Nature is a language

Nature is a language, can't you read.

Wonderful line taken from The Smiths' wonderful song Ask.

Know the world

We do not come to know the world by that which extort from it but rather by that which we add to it ourselves.

Unsure who wrote this but it's a wonderful quote.

Air for the soul

Love is air for the soul. As our body's breath air so our soul's must breathe in and breathe out love. To do so is the only way we can be truly alive.

Written in March 2009

This we know

This we know – the earth does not belong to us, we belong to the earth. Whatever befalls the earth befalls the daughters and sons of the earth. We did not weave the web of life; we are merely strands in it. Whatever damage we do the web, we do to ourselves. Chief Seattle – American Indian 1850

The message - written September 2008

I sit at the table, furiously drinking coffee and staring at the screen
Thinking about the perils of words
Words, what are words, when they only flow one way
Waiting always waiting
Always on the side of insane, never refrain
Why do the patterns remain?

The only sound is the ticking of my brain
When does it begin?
Lost forever in this aching space
Somewhere yet nowhere
Will true smiles ever return to my face?

The infinite moment is breached by a sound
I’ve heard it before
The message is wanted but never found
Sometimes when the waiting vaguely ends
In that time space, the sound almost plays to my desire
But only enough to cause the path to bend

The direction remains
How ever did it come to now?
When will my thoughts come to mend to a different story?
Did I ever allow this shapeless path, with endless perils?
The path has taken over, the end is sometimes forgotten

Yet the journey is still mine
I walk the road but something else makes the choices
The endless anticipation of a sign, that never arrives
Desire is replaced with despair, then despair with emptiness
I must attempt a rescue but is it too late?

Energy and toxins

Never try to acquire your daily calorie intake from alcohol. It does provide energy but it’s the sloppy and slurry kind. Try to avoid placing wine into a NHS 5 a day category – no matter how hard you try, wine isn’t really grapes, it just contains grapes. It’s definitely not sensible to replace an actual meal with Pringles and chocolate. Yes they are food and yes they taste great but they do not constitute a balanced diet. Do I sound like a health guru? Probably not because I succeeded in doing all of the above yesterday. That said, I only had a few glasses of wine but on a largely empty stomach, a few glasses becomes like drinking a few bottles in their effects. Amazingly I woke quite early for me, sadly this was not due to some healthy enthusiasm for the day ahead but was instead due to hunger combined with that feeling of over-indulgence. I sometimes think I suffer from memory loss. I always fail to remember that over-indulgence doesn’t make you feel good, it makes you feel yucky and ever so slightly guilty. I seem to walk a fine line between healthy and unhealthy. I’m either to be found munching on a carrot, avoiding carbs, only drinking water and herbal tea or I’m hardcore into the other side of the spectrum. Oh to lead a balanced life would be truly wonderful. Boring probably but wonderful. Why do the things that make you feel so good, so fleetingly, have to be so bad for you? The word toxins sounds terrible and indeed they are terrible but I’ve consumed all kinds of toxins and for a time, you’re living the dream and then later, you realise why they are called toxins. I’m going to attempt (again) to avoid toxins and only put beautiful things into my body. I’m going to keep up the exercise and tell myself that I love it. I am going to do all this very, very soon but first I’m going to go back to sleep for a while......

Imagine

I was listening to Joan Baez's cover of Imagine yesterday. It's a good cover. I found myself wondering about a world united rather than divided by nation-states, povery and war. Will it ever be possible to achieve the kind of world that Lennon's lyrics describes? Some people may feel his lyrics describe a kind of unachievable, utopian ideal. Perhaps so but it would be a wonderful model to work towards. It's interesting and extremely sad that the place you are born into can map out whether you will be poor or relatively rich. It should be possible for each child that enters the world to have a chance to live a wonderful life. I saw a film once called Pay it Forward - as an American blockbuster it had the usual sugar-coated moments of corny but also it had a great message of passing on kindness. I really felt that it was a good blueprint for life. As Lennon says "you may say that I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one I hope someday you'll join us and the world will live as one". I hope for this. I'm in danger of sounding like a modern-day hippie (and actually I don't mind too much) but really doesnt everyone to be free (by that I don't mean that everyone that has committed hideous crimes against humanity should be wandering around on the streets, I'm left-wing but I'm not that left-wing!), to know that we will eat today and tommorrow, don't we all deserve to have access to water that will refresh us rather than make us ill. Perhaps there will always be some hardship in life, certainly there will always be loss but I do feel that everyone and I do mean everyone deserves the chance of enough good things to lead a good life. Humanity should mean more than just being human - it should mean humankindness. xx