WELCOME TO JENRAY'S CELEBRATIONS AND THOUGHTS

Ghosts

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 20:02:05 +0200

Here's my poem for National Poetry day....

Ghosts.

Ghosts of yesteryear haunt the earth

Casualties of war's fought for causes

Few could properly fathom, apart from

Errors made by earlier politicians

As they sat in smoke filled rooms

To decide the future of the world,

And, in ignorance and pride, signed

Treaties doomed to failure, and then

Went home to let the generations

Still to come reap the fruits of their

Decisions. Ever it was, ever will be,

When we place our trust in people who

Believe war is a solution to a problem.

Red poppies sodden in the blood of

parent's sons and daughters cry out

‘Enough, enough, enough of us have died,

if you must remember the dead, at least

do it with deep remorse that you threw

away our lives, it's time to learn

a new path, negotiation, co-operation,

understanding, and the way of peace.

Take care, lest your deaf ears ignore

Our plea, the next great war won't

Be the same as those gone by in which

We died. The Third one will be the one

To end all Wars, and with it, all of you.

Hold your poppies in your hands, and

See your loved ones scattered far and wide

Born on the nuclear winds, and keep

In mind our words when so hard we tried

To warn you, as you sow, so shall you reap.

Great big hugs to one and all....

Comments

Retirement

Wed, 07 Oct 2009 21:18:45 +0200

Hi to everybody...jotted down this little poem this afternoon...

Retirement

A time to pause, to reflect, to ponder
the past, the present and the future.
A time for relaxing, playing, beginning
a new phase of a life three score or more.

A time to let go of cares, worries, concerns,
to gather up the treasures in your mind.
A time to contemplate the meaning
and the purpose of your being.

A time to share, to dream, to journey
far and wide, or close to home.
A time of leisure, pleasure and delight
that freedom from work endows.

A time to find peace in mind and heart
and serenity after years of toil.
A time to recall briefly in the autumn
of your life a time when all will cease.

A time to retire from the daily grind
is a gift, not to be wasted with regrets.
A time recalled with joyful recognition
where two hearts can stroll together as one.

*****

Great big hugs to one and all...

Comments

Sex in Time

Sun, 04 Oct 2009 12:41:37 +0200

Hi to everybody...here's another one of my poems written a while back now...

Sex in Time

Sex, when we were young, was a passionate,
sweaty, energetic affair.
We rolled and moaned, entangled our bodies
in embraces from the Karma Sutra,
and gave and received love’s seminal fluids
as life poured forth its seed.

Our bodies were supple, our limbs smooth,
our energy boundless whenever
the urge to unite sent spasms of pleasure
to groins tight with desire.
Then velvet silk walls of pulsating flesh held firm
a rod which strained to please.

In time the passion eased, partly because of
fatigue and countless interruptions
from the fruit of the early couplings, and
the strain of sleep lost nights.
But, in the stolen moments when love made its
demands, sexual satisfaction was achieved.

Over the years general worries, physical
disease, combined with natural ageing,
have cause our bodies to no longer heave
with erotic expectation, but to take
a more gentle joy in pleasing one another,
and satisfying our mutual needs.

Who know when those needs will cease
to stir desire in either one of us,
but, while the fire can still be fanned and
passions rise like a phoenix from the ashes,
so will our bodies merge in sexual union
and, for a moment, pulsate as one.

******

Great big hugs to one and all...

Comments

Home

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 15:14:10 +0200

Hi to everybody...here's another one of my poems...

Home

Bricks and mortar build a shelter
but does it make a home?
Precious objects decorate the walls
and fill the empty spaces.
Furniture and carpets add a touch
of comfort for the body,
but do these constitute a home?

These materials build a dream,
a hope for security from harm.
Provide a sanctuary in a world
torn apart with strife and pain.
They are the building blocks
of safety into which their occupants
retreat and call a house a home.

But a house is just a house
when all is said and done.
And its contents are just contents
when viewed with open eyes.
So what makes a home to call your own
seem the answer to a dream,
when, clearly, in our world, it’s not.

All too frequently, a house
hides a multitude of sins.
It presents a public image
of domestic harmony and bliss.
But, should the façade crumble,
and the pain inside be seen,
then it’s clear a house is not a home.

So where lies the dream of home
that dominates our lives?
It can only be inside our selves,
not built by human hands outside.
In the centre of our being
where meets the body, mind and heart,
there lies our real and only dwelling.

This true and only home can
seem like a prison for some.
If there are wounds unhealed in time,
then few are welcomed in.
Only when these are cauterised by love
will their doors be opened wide, and,
in the healing, make a place for others.

‘Home is where the heart is’
is a wise and ancient adage.
It makes fools of those who
rely on only bricks and mortar.
Sadly, so many hearts have fallen
on the battlefield called home,
not many now believe it, but it’s true.

In the heart lies undying love,
the source of all our hope.
In the heart lies unfailing faith
the source of all our strength,
and, from its depths, a dream is born
which every heart embraces that, one day,
love will make a home in us forever.

*****

Great big hugs to one and all...

Comments

Abuse

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 14:27:01 +0200

Hi to everybody...this is a very heavy poem written a long time ago now but one that is probably as relevant today as it was in the past in some sad cases...

Abuse

Walls enclosing fear and pain
keep what’s in from escaping.
Bleak, the perspective of the used.
Whatever childlike joy was there,
fled before the touch of hands that
abused sacred places, and brought
to nought all whispered protests.
Pleas for the cessation of each
violation fell on deafened ears
intent upon satisfying an urge
for power by gratifying sexual lust
on a body too small for a man’s desire.
The demand to act in ways not known
before became a source of agony not joy,
as could have been, in time, when love
was present, but it was absent then,
and always will be, in those stolen times
when innocence dies.

The abuse of trust echoes down
the corridors of time, bringing in its wake
a great tide of human stress and pain.
Every child born deserves to be loved,
holding as it does, the future in its care.
Let’s build a better one by learning trust
again, despite the betrayals of the past.
Hope relies on its affirmation, and the ending
of abuse can only bring to birth a finer,
happier, and more peaceful earth, and lay
to rest the ghosts of those who did not
survive their own cruel and tragic use.

****

Great big hugs to one and all....

Comments

Sensitivity

Thu, 10 Sep 2009 16:17:39 +0200

Hi to everybody...here's a poem close to my heart..HLOL...
Sensitivity

To be born with a missing skin
is a very painful condition.
Every trivial remark becomes
enormous in dimension.
If a comment sounds unkind,
it undergoes distortion,
and a wind-up or joke assumes
a gargantuan proportion.

In a world where words can kill,
it’s a most unfortunate state.
All that can be done when stricken
is retreat to let the pain abate.
The stress of this severe disorder
has a side-effect of hate,
and an anger burning up inside
which nothing can alleviate.

Once the barb has taken flight,
it pierces every pore.
Round and round it ricochets
until it’s reached the core.
There, in brooding menace,
it sows its deadly spore,
and, with relish, waits for you
to start another war.

Fortunately for the deliverer,
the harm is rarely seen.
Rarely do the wounded
display their inner spleen.
Instead, they tear themselves
apart rather than be mean,
and would never want another
to see how hurt they’d been.

It’s lousy being so sensitive
when trying to survive.
But, there is another side,
It makes one feel alive.
The war, since always fought alone,
means that one can derive
the greatest satisfaction when,
finally, peace does arrive.

******

Great big hugs to one and all...

Comments

Friends

Tue, 08 Sep 2009 19:56:31 +0200

Hi to everybody...a smile and a tear here...
Friends

When my friends were in need
did I take heed? Oh yes
I would quieten all their fears
provide tissue for their tears
as they poured out all their woe
and told me they've never been so low
the hours would go quite fast
as they blurted out their past
and present problems in my ears
and I would listen as their years
sped through my brain and when
it was all out they'd have a cup of tea
and take their leave of me.

Now I am in need who takes heed
suddenly my friends are no where
to be seen if they had been
maybe they could quieten all my fears
provide tissues for my tears and
tell of time's healing as they know how
I'm feeling but their absence is clear
they don't want to be near
when death knocks on your door
and leaves you reeling on the floor
after the sorrow and the tears
they leave and you don't see them for years.

If I sound angry and bitter
it's a lie I'm just holding onto my
sense of humour and destroying the rumour
that my friends are hoping
I'm coping but no they've got
so much to do and it's just their lot
that today it's the shopping tomorrow
the dog and they can't drive in the fog
so I'll light up a cig and watch
the moon as it's full in June and
if I can laugh when left alone
I'll be able to answer the door or the
phone with a smile should they
come back in a while.

*****

Great big hugs to one and all...

Comments

What a bummer

Mon, 07 Sep 2009 11:29:42 +0200

Hi to everybody...here's another humorous poem with a serious side too...LOL...

What a bummer

Cells respond to time,
Inside, they’re all committing suicide!

What a trip to take.

We’re born a mass of unfulfilled potential.
Then, before we’ve had chance to wake,
a code kicks in to stem the tide,
and becomes increasingly influential.

‘You have a limited span of life,’
it tells each and every cell.

‘There must be some mistake!’
you can hear them yell.

‘No, no error in our data.
Go and live for goodness sake.’

What a bummer to be born
with the grim reaper
out to get us sooner or later.

It’s enough to kill the will
to survive for just a day
when all your cells are looking
for the nearest cliff or rope.

In a particular case like this,
if the spur to life is hope,
then ignorance really is bliss.

*****

Great big hugs to one and all...

Comments

Love

Sun, 06 Sep 2009 14:15:05 +0200

Hi to everybody...here's one of my favourite poems...
Love

For a moment in time a taste
of the divine enters our lives
through the eyes of a child.
With translucent skin and
eyes aglow, he held my hand,
and the world around began
to recede as I was held
by his presence; the love
that flowed from that delicate
frame filled my body and
lifted my spirit to the heights
of delight that one so young
could hold so much power,
and, with a single glance,
make my whole world dance.
And our spirits were one
in that moment of time
when I beheld my son.

***

Great big hugs to one and all...

Comments

The Call Centre

Sat, 05 Sep 2009 13:07:23 +0200

Hi to everybody....here's a humorous one relevant I think to all call centre workers...and us who are forced to use them...

The Call Centre

Oh what a brave new world we live in.
We’re now in the age of computerisation.
Our programs are working, our faxes are on,
our phone lines open and we’re ready to run,
but where, of where, have our orders gone?

It should be so easy but, sadly, it’s not.
The whole damned scheme has gone to pot.
Errors and bugs keep invading the system,
and, try as we might, they will not stop
and, as for the orders, we keep losing them!

We say to the client, ‘we’re so very sorry
for the delay, but we’re trying our best to see
where your order went, but not for a while
because, at the moment, our screens are down
so we won’t be able to access your personal file.’

‘I know we told you that your order would be
delivered today, but, if you can bear with me,
I’ll try and explain that it’s certainly on its way,
I put it through to the stock room after your call,
so I can’t understand how it’s gone astray.’

‘I’ve just got through to the manager on the floor
and, I’m sorry to tell you, I know it’s a bore,
but we’re out of stock. There were plenty about
but, unfortunately, my screen only shows what
we sell, I didn’t know we were all sold out.’

‘Sir, Sir, you sound strange. Are you all right?
I know you’re angry, but you gave me a fright.
The gurgles and gasps drowned what you said.
Do you want to re-order or leave it for now?
Sir, I can’t hear. Oh, damn, the phone’s gone dead.

*****

Great big hugs to one and all...

Comments

The Political Arena

Fri, 04 Sep 2009 14:47:06 +0200

Hi to everybody...and yet another poem I found amongst my clear out...HLOL...only about three or four more to go... Again, this is strangely relevant today...or maybe sadly relevant...

The Political Arena

A smile hiding guile and subterfuge
beams out through paranoid eyes.
So much to hide, so many lies.
When will these questions stop?
They won’t, the questioner replies,
we always destroy the ones on top.

Those who think that they can lead
have problems with their egos.
The public who believe their lies
pay highly for being so unwise.
For those who see what’s hidden,
the price they pay is their demise.

The problem with all politicians
is that they cause a real dilemma.
If the people as a whole could recall
that every one is responsible for all,
then the need for them would cease,
and no one would be forced to fall.

A new way of living is almost dawning
as people rebel against a taste of hell.
The death of the world is conformity,
constant surveillance brings security,
but, at what a cost to the individual,
nothing less than the loss of liberty.

Nations give their leaders power
beyond their capacity to handle.
What’s needed now is renewal,
a rebirth of hope to act as fuel
to a smouldering ember of desire
for a better method of survival.

Only time will tell whether the will
exists to bring about this dream.
Torn asunder by the winds of war,
People shudder at what’s in store.
It’s time, they know, for healing,
to feed, clothe and house the poor.

It’s the only way to close the door
on want, on hunger, and despair.
It’s been made politically incorrect
to have pity on economies wrecked
by market forces bent on profit.
Only fools leave that unchecked.

In the polical arena all the parties
falter in the face of constant changes.
They perform their rhetoric on stage
to a world grown weary with age.
A warning, though, all of them know
That what’s on offer is just another cage.

The answer lies somewhere in between,
in responsible democracy, not anarchy.
The former’s never had a chance to bloom,
the latter’s far too dangerous to give it room.
If the answer can’t be found, and soon,
it won’t matter, the world will be a tomb.

*****

Great big hugs to one and all....

Comments

The local Department Store

Thu, 03 Sep 2009 11:00:09 +0200

Hi to everybody...here's the second one...wrote this while working in the shambolic, old fashioned local department store for eighteen months, around fourteen years old now...LOL....really infuriating...simple won't format it as I want it...it looks fine in the window and goes up with none of the formatting shown in the window!...you have to read the every other line to find the second poem... Sorry for having to explain that to you...

The Local Department Store

A miniature world:
The nucleus keeps electrons, neutrons and
its quarks
in a space held in time by units employed
as workers
The principle of uncertainty obliges all to
go round
in a vacuum never knowing why it must be
in circles
The matter, broken into segments, presented
as order
in a place where only disorder rules and law
fragments
The strong attracts the weak ceases to become
a reality
in the face of overwhelming odds a past world
is dying.
The future, doomed to entropy, conjures up
new dreams
in a fantasy of rebirth and the desired renewal
of life,
The star clothes its body in a last frantic burst
of energy
in an age grown old it turns to where new hopes
are born
And, with its remaining strength, refuses resolutely
to die.

****

Great big hugs to one and all....

Comments

Outlook

Thu, 03 Sep 2009 10:50:34 +0200

Hi to everybody...I wrote two poems that were two poems interlaced...not a cheerful poem but I think it worked quite well...here's one of them.

Outlook

Behind eyes that once saw a meaning

a shadow

has appeared from nowhere. It hovers

like a lost soul, searching for memories

of its former self.

Looking out on the world, it discovers

the alien, seeing being through a mirror

hiding its contents

in shades of black. A chrysalis covers

the new, while what was hides silently

behind a locked door,

In the absence of all that is real, lovers

of truth falter as the shadow reveals life

in a world without a key.

****

Great big hugs to one and all...

Comments

Prejudice

Wed, 02 Sep 2009 16:02:52 +0200

Hi to everybody...today's poem...again from a few years back...

Prejudice

It’s a pain to admit but as I’m getting older
my mind is growing narrower and I detect
the birth of a bigot.
I could say it’s in my genes. There’s a history
of racial intolerance and bigotry but I suspect
that’s a cop out.
It’s in me, deep inside. A feeling of resentment
within is resident whenever other creeds or races
come to the fore.
Try as I might I cannot escape from the fact
that I’m beginning to act and think in ways
that, normally, I abhor.
Is it genuine fear of the stranger or a gradual
absorption of national paranoia? Whatever it is,
I’m afraid now of the unknown.
I don’t want to adopt this alien way of thinking,
but the insidious linking of fear and the stranger
has already been sown.
I have seen it rise in me as trust in others ceases
and insecurity increases. I cannot let it win.
It will kill in me the human.
I must remain vigilant when it rears its ugly head
and raises from the dead all my fears. Trouble is,
I can’t recall when it began.

****

Great big hugs to one and all..

Comments

Update on A Day in My life

Wed, 02 Sep 2009 15:37:44 +0200

Hi to everybody...got it a bit wrong...I wasn't pregnant then...I had already lost the third child...when I lost that one, the other people in the commune were still around, but they all left a few months later, leaving only us and the owner of the house who was usually in his study most of the day if he wasn't storming round the house in a temper because we were trying to find a home of our own as well and he didn't want us to go...it was a very difficult time of our lives...
Hard to remember things exactly when they happened. I do remember all the people in the commune came to visit me in the hospital when I lost the baby so it wasn't the reason I was so edgy here...but still had good reason to be so...
Great big hugs to one and all...

Comments

A Day in my Life

Wed, 02 Sep 2009 13:26:22 +0200

Hi to everybody...as I reread this through, I realized it didn't actually tell you why I was so upset and on edge. I had discovered I was pregnant again, and the conditions we lived in it at the time were very bad and keeping our eldest alive with his chronic asthma was really difficult...I was very stressed as well because the pregnancy wasn't going well...a few weeks later, I lost the baby and it was found that I had something called a hydatiform mole, which is basically a malignant placenta that can spore throughout the body if not removed in time...I was lucky...I lost the baby in the fourth month and the placenta came away too...had to be tested for two years afterwards every month to see whether it had spored...as I'm still here, it hadn't...bad time for us then...
For anybody who might want to plough through one of my days in my life...here it is...

A Day in my life

Anger and frustration hung round her neck like an anchor, she felt sharp and waspish even though it was the first really beautiful day of the year. Normally, the sun lifted her spirits, but, today, not all the charm of the universe could make her feel better. Her emotions churned around her body, tearing at her stomach, screwing her mind in death like contortions, she wanted to scream or throw something, anything as long as it was violent, but she knew she wouldn’t, it would stay inside until the turmoil subsided and she could relax again; begin to feel human again.
She had prayed to God this morning, short, desperate cries, ‘God help me, I’m being crushed, I can’t cope, what good does it do to see me in this state, I can’t be pleasing to you , help me, please’.
She didn’t know whether He heard, she certainly didn’t find the control she desired. Her husband had been patient before he went off to work. He had stilled his need to shout at her when her tongue had slashed venomously at him. ‘Chemical reactions’, she had said. ‘I can’t keep my emotions under control. It makes you wonder really how much say we have in what we do’.
Her words sounded like lame excuses next to the power of negative feelings welling around inside her, which caused violent verbal eruptions every now and then.
‘We’ll manage’, he had said. ‘We always do’. ‘You mean, I do.’ She had thought savagely.
Her eldest child was chattering to her, interspersed with impatient, ‘Mummy’s’. He knew she wasn’t listening. ‘Shut up.’ She had shouted. ‘Leave me alone, for goodness sake.’ ‘All right, Mummy, I’ll keep quiet.’ The tone of her voice sent him scuttling away for a few moments, he was soon back gabbling happy nonsense in her ear constantly.
‘I love you, Mummy, can I kiss it better.’ He said to her as she sat holding her head in her hands over the kitchen table. He stroked her hair. She looked at him, his earnest little face beamed up at her. ‘All right, we’ll go and sit in the garden.’ She said.
She took the sun chair out of the front door and propped it up against the wall, the child followed her shouting and laughing. She sank gratefully into it, and leaned her head against the wall, her whole body felt stiff and unnatural. The sun was not strong enough yet. It was still quite early, about ten thirty, but its warmth could be felt and sky was completely clear. The garden had that new look of early Spring, and the field outside the gate stretched red brown, naked, waiting to be clothed. She closed her eyes and surrendered to the peace for a few moments when two hands grasped her face.
‘Don’t go to sleep, Mummy, look at these.’ Her son held a broken back of a lorry full
of pebbles two inches from her face.
‘Yes, dear, they’re lovely.’ She smiled, opening one eye, and closing it quickly.
‘Mummy, you’re not looking.’
‘I am looking.’
‘No, you’re not.’
Both her eyes opened quickly, he look told him to get lost quickly. ‘Go away.’ She shouted.
‘All right.’ And he was away.
She relaxed again and watched him busily playing with his toys on the gravel. He was happy.
The baby upstairs had woken up. He would want changing and bringing down. She stretched, the deep warmth of the sun penetrated her winter clothes now and her face felt rosy. She always caught the sun quickly but she wanted to this time. He skin was tired and she had spots. She hated spots. They took her back to her teens. The hue of the sun gave her disguised the wretched things a bit, and brought out her freckles.
The stairs showed the dust and the dog’s hairs as she walked up them.
‘Wretched dog, it’s one continual moult.’ She muttered. The door was ajar and she
could hear the baby niggling. She pushed it gently. A little face peered at her through the cot bars.
‘Hello, little one, had a good sleep?’ She said.
He chuckled and kicked to be picked up.
‘Poo, you stink.’ She said cuddling him. His head lunged down and caught her teeth.
‘Ow.’ She swung him round, he laughed and tugged at her hair. ‘Let go, Monkey.’
She yelled. He twisted and writhed in her arms, gooing and shouting.
‘I love you.’ She gasped as he nuzzled violently into her neck.
She changed his nappy, and brought him downstairs and put him in the baby walker.
He sat blinking in the bright light then she sat down again.
At twelve, she stirred. She definitely felt better. ‘Dinner.’ She thought. ‘I’ve got to get on.’ She checked to see if the eldest was still happy, he was. He had been very good really. He had left her alone for quite a while.
She went to the kitchen and prepared food. Three quarters of an hour later, she was ready.
‘Dinner’s ready.’ She called. ‘Come and get your hands washed.’
‘I don’t want dinner.’
‘Come on, it’ll go cold. Do you want to eat outside?’
‘Ooh, yes.’
‘Well, come and get your hand’s washed.’
She carried a small card table outside after washing him, sat him down, put the baby in the high chair and brought the food out. It was nice. It felt summery. Her temper had nearly subsided, even the baby’s crying because he had to wait a few moments for her to get from the kitchen to the garden scarcely bothered her. She put his in front of him and he nosedived into it. She found it hard to accept food all over the place. ‘On the second time around, you’d think you’d get used to it’, she thought, but she hadn’t, it was so damned messy. She sat down opposite her first bundle of trouble.
‘It’s nice, Mummy.’ He said.
‘Good, mmm, it is, isn’t it, now eat it all otherwise we won’t do this again.’
‘Blast’, she thought, ‘I’m always threatening.’
‘Can I have bread with it?’
‘Yes, as long as you eat the dinner.’
She ate hers. It did taste good and healthy outside and it was pleasant. The baby grinned at her through a haze of strangled food. The other child had eaten half of his and was now toying with the rest.
‘Eat it.’ She said.
‘Yes, all right, Mummy.’ His little face looking slightly sick as he pushed another spoonful in. He chewed it slowly and laboriously. She felt her patience going but checked it.
‘Don’t waste it please.’ She said to him. ‘Eat this much.’ She pushed half to the front and to the other half to the back of his plate. He nodded.
‘I’ll get your pudding. Finish it by the time I get back.’
The baby had finished his now and was crying again. She resented his impatience. It was the only time he cried though, so she couldn’t complain. She wiped him clean while he bawled indignantly.
‘Wait.’ She said to him. ‘Wait.’
She fetched the pudding. Meanwhile, her other son had finished his half and was looking very pleased with himself. She gave him his dessert and then sat down and fed the baby. He couldn’t manage puddings yet. She had just finished when the phone rang. She knew it was her husband. He always rang at dinner time, usually, when she was in the middle of it, just about to take the first bite. She knew it was nice of him to do it but she was often sharp with him for disturbing her.
The pips went. ‘Hello’ the voice at the end came through. ‘Hello’ she answered. ‘Are you feeling better?’ He asked. ‘Yes, we’ve just had dinner outside, it was nice.’ ‘Are you all right?’ ‘Yes, I’m okay.’ ‘I didn’t want a mother’s day present you know.’ ‘I know but we don’t know yet.’ ‘You should have waited.’ ‘I was willing.’ ‘You weren’t.’ ‘I was, I could have just said ‘sod you and gone off.’ ‘I know that’s exactly what I mean.’ ‘Anyway, I didn’t phone up to argue, we’ll manage.’ ‘Did you get Easter Sunday off.’ ‘No, I haven’t asked yet.’ ‘Why not, why should you work all Easter, you should have known when it was, now everybody else has got it off except you, when are you going to realise you’ve got a family, now I’ll have to go to all the service on my own.’ ‘It will mean asking somebody else if they’ll swap with me.’ ‘Why don’t you think of us sometimes?’ ‘I do.’ ‘Oh, you make me sick.’
The phone slammed down. ‘Stupid, thick idiot.’ She fumed. Her anger and frustration poured back into her like a dam bursting. She stormed outside and slumped into the chair. ‘Your father’s stupid.’ She shouted at the eldest.
‘Daddy’s stupid.’ He said back to her.
‘Yes, he is…stupid!’ She spat out the words. She felt dimly guilty for saying that to the child. He came up to her. ‘Never mind, I love you. I’ll kiss it better.’ He kissed her lips and smiled at her. She felt easier. He had a way of soothing her, saying the right things when it really mattered. He was so young yet so wise sometimes. ‘I can do it.’ He yelled peddling his bicycle after he left her. He had been trying for eighteen months and he had just done it today. She grinned. ‘That’s great, push hard.’ She called as he ground to a halt. The baby was back in his baby walker pushing himself round the court yard. He had just learned to do that as well today. ‘At least somebody’s making progress.’ She sighed to herself.
After finishing the washing up, she sat down in the sun chair again for half an hour. She had calmed down much more quickly this time. ‘The kitchen needs a clean’ she thought. She got up, cleared it out and washed the floor. The baby was sitting in his pram now, so she went to look for her other son. He was fishing in the pond. She bent down by him.
‘Can you see a newt?’ She asked, digging in the water with a stick he had handed her.
‘No.’
‘I’ll see if I can find one.’ She flicked the dead leaves off the surface and probed gently.
‘There’s one.’ She said excitedly.
‘Get him for me.’ He said.
‘I can’t, I’ve lost him.’
‘Where is he?’
‘It’s gone into the weeds.’
Her son jumped around excitably behind her. She moved to the other side of the pond where the light hit the water so that she could see the bottom. ‘Look, there’s a water beetle.’ She said. He peered at it. She thought it was anyway, it was very ugly and quite big. ‘Maybe it’s a water boatman. My back’s aching now, so I’ll leave.’ She said getting up quickly. She handed him the stick, and told him not to fall in and went indoors.
The phone rang. She picked it up, nothing, just a dialling tone. She put it down. She had half hoped it had been one of her friends. She felt like unburdening herself to a woman. She had someone in mind. ‘No, she’s got problems of her own.’ She thought. ‘I’d be selfish, beside I’ve only just met her.’ Still, it would have been nice to just talk.
‘I’m cleaning my car.’ A little voice broke into her thoughts. ‘That’s good. I’ll get you a cloth.
‘I’ve got a cloth.’
‘Dead leaves aren’t a cloth. I’ll get you one from the kitchen.’
She came back carry a bucket and a cloth. He thanked her happily and she left him scrubbing his car. She carried the baby upstairs and put the television on. There was a film for children on at 4.25. She went downstairs again and called. ‘There’s a film on for you.’
‘I’ve filled it too full.’
‘You shouldn’t fill the bucket with pond water, you’re soaking.’ She said regarding her very wet son.
She emptied the bucket back into the pond. ‘I’m sorry, I won’t do it again.’ He said.
‘All right, now go upstairs and take your trousers off. There’s a film for you.’
She got them settled in front of the box, and went and got their tea. They both nibbled a few bits and then pushed it aside.
‘Don’t want anymore.’
‘Eat a bit.’
‘You eat it.’
‘I’ll eat this bit, you eat that.’
‘All right.’
The baby was niggling so she picked him up and played with him for a while.
‘Watch the film.’ She said to her eldest as it began.
It was about a whale. She got quite engrossed. The children settled down and watched it with her. A child hurt the whale and she felt fury inside her. Her child stirred as said something. ‘Shhh, look the poor whale’s hurt.’
‘It was the boy.’
‘Yes, don’t you every hurt things when you grow up.’
A bit later on they were going to shoot it and she felt again hatred towards the ignorance of the people ready to destroy such a beautiful animal, but it all ended happily and she relaxed again.
She got the children ready for bed after it had finished. ‘The baby has been at his most niggly today’ she thought, ‘must have tuned into me’.
The eldest went off quite happily with his book. She cleaned his teeth, washed his face and he clambered into bed.
‘Goodnight.’ She said. ‘Goodnight, Jesus.’
‘Goodnight and goodnight, Jesus.’ He said turning his head to look at the crucifix behind his bed. He grinned and shrieked with laughter. He was always shrieking with laughter just lately.
‘I love you.’ She said as she shut the door.
The baby was not going to settle down. ‘He’s probably hungry’. She thought, ‘he didn’t eat anything for tea.’
She picked him out of his cot, and went and sat down with him. It was all he wanted, some cuddling. He played for a while then she decided to write a letter so put him on the floor by her and sat down. He chuckled and chortled for an hour then got tired and finally went off to bed.
It was the first day she had had trouble getting him settled down. He was usually as good as gold. ‘He must know’, she thought chewing the end of the pen.
Dusk was over and the night was nearly descending. Her husband worked shifts and wouldn’t be home for a good two hours and there was nothing on the television of interest.
She started writing about her day.

***

Great big hugs to one and all...

Comments

Prejudice

Tue, 01 Sep 2009 23:43:04 +0200

Hi to everybody...today's poem...again from a few years back...

Prejudice

****

Comments

Paranoia

Tue, 01 Sep 2009 16:13:38 +0200

Hi to everybody....here's my poem for today from yesteryear...horribly relevant still...

Paranoia

Paranoia creeps like a mould through the mind.
Its spores of decay turn cold what was kind
and make barren love’s fertile soil.

The innocent of heart bend beneath its weight.
They struggle to defend their minds from hate
and make worthless love’s ardent toil.

The choice of host is impartial, all will suffice.
The weak, the insecure, the mad, the nice
and wherever love’s no longer loyal.

There is no respect for creed or class or race.
It seeks only to spread its pernicious base
And turn love’s inner peace to turmoil.

It will traverse a world searching for prey.
There are few wise enough to keep it at bay
And most lose sight of love in its lethal coil.

The tentacles of paranoia are everywhere.
Growing through fear, apathy, or lack of care,
who is there now to restore love’s fertile soil?

****

Great big hugs to one and all...

Comments

A Life in Time

Mon, 31 Aug 2009 16:08:37 +0200

Hi to everybody...one more poem...
A Life in Time

When I was a child, I was taught a faith.
I was told it was to be mine.
If I kept it, I would grow up to be
whole and pure and good and kind.

I tried for years and years to be what
everybody wanted. I was told God
was on my side, so I did believe
in charity, in hope, and, of course, in sin.

I looked at my existence and its pain,
and was told that I’d been chosen
from the many to bear a heavy burden:
suffering in a never ending stream.

I kept my faith through thick and thin.
The stream flowed ever on, until one day
I had enough, and called a halt in time.
I gave up everything so that I might live again.

I don’t regret that day when I threw out
A faith in someone else’s God.
I might have sacrificed a place in heaven
but, c’est la vie, at least, I’ve got a life in time.

*****

Great big hugs to one and all...

Comments

The Cost of Love

Sun, 30 Aug 2009 12:39:23 +0200

Hi to everybody...here's one more poem written many years ago...
The Cost of Love

To set Love free
demands true responsibility
in all individuals.
To write life’s rule anew,
needs another view
of learning to forgive
and how to give.

It’s not an easy task
to peel away the mask
in all individuals.
To bring to light the dark
which leaves its mark
in all souls that stumble
as hopes crumble.

There are wounds within
caused by other’s sin
in all individuals.
Their scars remain unhealed
Until, in a moment of self-hate,
They show their hidden state.

To let love in to heal
needs a faith that’s real
in all individuals.
The way is not always clear
And the cost dear,
but, ultimately, the price is low
when all the pain begins to go.

Nothing happens overnight,
hate will put up a fight
in all individuals.
But, love, if given a chance
will take a stance
and drive away each demon
to restore sanity and reason.

****

Comments

Three poems

Mon, 24 Aug 2009 23:36:32 +0200

Hi to everybody...while clearing out my shelves, I came across three poems I wrote around the time of the first Iraq war and when there was a major famine raging as well...I found it very strange that all these decades later...they are still relevant today as they were all those years ago...There are two short ones and one long one...as you can tell from them I was very angry at what was happening in our world...although this blog is supposed to be celebratory, I did think that these belong here as well because this is where I put my poems now.

Codes of War

Feet falter, hands fumble hurriedly
for a crisp, clean handkerchief
to cut the stench of corpses, left
abandoned, unburied to bear witness
to what went on before in the furnace
of desire to gain power. Guts heave
as polished shoes pick through beds
which once had borne the bodies
of the sick, the maimed, the dying;
no one lies upon them now, but, by them
sink the slaughtered into the bare,
bloodied floor. This used to be a hospital,
but is no more; now it is a mortuary
for children, women, and the trapped
refugee. It stands silent in the heat
of a tropical day, except for the flies,
which buzz and feast in careless ease
on half-filled sockets and open wounds.
The white man, with his cool, casual
clothes, shakes his head in disbelief
and, turning to the camera's eye, reveals
his dreams crumbling into dust, and merging
with the rotting flesh lying at his feet.
He came to give aid, to lend a hand.
The John Kennedy Memorial Hospital,
a place of healing before the war;
now, devoid of meaning in the face
of savage retribution. Did he think
the old code of war would be upheld?
Why should it be? Was it not the white
man who opened up the gates of hell
at the Somme, Gallipoli, Auschwitz,
Dachau, Belsen, Dresden, Hiroshima,
Nagasaki, etc.,etc., etc.? Did he forget
there is no code of war any more?

****

Famine.

Dust dry the earth on which she sits.
Parched and cracked like an ancient shroud
the ground and her skin shrunk in an agony
of deprivation. Old before her time, she
watches nothing in particular as flies
stumble through lashes too weary to blink,
arms too frail to raise her hand and flick
away that which, under different circumstances,
would be brushed with a quick and carefree
gesture as she sat wrapped in multi-coloured
swaddling cloth flat to her mother's back.
A cry escapes through lips weary of sucking
at milkless nipples. It echoes her despair
of finding again the comfort that was hers.
The round, warm breasts have gone; shrunken,
empty sacks sag against skin tight stretched
across a frame whose bones, like hers,
can be counted one by one. The skeleton
beside her lies eyes closed, waiting
for death or water, food, and a fragile
straw of hope. Both innocent of crime,
only victims of a famine, brought about
by the earth's inability to cope with the
ravages of Man as she struggles
to heal the damage to her body, and bring
water to her own dust dry, worn out skin.

***

War

The supremacy of reason falters
when the primal urge to conquer
rises in the minds of men grown
bored with the outward show of order.
The chaos in their souls rises
like a dark and lethal tide
until it leaves its bloody mark
in hearts yearning for the thrill
of wills locked in battle.

The sublimity of conflict
surges through the dead,
and from the depths arises
a fearful, clarion call;
'We cannot feel alive unless
face to face with death''
and, with unholy haste,
a force emerges from the abyss
to answer the need of Man to feed
his insatiable desire for power.

With reason in decline,
leaders meet with men of war
to set their plans in motion.
They weigh their words,
assess their weaknesses and strength,
hide their aims and motives
in a travesty of truth,
then present the chaos in their souls
as virtues nobly born to their people,
who, drowning in the rhetoric,
close the door to their own hearts,
minds and souls.

Donning masks of deep regret,
the leaders sue for peace
with earnest proclamations.
Back and forth they travel
to leave a strong impression
that their words are full of meaning.
Their people grow alarmed
as the news begins to change,
and armies grow in size
before their eyes, and the rhetoric
alters as diplomacy dies
on the rocks of countless lies.

The leaders retire satisfied
that few will object when
the talks falter. Their efforts
have been witnessed by a media
made to order. And the circus
clowns are loved because the pain
is cauterized inside,
and nobody wants to spoil
the fun by pointing out the cancer
spreading through their lands
Meanwhile, plans are put in motion,
and the war lords couch their words
in reassuring declarations
that God is on their side.

The enemy has been defined,
no longer seen as human
but a thing to be reviled.
Territory takes precedence
in a war of Man's own making.
What has been taken has to be restored.
And there is steady progress
on land and sea and air
to establish superiority of forces
in weaponry and skill.
And the tide of history
keeps flowing in the blood
of mother's sons until the lesson
taught that 'Man shall not kill Man'
has reduced the earth to ashes
in a holocaust of sin.

The war to end all wars
has come and gone before.
Twice, in a past too close,
the words of victory have sounded.
'Peace' has a hollow ring
when brought about by fear
of dying in the radioactive fire
of a manufactured sun.
But time and memories pass
in the hectic light of day,
and the enemies have changed.
The latest one seem easy prey;
a tyrant, whose policy of genocide
and the torture of his people,
provide the 'good' side
with ample proof that another war
is right, and justified by all
opposed to his uncivilized behaviour.

His mistake was not to hide
his crimes; he did them in the open.
The 'civilized' are more refined;
they kill by subtle means,
and, when found, disclaim
all knowledge of the crime.
Hypocrisy and cant spew
from lips propounding innocence,
while in their blackened hearts
a pit has come to birth
where guilt and fear combine
to show them what they are worth.
To avoid the horror of their sin,
they look out instead of in
and turn to their own God
to justify their acts; and He
sidesteps their blow and permits
the darkness he had kept at bay
to have its dreadful, loveless way.

Across the span of centuries
the battlefields cried out in vain
when their soil embraced the corpses.
Too late for the dead the dreams,
the hopes of ordinary folk;
they died in the crossfire,
crucified by despotic leaders
who, in their god-like wills,
drank their fill of sacred blood
and, turning a deaf ear to the screams,
sank into the abyss of hate
in their satanic urge to win.

How many more must die
on the altars of hell?

***

Comments

Some thoughts of D.H. Lawrence

Mon, 20 Jul 2009 15:25:21 +0200

Hi to everybody...thought I'd awaken my Vanillacustard blog, which has been sorely neglected recently...Here are a few thoughts on Science by D.H. Lawrence...I found some of them interesting and amusing too...
Science Quotes by D.H. Lawrence (8)

I like relativity and quantum theories
because I don't understand them
and they make me feel as if space shifted about
like a swan that
can't settle,
refusing to sit still and be measured;
and as if the atom were an impulsive thing
always changing its mind.

— D.H. Lawrence
'Relativity', David Herbert Lawrence, The Works of D.H. Lawrence (1994), 437.
)

One might talk about the sanity of the atom
the sanity of space
the sanity of the electron
the sanity of water—
For it is all alive
and has something comparable to that which we call sanity in ourselves.
The only oneness is the oneness of sanity.

— D.H. Lawrence
'The Sane Universe', David Herbert Lawrence, The Works of D.H. Lawrence (1994), 428.

The history of the cosmos
is the history of the struggle of becoming.
When the dim flux of unformed life
struggled, convulsed back and forth upon itself,
and broke at last into light and dark
came into existence as light,
came into existence as cold shadow
then every atom of the cosmos trembled with delight.

— D.H. Lawrence
God is Born', David Herbert Lawrence, The Works of D.H. Lawrence (1994), 571.

To our senses, the elements are four
and have ever been, and will ever be
for they are the elements of life, of poetry, and of perception,
the four Great Ones, the Four Roots, the First Four
of Fire and the Wet, Earth and the wide Air of the World.
To find the other many elements, you must go to the laboratory
and hunt them down.
But the four we have always with us, they are our world.
Or rather, they have us with them.

— D.H. Lawrence
'The Four', David Herbert Lawrence, The Works of D.H. Lawrence (1994), 593.

Water is H2O, hydrogen two parts, oxygen one,
but there is also a third thing, that makes it water
and nobody knows what it is.
The atom locks up two energies
but it is a third thing present which makes it an atom.

— D.H. Lawrence
'The Third Thing', David Herbert Lawrence, The Works of D.H. Lawrence (1994), 428.

When I went to the scientific doctor
I realised what a lust there was in him to wreak his so-called science on me
and reduce me to the level of a thing.
So I said: Good-morning! and left him.

— D.H. Lawrence
'Scientific Doctor', David Herbert Lawrence, The Works of D.H. Lawrence (1994), 513.

When science starts to be interpretive
it is more unscientific even than mysticism.

— D.H. Lawrence
'Self-Protection', David Herbert Lawrence, The Works of D.H. Lawrence (1994), 436.

…where the electron behaves and misbehaves as it will,
where the forces tie themselves up into knots of atoms
and come united…

— D.H. Lawrence
'Give Us Gods', David Herbert Lawrence, The Works of D.H. Lawrence (1994), 354.

That's it for now, great big hugs to one and all...

Comments

A Bird's Eye View

Thu, 16 Apr 2009 18:23:32 +0200

Hi to everybody...if anybody would like to read the whole essay. You can download it as a PDF file here...It's called a Bird's Eye View...and I wrote it over twenty years ago now I think...never dated it unfortunately...LOL....

Great big hugs to one and all...

Comments

Aspects of Love...extracts from a longer essay

Thu, 16 Apr 2009 18:20:12 +0200

Hi to everybody...here is the second part of this essay on Love...

Part 11 Aspects of love…..
What exactly does it mean when a human being falls in love? If it is the most powerful source of pleasure, it could be described as the meeting of another human being who incites intense feelings of pleasure in another human being, and draws them to pursue the individual in order to increase the experience or continue it. If the attraction is reciprocal, further meetings will decide whether the pleasure factor is reinforced and ongoing, and is strengthened with the revealing of the personality of both individuals. Initially, the attraction is based often on the appearance of the individual and, only in subsequent meetings, on their personality. Unfortunately, further meetings may reveal facets of personality which will decrease the pleasure in one or both people, and they
will go their separate ways. However, if this does happen, but the facets are tolerable to both people, a continuation of the relationship might be considered worth while, because the balance of pleasurable facets outweighs the facets which displease or even induce revulsion to a greater or lesser degree.
Very few individuals meet another who meets all their personal needs, so, falling in love does require a certain amount of compromise to remain stimulating and ongoing. However, while some undesirable facets of personality could be overlooked initially, as time passes, they could become intolerable as the pleasurable feelings are reduced whenever they reappear in front of the individual who had been able to accept them at the beginning of the relationship. This may take many months or even years to realise, and it is then that a falling out of love occurs, and the individual unable to cope any more with the undesirable facets of their partner's personality, leaves. If no pleasure is derived from a relationship, it is certain love no longer exists within it, and the opposite emotion has replaced it, namely revulsion or even hate, which will lead, in the end, to rejection of the offending individual. Sadly, this is, probably, why so many marriages break down.
Love can die when intense pleasure in the other dies. Liking somebody is not the same as loving somebody. The former induces pleasure but the latter induces an intensity of leasure which nobody else can match. This is love. In the same way, disliking somebody is not the same as hating somebody. The same criterion applies; the former induces mild revulsion while the latter induces a profound revulsion, namely hatred, which nobody else can arouse in the same way. Of course, human beings are capable of loving more than one person at a time, but each relationship will be at different levels of intensity, and for completely different reasons. The relationship between a man and a women, or two men or two women, depending on their sexual preferences, is based usually on a one to one basis, mainly because there is such a large expenditure of energy called for to ensure the continuation of love and making sure it does not die through neglect or by upsetting each
other. When another individual appears on the scene, the one to one relationship becomes unbalanced, and one or other of the partners is thrown into a state of confusion when they find themselves drawn to another who arouses even more intense pleasure than their partner. Many people claim to love both their partner and their new found source of pleasure, but in different ways. One provides one form of intense pleasure while the other satisfies another one, which may or may not being satisfied in the original relationship.
More often than not, it is due to the latter reason a partner initially splits their
interests with another outside. The energy required to maintain two relationships invariably ends with somebody getting hurt or abandoned in favour of the other.
The young have a tendency to fall in and out of love frequently, mainly because their bodies are undergoing huge changes as their hormones prepare their bodies for reproduction. Inexperience and blind responses to the demands of their maturing bodies can lead them to pursue potential sexual partners selfishly. The intense pleasure of love is laid aside for self gratification in many cases. Where no sexual union takes place until love is present, the urge to find a suitable partner increases accordingly. Eventually,
the majority of people do meet somebody who fulfils their desires and needs, but it is often a long and difficult journey to reach that point, and some never achieve it.
In the modern world, many young adults are choosing to abandon the practice of legalising their relationship or having it sanctioned by a religious ritual. They prefer to form free unions where both partners accept that the other is committed to the relationship but both remain free to leave the union without the need for a public divorce. Although many still choose to get married, the increase in living together between young people is going to have a profound effect on future understanding of partnerships between consenting adults.
This will lead to new methods of publicising these relationships so that both partners will be recognised as a couple, but without binding legal or spiritual contracts attached. All ready a variety of services have been created to meet this need, but they are still relatively rare. Common law partners are recognised within the legal system as having rights similar to those of legally bound couples now when the relationship has lasted for several years, and, especially, where children are involved. The recognition of the validity of these unions enables two individuals to feel more secure and protected from the
possibility of being left homeless, financially bereft and abandoned if one partner decides to leave. This public acknowledgement of this new form of union cannot fail to affect the previous practices, and may well make them obsolete eventually.
Several cultures have chosen to select partners for their children when they reach adulthood. In these case, if the selection is carried out without the needs of the son or daughter being taken into consideration fully, and divorce is discouraged or forbidden, very unhappy consequences can ensue as the result of a mismatch. However, as this practice has been going on for centuries, there must have been more successful matches than unsuccessful ones otherwise the practice would not have survived. This method of
arranging unions is less easily achieved when the young adults have moved out of their indigenous culture, or been born into a foreign one. Many young people come under the influence of the host culture and decide the ways of the past are not their ways. This can cause conflict within the family and only considerate negotiation between parents and the young adults can settle the disputes. Unfortunately, this does not happen always and the young find themselves abandoned by their families and ostracised permanently, especially if they choose a partner for themselves outside their own religious and racial culture. The previous practice was based on the premise that love grows by familiarity after marriage. Obviously, this does happen sometimes, but, where divorce or separation are forbidden, an error of judgement can condemn two individuals to a life time of pain, distress and, often, physical and verbal abuse of one partner, usually the woman. The argument put forward by those who wish to continue the practice is that the relationships
between individuals within the host culture break down so frequently now, the old ways are more successful, because the prospective partner is chosen very carefully, so why change what has worked well for such a long time. It remains to be seen how long the practice will survive the onslaught of human progress and change.
What attracts two people to each other and makes them want to spend the rest of their lives together has remained a mystery for centuries. The subject has been explored in depth at the end of twentieth century by psychiatrists, psychologists, doctors, scientists, theologians, poets, writers, artists and the ordinary person in the street. It is probably because human beings have been led to believe that 'love' is something extraordinary instead of what it might well be, an emotional, physical and mental attraction between two individuals which satisfy each for either a limited period of time or until one dies and the relationship is terminated. Where the latter happens, the remaining individual might well continue loving the lost partner, but with less expenditure of energy because no longer required to sustain the relationship on a day to day basis.
Their absence may well lead the remaining partner to seek out another one when the pain of the loss has subsided sufficiently and loneliness sets in. The same reaction can occur when two people divorce. A process of grieving follows frequently as the removal of an often deeply loved partner from the family home, suddenly in some cases, is akin to a real bereavement and a period of recovery and healing is extremely necessary. In the past, many marriages were made solely for the purpose of keeping wealth or power in two families. Love was absent often, and the consequence was an unfulfilled and unhappy relationship which continued until one partner died. Today, divorce frequently ends such relationships because the two individuals involved are prepared to accept no longer such an enforced union.
Where children are involved, the pain of the break-up of a marriage often has devastating consequences on their ability to make satisfactory choices when it comes to choosing partners of their own, because their judgement of what love entails, namely compromise and a high degree of unselfishness, is damaged by their early experiences.
Many individuals, who have spent a large amount of their lives together, may find the intense pleasure they found in their partners initially reduces gradually to a state of contentment where the intensity of feeling levels off, and both accept the qualities and shortcomings of each other in a different state of pleasure. This does not mean love has died, but has moved onto a different level, above mere liking, but below the early intensity of feeling. Most long term relationships arrive at this point as time passes, and, if strong enough, will provide sufficient energy to enable the union to continue until one partner dies. It comes as age mellows the powerful emotions, and two people reach
acceptable compromises between each other in the meeting of the needs of each partner by the other. Where such compromises cannot be made, even long term relationships fall apart, and both partners go their separate ways, often to the bemusement of their children, relatives and friends who considered their relationship permanent and indissoluble.
While I have looked briefly at human love between two adults, another source of love is that found between parent and child. This relationship is going to have an even more powerful effect on the future world than is the changing relationships between adults and their sense of their own selves. It is vitally important the emotional, mental and physical needs of the young are met within this rapidly changing world.
Parents, normally, experience intense pleasure from their children which bonds them for life. This love, however, is rarely unconditional. If their children fail to live up to their expectations, the intense pleasure can be reduced to intense dislike, or even hatred. The result of this falling out of love leads many families to be conflict ridden, and gives the children a damaged comprehension of this most powerful of emotions. The well being of the young relies heavily on the happiness and well being of their parents. Where the latter is flawed or absent, damaged young adults go out into the world, and, frequently, inflict their damage on future partners. It is a vital part of growing up that young people are helped to understand that, in spite of all the stresses and strains their parent's relationship may undergo, they are still a source of intense pleasure, and, as a result of this, are loved still by their respective parents. While it is far better to love unconditionally, it is the most difficult achievement for any human being. Most fail to a greater or lesser degree, because their understanding of this concept is subject to their own experiences of such love.
Certain religions have taught their adherents for centuries that divine love is
unconditional, but, on closer examination, it is clear it is not. It is given only if
allegedly divinely inspired laws are kept and rituals followed. Failure to do so result in eternal damnation. The contradictions in this teaching is becoming impossible to reconcile in the minds of many believers, and they are abandoning their religions in favour of a one to one relationship with their God, or losing their belief altogether. Through this, it is essential a new understanding of the meaning of love emerges at the dawn of the new
millennium. Human beings know it to be the most powerful experience they will ever have, and may well become completely disillusioned with it if it proves to be merely a chemical, emotional or physical response to a particular stimulus. It has to be far more than that, otherwise it will lead to the emergence of unfulfilled and very unhappy human beings with mental and emotional problems previously unseen in the world. The damaging of human
emotions and minds often leads to a breakdown in physical health as a side effect, so it is very important for modern human beings to arrive at a new understanding of the value of human love if the world is not to produce a surfeit of sick individuals.
One other aspect of love as a source of intense pleasure cannot be ignored. Human beings are capable of deriving intense pleasure from material objects or activities often close to or surpassing in intensity that derived from a relationship with another human being. Such loves can be replacements for the absence of a satisfactory human relationship, but not always. Many individuals pour huge amounts of energy into the pursuit of their favourite activities while retaining a satisfactory relationship with their partners. It has to be said, human beings have only so much energy within them, therefore it is
difficult to believe the human relationship will not suffer to a greater or lesser degree from this division of energy expenditure. Probably, the partner will have had to decide to agree to be either an equal partner alongside the second pursuit, or be satisfied with playing second fiddle to it, and compromise, because in their own self interest to respond in this manner, or, alternatively, pursue the activity as well so as to remain close to their partner.
The danger of the pursuit of such activities is that not all are healthy. A human being who is damaged mentally and emotionally may well begin to pursue activities extremely harmful to other individuals. In such cases, it is possible to derive intense pleasure at the moment of the act. The terrible consequences of such a pursuit is obvious, but these responses have to considered because it is clear pleasure is derived from hurting other people in some very damaged individuals.
In the past, such actions would be blamed on the presence of demonic forces, namely, the devil, within the human being, but this explanation no longer suffices. The person would be classified as evil. This means lacking in love, but it is not necessarily the case. Perversion in love can exist. The individual may be cold and calculating in the carrying out of the act, but they must derive a high degree of intense pleasure from carrying it out otherwise it could not be completed. It is an utterly selfish love where the perpetrator is the only one deriving any pleasure so self gratification is its aim, and, if completed, its achievement. Hatred may be the underlying driving force, but the damaged
individual would see this only after the act had been completed, and may not
even be aware of it until it was pointed out to them.
This is the darkest expression of misdirected human love, but many other degrees of unhealthy loves exist in the majority of human beings. Love of power, money, hard drugs, alcohol, criminal activities, pornography, or sexual deviancy for example can all induce intense pleasure in some people, and huge amounts of human energy are expended in the pursuit of all these activities. The lovers of such pursuits may argue their activities are their own personal choice, and see little harm in following their desires, but all can
cause damage to other human beings not to mention the individuals themselves. In the case of alcohol and hard drugs in particular the pleasure becomes addictive if consumed in sufficient quantities, and deprives the individuals of the freedom of choice. In the end, their initial pleasure may turn to hatred when the effects of their addictions have worn off, but they will be unable to break their addictions because of the very temporary intense pleasure derived from the intake of the substances. This form of dependency does involve the emotional and mental faculties of the addicts but the physical body is the part of the human being most affected, with it demanding satisfaction regardless of what the other faculties are telling the individuals. All the others are less addictive physically, but, if loved powerfully enough, can lead to mental and emotional dependency on the thrill achieved when the individuals satisfy their needs.
There are, of course, as I mentioned before, less harmful loves such as the pursuit of a whole variety of pastimes, or chosen careers, or directed towards a loved pet, and, if not placed above that of human relationships, provide a beneficial effect on the individuals involved.
No human being on earth can survive without any love whatsoever. They will shrivel and die from neglect and loneliness if they find themselves in such a state. Where love is absent, a world will begin to exist where human life becomes of little value. The abandoning of religions should not mean that human beings cannot work out for themselves what love is in purely human terms, why they need it, and what they want from it. The business world may
concentrate all its energies on creating wealth, sadly, often at the expense of the developing nations, predominantly by the sale of armaments and by the enforced growth of cash crops, more energy should be concentrated on creating a world where love can thrive, where human beings feel valued, not for their financial or material wealth, but because they exist, and, through this, their healthy mental, emotional and physical needs should be met from birth to death. In the end, only the ordinary men and women in the street can ask these questions and seek out the answers for themselves. Experts may put forward proposals, but unless they strike a chord in the deepest part of the human psyche, they will be rejected as unworkable or irrelevant. It may sound foolish to talk of such a pursuit when so many individuals are struggling to put food in their mouths, clothes on their backs and to find shelter for themselves and their families, but, if human beings had found the answer to the question of what is love, these problems would have been overcome all ready, because the world would not be able to sit by and see any human being deprived of even the basic of human rights, namely food, shelter and clothing. Only when dire poverty is eradicated will every human being have the luxury of being able to consider their own emotional, mental and physical needs.
Many religions have upheld poverty as a virtue or karma, and this erroneous belief has led to many people being able to consider the resolution of this dreadful dilemma impossible, and, therefore, not worth being overly concerned about or merited as repayment for past sins. In a world where the rich are getting richer and the poor poorer, the urgency to find solutions should be a major priority of all human beings living in affluent societies
across the earth, and, if ignored, could lead to dreadful, unforeseen consequences. Not least, the death of millions, if not billions, from neglect and failure to act when all the signs pointed to a catastrophe on the part of those with more than their fair share of the world's wealth.
There are more opportunities today to support the removal of poverty than have ever existed before. Perhaps, before the individuals living within the affluent societies seek answers to their own needs, they might put their energies into enabling every human being to be in that advantageous position, then every individual could contribute instead of, as it is now, only the few.

Great big hugs to one and all...

Comments

What is love...extract from a long essay.

Thu, 16 Apr 2009 16:50:40 +0200

Hi to everybody...here's a few thoughts taken out of a longer essay I did a long time ago now, but seems quite relevant still...

Part 10 What is love
I want to discuss a subject here which has as many depths as there human beings on the face of the earth, but one which nobody remains unaffected. It is the human concept of love and its opposite emotion, hate. In the past, human beings have been told love is a God given gift, and hate comes from an enemy of God, the devil. Love proves the existence of God within the soul,
while hate proves the existence of the devil and love's absence. This is an interpretation common to western and eastern Christianity, whereas eastern and Middle Eastern belief systems concentrate more on right attitude of mind, heart and body, which, if disciplined, will produce healthy, well balanced individuals capable of living a life which embraces love and hate alongside all the other degrees of emotions found in humankind. How can human beings at the end of the twentieth century regard these two emotions where faith in a deity or the absence of a practised belief system is becoming more prevalent by the day? Is it important to find an alternative understanding? I would suggest it is, simply because the fragmentation of religious or spiritual belief is increasing, and one day in the not too distant future will be an insufficient basis upon which to understand the driving forces in human nature.
For thousands of years human beings have striven to explain these two powerful emotions and their effects on the human psyche. It does not seem necessary at the end of the twentieth century to seek an outside source for either one. Regardless of where the individual believes it comes from, the most important issues are what effect do they have on individuals and how do
they influence their responses to given situations.
First of all, it could be proposed that love is the most powerful pleasure sensation known to all human beings, while hate is the most powerful sensation of revulsion. Huge degrees of intensity exist within each of the emotions. From infancy, human beings need love to grow into mature, emotionally healthy, adults. If it is absent, or inadequate, frequently, the end result is an adult incapable of understanding what love is, and who will sublimate often dangerous abnormal replacements as sources of pleasure.
Such adults cannot be blamed for their later reactions to love's absence in their early years, because, without it, they cannot appreciate or understand the pleasure of a healthy expression of love. Unless helped by another, prepared to take the time and great effort, to undo the inappropriate replacements and build a new comprehension of love as experienced by an
emotionally healthy individual, the damaged human being will not be able to relinquish their chosen sources of pleasure, which, in many cases, can cause them and others extreme harm or even death.
It is for this reason it is vital human beings explore these powerful emotions without the burden of religious interpretation. Their origins are as primitive as the first creature with a rudimentary brain. Any primordial creature with sufficient neurones or chemicals to produce a reaction could be said to be capable of experiencing a primitive sensation of love or hate. As evolution
increased the size of brains in reptiles and mammals, these sensations multiplied accordingly until the human brain came into existence, capable of language and analysis. These two abilities enabled human beings to explore the pleasure and revulsion sensations in themselves and their primitive relatives, and to try to find explanations for their powerful influence.
Primitive thought processes tended to place powerful emotions, forces of nature, or natural objects with longevity on pedestals, because, apparently, beyond their personal control. This reaction was a logical step as the capacity for analysis and thought grew in primitive groups of human beings. Identifying powerful forces and separating them off from the group in the form of idols,
totems or rituals would be a natural response. At the dawn of this ability, perhaps, the powerful emotions were not included as separate entities for reverence. The forces of nature, embodied in symbols of fertility, such as mother goddesses, probably, were amongst the first to be revered, but, gradually, as concepts expanded, the emotional forces became embodied in
appropriate images, and rituals were organised to pay homage to them. The shaman would become the mediator to communicate with these forces, and would be able to influence the group in how it reacted to particular situations
and problems. Slowly, with the birth of civilisation, constant refinement led to the introduction of organised religions with their own priests. Myths and legends would be used to illustrate and support these new beliefs, and, while the people believed in them and obeyed the rituals laid down by the priests, the religions grew in strength and numbers of adherents.
Once the capacity to write down the rituals, myths, legends and rules came into existence, particular religions would become established as part and parcel of the cultural inheritance of specific peoples. These would undergo continual updating and amending, but their essential teachings would have to remain intact if they were have a sound foundation, and continue to exert an influence on their members. Too much alteration would confuse the people and undermine their confidence in the priests to offer them satisfactory answers to their human needs, or to provide reassurance they could commune with these forces on their behalf.
With the collapse of a previously cohesive group or civilisation, more often than not, the religion died with them, and this has continued throughout history. It is a process which is continuing to the present day, and, at the end of the twentieth century, globalisation is beginning to dissolve separate civilisations, and, through this, has a profound effect on the major religions or
belief systems around the world. The danger of separating the powerful emotional forces of love and hate and embodying them in deities or powers has been amply illustrated in the history of the past two thousand years. When a religion places one emotional force, namely love in this case, wholly within the body of being outside of the natural world and entirely separate from it, that emotion becomes open to abuse and manipulation on the part of those who claim to be able to mediate between the supernatural and the natural world on behalf of those who can only look on and hope they get a share of that emotional force. Elaborate rituals were required to reassure the people they could receive a taste of this supernatural love.
The establishment of hierarchies of priests ensured the religions exerted their influence on the whole society from its leaders to the least amongst it. Human understanding of this powerful emotion was discouraged, and its experience outside of the religion was vilified as inferior or, worse, demonic, initiated by the enemy of the embodiment of love, the embodiment of hate in the form of a supernatural demonic entity. Light and Dark would become symbols of the battle between these two forces. The introduction of laws defining how Love could be lost and become Hate ensured that the religion's adherents would
begin to be fearful of losing the love of the supernatural being and be plunged into darkness or filled with hate. Variations of this theme would come to be a common basis upon which all future religions were built, and which have survived to the present day.
As religions became more powerful, new concepts were incorporated. The most powerful of these was that of the presence of a soul or spirit within the individual follower. The introduction of such a concept is understandable if the greatest fear of human beings is considered, namely death or the fear of complete obliteration. In its absence, the priests had no way of offering hope
to their followers of an existence after death. Only by providing an escape clause, namely the creation of an invisible presence of a soul or spirit, could they control their followers' greatest fear. It was the ultimate stranglehold on the human psyche. Priests could say who went into the Light and who went into the Dark or who was filled with love and who was filled with hate. The fact
that they were subjected to the ebb and flow of these powerful emotions alongside their followers was kept well hidden, or sublimated into other less healthy expressions of these forces and explained away as expressions of the supernatural being's love. Abuse and manipulation was always a danger, and had to be present at the birth of these religions simply because no human being can avoid being affected by them. As the religions' followers grew in numbers, so the abuses became more widespread and damaging. While confined to small groups, primitive spiritual practices were, probably, far less open to abuse than the later major religions. The shaman was a single individual who would pass his or her knowledge onto another at the end of their lives, so a failure on their part to provide spiritual reassurance to the members of their group would be met with extreme hostility and rejection, so it was in their best interests not to abuse their position of power. Modern human beings may well see their practices as primitive and superstitious, but the shaman was a deeply respected member of any group, and their myths, stories and rituals were as sophisticated as any in the world today, and carefully considered to bear the greatest benefit for the group. The fact that these groups survived successfully, otherwise none of the inhabitants of today's world would be here, suggests the shamans had a right balance of myth, magic and ritual to keep their groups healthy, happy, and safe.
With the introduction of a soul or spirit, later religions would include descriptions of a supernatural world and offer the promise of entry into it to their followers, providing they obeyed the religion's laws and followed its rituals faithfully. Many of the primitive beliefs were incorporated into these later religions, such as the concept of the ladder to the world of the spirits, which the shaman would climb and bring back messages and information from it. Later on, this world would become known as 'heaven' or 'Paradise', or, where no such physical concept was adopted, a state of bliss for those who have achieved perfection.
In the Christian religions, each individual was designated one life and one soul, and, therefore, one chance to get to heaven or be plunged into its opposite state of being, hell, the realm of the demonic entity. In the eastern belief systems, the human being could not hope to gain perfection in only one life so the introduction of the concept of many lives, or reincarnation, was
introduced. These belief systems have not separated existence into natural and supernatural in the same way as the western, and to a certain extent, Middle Eastern religions, but see them as one and the same being, with human beings failing to realise this through ignorance of their true state of being, namely existing in the mind of the supreme being with all physical
existence being merely an illusion. As the major religions or belief systems exist into the present day, clearly each provides its followers with some degree of comfort, reassurance and confidence still, but for how much longer remains open to question.
These thoughts are exactly that, thoughts. They are not intended to criticise the spiritual practices of any individual, but to point out where their beliefs might have originated, and how their myths, laws and rituals came about. If, after discovering that, the individuals choose to believe in their religion still, it is their choice and they must be allowed to be free to do so, but, and a 'but'
should be added, as long as their beliefs are not causing wars, conflicts and the destruction of a healthy approach to the most powerful of all human emotions, namely love. Where it incites the opposite emotion of revulsion or hate for another individual who does believe in their religion, it is an unhealthy presence within the society, and it needs reassessment by its adherents
because not based on real love but on the need to be dominant. If the latter, its adherents cannot fail to see those outside of its field of influence as either misguided, ignorant or living in darkness, and, therefore, deprived of any possibility of entering their concept of heaven.
It is not surprising, considering this conclusion, that many individuals within communist countries, who have found themselves in newly emerging capitalist countries after the downfall of their previous system, are returning to the reestablished religions. When communism emerged as a viable political system, its leaders set about undoing the influence of religion, but it was an enforced undoing, not a freely arrived at decision by the people. Making religious practice illegal removed from the people the time to reassess the value of what they had believed in prior to the political revolution. They had no time to come to the conclusion that they could live without it, and discover the value of viewing love as a natural human response to given stimuli, and, likewise, hate from the same perspective. Today, various religions are vying with each other to gain the hearts and minds of their peoples again with all that such an undertaking entails, not least, the increase in animosity and conflict between
peoples who, previously, lived alongside each other relatively peacefully.
It should be clear the enforced abolition of such practices does not set people free, but cuts the floor from beneath the people's feet leaving them floundering in a vacuum, and forces them to sublimate their need for a deity with a human replacement in the form of a powerful leader. This has happened across the earth wherever such a revolution has taken place. In the case of fascism, religious practices were not banned, unless practised by human beings within the society considered undesirable and unwanted. Religions were used to support the newly established systems.
Fascist leaders realised the power of the support of the Christian religion in particular to legitimise their political aspirations and, actively, went out of their way to persuade them of their sincerity to provide protection and prosperity for all their peoples. It was not difficult to get their support because the religious leaders invariably agreed with their ideas, if not all their methods of
incorporating them into the body politic. Once established though, the acceptable religions found they could not extricate themselves from the liaisons made at the beginning of the overthrow of previous forms of government, and became tools of the state; impotent to act as opposing forces. In the distant and recent past, this coalition of religion and state has been a source of profound disturbance for many individuals who could see the massive contradictions inherent in these unions. On one hand, the religions were preaching love while, at one and the same time, supporting a state which practised extremes forms of hate and the persecution and murder of any individual who stood in their way.
Such alliances have given rise, in no small way, to the gradual disillusionment with religion in general so prevalent in many societies at the dawn of the new millennium. There were individuals within the various religions who did stand out against the inhuman activities of the political leaders, but they lost their lives or were imprisoned for their opposition more often than not, or removed from danger by their own religious leaders and effectively silenced. Many individuals amongst the hierarchies of the religions were ardent supporters of Fascism because they feared Communism more with its godless beliefs. They
were prepared to close their eyes when it came to its darker side, and it was these individuals who enabled the leaders to survive, sometimes for far longer than they would have if their religion had opposed their authority publicly.
The modern world has only to look at the twentieth century to see how deadly such alliances are on the well being of the people governed and guided by such leaders and priests. This is another profound reason why modern human beings need to review precisely what love means to each of them, and what enables human beings to experience it, and its counter emotion, hate as well, in order to reduce the power of the latter to cause havoc and harm wherever it exists. So far this has been a discovery of the influence of religions on the emotions of love and hate, and that is understandable because most of modern human beings' comprehension of these two forces are based on religious explanations of their meaning and origins. For many, these
explanations are no longer satisfactory. It is time to look at love and hate freed from the baggage of the supernatural and superstition.

There's a second part which I will put in a separate post.

Great big hugs to one and all...

Comments

Thoughts on Good and Evil

Thu, 16 Apr 2009 15:23:21 +0200

Hi to everybody...I've had these thoughts on my website for a long while, and wondered whether to put some of them here for your consideration...this is the longest one...

Good and Evil?

It takes a long time to realize something sometimes. It has taken me many years of study to reach the following conclusion. The thought that occurred to me has a simplicity about it which suggests it may well be true. Real truths usually are simple - they are made complicated by people who are in love with analysis and deconstruction. My thought is not original because there is very, very rarely such a phenomenon but it is now part of me as it is part of other thinkers as well.

The concepts of good and evil have played a massive part in the lives of most human beings since the idea was first proposed thousands of years ago.

My thought was that these concepts are purely man-made which emerged out of a desire to control people by rewards and punishments. Both require archetypes hence the emergence of a good god and an evil devil, but, in reality, neither exist. The first recorded definitions of good and evil were the Ten Commandments as laid down by Moses, though earlier civilizations had their own laws long before this most famous set was written down. From this dictat came all the laws ever made in all subsequent western empires in particular, and which have laid the foundations for every conquering civilization ever since. The result is a world constantly in a state of chaos and confusion because the codes they are obliged to live by are based on a lie.

So what do I see now? I see a much more logical and rational concept, namely altruism and self-interest instead of good and evil. Neither of these two qualities require an archetype because both are an absolute necessity for survival and basic to evolution at every one of its stages. Without a degree of altruism, the human race would perish very quickly, and without a degree of self-interest, exactly the same result would occur. You could say that examples of ‘good’ people carried altruism to an extreme, and vice versa for ‘evil’ people carrying self-interest to an extreme, but the motivation for each quality is very different. ‘Good’ people seek to emulate a perfect archetype which does not exist because manufactured by humankind over the centuries, and the same applies to ‘evil’ people, but less so, because ‘evil’ people are classified as such only by the ‘good’ who are, in turn, basing their judgement on a lie. It is far more likely that ‘good’ people based their judgements of good and evil on what they believed their god had revealed to them about such matters. ‘Evil’ people, on the other hand, would be far less likely to base their judgements on what they believed the devil had revealed to them about such matters. Such people would be very few and far between in any population. Far more likely is that such people pursued their own needs without regard for their effect on their fellow human beings and became classed as ‘evil’ by the ‘good’. In reality, they pursued self-interest to an extreme end which damaged those around them because not tempered by an appropriate level of altruism.

Altruism will always balance self-interest if a human being is taught the value of both aspects of human existence from an early age. To accent the former above and beyond the latter is just as dangerous as the earlier ideas of good versus evil. All human beings must, to a greater or lesser extent, protect their own survival which will require a healthy amount of self-interest. But, running alongside this self-interest will be altruism which will enable each human being to recognize when it is better to lay aside personal needs in favour of another’s. The right balance between the two should create mentally and physically much healthier people than do the still current concepts of good and evil.

The most dangerous trend at the moment in human history is the movement to re-instate ‘good’ and ‘evil’ as the basis for all judgements made on fellow human being’s actions. ‘Axis of Evil’ - ‘god fearing men and women’ - ‘God bless us’ etc. etc. etc. are just a few examples of much used phrases usually voiced by those who see themselves as ‘good’ going up against those perceived as ‘evil’. The incongruous fact that the majority of individuals designated ‘evil’ by those who consider themselves to be ‘good’ in today’s world were, not so long ago, considered ‘good’ as well, because allies in the past against another set of human beings classified as ‘evil’ by the then two allies. The fickleness of these distinctions is what makes me certain that the basis for judging is profoundly flawed and based on a non-existent reality.

All major religions in today’s world are undergoing a backward step towards fundamentalism amongst many of their followers. This entails a re-enforcing of ancient concepts of ‘good’ and ‘evil’ as interpreted by successive spiritual leaders who refuse to accept any watering down of ‘scriptural truths’. The end result is tunnel vision and an incapacity to see that human evolution and survival depends on its ability to adapt and change as history unfolds and times change. This can only lead to greater and greater conflict, not only with the world at large but between the various religions as well. The whole basis of these beliefs are strengthened by reward and punishment - the good find god, the evil find the devil - the good are rewarded with heaven, the evil with hell. The promise of immortality in the afterlife goes hand in hand with these respective rewards and punishments thus rendering the believer terrified that failure to be ‘good’ will earn them eternal punishment in hell. The fact that the ‘afterlife’ is based on a completely man-made concept escapes these believers and has little or no basis in reality. Faith in the teachings is the demand made on all believers and those who fail to maintain their faith are castigated and cast out.

There was an effort to create a system of living based on altruism in the last century. It was Communism. Unfortunately, many countries, which adopted it, fell into a trap which proved to be fatal. The leaders tried to drive out self-interest and make altruism the be all and end all. It was doomed to failure because of this. It is not surprising as its founder, Carl Marx, belonged to the very people who created the Ten Commandments, and it was extremely unlikely that he would have been able to entirely eradicate its influence on his thoughts. The raising up of altruism as the guiding light of the entire movement entailed the suppression of all forms of self-interest. This led to tyranny and the oppression of millions of human beings, but, the basic premises of Marx’s beliefs were not entirely wrong.

There was a great need to move away from the concepts of ‘good’ and ‘evil’ and to replace them with more rational and logical qualities. The great mistake was to underestimate the value of self-interest as a survival mechanism and to force individuals to accept altruism. Forced acceptance of any quality cannot be right. Human beings must see that a particular pattern of behaviour is in their best interests before they can accept it. It is their very self-interest that will enable them eventually to see the reality behind the concept. Drive self-interest away and what are they left with? A grudging acceptance of an imposed pattern of behaviour which will be abandoned as soon as the individuals enforcing the behaviour are removed from power. Self-interest will have a field day then instead of being balanced by the very quality the enforcers were trying to impose namely altruism.

China, unlike Russia, has realized that healthy self-interest is not the enemy but only after years of extreme repression of any sign of it. Today it encourages both altruism and self-interest and is well on the way to becoming a very successful economy. Russia, on the other hand, is still caught in the grip of self-interest with few signs that altruism is managing to loosen its hold. It is an extremely hard balancing act for any people to achieve and only time will tell whether those who have embraced communism in the past will find that happy medium and create a healthy society where all individuals can thrive and prosper. Cuba is probably the most successful country in the world at achieving a balance far earlier than the huge communist states but it remains to be seen whether the death of Fidel Castro will change that - personally I hope not. Mistakes were made in the early days but it does seem to have acquired something unique in the world; a people who have remained loyal to one leader who clearly has their trust and respect and who has mellowed over the years alongside his people. The people are certainly not wealthy materially, but appear to have an attitude to life and each other which reveals pride in their achievements and freedom to be themselves regardless of how much their vast and immensely wealthy neighbour objects to their existence.

The last point I need to make is to warn of the danger of misinterpreting such a concept that I have proposed. Neitsche wrote ‘Beyond Good and Evil’ where he tried to show how humankind must move beyond these two concepts to more mature concepts. He proposed that Humankind must be a god unto itself and to leave behind the ancient gods. To become a super Man. His was a genuine effort to express a new concept but, unfortunately, it was perverted and corrupted by Nazism into a grotesque parody of what he was proposing. To be a god unto oneself means that you and you alone are responsible for your own actions and their consequences. This entails a huge amount of responsibility placed on shoulders of individuals not used to thinking profoundly for themselves. The Nazi propaganda machine took over the role of religious leaders in order to remould their people into the first members of a new world order. It was the absolute antithesis of what Neitsche was advocating. Setting an individual up as a supreme leader is always a mistake but to provide him with a machine to manipulate the minds and hearts of a whole people is nothing short of madness. Instead of using altruism as a motivation for helping fellow human beings, the Nazis appealed to the most savage aspects of the human mind namely territoriality, ritual, aggression and social hierarchy. Self-interest, in this case, was promoted as the supreme good with altruism demoted to blind obedience to the point of annihilation of responsibility for one’s own actions. It is not necessary to say here what the result was of that particular experiment other than to say that humankind still has not recovered from it.

To sum up now: all human beings have to adapt and change in order to survive. This is the law of evolution which governs our world. When a concept becomes a danger to the survival of humankind it has to be looked at very closely. The concept of ‘good’ and ‘evil’ has become a threat to the existence of all human beings on this earth because there are individuals prepared to defend its survival with nuclear war if necessary. No sane human being would consider this a rational response to a perceived threat, but, unfortunately, sanity is in short supply in some areas of the world. Lies produce insanity in the guise of ‘honorable’ men and women prepared to defend their way of life no matter what the cost to the rest of humanity. Unless we grow out of our infantile approach to these all-important issues, we might well see the end of our current world in a nuclear holocaust. There are individuals today influencing those in power with their fingers on the largest stockpile of nuclear weapons to bring about Armageddon. The utter insanity of this leaves most sane people reeling with disbelief, but fundamentalists of all the major religions believe in a cataclysmic end to human kind and then a renewal from the ashes of the old world. This is a self-fulfilling prophesy if sane individuals do not stand up and raise their voices in protest.

So far we have seen biblical and scriptural prophecies of doom as little more than warnings of what might be rather than what will be, but, today, sadly we are beginning to see a movement towards fulfilling the most horrifying one: that of the destruction of humankind in the totally erroneous belief that a god will come down and make everything new. To grow beyond ‘good’ and ‘evil’ is not demonic as some individuals might see it. It is a sign of the human race maturing and leaving behind its childhood. Altruism and self-interest are kindred spirits which could lead us to a much more balanced and prosperous future. The only thing I am absolutely certain about is that clinging to the concept of ‘good’ and ‘evil’ will lead us only to disaster and bloodshed on a scale never conceived of before. Taking care of each while taking care of ourselves at one and the same time seems a much better way to live than the ways of the past. I hope it is because it is what I believe in now with all my being.

******

Comments

Navajo Indian Prayer

Sat, 19 Apr 2008 19:30:29 +0200

Hi to everybody...I found this on a site about serenity and peace of mind, and thought I'd share it with you...we could all do with a bit of both I think...

A Navajo Indian Prayer

The simplest and most obvious prayer is a request to the Great Spirit that the adversity ends and that one be restored to health. Such prayers often involve "affirmations." There is a considerable psychological literature on the healing power of affirmations. Here is a beautiful Navajo prayer that uses affirmation:

O you who dwell In the house made of the dawn,
In the house made of the evening twilight ...
Where the dark mist curtains the doorway,
The path to which is on the rainbow ...
I have made your sacrifice.
I have prepared a smoke for you.

My feet restore for me.
My limbs restore for me.
My body restore for me.
My mind restore for me.
My voice restore for me.

Today, take away your spell from me.
Away from me you have taken it.
Far Off from me you have taken it.

Happily I recover.
Happily my interior becomes cool.
Happily my eyes regain their power.
Happily my head becomes cool.
Happily my limbs regain their power.
Happily I hear again.
Happily for me the spell is taken Off.

Happily I walk.
Impervious to pain, I walk.
Feeling light within, I walk ...
In beauty I walk.
With beauty before me, I walk.
With beauty behind me, I walk.
With beauty below me, I walk.
With beauty all around me, I walk.

It is finished in beauty.
It is finished in beauty.
It is finished in beauty.

Have a good evening and great big hugs to one and all....

Comments

Inspiration overload

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 16:00:07 +0200

Hi to everybody...sorry, but got into a writing mode...wrote this this afternoon...

Better days to come.

A whisper in the ear, a heart racing
A memory of something long gone
Stirs once more the thrill of knowing
The sensation of a life embracing
Moment when we were young
And the whole world was ours
For the taking, and joy filled veins
Pulsed with fire and passion.
Did we not think all was possible
In those halcyon days of yore?
When youth hid dangers from eyes
Innocent and naïve, but hopeful
That life would fulfil our dreams
And walk gentle through the days
When we were young and the future
Held up the promise of better days
To come.

Now older and much wiser we see
With eyes grown dim in time
That life was a journey taken
With a bitter pill sweetened
From time to time with honey dew
That put our feet back on the path
So we could start afresh and renew
Our hope that life still held some joy.
With friends to lighten the load
We walked in company for a while
Then in solitude when their paths
Split from ours and we went our way,
And they went theirs, and we found
Ourselves alone and knew this would
Suffice for we had become as one
Hoping that there were better days
To come.

****

Big hugs to one and all....

Comments

Three for the price of two

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 14:58:51 +0200

Hi to everybody...a blast from the past here....three for the price of two...HLOL...

Homo Sapiens

Naked apes,
woven from the stars,
Filled with storms and cosmic fire

Walk erect in liberation,
pursuing dreams with myopic eyes.

Gatherers,
hoarding words, wisdom,
And objects for present and future use,

Weave fluid histories, riven
With blood and rites of passage.

Travellers,
bearing heavy loads
Of ancient, buried memories,

Build material worlds, creating
Gods to ease the sting of death.

Seekers,
straining for meaning
Of concealed truths dimly sensed,

Make mysteries, hiding
ignorance behind masks of certainties.

Rulers,
fighting hidden dragons
garbed in fires of hate and fear,

Turn from reason, creating
chaos clothed as justice.

Dreamers,
holding onto visions
of peace, goodwill and love,

Walk softly in the night, hoping
one day sanity will prevail over all.

*****

A New Dawn

Shadowed shades subduing light,
dew dropped webs silken thin,
Silence.
Shrouds of mist cacooning mantle,
night moist leaves sit passive calm,
Stillness.
Sleep laden birds roost feather snug,
daisies rest with folded petals,
Slumber.
Silver Diana drifts on chariot cloud,
Zephyrs caress the moon’s adieu,
Sunrise.
Soft blush of dawn tints pink the grey,
Stirs dormant life to greet Aurora’s rise,
Serenade.
Sweet trills of birds herald morn,
Stars fade with the night’s departure,
Resurrection
Rousing breaths vast and sonorous,
mists melt - petals unfold - trees unfurl,

A new day.

*****

Eye Candy

A sideways glance. A second look.
A face that catches the eye.
A body honed to perfection
makes years drift back in time.

When age makes one invisible,
a glance goes unperceived.
Memories of being noticed
of flirting, dating, a heart
thumping, a passionate kiss,
come flooding back again.
The days when the viewer
chased and won the viewed,
all these have vanished
with the years. Not regretted,
but vaguely missed when
somebody catches the eye
and reminds the heart it’s time
to rest content with simply looking
and then to pass on by, happy
to know the look went unnoticed
so there was no chance of rejection
which also happened in the past
now, thankfully or hopefully, forgotten.

*****

Big hugs to one and all....

Comments

A Poem by me

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 21:03:03 +0200

Hi to everybody...a moment of inspiration HLOL...haven't written anything in my poor old Vanillacustard blog for ages...not since I've been feeling physically whacked and emotionally drained...
Not everybody's cup of tea maybe, but it speaks to me....

Creator of worlds.

Time slips away dreamlike into the past
Lost forever moments of consciousness
Making things real that would not exist
Without an act of will to make solid
Something that was but an idea floating
In the netherworld of possible potential
And suddenly is real inside your mind
While outside of it the thing is born
The moment a self beholds the object
And, in observing, fixes it forever
The dance of life in space and time
Endlessly moving in a continuum
Until the end draws nigh and what
Was once a world ceases in the final
Beat of a heart and the last drawn breath
Of a self that came, and saw, and conquered
The odds of ever being born, triumphant
Birth, creator of worlds, lay down now
And rest, your work is done, time to return
The sum of your parts to the cosmic womb
For another life to be born, another world
To be formed, and so it goes on and on and on.

***

Big hugs to one and all, and have a restful night and sweet dreams....

Comments