Wild Ethics

Here is a wonderful and beautifully constructed website to share, The Alliance for Wild Ethics. The home page contains only these words,

"We are human only in contact, and conviviality, with what is not human."

The section Why Wild? begins:

"Wildness is the earthy, untamed, undomesticated state of things - open ended, improvisational, moving according to its own boisterous logic. That which is wild is not really out of control; its is simply out of our control... beyond our ability to fully map with our theories or fully fathom with our thoughts"

The section Why Ethics? begins:

"Although 'ethics' is commonly equated with a set of rules or principles for right conduct, for us ethics has more to do with a simple humility towards others - an attentive openness not just toward other persons but towards the inexhaustible otherness of the manifold beings that compose this living world."

See why I am excited? Lots of essays and resources to explore in quiet moments - bliss!

Beings are relatives not resources

The other day I came across an article by an American Catholic apologist refuting the premise put forward by many atheists that science and christianity are mutually incompatible. The writer began by asserting that many ground breaking scientific discoveries have been made by people who were both scientists and committed christians. He then went on to say that science can best flourish in a christian society. Pagan societies, he argues, hold nature sacred and if you hold nature sacred you may worship nature and honour nature but you can never use nature as the subject of an experiment. To experiment with nature you have to accept that nature is not sacred and that nature's creator grants man sovereignty over nature. Thus, he concluded, without christianity there would be no science and atheists need to accept this.

Now I would want to say that man's sovereignty over nature has produced a society that can only continue to exist through the endemic use of violence against nature.

Oil is a precious natural relative that nature has produced over vast tracts of time. When man accepts sovereignty over oil, land and oceans he takes up arms and heavy machinery to plunder and rape the land in order to make the maximum profit in the shortest possible time and hang the consequences. What should be seen as a sacred and precious relative whose gifts should be accepted with care and devotion becomes simply a commodity.

The Goddess spirit has no problem working with nature - accepting, refining and perfecting all she has to offer. This is science at its best. The Goddess spirit cannot accept violence against nature and will always seek to honour and tend our relatives in this world. It will accept with gratitude all that she gives whilst bearing in mind that our children's children will also long for a fair share of natural resources.

The countdown to the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen has focused my own thoughts on climate change. Anyone who delights in life and the beauty of nature will have been concerned for some time now and will already be making significant changes in their own life.

Like many others my partner and I have chosen to live in a small well insulated home. In that home we do our best to minimise energy usage and we buy our energy from 'Good Energy'. We try to buy local and in small quantities; to repair rather than replace. We travel by train and bus whenever possible and allow ourselves the possibility of one return air flight every three years. We take time to write and protest against violent exploitation.

None of this is probably enough to leave behind us the kind of world we wish our grand daughter will come to know, love, honour and delight in.

I am conscious that it is almost impossible to live within the resources of one earth whilst owning a car. OK our car is small, it's CO2 emissions are just 109 g/KM, we can often go three weeks between visits to the petrol forecourt. Yet, it would be so hard to do without it altogether. Addicted to oil? How else to visit those special, sacred, liminal places we hold dear? How else to make those difficult journeys that can seem endless by public transport? What would you do?

Blessed Samhain

Dawn this morning was so typical of this time of the year - gentle light and rolling mists veiling the landscape. Beautiful! Watching the mists it is so easy to imagine the dead walking, barely veiled in the distance. Human shapes drifting in and out of focus, passing between worlds.

In the early evening I was watching the flames of the fire waiting for the first knock on the door from Halloween revellers. My mind passed through the ages to a time when some built round houses and buried the bones of their dead beneath the hearth at the very centre of the home of the living. Round houses are special for they mimic womb space. A place for the living protected by the Goddess. As I watched the flames and the sparks in the rising air currents I wondered whether the hearth fire was once conceived as a vehicle for the rebirth of the beloved dead. Almost as if the dead rose on the hot rising air, the sparks being the first sparks of life. All within the womb space of the home, the hole at the apex of the roof the place of rebirth. Whether this is true or not it always amazes me what the human brain perceives as the eyes stare into flames. No wonder this is also a season of divination.

Against nature?

Some things leave me quite despairing about religion. Buried in almost hidden columns of our newspapers there have been reports of women in Somalia being stopped by the religious priests and told to shake their breasts. If the police then have reason to believe the woman is wearing a bra she is handed over to young men who lash her. Apparently wearing a bra is against nature, a fraud and a deception. The Shabaab Islamic movement in Somalia has banned plays, dance and all forms of music.

I have just been watching a programme on TV following desperate young families escaping similar horrors in Afghanistan by paddling inflatables across the sea to the Greek Island of Lesbos. Many of the young women said they wanted a better life, but above all an education. At home, as women, they are not even allowed to read. I wonder if these women are aware of the history of Lesbos? Sadly, even on Lesbos many of these young women have been beaten by the police. Is there anywhere in the world where policing is not built on violence?

Sadly Christianity has had its own share of this bleak horror. St. Ephraim wrote, "Dancing is the perdition of girls and women, the grief of angels and the joy of devils". St. Charles Borromeo advised three years of penance for women who danced. Canon Law prevented priests from attending the theatre and the law was only repealed in the late 1960's.

Countries like Somalia have multiple, intractable problems. I guess it is easier to check bras than to ensure people have a decent standard of life. Easier to pick on women than confront warlords and corrupt politicians.

And it is always the women who suffer. We never read, religious police have been stopping men in the street and insisting that they shake their testicles. If the police then have reason to believe they are wearing briefs they are lashed. Wearing briefs is against nature. I wonder why?

I really do want my grand daughter to grow up in a world where education is valued, especially for women as it has been shown that societies flourish best that way. A world where dance, music, theatre, books... are promoted in every possible way. A world in which what a person wears or does not wear is entirely their own choice and no concern of anyone else. A world that does not depend upon violence at every level.

May we all help to make it so.

Delight

It seems a long time since I managed to post here. Lots of work is one reason, family another. Both are good. I really enjoy my work and get tremendous satisfaction from it. The family things are what life is all about. My son's wedding and seeing him and his partner off on a four month tour of Asia. Our first grandchild is now 6 months old and our daughter has been moving to a bigger house.

She is an absolute delight. The morning after our son's wedding all the guests came down to breakfast in the hotel and she was passed around them all. She smiled and communicated with everyone, treated everyone the same, took everything in, gave a great deal of pleasure. She takes delight in everything and is endlessly fascinated by the world around her. Surely just how we should all be in an ideal world.

It was lovely to be there when she discovered her own toes. The sheer look of wonder on her face. How could she be the proud owner of such beautiful things? But, there again the universe has spent 14 billion years preparing a place for her and 3 billion years perfecting toes. That is a good reason to be delighted.

Orkney Goddess?

Orkney Today has just reported that Scotland's earliest human figure has been found at an Historic Scotland excavation at the Links of Notland on the island of Westray. The figure is carved from sandstone and measures just 3.5cm by 3cm so it can easily be held in the hand. A pair of circles representing breasts can clearly be seen and the body carries typical neolithic crossed markings. The Scotsman adds a possible date to the story saying the figurine is between 4,500 and 5,000 years old.

Cille Bharra

I have just discovered a little gem on the isle of Barra. According to Celtic hagiography Christianity first arrived in Barra in the seventh century ce with a man called Finnbar. There is an Irish Saint Finnbarr of Cork but a Scottish life says that the Barra Finnbar was the love child of a Sutherland nobleman and a young woman. When the young woman was sentenced to death the unborn child spoke from the womb and saved her life. Cille Bharra is said to be the place where Finnbar built the first church on the island. Today the ruins of an ancient church and south chapel stand in a burial ground. To the north of the ruined church stands a sixteenth century burial chapel which has recently been re-roofed.

The site has a very special feel to it and opening the small door to enter the north chapel is a revelation. Although the site is dedicated to St. Finnbar, the interior is in a real way a shrine to Bride of the Isles. Bridget crosses are scattered around and there is a charmingly folksy statue of Bride as well as a traditional straw Bridie Beag adorned with ribbons and shells and a Bridget's cross. There are more Bridget crosses strewn across the altar and to the left a charming icon of Bride drawn on slate.

Places like Cille Bharra remind us that rational linear clock time is not the only time we experience. Whenever we are absorbed in someone or something we love we leave ordinary time and enter another world. It is Bride who is the focus for this here. A burial chapel is of course a symbolic womb and tomb, a cave built by human hands. It is a gateway to a place from which all life comes and to which all life returns. It is then natural that in such a place the Goddess should be manifestly present and that Her maternal, comforting energy should come to the fore.