Saturday, October 20, 2012

Smuggling confectionary, Being Out of Bounds and Rumbles

R has finally met a reputedly wicked teacher and seen her in action;   he has been telling exaggerated eye rolling tales about this woman for six weeks and it turns out he hasn't even seen her.

"But I've seen her now"  says R, "She is really terrible"

"Why, what did she do?" I said, we were eating Saturday lunch (mince with rice and sweetcorn),

"She came running over shouting...and gave one of my friends a detention".

"What for?"

"Having a lollipop in the corridor.  She said it won't do"  (A lollipop, did I hear right?)

"Well, is it against the rules to have a lollipop in the corridor?"

"I don't know, we don't get shown the rules"  (????)

He then told us he now knows why he got caught being in the wrong place, he was being watched on camera, which he says explains why the teacher came charging in so soon after their arrival shouting "Identity papers, detention!".

"What were you doing in this forbidden place?"  asks Papa

"Nothing"

"Why were you there?"

"Don't know"

"So why did you go there?"

"Don't know"

"Did you know it was out of bounds?"

"No"

"Nobody showed you what was out of bounds?"

"No"  (you will noticed that this conversation is reading like the transcript of a police interrogation)

"But do you know now?"

"Yes" he grins (presumably because he's been caught in all of them)

"Well, why is it out of bounds, there must be some reason?" continues Papa, doggedly.

"Because you can escape"

"Escape, escape from school?"

"Yes"

"How?"

"There is a staircase"

"Where does it lead?"

Shrugs "I don't know"

I intervene being the soft guy in the softly softly approach:   "you mean your friends wanted to check out a possible escape route for a future date?"

"I don't know.  No.  In fact (the truth at last) it is a short cut for getting to the school gate without having to go right round the playground..."  he muses "in the playground you can hear shouting and that means there is a fight.  As soon as there's a fight everyone runs over and starts shouting "Baston Baston Baston" (fight rumble fight).  But what I like doing is staying at the edge and looking back, because then you see the teachers come running over."

I can't help visualising the teachers in peaked caps with truncheons and handcuffs.

"How often is there a fight?" asks Papa

"Every day"

"Every day?  NO"

"Yes"

I butt in "You won't hear about any of this from a GIRL, as far as they are concerned none of this happens..."

"And you enjoy it when there's a fight?

"Yes, it's fun."  He grins to himself.

Well I suppose they have to do something to relieve the tedium in the exercise yard.

Embercombe: Committed Action

"Touching hearts stimulating minds and inspiring committed action for a truly sustainable world"



Have a look at where B is this week http://www.embercombe.co.uk/

Friday, October 19, 2012

Feed the world, or feed success?

If we want to feed the world we have to set ourselves the goal of feeding the world.  It might seem obvious, but we seem to be setting ourselves other goals, such as individual national success and glory, money for shareholders... and missing the point.

It's no good going to big companies to ask them to feed the world.  Their job is to make money, feed the shareholders and survive by beating the world.  It's no good going to the governments of self-interested 'rich' countries;  their job is increasingly to make sure their company competes successfully on the world market or be destroyed by it.  Big agroindustrial compaines have the goal of amassing personal, corporate or national wealth to the detriment of others, and feeding the world always comes second to feeding their success.

Whether we realise it or not, this money-making mentality applied to food for life is to the detriment of others:  put simply, if we all want to live like Americans, we need 7 planets, or even Europeans we need 3 planets. (Paul Aries)  At the moment some of us are over fed at the cost of most of us who are poor and too many of us who starve.  We can't go on like this.

If we want to feed the world, we should not confuse this either with the simplistic goal of  'producing more' which doesn't in practice feed the world.

In a nutshell and a soundbite, if we want to feed the world our thinking has to be based on NEED and not GREED.

It is wonderful how resourceful we humans are if we are freed from greed and free to concentrate on need, and how bountiful the earth is, if we can work together.  Each country, each region within that country needs to take responsibility for feeding itself, individual farmers need the possibility, information and practical help to interpret the general principles on their farms: the  reward are:   more resistance to pests and diseases, to weather extremes, higher yield, and no dependence on expensive products.   These solutions can be brought into being by dipping into the bountiful resource of human thought:  human thought guided by science, compassion and insight, and importantly, unimpeded by corporate or economic competition. Agroecology is an example of this.   There's no shortage of human resourcefulness and natural resources with this approach.

If we think there is a global need, too great and horrifying to contemplate, 9 billion of us soon, in one big mass, and not enough food to go round, and if we think we need to turn to a global company or government to solve this need we are going to make a very big mistake.  We are going to make the earth suffer and humanity is going to suffer.  Global companies and governments who take false ideas and turn them to profit are not going to feed the world;  they are going to poison the world, they are going to starve the world, and if we let it happen, they are going to kill the world.  (If you have any doubts about this, please see two films, The World According to Monstanto and Our Daily Poison both by Marie-Monique Robin).

We need to turn away from production/profit thinking, that is corporate thinking, it is taking us nowhere in terms of the banking economy and it is falsely applied to the challenge of feeding the world.   The goal, remember,  is not to produce, over produce, produce for profit and force your produce on others or force up prices, but to enable the world, in all its myriad countries and regions,  to feed itself.    Poverty, ignorance, bad economic practice and misguided food production are important causes of world hunger, not a simple 'lack of food' which can never be rectified by some big company using chemicals and coercion to produce 'more'.

The earth gives us life.  The successful relationship of farmer with the earth which gives us life and is more sophisticated, clever and beautiful than ever narrow corporate thinking can be. It is healthy and strong.  It is long term and it is the future.

AGROECOLOGY;  Scientific facts and inspiration for feeding the world;  

Here is an approach based on need not greed, informed by facts not profit figures, inspired by the generosity and versatility of nature, instead of seeing her as the enemy.   The general principles of agroecology provide an infinite number of possible solutions waiting to be worked out for an area near you.  .www.agroecology.org/

Please see the film The Harvests of the Future by Marie Monique Robin, for the most beautiful, sensible and understandable presentation of true solutions for feeding the world.



Feed the WHOLE World

Feed the World.  Originally Bob Geldof's concert, now the catchphrase introduced into our consciousness by Monsanto, you'll hear it everywhere.  If you are not conscious that you have been brainwashed you may be using it yourself.

EXCITING AND UPLIFTING STUFF - a film has just come out which will allow us to answer the question, how do we feed the world without resorting to intensive farming with petrochemically produced pesticides and herbicides.  It's called The Harvests of the Future by Marie Monique Robin, it hasn't arrived yet at Amazon UK, but it exists in English and I've ordered 2 copies, one to keep and one to lend.

The myth goes like this:

  • Only intensive agriculture using petrochemically produced pesticides and herbicides can feed the world, will be able to feed the world when the world population reaches 9 billion, we've got to be realistic.
  • Organic, sustainable agriculture is all very well, but it can't feed the world.

But the truth is so much more uplifting, please readjust your feed the world view:
YES AGROECOLOGY CAN FEED THE WORLD
www.agroecology.org/
AND NOT ONLY THAT!

  • ONLY agroecology can feed the world

    Leading scientist says agroecology is the only way to feed the world 

    www.non-gmoreport.com/.../scientistsaysagroecologyfeedsworld.php
  • Industrial agriculture is not only less productive,less efficient and more expensive in real terms, it is killing the world
  • The economics of mass production by developed countries tends to mean in practice Feed the Rich, while the rest of the world goes without.  T
Mm, that's better, we get the slogan back and we get things back in order.

BEST DOCUMENTARY I'VE EVER SEEN please watch this, for humanity's sake.  I've asked Amazon.uk why they don't have it yet, please ask them too, because we can't wait for this film!






Wednesday, October 17, 2012

What the Holly Tree Said

My readers have mobbed me, demanding to know how the conversation with the holly tree continued*.  Oh alright then...



Stop to think and think without stopping
First of all we need a big fat dollop of Po.  Po is the thinking tool of our age developed by Mr Edward De Bono, the Father of Lateral Thinking.  It encourages a break from binary black and white yes or no thinking which can sometimes block our curiosity, research, creativity and problem solving.  Po is the third way.   If I say po to something, I do not say the something (perhaps an idea) is wrong, I do not say it is right, I do not say anything at all but I do accept to take the idea and run with it;  see where it takes me, see what it tells me, see what I think and  investigate further.


Po Tree Possibilities...
Anne-Laure suggested that trees have an inner nature, that this is an objective fact, and that we can develop our innate ability to recieve information about this inner nature...we and trees have something to do with one another.

The Experiment
We present ourselves before one of 5 trees (pine, maple, holly, beech or lime), stay silent and humble, and see what happens.  And then we investigate further as we feel right:  perhaps approach the tree, use senses of sight, touch, smell taste and sound,  and write down our observations.

This method gives credence to the whole human being as tool of investigation, and values artistic expression as a way of accessing and describing objective 'inner' truth.

Then said Anne-Laure, we will re-group to share our impressions, to see if any of us perceived the same thing, and to be filled in by Anne-Laure on what she knows about the tree.

Holly and me
I was sulking when I stood before the Holly because I wanted to do a pine with a shaggy trunk but everyone said oh no that's not a pine it's a something or other that I didn't understand in French;  so why did Anne-Laure point it out then, and why didn't JC tell me to bring a pen and paper he doesn't think of me and I made his picnic and of course he has a pen for himself, and why is it raining quite so hard and why am I here?

I stood in front of the Holly for quite some time and nothing happened other than ever increasing wetness.

Then I felt a strip of warmth from the top to the centre of my chest.  It was an intense, inner heat.  I wondered if this was my personal sensation and nothing to do with the holly so once I had finished with the holly I tried the same thing with the Maple  and got an unmistakable and quite different sensation, a sort of whoosh going outwards and floating on the airs with its almost horizontal branches,  a specific form of movement which I could imitate with my arms.  The heat came again when I returned to the Holly.

With the comfortable heat glowing in my chest, I looked at the tree's scraggy shape, a tangle of tough defensive leaves.  I looked at its way of growing:  no harmonious and high symmetrical growth and shape;  I sensed a reluctance to shoot upwards, but rather an impulse to shoot up a little and then out, and then in this direction and then in that,  and then to pull back, and then to shoot out again, and to keep the growth for itself, close to it's centre.

Mmm.  After a while I plucked up the courage to go closer to the tree.   It's leaf crown was parted in one place and I entered and approached the trunk.  The tripartate and intertwining trunk was small and had a delicate pale skin.  When I touched it I was surprised, it felt warm and supple like a child's limb, and very sensitive and vulnerable in contrast to the leaves.  It felt marvellously good close inside the crown of prickly leaves and I felt moved almost to tears...of joy.

I began to really notice the leaves, the edges pale, the tips of the points pale brown and dry, the spaces between the points perfectly rounded, the skin glossy and leathery.  Then I noticed that the leaves were not, as I supposed from afar, tangled up in a disordered fashion.  Each leaf, rather than overlapping like the maple leaves, interlocked, so each leaf had its own space as it danced in between the other.  And each individual leaf twisted in every direction, as if expecting to be attacked or to capture joy from every direction.  This appeared to me a marvellous and exuberant thing.  This tree was exploring all directions, all possibilities, in constant reformation and eternal dance of life. It was plucky and difficult, defensive and joyous.  I couldn't help but admire it's all-angles reaching out and connecting, and its endurance, remaining richly green leafed in all seasons, growing steadily, able to become very old and very tall in time, but somehow still youthful.

The berries were nut hard a satin finish, grew in the angle between the branchings on the tiniest of stalkettes, close to the stem.

An unshaped box tree grew next to it.  The box veered in one direction, the holly in the other, so they both had space.  The branches rose from the trunk, dipped, but did not droop as if defeated, formed an arc and then seemed to chose again to rise towards the sky at the tip.

I went to find a bigger older holly because I wanted to know what the trunk was like, whether it would thicken and crack with age.  The aged skin was criss crossed with fine lines, but not in any way thickened or wrinkled.

If I had to say a medicinal virtue, from it's inner heat and central strength, I would say:  Heart.

I felt quite full after all that.  I presented myself to the Maple for contrast and comparison, but I didn't stay long, it was quite enough.


















* this is a porky pie

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

R's School: the impersonal touch

JC goes to Parents 'Meeting'
Mrs Scruton, showing her sadistic credentials, arranged the parents 'meeting' for 8.30am on a Saturday.  JC had to go because of my entirely justifiable fear that I would not be able to keep my mouth shut.  He was Not Happy at having to get up early on a Saturday.

JC set off, and sat down at a meeting for quite some time before someone said 'Who's dad are you?'
and when he said our son's name they said 'no, we don't know him' (how very true) and he eventually realised he was in class 5C rhymes with 5E where he should have been.  He was forced to telephone R from the concrete courtyard and ask him what room the meeting was in (something he had already been told), and luckily R has a keen interest in figures and had retained the number of the room;  242.

JC was handed a printout of R's personal profile consisting of a column of numbers out of 20, available on Pronote, the mark-consulting website.   The assembled parents waited until a teacher came in to make a short presentation.   There was sometimes time for JC to read a book between the departure of one and the arrival of another, which pleased him.

"Did the assembled parents interract with one another in any way?"  I asked.  "No".
"Did anyone appear to know our son or say anything about him?"  "No".
"Did the teachers interract with the parents in any way?'  "No.  But some of the younger teachers said if we had any questions or difficulties we should not hesitate to contact them, and some gave their email address".

(Clearly a trap;  I certainly won't be contacting any of them, anything I say could be used in evidence against me.)

JC said it was a good meeting because he saw the face of every teacher and it was all over in under an hour. I said I didn't see why they couldn't set up a site called Proprof where the teachers posted a photo of themselves and a short presentation of their work which could be accessed at a time to suit the parent.

R goes Missing
Yesterday the school phoned JC at work to say R had not turned up to his English class and was officially Missing.  JC phoned me in a whisper from his Very Important Meeting to delegate the problem.  After careful consideration of the options (run away from home, thought lesson was cancelled, lying ill in bedroom without my knowledge) I phoned the school to ask if there couldn't be some mistake.  There was, another boy bearing the same surname was not in class.  R told me later this boy was ill, and presumably without parental leave of absence.  The secretary was most apologetic, rare in a Frenchwoman, but she wasn't looking for reassurance from me, she was inconsolable because an ADMINISTRATIVE ERROR HAD BEEN MADE.

Sapristi Knuckoes.

Monday, October 15, 2012

Hallo Holly, You're looking swell, Holly

I talk to the trees
That's why they put me away  (Spike Milligan)

The Holly and the Ivy, when they are both full grown
Of all the trees that are in the wood, the Holly bears the crown (English traditional carol)


Yesterday it poured with rain, then it poured harder, and without letting up it poured harder still for 8 hours, and I spent this day at the park, in the aforementioned rain, talking to trees.

I was encouraged to do this by a remarkable woman called Anne-Laure  Rigouzzo-Weiller, a botanist Dr of Science turned tree- talker with a remarkable understanding of medicinal plants     http://www.prometerre.com/.

It became obvious to me some time after communing with a holly tree, that Anne-Laure is not only one of those people who can speak to plants, and not only do the plants listen and speak back, but she can persuade them to speak to other people, and persuade other people to listen.  That's quite something.