Questions of reality

What is reality? what a big question! I first encountered this world view many years ago when I was a student of Theology at Manchester University in one of my Philosophy of Religion classes. It has bugged me ever since and I have been trying to make sense of it and how it applies to my world for what seems like forever.

Conquering fear

I’ve spent the day at a workshop with Stephen and Valery Cobern working on conquering fear in my life.  There is so much to say and yet nothing at all, but during the course of the day I was reminded of Marianne Williamson’s oft mentioned quote from her book ‘Return to Love’ and thought I’d share it below:

Diamonds in the desert of Cancer

Some of you may already know that my cousin Alex has been diagnosed with terminal cancer, and an incredibly rare one at that. What you may not know, is just how amazing Alex is because instead of giving in and giving up, she’s decided that there is a Silver Lining to Every Cloud, and as such has launched ‘Alex’s Silver Lining Appeal’ to try and raise £5,000 for a tiny charity that rescues horses and ponies based in the Brecon Beacons.

The trouble with communication

I read an interesting article yesterday and then followed that up with an even more interesting conversation with a friend today, that went something like this; “how do I know what you mean when you say you are ‘happy’ to me?”,

Love and Power

I’ve been creating a wish flag this morning at a workshop with Marie Laywine in Abbotsbury. It was an incredibly peaceful process that used the power of connection and visualisation to intuit that which needed to be expressed most. While I was there though, I came across a leaflet about the Champernowne Trust for Psychotherapy and the Arts and on it’s cover was a quote I thought I’d share.

“Logically, the opposite of love is hate …. but psychologically it is the will to power. Where love reigns, there is no will to power; and where the will to power is paramount, love is lacking …. Life is born only of the spark of opposites.” CG Jung CW7.78

This really resonated with a conversation I was having last night with a couple of very close friends. We were expoloring the need for some people (and nations) to have dominion over others and came to the conclusion that it was because love wasn’t possible in the world that they inhabit, because to ‘love’ is to be seen as ‘weak’ in their eyes. What’s intriguing is how often we see this replicated in the interactions between nations.

And yet, it isn’t that one (love or power) is better (or worse) than the other; simply that there needs to be a balance between the two which will enable each to be expressed authentically and wholly within the individual (or nation).

Here ends my ‘thought for the day’ – it’s now time to put the thinking cap away and go for a walk and then eat lemon and ginger roast chicken.

For more about creating your own wish flag – go see Abbotsbury during it’s Arts Week.

Voiceover Girl

I’ve spent two days this week, with another one to go, being voiceover girl on a film.  Actually, not just voiceover, but presenting to camera and a little acting at the same time.

Pandemic of Panic

As I munched the first burger I’ve eaten in years (homemade with relish and a fab side salad) in a small cafe in Glastonbury, I read with interest an article in the Daily Mail by Christopher Booker entitled ‘Pandemic of Panic‘ (p14, Thurs 30/04/09 if you’re interested) and contemplated BSE and CJD.

I was struck by so much of what he was saying and suggesting about the scares that we seem to endure on a regular basis.  His basic premise (and I concur) was that they all seem to follow the same basic pattern:

1. Dubious ’scientific’ research reported in the academic sector
2. Picked up and reported as ‘fact’ to those in authority who have neither the wisdom nor the wit to question what is being told them
3. ‘Leaked’ to the world’s media who jump up and down in glea at the thought of finding yet another ‘news’ item that they can promote to a largely indifferent public as the next ‘big worry’ that we must all subscribe to.
4. Only to be slip into some sort of non-event oblivion (sometimes within just a few days) which we all remember with amusement at a dinner party ten years down the road – shades of my reaction to the millennium bug spring to mind here, but that’s a story for another occasion.

However, what I found noteworthy was not so much what he was saying as what he was NOT saying.

My own view (completely unsubstantiated and purely subjective – soon to be addressed though) is that these moments of national and international panic usually occur at a moment of crisis for those powers that be who feel themselves threatened in some way by something or other..

I believe a time like that exists now, the so called global ‘credit crunch’ (which was probably started as a diversionary tactic for something else) has spiralled out of control and now risks becoming a reality as nations talk themselves into it.

So, what are the options? Firstly, it is worth bearing in mind that, although there have been 158 deaths in Mexico so far and one in the US, several thousand people die in the UK every year from ‘normal’ flu anyway.  Perhaps one of the problems is a lack of consistent data from any nation to which we can compare things.  You can check out this forum posting to see how confusing it can get: http://www.jabs.org.uk/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=58 (posted 01/08/2006).

One thing I plan to do is to have a look at just what was going on in the world at the time of the last major ‘panics’ we had – once again this will be purely circumstantial with no evidence put forward; however given the fact that our own NHS can’t come up with accurate or even complete statistics, then I guess that won’t be a problem !!!