Here’s space for STORIES. Story-telling: the time-honoured way to explain ones-self to the ‘other’

A Therapeutic Journey

Jan Trewartha

I trained nearly thirty years ago as a massage therapist. Before that I was a State Registered Nurse, who had left nursing and moved into magazine writing. I left and went travelling, only to discover my passion-to-be at a New Year’s festival under blue gum trees about 100 miles south of Sydney, Australia when I was given a life-changing massage.  On returning to the UK, I trained and have been in practice ever since.

Over the years I’ve learned that the source of apparently muscular, and even nerve or circulatory problems can often be traced to the fascia, a connective tissue that sheaths every structure in the human body, macro to micro, organ to cell.  It takes different forms, sometimes like a sheath over the muscle, sometimes like cobwebs; it changes form according to the function required of it.

                                                                                                                                                                            Fascia Research Society:

Photo by Thomas Stephan

The fascia can be seen clearly on this lamb shank, the sheath of tissue covering the muscle.

Learning about the miracle that is fascia changes how therapists work, enabling us to create a more permanent effect than with massage.  With the right approach, the fascia will let go of any restrictions that might have been caused by Repetitive Strain Injury, scarring, falls and other accidents, or any of a variety of injurious daily habits such as carrying a handbag on one shoulder.

Personally, I’ve become a specialist in scars and adhesions, helping with a light touch approach called Sharon Wheeler’s ScarWork, to take the tension out of scars, integrate the damaged fascia into the 3D fascial network, and consequently often relieve pain, discomfort and mobility issues.

Emergency appendectomy 7 years ago. Feels discomfort behind navel / pubis. 1 x 2 hour session with ScarWork 

Why should light touch work so well versus the way we taught patients back when I was a nurse – ‘knuckling’ the scar tissue and breaking it down?  We now know that such a brutal approach is contra-indicated – you are likely to create more scarring.  Light touch, we know, works because of the fascia, which is not layered in the body but one, continuous structure.  This means that when we work on the skin, the effects are transmitted into the superficial fascia under the skin, down through the fascial continuity to the deep or visceral (surrounding the organs) fascia.

A process we call Mechanotransduction translates any force (light or heavy) directly into the cell to create cellular change. Experience and research are starting to demonstrate that the lighter the touch the more powerful the result.  This is the 21^st century – the heavy-handed therapeutic approaches are changing to light touch in so many cases.

As an energy field therapist as well, I find that the most profound results come the lighter I work; at times I feel as though I’m working in the energy field rather than on the body.  Then we are moving into fascia and how resonance works – but that’s another story !

Fascinated by fascia…

In 2014 I ran the first British Fascia Symposium, dedicated to teaching UK therapists about what we now know is the largest communicative system in the body with many more functions.  The BFS ran for three years ‘live’ and then in 2020, because of the Covid19 pandemic, the live event was cancelled so I turned it into a five-day online event broadcasting from my therapy clinic room hurriedly converted into a ‘studio’.

It was such a success, and we drew people who loved working with fascia from around the world, providing a huge sense of community during a global lockdown.

The Hub Studio in early days

On the basis of this perceived need I started The Fascia Hub, an educational community venture to provide information on fascia via online (and eventually live) events around the world.  We’ve gone from a very rough ‘studio’ to the real deal to get a high quality of production.

The ‘Hub’ is all about finding the right, expert teachers to talk about an aspect of fascia; we attract an audience of not only therapists, but movement teachers, doctors, surgeons, nurses, et al.  I love using all the knowledge and contacts from my BFS years to pull these events together, and hosting the event, sharing information and laughter with these talented people.

With John Sharkey, November 2020, The Fascial Pelvis one day online event.

The Fascia Hub’s next online event is  WELCOME TO THE FASCIAL FOOT!

Join us on Saturday, 8th May for our next fabulous online event

Four leading speakers from the world of fascia share their latest research and insights, and provide demonstrations on this fascinating topic; spend a day with John Sharkey, Wilbour Kelsick, Elizabeth Larkam and Phillip Beach. A somatic awareness session with innovative movement teacher Rachel Tudor takes you into engagement with your own feet to lead you to a deeper awareness, informing both your practice and your self-care

To find out more or book tickets :   CLICK HERE – The Fascia Hub

Jan Trewartha

March 2021

Paths We Follow

Part One – the Path Before

Life was good and green

In West Cork, Ireland

Where we live

Surrounded by 4 acres

Left wild and free

To share with Nature.

A busy and interesting retirement

The good life.

Visits to UK

To be with special friends.

Trips to Germany

To link with grandchildren

And their parents.

Meeting with like-minded people

Here at home.

Various groups:

Sound Medicine

Keeping Fit and Free from Falls

Singing One’s Heart Out

Women’s and Men’s Healing

Cleaning beaches

Animal rescue and welfare

Saving the Kelp in Bantry Bay

Meditation and Mindfulness

Living Well Dying Well

Lots going on…

Part Two – The Middle Path

Shock, horror, shut down, lock down

Covid arrived in Ireland in March

We being vulnerable

Suddenly cocooned

Not allowed out of home and garden

No visitors

A world of

Masks, PPE, restrictions…

Life all around changed.

But we the fortunate ones

With our own little house

And acres of garden

(Thinking of those in apartments

In cities and towns.

Children not able to go to school

Families in cramped accommodation

Elderly and vulnerable people suddenly very alone

People without work

Others dying

And the wonderful front liners

Working in appalling conditions

So many suffering).

So, how went it for us?

It was

Time for Imagination!

Doing things differently

No socialising, no group gatherings

Just lots of emptiness ahead

Stretching endlessly, it seemed,

As realisation and gravity struck.

Shopping once a week

Just one of us.

Time

To think

To give attention and care

To our wild life sanctuary

Plenty to clean, declutter in house.

A silence not felt before

Even though living in the quietness of rural surroundings.

Birds louder than people.

Little by little watching the world unfurl into Spring

Such beauty to be seen day by day

And no distractions

Life becoming very concentrated.

How to communicate?

FaceTime, emails, phone,

More letter writing, cards

The importance of staying connected.

Group meetings

All strangely different via

This thing called Zoom

That wasn’t part of our lives

Before.

Random acts of kindness

Became more apparent every day

Meals delivered from kind neighbours

For the Cocooners or vulnerable people

People making 100s of PPEs from recycled bedlinen

Others making masks

To send all over the world

The local library delivering 20 books

In a huge box

Via the local council’s van…

Carefully selected to suit

We 2 Seniors

And then…

Special sessions with grandchildren

Far away in Germany

Visits to and from them

Cancelled.

How to connect well over the ether

With 4 and 6 year olds?

No parents please!

Just the little ones

And Us…

Story telling,

Speaking through cuddly Bears and Mice and Monkeys.

Then the wonder of hearing

Our grandson

Having just learnt to read

And sharing that with us

Via ipads

Him reading to us a whole book

In English (his second language

Growing up as he is German speaking.)

Learning relaxation together

Being quiet and still

Or wriggling and giggling,

But trying to stay connected

Even with technical Breaking Up and Crashes.

Sometimes a session lasting

Just a few minutes

Sometimes more than half an hour

Special!

Communities reaching out to those alone

And the Lonely

Especially at Christmas Time

Local groups

Amnesty and Friends of Direct Provision

For Asylum Seekers

Putting together

A moving video of song and laughter

Adults and children

From here in Ireland

Or originating from much further afield

Joining in  joyful support.

https://debarras.bandcamp.com/track/star-of-wonder-a-scattering-of-carols

Part 3 – The Path towards the End

And so

The wheel turns

Another year

Into 2021

Light at the end of tunnel

We are told

Vaccines produced and

Beginning to be distributed

Covid will be conquered

And life will return to normal

Or will it? For better, for worse?

But hopefully with

More compassion

Loving kindness for ourselves

And all others

More generosity

Less need to accumulate and change things

Just for the sake of it

Because we are more aware

Of what we already have

More disposed to help those less fortunate

A sense of gratitude for having come through

Such a time

Well enough.

‘Hope is the thing with feathers

That perches in the soul

And sings the tune without words

And never stops at all’

(Emily Dickinson)

And Dawn breaks gently on Dunmanus Bay

Hope comes with yet another day

And as we face into new beginnings:

‘May the nourishment of the earth be yours,

may the clarity of light be yours,

may the fluency of the ocean be yours,

may the protection of the ancestors be yours.

And so may a slow

wind work these words

of love around you,

an invisible cloak

to mind your life.’

(John O’Donohue from Echoes of Memory)

May we all be happy, well and safe in 2021

Let us all Live Well and Die Well🙏

Blessings to all you dear people…

Or Hooman Beans

As dear Anne calls us!

Louise and Anne, at Constables

LISTEN HERE – The Singing Fields by Chloe Goodchild  

Louise and Yann Hoffman

January 2021

WELL … I’LL TELL YOU WHAT IT’S ABOUT  

How The Imagination Acts (TIA) all came about in 2016 –

• Summer 2016 – following Anne’s painful hip replacement in early 2016 and after the ‘Take Two’ play – Anne decided to do projects closer to home.
• Sally suggested a website – this could be a forum / legacy archive for all Anne’s projects over the years – World Education Bus ( WEB), Reading International Solidarity Centre, The Lighthouse Project, Insects, Take Two play and many others.
• We contacted a local web designer ( Ben Temple, Totosites Ltd ) to set up our website.
• The website’s name ‘The Imagination Acts’ was created by Anne to show how individuals CAN effect change… can DO something about their concerns, in an imaginative way.
• We started with pages for Home, Blog, Story, Gallery, Tales, Archive, About me – which were to have different themes.
• The editorial team was Anne – editor, responsible for deciding the themes, collating and curating the content; this included collaborations with friends and colleagues. Sally – uploading content into the TIA website and liaising with Ben.

Neither of us had ever done anything directly with websites before so it was a completely new adventure for both of us !

• We found our teamwork worked well and we had a balance of skills which came together to create our editions. As time went on, we felt we were creating something special each time.
• Anne circulates our Newsletter of each edition to ‘our Readers’, her circle of family and friends. Through Google Analytics, we found other people were reading TIA as well.
• We’ve been delighted to greet our readers from the UK and all over the world including US, Croatia, France, Ireland, Italy, Russia, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, China, Hong Kong, South Korea, India, Bangladesh, West Bengal, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Australia, Argentina, Brazil, Algeria, Nigeria and South Africa.
• It is always great to get feedback from our Readers – spontaneous and heartfelt; we do thank you and appreciate this.

• Ben Temple, our Web designer, provided these comments for our 4 year review: –

“Working with Anne and Sally has been great, it’s wonderful to see so many stories and pieces of artwork shared on a regular basis, the website is a treasure trove of information that you can get lost in for hours. I can hardly believe that I helped to build it over 4 years ago. It’s great to see how far it’s come since its inception in 2016. I look forward to many more posts filled with acts of imagination.” Ben Temple, founder of WordPress No Stress.

What forms the content of the TIA pages –

• Home – Introduction by Anne as to how she ‘found’ the theme and what it meant to her. Later when invited Guest Editors – Anne introduced them, explained how she knew them and why they were invited.
• Blog – a little snippet of news / poem / something inspiring / topical.
• Story – ‘Here’s space for STORIES. Story-telling: the time-honoured way to explain ones-self to the ‘other’’. Opportunity by Anne or the invited person to tell their story.
• Gallery – ‘OUR GALLERY PRESENTS INSPIRING WORDS AND IMAGES’. Usually accompanied by background text – the Gallery features photos and other pix.  We provide links to current external exhibitions / events if they relate to content in the current Gallery edition.
• Tales – developed into Climate Change – this provided a longer space for people’s stories. Later Tales changed its theme to become Climate Change to recognise the current imperatives.

At this point of change, the Climate Change page introduction was changed to say –

‘‘Dear Readers,

We are changing the focus of this page from TALES to CLIMATE CHANGE. Whilst important and loved as are the longer stories in Tales, the urgent priority is getting ALL our heads around NOW ACTION. So, each month we’ll jot down examples of ‘The Imagination Acts’ belief …. that, you and me can DO something when we leap with the parachute of our IMAGINATIONS on our backs.”

The Climate Change introduction was further updated in the Winter 2020 Edition to reflect our commitment to covering Climate Change in more detail next year.

‘‘Dear Readers,

A call to every one of us, to WAKE-Up, has been The Imagination Acts’ CALL.

Our part in the global call is timely.

THE CRISIS of our time is not the Covid Virus. It is Climate Change.

And it is a stupefying phenomena that the former completely overshadows the latter…in an alarming totalitarian form of “power- over” injunctions.

Anne and Sally are having hopping up- and- down planning wails, as we commit ourselves to firming- up the website’s vision for its role in solidarity with (we trust) myriad voices challenging the Climate Change white-wash in the dominant media.’’

• Elsewhere – NEWS FROM ELSEWHERE is where Readers and Friends can add the passion of their own concerns. As more people came into contact with TIA – they sent Anne info to be included in TIA on a type of ‘notice board – so we added a new page called ‘Elsewhere’ to display this info.
• Wake Up – a later addition to our TIA pages – ‘WAKE-UP! gives snippets of information to our Readers and Friends which we hope you find interesting and maybe inspire to take Imaginative Action and chat about.
• Archive – the Archive was used to archive Tales (before it became Climate Change) and Gallery – however this stopped in early 2019 due to technical issues. We may revisit this as it was great to be able to look back on previous Galleries.  Blogs and Stories archive themselves so all the previous contents are still available.
• About me – Anne’s life and key milestones.

STORIES ….. we’ve featured 58 Stories over the 4 years including :-

Law of Attraction – Sarah Cox  (Sept 2020)

Coming Together – Ranjit Kaur (July 2020)

‘Boiling, Weeping, Honouring‘ – Migration – Anne Yarwood  (March 2020)

Only Connect: Trees – Anne Yarwood  (Jan 2020)

The Transit Lounge – Anne Yarwood  (October 2019)

Several Shades of T – Andrea Wright  (July 2019)

Stories from Iran and Iraq – Anne Yarwood, Bim Hikmat, Zainab Khan, Ziba Zarei  (May 2019)

Call to the Wild : A Vision Quest – Kesty Jakes  (March 2019)

‘Standing Up – Isra Chaker / Chat with Michel Bauwens about P2P, the Commons and the Imagination – Rob Hopkins – Robin Richardson (December 2018)

Report from Bosnia – Jan Trewartha (2019)

Dazzle – Jennifer Leach (2019)

Tom and the City Farm Duckpond – Tom Hogan ( June 2018)

Over Land and Sea, to Aber – Anne Yarwood (2018)

The Coffee Merchant’s Story – Duncan Rayner (2018)

Reincarnation: it’s nothing new – Trisha Longworth ( 2018)

Shoulder to Shoulder – Anne Yarwood (2018)

You Can Do It: Ascent Speak Truth to Power – Anne Yarwood (2018)

Wells for India: Thirty years on – Anne Yarwood (2018)

Whoever’s Killing Insects : DON’T !!! – Anne Yarwood (2018)

Artist and Soul Midwife – Antonia Rolls (2018)

The Villagers decided to build the school. It was completed in the night – provided by Mayonne Coldicott (2018)

Festival of the Dark – Jennifer Leach (2017)

Thirty Years of the Circle Works – Geoffrey Court

A Story common to campaigning groups, worldwide: How come we didn’t know ? (NHS privatisation) – Anne Yarwood and Margery Thorogood

Climate Change: Ascent’s Legacy – Anne Yarwood and Margery Thorogood

How to encourage Spirituality in schools: the Story of Values and Vision – Georgeanne Lamont

International Art Class, Malaysia – Anne Yarwood and tribute to Shirley Nisbet

The greening of a Garden (Quiet Garden) – Philip Roderick / Anne Yarwood

The ‘Just Walk’ : ‘’a big crazy stunt; crazier than the Wall’’

– Justin Butcher

A Fascinating Relationship with Pain – Andrea Beradi (May 2017)

The Natural Beekeeping Trust and The World’s Mantra – provided by Trisha Longworth

A Crone’s View of May Days – Anne Yarwood

Our Animal Friends – including from Sue Yarwood, Anne Yarwood

Take Two Play – Anne Yarwood

Festival of the Dark update – Jennifer Leach

To My Best Friend: Tina Messenger – provided by Hilary Davis

Maya Angelou – Anne Yarwood (Feb 2017)

Steve, Man of the Woods – Christina and David Searle (Feb 2017)

Reports and updates – Anne Yarwood ( Feb 2017)

‘Hard to have Hope’ – poem by Wendall Berry

Prayer for Humankind / Take Two – contribution by Kirti Dhanoa

Remember Sarajevo – Jan Trewartha

Who We Are ( Surrey Swans) – provided by Andrea Wright

The Windsor Fringe Kenneth Branagh Award for New Drama Writing – Ann Trewartha

Festival of the Dark – Jennifer Leach

The WEB Bus: book a trip to the future (World Education Berkshire) – Anne Yarwood

Cosy Fire and Armchairs; In the Magistrate’s Retiring Room – Anne Yarwood

Young Bob – provided by the Head of a Special School

Chats to Unwrap the World of GUP’s: the Boy and the Rabbit – Anne Yarwood

Hosted Spaces – Geoffrey Court, Founder Director, The Circle Works, East London

Tippling Robins and Access to Life – Anne Yarwood

Wildlife in Ascot – Anne Yarwood, Catherine Paige and Anne Ayres

Outrider Anthems: Tales from Beyond the Pale – Jennifer Leach

Parity: Story of an evolving charity – David Yarwood

Tony Douet: an Elder’s Memoire – Anne Yarwood with Tony and Sue Douet

Windsor Homeless Project – Sally Wright

Passion for Wales – Anne Yarwood

My Introduction to Sierra Leonne – Anne Yarwood (2016)

All the Stories are still available to read on the Story page – please scroll down.

Anne Yarwood and Sally Dillon

December 2020

LAW OF ATTRACTION  

When I was young I couldn’t understand how ‘good things’ seemed to happen to ‘bad’ people and I often saw ‘bad’ people getting ‘good’ things – it seemed to be such a random topsy turvy world, that felt out of control and chaotic with no sense of order and fairness. I bought into the theory of a random chaotic Universe built on my observations with my physical eyes.

After decades of life experience and hopefully a little more wisdom, I can ‘see’ and sense, despite what appears to be painfully unfolding in the world, something quite different.

Today I see complete order and logic, in a world that is expanding and thriving in direct relationship to the thoughts and feelings of all the citizens. “Ask and it is given” “the law of attraction” “like attracting like” are the latest phrases in the new thinking circles which includes science, epigenetics, and the growing understanding that we have the power to transform ourselves and our perception of the world with our energy. This in turn changes the physical manifest, ‘touch it’, ‘feel it’ world we see before us.

I take little notice of events unfolding around me these days, other than to see how my/our creations are unfolding. If I like what I see unfolding around me, then I keep doing what I am doing. If I don’t like what is unfolding I know I need to change my feelings about the situation. I have learnt, when I see a problem, not to focus on the problem, but use the problem as a springboard to decide how I want the outcome to appear and then focus fully on the solution and get my mind totally off the problem.

Epigenetics means “upon the gene” and is the effect of chemicals that enter the cells of our body. These chemicals can be from food or pollutants but are mostly the chemicals released in our body from our own emotions. It is actually very simple, if you feel good your cells are flooded with happy chemicals, and if you don’t feel good, your cells are flooded with damaging chemicals. Science has found that our DNA unfolds in direct response to these chemical stimulants. Our perception is only as good as our DNA allows it to be. So if your perception of the world is good, your life will be good and you are a very effective human being for bringing positive change into the world.

The whole Universe is responding to our vibrations and is an inclusive only Universe, which means that you ‘get’ what you focus on wanted or unwanted. It is impossible to focus on something you don’t like and not make it worse or bigger. I wish I had been taught that at school instead of spending so much of my life trying to solve problems by diving into them, which made them bigger and bigger. These days my focus is to be happy because without it, I am of no benefit to the world and the thriving of our species.

As our DNA becomes flooded with chemicals various strands are activated and as they ‘open’ they attract more of that same vibration to it. We can only ‘see’ the world through our perception and that perception is our DNA vision.

I thought for years if I tried to fix something that was broken in my life, or something I saw around me, then I could make things better. I had it all back to front. I tried to fix things with groups, in chat rooms and I couldn’t work out why things were not getting better. Little did I realise my attention to it was making it worse. We have had a war on terrorism, a war on drugs, a war on cancer and a war on many things we say we do not want. This simply makes them bigger and bigger and we only have to look out into the world to see that this is true.

These days I acknowledge what I don’t like from a situation or world event, decide what I do want and put my full attention on that result as I understand taking my focus off the problem means it will eventually fade away.

Feeling good really is my main priority. As a therapist I tried for years to make others feel good. Now I know I am more powerfully effective at creating change in the world and myself by focusing on positive thoughts and feelings. Playing lip-service doesn’t work! The Universe knows exactly what you are feeling, not what you are saying!

I realised that ‘good things’ happen to ‘bad’ people because they are selfishly focused on what they want and the Universe in its non-biased totally logical, 100% accurate way, gives each person more things to match that selfish thought. ‘Good’ people are often filled with good intentions but negative self-beliefs and self worth. Being selfish is a really, really good thing and I am doing a lot more of it to great and positive effect.

I love it when the Universe delivers to me precisely what I have asked for, it’s always a thrill to watch my creations unfold. The pleasant ones are easy to own, and with a joyful heart I say “I created that”. The tougher creations are harder to own, but I still say “ I Did that” and look at the behaviour and feelings that led up to that manifestation so I can change it in the future.

Johnny Cash and his ring of fire song is a great example. After decades of singing it, in 1965 his camper caught fire and burnt down along with 508 acres of forest fire nearly killing him in a ring of fire. Luckily the Universe does not respond instantly to our desires! There is a time span between our asking and our manifestations, thank goodness. I have read about brain specialists who go on to contract the bizarre and rare diseases they study. A huge number of diabetic nurses go on to become diabetic themselves. There are so many examples that become obvious once you realise what is going on! Although these were not instant manifestations and took years to come to fruition, they show the immense power of focus.

When focused collectively we are powerful beyond measure. Abraham Hicks teaches that “one who is connected to Source energy is worth millions who are not” which means the power is in our focus, not our doing. We can look at dictators and see how this works ! Remember the Universe is not judging just delivering.

I found lock down so interesting for many reasons but mostly because for years the collective call around the planet has been to become more green, and do our bit to tidy up our mess in the environment. We all saw the tremendous power of our world to clean up without humans around, and within 2 weeks of us all being shut indoors it was thriving in ways that we have not been seen for decades. I loved that !

In this time of transition and expansion I can feel huge positive changes coming into formation. It is only a few hundred years since we were trading with stones and pebbles, many women died in childbirth and men were butchered in war. Everything really is getting better and better and I love being a part of this new shift and expansion.

I don’t take much notice of the now and ‘what is’ i.e. the current manifestation, as this was created by the old way of thinking and we have already moved on from that. Once its manifest, it’s old history. I stay focused on the part that interests me:- the un-formed, the un-manifested and the transient new. That is where my/our power is, not with the ‘old hat’ current manifestation. I feel we are all creators creating, and we all know that feeling of desiring something that we don’t yet have, we think about it, dream about it and eventually we manifest it and there it is, those beautiful shoes, or that great job. Within a very short time we are bored and looking for something more, because the joy really is in the creating, not in the ‘touch it’, ‘feel it’, manifestation. Whatever we may think of Richard Branson, we can all acknowledge his phenomenal ability to create. He is the only man in history to have created 8 different Billion pound businesses and he seems to do this mostly by lying in his hammock and dreaming it in to fruition.

I focus on what is coming with eager anticipation as I want to be a part of the solution with upbeat life-enhancing thoughts and being a part of the new because that’s where the buzz is, the life fulfilling excitement and the exploration of our role as creators.

I love the thrill of being alive on this radically evolving planet, I think my only challenge now is, can I keep up!

Sarah Cox – Artist  Gallery  www.sarahcoxartist.com

Sarah Cox – Founder of Zephorium   www.zephorium.com

Change your thoughts…..change your life.

Sarah Cox

September 2020

‘COMING TOGETHER’  

Ranjit Kaur has given us two inspiring stories for ‘Coming Together’ –

Coming Together – our neighbours 

I was touched by some local stories of how people came together to help during these difficult times due to Covid-19.

Hot meals have been delivered to elderly and vulnerable people. Neighbours are checking on each other and doing grocery shopping.

This just reminded me of my life in India, this was a normal way of life. Neighbours helped with child minding. If there was a death in the locality, all neighbours would take turns to cook meals and give company, drop children to school.  There was no welfare system. Locally and seasonal grown foods were cooked. My mum and her friends would get together and share knitting patterns and recipes.

My friend Anne Yarwood shared with me her memories from years during war time, women would knit socks for the soldiers. Neighbours would keep an eye on each other and children played together. There was no NHS.

I wonder why we have to wait for wars and Covid-19 ….to get together.

Coming Together – Louise Hay

It was year 2010 Autumn – I was running a programme ‘Love yourself and Heal your life’, based on Louise Hay’s book ‘You can Heal your life’. (Louise Hay was an American author, motivational speaker and international bestseller. Her book ‘You can Heal Your Life’ has sold 60 million copies and been translated in fifteen different languages.)

Loving yourself was not only an unknown concept for all the members of the group, they lived most of their life hating themselves. Everyone had their own reasons for self-condemnation. They had been through so much pain of living with addictions, sexual abuse, life in prison, children been taken away, eviction notices due to debts.

When I tried explaining the philosophy of Louise Hay’s work, I got such a blank look and I was asked ”who is this lady ?” and ”how can they love themselves when nobody has ever showed any love to them ?”.

My immediate thought was no one is going to turn up next week and it took me so long to convince my manager to run this programme and it’s going to end before it starts. This was an American programme and my manager was not fully convinced if this would work but I was given the go ahead.

Somehow when I looked at the mood of the group. I said next week it would be a PIZZA and Video day.
I showed a video of Louise Hay telling her story of being abused as a child, teen age mum, not having any money, heart breaks and then suffering from cancer. Then by changing her thoughts and loving herself she cured herself from cancer without any medication and wrote the book ‘You can Heal Your Life’. The group immediately related to that and started enjoying the programme. When we started work on the affirmations and we all wrote our dreams on the board, I said I would like everybody to meet Louise Hay one day.

Louise Hay was nearly 85 years old and had stopped running any workshops or travelling abroad. To my surprise after two months, I received an email from the Trainer of the ‘Heal your Life’ programme from U.S.A. that Louise Hay was coming to London to do a two-day seminar on ‘You can create an exceptional Life’.

I booked myself on the programme. On the day I started at 7.00 a.m to get into central London by 9.00. Throughout the morning I kept thinking how could I bring my ladies to meet Louise Hay. During lunchtime there was a long queue for book signing and I asked the lady who was my trainer if my group members could come tomorrow and meet Louise Hay. I was told that Louise Hay gets very tired and tries to rest during lunch time and would not be able to meet the ladies. The suggestion was that I could bring a card signed by the ladies, which she would pass on to Louise Hay. I was disappointed but not did not give up the idea completely.

I bought another copy of her book and stood in the queue for an autograph. While waiting in the queue I took piece of paper and wrote a description of my group and the work we did and how much that has helped and when I got near the stage gave it to her manager.

She gave it back to me and asked me to talk to the lady standing on the bookstall. I went to the lady and again told the story of the group and if she could arrange ten minutes tomorrow during lunch time. She said she would try; I could ask the ladies to come at 12.00 midday.
I came back home at 5.30 in the evening, and started ringing the group members. I had a very dampened response – they did not have money to travel and it was very short notice except for one member who was very keen. I went to the cash point, got some money out and gave it to that member and asked her if she could organise and bring other members also.

I went to attend the workshop next day in the morning and spoke to the person in charge of the group and explained to get there on time and give me a call and I would be there. I repeated myself how important it was to get there on time as it was only a ten minutes window that we had.

We had a break at 12.00 for lunch but I got up fifteen minutes earlier that and went out to receive the ladies. I was trying to ring them to see how far they were, and no one was picking up the phone and no sight of the ladies. I was pacing up and down. Now the time was ten past twelve and I thought – “They are not going to come and there is no chance”. I went into the foyer and my phone rang, it was a call from the group member, five of them were standing outside. When I went out I could not recognise them – all of them dressed up and excited !
Now I was not sure if we would be still seen. We rushed to the room back stage and were waiting to see if we still had any chance. No one was there.

The Lady came after five minutes and said they “don’t like disturbing Louise Hay, she is taking a break.”
We waited for a few minutes – then her manager came and said “Louise is coming”.
Louise came and asked everybody their names, what they do, she gave books with her autographs and took photos  – we all were ecstatic.

Still today – when I look back to the day I wrote on the board, “My dream is we will all meet Louise Hay One day”, I wonder how it all Came Together.

Ranjit Kaur

July 2020

‘BOILING, WEEPING, HONOURING’  

After I’d committed to research Migration as our next theme, I was dead worried. “Concerned-pretty-ignorant” me ! Got reading, started searching the Internet … then that now familiar moment in TIA creations… a surge of stirring info. and images and stories, poured in. In the early hours of this morning, I sat by my bed awaiting the next dose of Paracetamol to kick in ! I dwelt in my heart; burnished with love, for the fellow human beings who have entered my consciousness….. At what moment do you determine to traverse the 2,877 miles from Kabul to the Mediterranean coast ? The following STORIES alternate factual information, with the LIVED experience of individuals who refuse to stay in the hell- holes that appear to be their destinies.

STORY No. 1 – Migration  – United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) – Figures at a Glance (June 2019).

• 8 million forcibly displaced people worldwide
• 3 million internally displaced people
• 9 million refugees (20.4m under UNHCR’s mandate / 5.5 m Palestinian refugees under UNRWA’s mandate)
• 5 million Asylum seekers
• 80% of refugees live in countries neighbouring their countries of origin
• 57% of UNHCR’s refugees come from 3 countries – Syria 6.7m; Afghanistan 2.7m; South Sudan 2.3m
• Top refugee-hosting countries – Turkey 3.7m; Pakistan 1.4m; Uganda 1.2m; Sudan 1.1m; Germany 1.1m
• 341,800 new asylum seekers in 2018 – greatest number from Venezuela
• UNHCR has information on 3.9 million stateless people – thought to be millions more
• 92,400 refugees resettled
• 37,000 people a day are forced to flee their homes because of conflict and persecution
• UNHCR works in 134 countries ( May 2019)

We are now witnessing the highest levels of displacement on record.

An unprecedented 70.8 million people around the world have been forced from home. Among them are nearly 25.9 million refugees, over half of whom are under the age of 18.

There are also millions of stateless people who have been denied a nationality and access to basic rights such as education, healthcare, employment and freedom of movement.

In a world where nearly 1 person is forcibly displaced every two seconds as a result of conflict or persecution, our work at UNHCR is more important than ever before.

SEE HERE – UNHCR -Figures at a glance

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STORY No. 2 – To Egypt for the first time

20 new Instant Network Schools will be launched this year as the programme prepares to enter Egypt for the first time.

Mohamed Salah, the Liverpool footballer, has become the first Ambassador for Instant Network Schools – which connect refugee and host-country students to a quality digital education – as the programme prepares to expand into his home country of Egypt for the first time.

Instant Network Schools was set up in 2013 by Vodafone Foundation and UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, to give young refugees, host communities and their teachers access to digital learning content and the internet, improving the quality of education in some of the most marginalised communities in Africa.

To date, the programme has benefited over 86,500 students and 1,000 teachers ensuring that refugees and children from the communities that host them have access to accredited, quality, and relevant learning opportunities.

There are 36 Instant Network Schools currently operating across eight refugee camps in Kenya, Tanzania, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and South Sudan.

Vodafone Foundation and UNHCR are jointly investing €26 million to expand the programme to benefit 500,000 refugee and host community students and 10,000 teachers.

By 2025, 255 new Instant Network Schools will be opened, including 20 schools planned this year.

SEE HERE – UNCHR – news press

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STORY No. 3 – One woman’s account of life at Yarlswood detention centre (Freedom from Torture)

One of the most feared elements of the asylum process has always been the possibility of detention, which can extend to months in what amounts to a prison…

At different times different rules have applied, and in theory now victims of torture, as well as pregnant women, those suffering from mental health issues and the elderly should not be detained. In practice there is great latitude in interpretation, and many members of Write to Life have at different times experienced immigration detention.

This is one account.

I got out of the van and went into the building. There was a long corridor, with beige walls and a shiny blue floor with a tiny dotted pattern. It all looked very clean and very solid. In the reception, some women were waiting for me. They said, ’Welcome to Yarlswood Detention Centre’ and one of them added ‘You are going to stay with us for some time.’ She asked if I wanted some sandwiches. It was nearly eight in the evening and I hadn’t eaten since I left home before lunch. But when I’m upset, I punish myself, I lose my appetite. Even if I eat it, it has no taste, no life in my mouth. So I said, ‘No’.

Then she continued, ‘Now we need to search you.’ That was the third time I’d been searched that day. Two women came and took me to a small room. They told me to take off all my clothes, and my shoes. I told them, ‘I’ve been searched only a few hours ago.’ They replied, ’Yes, we know that. This is different.’

I did what they told me to do. I took off everything except my pants. They checked every single thing. The only place they didn’t go was into my pants. After a couple of minutes a man came. He said in a very harsh voice, ‘I am going to take you to your room. Follow me!’.

We went along a very long corridor with a lot of doors. He was carrying a big bunch of keys. He didn’t say anything; the only sound was his keys in the endless doors.

We carried on down the corridor, and reached a staircase. My room was a little way up. He asked if I needed any help on the stairs. ‘You look very tired’, he said. I answered,. ‘No’. I opened the door and entered the room. It was small and square, with two beds and a toilet and shower by the door. One table, two chairs, one cupboard, white walls. Like a hospital.

I saw a girl lying down on one of the two beds. I asked her if she came from Ethiopia. She said, ‘No, I’m from Eritrea, my name is Azebe.’ We started talking. She said she’d been here in the country for five years. ‘I came when I was under age, and when I became eighteen they wanted to deport me. I’ve been taken to the airport three times, but each time I shouted and screamed when they tried to put me on the plane, so they brought me back’. Her story scared me. I felt shocked, all over again. She added, ‘Next week I have another flight. I don’t want to go back.’ I didn’t ask her why not. What she said made me think about myself.

SEE HERE – Freedom from Torture – One woman’s account of life at Yarlswood detention centre

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STORY No. 4 – Pressure and Peril: Afghan refugees and Europe in 2017

The number of Afghan refugees arriving on Europe’s shores this year was significantly lower than in 2015 and 2016, but the arrivals have not stopped. In 2017, there were still a few thousand Afghans making the hazardous trip across the Mediterranean to the continent, and tens of thousands more continued to be on the move inside Europe. AAN’s Thomas Ruttig looks at some of the trends in Afghan-European migration in 2017 and concludes that the decrease in numbers coming to Europe is mainly a result of policy changes there vis-à-vis asylum seekers, not of the war in Afghanistan or the socio-economic problems related to it subsiding.

Three groups: the arrived, but increasingly unwelcome; the stuck; the still trying

Currently, there are three main Europe-related groups of Afghan refugees (1), each facing different problems. First, there are those who see themselves as compelled to flee an Afghan war that continues to escalate both in intensity and scope

Secondly, there are the so-called “stuck refugees,” a term that has been adopted widely in refugee studies. (3) These are several large groups of Afghans who already are in Europe but ‘came too late’ in 2015/16 to make it into the European Union countries in central and western Europe which most had been hoping to get to, such as the UK, Germany, France or Scandinavian countries. Most of these refugees are currently stuck at or between EU borders in Turkey, Greece, Italy, Serbia and Bulgaria.

Thirdly, there are those already in their destinations of choice in Europe where apparently most of them, by now, have submitted their asylum requests.

SEE HERE – Afghanistan analysts -Afghan refugees and Europe in 2017

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STORY No. 5  ‘Bloody Foreigners – The Story Of Immigration To Britain’  by Robert Winder

Excerpt – The story of immigration has been anything but smooth or uneventful. But then it is doubtful that any nation could have assimilated the arrival of so many people from overseas without stress, and Britain is not unique in falling far short of the ideal. The overseas explorers on these shores have found the natives anything but friendly: our social history includes regular and vindictive race riots. The Huguenots, the Irish, the Jews, the Poles, the Protestant refugees from Germanic Europe and more recent immigrants from Africa, the Caribbean, India and Asia, have all in their turn, attracted sometimes furious hatred. They have had to defend themselves, sometimes with their fists (or worse). There is a shamefully long catalogue of violent reprisals against foreigners, and it is added to nearly every day. Blatant racism is deep, ugly, endemic and hard to dislodge. There have been many famous flashpoints just in recent memory. If a monument were to be erected for the victims of racial hatred, it would require space for an awful lots of names.

Book review – Immigration is one of the most important stories of modern British life, yet it has been happening since Caesar first landed in 53 BC. Ever since the first Roman, Saxon, Jute and Dane leaped off a boat we have been a mongrel nation. Our roots are a tangled web. From Huguenot weavers fleeing French Catholic persecution in the 18th century to South African dentists to Indian shopkeepers; from Jews in York in the 12th century (who had to wear a yellow star to distinguish them and who were shamefully expelled by Edward I in 1272) to the Jamaican who came on board the Windrush in 1947. The first Indian MP was elected in 1892, Walter Tull, the first black football player played (for Spurs and Northampton) before WW1 (and died heroically fighting for the allies in the last months of the war); in 1768 there were 20,000 black people in London (out of a population of 600,000 – a similar percentage to today). The 19th century brought huge numbers of Italians, Irish, Jews (from Russia and Poland mainly), Germans and Poles. This book draws all their stories together in a compelling narrative.

SEE HERE – Migration Museum ‘ Bloody foreigners’

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STORY No. 6 – section from Refugee Council on Seeking financial assistance – The truth about Asylum

Asylum seekers and refugees – who’s who?

·         Developing countries – not the UK – look after most of the world’s refugees

·         80% of refugees live in countries neighbouring their country of origin

·         1% – The UK is home to approx. 1% of the 25.9 million refugees, forcibly displaced across the world.

·         People seeking asylum are looking for a place of safety

·         50% of refugees across the world are children

• The top ten refugee producing countries in 2018 all have poor human rights records or on-going conflict. People seeking asylum are fleeing from these conflicts and abuses, looking for safety
• In 2018, more than two thirds of the refugees across the world came from just five countries: Syria (6.7 million), Afghanistan (2.7 million), South Sudan (2.3 million), Myanmar (1.1 million) and Somalia (0.9 million).
• There is no such thing as an ‘illegal’ or ‘bogus’ asylum seeker. Under international law, anyone has the right to apply for asylum in any country that has signed the 1951 Convention and to remain there until the authorities have assessed their claim
• It is recognised in the 1951 Convention that people fleeing persecution may have to use irregular means in order to escape and claim asylum in another country – there is no legal way to travel to the UK for the specific purpose of seeking asylum
• The 1951 Refugee Convention guarantees everybody the right to apply for asylum. It has saved millions of lives. No country has ever withdrawn from it

Refugees make a huge contribution to the UK

• About 1,200 medically qualified refugees are recorded on the British Medical Association’s database. It is estimated that it costs around £25,000 to support a refugee doctor to practise in the UK. Training a new doctor is estimated to cost between £200,000 and £250,000
• Children in the UK asylum system contribute very positively to schools across the country. This in turn enables more successful integration of families into local communities

Britain’s asylum system is very tough

·         48% of decisions made in the year ending September 2019 resulted in a grant of asylum or other form of protection

·         The UK asylum system is strictly controlled and complex. It is very difficult for people seeking asylum to provide the evidence required to be granted protection. The decision-making process is extremely tough and many people’s claims are rejected. In the year ending Sept 2019, 48% of initial decisions resulted in a grant of asylum or other form of protection.

• Since 2005 most people recognised as refugees are only given permission to stay in the UK for five years. This makes it difficult for them to make decisions about their future, to find work and make definite plans for their life in the UK

Asylum seekers and refugees do not get large handouts from the state

• People seeking asylum are often living on Home Office support equivalent to just over £5 per day
• Asylum seekers do not come to the UK to claim benefits. Most know nothing about welfare benefits before they arrive and had no expectation that they would receive financial support
• Most asylum seekers are living in poverty and experience poor health and hunger.

• Almost all asylum seekers are not allowed to work and are forced to rely on state support – this can be as little as £5 a day to live on
• Asylum seeking women who are destitute are vulnerable to violence in the UK. More than a fifth of the women accessing our therapeutic services had experienced sexual violence in this country

SEE HERE – Refugee Council – Asylum facts: the truth about asylum/

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STORY No. 7 – This is Our Home Now

This series of articles is about our neighbours who have moved to England as refugees or immigrants for reasons of sanctuary, persecution or economic necessity. Today it is Ellie’s story.

Ellie came from Angola and Portugal and arrived in England in 1994

I was born in Angola in a war zone.  At the time I didn’t realize how fear had become normal. My parents didn’t travel during the day. My father would go out from midnight onwards and we kids travelled lying flat at the bottom of the car, as they would shoot the drivers. There were burnt out cars everywhere.  If we travelled to my Catholic boarding school, all the cars would go together with a military column for protection. My father is Portuguese and owned a general store in Angola, and my mother is Angolan.  I never met her. She left when I was three months old. Normally a white man with a black partner wouldn’t keep the child, and his family made things difficult for her to stay. He later married a woman from his home village, and had three sons with her.

When I was sixteen, the war situation became intolerable.  In the middle of the night the family picked me up from school, 300 km from where we were living and we travelled to Luanda, the capital city. I didn’t want to go. I had hidden my passport so my dad had to get emergency papers at the airport. He was so angry!  From there we flew to Portugal and went to live in my father’s village.  It was like the Middle Ages. We were suddenly so poor, as we had had to leave everything behind. There was no electricity, no toilets.  The people lived above and the animals lived on the ground floor. There was a hole in the upper floor where we went to the toilet and it mixed with the manure from the animals. It was weird.  I continued my education and went to college, and later studied for a degree in psychology at Lisbon, but had to abandon the course when, despite working, I could no longer pay the fees. I found work in import/export as the company secretary and was doing well.

Then I met my husband. He was full of dreams of self-sufficiency and an organic farm, and we moved to the countryside and had three children. But things didn’t work out. He drank and would sometimes become violent with me and the children. One time he held a knife to my heart and said ’If you don’t go now, I don’t know what I will do.’ We separated and he found a job in London.  We were left with nothing. I was working just to pay for childcare and we lived in a tent. We moved back to the family home, but I was completely isolated. I worked during school times, but in the holidays we had no income and no social security.  People would give us their surplus vegetables. They were so kind.

Friends encouraged me to come to England, but I was frightened to be near my husband. Then one day, I woke up and wasn’t afraid any more.  When we moved to Pimlico I spoke only basic English, and the kids, not at all. I worked shifts cleaning in B&Bs from 5am to earn money, and my ten-year-old had to care for the littler ones. We lived in a room with one double bed for the children and a single bed for me.

I was involved with a Christian spiritual movement and we would sometimes come to Ascot to attend activities. We loved all the trees and green spaces and so we moved here and the children went to local schools. I worked at the racecourse for events, and at the Berystede as a chambermaid. I was ‘let go’ from the Berystede when the heavy lifting damaged my back. I needed  osteopathy treatments twice a week, which we couldn’t pay for, so the osteopath treated me for free, and I would bake cakes for her to give to her clients.

While my eldest picked up English in six months, my younger ones struggled, one of whom was dyslexic. They found it difficult at school, and were bullied. We had rotten eggs and flour thrown at our door, and once we had to call the police in. They were spat at at Victory Fields, so I couldn’t let them play there on their own.  My dyslexic son had support at Holyport School, and also at a Steiner rural crafts training centre in Gloucestershire.

To learn English I would memorize whole phrases and then memorize answers, which enabled me to make myself understood. But I didn’t understand enough to follow the teachers’ comments at Parents’ Evenings and my eldest would translate, but carefully cover up how much she was struggling. Later I studied EFL at Bracknell and Wokingham College, and began teaching Portuguese privately in a big company which later offered me a permanent job in their European Centre where I still work.  I also assist with Landmark Education in the courses they offer, and regularly organize events to raise money for local charities. I was a volunteer aid worker for the refugee camp at Calais.

I have always had the belief that God will take care of us, and guide my path, as long as I put my trust in him, and also do my part. Matt 21:22 says ’Whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith’. I have always felt blessed by the divine.

I didn’t go back to Portugal for ten years, but now we can afford to go every year to see my family. I have never been back to Angola, and I don’t know if I want to. I hadn’t realized the extent of my fear.

What I most value here are the opportunities. If you want to work and grow, here there are opportunities to do that. I miss the weather and the food in Portugal and the slow pace of life; the sense of family and community. In Angola, I was more the child. I miss the happy time before my dad remarried-the smell of the first rains-we’d get completely DRENCHED! I miss the vibrancy of the colours, of life, of the fruits and flowers- the termite mounds! I feel I belong to all these countries, but I am English. I love English humour and I dream in English! I feel cosy and safe inside. I feel sorrow has been my doorway to an open heart.  I feel so blessed.

May all beings be safe and happy and free.

Ellie was in conversation with Trisha Longworth.  If you have a story to tell, please contact her trisha.longwrth@gmail.com

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STORY No. 8  – Migration Watch UK – The History of Immigration to the UK

Introduction –

1. Until the Second World War episodes of immigration were small and demographically insignificant. Britain is not “a nation of immigrants” like the United States or Australia as some claim. Large-scale immigration is an entirely new phenomenon.
2. We can measure historic immigration by looking at Census records. The Census first began to record people’s country of birth in 1851. Estimating the size of the foreign born population before that is much more difficult but historical records do give us some idea as to the scale of immigration.
3. In 1964 the International Passenger Survey was established and, in 1991, a more sophisticated measurement of immigration called the Long Term International Passenger Migration estimate was put in place. These allowed migration to and from the UK to be monitored on an annual basis.

The History of Migrants to the UK includes the Romans, Germanic, Anglo-Saxons, Vikings, Normans, Jews, Flemings, Huguenots, Tsarist Russia, Nazi Germany, post WW2 – Poles and Commonwealth and the European Union.

SEE HERE –  Migration Watch UK: History of immigration

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STORY No. 9  – Britain’s new immigration rules: Priti Patel unveils ‘significant’ tight restrictions

TOUGH new border controls to end the UK’s open door to unskilled EU migrants were unveiled by the Home Secretary. Priti Patel announced that foreign nationals will need a job offer from an approved employer, appropriate skills for the post and be able to speak English to be allowed to come to the UK to work from next year.

A policy document published by the Home Office set out details of the new points-based immigration system due to come into force from January 1 when the UK’s transition out of EU rules and regulations ends.

“We will reduce overall levels of migration,” the document pledged.

Under the new system, foreign nationals applying to come to the UK for work purposes will have to meet a strict set of criteria.

The system will assign points for specific skills, qualifications, salaries or professions and visas will only be awarded to those who gain enough points.

Minimum requirements will include having a job offer from an approved sponsor that suits their skill level and being able to speak English.

Applicants meeting those criteria will be awarded 50 of the 70 points needed to successfully apply for an online “e-visa” to come to the UK under the new system.

But to get over the minimum points threshold they will have to meet other criteria based on salary, seeking to work in a sector with a recognised labour shortage or a having a PhD.

A minimum general salary threshold of £25,600 will set, although different levels could be set in some specific sectors of the economy.

The proposals, to be put to Parliament in a new Immigration Bill later this year, are designed to close the general route into the country for unskilled or temporary workers.

A scheme for allowing unskilled seasonal workers from abroad to work in agriculture will be expanded to around 10,000 places a year under the move.

SEE HERE – New immigration rules : EU migration Priti Patel

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STORY No. 10  – Ceasefire in Idlib (Syria) but thousands still in need (UNHCR, The UN Refugee Agency)

As we prepare to mark nine years since the start of conflict in Syria later this week, I wanted to update you on recent developments within the region.

A ceasefire has now come into effect in north-west Syria, pausing months of intense fighting which has driven nearly one million people from their homes since December. The situation on the ground is tense and families are desperate. Hundreds of thousands of displaced people continue to suffer, remaining cut off from adequate humanitarian relief and medical aid.

Hospitals, schools and camps where displaced families are sheltering have not escaped the violent bombings. In the past month, we’ve heard reports of young children dying from exposure as over 400,000 displaced families brave freezing conditions in makeshift shelters or out in the open.

Syria remains the world’s largest displacement crisis. Since 2011, more than 11 million people, over 50% of the country’s population, have been forced to flee leaving everything behind them – their homes, their family, their jobs. To me, this seems unimaginable.

SEE HERE – UNCHR Update

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STORY No. 11  – How Bidibidi, a refugee camp in Uganda, is becoming a city

Standing in a sliver of shade cast by a solar streetlamp, David Kwaje plugs statistics into his smartphone.

Hidden from the harsh midday sun, he can see downhill to a row of white warehouses where residents collect food rations and beyond to two large tanks that supply water to roadside taps, yellow jerry cans radiating in all directions.

All week Kwaje has been walking along dirt roads, plotting every business, church, school, clinic, water tap, and light source on a digital map. At each stop he marks the location and asks detailed questions: Does your school have running water? What hours is this store open? How many doctors does the clinic have? By the time he and a half dozen other mappers finish, they’ll have created an open-source guide to an area that’s more than twice the size of Paris.

This is Bidibidi. With a quarter million people living in its many villages in northern Uganda, it’s the second largest refugee settlement in the world, after the Rohingya camp in Bangladesh.

Kwaje, who is 26, arrived two years ago. Around him a forest was razed and 250 miles of roads were carved through head-high grass and over streams to make room for a flood of South Sudanese fleeing war just a few hours north. He and his family built a cluster of mud-brick homes on a plot of land. He got married and had a son. Now, for the nonprofit Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team, he’s documenting Bidibidi’s transformation from temporary camp to permanent city.

SEE HERE – National Geographic : how Bibibidi Uganda refugee camp became a city

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STORY No. 12 – Ugandan Asians fleeing Idi Amin’s hostility

Following the expulsion by Idi Amin of Uganda’s Asian population in the summer of 1972, some 28,000 people arrived in Britain in a matter of weeks – to a mixed reception from their new neighbours.

When, in the summer of 1973, the Muhammed family stepped off the train at Wick, 20 miles south of John o’Groats, they did not know it, but they had the distinction of being the northernmost Ugandan Asian family in Britain. At five o’clock in the evening, the Muhammeds – mother, father, and five children aged from five to 14 – had set off from Hemswell, an ex-RAF base in North Lincolnshire that had been serving as a resettlement camp. Arriving by train in Wick 16 hours later, disorientated and with only a limited grasp of British geography, the first question they asked on arrival was: “Are we far from London?”

What were the steps that had taken the Muhammeds, who only months before had been living in Uganda, to the far reaches of north-east Scotland ?

SEE HERE – History extra : Fleeing Idi Amin- after Uganda Asian expulsion and arrival in Britain

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STORY No.13  – The Heartbreaking WWII Rescue That Saved 10,000 Jewish Children From the Nazis

Parents gave their children advice and checked them over one last time. Then, came the goodbyes—sincere, but not too sad. “There was laughter and crying and one last hug,” recalled social worker Norbert Wollheim. The Jewish children, clutching their possessions, then walked toward the train to become child refugees in England. Their parents stayed behind.

The parting may have been understated, but its consequences were not.

For most of the children who left Germany in scenes similar to the one Wollheim recalled, it was the last time they ever saw their parents. They were part of the Kindertransport, or children’s transport, a rescue effort that brought Jewish children to England in the lead-up to the Holocaust.

Between 1938 and 1940, about 10,000 Jewish children made their way to Great Britain on the Kindertransport. But though the rescue is widely seen as one of the only successful attempts to save European Jews from the Holocaust, the reality was much more complicated.

Today, the Kindertransport looms large in Britain’s memories of World War II. But historian Caroline Sharples warns that it can be used as a way to glorify a country’s generous action without acknowledging the nuances of the actual situation—the adults who were turned away to die in the Holocaust, the traumatic experiences of children whose time in Britain was characterized by abuse and antisemitism, the mistreatment of so-called “enemy aliens.”

“For all of the popular fascination with the Kindertransport,” Sharples writes, “there remain a number of issues that need to be addressed more fully….the history of this scheme needs to be placed much more firmly within the broader, long-term context of British immigration policy.”

SEE HERE – Holocaust – Child refugees : Kindertransport to Britain

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STORY No. 14 – Inspiration from a workshop created by Georgeanne Lamont – Onjali Q. Raúf

Onjali arrived at the retreat Autumn 2017, sceptical and weary, close to exhaustion. As she drove into Charney Retreat Centre, nestled in the Oxfordshire countryside, she eyed the sheep in the field and idyllic setting with mild suspicion. Was this for her? She’d come from the rough, tough refugee camps and was unconvinced that a pastoral weekend would in any way stave off the burnout that was threatening. A couple of weeks later she reported on BBC radio how she had gone away from the retreat refreshed and with renewed energy – ready for new refugee work. Shortly after that weekend, Onjali began to write The Boy at the Back of the Classroom, a book that has taken the classrooms of the UK by storm. Children cannot put it down, teachers weep and laugh along with their pupils, children finish the book changed, determined to do what they can to raise awareness of the issue of refugees, to raise funding for the camps, to enrol others. The book is like a dynamo, inspiring direct action in British schools. What had Onjali learnt in that retreat? We had taught the spiritual tools of stillness, listening, celebration, grieving, visioning and journaling. Without an inner  spiritual reservoir it is simply too difficult to go through the tidal waves of suffering we are facing. Onjali, today is an established author, campaigner, very active refugee volunteer amongst other things and every day is changing thousands of lives.

Never underestimate the power of spirituality to transform ourselves, our world. Never underestimate someone like Onjali who is full of unswerving love, courage to confront and bursting with fun.

SEE HERE – The Boy at the Back of the Class

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STORY No. 15 – Urgently resettle child refugees from Greek islands – Safe Passage

The situation for child refugees on the Greek islands is desperate. The Greek Government has written to all European countries asking for help, but as far as we know the UK has not responded. In this emergency, the UK could easily do its bit and provide a new life for a modest proportion of the child refugees suffering. We did it before during the clearance of the Calais “Jungle” in 2016. We can show leadership to the world, and prompt other countries to follow our lead.

Over the last three years, enormous pressure has been brought to bear on the already strained asylum and reception system, as the closure of the Western Balkan route and the adoption of the EU-Turkey Statement in 2016 left around 58, 000 irregular migrants and asylum-seekers stranded in Greece. The Greek authorities have had to shift their approach, from providing short-term humanitarian assistance to ensuring long-term protection and care for the increased number of asylum applicants and refugees on the territory.

There are an estimated 3,700 unaccompanied asylum-seeking minors in Greece. This figure we suspect is actually higher as many of the children we speak with fear the authority and remain under the radar.

SAFE PASSAGE – CAMPAIGNING FOR & HELPING CHILD REFUGEES TO ACCESS LEGAL ROUTES TO SAFETY

Every year thousands of child refugees arrive in Europe, almost half of them are unaccompanied and as a result are at risk of being abused and trafficked. Yet many of these children have a legal right to travel safely to a place of sanctuary. With our support they can access their rights.

SEE HERE – Safe Passage : our story

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Reference books:- public libraries U.K.

Bloody Foreigners: the story of immigration to Britain – Robert Winder (Little Brown)

Spring – Ali Spring (Hampshire Hamilton)

The Ungrateful Refugee – Dina Nayeri (Canon Gate)

The Good Immigrant USA – Edited Shukla & Suleyman (Dialogue Books)

Anne Yarwood

March 2020

ONLY CONNECT !  

“ We are One”

So Science teaches and the Wisdom tradition has always taught.

The ZEIGEIST of today brings TREES into our awareness. (Zeitgeist .. the defining spirit or word of a particular period of history as shown by the ideas and beliefs of the time). Thinking for weeks about TREES, experiencing Trees, mooching around sources …to my excitement I found European poets, photographers, exhibition curators who are using trees as their primary image. This is new in its proliferation. TREES are leading, feeding ideas. Are they today’s reincarnation hope ?

Shining this Story into the plethora of references, I offer the following:-

Awe & Wonder at Trees’ skills

Reflections on the spiritual space created by Trees

Advice on action

My own meetings with Trees

and a few of TREES’ human champions’ tales

RANDOM FACTS ABOUT TREES : Awe and Wonder stuff !

Trees take energy from the Sun and carbon dioxide (CO2) from the air to make their food. Both leaves and needles absorb CO2 ; the raw material making Chlorophyll to feed plant cells.

The Stomata holes in tree leaves allow in the Carbon Dioxide.

The Amazon Rainforest produces half of the world’s oxygen supply.

Dendrochronology is the study of tree rings, telling the tree’s age.

Evaporation from large oak and beech trees within 24 hours is between 10- 25 gallons.

Large Oaks transpire 40,000 gallons of water per year, bringing it up from their roots.

Bamboo grows 35 inches per day

Ginkgo Bilbo’s is one of oldest species at 250 million years.

The Baobab can store 1,000 to 120,000 litres of water in its swollen trunk.

Californian Redwoods are the largest organisms in the world at 379 feet; length of a football pitch.

Ancient trees cut down grew even taller.

REFLECTIONS ON THE SPIRITUAL SPACE CREATED BY TREES

These WONDEROUS, self regulating systems have lived-out their lives through aeons of time.

“ Trees are of course at the heart of things. How could it be otherwise? The human lineage began in trees. We have left our first ancestors far behind but we are creatures of the forest still”  – Colin Tudge, ‘The Secret Life of Trees…How They Live and Why They Matter’. ( HIVE BOOKS – HERE)

I’ve learnt from this Wonderous book, alongside Glennie Kindred’s latest book ‘Walking with Trees’.

She writes, “ Trees create an interface, and can be experienced through all our senses. They help us to expand into parts of our selves that lie at the edge”.  (Glennie Kindred – HERE) 

ADVICE ON ACTION

First, take in facts about tree systems, then work out what humans can do for sustainability, world wide. Colin Tudge encourages optimism through policies for sound husbandry of trees, legislated via the choices of knowledgeable, democratically elected leaders. Long-term national plans to include:- first, listen to the experience of people currently & culturally working with trees. Evolve an agrarian economy, rooted in biological reality where a true concern for human wellbeing is put into practice, advises Tudge.

As we learn more about scientific facts of trees’ inter-connectivity, so we can open to the nature of trees . Glennie Kindred says..”As we celebrate, grow, plant and interact with the trees, we re-find our sense of unity with all of the life on Earth”

MY OWN MEETING WITH TREES 

Today, I’m sitting at our kitchen table to write about MY OWN MEETING WITH TREES. Sitting at the 7×4 ft. plank, on a Polish pine armchair……here David and I sit daily, munching food, taking heart tablets! Here Sally and I checked out this edition of TIA last week. Here we write the Christmas cards, celebrate birthdays and have had friends at play, making clay altars, papier-mâché bowls, painting glass bottles…

So, here’s my story of meetings with Trees. And with the champions of trees.. Trees’ companions; their Neighbours in this existence.

Sixty years living alongside our Oak. Forty or so years meeting men and women committed to Trees. And remembering the starting point in my solitary childhood wandering in Worcestershire fields, picking kingcups in the boggy stream, running fast to escape advancing cows …phew…snuggling safely inside a hollow Oak. Or crouching in the arching space of an Elm hedge…munching radish sandwiches and puzzling, puzzling HOW to climb the massive, straight-up-to-the-sky trunk! Always thought it would be possible…

Twenty years later we owned a 2/3 acre garden, home for hundred year Lawsonian Pine, Holly, Cedar, Sweet Chestnut, ancient pear and apple trees; one lying at 60 degrees; the retreat for hurtling up, very angry beloved tabby cat, Snudgie.

Between raising our three children and much gardening, I was out and about doing Community Organising and community education. In that world of social and political activism, I met tree-people. For example, early decisions to act locally by Anne, Catherine, Steve; imaginers of ‘WILDLIFE IN ASCOT’. Remember Anne’s fury at the threats to the ancient badger habitats by Developers; impossibility of getting a response to objections.

In my sixties I used to run ( always with friends) a variety of small groups in the converted coach house part of the stables. One such blissful weekend was spent with GLENNIE KINDRED. Felt so honoured that she came to inspire us with her passionate knowledge of trees. Plodding around the garden, we gathered twigs to bundle around tiny honouring scrolls of commitment to the trees we’d explored. Next day, more seriously soaked plodding around near-by Great Park, led by (the late) STEVE SEARLE, Forest Manager; again, honoured that this man- of – the -woods, should in his laid-back way, welcome us relative amateurs to his domain.

Now we’re up to the early 2000’s …urgency to waken the local community to facts about Climate Change. Eight or so friends founded ASCENT: Ascot & the Sunnings Community Environment Network. A key member was ANDREA BERARDI; Open University lecturer who together with colleagues including his wife JAY MISTY ( now Professor Geography, Royal Holloway) developed the COBRA PROJECT in the Guyana Shield, South America This EU funded project advocates the position that indigenous communities have the capacity to identify and share their own environmental best practice of land management. iPads were given to record traditional knowledge. Experience of IT was tried out on/ by the ASCENT group; great fun learning to use iPads for the first time….

By this time environmental NETWORKING was global. I heard about KINARI WEBB through a World Studies colleague of many years; his close relative lived in Jakarta. Co-editor of this website Sally and my interest in the SE Asian environment remains strong since living in Malaysia for five years. Then one day we watched Kinari’s inspirational video and adored her….her and this practical idea to protect the trees. Lateral thinking zooms through seemingly intractable resistance to solutions.

Finding out about the next Neighbour-of-trees, in this Story’s terminology WANGARI MATTHAI happened indirectly from African women I met at the Africa Centre and at European Commission meetings. There these powerful women told me of their heroes, including Wangeri. I loved these big women. Straight talking. Bearing their suffering with a defiance that I recognised from childhood, In myself.

VANDANA SHIVA is the last hero to introduce to you. Again I found out about her work through environmental networking. Heard she was speaking in London…after her talk a few women met with her. I recall a huddle, squashed in a small basement room…and there was this utterly open-hearted woman, chatting away, like a sister to us “strangers”. I always hold the sense of Vandana’s warmth, in my heart.

I have only today discovered the final “ Tree Neighbour” to honour : SUZANNE SIMARD Professor of Tree Ecology, British Colombia University. Magically, synchronistically… in the latest BRAIN PICKINGS from MARIA POPOVA lies knowledge, new to me, about the underworld of FUNGI. I’ve been searching around, finding out about fungi MYCELIUM – the connecting underground thread network and lo! Here’s exactly what is needed to complete this pin- hole into peep- show Story of Trees.    We RECOMMEND Suzanne ‘s TED TALK plus the animated film made by one of her students.

SOME TALES OF TREES’ CHAMPIONS

This section lauds what individuals can do through their IMAGINATIVE ACTION, their BRAVERY : this is our website’s vision. THE IMAGINATION, ACTS.

–  LOCAL PROJECT – WILDLIFE in ASCOT

Based in Berkshire, typically, a community group’s tale. Here’s 3 people making a START. It all began with that powerful motivator ANGER…objections to destruction by Developers of Badger habitats. The three met. Straightway agreed to set up a voluntary group. EARLY DAYS “held”by computer competence and dedication. Activities ATTRACTED others through informative talks, sociable activities.Expanded by BOLD Lottery funded project; a stream set amidst local private housing estate.

SEE HERE – About Wildlife In Ascot   

Popular subject – Kingfishers  SEE HERE

–  GLENNIE KINDRED

Glennie Kindred

I am an artist and a writer, and it is my good fortune to have twelve books currently published, all of which include my artwork. My books are practical and inspire the reader to self-empowerment. They explore the wild edges of our relationship with the Earth through our native plants and trees, tree lore, herbalism, Earth wisdom, alchemy, celebrating the Earth’s cycles and creating heartfelt ceremony. I am also the editor and co-creator of the yearly publication, the Earth Pathways diary.

SEE HERE – Glennie Kindred

–  COBRA PROJECT

Prof. Jay Mistry

In 2011, a partnership between Indigenous associations, academic institutions and civil society organisations

Dr Andrea Berardi

launched Project COBRA. Its mission was to support Indigenous communities in the Guiana Shield of South America to identify, record and share their own solutions, and showcase these to the rest of the world.       SEE HERE – ABOUT PROJECT COBRA

In December 2016, Project COBRA’s researchers launched the Cobra Collective (www.cobracollective.org), a social enterprise for advancing the project’s achievements.   

Two years after the end of Project COBRA, The Open University funded a team from the Cobra Collective to interview key individuals that participated in, and/or benefited from, its legacy

SEE HERE – PROJECT COBRA IMPACT

–  KINARI WEBB 

Kinari developed the vision for Health In Harmony on an undergraduate trip, studying orangutans at Gunung Palung National Park in Indonesian Borneo in 1993. Dr. Webb graduated from Yale University School of Medicine with honors and then founded Health In Harmony in 2005 to support the combined human and environmental work that she envisioned. Kinari also co-founded Alam Sehat Lestari (ASRI) with Hotlin Ompusunggu and Antonia Gorog. Kinari currently splits her time between Indonesia, international site assessments, and the San Francisco Bay Area.  SEE HERE – Health in Harmony

Her favourite HIH story is: A village’s first female chief ended illegal logging with spies and checkpoints

SEE HERE – Non profit charity provides Health Care

–  WANGARI MAATHI

Wangari Maathai

Born near a holy fig tree in the central highlands of Kenya twenty years after the country became a British colony, Wangari Maathai (April 1, 1940–September 25, 2011) went on to become the first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize, awarded for her triumph of promoting “ecologically viable social, economic and cultural development” by founding the Green Belt Movement responsible for planting 30 million trees and empowering women to partake in social change — an act of courage and resistance for which she was beaten and imprisoned multiple times, but which ultimately helped defeat Kenya’s corrupt, authoritarian president and blazed a new path to ecological resilience.

READ HER AUTOBIOGRAPHY  -HERE

Planting Trees as Resistance and Empowerment: The Remarkable Illustrated Story of Wangari Maathai, the First African Woman to Win the Nobel Peace Prize

–  VANDANA SHIVA 

Gaia met Vandana Shiva in the mid eighties when she was fiercely defending indigenous seed varieties and farmers against the Green Revolution’s commercial seed and chemical fertilizers, which had firmly gripped Asia. Gaia worked with Vandana to bring this message to Africa, warning about the Indian experience of the destructive impact of genetically modified crops and chemical inputs. Monsanto, the largest and most aggressive private seed and agro-chemical company in the world, was at this time using South Africa as its entry point to the continent.

Vandana’s organisation Navdanya is one of the most influential non-governmental organizations in India, supporting farmers across the country to grow indigenous seed varieties and stand up against corporate pressure.  SEE HERE – MOVIE 

–  SUZANNE SIMARD 

Suzanne is a professor of forest ecology and teaches at the University of British Columbia.  She is a biologist and has tested theories about how trees communicate with other trees. She used radioactive carbon to measure the flow and sharing of carbon between individual trees and species, and discovered that birch and Douglas fir share carbon. Birch trees receive extra carbon from Douglas firs when the birch trees lose their leaves, and birch trees supply carbon to Douglas fir trees that are in the shade.  Simard helped identify something called a hub tree, or “mother tree”. Mother trees are the largest trees in forests that act as central hubs for vast below-ground mycorrhizal networks. A mother tree supports seedlings by infecting them with fungi and supplying them the nutrients they need to grow.^[1]

She discovered that Douglas Firs provide carbon to baby firs. She found that there was more carbon sent to baby firs that came from that specific mother tree, than random baby firs not related to that specific fir tree. It was also found the mother trees change their root structure to make room for baby trees.

–  MARIA POPOVA – ‘Brain Pickings’.

We RECOMMEND these weekly Newsletters , compiled as a gift to readers worldwide.

Maria says ”I am a reader and writer, and I write about what I read here on Brain Pickings — my one-woman labor of love. It is an inquiry into what it means to live a decent, substantive, rewarding life, and a record of my own becoming as a person — intellectually, creatively, spiritually — drawn from my extended marginalia on the search for meaning across literature, science, art, philosophy, and the various other tentacles of human thought and feeling”. 

”It has been curious to observe, in this most difficult year of my life, the patterns that emerge — strong women’s voices, the healing power of nature, of poetry, and of kindness; the necessity of unselfish love, of friendship, and of solitude; and lots and lots and lots of tress — and how they illuminate the things that help me, and perhaps you, survive. Thrive, even.

Enjoy, and may we face the coming year with the steady serenity of a tree — that supreme lover of light, always reaching both higher and deeper, rooted in a network of kinship and ringed by a more patient view of time”.

SEE HERE – Brainpickings

SEE LINK BELOW – Fascinating Science of how Trees communicate

The Fascinating Science of How Trees Communicate, Animated

–  MARY OLIVER

Mary Oliver (1935 – 2019), was perhaps the most popular American poet of the past few decades. The winner of a Pulitzer prize in 1984, she was loved for good reasons. Her poems are simple and straightforward, crystalline, reflecting a deep love of nature, and connecting the spirit world with the physical world in subtle ways. She wrote with a natural, even naive, enthusiasm for life itself, as in her majestic When Death Comes (1991), in which she cries:

When it’s over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

SEE HERE – Mary Oliver

MYCORRHIZAL NETWORKS

Mycorrhizal networks (also known as common mycorrhizal networks or CMN) are underground hyphal networks created by mycorrhizal fungi that connect individual plants together and transfer water, carbon, nitrogen, and other nutrients and minerals. The formation of these networks is context dependent, and can be influenced by factors such as soil fertility, resource availability, host or myco-symbiont genotype, disturbance and seasonal variation (due to enrichment of nitrogen in soil affect michozial communities or effect of human activities of human affecting nitrogen cycle). By analogy to the many roles intermediated by the World Wide Web in human communities, the many roles that mycorrhizal networks appear to play in woodland have earned them a colloquial nickname: the Wood Wide Web..

Substances transferred

Several studies have demonstrated that mycorrhizal networks can transport carbon, phosphorus, nitrogen, water, defense compounds, and allelochemicals from plant to plant. The flux of nutrients and water through hyphal networks has been proposed to be driven by a source–sink model, where plants growing under conditions of relatively high resource availability (e.g., high-light or high-nitrogen environments) transfer carbon or nutrients to plants located in less favourable conditions. A common example is the transfer of carbon from plants with leaves located in high-light conditions in the forest canopy, to plants located in the shaded understory where light availability limits photosynthesis.

MYCELIUM

The mycelium is the part of a fungus that is usually underground (or inside some another substance). It is composed of hyphae, which look like threads, or rootlets. The mat of hyphae may be very thickly woven. The fungus uses it to extract nutritients. The hyphae are usually syncytic, that is, they do not have complete cell walls. Fungal colonies composed of mycelium are found in and on soil and many other natural materials.

A mycelium may be tiny, forming a colony that is too small to see, or it may be extremely large and cover the floors of a large forest.

The part of the fungus which is most visible is the reproductive body. This is often, but not always, the stem and hat of the mushroom.

SEE HERE – LICHENS ON TREES INFO 

SEE HERE – FUNGI IDENTIFICATION

And finally, dear Readers, let’s seal this awakening to Trees with poets’ words :-

From Maria Popova  – Brain Pickings

William Blake wrote- “ The tree which moves some to tears of joy, in the eyes of others is a green thing which stands in their way”.

Maria writes: ”But trees are much more than what they are to us, or in relation to us. They are relational miracles of their own entangled complex webs of inter-being, constantly communicating with each other through chemical signals dispatched along the fungal network that lie in their roots- an invisible, astonishing world only recently discovered thanks to Canadian forest ecologist Suzanne Simard”.

From the late Mary Oliver –

WHEN I AM AMONG THE TREES
by Mary Oliver

When I am among the trees,
especially the willows and the honey locust,
equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,
they give off such hints of gladness.
I would almost say that they save me, and daily.
I am so distant from the hope of myself,
in which I have goodness, and discernment,
and never hurry through the world
but walk slowly, and bow often.
Around me the trees stir in their leaves
and call out, “Stay awhile.”
The light flows from their branches.
And they call again, “It’s simple,” they say,
“and you too have come
into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled
with light, and to shine.”

Anne Yarwood

January 2020

The Transit Lounge  

A while back, Mary, I and other church women met weekly for an hour for a Healing Prayer Group: twenty years with our beloved Rev Dr Gill Wiggins. Mary – a Lancashire lass, often spoke of sitting in the Transit Lounge. I didn’t understand the accuracy of the location, being much younger than my fellow Lancastrian.

But here I am at 85, physically frail, less alert mentally; as for all elderly, hours easily spent on technicolored recollections of life lived; in other hours, facing fear, mixed with sensible planning for forthcoming further weakening and the hugely feared death of one of us, leaving the other….alone.

The Story that follows gives pinhole peeps into the nature of my early life through tales about my parents. Their experience, values and attitudes shaped my formative years.

Born WEST DERBY LIVERPOOL 1934. Exemplar Council Housing Estate. Liverpool in 1930’s providing well built housing for rent, in a designed setting.

Lilian as young girl

Lilian Brookfield and Arthur Stanley Davies ( “Artur Tanny Dadis” said my Daddy, as a little chap) felt they could only afford and raise, one child …so I was precious. Greatly cherished, upheld, held close…enfolded in their hopes. Recall sitting on Daddy’s boney knees, held close by his large hands. Or cuddled up on my Mummy’s knees, cosying my head onto her ample bosom.

Lil lived her childhood in one of the poorest parts of Liverpool. Mother widowed, 6 children, no income. Young Lil went out every morning at 4 o’clock with Annie, to clean offices. From this pittance, Annie saved to buy the Vicar a copper Carriage Lamp every Christmas: proud in the giving. Lil told me of sitting on the stairs playing with her toys: a tin box of buttons and wooden clothes pegs.

Arthur’s childhood was likewise tough. Father a fishmonger in Wallasey and also a fortune – seeker in Australia …mysterious legends, including Arthur’s mother falling into the Mersey between landing- stage and dock. Prem. birth. Baby born with Rickets. Mis-operated on, aged 3…permanently lame.

Arthur as young man

Arthur was always involved in Community concerns. Worked in the Liverpool Settlement, with Larkshill Tenants’s Association and was the first Organising Secretary, Birmingham Council Community Associations. Together with leading Quakers, they founded the National Council of Community Workers and the National Federation of Community Associations.

These meetings got Arthur to London. London, called “Foyles Bookshop”!

This stumbling-along man, little cash, literally crept into the bookshop to scour shelves of SETS of classics. SETS, that was the thing!

Back home, more bit rickety- rockety shelves went up around all free walls downstairs. “Oh! Arthur not MORE BOOKS!” When he died, early 60s, I drove the little green Anglia to and fro to a Southampton book seller. Mummy was glad …grieved… to be free of them…I ,heartbroken to see my Daddy’s life-lines …dumped. For after a shattering car accident in Arthur’s and Lilian’s 50s, READING had kept Daddy alive….“Just finished Balzac (some 30 volumes). On to De Quincy!”

Me on Daddy’s knees, Liverpool

Moving up, socially was always in Lilian’s mind. Not pushy…not at all, rather a steady intention for her little family to be upright and progressing.Very darling of her. With so little to ‘spoil’ her, she felt acknowledged to have a small box of groceries DELIVERED WEEKLY TO THE HOUSE…she being served. And doing the Footie pools every Saturday. Daddy and me silenced, in dread of her missing a result. And her Co-Op divvie: twice yearly dividend, set aside winter and spring for a new hat. …expedition of us three to Lewis’s Brum, for serious hat trying-on. AND, let’s not forget the SPIRELLA LADY (the Corsetiere). Bi-annual visit to the house. Closed door in the sitting- room…a high-altar sort of happening…

My Mummy and me, Hoylake

Outside home my Mummy went to an Anglican Church. She encouraged me always to say prayers at night and Grace before meals. She always sang in a local choir. In fact she sang or whistled all the time…often with her Woodie ( Woodbine) between her lips…my mind is full of songs…music hall, operetta..which now, David and I sing ( on cheerier nights) when he’s doing the washing-up… ”Let’s all go darn the Strand…”

Next comes THE WAR : WW2. Unlike David ( 4 years older than me) I knew little about the fighting; the anguish of our country’s danger. Images pop up …Mummy’s lip- chewing as she turned the heel knitting the Airmens’ thick sox, gathering rose hips in the hedgerows for Vitamin C, plucking lambs’s wool off the fields’ barbed wire fences, the Anderson air raid shelter that my father dug. Bunk bed for little treasure. M& D on orange boxes all raid-long. Me loving the siren, the huge searching lights, both signals to pop into my dark red, fluffy Siren Suit. My Mummy’s home- made protection of me. Zipped and hooded …like  Prime Minister, Winnie’s..

Anne, 2 years and Nana, Broad Lane

Evacuation : Operation Pied Piper 1939 moved 3.5 million people (mostly children) from city areas. Bomb threats led my father to send Mummy and me to Barmouth, North Wales…leaving him on his own for a year; no car, black out, gammy leg ( as Arthur always called it)…but he absent from home when an incendiary bomb came through the roof.

WALES. ah! My heartland…precious land. Myself in the outer world .The air…amidst mountains, the sea. I found… ”Vast. Eternal. Unchanging. Uninhabited.”

Lilian and me had rooms in a row of granite houses, up high above the sea & the Prom. Two stone lions at the entrance…two feet long… HUGE. Sat on one or the other many and many an hour, viewing the world. Or often scurrying up the Panorama (short ‘a’) Walk…over the huddle of granite cottages nearing the harbour. And over the Mawddach Estuary across the rail bridge. Long walk, little legs but crossing to another world. Me drawn into bog land, mud flats, rock strewn knolls . Ah! the lived memory of rushing down through groves of sparse Welsh oak trees…leaping across boulders. Sensing mystery and danger as we crossed by Arthog to ascend the ground rising steeper, rougher up to Cader Idris.

One of Lilian’s hat

(Intriguingly, I read a while back of John Ruskin buying a dozen cottages and over 4 acres of land up the mountain side near Barmouth harbour. Part of a social project for his Guild of St. George…part of the writer’s attack on Victorian capitalism). Years later in my teens, we three went to Llanaber, at the far end of Barmouth Promenade. Every Spring there we were, to open-up a holiday bungalow and every Glorious Autumn, to close it down; a far- sighted project of Arthur’s to offer low cost holidays for Council tenants in Birmingham.

A magic place, that spartan wooden bungalow. …quick dash down the narrow lane, by the stream, honeysuckle, blackberries…over the railway line, over the sand dunes to the freezing sea.

Anne as the Lady in ‘Comus’, plastic dress by Lilian (school)

Next seminal influence …school…aged 7 to 19. Kidderminster High School for Girls enveloped all our lives. No life beyond its walls. So here’s “safe” again. And achieving. Small scale. Us girls,the focus of total attention by “Polly Oldfield” our Headmistress & once a week Magistrate (we’d watch her leaving down the front steps…awesome). The all female, white staff were scholars. Mostly solitary since their men had been killed in wars. They cherished us…we unconsciously knew this. Whole school Prayers every morning. Polly in her black university gown. Me, hymn monitor selecting the hymns and putting the numbers up in the frame by the side of the stage…holding the music if Miss Wood needed help, at the piano. Miss Wood in red spotted dress and shaved legs. Much music, piano lessons, tiny Miss Fitzgerald & the school orchestra. School choirs… St. Patrick’s Breast Plate. No running in the corridors. Golden Book and Black Book entries read out in Assembly. I couldn’t do Arithmetic. Missed one term after op. to remove Ovarian Cyst, aged 10. Shone at art, literature, history, religious studies. One of few names on honours board in the hall of girls going to University.

Nana and Sally, Londonderry, NI 1959

My Mummy made my wedding dress 1957, later worn by Sally

Like to tell you more, dear Reader, about how I slowly, so very slowly released myself from “a dolly day-dream” distancing from the world. Fumbling and failures…Whither? My father’s shattering car accident. Marriage, Motherhood, our small house in Derry, Northern Island.

Lilian and Arthur wedding, Liverpool 1931

Arthur and Lilian, Kidderminster, before accident

Arthur at London meeting ( front LHS)

Lilian wheeling Arthur to meeting with colleagues

In their 50s, the car accident called forth Lilian and Arthur’s deepest store of courage.

Driven into a stone wall by a collecting-child mother dashing across a junction, my Daddy’s rickety knees and hips crumbled. Heart- breaking visit to Birmingham Accident Hospital. Arthur’s handsome face bruised, arms & legs in plaster, legs on hoists. Lost his job: charity couldn’t afford to keep him on the payroll…no income nor savings. This independent pair depended on National Assistance…. assessed every six weeks after full strip examination. Arthur shamed in embarrassment. Demeaned. Lilian cared for Arthur who didn’t walk for several years (and then as a daily struggle). She discharged Daddy …chronic bed- sores. I came home weekly from Uni, lying beside him motionless on his bed …my task to breath hope into him. Enduring three years of intense anxiety for their future, finally, they won a court financial settlement for loss of livelihood and pain & suffering. They bought their first small home…Bought a baby- grand piano …Arthur staggered to sit there, bashing out musical comedy melodies ”A Nightingale sang in Berkeley Square”. My Daddy very slowly learnt to drive hand- controlled car (after Mummy pleaded with the Driving Tester following the third failure!). Their lives continued for another 10 or so years.

Lilian in Malaysia

Continuing my tale –

Nearly five years in Malaysia. Whilst so far away…no farewell… both parents died. Returned. Bought Constables with my parent’s legacy and our modest savings. Two further degrees in Social Policy then Sociology, Community Worker Social Services, Marriage Guidance Counselling training, NADEC ( Nat.Assoc Development Education) & at the European Commission, development education. Aged 60, with friends (honouring my parents by the hosting), we ran a twenty year series of mutual sharing and learning groups, at Constables. Set up NGO projects, RISC (Reading International Solidarity Centre) peace and environment education groups.

Then “Take Two” a play honouring the Palestinian conflict.

This was the TURNING. Brilliant creation by our small group. Author Jennifer Leech, Director Justin Butcher….me, exhausted. Slid into my present habitat…Transit land.

Nana Brookfield, Lilian’s mother, Broad Lane 1934

Anne Yarwood

October 2019

Several Shades of T  

The storyline that I’m thinking of opened with L and G.

After a while they were joined by B.

And then T.

LGBT.

More recently a large selection of the rest of the alphabet has joined in. Some of them more than once.

LGBTQQIAAPOG …

Lesbian. Gay. Bisexual. Trans. Queer. Questioning. Intersex. Asexual. Ally. Pansexual. Other. Genderfluid. …

Sometimes the newcomers all get represented by just a +.

LGBT+.

But the story isn’t about the alphabet.

It’s about people.

It began long before the alphabet got involved.

And like all stories about people, whilst there are still people the story will continue.

Some people are intimately involved in the story. Others are more on the periphery. We can all be involved. In some ways, we all are involved.

There is a truth in that different people read the same story in different ways.

Some see a collection of different letters of the alphabet. They don’t identify with any of the letters. The story is a threat. An anathema. An abomination. They want to put an end to it. But the story is about people and not the alphabet. Ending it involves blood. And even then, whilst there are people the story will continue.

Some claim a letter as their own. They hold it close. They know it and understand it. Looking at the other letters they aren’t so sure. Not all letters are equal. Some of them are frauds. Dangerous. Threatening. They need to be restricted. Controlled.

Some don’t consciously read the story at all. But by words, silences, actions and inactions they take part.

Over the years I’ve come across people that read the story in these ways. And of people that read it in many, many other ways.

My own take on it has changed. Is still changing.

I’ve discovered that I have letters in this story.

I know other people that have the same letters.

But sharing the same letters in a story doesn’t make us the same people. We have our own thoughts, feelings, preferences. And we can even read the same story in different ways.

I know other people with other letters.

But I know no one for whom a letter, or even an entire alphabet, provides an adequate definition of who they are.

In all of this I identify as T and G – that is a Trans person that is Genderfluid.

So, what does that mean? And does it matter.

The term trans is often defined as something like this: an umbrella term for all people who cross traditional gender boundaries – whether that is permanently or periodically (https://www.nhs.uk/livewell/transhealth/documents/livingmylife.pdf).

And then there’s the term genderfluid. You could say that genderfluid individuals have different gender identities at different times. A genderfluid individual’s gender identity could be multiple genders at once and then switch to none at all, or move between single gender identities, or some other combination therein. For some genderfluid people, these changes happen as often as several times a day and for others, monthly, or less often. Some genderfluid people regularly move between only a few specific genders, perhaps as few as two (which could also fit under the label bigender), whereas other genderfluid people never know what they’ll feel like next (See HERE  – wiki/Genderfluid).

However, the definitions certainly have their limitations.

I’ve come across some trans people who don’t like to stand under the same umbrella as other trans people. Which might add another letter to the story to accommodate them.

Some people don’t believe that T has the right to be included along with LG or B.

Sometimes, people begin to talk trans and then focus more upon pronouns, lavatories, changing rooms and restrooms than they do on people.

Sometimes people say and do things that are much worse.

Trans people face many challenges. All people face many challenges.

What special rights should trans people have?

Perhaps nothing more special than things that I believe should be given to all people. Things like kindness, compassion, respect and understanding.

Ultimately, what every trans person that I know wishes for, is to simply be themselves. It’s not about special treatment or privileges.

Of course, that’s the beginning of a story more than it is the end of one. Pronouns, restrooms, changing rooms and safe spaces matter.

Safety matters.

People are capable of pretending to be someone that they are not.

There are challenges.

But in working out solutions to these challenges let’s remember that behind every acronym and label there are real people. That even when people share the same label, they are different from each other. That there is no single voice that fully represents any label. That it is possible to disagree with someone else and yet to do that with respect and kindness. That there are times when the ability to reach a compromise is a strength. That it is better to listen to and talk with each other than it is to write about each other. That whispers sometimes speak more loudly than yells.

The acronyms are complicated. People are complex. But there is something special when people that pick up different labels are able to move beyond the things that make them different. To see diversity as a thing that can enrich and strengthen rather than something that weakens and destroys.

And of course, just like you, I have lots of other letters of the alphabet in lots of other stories. And we’re all involved in each of these stories in one way or another. Some stories touch us closely. Others seem to be more distant. But we are involved. What we say and do has an effect. Our inactions and silences also have an effect. And all the separate stories are, in reality, parts of a single bigger story.

Martin Niemöller (first-they-came-for-the-socialists) is remembered for saying:

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out – because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out – because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out – because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me – and there was no one left to speak for me.

And so, even though I am not L or G or B, I still speak out. We are all neighbours (www.biblegateway.com/passage).

Last year I discovered the music of Emily Maguire (https://emilymaguire.com/ ) and was especially touched when listening to a song of hers called The Borderline which speaks to me of the way it can be so easy to concentrate on things that divide us rather than the things that hold us together. You can listen to it  HERE  and  HERE.

The words are:

The Borderline

[E.Maguire]

Where is the borderline

The boundary between your tribe and mine

Are we the rain, the river, the cloud and the sea

If we are like water then which drop is me

And what is time – the fast blink of an eye

A circle so vast that we think it’s a line

And what is space – the air, the silence we breathe

A place of our own and the ghosts we don’t see
Is it the boundary, the borderline

Between you and I, your mind and mine

Is fire the spark, the fuel, the air or the heat

The smoke in your eyes or the ash at your feet

Are trees the root, the branch, the wood or the leaves

The forest we burn or the broom that we keep

Beneath the stairs, the stars, the space in a jar. The air outside is that where you are

Is that the borderline, the boundary

Between you and I, between your tribe and mine

But isn’t fear the dark shadow of hope

The things that we want and the things that we don’t

And so we cling and close the eyes that look in,

The soul we don’t see under the skin

Cos that’s a boundary, the borderline

Between you and I, between your tribe and mine

But we both were born and both will die

And in between will doubt and dream

Of a better life than life before

A meaning or a reason for

This feeling of being different, defined

When we are only dreaming of boundaries and borderlines

I hope we wake up

Cos what is love – a word, the feeling of you

Something we dream or the things that we do

And who am I – these thoughts, this feeling, my views

A fragile form or a dreamer like you

Are we so different, defined

Where is the borderline?

When we are like water, like trees

We have a name, an illusion of identity

Of boundaries, of borderlines

But my dreams are yours and your fears are mine

I hope we wake up from this dream of being different, defined

When we are only space and time

And yes, I too hope that we wake up.

Andrea Wright

I was born male but struggled with my gender-identity for many years. On learning to accept myself as who I am, I initially accepted the label “transvestite”. As the years have passed, I’ve realised that it’s not a thing that’s simply about the clothes that I wear. So the label that I prefer these days is genderfluid (See HERE). It’s not a perfect label, but nor is any other.

I’m fortunate in that my family and friends have accepted me warmly. I know many other people who experience stress in their relationships because of their gender identity.

I try to be of help to other people that are coming to terms with their own gender identity. In just simple ways like spending time with people, listening to them and sharing my own experiences. I also organise Surrey Swans (http://surreyswans.blogspot.com/p/introducing-surrey-swans.html) which provides a place where trans people and their partners can meet socially, and occasionally write a blog http://andrea-wright.blogspot.com .

July 2019

Stories from Iraq and Iran

Photos and illustrations from these Stories are in the GALLERY

Three friends have contributed glimpses of these vibrant , ancient lands, Iraq and Iran.

Reflections

“Khaloola (Auntie), the flower is right in front of me on the door at my grandmother’s house”, said my niece when we spoke during her recent visit to Baghdad.  She went to visit Baghdad having left it when she was two years old.  On her way she stopped to see us for 2 days in Surrey, UK. At that time the British Museum was having the Ashurbanipal BP exhibition, so my husband and I took her there.  We felt this will be a good introduction to her Baghdad visit and to the history of Iraq.

Later we were reflecting on this exhibition and I was struck by how many things that are so familiar to us today and we took for granted came from these ancient times of Iraq’s history. Here are a few :-

1: The flower that decorates many things from people’s doors, gates, public spaces all around Iraq.

2: Colours and styles chosen to decorate the interior of ordinary people’s houses, especially in Mosul.

3: The decoration of furniture with metal pieces, I saw a chair or table with lions claws decorating it’s legs, I have similar decorations on the legs of my current dining table.

4: Lush and bountiful orchards and the way the produce was carried away on large trays usually carried above the head.  I saw the same way of carrying produce and bountiful orchards during my childhood in Iraq.

5: My heart melted when I saw the beautiful panoramic view of the land around the Tigris River near Nineveh. The thought that I have been there with my parents visiting relatives kept coming to my mind.

6: I felt proud that people from the land where I was born contributed to humanity’s history and civilization.

7: With all the achievements that the Assyrians and other ancient populations of Iraq attained, I could not help but wonder how comfortable and happy ordinary citizens of Ashurbanipal’s empire were, just as I wonder how ordinary citizens of Iraq are today.

For further interest – ‘Ancient Iraq’ ( Georges Roux, 3rd Edition, Penguin, Paperback) is a book which, in my opinion, is so informative and an enjoyable read.

Ban Hikmat

Retired Community Dentist

At the Existentialist Café

This is the title of a book by wonderful Sarah Bakewell.  Much as I admire her and her thorough research on any subject she touches, this time it wasn’t her name on the cover which made me purchase the book, but the title itself.  You see, we had a café in Shiraz, Iran, which we called our Existentialist Café fifteen years ago while I was still living there.

Every evening we used to get together in that café with the exquisite décor, order non-alcoholic hot drinks in winter, and cold in summer, and discuss anything from Simone de Beauvoir’s view on women, Milan Kundera’s Immortality, and Jose Saramago’s Blindness.  Yes, we did smoke as well, and discussed sex, compared boyfriends, gave each other relationship advice and whatever would go on at a casual meeting in any café in Europe.

We weren’t a bunch of snubs, elites, separated from the society, but simply some ordinary girls and boys who had never left the country and knew the rest of the world only through films and books.  It didn’t feel like living on another planet though, the way people in the West feel about Iran, and we certainly did not feel miserable and poorly treated waiting to be rescued by the west.  we were proud of our Rumi, Ave Sina, and Ghazali, and so many other philosophers, reciting their poems and words almost everyday in our day to day conversations. Life was… different.

In my last trip to Iran, last year, I popped into our Existentialist Café and I was filled with the same melancholy we feel whenever we try to trace back sweet memories. The décor had changed, new paintings on the walls, and the people, the young boys and girls seemed a lot more intellectual, more open, and definitely more colourful as the dress code is so different now.  The society is a lot more tolerant to the way women dress these days. I sat there for a cup of hot chocolate while listening to them.  Their giggling, comparing nail vanishes, wondering whether or not to have a cheekbone surgery.  There was no major changes, really. In my days a nose job was the biggest beauty surgery they did, half my friends had done it.  Iran is and has been one of – if not the – biggest markets in the world for beauty products. Nowhere in the world you find people more obsessed with cosmetic surgeries than the cities in Iran.

But I was waiting for some intelligent conversation, some hint of how much they care about the politics, the horrific shadow of war looming over the country, the sanctions, the cost of life which has tripled in just one year,… I waited and waited, …, hardly anything. When they did brush over the subjects it was a mixture of jokes and shrugging shoulders dismissively.  Trump, is a joke, flood, is a joke, inflation which is breaking people’s back, hungry people selling kidneys, unemployment, …  They had jokes about everything.  Funny jokes, even I, sitting on my own, couldn’t help but smiling at some of them while wondering how could they?!  How could they be so ignorant ?  Or was it bravery ?

Later on in a short conversation with an old friend I got my answer:

‘Oh, please, Ziba, don’t go there.  Let’s just have a good time together.  Life has always been s*** , there is always something, we know, we are living it… what seems like a deep subject for you to discuss is the reality for us to live through.  We have been doing it for four decades now… It’s just life.’

And like that, all the existential talks I had prepared seemed meaningless… Jean-Paul Sartre would have been so disappointed.  But then, four decades of struggling to reinvent a nation against all the odds, against the rest of the world suppressing you, would well exhaust any philosopher, I think.  Unless you resort to Epicureanism and start laughing at any misery life throws at you… Wise ? Not sure… Sensible?  Maybe !?

Watch “INSIDE IRAN – American in Iran 🇮🇷(anti-American?) Episode 3” on YouTube – 

Ziba Zarei

Post Mistress, local community shop

What does it mean to be Iraqi?

Is it the spiritual connection to the land, to the two ancient rivers, to the smell of orange blossoms, to the singing of the bulbul or sipping sweet tea from tiny hourglass-shaped cup? It’s all of these things and more. Regardless of religion, sect, ethnicity, and politics one will find all Iraqis identify with the above.

Knowledge seeking and the love of poetry, nature and food are some average traits of Iraqis. This can be illustrated by the existence of specialised markets such as Al Mutannabe Street book market in Baghdad.

This street is filled with bookstores and outdoor book stalls. It was named after the 10th-century classical Iraqi poet Al-Mutanabbi. Often been referred to as the heart and soul of the Baghdad literacy and intellectual community.

There is a special market for copper handcrafts called Souk al-Safafeer, Baghdad’s ancient coppersmith’s market, has been in existence since the Abbasid period. Sixteen years ago, marketplace was bustling with vendors selling handmade copperwork off their shelves,

The few coppersmiths who remain today complain of financial strains and a lack of demand. Tourism came to a near halt after the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq and a weakened economy left locals unable to afford these products.

Other markets exists that specialise in pets, textiles, spices and food.

Poetry

Poetry is an ancient art form in Iraq and is still part of life of modern day Iraq in all its forms folk, classic and modern.

Abu at-Tayyib al-Mutanabbi  (915 – 965) was an Iraqi poet. He is considered as one of the greatest poets in the Arabic language.

In a famous poem he speaks to the power of identity and the freedom that comes with knowing oneself.

Nazik al-Malaika (1923 – 2007) was an Iraqi female poet and is considered by many to be one of the most influential contemporary Iraqi female poets. Al-Malaika is widely regarded as a pioneer of modernist Arabic poetry.

Love Song for the words

Why do we fear words
when they have been rose-palmed hands,
fragrant, passing gently over our cheeks,
and glasses of heartening wine
sipped, one summer, by thirsty lips?

Dunya Mikhail (born 1965 in Baghdad, Iraq) is an Iraqi-American poet based in the United States. In 2001, she was awarded the United Nations Human Rights Award for Freedom of Writing. ^{[SEE HERE)} 

The Iraqi Nights  (2014)

In Iraq,
after a thousand and one nights,
someone will talk to someone else.
Markets will open
for regular customers.
Small feet will tickle
the giant feet of the Tigris.
Gulls will spread their wings
and no one will fire at them.
Women will walk the streets
without looking back in fear.
Men will give their real names
without putting their lives at risk.
Children will go to school
and come home again.
Chickens in the villages
won’t peck at human flesh
on the grass.
Disputes will take place
without any explosives.
A cloud will pass over cars
heading to work as usual.
A hand will wave
to someone leaving
or returning.
The sunrise will be the same
for those who wake
and those who never will.
And every moment
something ordinary
will happen
under the sun.

 Preserving Iraq’s cultural heritage

Since the 2003 illegal invasion of Iraq, many cultural heritage sites have been destroyed and looted including the National Archive Library. Many of the stolen antiquities found their way to European and American markets. There have been many initiatives by Europeans and Iraqis living in the diaspora to expose these crimes. The very oil companies that benefited from the invasion of Iraq are now sponsoring exhibitions of ancient Iraqi heritage. BP sponsorship of an Assyrian exhibition this year is one example.

More than 300 people took over the British Museum to create a giant 200-metre “living artwork” that circled the entire Great Court, in protest at BP sponsorship (February 2019). The action took place to challenge the oil giant’s sponsorship of an Assyrian exhibition that includes objects from what is now Iraq.

BP’s role in the Iraq war, its contribution to climate change and the oil industry’s negative impacts in Iraq are of particular concern to campaigners, who held the protest to mark the sixteen-year anniversary of the record-breaking demonstrations against the invasion of Iraq.

For more information visit www.bp-or-not-bp.org

Zainab Khan

Events Coordinator, RISC Development Education Centre, Reading – HERE

May 2019

Call to the Wild: a Vision Quest

Last summer my husband said he would like to visit our daughter in Australia who is there on a working visa. He plans to visit his brother too, with our son in April. I love my family deeply. I am not called to return to that continent. I wished to honour my truth in some way and remain here in my homeland.

Then I saw this………..

“Deep in your heart you know whether or not you want to experience a Wilderness Quest. Already you feel the ancient stirrings in you. The time has come………..

(The Wilderness Quest by Steven Foster and Meredith Little)

“The Vision Quest is an ancient ceremony to mark and move on from one life transition to another. The ancients knew that by crossing these thresholds in wild places, we face our fears, see our life pass through and gather our medicine, in order to move into the next phase of life.”

Pippa Bondy Ancient Healing Ways

It was July 2018 and I was spending time in the woods in a little cabin. I was loving the clear space, returning to simplicity. My journal, songbook and a book on story telling were the only items I took up there from the house. Waking to the sounds of the birds and doing my Taijiwuxigong practice felt heavenly. I felt a freedom to allow myself time. There was no rush to go to the house, my children were gone. They were not there to make the most of, or have a fleeting brush with, or have a conversation with. My two external hearts were many miles away.

It was from this place I choose not to travel to Australia to visit my beloved daughter with my husband and son. I choose to do a Vision Quest instead.

After reading the Wilderness Quest I received on booking a place, with Pippa Bondy and Ancient Healing Ways, I took a walk through our woods. Here where I am at home. I am blessed to walk out the door and be in the forest. There is an extra beat in my heart of anticipation as I step through the dripping green, receiving the rain for the first time in two months this summer. Already I am aware of anxiety too and making lists in my mind of what to pack and imagining returning to the safety and warmth of my home after the challenge I set myself! A buzzard flies out the top of a tree as I step into the meadow clearing. Ah yes I will be as you, looking down on my life from another perspective on the mountain.

As I began to prepare, I was appreciating returning to my beloved family, home, Sladebank Woods and Slad Valley -‘O the wild trees of my home‘, those words of Laurie Lee rang in my ears. On the Dawn to Dusk preparation walk I walked some of Laurie Lees’s Wildlife Way and came across his poem ‘The Wild Trees’ on a signpost.

The Vision Quest Ceremony took place in September in Snowdonia. It was 10 days in all with practical preparation and Way of Council.  Pippa showed great care in encouraging and supporting me to prepare practically to minimise a potential back problem. The night before our small group of six left for our *Threshold time, of four days and four nights without food on the mountain, we were asked to speak about our individual intentions. Pippa helped me with mine. Our intent is a confirmation of who we are at this time. I wished to mark a new phase in my life.

This was my Intent – I am a woman who loves deeply. I am a woman celebrating and honouring my 20 year marriage to Martin, and the mothering of our children Yemaya and Tirian. I am a woman embracing change and young elderhood. I am deepening my call to wild nature. I offer my gifts of love and vision to serve my family and community.

On the mountain there were many magical moments to recall: Two ravens hovered and swooped as guardians above me throughout the Threshold time, the first night when I sang to the stars and my ancestors. The sighting of a beautiful fox disappearing into the mist. There were painful moments when I stumbled into a gorse bush and when my back was hurting. There were bored moments and peaceful times. I cried and I sang to the wind and the rain. The wind was almost constant despite the ancient stone walls that I had chosen to camp within. The wind battered my tent on the long last night. Lying there on the earth I remembered I had endured a far greater and perilous long night bobbing around on the ocean during a storm with 40 foot waves in my late twenties. Surely I can get through this night!

What touched me the most was the return to a windy base camp at dawn on the fourth day. As I approached in the mist I saw the two figures of Pip, and her assistant Mark. During the time out on the mountain I had felt immense gratitude for them and their holding during the Nature Fast as it is also known. But who was the first to greet me? The 4 legged as Pip put it, her collie Rupa. Tears burst from my eyes and I wept with so much joy and love in my heart as I was blessed back with smudge and prayers. What a homecoming and I wasn’t even home!

I was so happy to return home safe and be out of the wind! And I felt so flat for days after. The time on the mountain hadn’t felt such a challenge for me after all. I had prepared so well emotionally, mentally and practically that I kept well within my comfort zone. I felt frustrated with myself for not taking part fully in the final night challenge. Battered by the wind and a painful back I sheltered in the tent and did not stay up until dawn which was the invitation. ‘I did not face the wind’. Even though I could hear Pip’s reassuring voice on our return, saying “No question, you have all completed the Vision Quest,” I felt I had cheated.

Reading the Wilderness Quest book and the Trail Ahead section I read “Those who have returned from the sacred mountain of the quest must expect a resultant and necessary depression…………Wisdom literature tells us that humans experience life in rhythms of high and low, that the ascent of the mountain is followed by a descent.  We are reminded that ups and downs are interdependent and necessary for growth of the self.” Steven Foster & Meredith Little

Three days after I got home we sang this song at the local community choir, and it helped to strengthen me, for I had faced the wind for sure, and I was still doing so!

Face the wind, biting cold, face the wind, fierce and bold

Blow through my heart wild and free, bend and bow like a tree

For I’m strong and will face the wind

Song arranged in 4 parts by Dee Jarlett (first verse)

I had seen aspects of myself that challenged me. I judged myself harshly. I compared myself to the others and their experience. I felt I had cocooned myself and been over protective.  Yet I had done the Vision Quest in my own unique way with the blessings of Pippa.  And in her words I bring back a story which is an acceptance of myself opening up the next phase of my life.

It is 5 months since I returned from the Vision Quest and in another month my family will be in Australia and I remain here. The decision not to join them is far harder than I imagined now that the time is fast approaching.

There are three stages to the Vision Quest Ceremony and I am still in the third stage of reincorporation and revisiting all the stages. Here I very briefly summarise my personal journey to help me make sense of my experience so far.

Severance – Separation and letting go. What has gone, what needs to die? So I can step into the next phase of my life ?

The impetus to join the Quest was to not join my family in Australia.  By choosing the Vision Quest instead I separated from my family and it felt easy, stepping out on an adventure of my own, as I had done as a young person. Now I imagine our family reuniting in Australia without me and my choice is causing me pain, because I love them all so dearly. Now if I really wanted to go and join them, I could find a way, however I am trusting the unfolding of this decision. This land is calling me to the wild, I wish to drop deeper here in this beloved woodland and valley.

*Threshold – Transition and change. It is the return to the womb of the true mother as Pip puts it, time alone on the sacred mountain.

I have 5 weeks ahead of me to spend in nature and in solitude without the distractions of family whilst they are in Australia. Within this time I hope to mark out some ‘Threshold’ and ceremonial time to revisit and reflect on the Quest.

Reincorporation – Return and new beginnings. How do I put my piece into the whole ? Within a year of our return, there is an invitation to go back to our place of power on the mountain. This is the last formal step of reincorporation and the Quest ceremony ends. This is undertaken by our own initiative and not a group activity.

I am still very much making sense of the choices I have made as part of stepping into the next phase of my life and of my time in Snowdonia. In October I took in a rescue dog and that has been quite a little journey in itself! It is early days and there are so many layers to this Rite of Passage which are still unfolding in me. I intend to return to the same spot in September for a whole night and sit up all night and reflect on the year!

Kesty and Martin Jakes
at one of our Woodland open days

Kesty Jakes

March 2019

STANDING UP

by Isra Chaker

This is a shortened version of an article on the Teen Vogue website in the United States, 16 November 2018. The author is Refugee Campaign Lead with Oxfam America in Washington, D.C. She describes here her journey from being bullied by other students when was at school to her present work challenging the discriminatory policies of the Trump Administration.

A CHAT WITH MICHEL BAUWENS ABOUT P2P, THE COMMONS AND THE IMAGINATION – ROB HOPKINS

Last week, close to my home, was the Transition Design Symposium. It brought together people from around the world interested in what design can bring to the need for an urgent societal Transition, and for 2 days its attendees basked in glorious sunshine and fascinating interactions.  I managed to catch up with Michel Bauwens who was attending and speaking at the conference, and we took some time for a short chat sitting under a tree in sunshine.

Michel spends half his time in Belgium and half in Thailand, and is the founder of the P2P Foundation, a global organisation of researchers working in collaboration to explore peer production, governance and property.  He is a writer, researcher and speaker on the subjects of technology, culture and business innovation.  “It’s about Open Source communities”, he told me. “A lot of it is like what you are doing with Transition, perhaps a bit of a difference would be that I try to look more at the trans-local, trans-national levels, and how we can build counter-power to trans-national capital”.  I started by asking him when he uses those terms, ‘trans-local’ and ‘trans-national’, what does he mean?

REPORT FROM BOSNIA

15 – 23 October, 2016

Having met the Healing Hands Network at a conference one weekend, I asked if many of their clients had scars.  “Nearly all of them” came the reply.  So, I offered to get a team of ScarWork therapists together to go to Sarajevo and help; my colleagues were Kat Chu, Emma Holly and Megan Bennett.  We raised the money through online donation, and took a week out of our clinics.  Filmmaker Georgie Scurfield accompanied us.  This is my diary, written while we were there.  I sent an abbreviated version to our generous supporters so that they could share our experience.

DAZZLE  !

Here was hot-blooded action!

Whilst Reading churches almost unanimously shied away from dialogue involving ‘the Dark’, Fathers Vincent and Gary of St John and St Stephen’s were keen to enter the conversation.

Within two months we had Dazzle – a 10 day mini-festival …

TOM AND THE CITY FARM DUCKPOND

Here is Tom’s Story in his own words –

”I could start at the VERY beginning. Describing the very animal-based holidays and day trips I use to take as a kid. But the real beginning of the duck pond renovation project starts back in 2008, the year I started working at Deen City Farm”.

OVER LAND AND SEA, TO ABER :

stories from what we’d call … the global ‘Keep-going’ Campaign.

Firstly, let’s introduce ourselves to and find hope in, the inspiration of the international PERMACULTURE movement, whose ideas holds high a banner to positive action, through 3 CORE TENETS:-

•  Care for the Earth through provisions for all life systems to continue and multiply
•  Care for people – provision for people to access those resources necessary for their existence
•  Return of surplus by reinvesting surplus back into the system to provide for the first two ethics; including Waste back into the system and recycling into usefulness.

The players in the following Stories wouldn’t (I don’t think) see themselves as part of Permaculture. That said, to me their Stories embellish these fine words with examples of vibrant action.

THE COFFEE MERCHANT’S STORY : Duncan Rayner

Duncan takes us alongside himself, going up and down through boyhood to becoming a Coffee Merchant.

Reincarnation- it’s nothing new…

– a reflection by local writer, Trisha Longworth, who says: –

“Like a huge etheric Internet, we are all interconnected, to the past, to the present, to the future”

”I expect many of us have tales of déjà vu, or of knowledge of things we couldn’t possibly know.”

Trish’s reflections are set out in the main section  –

‘SHOULDER TO SHOULDER’

Is the theme of all of this edition of TIA.

Homeless under Castle walls: turning distressing incident into heartening action

The Leader of our local Council was preparing to request the local Police Authority to clear the streets of Vagrants before a forthcoming Royal Wedding.

Uproar! petitions, media coverage, Council debates, public meeting.

Our Story is the response from the Project Development Manager of the Town’s Windsor Homeless Project.

Photo acknowledgement – David Levene for the Guardian

You Can Do It !

Whether it’s a cake bake (Christina & Harry 9 yrs.) or …

Raise money for Crisis ( Lesley & Martin) or …

Get together with friends to work out strategies for action.

Our Story is ASCENT’s report on ‘Speaking Truth to Power’ and reflects the experience and advice of community groups engaged with local initiatives.

Wells for India Thirty Years On

Sir Mark Tully writes the Preface to the book ‘ Thirsting for Water’ –

One of the most interesting books on development I have read recently is called ‘Poor Economics’ written by two Development Economists from MIT, Abhijit. V. Bannerjee and Esther Duflo. The book is based on fifteen years of field work, many of them in India. What is particularly interesting about the book is the authors’ finding that even when solutions to shortages of food or water, causes of illnesses, and economic distress are available the poor often do not want to make use of them. The authors say ‘The ladders to get out of the poverty trap exist but they are not always in the right place, and people do not seem to know how to step onto them, or even want to do so’.

For thirty years now Wells for India has been providing ladders by demonstrating effective means of increasing water supply, storing water through small-scale water harvesting works, and distributing it. From the start emphasis has been laid on working with villagers, collaborating with them, learning from them too so that the ladders the villagers need are put in place and they are ladders they want to climb up.

WHOEVER’S KILLING INSECTS ……. DON’T !!!

WKID: INSECT ARMAGGEDON.

This Story is a fantasy letter which was inspired by a conversation with Hannah, 13 years of age.

Her commitment to animals (particularly her Guineapig) extended to all living creatures; all of Nature.

I told her about the INSECT ARMAGEDDON NEWS.

To Hannah there is no question about Insect  importance; no wobbling about on ACTION.

THE STRATEGY outlined in the bit “WKID IS BORN” would work. I know it …..

Antonia Rolls – Artist and Soul Midwife

I work as both an artist and a soul midwife, sometimes at the same time, sometimes separately. Part of being an artist is the joy of expression, and this takes the form of painting, writing, performing and public speaking. I express how I am affected by the work I do, what it teaches me, and the stories of the people that I meet.

As a painter my work is colourful and figurative. I work in oils and in acrylics and my work includes portraits of both individuals and families, quirky sideways looks at our Christian story (see The Male Madonna, the God’s Life series, Jesus on the Tube), whimsical paintings exploring the True Fairy at middle age, and some book illustration which I have loved doing, you can view my work in the gallery.

My writing includes published articles on end of life matters, and my blog.

A soul midwife is a compassionate friend, an end of life companion, for anyone preparing for and going through the dying process, and this includes families and friends. This work is varied and profound; it involves visits, support, deep listening, and publicly raising end of life awareness through the A Graceful Death exhibition and various workshops in the community, read more about soul midwifery.

The A Graceful Death exhibition is a wonderful combination of both soul midwifery and art. It is a collection of more than 50 paintings, including portraits of and interviews with people who are facing the end of their life. I worked with the dying for over six years to paint their portraits and ask them to speak about what was happening to them. I asked two questions, Who are you and What do you want to say? A Graceful Death tours the country promoting end of life awareness and hosting workshops, talks and discussions within the exhibition, you can view images from the exhibitions here.

The Villagers decided to build the school. It was completed in the night.

The international politics of the Palestinian Israeli conflict has a lengthy history. ( see our current Wake-Up). It demands study and our attention.

Alongside, are the daily lives of both peoples. They demand our imagination’s attention: ” If that was me ? My children’s education ? ”

Sitting amidst AWE & WONDERMENT everywhere, are CREATIVE PEOPLE 

Two such people living in this part of England are Mike & Jennifer.

A Development Engineer from the USA, for 18 years Mike has been at the heart of ASCENT: our local environment network. He taught many of us about energy technology. This week, he and his wife returned home. Glad for them. Sad indeed for us. 

As with all such radical groups worldwide, we are all energised to act together…and then we drift apart.

BUT THE COMMITMENT TO CHANGE & AND THE EXPERIENCE OF ACTIVISM , REMAINS. IT COMPOSTS AWAY.

( see Naomi Klein , International Speaker at this year’s Labour Party conference)

Mike met today’s other hero Jennifer Leach, two years ago when he acted in TAKE TWO , Jennifer’s Palestinian Play (see previous Tales). 

Today’s Story tells us more about that DAZZLE of a FESTIVAL OF THE DARK which she and colleagues in Reading are unveiling.  (see previous Story for Launch)

Ref. Naomi Klein’s books include:-  This Changes Everything, The Shock Doctrine, No Logo. 

 THIRTY YEARS OF THE CIRCLE WORKS

”For me Circle Work is very important because it’s a time to trust people to listen to you”.

”The turning point was a shopping trip to Greenwich and the discovery of a precious object that came with its own story. The salt crystal from deep inside the Himalayan Mountains would belong to everyone, and be a symbol of our community. Through the use of objects I was able to share power with the children through creating a sense of ritual within our circle times. In this way special objects came to represent the collective power of the group, which could be borrowed, shared and then returned, not to me, but to the group as a whole – placed back in the middle of our circle.”

Laura Rogers, class teacher, writing about the Circle Work that gives our organisation its name.

The Story’s Image is of The Tondo

These pieces of broken pot were gathered by a child who in her short life has already faced unimaginable challenges. Learning that she was soon to be separated from her siblings, she dug the fragments out of the school garden, and after carefully washing each one, brought them to her counsellor.

Every piece was held, examined, talked about, wondered over, wrapped in tissue, and given to The Circle Works to look after.

Welcome to this celebration of The Circle Works’ thirtieth birthday.

Honorary Director: Geoffrey Court Hon B.Ed

A STORY COMMON TO CAMPAIGNING GROUPS, WORLDWIDE – ‘HOW COME WE DIDN’T KNOW’ ? …..

 Which is a common response to changes that surround us, often unseen until they bounce right in to our sight.

Changes to funding of everyday, crucial services… schools, health provision…

Changes to bus timetables. Changes to fuel costs. Shops close overnight…

The change is just THERE one day. Nothing to be done. Muttering into thin air.

And I write of conditions in rich parts of the globe where change can appear of only relative significance.

CHANGE CREEPS 

 So today’s STORY is of one group determined to keep awake about local changes. It fits into this website’s commitment to WATCHING how an idea sustains itself, through to fruition.

 In Tales you can read about the hospital campaign group’s success over 23 years. Success to KEEP the local Hospital.

 Now we aim to ALERT the local community to fundamental health provision changes.

These are eroding a guiding post WW2 principle of collective care for everyone.

In our local Jazz pub, we look forward to listening to other voices which see things differently.

 BE AWARE & TAKE RESPONSIBILITY TO COUNTER THE UNACCEPTABLE 

CLIMATE CHANGE –  ASCENT’s Legacy : Ascot & the Sunnings Community Environment Network 

Here’s another Story about a small group of people shouting as loud as they could, about a BIG ISSUE.

Describing it afresh for you, I’m describing a time but a few years back, which felt very different from today. Around 2014 there was a visible popular consensus on Climate Change action.

Then, London demos echoed the voices from vast marches worldwide, calling Governments, the Fossil Fuel Industry and all Consumers to take seriously the scientific facts about Climate Change. DANGER & OPPORTUNITY.

2017 UK General Election… scarcely a mention of Climate Change.

French President Macron places it amidst essential policy action.

President Trump is a denier. UK’s PM May is mute. 

So…do minority voices, within their social & cultural settings, only summon boldness when they can snatch the moment of wider voiced concern ?

Are we all to SPEAK UP & SPEAK OUT today, about Social Housing injustice? 

OR…have we the energy, tenacity, vision…to continue TO SPEAK TRUTH TO POWER, across the myriad manifestations of injustice, battered to a burning shell ? 

How to encourage Spirituality in schools : the Story of  VALUES AND VISION

The story of Values and Visions began in 1989 when two things happened ……

International Art Class

The mornings in Malaysia were bliss. The light, the clear air and the cool.

Days which called you out. Calling half a dozen young European women to their passion for painting.

We had created The International Art Class. 100 children; toddlers to teenagers, meeting every Saturday in the capital Kuala Lumpur and the new suburb Petaling Jaya.

The greening grace of a Garden

The original vision for Quiet Gardens was developed by Philip Roderick 25 years ago in the early 1990’s.

It was a simple idea of hospitality and prayer with no need for expensive premises, it would use what was already there ….. a home and a garden.

THE JUST WALK : ”a big crazy stunt : crazier than the Wall”

One man who decided several years back, to ACT,  is Justin Butcher.

We met him in  Ascot as the Director of Jennifer Leach’s play about the Palestinian conflict: TAKE TWO ( see Tales archive).   Justin and friends were “brewing” the idea of a pilgrimage to Palestine; a walk across Europe to mark a number of significant anniversaries in the history of the Palestine.

2017 marks three major anniversaries in the Palestinian struggle:

10 years of the blockade of Gaza ; 50 years of Occupation and 100 years since the Balfour Declaration.

LATEST UPDATE FROM JUSTIN BUTCHER – ‘‘WE’RE HERE” !!    THEY’VE COMPLETED THEIR PILGRIMAGE AND ARRIVED IN PALESTINE – READ HERE

ALSO  – Video of their meeting at the Jordan border – HERE

A Fascinating Relationship with Pain

Instead of writing about an aspect of his Environmental work,as anticipated, Andrea shares unusually personal writing about his life- challenge.

He links the Story of one ‘activist’ and academic with the PAIN OF THE EARTH.

The Natural Bee Keeping Trust and The World’s Mantra

“It is fabled that we slowly lose the gift of speech with animals, that birds no longer visit our windowsills to converse. As our eyes grow accustomed to sight they armour themselves against wonder.”    — Leonard Cohen

A Crone’s View of May Days

Greeting spring …

Worker solidarity …

International distress signals …

This Story is a ramble through various conversations that have taken place amongst Anne’s friends, during the past days. It offers a glimpse into the myriad influences pouring into our minds…..

Our Animal Friends

Around this home, these days, it’s flashing-by wild creatures who wander the garden. Not animals who have been right close with us, for years; by your feet , under your feet, a foot away to catch the tossed bone, off & away.. over the gate….a go-crazy UP, hurtling the old Apple tree…

Get-togethers with friends includes animals and tales of animals. And when you take time to SEE them , they suddenly come into focus. Their BEING with, but distinct from US.

Co- dependent ? Lotta yanking on leads goes on….all around ?

‘TAKE TWO’

a play about an aspect of the Palestinian conflict,

Writer Jennifer Leach,  Director Justin Butcher,  Producer Anne Yarwood

 ART IS NOT A MIRROR TO HOLD UP TO SOCIETY, IT IS A HAMMER TO SHAPE IT.  Thomas Merton

 Autumn 2014 attracted 200 into two local Anglican churches to watch a whipped-up-from-nowhere small AmDram group perform this new play. Significant statements in that sentence; 200 is a big audience for around here, for a political play and Anglican churches welcoming contention is uncommon. 

It all began one day when I awoke to a strident imperative – ” MAKE A PLAY” … so 9 months later, “we” DID . I produced, with friends and no starter money ( same old tale) an half hour, six person play which gave voice to Palestinian & Israeli anguish in the long-time impasse.

The following observations will be familiar to all of us who move beyond the inspiration of a GREAT IDEA, into making it happen.

Festival of the Dark –

Festival of the Dark is about to become a micro-festival of small organic events in small spaces, with big soul and big love.

Our beautiful event on 25 March, The Night Breathes Us In, will be the last of its kind in the year.

If you are free and can come, please do. Please also make a conscious effort to engage others, and to bring them with you on this journey.

To My Best Friend

This week’s Story is Hilary Davis’s memories of Tina Messenger

Maya Angelou

Steve, Man of the Woods

Steve joined the growing band of local people concerned to Speak Up & Speak Out about the environment during the past ten years. Part of the myriad community groups world-wide , galvanised by the challenge of Climate Change. In Steve we had a man of the woods, as strong and friendly as the mighty Oak with a deep connection to nature.

This reflection has been generously written for the website by his widow Christina and son David

Reports and Updates

This website opened in June 2016. Its aim is to report personal and group Stories about Imaginative Action.

So here’s the first Update giving hot news which illustrates some of the Action swirling around : swirling around Indra’s Net.

– FESTIVAL of the DARK

– SUPPORT for the charity CALM

– NEWS from a local HOMELESS project

– ENVIRONMENT group on AFFORDABLE HOUSING

– LOCAL demo : NHS funding crisis

PIX GALLERIES to anticipate :- Trees in The Great Park ; Our Animal Friends ; Painting from Meditation ; The Light House Project ; Chairs and Resting Places ; Handmade stuff, around the Home