The maintenance crew of the Glen taking a break from grass cutting operations.
(Fairie Glen, Trotternish Peninsula, Isle of Skye)
My thoughts this weekend are circling around and down into the root of an idea, simple and known to us all. It’s to do with the recurrent problems we face in our lives, whether it be procrastination, avoidance of something, a need to change our lifestyle or some other challenge. Most people, myself included, weave around the issue trying different strategies that are largely superficial. I know a few people on a diet and this is a good example. They have all found diets that promise ‘to change their lives.’ Each one is spending a lot of time thinking about food, and planning, weighing and analysing through willing hardship. The more extreme the scheme, the more dramatic the deprivation, the happier they seem. It’s like they want to punish themselves. Not one of them has been compelled to dig deep and find out what lies at the root, the reason for their problem in the first place. I’m not purporting to have the answers to weight loss, but I am saying that treating anything superficially that is deeply rooted will only ever yield superficial results. Personally, I like digging, and seeking the ungarnished truth at the heart of a matter. Any gardener will tell you, it’s all about what lies in the soil.
This is it, I promise you. This is my daughter, about 3 years old (now 14). We were living in a wonderful old house, maybe 150-200 years old, a stone ‘gardeners cottage,’ part of a big estate and next to a botanic garden. The garden was big and had woods behind it, all kinds of speciments not native to the area like sequoia and sycamore grew, as well as this big beech hedge all around the garden. It was a brilliant place for children and my daughter loved to putter around riding her ‘tricycle’ or playing. I love her choice of colours and believe me, she did choose them. There was no dressing this little girl to please my girlish fantasies, she took charge of that as soon as she could shake her head and say no. Fiercely independent, fun and playful, sensitive, zany and individualistic - that’s my girl. She is in full control of that tricycle, driving into her future.
Bog cotton, Isle of Skye. The strands of bog cotton are actually modified petals and with the help of the wind, carry the seeds far. It only grows in acidic boggy ground and is the flower of the Greater Manchester region in England. It’s also called ‘cotton grass’ or ‘hare’s tail’ for obvious reasons. In the past it was used for making candle wicks and for stuffing pillows, also for dressing wounds in World War I. I love the way it looks, so receptive to the slightest breeze and the soft way it feels.
(Credit to Frank Heumann, click on link for more.)
Hello ‘symptoms of eloquence’ - as we were talking roses, I thought I would try to show you my small, unimpressive specimens. I’m not over keen on roses, well I like them but they don’t move me like little wild flowers that grow in the grass between mowings (a lengthy time in our yard), nor as much as the small purpley blooms a rosemary bush produces but I like them nevertheless. I admire these because they’re stoic and ancient, they’ve been in the garden and withstood at least 6 occupants, have been here for over 40 years, get nothing from me other than the occasional trim and still valiantly bloom each year. They have the most delicate scent and their colour (not quite captured in this photo) is an antique shade of reddy-pink. I like to imagine the first couple in this home, planting these hopefully and nurturing them, sure that they would see them grow. I think they did and have a feeling they left in their older years when the house and garden became unmanageable. If flowers could talk, what stories would they tell? Prince Charles might be able to tell me something about that.
Please read this everyone - the price we all pay for rapacious ‘progress.’
An estimated 125,000 Indian farmers have committed suicide as a result of overwhelming debts owed to GMO seed/fertilizer/pesticide companies such as Monsanto.
I know this is a little outside the norm for this blog and I hate the reference the Daily Fail but..
“But the death of this respected farmer has been blamed on something far more modern and sinister: genetically modified crops.
Shankara, like millions of other Indian farmers, had been promised previously unheard of harvests and income if he switched from farming with traditional seeds to planting GM seeds instead.”
The authorities had a vested interest in promoting this new biotechnology. Desperate to escape the grinding poverty of the post-independence years, the Indian government had agreed to allow new bio-tech giants, such as the U.S. market-leader Monsanto, to sell their new seed creations.
In return for allowing western companies access to the second most populated country in the world, with more than one billion people, India was granted International Monetary Fund loans in the Eighties and Nineties, helping to launch an economic revolution.
But while cities such as Mumbai and Delhi have boomed, the farmers’ lives have slid back into the dark ages.
Though areas of India planted with GM seeds have doubled in two years - up to 17 million acres - many famers have found there is a terrible price to be paid.
Far from being ‘magic seeds’, GM pest-proof ‘breeds’ of cotton have been devastated by bollworms, a voracious parasite.
Nor were the farmers told that these seeds require double the amount of water. This has proved a matter of life and death.
With rains failing for the past two years, many GM crops have simply withered and died, leaving the farmers with crippling debts and no means of paying them off.
“It is important from time to time
to slow down, to go away by yourself,
and simply BE.”
~ Eileen CaddyThe story of the person who wrote these words is as interesting as the words themselves.
“Findhorn is located on the northeast coast of Scotland, near the small town of Forres. It is remarkably beautiful, with gorgeous evergreen forests, gentle hills and sand dunes backing onto the fierce North Sea. ”The Findhorn Community was begun in 1962 by Peter and Eileen Caddy and Dorothy Maclean. All three had followed disciplined spiritual paths for many years. They first came to northeast Scotland in 1957 to manage the Cluny Hill Hotel in the town of Forres, which they did remarkably successfully. Eileen received guidance in her meditations from an inner divine source she called ‘the still small voice within’ and Peter ran the hotel according to this guidance and his own intuition. In this unorthodox way – and with many delightful and unlikely incidents – Cluny Hill swiftly became a thriving and successful four-star hotel. After several years however, Peter and Eileen’s employment was terminated, and with nowhere to go and little money, they moved with their three young sons and Dorothy to a caravan in the nearby seaside village of Findhorn.
Feeding six people on unemployment benefit was difficult, so Peter decided to start growing vegetables. The land in the caravan park was sandy and dry but he persevered. Dorothy discovered she was able to intuitively contact the overlighting spirits of plants – which she called angels, and then devas – who gave her instructions on how to make the most of their fledgling garden. She and Peter translated this guidance into action, and with amazing results. From the barren sandy soil of the Findhorn Bay Caravan Park grew huge plants, herbs and flowers of dozens of kinds, most famously the now-legendary 40-pound cabbages. Word spread, horticultural experts came and were stunned, and the garden at Findhorn became famous.”
(For more information about Findhorn and how it has developed into the Findhorn Foundation, the community it is today, click on the link.)
“…she delighted in the small things…She had a gorgeous garden…The path leading to it was lined with lavender and a variety of roses, the roses climbing to form a scented tunnel.” (© S. Marian, an excerpt from “It’s the Small Things,” to be posted tomorrow on “A View From Outside the Box,” url: adialogue)
I am sure a psychologist would wax eloquent on the subject of my love for the amanita muscaria. I cannot explain it and can only say, they are one of the small things that make me smile.
A beautiful sunny evening, a house full of obligation, a library in every room and where do you think I was? Sitting here of course, not going out because, well there’s gardening to be done and avoiding the inside because it never seems to leave me alone and without a book in hand - I’m not even sure why. Here I am and I was trawling for something, a little inspiration. I came across this cool photo, an image within an image and it led me to a site about books. It’s worth a look if you like science fiction writing and it mentioned Gene Wolfe. I have to confess I have never read a Gene Wolfe book (it’s on my list but I’ve lost the list in the tidying I need to do). I did however, enter a writing contest that was to be judged by Gene Wolfe. I submitted two flash stories, a maximum of 250 characters (a hellish painful economy for the wordy me). It also required that you mention a wolf in some way. I did not win the contest, but I will share with you one of the stories.
Synchronicity
I don’t fit and never have. They think everything’ll go on normal like. They drop this fucking bomb intae my life and I’m meant to just carry on – “your Ma was just a bairn herself, she wanted the best for you.” Well fuck them! When I’m 18 I’m off and I’ll find her.
It’s pissing down and I’m made over at the thought of those wet tourists wanderin in with their dripping backpacks askin for high tea. Bloody high tea! John got ticked off last time I was sarky with that Yankie lass, “so terribly sorry madam, we cannot accommodate your request at the Broadford Chip and Grill”, in my posh accent.” No impressed he was.
Seventeen years old and stuck here. That’s why I can’t figure that daft new waitress Ali hired. Why would anyone choose to come here, if they had a choice like. She’s off her head, a shite job and a caravan out back. Last week she gave me that plant, a glaikit look on her face - “it’s called impatient,” or something like that. Well, I havnae killed it yet.
The polis car sittin out front, now that’s queer. Hector’s not normally in till later. I walk in and Ali’s lookin grim and says, “that lassie Jenny Wolfe, the waitress from down south. She was killed just out of Portree today. Terrible thing. Siné, they found a wee packet in her handbag. It had some baby photos in it, photos of you.”
⎯
© Stephanie Marian, February 21, 2012
“Adam lay there waiting for her, naked. Fresh from the shower, the dark line of hair down his long body was still slightly damp.”
© S. Marian, May 8, 2012
What do teenagers, gardening, and people carriers have to do with the Kama Sutra? Read, “Whatever!” to be posted tomorrow, Tuesday May 8th on “A View From Outside the Box,” url: adialogue. Go on, I dare you to!
