Death of an Oracle - Gerald Stern

 "Poets, he said, had a sacred calling. They must not allow the oppressed to remain voiceless, the crimes of the oppressor to go unnamed or memory to be obliterated. They must, like the prophets of old, feel the blast from heaven, rage against the night, conquer, as Abrham Heschel wrote, “callousness, to change the inner person as well as to revolutionize history.”"'  Chris Hedges on Gerald Stern. https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/death-of-an-oracle?

Celtic Woman - The Parting Glass

The video is a performance by Celtic Woman. Although wikipedia says it is originally a Scottish ballad of the parting glass that goes back 1770 given to friends or loved ones as they depart. It is beautiful and sad.  

Of all the money that e'er I had
I spent it in good company
And all the harm I've ever done
Alas it was to none but me
And all I've done for want of wit
To mem'ry now I can't recall
So fill to me the parting glass
Good night and joy be to you all

So fill to me the parting glass
And drink a health whate’er befall,
And gently rise and softly call
Good night and joy be to you all

Of all the comrades that e'er I had
They're sorry for my going away
And all the sweethearts that e'er I had
They'd wish me one more day to stay
But since it falls unto my lot
That I should rise and you should not
I gently rise and softly call
Good night and joy be to you all

If I had money enough to spend
And leisure time to sit awhile
There is a fair maid in this town
That sorely has my heart beguiled.
Her rosy cheeks and ruby lips
I own she has my heart in thrall
Then fill to me the parting glass
Good night and joy be with you all.

A man may drink and not be drunk
A man may fight and not be slain
A man may court a pretty girl
And perhaps be welcomed back again
But since it has so ought to be
By a time to rise and a time to fall
Come fill to me the parting glass
Good night and joy be with you all
Good night and joy be with you all

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Parting_Glass

War and insanity

 

 "I dealt with many of these ideologues — David Petraeus, Elliot Abrams, Robert Kagan, Victoria Nuland — as a foreign correspondent for The New York Times. Once you strip away their chest full of medals or fancy degrees, you find shallow men and women, craven careerists who obsequiously serve the war industry that ensures their promotions, pays the budgets of their think tanks and showers them with money as board members of military contractors. They are the pimps of war. If you reported on them, as I did, you would not sleep well at night. They are vain enough and stupid enough to blow up the world long before we go extinct because of the climate crisis, which they have also dutifully accelerated." Chris Hedges

 Watch George Monbiot diagnose the problems of our age: https://youtu.be/pofTr1QKiBk 

Lintel: short poems on what keeps us together - Deadline Nov. 15, 2022

 I would like to create the opportunity for people to write poems on what holds us together on this planet in this universe. 

DEADLINE: November 15, 2022

Like the love for life, after all nothing lives if it is not given love. So to do that I am asking for submissions on the theme of what holds us together? Like for example - the Lintel holds the roof on a wall and it protects us from wind, rain and snow for as long as it can, as long as we look after the house and the people we rely upon.

This will not be a way to make money but to get into a creative salve. The book will be a small chapbook printed on white paper with black ink, ready before December, to read like the advent calendar in that winter month. 25 short poems we can use as we would a seasonal card, but with our wisdom stanzas. 

The poems must be new, not published elsewhere and must come with a letter to say you wrote it and give me a one time permission to print. The booklets can be sold for $5 each to donate to a local charity of your choosing. 

The idea is to give us the redeeming sense that all life matters just like that unadorned lintel that keeps the roof over your head.

Send your submissions to janetvickers@gmail.com with a brief intro of who you are. Put LINTEL SUBMISSION in the subject line.

Also your name, and a way you can be reached. I will let you know whether your submission has been accepted or not. Sorry I can't promise that all submissions will be accepted. If it is I will send you a copy of the chapbook as your payment.

George Monbiot on Malignant Growth

 "For many years, a small band of us “voices of decline” and “enemies of enterprise” who “don’t understand aspiration” have been trying to point out that increments in gross domestic product do not equate to increments in happiness. We have argued that no one wins the human race. We have sought to explain that what mainstream economists call progress is what ecologists call planetary ruin. We’ve contended that infinite growth on a finite planet is a recipe for catastrophe. I hope Liz Truss is right to claim that so many people now accept our arguments." https://www.monbiot.com/2022/10/14/malignant-growth/

Remembering: A Poem for Chris Straw

 

This

(for Chris Straw)

To bring people into a single room

with maps, charts, projections, theories

about huge freighters anchored in the strait 

their crews cooped in the belly for months 

for profit to those we don’t know 

… this is something he can do.

Frame pictures of Orlebar Point

taken yesterday or a hundred years ago

you stare at unable to move as if

there is a message in the invisible arms

holding you there

something important, a mystery 

which you try to grasp

… this is something he can do.

To stay with the grief 

to list all that has been lost

feel a presence from ancestors 

to grandchildren knowing tomorrow 

will never be the same

beyond our understanding

… this is something we can do.

To keep familiar faces  in the heart

when questions too large for mind

call for comfort from the bravest dreams 

in our community

… this is something I can do.

Goede Hoop Marimba Band play Vivaldi | Education Africa

Music plus movement plus health and happiness

Men Going Their Own Way

"Men Going Their Own Way is a male supremacist movement similar to the more commonly known incel, or involuntarily celibate, movement. The latter entered the Canadian public discourse in 2018 when a man who espoused the incel ideology murdered 10 people in Toronto with a van. Since then, researchers and advocates have worked to sound the alarm about misogynist radicalism and violence, especially in online forums. " https://www.nationalobserver.com/2022/10/07/news/misogynist-group-tagged-poilievres-videos-mgtow

Of course there are new hate groups. The various interests have claimed their ground, found financial support from those who found they don't belong in a world that is sectioned into various interests.

This happens when we are lead to believe we are isolated units competing for the most of what each of us wants, when the measure of wealth is the GDP, when media focus is on who scores and who loses, when hockey Canada cannot admit they have a sexual violence problem. Our "leaders" have been failing humanity since the beginning of civilization and each century we hope things will get better.

Some Good News Among The Tragedies

"When a Unitarian congregation in Ottawa’s West End neighbourhood wanted to advance reconciliation in their community, they took the advice of Verna McGregor, an Elder from Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg, who suggested they start an Indigenous learning centre.

Ajashki, which means soil in Algonquin, grew from that conversation. The project first materialized as a modest food security project. Members of the First Unitarian Congregation started a garden in the back of the church, hosting lessons on the intersection of food security, foraging and climate change."

Matteo Cimellaro. National Observer