Yesterday my car decided it didn’t like snow and went on strike! Inconvenient as this is, there’s a part of me enjoying the by-product of the misfortune of being car less.
Friends have been incredible… kind with their help…. generous with their time… and more than delighted to rally around. In total I’ve had no less than 8 offers to counsel .. i mean ‘look’ at my car, 12 offers to bring me shopping and supplies and even an offer to be housed in the village where i work and where my boys go to school!
For the first time in a very long time I’ve been watching TV mostly the news and it struck me that the current economic system sucks. I’ve decided that the human family cannot live harmoniously on our wee planet under a system that rewards greed whilst causing widespread damage and injustice.
Whilst I’ve always personally subscribe to social change i hope that recent events will turn the focus for many more. I had long been demoralised to watch capitalism being overblown into a kind of mythology entity - wherein the shapeless, but far reaching ‘market’ has developed almost magical powers. But this year it has simply gone too far.
Bankers are supposed to be stewards of our money… we have a right to feel angry that they have allowed reckless greed and personal gain to denigrate the whole system. How right Lenin was when he said that the rich can buy themselves out of anything - so long as they get the rest of us to pay for it!! - Seems to me that this is exactly what is happening. Governments are so far in cahoots with global business’ and held to economic ransom by their wealth that they can no longer function to protect the interests of the very people who they have swore not serve. Public Servants? Indeed, i think not!
This combined with the generosity of my friends and neighbours has reminded me of a few lines of questions from ‘choruses from the rock’. Where T S Eliot asks:
When the Stranger says: “What is the meaning of this city?Do you huddle close together because you love each other?”What will you answer? “We all dwell together To make money from each other”? or “This is a community”?
Oh my soul, be prepared for the coming of the Stranger.Be prepared for him who knows how to ask questions.
After the last two days, my answer has been reaffirmed. I feel confident as to what motivates me to be who i am is human…. can the same be said for everyone?
Wednesday, 29 October 2008
Saturday, 25 October 2008
Rock Wars
Rocks… oh yes now there’s a topic i could twitter about for a very long time. Those who know me know I sometimes steal rocks… not because I’m a geologist and know about them. No, see it’s much more basic than that. I like them cos they are aesthetically appealing. I feel about some rocks the way a few of my female friends feel about shopping. I simply can’t come home without them. Question is ... what is the appeal?
Over the years I’ve been ‘out’ about my obsession, I continue to be surprised how many people ‘fess up to having the odd rock or twenty in their own home. It seems I’m not alone. Rock envy is has a historical past.
It would appear that it's as old as the Pyramids in Egypt. If you were to ask most people to describe the Pyramids, they would talk of monumental mountains with jagged contours erupting from the desert floor and penetrating the vast skies in a smorgasbord of brown-stone hues and sand tones.
And of course this is correct today, but if you were to ask the average Egyptian living in 4,500 BC the same question, the answer would be completely different. Not because the ancient Egyptians were colourblind or not very good at describing, but rather because the original design of the Pyramids was very different.
Oh yes, the Egyptian’s loved stones and rocks like I do. They constructed the pyramids to be more than impressive in size and design… history has it that they went all out to be the rock kings of their time. The walls of the pyramids were paper white, smooth as glass and as the creme-de-la-creme they topped each monument with a golden capstone. Each construction would gleam in the desert sun, like a beacon as bright as any star. In Ancient Egypt - rocks rocked!
The reign of the rock kings was supreme for about 5,000 years until in 500 AD the Arabs invaded, probably green with rock envy and so the rock wars began. The Arabs stripped the limestone cladding and spirited it back to be recycled in Cairo. Yes folks, not only was this evidence of early rock envy but it was also early recycling.
Perhaps the ancient Egyptians knew about solar power panels and global warming.. and thought they could kill two birds with one stone by making their Pharaohs’ tomb practical as well as aesthetically symbolic. And when the Arab’s stole the technology in the first industrial deconstruction case, the Egyptians just chuckled up their flared sleeves at the Arab’s primitive understanding of rocks just being rocks for building no matter how shiny and bright. Who knows!
Don't believe me? Go and see, cos even today people travelling to Cairo, can still see some mosques and palaces harbouring hard evidence of ancient stone stealing.
Over the years I’ve been ‘out’ about my obsession, I continue to be surprised how many people ‘fess up to having the odd rock or twenty in their own home. It seems I’m not alone. Rock envy is has a historical past.
It would appear that it's as old as the Pyramids in Egypt. If you were to ask most people to describe the Pyramids, they would talk of monumental mountains with jagged contours erupting from the desert floor and penetrating the vast skies in a smorgasbord of brown-stone hues and sand tones.
And of course this is correct today, but if you were to ask the average Egyptian living in 4,500 BC the same question, the answer would be completely different. Not because the ancient Egyptians were colourblind or not very good at describing, but rather because the original design of the Pyramids was very different.
Oh yes, the Egyptian’s loved stones and rocks like I do. They constructed the pyramids to be more than impressive in size and design… history has it that they went all out to be the rock kings of their time. The walls of the pyramids were paper white, smooth as glass and as the creme-de-la-creme they topped each monument with a golden capstone. Each construction would gleam in the desert sun, like a beacon as bright as any star. In Ancient Egypt - rocks rocked!
The reign of the rock kings was supreme for about 5,000 years until in 500 AD the Arabs invaded, probably green with rock envy and so the rock wars began. The Arabs stripped the limestone cladding and spirited it back to be recycled in Cairo. Yes folks, not only was this evidence of early rock envy but it was also early recycling.
Perhaps the ancient Egyptians knew about solar power panels and global warming.. and thought they could kill two birds with one stone by making their Pharaohs’ tomb practical as well as aesthetically symbolic. And when the Arab’s stole the technology in the first industrial deconstruction case, the Egyptians just chuckled up their flared sleeves at the Arab’s primitive understanding of rocks just being rocks for building no matter how shiny and bright. Who knows!
Don't believe me? Go and see, cos even today people travelling to Cairo, can still see some mosques and palaces harbouring hard evidence of ancient stone stealing.
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