When I started blogging back in July, 2009, I had not the slightest idea of what to expect. Frankly, if I had had any expectations, I still would have never realised the web of friendships that would result. In fact, it is only the sense, the strong sense, of friendship that flows from followers and friends of Learning from Dogs that keeps me at it. Many of those that follow this place are themselves bloggers and are followed by me in turn.
All of which is an introduction to an email that arrived some six days ago. This is what I read:
Hi Paul,
I posted this on my site, Scribble Darts from the Heart, yesterday. I was wondering if you would consider it as a guest post for your site. I know the actual event between polar bear and dog took place several years ago and you may have already shared something in this regard but I thought I would run it by you and see what you think.
Cheers, Mary 🙂
I dropped in to Mary’s blogsite and thought her idea of a guest post was wonderful. It is a very short guest post but you will love it! (And you will need a handkerchief nearby!)
ooOOoo
Miracle of Play
My Haiku today was inspired by the heartwarming story of a polar bear and sled dog that played together daily for over a week.
Have a dog or two in the house? Hide your feelings then!
I have previously remarked on how quickly our dogs pick up on key words and phrases spoken by either Jean or me. In my case, long before I met Jean when I was living in Devon with Pharaoh, I quickly learnt that voicing the word ‘walk’ caused an eruption of interest from his nibs. Then I foiled his intelligence by spelling the word out: w-a-l-k. That lasted all of a fortnight (or two weeks in American speak) before Pharaoh knitted the letters into that walk word.
Here in Oregon our living-room/bedroom group of dogs (Pharaoh, Hazel, Cleo, Sweeney and Oliver) pick up on so many human comments, sayings, and behaviours that at times it feels as though Jean and I need to go somewhere private in order to discuss anything that affects our lovely dogs.
Facial expressions are a key asset in our arsenal of communication methods. Without saying a word, we can alert those around us to our emotional state—ranging from elation to sorrow—simply by flexing a few muscles. Such expressions have evolved to help us connect with one another, avoid danger and work together.
Fellow humans, however, are not the only ones potentially tuning in to the information our expressions convey. According to the results of a study published today in Current Biology, dogs have hacked this silent method of communication, at least enough to distinguish between angry and happy facial expressions.
Dogs and humans share a tight evolutionary bond, which is why veterinarian researchers from the University of Vienna decided to focus on these two species for their study. Dogs are already known to be whizzes at reading us. For instance, they can discriminate between familiar and unfamiliar faces even if just part of the face is shown in a photograph. Whether they actually recognize emotions, however, had not been conclusively investigated before.
It would be wrong to republish the full article without permission but I do want to share another photograph from the article and the closing paragraphs.
A canine research subject differentiates between angry and happy eyes. Photo: Anjuli Barber, Messerli Research Institute
Before the authors delve into the greater animal kingdom, though, they plan to further explore their canine findings. Experiments with puppies could lend insight into whether facial expression recognition is something dogs learn over their lives or if it’s something more innate. And trials with wolves could indicate whether human breeders bestowed emotion recognition in their canine companions via artificial selection, or whether that trait was something dogs’ ancient relatives developed on their own simply by living in the vicinity of humans.
While the initial controlled laboratory findings don’t prove that your dog is watching your every facial move for clues about how you are feeling, they do open up the possibility that dogs are even more empathetic best friends than we thought.
Many of you who have dogs in your lives will intuitively know this to be true. But having the scientific underpinning is wonderful confirmation of that truth.
I’m sure I am not alone in having a dog come up to me and lick the tears off my face.
What incredible loving and trusting relationships we have with our dogs.
To underline my last sentence, on a whim I just took the following photograph of Hazel who very rarely isn’t by my side.
Picture taken at 10:35 yesterday morning in my ‘home office’ when I had just finished writing today’s post.
The strong case for maintaining the very best of emotional hygiene.
As is the way of things, last night, after I had read out aloud to Jean yesterday’s conclusion to my personal story entitled The Pen (the first part was on Monday), Jean and I were looking around for something to watch. We dipped into TED Talks and found a recent addition from a Dr. Guy Winch, a licensed psychologist, keynote speaker and author. Here is that talk that so perfectly rounds off the previous two days.
Published on Feb 16, 2015
We’ll go to the doctor when we feel flu-ish or a nagging pain. So why don’t we see a health professional when we feel emotional pain: guilt, loss, loneliness? Too many of us deal with common psychological-health issues on our own, says Guy Winch. But we don’t have to. He makes a compelling case to practice emotional hygiene — taking care of our emotions, our minds, with the same diligence we take care of our bodies.
Dr. Guy Winch
If you want to learn more about Guy Winch then his website is here, and there is an item about Dr. Winch on the Psychology Today website.
(Please note that this is a long post that potentially may be upsetting for some readers. Please trust me when I say there is no intention to upset anyone. I should add that the motivation for writing The Pen is from reading Sue Dreamwalker’s recent post Cracking our Inner Shells.)
Yesterday, I wrote about the circumstances of my father’s death on December, 20th 1956. I wrote:
I became twelve-years-old in November, 1956. Just six weeks after my twelfth birthday, on the evening of December 19th, 1956, my mother, as normal, came into my bedroom to kiss me goodnight. However, what transpired was very far from normal.
For she sat down on the edge of the bed and told me that my father was not well and may not live for much longer. To this day, I can still see her sitting on the edge of the bed, adjacent to my knees covered by the sheet and bedcover, a very drawn look on her face.
I had been aware of my father being at home in bed for a while but had no notion whatsoever, prior to this moment, that he was seriously unwell. In hindsight, it was more than I could emotionally embrace for not only did I not go back into my parent’s bedroom and again say goodnight to my father, I went off to sleep without any problem.
During that night, in the early hours of December 20th, my father died, the family doctor attended and my father’s body was removed; I slept through it all and awoke in the morning to find my father gone.
It’s also relevant to reveal that it was deemed potentially too upsetting for my sister, Elizabeth, my junior by four years, and me to attend my father’s cremation.
Upper Barn, Harberton.
OK! Fast forward to 2006. I was happily married to Julie, my third wife, and had been since the year 2000. Her daughter from a previous marriage, Amy, was also part of the family. We were living in a three-bedroomed converted stone barn known as Upper Barn in the village of Harberton, a few miles west of Totnes, Devon, South-West England. A lovely tranquil home in a very tranquil village; population 300 persons.
I had my two wonderful sisters, Corinne and Rhona, from my father’s first marriage, living within short distances. My work, home-based, involved offering entrepreneurial mentoring to local business owners, and my wife and I had a wonderful local network of good friends. Indeed, in the last months of 2006 I had been working with a professional psychotherapist, Jon, as he was expanding his client base from individuals to working within companies. And Pharaoh had been in the family since 2003! It seemed about as perfect as it could be for me.
December 20th, 2006 was the fiftieth anniversary of my father’s death. I could never settle into the pre-Christmas mood until after the 20th December each year and this anniversary day seemed more poignant than ever. I had missed my father since the day he had died in 1956.
As it happened, that same day Julie seemed off-colour. She was frequently in the bathroom during the day and, naturally, I was concerned. Towards the end of the day I asked what was troubling her. Julie replied that she had had a miscarriage earlier that afternoon. A year after my son and daughter had been born to my first wife in 1972/1973, I had opted to have a vasectomy! Julie’s miscarriage was not of my making.
I won’t go into the details of how my life exploded but will just say that it was traumatic in every way imaginable.
In desperation, a few weeks into the New Year of 2007, I called my psychotherapist business client, Jon, and begged him to take me on as his client. He was initially uncertain, stating that we already had a relationship, but agreed on the understanding that if he thought the counselling relationship wasn’t properly established then he would ask me not to continue working with him. Of course, I agreed.
I want to offer what has been written elsewhere by me, explaining what happened in my fourth counselling session with Jon back in 2007. Clearly my memory of what was said can’t be word perfect but the essence of the dialogue is accurate.
“Paul, when we had our first session and I asked you to relate the key life events that came to you, the first event you spoke of was the death of your father. Tell me more about that time of your life.”
“I don’t have clear memories of my father much before he died that year. He was a lot older than my mother, some eighteen years, and I had been the product of a liaison between them; my father being married at the time. They met when they were both members of an amateur orchestra in London during the height of the Second World War. My father had had two daughters with his wife and longed for a son. I came along just six months before the end of the war.”
I paused for a few moments, sensing how dipping back to that December in 1956 was making me feel uncomfortable.
“I had turned twelve-years-old in early November 1956. Just finished my first term at Grammar School. To be honest, I can’t recall when my father became ill and how long he had been bed-ridden. But on the evening of December 19th, after I had kissed my father goodnight and jumped into my bed next door, my mother came in, closed my bedroom door, sat on the edge of my bed and told me that my father was very ill and that he may not live for much longer.
It clearly didn’t register with me at any significant emotional level because I went off to sleep without any problem. But when I awoke in the morning, Mum told me that my father had died during the night, the family doctor had attended and my father’s body had been removed from the house.”
Jon looked at me and quietly asked, “What feelings do you have about that night and that morning?”
“To be honest, Jon, I have an almost complete absence of feelings. I’ve often tried to discover what I truly felt at the time or, indeed, what I feel all these years later. But the best I have ever been able to come up with is that I was never able to say goodbye. In fact, because it was decided that it would be too upsetting for me, I wasn’t even present at the funeral and cremation, thus reinforcing my sense of not saying goodbye to my father.”
There was a pause before Jon asked his next question. “So, Paul, you have a son and a daughter. What are their ages?”
“My son, Alex, is now thirty-five and my daughter, Maija, thirty-four.”
Jon put his hands together fingers-to-fingers and lent his chin against them. “So your son would have been twelve in 1984. That was when you were very busy running your own business, if I recall.”
I nodded in reply.
“So Paul, let’s say that during that year of 1984 you had been diagnosed with some terminal illness, say cancer, as with your father. That you were given a life expectancy of six months or so. What thoughts come to mind?”
“Jon, you mean in the sense of what it would have meant for Alex and Maija?”
Jon nodded.
“Wow, what a truly terrible thing to reflect upon. But what comes to mind without doubt is that I would have walked away from my business immediately. After all, it very soon wasn’t going to be my business. My kids were still living at home, of course. I would have wanted to share every minute of my life with them. Try to let them understand as much about me, who I was, what I believed in, what made Paul Handover the person he was.”
Jon almost breathed the next question into the air of the room. “Translate the circumstances of the death of your father across to your son. What I mean by that is Alex experiencing the same circumstances from your death. What’s your reaction to that situation, admittedly hypothetical situation, thank goodness?”
I reacted with an immediate passion. “To know that I was terminally ill and to keep that from my son and daughter; that’s terrible, no it’s disgusting. Then to compound it by having everything associated with my death and the disposal of my body denied to Alex and Maija …..,” I left the sentence unfinished before adding, “It’s cruel beyond description. My poor children wouldn’t have a clue as to why they were excluded from what is, whether or not one agrees with it, one of life’s most important moments.”
Jon seemed to hold my anger in the room all about us, as he asked, “How would you reword your last sentences in the manner of a headline; in just a few words?”
I hardly hesitated. “The word that comes to mind is rejection. Alex and Maija, aged twelve and eleven, losing their father in a way that suggested they weren’t important. Yes, that’s it. They would see it as a total rejection of them by their father. Not unreasonably, I might add.”
There was a silence in the room that seemed to go on forever. Then Jon said, “Paul, we are not quite up to the hour but I’m going to suggest you just sit here quietly with Pharaoh and let yourself out when you are confident of being OK to drive home.”
He added, almost as an afterthought, “Just let today settle itself into your consciousness just however it wants to. Don’t force your thoughts either way, neither dwelling on today nor preventing thoughts naturally coming to the surface of your mind. As we have discussed before, pay attention to your dreams. Maybe have a notebook by your bedside so you can jot down what you have been dreaming about. I’ll see you next Friday same time, if that’s alright with you.”
When a crossroads is neither a roadway, nor a choice of pathways, when that crossroads is in our minds, we seldom know it’s there or that we’ve made the choice to take one path and not the other until it’s long past. Sometimes, the best you can do is look for the tiniest clues as to which path one has taken in life and where one is really heading.
I had read that in a book quite recently although, typically, could no longer remember the name of the said book. It had spoken to me in a way that I couldn’t fathom, but of sufficient strength and clarity for me to jot it down on a sheet of paper. I had been sorting papers out on my desk on the Sunday following that last session with Jon when I came across the sheet. The words hammered at me again, but in a way that was now so much more full of meaning than the first time around.
Because, to my very great surprise, my nights’ sleeps on Friday and Saturday had not only been dream free but had taken me to a place of such sweet contentment that it was almost as though I had been reborn. Alright, perhaps reborn was a little over the top, but there was no question that I was in an emotional place quite unlike anything I could ever before recall. Almost as if for the first time in my life I truly liked who I was.
On the Sunday morning, after I had taken Pharaoh over to the woods for our regular walk, I called in on Corinne and shared a cup of tea with her. As I was leaving, Corinne asked me if I was alright. In querying why she had asked, Corinne simply said, “Oh, I don’t know. There’s something different about you today that I can’t put my finger on. A happiness about you that I haven’t seen in ages, possibly never seen in you.”
I gave my sister a long and deep hug and gently said, “I miss our father at times, don’t you?”
She answered, “Oh, I miss him too, miss him so much at times. He was such a wonderful, gentle man who lived for his children. Then to die at such a young age.”
As the week rolled by, I found a truth that had been denied me for the whole of my life. I couldn’t wait to share it with Jon. As I drove across to Torquay, I was full of what I wanted to say.
Jon could tell that I was fit to burst. Indeed, I had hardly sat down on the chair when Jon asked me how my week had gone.
“Jon, It’s been an amazing week. I’ve at last understood some fundamental aspects of my life.”
“That sounds wonderful, Paul, do tell me more.”
“Well, it’s this. I have now realised the emotional consequences of the way my father’s death was handled. In other words, what became hidden deep in my subconscious, far from sight, so to speak, was a belief of having been emotionally rejected. That despite that being so far down in my subconscious world, it clearly explained two conscious ways in which I behave.”
Jon’s demeanour, his wonderful listening demeanour, encouraged me to continue. “The first thing that came to me was the reason why I have been so unfortunate in my relationships with women. Well this is how I figured it out. Whenever a woman took a shine to me, I would do anything and everything to come over as a potentially attractive spouse. In other words, I was being driven by a terrible fear of rejection, rather than rationally wondering if this woman had the potential to be a woman I would love as a wife. Ergo, I oversold myself and, inevitably, made poor long-term relationships; Julie being the classic example.”
I paused and took a sip from the glass of water that was on the small table by my side.
“But the positive aspect of my fear of rejection is that throughout the whole of my business and professional life, I have been successful. Because, I have always put the feelings of the other person above my own as a means of avoiding rejection. Jon, I can’t tell you what a release this has been for me.”
“Paul, that’s a fabulous example of how when we really get to know the person we are, how it then gives us a psychological freedom, a freedom to be the person we truly are, to be happy with ourselves.”
He continued, “One thing I should mention is this. It’s likely that what happened to you back in December 1956 is not necessarily ‘hard-wired’ but certainly is a very deep-rooted emotional aspect of who you are. This new-found awareness will be of huge value to you but that sensitivity to rejection is not going to disappear; probably never will. The difference is that you are now aware of it and quite quickly you will spot the situations, as they are happening, that stir up those ancient feelings. The difference is this new self-awareness will deliver a much deeper emotional understanding of who you are and why you behave in the way you do.”
There was a wonderful sense of peace and calm in the room that ran on for some minutes.
Then Jon just voiced what seemed like the perfect closing thought. “Paul, this mindfulness you have so beautifully revealed is wonderful. You do know you are fine, don’t you!”
I was motivated to reveal these details of my past by what Sue wrote in her recent post Cracking our Inner Shells. She included these words:
Sometimes we have to go within to the silent places we all have in order to find out what is really going on with our emotional bodies. Even knowing all the things I do, we are within our Human form to learn and grow..
I needed to ask myself a few questions as to why I was feeling so lost, depressed and sad… More was going on than just bereavement. Yes the fall I had had,both bruised and shook me, but what else was shaking me to the core?
For those who know a little about my Soul Journey, You will also know that my own Mother and I had not spoken for 10 years prior to her passing some eleven years ago now….Despite many attempts I knew I was only wounding myself more by continually trying to bridge the rift, to be continually rejected.. So this rejection and other issues related to overwork and stress, resulted in a Nervous Breakdown in my mid forties..
So when my Mother died, while I was sad, I guess I never really grieved her loss. Because to me.. I had grieved her long before her death as lost to me.. As I had had to shut down my emotions to cope with her rejection.. I had undergone counselling within my breakdown, and my Mother jumped up at every dark corner of why even in my teens I had suffered from deep depression.
We often go through whole chapters of our lives creating a protective shell around ourselves because we need it in order to heal from some early trauma. I know I had built many such Layers of shell around myself from various experiences over the years..
But more than that, I recommend that if you have any sense of there being hidden parts of your consciousness that would be better brought to the light, then you involve a professional counsellor or psychotherapist. For the reward will be beyond measure.
As mine was.
For on December 14th, 2007 I first met Jean when invited to San Carlos in Mexico for the Christmas period by Suzann and Don Reeves; Suzann being the sister of my very long-term Californian friend Dan Gomez.
Jean and I have now known each other for over seven years and have been married for over four years. I love her beyond imagination. Because I can reveal to Jean the strange, quirky, often fragile person that I am. And I am loved for who I am by Jean.
6th January, 2008. Jean and me on a beach in Mexico.
This is the poem I wrote for Jean for this Valentine’s Day just gone.
What’s in a number?
Numbers spell out so much.
From a year of birth,
To a year of death,
From a chance event,
To a predictable breath.
Numbers spell out so much more.
From the day that we met,
To the year we were joined,
From the day we married,
To this day of love today.
So many days of happiness.
Yet numbers that spill beyond the digits.
For they are reflections of times a past,
And they are beacons of our lives,
Numbers that carry so much meaning,
To places so far beyond their count.
Yet today there is a number,
A number that carries all thoughts of love,
Almost endless thoughts of love from me to you,
Two little figures that say seventy-four.
For seventy-four months ago,
This very day,
I met you,
And you met me.
I loved you so soon,
Loved you so well.
And still do.
If you have read this far then well done! 🙂 If only one person has been touched by my experiences then that is wonderful.
I shall close by publishing a paragraph towards the end of Sue’s blog post.
Only you can know the how’s and why’s of your life. The answers that you seek can be found when you start answering your own questions, Sometimes we have to get a little lost in order to find oneself again.. But the journey in finding oneself is all part of our Earth Journey.
(This is a two-part post, with the concluding part tomorrow.)
My father was born on June 15th, 1901.
Here is a photograph taken of him on his twenty-first birthday.
Frederick William Handover – June 15th, 1922
He was an architect for Barclay Perkins & Co., a London firm of brewers. Here are the opening words of the Wikipedia entry.
The Anchor Brewery was an English brewery located in Southwark, London. Established in 1616, by the early nineteenth century it was the largest brewery in the world. From 1781 it was operated by Barclay Perkins & Co, who merged with Courage in 1955. The brewery was demolished in 1981.
A Barclays Public House in Southgate, London N1. Picture from The Brewery History Society.
I was born in November, 1944 and at the start of the school year in September 1956, me aged eleven, I started in the first term of Preston Manor County Grammar School near Preston Road, Wembley, just a few miles from where we all lived. (Mother, father, me and Elizabeth, my younger sister by four years.) Frankly, I had been regarded as a bit of a dreamer at my primary school and more than a few were surprised that I passed the ’11+’ exams, a prerequisite for attending a grammar school in those days.
I became twelve-years-old in November, 1956. Just six weeks after my twelfth birthday, on the evening of December 19th, 1956, my mother, as normal, came into my bedroom to kiss me goodnight. However, what transpired was very far from normal.
For she sat down on the edge of the bed and told me that my father was not well and may not live for much longer. To this day, I can still see her sitting on the edge of the bed, adjacent to my knees covered by the sheet and bedcover, a very drawn look on her face.
I had been aware of my father being at home in bed for a while but had no notion whatsoever, prior to this moment, that he was seriously unwell. In hindsight, it was more than I could emotionally embrace for not only did I not go back into my parent’s bedroom and again say goodnight to my father, I went off to sleep without any problem.
During that night, in the early hours of December 20th, my father died, the family doctor attended and my father’s body was removed; I slept through it all and awoke in the morning to find my father gone.
Now fast forward just a few years.
It’s too long ago now for me to recall who it was who gave me my father’s fountain pen that he used on a daily basis when he was alive. It is a Sheaffer Crest Snorkel with a 14K gold Triumph nib with a platinum plated tip.
I have had the pen for nearly sixty years and treasure it, as you can imagine. But in recent times it was not functioning properly and I put it down to old age, and transferred to a modern pen.
By a wonderful stroke of luck I recently came across an American company, Pendemonium, who restore and service a wide range of pens, including Sheaffer pens of the age of my father’s pen; that particular model first was produced in 1952.
On Saturday, the restored Sheaffer pen was sent back to me. It is a real joy to find that it writes so well and remains a living memory of my father from so long ago.
My father’s Sheaffer fountain pen.
Now all you dear readers must be wondering just what on earth I’m rambling on about!
My answer will be offered in Part Two that will be posted tomorrow.
Possibly the most important lesson to be learnt from dogs.
As is the way, a number of separate happenings seemed to be ‘singing from the same song sheet’ in bringing about today’s post.
Earlier yesterday morning Jean and I had a meeting with the executive director of an important charity that is helping the many homeless and disadvantaged young persons in this part of Oregon. For example, Jean and I were told that there were 300-500 homeless teenagers in Josephine County alone (Josephine County is where our home is.)
One of the ideas that was floated in the conversation was how kids are so loving to animals and whether our dogs and horses might help.
Then later, when back home, I recalled that over two years ago I published a post called Sticks and stones.
It wasn’t a long post and is republished now.
oooo
Sticks and stones
I make no apologies for today’s post being more emotional and sentimental. The phrase ‘sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me‘ is well known throughout the English-speaking world and surprisingly goes back some way. A quick web search found that in the The Christian Recorder of March 1862, there was this comment:
Remember the old adage, ‘Sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never harm me’. True courage consists in doing what is right, despite the jeers and sneers of our companions.
So if in 1862 the saying was referred to as an ‘old adage’ then it clearly pre-dated 1862 by some degree. A few days ago, Dusty M., here in Payson, AZ, sent me a short YouTube video called The Power of Words. I’m as vulnerable as the next guy to needing being reminded about what’s important in this funny old world.
Then I started mulling over the tendency for all of us to be sucked into a well of doom and gloom. Take my posts on Learning from Dogs over the last couple of days, as an example. There is no question that the world in which we all live is going through some extremely challenging times but anger and negativity is not going to be the answer. As that old reference spelt out so clearly, “True courage consists in doing what is right, despite the jeers and sneers of our companions.” So first watch the video,
then let me close by reminding us all that courage is yet something else we can learn from dogs.
Togo the husky
In 1925, a ravaging case of diphtheria broke out in the isolated Alaskan village of Nome. No plane or ship could get the serum there, so the decision was made for multiple sled dog teams to relay the medicine across the treacherous frozen land. The dog that often gets credit for eventually saving the town is Balto, but he just happened to run the last, 55-mile leg in the race. The sled dog who did the lion’s share of the work was Togo. His journey, fraught with white-out storms, was the longest by 200 miles and included a traverse across perilous Norton Sound — where he saved his team and driver in a courageous swim through ice floes.
More about Togo another day.
oooo
One of the comments left to that post back in November, 2012 was from Virginia Hamilton. Her website, Canine Commandos, is about just that: dogs helping youngsters. This is what Virginia wrote:
Our sermon today was about sticks and stones which is perfect timing because my sixth graders are throwing words at each other and it is hurting. So I looked up the phrase and found you. We were shown the video in a faculty meeting and since you tie into dogs I was hoping to find “the answer.” When you look at the website you’ll see out community project where I have twenty schools training in three shelters. One would think that because these kids are so loving to the animals that they could pass that kindness to each other. Any words of wisdom? Also check this out. Thank you, Virginia.
Now I would be the first to admit that there’s a difference between a homeless young person and a gifted young person. Yet the difference may not be so great. In this one sense: that caring for an animal changes lives and what young people, from all backgrounds and circumstances, need to learn is the power of unconditional love.
Not just caring for dogs, horses and cats, by the way.
I freely admit that I have been putting off today’s post, and I’m not sure why.
Maybe it’s the continuing escalation of words between the West and Russia over the Ukraine? (But for some clarity do read this analysis written by Anatol Lieven, Professor, Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service in Qatar.)
Maybe it’s because my last republication of a George Monbiot essay was so hopeful. Indeed, the blog post was called Voting for hope.Whereas today’s Monbiot essay is very sad.
Maybe it’s because I am not immune to the temptations that are described.
But whatever the reasons, there can be no denying that there is a real sense of finding the modern world increasingly strange and frequently upsetting.
That theme continues today with the republication of a George Monbiot essay that he released on his blog a week ago.
ooOOoo
Lost in the 21st Century
3rd February 2015
Consumerism has broken its promise. Perhaps now we can begin to reconnect.
By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 4th February 2015
A woman walks into a department store. She takes in the racks and stacks of stuff, the sugared music, the sale signs, the listless customers shuffling through the aisles, and is moved – suddenly and to her own astonishment – to shout. “Is this all there is?!”. An assistant comes round from behind his till. “No madam. There’s more in our catalogue.”
This is the answer we have been given to everything, the only answer. We might have lost our attachments, our communities, our sense of meaning and purpose, but there will be more money and more stuff with which to replace them. Now that the promise has evaporated, the size of the void becomes intelligible.
It’s not that the old dispensation was necessarily better: it was bad in different ways. Hierarchies of class and gender crush the human spirit as effectively as atomisation. The point is that the void that was filled with junk is a void that could have been occupied by a better society, built on mutual support and connectedness, without the stifling stratification of the old order. But the movements that helped to smash the old world were facilitated and co-opted by consumerism.
Individuation, a necessary response to oppressive conformity, is exploitable. New social hierarchies, built around positional goods and conspicuous consumption, took the place of the old. The conflict between individualism and egalitarianism, too readily ignored by those who helped to break the oppressive norms and strictures, does not resolve itself.
So we are lost in the 21st Century, living in a state of social disaggregation that hardly anyone desired, but that is an emergent property of a world reliant on rising consumption to avert economic collapse, saturated with advertising and framed by market fundamentalism. We inhabit a planet our ancestors would have found impossible to imagine: 7 billion people, suffering an epidemic of loneliness. It is a world of our making but not of our choice.
Now it appears that the feast to which we were invited is only for the few. Figures released last week show that wages in the United Kingdom are lower than they were 13 years ago(1). A fortnight ago, Oxfam revealed that the top 1% now possesses 48% of the world’s wealth(2); by next year it will own as much as everybody else put together. On the same day, an Austrian company unveiled its design for a new superyacht. It will be built on the hull of an oil tanker, 918 feet long(3). There will be 11 decks, three helipads, theatres, concert halls and restaurants, electric cars to take the owner and his guests from one end of the ship to the other, and a four-storey ski slope.
In 1949, Aldous Huxley wrote to George Orwell, to argue that his dystopian vision was the more convincing(4). “The lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging and kicking them into obedience. … The change will be brought about as a result of a felt need for increased efficiency.” I don’t believe he was wrong.
Consumerism is at odds with common purpose: you could pay your taxes or you could spend the money on a new car(5). It stifles feeling, dulling our concern for other people. Freedom to spend displaces other freedoms, as lotus eating allows us to forget our losses. Most forms of peaceful protest are now banned, but no one stops us from devouring the resources upon which future generations will depend. All this helps the global oligarchs to rip holes in the social safety net, find relief from the constraints of both democracy and taxation, and enclose and privatise our common weal.
Just as human society has been pulled apart by consumerism and materialism, pushing us into an unprecedented Age of Loneliness(6), so ecosystems have been shattered by the same forces. It is the consumerist mindset, raised to the global scale, that now threatens us with climate breakdown, catalyses a sixth great extinction, imperils global water supplies and strips the soil upon which all human life depends(7).
But nor do I believe that the acceptance of servitude Huxley envisaged is a permanent state. Wage stagnation, the brutality of the new conditions of employment, the breaking of the link between educational attainment and social advancement, the impossibility, for many young people, of finding good housing, all these confront us with the question that could be deferred only during conditions of rising general prosperity: is this all there is?
As the growth of Syriza and Podemos suggests, we cannot build political movements to challenge these issues unless we also build society. It is not enough to urge people to change their politics: we must create not only communities of interest but also communities of mutual support, offering the security, survival and respect that the state will no longer provide.
In a remarkable series of contemplations, extending beyond its familiar brief, Friends of the Earth has begun to explore how we might reconnect(8), with each other and with the natural world. It is looking, for example, at new models for urban living(9), based on sharing rather than competitive consumption: the sharing not just of cars and appliances and tools, but also of money (through credit unions and micro-finance) and power. This means community-led decision-making, over transport, planning and, perhaps, rent levels, minimum and maximum wages, municipal budgets and taxation. Such initiatives are not a substitute for government action – like David Cameron’s Big Society they are meaningless without facilitation from the state – but they can bring people together with a sense of shared purpose, ownership and mutual support that centralised decision-making can never provide.
Friends of the Earth also supports the empathy revolution championed by the author Roman Krznaric(10), and lifelong education that might counter the ever narrower schooling now inflicted on our children, whose purpose is to prepare people for jobs they will never have, in the service of an economy ordered for the benefit of others.
In these ideas and movements we find the glimmerings of an answer to the question: no, this is not all there is. There is attachment. Despite the best efforts of those who believe there is no such thing as society, we have not lost our ability to connect.
5. See also the discussion of Rami Gabriel’s work (2013. Why I buy: Self, taste, and consumer society in America. University of Chicago Press) in Friends of the Earth, December 2013. Consumption and identity: A review of literature which is relevant to the question: ‘what is a better foundation for people’s identity than consumption?’ http://bit.ly/1ECZopQ
Something a little different for this week. Mother Nature Network put out an email earlier in January that opened, thus:
Dear friend of Mother Nature, We all see the beauty in a sunset or in a gorgeous painting, but can you appreciate the art in bacteria, climate images or preserved animal remains? These beautiful examples show how for centuries, art and science have danced a well-choreographed routine. The result has been some breathtaking creativity.
The pictures were so wonderful that I have offered the first six for today and the balance in a week’s time.
So without further ado, here is the balance of those paintings.
Leonardo da Vinci
As if he wasn’t busy enough, Italian painter, architect, engineer, sculptor and inventor Leonardo da Vinci was also fascinated with anatomy. He was so intrigued by the human body that by the end of his life da Vinci claimed he had dissected more than 30 corpses. He filled pages and pages with incredibly detailed drawings of body parts, accompanied by thousands of explanatory notes. U.K. heart surgeon Frances Wells, author of “The Heart of Leonardo,” recalled seeing da Vinci’s drawings for the first time as a medical student, “I remember thinking that they were far better than anything we had in modern textbooks of anatomy,” he said. “They were beautiful, accurate, absorbing – and there was a liveliness to them that you just don’t find in modern anatomical drawings.”
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Earth as art
The Earth looks pretty darn cool from way, way up in the sky. Technically, NASA’s Landsat series of Earth observation satellites are critical for understanding scientific issues related to land use and natural resources. But really, they take some pretty remarkable images of mountains, valleys, islands and just general patterns in the forests and grasslands. Showing off this natural artistic sensibility, the U.S. Geological Survey created a series of “Earth as Art” images that are absolutely gorgeous. (And if you’re a fan, don’t miss NASA’s global maps, which are mesmerizing.)
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Climate science
Marco Tedesco, associate professor of earth and atmospheric sciences at City College of New York, sees the beauty in climate science. Coastal flooding. Cloud cover. Melting ice. To make climate work more attractive to the less weather-obsessed, he gathered colleagues from his school’s music, graphic design and video game design departments. The project, called Polarseeds, resulted in a multimedia art exhibit featuring photography, music and video, all centered on the beauty in climate science. Data on Greenland’s melting ice was transformed into music and the gallery featured photos of cracking ice.
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Botanical illustrations
Centuries ago, botanical drawings were key to helping people keep records of plants that had healing properties. The incredibly detailed illustrations of herbs and other plants were designed so that botanists and doctors could recognize the species for medicinal purposes. The oldest surviving example of botanical art, the Codex Vindebonensis, dates back to 512 A.D. The illustrations became more detailed and accurate as the centuries unfolded and now have taken on an artistic rather than medical purpose. There has been a recent resurgence in the art form through groups such as the American Society of Botanical Artists.
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Preserved animal art
Japanese artist Iori Tomita sees beauty in death. He blends chemistry and art as he explores the natural beauty of the skeletal system in sea life. In his series “New World Transparent Specimens,” Tomita chemically bleaches and then dyes preserved animal bodies of fish, turtles, seahorses and other creatures. A chemical mix breaks down the protein and muscle, but leaves the collagen so the bodies keep their forms. Dyes then color the bones and tendons of the specimens, which are preserved in brightly lit glycerin.
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Pharaoh’s serpent
Mercury thiocyanate is an inorganic chemical compound that makes for some pretty dramatic moving art when it’s ignited. In the science world, mercury thiocyanate (typically present as a white powder) has several uses in chemical synthesis, but its real claim to fame is in pyrotechnics. When it’s lit, the compound produces a long spiraling column of ash and smoke that looks like a moving snake. These used to be sold in firework stores, but now you’re only likely to see them in a chemistry class because of claims of toxicity. The modern version is a nontoxic “black snake” that makes a less spectacular — albeit safer — presentation.
Yet again, another example of a post almost writing itself.
Let me explain.
Yesterday, I published a post about being sensitive to the world around us.
Then this morning there was a new post from Sue Dreamwalker under the title of Fear of the Future. It was uncharacteristically downbeat for Sue.
Now most who follow me know I try to bring a positive touch within my posts… Yet to be quite honest with you all I am really struggling right now to lift myself from the doldrums of my own thoughts.
The key to conquering our fears lies in awareness. When we identify the irrational thoughts that frighten us and replace them with positive affirming ones.
Argh… all easier said than done..
You would think with my inner Knowing, and my Spiritual mind I should be the last person to take a nose dive into that Pit of depression.. Especially when I dredged its depth before and vowed that I had been there done that and worn the T-shirt and I refuse to wear it again.
I could blame it on my Fall which left me feeling bruised with aching, muscles which are still healing.. And I could blame it on grief as I lost a very beloved Aunt last week. I could blame my fatigue on me deciding to move a whole wall of books out the spare bedroom with wrists still recovering from the sprains of the fall.. And I could blame it on the weather being cold and miserable.. I could even blame it on the state of the world, or the Planets .. I have a whole host of excuses I could fall back upon to justify why I am feeling tired and jaded..
Many left comments including me. I spoke of the reward of hugging a dog. My words included:
I don’t have answers other than to feel what you are feeling. All I hang onto when I spend too much time thinking of my own mortality is that the answer, the answer to the moment, is to bury one’s face into the warm, soft fur of a dog. They seem to sense my need at these times. (And that isn’t meant to sound like me devaluing the love and affection that I receive from Jean!)
In other words, that contact with the warm dog holds me in the present and before long the reinforcement of living that present, loving moment puts the unknown future into perspective.
Another comment was left by blogger Rajagopal that included this wonderful tale:
The only thing that I have seen working in my life is to keep living, as much as possible, in the present. There is nothing to fear, either of the now or of the future.
In this context, wish to leave you with the story of the pregnant deer; in a forest, a pregnant deer is about to give birth. She finds a remote field near a strong-flowing river, that looks like a safe place, as she starts going into labour. At the same moment, dark clouds gather in the sky and streaks of lightning sets off a forest fire. The deer looks to her left and sees an approaching hunter with arrow pointed at her. To her right, the deer spots a hungry lion speeding towards her. What can the pregnant deer do? She is in labour! What will happen? Will the deer survive? Will she give birth to the fawn and will it survive? Or will everything be burnt by the forest fire? Or will she perish to the hunter’s arrow? Or does a horrible end await her at the hands of the hungry lion? Constrained by the fire on one side, the flowing river on the other and boxed in by her natural predators, the deer is apparently left with no option. What does she do? Well, she focuses on delivering and giving birth to a new life.
The sequence of events that follows is the Lightning strikes and blinds the hunter, who releases the arrow which zips past the deer and strikes the hungry lion. It starts to rain heavily and the forest fire is slowly doused by rain water. The deer gives birth to a healthy fawn….In our life too there are moments when we are confronted with negative thoughts and possibilities on all sides, so powerful as to overwhelm us. May be we can learn from the deer. The priority of the deer at that given moment was to give birth as safely as possible.
The rest was not in her hands and any change in her focus would have most likely impeded giving birth to the fawn. In the midst of the severest storm, we just have to maintain presence of mind and do what is in our control…the Cosmic power will take care of the rest…best wishes… Raj.
Finally, there was a recent new follower of this place. Her name is Emma and she writes the blog The Muse in the Mirror. Emma was kind enough to grant me permission to republish a post from last December about the healing power of Llamas. Enjoy!
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Llama Loving; The healing power of Llamas
It’s official; I LOVE llamas. There, I said it, put out there for the world to know! I love their gentle, sensitive nature, friendly disposition and most of all their goofy, giggle-worthy expressions, which never fail to bring a smile to my face! Concerned that my llama loving status was bordering on obsession, I was beginning to question whether my love for these comical camelids was founded on anything other than sheer amusement! Thankfully as I researched further my findings confirmed that these beautiful animals are much more than a pretty (funny) face!!!
in USA. The adorable photo’s lay testament to the happiness that llama’s bring to residents at Bellingham Health and Rehabilitation Center in Washington, USA. Llama Marisco (pictured above), and Llama N.H. Flight of the Eagle (pictured right) are trained therapists, who spread comfort and joy as they stop at each bed to kiss the patients or have a hug. Resident Holly Barto remarked that…
“It was heaven. Just emotionally – to be able to touch an animal and hold an animal close.”
Another example of the profound healing benefits of llama’s can be seen in this adorable video below showing Rojo the therapy llama and Napoleon the therapy alpaca from Mtn Peaks Therapy Llamas & Alpacas, in Vancouver, WA USA. A non-profit corporation, which offers therapy teams to visit hospitals and schools in the area. The expressions on people’s faces are heart warming to say the least!
“Who knew such fluffed-up, carrot munching mammals could bring so much joy.”
Laughter is the best medicine.
Llama Dave is disgruntled by the fact I was munching in on his dinner!
If I am having an off day, the first thing I reach for is a funny llama picture. Better still, a visit to the local llama park soon blasts my bad moon into infinity and beyond! A good giggle-fest at the Ashdown Forest Llama park, in East Sussex, dissolves the blues and confirms that laughter really is the best medicine! (See my picture gallery below to see me with some of the residents of the Ashdown Forest Llama park!).
There’s a very good reason behind the saying Laughter is the best medicine. Research suggests that people feel less pain after a good laugh, because it causes the body to release chemicals that act as a natural painkiller. ‘Professor Robin Dunbar of Oxford University, who led the research, believes that uncontrollable laughter releases chemicals called endorphins into the body which, as well as generating mild euphoria, also dull pain.’ (BBC)
It is common knowledge that animals in general make us happier and brighten our spirits. A growing body of scientific research now suggests that interacting with animals can make us not only happier, but healthier too. That helps explain the increasing use of animals for therapeutic purposes in hospitals, hospices, nursing homes, schools, jails and mental institutions.
The use of pets in medical settings actually dates back more than 150 years, says Aubrey Fine, a clinical psychologist and professor at California State Polytechnic University. Fine who has written several books on the human-animal bond says:
“One could even look at Florence Nightingale recognizing that animals provided a level of social support in the institutional care of the mentally ill,”
So there you have it, next time you’re feeling blue, you know what to do! Head on out to your nearest llama park to insight those warm fuzzy feelings from a fluffy four legged llama! Check out my favourite selection of Llama and Alpaca pics below, guaranteed to bring a smile to any face!!
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Note: That last photograph above is only one of a wonderful collection of Llama photographs that Emma included in her blog post. Do drop across there and admire all the wonderful pictures.
The incredible healing power of hugging an animal.
Mother Nature Network put out an email earlier in January that opened, thus:
Dear friend of Mother Nature,
We all see the beauty in a sunset or in a gorgeous painting, but can you appreciate the art in bacteria, climate images or preserved animal remains? These beautiful examples show how for centuries, art and science have danced a well-choreographed routine. The result has been some breathtaking creativity.
The pictures were so wonderful that I have offered the first six for today and the balance in a week’s time.
Finding the link Who doesn’t find beauty in nature? But can you find the art in bacteria or global warming or in the interesting forms of dead animal remains? For centuries, art and science have danced a careful routine. As each has informed the other, the result has been some spectacular creativity. (Text: Mary Jo DiLonardo)
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Sonic sculptures Already known for his blown-glass microbes and bacteria, U.K. artist Luke Jerram also makes creations motivated by the science of sound. In Jerram’s sonic sculptures, “invisible sound waves are visualized as silent, three-dimensional experiences,” says science writer Joe Hanson, host of PBS’s “It’s Okay To Be Smart.” One striking example is Aeolus, a giant stringed musical instrument with harp-like cables that vibrate and make music, responding to changes in the wind. The sculpture (also shown at left) was designed “to make audible the silent shifting patterns of the wind and to visually amplify the ever changing sky,” says Jerram.
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Albrecht Dürer Albrecht Dürer was a German painter, printmaker and theorist who many say was the greatest German artist of the Northern Renaissance. Although he was most well-known for his woodcuts and watercolors, Dürer was also revered for his anatomical and cartographic work, says Harvard art historian Susan Dackerman. She says his groundbreaking terrestrial map was “the first perspectival rendering of a terrestrial hemisphere.” His other science-inspired works include a map showing how the brain works and a woodcut of a rhinoceros so detailed that until the 18th century, it was the go-to scientific reference for the animal.
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Bioluminescent art Who knew bacteria could be so beautiful? In a mash-up of nature and design, bioluminescent art uses naturally glowing bacteria to create intricate designs that you can see only in the dark. Showing off these creations, BIOGLYPHS is an art and science collaboration by members of the Center for Biofilm Engineering and the Montana State University School of Art. The group “painted” bioluminescent bacterium naturally present in marine environments onto petri dishes to come up with the spectacular glow-in-the-dark creations.
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Microscopic art It’s amazing how incredible something can look when you magnify it. Florida State researcher Michael Davidson has a catalog of lovely microscopic images of beer, wine and cocktails. Davidson started his company, BevShots, as a way to raise funds for his lab. Scientific photographer Martin Oeggerli (known as Micronaut) uses scanning electron microscopy to produce images of pollen, microbes, insects and fungi with 500,000 magnification or more. An interesting combination, Oeggerli is a scientific photographer who holds a doctorate in molecular biology. His images often appear in National Geographic where he says, “I also want to broaden people’s awareness that even the smallest living organisms are perfectly ‘designed’ and well worth … our attention.”
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Fibonacci art Math fans know the Fibonacci sequence as an important series of numbers used in all sorts of key mathematical scenarios. The first nine numbers in the Fibonacci sequence are: 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21. The sequence — which ironically was explained by Fibonacci himself using the multiplication of rabbits — also appears in nature. MNN’s Shea Gunther writes that the Fibonacci sequence can be found in the formation of sunflowers, galaxies, cellular structure, hurricanes and honeybees. Artists have also been intrigued by the number series. It has inspired everything from sculpture to furniture.
Learning from Dogs 