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In my job working with families I had lots of restrictions on what I could do or not do… call them professional boundaries, maybe for the right reasons, but most of the time fear generated “what if this goes to court… cover your back “.

In the end of March this year someone contacted me about a Closed Case. This young mother, who suffered from mental health issues, was struggling with two children under three and one 12 year old. Her parents couldn’t help her because of Covid19 and their age and health issues.

I contacted a few organisations and explained the situation. Thereafter, hot meals were delivered every day for the month of Ramadan and also milk and groceries were delivered every week.

This helped to reduce her anxiety and improved her sleep. She is now helping people over the phone passing INFORMATION on how to get help.

Cover My Back or Cover My Face !

I was kicked into action to research this edition’s theme of MIGRATION by a friend’s unexpected outpouring of grief and fury . We were sitting in a circle at our long-established Support Group. When we got to M’s turn in the “go- round”, she erupted, boiled! Tears in her eyes, flushed cheeks, piercing voice decrying the chaos in Kos…. destitution , hopeless future for migrants and Greek inhabitants alike.

AND the intransigence of EU countries….their politicians and inhabitants.

“ Hold on to our affluent security”.

I absorbed this greatly loved and respected friend’s voice of compassion, of injustice recognised, and I determined that my mind should enter the migrants’ world…from the blessed place in which my Family has LANDED.

An Oak tree has been growing near our boundary for at least 60 years. Its roots reach underground towards my neighbour’s 100 year Oak.

And for sure, the trees’ fungi enmesh soil and stones as they journey across our gardens’ divide.

Unseen connections, little considered in daily living. The underground underworld, my friend and I recently realise, also vibrates through the inner underworld of us two insomniacs.

Both of us can see the Oaks …shining last week in the moonlit gardens. We may think about one another. We note the availability of connections.

Letter to Ascot local press

Sir / Madam,

Amazingly, I witnessed the demo outside my hospital window, at Frimley Park Hospital this week. Recovering from surgery…pretty rough and in pain…there was a great hullabaloo outside. Tottered to window. There were my long-time mates from SHH ( Save Heatherwood Hospital), together with members of UNITE & UNISON.

I was so hugely touched to see them: comrades of some 11 years campaigning for Heatherwood and the NHS.

Spent all day speaking to everyone who came into the Ward…20 or so,including a Matron. Checked that they knew what the demo was about and understood implications of the imminent WOS : Wholly Owned Subsidiary for 800 or so workers.

Back in bed, I cried. So full of love and appreciation for the demonstrators.

Such LONG TERM, STEADFAST, FOCUSED ACTION.

VIVA

Anne Yarwood

Member Voluntary group Save Heatherwood Hospital for 16 or so years.

July 2019

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

Emily Maguire (https://emilymaguire.com/biog/) is a singer-song writer, poet and composer. The International Society for Bipolar Disorders awarded her the 2019 Mogens Schou Award for Public Service and Advocacy.

Since time immemorial, people worldwide, including those from our own native wisdom traditions, have held water to be sacrosanct. Humans have long held pilgrimages to sources of streams, doused themselves in holy lakes, made offerings on riverbanks and shores of oceans.

These were not wanton acts of blind worship but reverence to a deeply-known recognition of humanity’s dependence on water and a keenly-felt gratitude for nature’s benevolence. Until quite recently these habits have been forgotten and almost lost.

By resuming these rites, we can start to re-kindle a sense of intimacy with the natural world and an appreciation of the interconnectedness of all life. By deeply caring for and paying attention to our waterways, we grow motivated to defend and protect their right to flow, unimpeded by pollution.

“The way we see our world shapes the way we treat it….if a river is one of the veins of the land, not potential irrigation water…if the planet is our mother, not an opportunity – then we will treat each other with greater respect.”

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.

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.^[HERE)

In Hyemeyohsts Storm’s vision quest story of Jumping Mouse (from book Seven Arrows), the little Mouse meets Frog, who is sitting on a lily pad at the edge of the Sacred River.

This beautiful tale (SEE ELSEWHERE FOR WHOLE TALE)  points to the essential wisdom of the threshold time of the Vision Quest. Prompted by the spirits of Nature, but under our own power, we jump as high as we are able.  Ultimately it is not what we see that transforms us.  It is the act of jumping, of reaching for the Sacred Mountain shining so near yet so far, that defines us and gives direction to our life quest.  If we do not gather all our strength and jump, we will never see further than the end of our nose.  By jumping we transcend our own limitations.  We enlarge the circle of purpose.

Taken from: The Wilderness Quest by Steven Foster & Meredith Little.  A handbook for adults, UK version adapted by Jeremy Thres and Caroline Wood.

“Hestia: goddess of fire, the hearth”

The first – born of the Olympians; symbol of the home, around whom the newborn child would be carried before being received by the family.

Some years ago a friend Sarah and I painted, every week. Our teacher Becky helped us enter the space of PAINTING FROM MEDITATION; detaching our conscious minds from our painting…inspired by British painter Cecil Collins’ paintings of visionary subjects. Collins attacked the great spiritual betrayal of love and the workings of life by the dominance of the scientific and technical view of life. He was inspired by poet William Blake. I recall my painting of Hestia. Squat figure, enveloped in Cerulean blue cloak, cross- legged on the floor, tending a small fire on the ground before her. I feel her presence now … safe, reliable, a defender.

Ref. Cecil Collins –  HERE

William Blake video ‘Room’ –  HERE

William Blake – Khan gallery –  HERE

Emotional correctness is about communicating compassion and mutual respect, not only with your words but with your intent and tone. I’m still an ardent fan, but I’ve been finding it increasingly difficult to practise, catching myself slipping into anger and swimming in hate.

Especially in the last few years.

I was sort of trained to hate. Before I became a television commentator, I worked for fifteen years as a community organiser, fighting for policy reform on issues like lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights, health care, criminal justice and immigration.

Right-wingers were my enemies, and I hated them.

… Donald Trump’s election to the presidency of the United States of America made my blood boil. I couldn’t believe the level of hate he so readily and proudly spewed against Muslims, women, immigrants and African-Americans.

I remember feeling dumbfounded when George W Bush was re-elected in 2004 … I may not have consciously categorised Bush voters as less than human, but I certainly thought they were less than American and certainly less than me – less smart, less understanding and, ironically enough, less compassionate.

I didn’t think any of that was particularly hateful.

I just thought I was correct.

• From The Opposite of Hate: a field guide to repairing our humanity by Sally Kohn, Algonquin Books 2018, pp 1-2.