finished the 8th Grade. Her formal education ended then, but not her informal education.

When I was in college she would follow my course syllabus and read the same books that I was reading in the course and we would discuss them

She never stopped learning and growing.

Here is a poem by Galway.

Galway Kinnell

Another Night in the Ruins

1

In the evening
haze darkening on the hills,
purple
of the eternal, a last bird
crosses over, ‘flop, flop’
adoring
only the instant.

2

Nine years ago,
in a plane that rumbled all night
above the Atlantic,
I could see, lit up
by lightning-bolts jumping out of it,
a thunderbird
formed like the face
of my brother, looking nostalgically down
on blue,
lightning-fisted moments of the Atlantic.

3

Wind tears itself hollow
in the eave of my ruins, ghost-flute
of snowdrifts
that build out there in the dark,
upside down
ravines into which night sweeps
our torn wings, our ink-spattered feathers.

4

I listen.
I hear nothing. Only
the cow
of nothingness mooing, mooing
down the bones.

5

Is that a
rooster? He
thrashes in the earth
for a grain. Finds
it. Rips
it into
flames. Flaps. Crows.
Flames
bursting out of his brow!

6

How many
nights must it take each one such as me to learn
that we aren’t, after all, made
of the bits of that bird
which creates itself again
in its ashes,
that for a man
as he goes up in flames his one work
is to open himself, to be
the flames?

THINKING OF FAIZ AHMED FAIZ

noreply@blogger.com (Norma Margaret) — Fri, 26 Aug 2022 15:26:00 +0000

I am placing an entry on Faiz to honor the 25th anniversary of the death of Hardial Bains. To comfort him,when he was dying. a friend read aloud the poems of Faiz in URDU.

THAT IS WHAT GREAT POETRY CAN DO!

VERY HARD TO SUM UP THE QUALITIES OF FAIZ

I felt so pleased when I went to Amritsar, Punjab, India in 1975
with my husband to teach at the Guru Nanak Dev University
and learned that this was the same city where the poet
FAIZ taught college too.
His work speaks directly to me and I hope I picked up his
blessing, I certainly would bless him if I could.

Here again I am indebted to a newer collection and translation of
THE BEST OF FAIZ translated by Shiv Kumar (old friend of
my husband Yashdip Bains)

To have said that Hafez is the great poet of Love and then to turn
to Faiz is to find the working out of that idea in another time and
place.The closest equivalent to Faiz as a poet of beauty and love
in English tradition would be the English Romantic
poet John Keats who wrote in a poem an aphorism that I read as
a teenager and was too young to understand :

BEAUTY IS TRUTH; TRUTH BEAUTY. THAT IS ALL
YOU KNOW AND ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW.

Faiz's message is also about the reign and ultimate
victory of beauty.

.He expresses a passion for enjoying the beauty of life,
his deep paradoxical attachment to love of people and the
agony of the world, his love of humanity, his patriotism,
his passion for revolution, his sense of justice, are all
metaphors of the agony of love.

In one poem he addresses the BELOVED
and gives the Beloved credit for all of his metaphors.

Agony of love is the soul of his imagination and feeling,
which illuminates the beauty of the world with
the desolation of his heart.

Here is how Keats sums up the power of longing
for the unattainable:

Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,

Though winning near the goal – yet, do not grieve;

She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,

For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair! (lines 17–20)

For Faiz, the testing power of beauty is in its creativity.

Beauty is not mere artistic value, it is also a social and moral value:

The candle of a look, the star of imagination,
All these illuminations
have come from your gathering.
Whichever be the source of pain, we ascribe it to you,
Whatever complaints we have, are on account of you.
If it be the agony of the world, if it is the beloved's face
or the hand of the rival,
We responded towards all of these with love.

When I was much older,I saw that Keats was expressing
a profound Spiritual Truth,

BEAUTY-TRUTH-GOODNESS-- LOVE--WISDOM

are all attributes of GOD
.
To search honestly for any one of these attributes will
lead the Seeker to the DIVINE.

AUGUSTINE expresses it in that line

LATE HAVE I LOVED THEE, BEAUTY ANCIENT
AND EVER NEW.

For Faiz LOVE always TRUMPS hate.

Faiz wrote a sad revolutionary battle-song, the like of which is

not be found in any language of the world:

For the love of your flower-like lips,
We were sacrificed on the dry branches of the noose,
For the desire of the candles of your hands
We were killed on half-dark paths.
And with revolutionary dignity:
On our lips the words of the ghazal,
And the torch of misery in our hands,
Gather our banners from the place of murder,
Caravans of other lovers will emerge,
For whose path our feet have shortened the distances of pain.

When he accepted the Lenin Peace Prize speech he said:

Human ingenuity, science and industry have made it

possible to provide each one of us everything we need to be

comfortable provided these boundless treasures of nature

and production are not declared the property of a greedy

few but are used for the benefit of all of humanity…

However, this is only possible if the foundations of human

society are based not on greed, exploitation and ownership

but on justice, equality, freedom and the welfare of everyone

… I believe that humanity which has never been defeated

by its enemies will, after all, be successful; at long last,

instead of wars, hatred and cruelty, the foundation

of humankind will rest on the message of the

great Persian poet Hafez Shiraz:

‘Every foundation you see is faulty, except that of Love,

which is faultless’.

And Faiz the secular Muslim prays:

Let us too lift our hands,
We who do not remember the customary prayer,
We who do not remember any idol or God except love.

This agony of love is not only a part of the human condition
but it is a relationship which extends from one end of the
world to another. Faiz's love for humanity is free from the
prejudices of race, color or nationality.

The new literature of protest suggests a radical change
and, in the words of Faiz, it confers on us the power
of "forcefully spurning the hand of the killer".

It does not accept defeat because it is convinced that
darkness should and must end.

When personal sorrow drank
the elixir of world-sorrow,
the lovers' love became doubly strong:
My heart repents neither this love nor the other,
My heart is spotted with every kind of sorrow,
Except the mark of repentance.

A CALL FROM IRELAND

noreply@blogger.com (Norma Margaret) — Thu, 25 Aug 2022 20:57:00 +0000

SOMETHING GREAT JUST HAPPENED.

Never too old to learn.I had been getting messages from an Irish cousin on Messenger a young man Eoin whose mother is a cousin and a dear friend.

When we met so many decades ago, we immediately clicked. We were so alike. When Dympna confessed her love for THE KING, I knew she meant Elvis and I share that love.

One of my greatest pilgrimages was to GRACELAND. For me it was an unforgettable experience ---people weeping in every room. And me among them.

So today I got to talk on a phone call to one of her sons. I hope that tomorrow she will be on the call.

This turn of events and this reconnection with my Irish cousins has made me so happy.

It has been a complete change from the sadness of my sister-in-law Gurmit's death and the anniversary of my husband's younger brother's death 25 years ago.

I want to add here a poem that I wrote years ago after I first met my cousin Dympna. I hope that she likes it.

IN ARDBOE DYMPNA REMEMBERS

The old women say “Oh, surely there’s time

Yet to have bairns.” But at night I worry.

Thinking of their soft skin and staring eyes.

They look up at a mother and follow her

Around the room. Is it too late for me?

I can’t face that end. Oh, that – a music box.

Hand-made, wind it up and it plays “Let Erin Remember.”

Where? In the Long Kesh Prison Camp. The H-BLOCK.

The boyos make things to sell or give.

That was given to me and the little harp-

No , Patrick is from the next town, Coalisland.

Isn’t it a scram? A woman lives with her mother

For thirty- four years in a place just a few miles

Down the road from a man she meets in a prison.

Fifty miles away.-- That Celtic Cross on the mantle?

He made for my mum. All alone here—

No,no, in the Council housing we’re not afraid.

Not lonely, we had to leave our place in the moss.

Too scary with soldiers busting the door late at night.

When these flats went up, we applied.

But to be honest I could not marry an active IRA man.

He will give that up when he is released.--

The Brits ambushed your cousin’s wife’s brother.--

Hugh, he has a monument. Let Erin remember?--

No, let us forget long enough to have a life,

A moment, a love, a baby. Babies are magic—

A baby before the earth closes over us.

And only God remembers and Erin forgets.

Remembering Gurmit Kaur

noreply@blogger.com (Norma Margaret) — Thu, 25 Aug 2022 19:39:00 +0000

My husband's older sister Gurmit died this past Sunday night at the age of 91. Here are a few of his thoughts and remembrances of her. Although her last years were blighted by dementia and Alzheimer's disease, she had in her long life exerted a powerful and positive influence on her family, friends and community.

She was the mother of three children.Her marriage to Surain Nunner ended in divorce decades ago.

Gurmit was an active supporter of her younger brother, Hardial Bains, a brilliant progressive leader in Canada who also inspired the foundation of political parties in Ireland and England.

Always involved in social and political activity, Gurmit's interest took the form of talking to people about political problems and encouraging peple to participate in the political life in India.

The child of the village Sarpanch, Gurbakhs Singh, who had played a major role in the anti-colonial struggle against the British in India, Gurmit grew up supporting that progressive struggle to free India from British domination.

Both sisters Gurmit amd Ranjit attended the college that opened in their village of Mahilpur in 1946.

This move reflected their parent's progressive attitudes towards educating women beyond their traditional roles of wife and mother.

It is important that we remember Gurmit as she was for most of her long and dedicated life. We should not allow the later years of mental chaos shape our memories of her.

Most of us to do not get better with age, and we ask that our dear sister be remebered for all the ways she encouraged and advanced the progress of humanity that we hail in the INTERNATIONALE.

Eugène Pottier, 1871; English lyrics by Charles H. Kerr, French lyrics

Arise, you prisoners of starvation!
Arise, you wretched of the earth!
For justice thunders condemnation.
A better world's in birth.
No more tradition's chains shall bind us.
Arise, you slaves, no more in thrall!
The earth shall rise on new foundations.
We have been naught, we shall be all.
'Tis the final conflict;
Let each stand in his place.
The international working class
Shall be the human race.

The "Internationale" was written in Paris, in June of 1871 by Eugène Pottier, who was born in Paris in 1816 and died in 1887. He was a member of the International and of the Central Committee of the Commune. He was condemned to death in May of 1873, but sentence was never carried out as he took refuge in America. The song was published in Chants Révolutionnaires (1887), and dedicated to Gustave Lefrançais, member of the Commune.

46.

Fundraising letter for Hunger Strike Memorial

noreply@blogger.com (Norma Margaret) — Thu, 25 Aug 2022 16:07:00 +0000

THE TIME HAS COME

Many times on this blog I have celebrated the lives and sacrifices of Bobby Sands and the nine other men who lost their lives in a hunger strike in 1981.

There is only one monument to the heroism of these men in the United States and it is in Hartford, CT. We want to create one in Providence, RI to be sure that the deaths of these heroic men are never forgotten.

Dear Friends of Irish Freedom,

The spring and summer of 1981 witnessed the slow and painful deaths of ten invincible Irish patriots. Led by Bobby Sands, these men began Hunger Strikes to demonstrate their refusal of the British government attempt to criminalizetheir armed revolt against hundreds of years of tyranny in Ireland. Displaying the support of the Irish people, while on Hunger Strike, Bobby Sands was elected as a Member of Parliament. More than 40 years have passed since those tragic events and the English government still has not implemented the terms of the Good Friday Agreement. The deaths of these men inspired protests all over the world. Sinn Fein began holding political office and has reached a current position of strength in Ireland.

The 1916 Committee plans to memorialize the sacrifice of the Hunger Strikers and keep their names and brutal deaths in our historic memory by raising a monument to them at the site of the Irish FamineMemorial. A simple bronze plaque, mounted on granite stone, will proudly enshrine our gratitude. It will read:

In the spring and summer of 1981, ten brave Irishmen fasted to death to fight Britain’s attempt to

criminalize their Irish struggle. The deaths of these ten men, and the international response to it,

caused the British to change this policy and also created the conditions for the armed struggle to evolve

into participation in electoral politics, leading eventually to the Good Friday Agreement of 1998.

We Honor These Ten Men and Martyrs

“I may die but the Republic of 1916 will never die”

Bobby Sands

BOBBY SANDS MARTIN HURSON

FRANCIS HUGHES KEVIN LYNCH

RAYMOND MCCREESH KIERAN DOHERTY

PATSY O’HARA THOMAS MCELWEE

JOE MCDONNELL MICHAEL DEVINE

The cost of the proposed monument will be 15,000 dollars. We ask all our members, friends and Irish Americans who recognize the sacrifice paid by these ten men, to contribute to the cost of the monument.

Now let's make it personal. We are asking you as individuals to think of the sacrifice that brought these ten men to martyrdom and to ask that you make a small sacrifice to honor them.

We ask that you think about what amount you can give easily and then think of what would push you out of your comfort zone.. If ten dollars is easy for you, why not double it even if that means that you forego some little treat and feel the pinch?

LET'S GET REAL!!

Here are some examples--

Send the cost of the cigarettes that you smoke daily.

Send the cost of the liquor you drink daily.

Send the cost of the lottery tickets or online bets you make daily.

Or maybe skip the daily coffee and doughnut at Dunkin?

Making this small sacrifice for one day will align you spiritually with the sacrifice these men made daily until they died.

YOU CAN DO IT!

Be willing to suffer just a little to honor these brave men who suffered so much for so many days.

All for Irish freedom,

Make checks out to

RI 1916 Committee

PO Box 28321

Providence RI 02908

Thank you in advance for your support.

The Rhode Island 1916 Committee

PS. If this appeal moved you to donate, please forward it to Family and friends in your circle.

Beats in the BUCKET

noreply@blogger.com (Norma Margaret) — Wed, 24 Aug 2022 16:25:00 +0000

How did the Beat movement come to me in Pawtucket?

Like so many of the good things that came to me there. it came to me through the good offices of a member of the Boucher family.

Their son Raymond, my friend Lucille's brother, had started his college education at RISD while Lucille and I were going to Saint Xavier's Academy, a great school in Providence.

The first year Raymond had an old Volkswagon Beetle that he had painted a brilliant yellow. He drove Lucille and me into downtown Providence and we walked up Broad St to the Academy. I gave him a couple of dollars a week for gas and for a while it worked.

He also shared with us some of the new things that he was reading. He knew that I was interested in poetry and that I tried to write it. One day he handed me a book with a one word title --HOWL.

"This is how poets write now--contempoary poetry" he said as he showed me the black and white volume.This was in 1956 and my freshman year at high school.

I remember reading the long poem and being struck by its daring form. I loved it. In fact in recent years I have written a Pawtucket version that won me a prize in the Galway Kinnell poetry contest.

Here is that poem

A HOWL IN PAWTUCKET-- Circa 1959

I am with you in Pawtucket

My greatest fear as I sneaked a smoke

with the black leather-jacketed boys

at the White Tower on Main Street Bridge

was that someone who knew my mother,

sitting on one of the buses lined up at the light,

leaning forward in her window-seat might

spy me standing there: cigarette dangling,

blue uniform skirt rolled thigh high

black turtleneck hiding Catholic school badge,

mouth smeared with white lipstick.

eyes outlined in kohl like a baby owl.

the Beatnik of Pawtucket: I had read “HOWL”

I am with you in Pawtucket.

Where are you now? The boys who dived

at Limerock Quarry, their skin porcelain

in the milky water; or the dusty boys--

come on back where you belong

of Sunset Stables who always copped a feel

at the dismount? Where is little Lucille?

Who would skate with me those cold starry

nights at the Blue Pond? Where is Roland--

with his red sweater, his white '51 Ford

with the fairy fringe, and his dazzling smile?

Or sweet Eleanor who would walk with me

through the dappled lane of Dunnell's shady lea?

I am with you in Pawtucket.

We reached that pond at Prospect Heights

on those long hot days filled with polio scares

and paper dolls on my porch. And where are you?

That black-haired boy who met me in the Back lots

and showed me the broken-walled reservoir

where he looked for any signs of Indian lore.

Oh, that's right, -- we married for a while ; our son

called last night. So where am I? That one—the one

who would sit for hours with my Bronte novels

and dream of writing my own romance idylls?

I am older, not richer or wiser, just older.

Grading papers, giving marks-still reading and writing.

I am with you in Pawtucket.

Let's meet up for a “First and Last Chance” reunion

Start at the White Tower, walk up Main past Peerless

to Shartenberg's, go to the Windsor for a drink

and end up at the LeRoy for a late show---

or better still-- go on up Broad to Warner's Ballroom

where sounds of “Harlem Nocturne” pierce the gloom.

Sweet blues sax papering the world with longing,

the mirror ball spangling speckled light all over my pink

and white gingham dress with tender embroidered berries

spilling over the bodice; dancing to our favorite song.

Your cheek closely pressed to mine – “This is our song”,

you whisper, “This will always be our song.”

I am with you in Pawtucket.

Now I know what GHOSTED means

noreply@blogger.com (Norma Margaret) — Tue, 23 Aug 2022 15:17:00 +0000

About GHOSTING I KNEW NOTHING. SO I did what I always do about the unknown--I googled it.

Here's what I learned online:

in most situations, if you haven't heard from someone even after contacting them repeatedly, they've ghosted you. They won't respond to your messages or calls. A telling sign that you've been ghosted is if you can't get in contact with them. No matter how you reach out or for how long, you don't hear back.Jun 4, 2022

And here is what I learned through experience:

However, ghosting could also be a sign of self isolation seen in people with depression, suicidal tendencies, or are relapsing with an addiction.^[20] There is limited research directly on the effect of ghosting on the person on the receiving end. However, studies have indicated that ghosting is considered the most hurtful way to end a relationship in comparison to other methods such as direct confrontation.^[21] It has been shown to cause feelings of ostracism, exclusion, and rejection. Additionally, the lack of social cues along with the ambiguity in ghosting can cause a form of emotional dysregulation in which a person feels out of control.^[22] Some mental health professionals consider ghosting to be a passive-aggressive form of emotional abuse, a type of silent treatment or stonewalling behaviour, and emotional cruelty.^[7]

THE PERSON ON THE RECEIVING END.

That would be me. So maybe I can add to "the limited research on the effects of ghosting."

Some how because this person initiated the contact by commenting on one of the things I mentioned on this blog, I feel as if my blog has been made a less safe place for me. So perhaps that is why I want to talk about it on the blog. It is a way to reclaim this space.

This person--whom I have never met--shares a lot of traits and circumstances with me. Pawtucket born and bred, this person also writes poems and stories about Pawtucket. And this person shares my love for poetry and for Beat writers. We also shared early experiences of going to the Narragansett Race Track with our gambling fathers . We both lived close enough to walk to the track which no longer exists.

All of those memories and associations have been polluted by this person cultivating me about these topics and interests and then ghosting me.

This person is old like me and we shared the memories of the "golden age of Pawtucket."

Now all is tarnished. Can I remove that tarnish and polish them back again?

I want to reclaim these years and times and experiences and remove them from this person's destructive influence.

In fact my hope is to transform this experience into material for my work. To trust that having a new experience in the 79th year of my life is a great gift.

That it will be new material for my plays and poems and yes, even for my blog. A great gift for my work. And maybe for my soul.

I am grateful that this charade of friendship only wasted a few weeks of my time. But at this time in life, even a few weeks is a few weeks too many.

LIVE AND LEARN

my nlog

What is the Holy Ghost"

noreply@blogger.com (Norma Margaret) — Mon, 01 Aug 2022 16:07:00 +0000

Baptism of Fire and Spirit

When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability. —Acts 2:1–4

When I was a child and the nuns told us about the Trinity, I got the idea of a father and a son, but what in the world was the HOLY GHOST!

That is what we used to call the Third Person of the Trinity.Now we say HOLY SPIRIT, but has that name change brought us any closer to understanding who the third person is?

Not really.

It is a shame that the Holy Spirit tends to be an afterthought for many Christians. We don’t really “have the Spirit.” We tend to simply go through the motions. We formally believe, but honestly, there isn’t much fire to it. There isn’t much conviction. There isn’t much service. We just sort of believe.

That’s why in the Gospels there are two baptisms that are clearly distinguished. There’s the baptism with water that most of us are used to, and there’s the baptism “with the Holy Spirit and fire” (Matthew 3:11); that’s the one that really matters.

The water baptism that many of us received as children really demands little conviction or understanding. Until that water baptism becomes real, until we know Jesus, and we can rely on Jesus, call upon Jesus, share Jesus, love Jesus, we’re just going along for the ride.

We can recognize people who have had a second baptism in the Holy Spirit. They tend to be loving. They tend to be exciting. They want to serve others, and not just be served themselves. They forgive life itself for not being everything they once hoped for. They forgive their neighbors. They forgive themselves for not being as perfect as they would like to be.

Even though we so often pray, “Come, Holy Spirit,” the gift of the Spirit is already given. The Holy Spirit has already come. We are temples of the Holy Spirit, equally, objectively, and forever! The only difference is the degree that we know it, draw upon it, and consciously believe it. All the scriptural images of the Spirit are dynamic—flowing water, descending dove, fire, and wind. If there’s never any movement, energy, excitement, deep love, service, forgiveness, or surrender, you can be pretty sure you don’t have the Spirit.

If our whole lives are just going through the motions, if there’s never any deep conviction, we don’t have the Spirit. We would do well to fan into flame the gift that we already have.

God does not give God’s Spirit to those

of us who are worthy, because none of

us are worthy. God gives God’s Spirit

in this awakened way to those who

want it.

BREAST PLATE OF SAINT PATRICK

noreply@blogger.com (Norma Margaret) — Fri, 17 Jun 2022 20:08:00 +0000

Why is a Prayer called a Breastplate?

This prayer acts as armor against all evil in the world. It strengthens the person who recites it for all encounters with temptation throughout the day.

St. Patrick's Breastplate is a popular prayer attributed to one of Ireland’s most beloved patron saints. According to tradition, St. Patrick wrote it in 433 A.D. for divine protection before successfully converting the Irish King Leoghaire and his subjects from paganism to Christianity. (The term breastplate refers to a piece of armor worn in battle.) In any case, this prayer certainly reflects the spirit with which St. Patrick brought the faith to Ireland! St. Patrick's Breastplate, also known as The Lorica of Saint Patrick was popular enough to inspire a hymn based on this text as well.

This prayer has also been called The Cry of the DeeR, Why?

St. Patrick’s Breastplate prayer was written in a difficult time. A local chieftain had placed a price on his head. As legend has it, the chieftain’s troops were hot on Patrick’s tail, when he invoked this prayer of protection. All Patrick’s pursuers heard was the cry of a deer bounding across the trail.

Patrick’s prayer affirms an ever-present, dynamic God. God is a circle whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere. God is above us, below us, around us, within us. Wherever we are, God is with us. We are always centered in God, and God centers us. And, also wherever we go, God’s circle of love surrounds us.

I arise today
Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,
Through belief in the Threeness,
Through confession of the Oneness
of the Creator of creation.

I arise today
Through the strength of Christ's birth with His baptism,
Through the strength of His crucifixion with His burial,
Through the strength of His resurrection with His ascension,
Through the strength of His descent for the judgment of doom.

I arise today
Through the strength of the love of cherubim,
In the obedience of angels,
In the service of archangels,
In the hope of resurrection to meet with reward,
In the prayers of patriarchs,
In the predictions of prophets,
In the preaching of apostles,
In the faith of confessors,
In the innocence of holy virgins,
In the deeds of righteous men.

I arise today, through
The strength of heaven,
The light of the sun,
The radiance of the moon,
The splendor of fire,
The speed of lightning,
The swiftness of wind,
The depth of the sea,
The stability of the earth,
The firmness of rock.

I arise today, through
God's strength to pilot me,
God's might to uphold me,
God's wisdom to guide me,
God's eye to look before me,
God's ear to hear me,
God's word to speak for me,
God's hand to guard me,
God's shield to protect me,
God's host to save me
From snares of devils,
From temptation of vices,
From everyone who shall wish me ill,
afar and near.

I summon today
All these powers between me and those evils,
Against every cruel and merciless power
that may oppose my body and soul,
Against incantations of false prophets,
Against black laws of pagandom,
Against false laws of heretics,
Against craft of idolatry,
Against spells of witches and smiths and wizards,
Against every knowledge that corrupts man's body and soul;
Christ to shield me today
Against poison, against burning,
Against drowning, against wounding,
So that there may come to me an abundance of reward.

Christ with me,
Christ before me,
Christ behind me,
Christ in me,
Christ beneath me,
Christ above me,
Christ on my right,
Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down,
Christ when I sit down,
Christ when I arise,
Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me,
Christ in every eye that sees me,
Christ in every ear that hears me.

[Note that people sometimes pray a shorter version of this prayer just with these 15 lines about Christ above. The conclusion follows below.]

I arise today
Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,
Through belief in the Threeness,
Through confession of the Oneness
of the Creator of creation.

When St. Paul referred to putting on the “Armor of God” in his letter to the Ephesians (6:11) to fight sin and evil inclinations, he could have been thinking of prayers just like this one!

We may not wear combat gear in our daily lives, but St. Patrick's Breastplate can function as divine armor for protection against spiritual adversity every day of our lives.

What is Bloomsday?

noreply@blogger.com (Norma Margaret) — Thu, 16 Jun 2022 16:58:00 +0000

Bloomsday is June 16th--today and it is the day that is described minute by minute in the great novel written by James Joyce.

Today BLOOMSDAY is celebrated as a national and even international observance in Ireland and in many other countries. In Dublin the events follow the order and map described in the book and many readings are held at some of the places that Joyce memorialized in his telling. Joyce left Ireland and never returned, but spent his artistic life recreating the place and the manners of the people he had left behind.

Ironically, as Louis Menard reminds us,

“Ulysses” was never banned in Ireland. People there who hated the book weren’t simply offended by the obscenity. They didn’t like what they saw of themselves in it. George Bernard Shaw called the novel’s language “blackguardly,” and said that his own hand could never have formed the words. But he conceded that the book was a masterpiece. He, too, had been a young man in Dublin, and he recognized the city he had known. “ ‘Ulysses’ is a document,” he told a friend, “the outcome of a passion for documentation that is as fundamental as the artistic passion. . . . If a man holds up a mirror to your nature and shows you that it needs washing—not whitewashing—it is no use breaking the mirror.” As Joyce said when he was told that his aunt Josephine had refused to read the book, “If ‘Ulysses’ isn’t fit to read, life isn’t fit to live.”

Henry James, in an essay called “The Art of Fiction,” in 1884, said that in England and America people see more than they think it’s proper to say, and they say more than they think it’s proper to read. More than any other English writer, Joyce destroyed that decorum. He paid a terrible price for it.

How should we celebrate this milestone in human expression? Read some section of the novel, you could begin with the ending:

The ending of Ulysses.

No punctuation. Molly Bloom’s inner monologue as she lies in bed, waiting for Leopold to return to her. As you read it, the punctuation becomes clear.

Joyce had always been quite sure that he wanted to end the book in this manner, especially in regards to the last word. He said that after all the torment, after all the troubles of the day portrayed in the book, he wanted to end Ulysses on “the most positive word in the English language”.

the sun shines for you he said the day we were lying among the rhododendrons on Howth head in the grey tweed suit and his straw hat the day I got him to propose to me yes first I gave him the bit of seedcake out of my mouth and it was leapyear like now yes 16 years ago my God after that long kiss I near lost my breath yes he said I was a flower of the mountain yes so we are flowers all a womans body yes that was one true thing he said in his life and the sun shines for you today yes that was why I liked him because I saw he understood or felt what a woman is and I knew I could always get round him and I gave him all the pleasure I could leading him on till he asked me to say yes and I wouldnt answer first only looked out over the sea and the sky I was thinking of so many things he didnt know of Mulvey and Mr Stanhope and Hester and father and old captain Groves and the sailors playing all birds fly and I say stoop and washing up dishes they called it on the pier and the sentry in front of the governors house with the thing round his white helmet poor devil half roasted and the Spanish girls laughing in their shawls and their tall combs and the auctions in the morning the Greeks and the jews and the Arabs and the devil knows who else from all the ends of Europe and Duke street and the fowl market all clucking outside Larby Sharons and the poor donkeys slipping half asleep and the vague fellows in the cloaks asleep in the shade on the steps and the big wheels of the carts of the bulls and the old castle thousands of years old yes and those handsome Moors all in white and turbans like kings asking you to sit down in their little bit of a shop and Ronda with the old windows of the posadas glancing eyes a lattice hid for her lover to kiss the iron and the wineshops half open at night and the castanets and the night we missed the boat at Algeciras the watchman going about serene with his lamp and O that awful deepdown torrent O and the sea the sea crimson sometimes like fire and the glorious sunsets and the figtrees in the Alameda gardens yes and all the queer little streets and pink and blue and yellow houses and the rosegardens and the jessamine and geraniums and cactuses and Gibraltar as a girl where I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.

a slave is just a slave until he rises

noreply@blogger.com (Norma Margaret) — Mon, 02 May 2022 17:56:00 +0000

These brief remarka may give you a taste of this man's eloquence.

Frederick Douglas

Denouncing the Fugitive Slave Law

Here the renowned orator Frederic Douglas provides a view of the Fugitive Slave Law.

While you continue in the Union, you are as bad as the slaveholder. If you have thus wronged the poor black man, by stripping him of his freedom, how are you going to give evidence of your repentance? Undo what you have done. Do you say that the slave ought not to be free?

These hands are they not mine? This body is it not mine?

Again, I am your brother, white as you are. I’m your blood kin. You don’t get rid of me so easily. I mean to hold on to you.

And in this land of liberty, I’m a slave.

The twenty six States that blaze forth on your flag, proclaim a compact to return me to bondage if I run away, and keep me in bondage if I submit.

Wherever I go, under the aegis of your liberty, there I’m a slave.

If I go to Lexington or Bunker Hill, there I’m a slave, chained in perpetual servitude.

I may go to your deepest valley, to your highest mountain, I’m still a slave, and the bloodhound may chase me down.

The Martyrs of 1981

noreply@blogger.com (Norma Margaret) — Thu, 31 Mar 2022 20:06:00 +0000

In 1981 Ten invincible Irish men used the weapon of HUNGER STRIKE and changed the History of England and Ireland and became Martyrs in an old cause.

According to Alizeh Kohari of BBC News, Hunger strikes have been staged for political reasons throughout history.

One of the first recorded is in ancient Indian scriptures, which talk of the brother of the exiled King Rama using the threat of a fast to coax him into returning. He placed himself on a bundle of sacred grass at his feet and refused to budge.

On this occasion the "hunger strike" failed. But the concept persisted - indeed, in pre-Christian Ireland, it was part of the legal system. If a man felt wronged by you and starved himself to death on your doorstep, you had to bear the burden of his debts.

Unlike other protests, a hunger strike has no direct effect on the intended target. The protester suffers, not the person protested against. The protester relies on the moral force of their actions, or the publicity value, to achieve something.

The idea of hunger as political protest has experienced a renaissance in the recent past, says Prof Sharman Apt Russell, author of Hunger: An Unnatural History.

It was revived by the suffragettes in the UK at the beginning of the 20th Century. In July 1909, when a doctor asked jailed suffragette Marion Wallace-Dunlop what she would eat for dinner, she replied in defiance: "My determination." It has become an established cultural form of seeking justice in the 20th Century," says Prof Russell. She warns that a hunger strike needs the oxygen of publicity but interest will wane if the cause at stake does not withstand public scrutiny. Hunger strikes have been used by both violent and non-violent movements, and some have been more successful than others at bringing about change. Michael Biggs, a sociologist at the University

of Oxford, says some of the most successful cases were Irish republicans fighting the British state. Thomas Ashe, killed during forcible feeding in Dublin in 1917, Terence MacSwiney, starved to death in London in 1920,

and Bobby Sands, starved to death. in Long Kesh in 1981

"These did not immediately bring concessions from the state. But they had a huge impact on the Irish public, both by shifting people towards Irish republicanism and by inflaming the emotions of those already committed to the cause.

"They also undermined support for the British state's policy among a portion of the British public."

In an international publicity coup, Sands was elected as an MP while on hunger strike and his funeral in Belfast was attended by at least 70,000 people.

Biggs says the hunger strikes by suffragettes in Britain "similarly gained media attention and enhanced the commitment of supporters" but the vote came later and arguably owed more to women's service in World War I.

Gandhi was a supreme practitioner of non-violent protest, he says, and the use of his methods by millions of Indians was very effective in undermining British rule in India.

He says the current protest by Indian campaigner Anna Hazare, who went on hunger strike in April to demand stringent anti-corruption laws, is different because it is occurring outside prison.

"While many people outside prison have gone on fasts for a time, it is almost unknown for someone to actually starve to death outside prison.

"In prison, there's really no other means of protest. And in prison the government is clearly responsible for your life/death and so can be blamed if you die."

Former IRA hunger striker Tommy McKearney says prisoners are limited in what they can do.

"So many things in a prisoner's life are dictated by their captors. We had three years of protests and did everything we could think of to bring a resolution but we needed make or break action."

The 58-year-old, who was serving time for the murder of part-time UDR soldier Stanley Adams, was part of the first wave of hunger strikers in 1980. They wanted the then Conservative government to give them back political prisoner status.

He says there was no master plan, with a "hunger strike as the grandstand final flourish".

"We didn't set out with the objective of dying but we were prepared to die.

"People who do it have a deep commitment, it's not a game to be played with. Only the cause will get you through."

In the case of the 1981 Hunger Strike, the prison conditions could have operated as a safety valve. A sophisticated British government could have defused the situation quite easily and avoided a confrontation between itself as unyielding colonial power and a group of defenseless political prisoners, which is how it largely came to be seen internationally. The first hunger strike having ended, they would not have been acting under duress if they had allowed for some new arrangements on the specifics of prison conditions. But as the prisoners pressed for a second hunger strike they knew that this time not only would some of them have to die but also that they were engaging in a fight with the British government. It went beyond the issue of prison conditions; they were pitching themselves, with the only weapons at their command, against the imperial power. As they faced the prospect of death they felt that the spectacle of their deaths in prison was going to be politically productive for the republican cause to which they were committed.

Hunger strike is unlike any other form of struggle. An IRA volunteer does not go out to get killed, if he gets killed it is because he makes a mistake or some other circumstances arises. But a hunger striker embarks on a process, which from day one is designed to end in his death. However, when people contemplate their own deaths there can be no guarantee that they will go through with it to the end. It takes a very particular kind of person to go all the way, to resist the voices in his own head, the concern of friends and family, not to mention the pressures of the authorities. It is extremely difficult to know, until one is staring death right in the face, whether one is that particular kind of person.

For Sands and for those who would come later, the strike would not really be about the five demands, political status, or the legitimacy of the movement and the armed struggle; it was to pit the will of the just against the power of empire. For the republican to win the British would have only to take his life, would have only to refuse to act and thus show their shame. And he was sure that Britain would act to character, hold firm, and so lose a moral struggle.

This was to the strikers a great moral struggle between Irish justice and British oppression that would be so recognized only when life was given and taken. The criminals would be revealed not by a declaration by Thatcher, not by the courts or judges, but by a trial of spirit within the H-block cells by men alone with their faith. Hughes and the others might not recognize the inevitable, but from the first Sands did.

The strikers were seen by many as Catholic martyrs as well as nationalist ones. The nation's history of denial and suffering because they were Catholic and Irish was recalled and refashioned. Irish nationals and Catholics perceived the strike as a traditional response to power displayed and deployed.

WHY PLAYWRIGHT ?

noreply@blogger.com (Norma Margaret) — Sat, 26 Mar 2022 15:23:00 +0000

WHY PLAYWRIGHT INSTEAD OF PLAYWRITE?

Many people think of playwrights as writers. As people who sit alone in a room cranking out plays to be performed onstage. It's easy to see why. But the reality is that playwrights usually need to be more hands-on than an essayist or novelist.

Other have pointed out that the word "playwright" calls to mind a trade like being a "shipwright"--someone who builds ships. Similarly, playwrights don't necessarily write a play so much as wright one--build it. It's not a purely intellectual process, but one that benefits from physical sensations and emotions.

In other words: from acting.

There's a reason why so many of our most celebrated playwrights were also actors. Because learning how to inhabit a character, and being responsible for bringing a written scene to life, teaches you a whole lot about how to write better scenes in the first place.

So with that in mind, here are some of the most important acting tips that are relevant to playwrights:

1) Know your "moment before."

Anytime a character enters a scene, they've just come from somewhere, and that previous moment determines how they feel (and act) at the beginning of the scene.

Has your character just run a marathon? Just had their first kiss? Just lost their job?

Those previous moments will color the scene greatly, and it pays to know what each character's "moment before" is for every scene you write.

2) Know your character's goal.

Drama consists of conflict. And in order for there to be conflict, your characters have to want something. And they have to be actively trying to get that thing in the scene.

Without a goal, an actor doesn't know how to play a scene. They won't know what their subtext is (the meaning behind their words).

The most explosive scenes usually have two or more characters who both want opposing things--a wife wants to accept a job, her husband wants her to decline it; a child wants to go to the park, the babysitter wants to stay home; and so on.

3) Know your character's motivation.

Motivation is related to goal, but it's not the same thing.

The goal is WHAT your character wants.

Motivation is WHY they want it.

The easiest way to find your character's goal is to ask yourself:

"What will happen if they fail to achieve their goal?"

The answer to that question will give you your character's stakes.

If you notice that the stakes are too low, that could contribute to a less-than-dramatic scene. Try increasing the stakes to give your characters more motivation. Stronger motivation means they'll be willing to take more risks to achieve that goal, which will make for a more interesting scene.

High Court Justice Ajit Singh Bains

noreply@blogger.com (Norma Margaret) — Sat, 26 Feb 2022 00:45:00 +0000

"God blesses those who hunger and thirst for justice, for they will be satisfied." Matthew 5:6

A great judicial figure has died; having lived for more than a century. Ajit Singh Bains lived a full life serving the people.

He served in the Army during the Second World War. The eldest son, Ajit Singh set high standards for his siblings especially in the areas of education. He completed his undergraduate studies at Jullundhur Khalsa College. He also taught there for a short time but was denied tenure because of his Communist sympathies.

His father, Gurbakhsh Singh,(CPI) who had been tortured during years of imprisonment by the British as a political prisoner and was Sarpanch of Mahilpur, Punjab until his death. Ajit Singh was proud of his courageous father.

He decided to continue his education by attending Lucknow University to earn his law degree. As a lawyer Ajit Singh took up many controversial cases especially those concerning Human Rights. He became well known for his high principles and his refusal of any attempts to influence his judgements.

In fact, when he made a decision against a case brought by Chief Minister Beant Singh, a man who was later found guilty of causing the death of 25,000 citizens, he was sentenced to Prison. Beant Singh was murdered by bombs carried by two men who were later declared National Martyrs.

Throughout Ajit Singh's long and productive life of service to the Indian courts, he maintained close and affectionate family ties.

His unflagging emphasis on the importance of education is reflected in the distinguished careers of his younger siblings, especially his illustrious brothers: Yashdip Singh, Shakespearean scholar and Hardial Singh, scientist and Communist leader.

His sons and his grandchildren have continued with distinguished careers in the Law..

May his people remember him.

HE HAS LEFT A PROUD LEGACY

The USE OF HUNGER STRIKES IN IRISH HISTORY

noreply@blogger.com (Norma Margaret) — Mon, 10 Jan 2022 22:43:00 +0000

Hunger Strikes and Self-Sacrifice

Hunger striking as means of obtaining social or economic redress or as a method of political confrontation has a plotted, yet discernible, history in Ireland.

While the phenomenon is not peculiar to Irish politics, the country did witness one of the largest hunger strike protests of the 20^th century.

In October 1923, more than 8000 political prisoners, opposed to the 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty, went on hunger strike. Two prisoners died before the protest was called to an end.

Although it can be demonstrated that the phenomenon of hunger striking is widely used as a means of political protest, particularly so with the last twenty-five years, it is equally valid to suggest that the hunger strike is an integral part of Irish history and mythology.

Thus for the Irish, especially the northern Catholic republicans, the hunger strike, linked as it is to religio-political martyrdom and the pantheon of Irish heroes, is another means, possibly a weapon of last resort, of those nurturing a sense of oppression and frustrated in their attempts to resist.

There is a long history of hunger strikes in Ireland

In fact using hunger strikes as a method of protests in Ireland can be traced to the island's pre-Christian era when there was a strong tradition of oral legal codes. These codes were known as the Brehon laws (derived from the Gaelic brithem meaning' judge').

For the people of ancient Ireland, self-help was the only means to enforce a claim or right a wrong within the context of the Brehon laws. A frequent method of redress was for the aggrieved party to shame the oppressor by literally starving slowly and publicly at his gate.

In more modern times the hunger strikes were directed against both the British government (1913-22) and the Irish Free State authorities (1923).

Many of these hunger strikes were protests against prison conditions and the treatment of the prisoners. Other protests were more politically organized and centered on demands for political status or were means of dissent against perceived unjust imprisonment. In general the protests lasted for a few days but many, particularly the politically motivated, lasted for much longer. Some went on for seventy-six days, and while many prisoners negotiated settlements with the authorities or were unconditionally released, others, more determined, were forcibly fed. Seven prisoners died as a result of hunger strikes during this period.

Against the setting of the now immortal and near-mythical 1916 Rising, the hunger strike became a weapon of extraordinary potency in Ireland. It was to become linked to militant republicanism along with Arthur Griffith's Sinn Fein party, a movement opposed to the use of physical force prior to 1916, which was deliberately and wrongfully blamed by the British for what was officially called 'the Sinn Fein rebellion.'

In May 1916, sixty-five Irishmen, including de Valera, who had been convicted as rebels, were imprisoned in Dartmoor. For disobeying prison rules the Irish Prisoners were given extra punishment. De Valera went on hunger strike against this punishment, ending it when the punishment was withdrawn.

Despite his participation in the hunger strike, de Valera was uncertain of its propaganda value against the on-going drama provided by the First World War. In a letter to fellow prisoners, de Valera, writing from his Dartmoor cell early in 1917, said:

You may be tempted to hunger strike. As a body do not attempt it whilst the war lasts unless you were assured from the outside that the death of two or three of you would help the cause. As soldiers I know you would not shrink from the sacrifice, but remember how precious a human life is.

Before the year was through, and after the release of Irish rebels from British jails, the propaganda value of death by hunger strike became very clear to the Republican movement. This means of protest and confrontation had proved to be an efficient political weapon. Irish deaths by hunger strike transfigured not only the perceived sacrificial victims but, in the eyes of many ordinary people, the cause for which they died.

LET US REMEMBER HOW PRECIOUS A HUMAN LIFE IS.

Writing Through to Write your Masterpiece

noreply@blogger.com (Norma Margaret) — Mon, 27 Dec 2021 02:36:00 +0000

THE FIELD THEORY OF CREATIVITY

George Bernard Shaw talked about the “field theory” of creativity, borrowing a term from physics.

Good ideas do not exist alone but in a larger field of imagination.

As a young man Shaw wrote five novels. Can you name one?

Shaw had to work through his novelist phase before he could arrive, in his late thirties, as a playwright.

Shaw believed in productivity — just keep writing, was his advice to everyone.

Norma Jenckes, a Shaw scholar at the University of Cincinnati, says Shaw’s attitude was that “you had to write yourself through all sorts of things, and then something might become your masterpiece.”

Geniuses work hard. They’re prodigious. They can’t stop themselves from churning out work.

Thomas Edison couldn’t stop inventing. Joyce Carol Oates can’t stop writing.

Shaw published 55 plays.

Milton Avery spewed paintings by the museum-load; when asked how he got inspiration, he said by going to the studio every day.

No piece of writing is wasted. Even if you don't like it when it's finished. At least you wrote it. Now it is no longer clogging your brain. It is out there; it made room for the next idea to surface.

You have cleared the way to write something else

When I wrote my first play in the 1990s, I showed it to the great playwright, EDWARD ALBEE.

He was teaching in our department and we had become friends,

He read it and said, "Good NOW WRITE TEN MORE."

Then he added "But this will get you into YADDO and it did!

Byron's Ode to the Ocean

noreply@blogger.com (Norma Margaret) — Fri, 24 Dec 2021 00:57:00 +0000

George Gordon Byron

I fell in love with Lord Byron when i was only six years old.

I loved his address to the sea.

In fact every year I recited it as I entered the ocean for the first time each summer.

I adored his good looks

and I must admit that I took collections of his work from the Pawtucket Public Library and cut the image of him that was often the first page of the collection.

I put those pictures on my bedroom wall.

He was to me the most handsome of men.

Also I knew many of his shorter poems by heart.

I often chose Byron as the poet to read aloud and talk about in those weekly poetry sessions with my mother.

I recited my favorite

the verse "They know not I knew thee, who knew the too well.

Long , long will I rue thee too deeply to tell.

If I should meet you after long years,

how would I greet thee? In silence and tears."

believe it or not

seventy years after I first read those lines, on this night, I am writing them down from memory, I did not condescend to check their accuracy.

You,dear reader, may have that pleasure.

HERE IS WHAT I CHANTED TO THE OCEAN--

"Roll on, Thou..."

(From “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage”, Canto the Second, CLXXIX.)

Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean – roll!
Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain;
Man marks the earth with ruin – his control
Stops with the shore; -- upon the watery plain
The wrecks are all thy deed, not does remain
A shadow of man’s ravage, save his own,
When for a moment, like a drop of rain,
He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan,
Without a grave, unknell’d, uncoffin’d, and unknown.

And I have loved thee, Ocean! and my joy

Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be

Borne like thy bubbles, onward: from a boy

I wantoned with thy breakers—they to me
Were a delight; and if the freshening sea
Made them a terror—’twas a pleasing fear,
For I was as it were a child of thee,
And trusted to thy billows far and near,

And laid my hand upon thy mane—as I do here

TO ACCEPT WHAT IS--THE TERRIBLE BEAUTY OF REALITY

noreply@blogger.com (Norma Margaret) — Wed, 17 Nov 2021 23:15:00 +0000

The IDEA THAT YEATS WROTE ABOUT OF "A TERRIBLE BEAUTY

Kaira Jewel Lingo, a former Buddhist nun in Thich Nhat Hanh’s Plum Village community in France, reflects on coming to terms with the unpredictable challenges of life:

In the Buddha’s most essential teaching of the Four Noble Truths, he shares his discovery that suffering is a part of life, and there is no escape from it. This is the first Noble Truth and acknowledging it can help us to suffer less. If we can accept where we are, and not judge the disruption in our life as wrong or bad, we can touch great freedom. This is because fighting what is doesn’t actually work. As the saying goes, “whatever we resist persists.”. . .

Thay [Thich Nhath Hanh] often said, “A true practitioner isn’t someone who doesn’t suffer, but someone who knows how to handle their suffering.” We could say that the measure of our accomplishment or success is not that our life has no ups and downs, but that we can surf the waves!

This attitude of acceptance is freeing when we apply it not only to our personal suffering but also to the suffering in the world. Once, as a young nun, when I was practicing a classic Plum Village guided meditation, I came to the final exercise, “Breathing in, I dwell in the present moment; breathing out, I know this is a wonderful moment.” Suddenly I found myself stuck when I did this practice, questioning how we could truly affirm it was “a wonderful moment” with all the violence, hatred, inequality, and preventable tragedies that are happening in the present moment all over the world. . . .

I sat in the question of it and began to see that along with all the suffering and pain, there are also many beings that are supporting others in the present moment. There are many hearts of compassion, opening to relieve suffering, to care for others, to teach, to show a different way. There are people who are courageous and standing up for what they believe is right, protecting our oceans, cleaning rivers and beaches, advocating for those who are oppressed. There are those in every corner of the planet who are quietly doing the things no one else wants to do: caring for the forgotten people, places, species, and doing what needs to be done.

When I focused on that other part of the larger picture, I was able to touch that, yes, this present moment is also a wonderful moment. I saw that suffering doesn’t have to disappear in order for beauty to be there. That life is about all of these things. . . . The reality is that there is great terror and pain, and there is great love and great wisdom. They’re all here, coexisting in this moment.

Here's how Yeats applied this idea to the Easter Rising of 1916

I write it out in verse –

MacDonagh and MacBride

And Connolly and Pearse

Now and in time to be,

Wherever green is worn,

Are changed, changed utterly:

A terrible beauty is born

Hunger Strike Memorial

noreply@blogger.com (Norma Margaret) — Mon, 08 Nov 2021 23:49:00 +0000

Here is a picture of the only American monument to Hunger Strike Leader Bobby Sands. It is in a traffic circle in Hartford ,

It is a very solemn and dignified monument. It is the only one in this country.

The three words below the name and year of death can be translated 'Our time will come,"

Tiocfaidh Ár Lá (our time will come) This is a slogan of the Provisional IRA and it has become a kind of mantra since the Good Friday Agreement. Over one hundred years have passed since the Partition of Ireland. When will Ireland the entire island be a Nation Once again?

That is a question I ask myself every day. Why can't we have a monument like this Hartford one in Rhode Island?