Not everyone is safe and free

Here are some questions for women who are in a relationship with a man.

Can you answer ‘yes’ to these questions?

1. I trust this man 100%
2. He respects me totally without a doubt
3. He’s always honest and I feel completely safe to be honest with him
4. He definitely respects my privacy
5. I feel totally free to be myself round him anywhere anytime
6. I adamantly feel safe with him – always

Be honest with yourself.

If you answered ‘no’ to these questions – it is very probable you are with a man that is engaged in a slow process of gaining more and more emotional control over you and your life.

With thanks to Clare Murphy, link here.

Jack of Hearts

In memoriam Jack Yates  - December 16 1923 - October 15th 2012.

Mischievous, funny, immensely talented,original and prolific. A gifted artist who was ‘like a variety show performer’.

For me his work encompassed the bold graphics of German expressionism mixed with a wistful humour and a touch of cool sixties flower child-meets Andy Warhol. Beautiful colours, dramatic, powerful.

One of my favourites below.



Obituary here



Everything is nothing

My last post was about reality and perception, and last night I finished a book which dealt with, among other things, the loss of sense perception. This is a quote from it that seems to me to encapsulate the frustrating nature of our consciousness, bound to and limited by the senses and their subjective impressions, aware of itself but so rarely able to step outside of itself, and terrified of its own impending extinction at the point of death.

 

 

"There are moments when I cannot bear this unremitting consciousness. It knows only itself. The images of things are not the things in themselves. Awake, I  am in a continuum with my dreams. I feel my typewriters, my table, my chair to have that assurance of a solid world, where things take up space, where there is not the endless emptiness of insubstantial thought that leads to nowhere but itself. My memories pale as I prevail upon them again and again. They become more and more ghostly. I fear nothing so much as losing them altogether and having only my blank endless mind to live in. ...how awful is this awareness that is irremediably aware of itself."
"Homer and Langley", E.L.Doctorow, 2009



  "Personal Values", Rene Magritte  (1951-2)

Sense perception and reality

This is such an amazing essay, clear and (for the subject matter) concise, and written in simple no-fuss terminology. I haven't finished it yet, but am really enjoying it, though once the diagrams started I found it a bit offputting as reminded me of school maths and geometry!

Anyway, here's the link

and a quote............."There are three essential points that need to be understood when trying to understand the universe we perceive. The first is that what we see varies with the sensory apparatus used to make the observation. The second is that it is not possible to get past the veil of perception to see things how they are; if there is any particular way that they are. The third is that there is no special or standard or normal means of or conditions of observation that can show us how things really are. If there is any special or single way things are, it is not available to us. One problem with many arguments about our perception of the universe is that they assume we can somehow know how things really are, when this is in fact impossible."

"Sense Perception and Reality", Rochelle Forrester, 2002 

 



Relativity by M.C. Escher

Nothing as lovely as a tree

Nelson Eddy sings "Trees", music by Oscar Rasbach

TREES

 Joyce Kilmer 1914

I think  that I shall never see

A poem lovely as a tree.

 

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest

Against the earth's sweet flowing breast;

 

A tree that looks at God all day,

And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

 

A tree that may in Summer wear

A nest of robins in her hair;

 

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;

Who intimately lives with rain.

 

Poems are made by fools like me,

But only God can make a tree.

Perchance to dream

“Why don't we dream when we are awake?". I would suggest that being 'awake' is when we dream best and continuously. Assuming the world, external to ourselves, exists, then the only access we have to it is through sense data. This stream of nerve impulses, which passes from our sensory receptors to our brain, cannot be said to represent, nor to be analagous to, those events which occur 'out there'. We can only assume that the brain 'fabricates' an image, of external reality, which serves to allow us to interact with it. It is this process of 'fabrication' that I would suggest is no more, or less, than dreaming. The real question is, "Why do we dream when we are asleep?".

Terence Walls, Science of dreams

source

The Persistence of Memory, Salvador Dali, 1931

Global Noise protests

from today's Guardian, UK

Today am feeling sad looking at the photos of the protesters in Spain and Mexico and Venice, bashing pots and pans against the austerity measures. So clearly and patently unjust and disgusting, that bankers and corporations destroy the economy, not to mention the environment, and the ordinary public have to pick up the bill for getting it back on track, if that is actually what the austerity measures are about at all, seems just as likely that they’re just a means of further squashing down the populace, removing more basic safeguards and increasingly destroying hope and the willpower to stand up for ourselves.

Bang a pot for freedom and justice, it’s heartbreaking, we’re so fragile and easily crushed, and they’re so brutal.

Rise and Shine

 

There’s plenty for everyone here. The technology to transform the world into a garden of delight is here. The wisdom and intelligence to order and maintain harmony and parity for all is here. It’s all here. It’s all within you, dreaming of the opportunity to awaken into reality and replace the sad legacy that has dogged our heels from time out of memory.

“Visible” (blogger), from source

Everything is broken

Just look at us, everything is backwards; everything is upside down. Doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, governments destroy freedom the major media destroys information and religion destroys spirituality.
Michael Ellner

Songs of Freedom

My last few posts have been song recordings and lyrics (at least for laptop and desktop users – not working yet on Ipads and mobiles – will try to remedy soon!).  After starting off with quotes and then intermingling images that encapsulated what seemed important to me, I realised of course that music is the ultimate form of communication, with its power to move the listener. Anyway then of course a whole stream of songs have come to mind, so far protest songs but I have more I want to put on here that are not so overtly political.

Not sure how long I will continue in this vein for but for now it feels right, so more to follow.

Huge thanks to podcasters and posters and other audio-savvy people who have put these songs online – I’ve used mp3.rapidlibrary.com for all the songs so far, a brilliant free resource.

The Death of Emmett Till

Click play to hear the song

 

Twas down in Mississippi no so long ago,
When a young boy from Chicago town stepped through a Southern door.
This boy's dreadful tragedy I can still remember well,
The color of his skin was black and his name was Emmett Till. 
Some men they dragged him to a barn and there they beat him up.
They said they had a reason, but I can't remember what.
They tortured him and did some evil things too evil to repeat.
There was screaming sounds inside the barn, there was laughing sounds out on the street. 
Then they rolled his body down a gulf amidst a bloody red rain
And they threw him in the waters wide to cease his screaming pain.
The reason that they killed him there, and I'm sure it ain't no lie,
Was just for the fun of killin' him and to watch him slowly die. 
And then to stop the United States of yelling for a trial,
Two brothers they confessed that they had killed poor Emmett Till.
But on the jury there were men who helped the brothers commit this awful crime,
And so this trial was a mockery, but nobody seemed to mind. 
I saw the morning papers but I could not bear to see
The smiling brothers walkin' down the courthouse stairs.
For the jury found them innocent and the brothers they went free,
While Emmett's body floats the foam of a Jim Crow southern sea. 
If you can't speak out against this kind of thing, a crime that's so unjust,
Your eyes are filled with dead men's dirt, your mind is filled with dust.
Your arms and legs they must be in shackles and chains, and your blood it must refuse to flow,
For you let this human race fall down so God-awful low! 

This song is just a reminder to remind your fellow man
That this kind of thing still lives today in that ghost-robed Ku Klux Klan.
But if all of us folks that thinks alike, if we gave all we could give,
We could make this great land of ours a greater place to live.

Words and Music by Bob Dylan
1963, 1968 Warner Bros. Inc
Renewed 1991 Special Rider Music

Strange Fruit

Southern trees bear strange fruit,
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze,
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.

Pastoral scene of the gallant south,
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,
Scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh,
Then the sudden smell of burning flesh.

Here is the fruit for the crows to pluck,
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,
For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop,
Here is a strange and bitter crop.

Abel Meeropol, 1936

The really famous version of this is sung by Billie Holiday and is electrifying.

Still I think this Robert Wyatt version is powerful and different so I have put it on here.

Most people know the story of the song, but for anyone who doesn’t, it was written by Abel Meeropol, a white Jewish high-school teacher from the Bronx, in response to his horror at the racist lynchings in America at that time and in particular after seeing a photograph of a lynching.

Music of the Spheres

The Galaxy song, Eric Idle, 1989    Click to play the song

It might seem like there isn’t much to laugh at sometimes, with humanity’s brutality, cruelty and stupidity, war, famine, greed, exploitation, violence, hate.

But if you can laugh, if you're lucky enough to still have that capacity, then it’s the great saviour really.

If there is a god, I think its voice is laughter. Not snide schadenfreude laughing at other people's misfortune laughter, not embarrassed fearful snickering, but great, shaking, tears running down the face, belly clutching, roaring laughter that won't be held back.  Helpless hilarity at the sheer idiocy and wrong headed unnecessary complicated stupidness of it all.

Anyway, Monty Python’s a bit dated now in some respects, but this song still hits the spot.

Dog's dinner

Leap of imagination

I believe in the power of the imagination to remake the world, to release the truth within us, to hold back the night, to transcend death, to charm motorways, to ingratiate ourselves with birds, to enlist the confidences of madmen.

J.G. Ballard, 1984

There's a bluebird in my heart

Himalayan Blue Poppy

Bluebird, by Charles Bukowski

There's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say, stay in there, I'm not going
to let anybody see you.
there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I pour whiskey on him and inhale
cigarette smoke
and the whores and the bartenders
and the grocery clerks
never know that
he's in there.

There's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say,
stay down, do you want to mess
me up?
You want to screw up the
works?
You want to blow my book sales in
Europe?
There's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too clever, I only let him out
at night sometimes
when everybody's asleep.
I say, I know that you're there,
so don't be sad.
Then I put him back,
but he's singing a little
in there, I haven't quite let him
die
and we sleep together like
that
with our
secret pact
and it's nice enough to
make a man
weep, but I don't weep, do
you?

Silence isn't golden

First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me.

Pastor Martin Niemoller, 1946

Let's work together

I view political activism as spiritual work. I believe in the fusion of outrage and compassion with responsible action, hopefully organised with other activists to achieve more joy, healing, creativity, and peace on Earth. I am appropriately outraged by systemic injustice and gross inhumanity.

That outrage isn't a form of hatred. It is a form of love. I love humanity and hope we can collectively work to become more humane, including by living sustainably with the Earth.

Julian Real, 2012

Girls just wanna have fun

Reality check

“Conventional thought is in brief, the confusion of the concrete universe of nature with the conceptual things, events and values of linguistic and cultural symbolism”

Beat Zen, Square Zen and Zen,  Alan Watts, 1960

Wake up call

“The true goal of human activity is the creation of a world wide community of awakened and intelligent creative persons, related by mutual insight and respect, and by the common task of fulfilling the potentiality of the human spirit on earth.”

Star Maker, Olaf Stapleton 1937

Charwoman Miaow

Un-sexy model

 

“Sexism is the foundation on which all tyranny is built. Every social form of hierarchy and abuse is modelled on male-over-female domination.”

Andrea Dworkin

Breakfast of champions

 

 

You cannot corral any aspect within your life, divorce its implications, whether it’s what you eat for breakfast or how you say good-bye.  

This is what integrity means.

None of us is perfect, or born with that integrity, but we can work toward it as a goal.

A Burst of Light: Essays by Audre Lorde, 1988