Astronomica

 

my next book to be published by Ekstasis.

Acknowledgements

This fourth book is my attempt to understand the world as I lived it. My mother, one of four girls born to a man who fought in the first world war and returned to England with his bride.

They came to a small town in England where the daughters grew up and married young men who would be called up to fight in the second world war. Sadly my mother’s first husband was killed in the war when she was pregnant.

Marlow, a small farm town in England, the town I most remember before we emigrated to Canada was pretty and not too industrial. The lives of people were the stories I grew up with.

Father, mother, sisters and brother, came to Canada in 1965, settled in Lac de deux Montagne, got a job at Rolls Royce and met the boy I married. We moved to Toronto then to BC. Eager to learn who I was in this vast Universe, I learned to scribble.

Wanting all these years to jot down my experiences, poetry was the outlet I kept returning to.

With gratitude to the many teachers who helped along the way, I thank Ekstasis and all publishers who print memories, thoughts and hopes for peace in the future.

This porridge of egos and sleepless nights, are all a kind of love from one generation to the next.

cover image- photo taken by Elaine Vickers

Power And Nurture, still, again!

The sign of mental illness is how a single unit fits into his world.

I call this unit MAN. He is beautiful, creative, strong and troubled. He can't get away from his worries because he knows too much and spends most of his time trying to unthink all the thoughts rushing into his mind.

This applies to WOMAN too if she arrives at a position where she has some control over her life. But first she has to break through the cloak and mythology of what society has told her - she represents.

Great Britain caused a lot of suffering while it was looking for success, for wealth, and civilized behaviour among its citizens. I don't know if it's possible to be in control. I think it's more of a desire based on social status and conditions which cause suffering for many. 

We want to be in control of our own lives but there are too many of us competing for space in the city or town and on top of that is influence from powerful sources who want other things, like wealth, popularity, love and friendship. So we attempt to create systems to organize life for the greater good.

There is one thing I want to remember. Very few people seek control. They seek belonging, community, being appreciated, loving and being loved. But the media seems to be bored whenever we talk of love. We tend towards generalizations that we fear and generalizations that make us feel better.

It has helped me to understand two forces of energy. Power and Nurture. When a society is built on power for power's sake, we end up causing a lot of suffering for those who have the least power, while those who have the most don't know what nurture is.

In times of war we train humans to be strong by ignoring and denying their nurturing feelings. We think of them as weak. If you're planning to kill and bomb the enemy to think about feelings is painful.

It raises all kinds of torture for the mind. It dismisses the soul. It ridicules the suffering of the enemy. It responds to conscience with anger, it finds someone else to blame. (You're just trying to make me feel guilty). 

Attempting to win wars with strategy, schooling, judgement that we are doing the right thing - all's fair in love and war, we end up hard, insensitive, looking for scapegoats to blame. We make a show of winning as we kill thousands and millions.

Or we choose to create societies that keep us busy, patting each other on the back. Being kind to ease our conscience, setting up boundaries of who we can trust and who we can't, dividing good guys and bad guys. Then we question ourselves to ourselves, forever, endlessly, blowing up in anger when something triggers.

How long can we live like this?

A World That Hates Women is A World that Loves Killing

 

A world that hates women is a world that loves killing

created by a single species who has discovered how to win

at all costs but not how to win forever, to be dominant

in control hawkishly watching everything that moves

listening to every sound for signs of aggression.

We Are Broken. How Did We Get Here?

Listening to Cross Country Check Up on CBC radio, I heard different voices say students have to wait months to see a councillor/counselor. Teachers including Principles are subjected to violence. Children are bullied from early grades by other children. Children are abused by parents. Here is the lack of community/social support everywhere - police force, politicians, teachers and doctors. 

Sounds like the media stories about society are breaking apart while we have politicians who throw out more insults and threats. Donald Trump is popular and could win the election. Pierre Poilievre could lead in the Canadian elections. Justin Trudeau is incompetent say news headlines. These stories don't say why. CBC radio and television are threatened with no funding, police forces are threatened with defunding. While our society is drowning in bad news popular politicians call for defunding the nation, health care, policing, public schooling.

Sounds like voices promoting the defunding of Canada.

What is the cause of this breakdown? Is it capitalism drawing every drop of blood it can while so many things are going wrong? Should we find someone to blame like the PM of Canada or the Liberal Party? By January we could be ready for absolute climate collapse as teachers, doctors and preachers hide in their basements while the whole world is covered in water and fire. Where will the next witch hunts take us? I mean this proves there are witches here, doesn't it?

We were warned by a girl a couple of years ago. Could we blame women for bringing down the entire planet? Could we blame Satan? Could we blame the economy?

There are people responding to this crisis, groups trying to warn us way back. You'd think we would all be behind that fight. Park our cars in the garage and take public transport. But wait a minute the drivers are on strike.

So we could have shuffled some money around to make sure drivers were well paid. Make sure doctors and nurses were well paid. Pay for schools to hire more teachers. Put a stop to selling all houses to the highest bidder.

What's happening today was often predicted by many adults, social workers and free lance professionals. In short we could have invested in the society we live in for the sake of people, but instead we watched dramas of violent greedy people finding evil ways to win. We could wake up to the reason that just societies teach people to care for others and that we were never isolated units competing for the most of what each of us wants.

We are mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers and cousins who cannot survive the anxiety of everything being a contest for ultimate survival as we step on millions of faces in order to get to the top of the ladder.

Contempt for Differences Equals Contempt For Life

 

https://thetyee.ca/Culture/2024/10/07/Thomas-Piketty-Plan-Save-World/?utm_source=daily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=071024 

We have different opinions because we have different experiences. If you're parents were easy going and didn't make a lot of demands, you may feel no-one really cares, you are not important enough for anyone to notice you, or if you're parents were demanding you may feel responsible for the happiness of others.

Your whole life might be looking for signs you have worth, maybe intelligent, or rich or good looking. If so you will suffer.

This whole universe has planets, weather, birds and demons trapped in the human psyche. The determination that everything is about you and you know more than everyone else, will either make you mad, stupid or bitter.

Even the very educated, wise or beautiful struggle. The confidence trick is the oldest most broken habit in the world. 

Humanity And Their Big Reveal

 

Politicians, influencers, specialists and the whole patriarchal history of life in war, needs to think about how we might survive into a sustainable world. First we need  wisdom. Second we need to recognize how fear of admitting mistakes  hurt our chances for survival. 

Thinking is not the same as doing and admitting where we have made mistakes makes us targets for ridicule. Much easier to talk about what others are doing wrong.

How bipedal creatures with a life span of 80 years destroy hope for the future is mostly about beliefs and values. It shouldn't be but we get stuck here and can't seem to see the big picture. 

We as represented in corporate media, politics and religion are trapped by our stories, reluctant to simply shrug and focus on today. So how can we liberate ourselves from self-delusion? We can't! We can self-interrogate but this doesn't mean we will be free of delusion tomorrow.

Do we really want to see ourselves as others see us? Are others clear of their own self-delusion and do they want to dismiss "the other" in a way that makes us feel good?

Beware of generalizations that smear the other. I remember receiving a call from a man who did not identify himself before saying "you don't have the authority to do this." What was it "I" was doing? Writing newspaper columns on history using materials from the museum? Working for a group of seniors creating programs on history? Multi-cultural conversations bringing people of different backgrounds and religions together? Identifying feminist conversations? 

At that time, women were targets of criticism and verbal attacks if they expressed ideas for changing conversations about the role of women in the world. That's not to say this community was misogynist. This was a community run by Christian traditional views that emphasized men as head of the family. Men as the authority on right and wrong.

Human societies have established hierarchies, pecking orders, but do not talk about it or reason with it.

Humans are ruled by unspoken values that allow us to believe we are right and that all is well. We leave our beds and go into the world with this confidence until somebody challenges us.

We tell ourselves we are strong. We can tackle the constant messages from "out there" telling us more than we want to know, telling us we are not always right, we don't know everything, we don't know anything. Shut up and go back to bed!

The best thing about our species is this. WE DON'T KNOW EVERYTHING. WE ARE NOT ALWAYS STRONG. WE ARE FLEXIBLE. WE HAVE MORE TO LEARN. WE ARE CAPABLE OF COMPASSION. WE CAN CRY, FEEL GUILT, EMBARRASSMENT AND SAY SORRY! AND ALTHOUGH WE HAVE CONSTRUCTED COMPLEX SOCIETIES. We cannot assume anything! But the most valuable tool in the kit, is, love. It binds us through emotion as long as we are not trained to dismiss our vulnerability.

WE ARE CAPABLE OF LOVE, SELF DOUBT AND COMPASSION! That is our strength.

Well that's my opinion anyway.

Why Do We Keep Going To War?

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-authoritarian-governments-love-to-fight-wars-theyre-very-bad-at/

This is an article that stands out for humility and wisdom.

Believe, sorry that's all, I have never felt I or anyone other person is the one that holds and speaks the truth at all times. 

The main attraction to this post is the statement we look for people who represent our selves. The imagination holds on to the notion that we are the experts expert.

It's time to give up hope that war, weapons, violence and extreme wealth, can exist together.

I am impressed by the people who seek peace and justice. We don't have time to squander our resources on war, attaining a status of power so great, no-one will attack us. Even the Industrial revolution harmed people, warriors are mentally ill when they seek to crush an opponent by killing them off. 

There are no solutions said Anotole Rapoport when I asked my naive questions. Why are humans falling into wars and violence as a solution. 

Now it looks like humanity is destroying its homeland. Young people are horrified. We seem to have lost the community we think is on our side. We keep killing and it looks like we are victims of our own greed.

What is the reason among the many beliefs, we think we can win while making a profit?