If you see it, say it!

Just your average day at Harmony Hall is intense.

There’s snow on the ground and the sky looks ominous but out I must go to feed the animals and set off, I must (while I’m using some sort of Yoda grammar!) to the protest at the Hare Coursing Finals, to be there at noon.

I woke up with the ultimate realization of a self-employed person. I have to find a way to make some money from what I do. On my way to the kettle, a post-it note fell out of nowhere, apropo of nothing (as Cheryl Crowe would say). It had a little Venn diagram on it.

First circle: Things you can do

Second circle: Things that people will pay for

Third circle: Things you love doing

The little section where the three overlap is the activity you should focus on, I imagine.

While I was on a roll, I got my pendulum out and asked 1) how many and 2) what changes do I need to make, to make a livelihood; make it rich; immerse myself in abundance; cover my costs; exist, get my message of the divine spark in each one of us out there; bring my food and art and the healing of consciousness and sacred geometry to the world... You can see that sometimes I feel more ambitious, sometimes less!!

Here I combine my painting and use of sacred geometry in a depiction of Plato's water symbol

There were 11 changes to make! 5 of them were in the gold bedroom! No wonder it was blue for so long!

3 were left by a lodger with many darknesses around him (including poltergeist and an entity). One was an ambivalent wwoofer girl and one was a friend of years, who’d stayed many times, until a final bust up.

Just have a think, yourselves. Have you had any visitors that might have inadvertently left obstacles in your future path?

 If you want to learn how to clear obstacles read my book or another energy clearing guide.

So then there were 4 environmental changes to make.

1) Get a water turbine. Do not go for a grid tie system. Make sure it moves forward the exciting and necessary plan of being self-sufficient and off-grid. I have asked some experts, who produce micro hydro for 3^rd world countries and other remote areas, which way to go. Should I aim to just power the pump for the stove and back boiler? Or should I aim to power the storage heaters with their ingenious heat retaining blocks inside? If they were each on a timer, the turbine would only need the wattage to kick start one at a time. I will report back what I learn.

Picohydro are the ones I'm talking to at the moment! 

2) Investigate whether Ireland can support herself in wood. It is the only truly renewable energy. Turf has to stop as that takes 10,000 years to form. Plus it is like the Amazon jungle – considered the lungs of the planet. The peat bogs are a real carbon holder.  It’s extraction means emissions beyond our wildest nightmares. And I must look at Bord na Mona’s idea of putting up wind turbines on the bogs. In principle, good but if they are planning to use the tall ones – rejected as old technology by other countries, in favour of large flat satellite dish-esque turbines – then I believe they have to dig down to a great depth to secure the turbines. That would do even further unrecoverable damage.

Rocket Heater Plans that need only willow width sticks rather than logs 

3) Change my approach to animal rights. So far it has been a scatter bomb system interspersing letters and suggested improvements to government, articles to papers, protesting, developing a referendum for animals (to ‘ask the people’ how they want animals treated in various industries), rescuing, starting a pet farm so guests can hang out with pigs in person, practicing my animal communication, asking for guidance from animal spirit guides and learning what I can from their individual powerful energies (today I studied the hare, the elephant and the lion – as they had shown up in my paintings recently). 

Finally, I offered energy healing for animals at a reduced rate to that of people. Interestingly, I found the vet environment exacerbates a trauma. It is obvious really but the last 3 times, I was in there, they were having to put someone down. What do you think the energy would be like and how you would feel in the GP surgery, if often when you went, the last patient came out on a stretcher with a sheet over their face or as Ice T sings. ‘He went out for a drive and came back in a body bag’

 That's How I'm Livin'

So this last few years I have been trying to hold my nerve. Instead of jumping in the car with the animal in distress, I just get still and quiet inside and put my arm around them. Then I ask if there is anything I can acknowledge right now. For people and animals, all pain is unacknowledged suffering. It might be emotional, mental, spiritual etc but if you never stop and take time for yourself or whoever is complaining in front of you, it will eventually manifest as an accident or injury or developing physical condition. 

Anyway, back to the change I need to make: I should treat Harmony Hall as the microcosm of the whole. Deal with the power struggles, insist on the respect, cultivate the attention and affection each creature needs and most importantly don’t see myself as inferior or superior to anyone else. For too long, I have allowed the following dynamic to ensue: ‘Never neglect your work for another’s, however great his need’. The change is that I must no longer respond to crises. Every person and animal ultimately only has responsibility for him or herself. Let everything be.

4) Fourth environmental change: Document the journey to off-grid, sustainable living in Ireland; all organic, local, plant based, in touch with nature, empathetic, inclusive, healthy, entertaining, creative and awe-inspiring. Sometimes it gets messy and or mundane but not often and not so far!

Stream with turbine pipes in place

So that was nine changes. The first though to actually come to me was a financial management change.

Spend a time every day in the office or amongst my receipts and see what I’ve spent, what it may cost to complete each mission and how it adds up with any income being generated. The key to this is starting now, while it’s only February. I started jotting down notes for 2017 and doing the accounts recently was a walk in the park, for the first time ever. 

Tidy upbeat place to do admin is essential!

I have put a few quid into new bedding, curtains and rugs for the guest rooms. I have invested in organic farm manure, a multitude of edible flowers, fruit trees, vegetable seeds and mushroom starter kits as well as organic pest, cat, weed etc solutions to streamline food growing here.  Readier Than Ever for Veggie Visitors Post

Practice makes perfect.

That was an insight from a friend a few weeks ago. She said ‘You play the piano! Use that disciplined application and resulting mastery in every area of your life’. Don’t worry, I said to myself later, I can still do things just for fun and without expectation. The balance is to take oneself just seriously enough to put some work in to things, take risks and be receptive. This reminds me of when I took the unprecedented step of becoming a life model!

Portrait by Leslie Fennell

I had worn many, many, many layers all my life. Even on the beach.  And my intuition alerted me: How outrageous to go through life in a state of semi-apology for one's body. For most people, it masquerades as modesty but underneath there is a lot of poor self-image around. If you think badly of yourself on any level, it’s a bit of a disaster. Especially if you have reached the conclusion, like I had, that ‘the story you tell about your life becomes the foundation of your life’. So, I started right then to make it a great story!

11) The last change I had to make was also money related: Don’t oscillate between being totally abstemious including rehydrating dried goods from the back of the cupboard, when things get tight, to trying to borrow €8,000 to buy a log cabin that would offer some independent accommodation for retreat guests! Just take one step at a time. Stay in balance.

 

So, it has been a great day. The protest was great because Off The Ball (Radio Sports Programme) came and interviewed us. What a breakthrough to have the conversations we needed to have. 

This  included the fact that they can’t find enough hares anymore. They are a protected species, the Irish Hare. For example we are not allowed to rescue one and keep it. But the coursers have been made exempt. 

The grey hounds are also mistreated, dumped, surrendered to pounds to be put down or sent abroad to race again. 

 

Welfare legislation says that no animal should be terrorized. No one could argue that a hare is terrorized; being trapped, held in a cage for weeks and then set upon by two grey hounds on a track. It is banned in England, Wales, Scotland and everywhere else already and yet we allow it. 

We said that the Irish coursing club's power is in that every greyhound owner who wants to race a dog has to belong to the coursing club whether they agree with coursing or not. 

We mentioned the government subsidy to them using tax payers money, despite public opinion. We talked about the vote in government on it last year where party members were told to vote in line or not vote at all so that meant all TDs against against coursing did not vote unless they were Independents. 

We answered the claim that it is natural for hares to run from predators saying that in the wild this contrived situation would never happen and certainly not pre-empted by a traumatic captivity and doping and trafficking from one coursing competitions to another. 

We said that there was nothing sporting about coursing, asking if it was purely the gambling that attracted people and the money that meant everyone still supported it. 

They asked whether the muzzles improved things. We said no, the hare does not know that the dogs are muzzled and furthermore, the dogs can do the same serious damage of tossing them around and breaking their backs, with the hard plastic muzzles on. Obviously, the hare doesn’t know whether the animals pursuing them are muzzled or not. 

 

We also said how sad it was to see families in there. If we can gloss over the suffering and stress of hares in coursing, it is a lesson to the young in reducing empathy and their humanity later on. Like Gandhi saying that the state of a nation can be seen from the way they treat their animals, we pointed out that Ireland is a disaster for animals in every industry. It seems like if it makes any money for the revenue then anything goes, however little regard for welfare – such as the puppy farmers. 

If people are alright with what happens to animals, it becomes more and more likely that they will be okay with witnessing bad treatment of others. 

The demonstration was organized by the group, Ban Blood Sports. There had been 60 people there yesterday which was a great turnout. Sadly, on the other side of it, one campaigner had gone on their website and seen that so many people wanted to come that they were laying on more coaches! Also, it was said that lots of people had traveled from the UK to it.

Please don’t think that just because it’s popular it is justified. Don’t shut your eyes and hearts to the plight of fellow lives. To quote one of the Go Vegan World advert ‘Their lives are as important to them as yours is to you”. 

Also why aren’t more people protesting? We decided today that it is not fear as such, it is more a sort of embarrassment. That is not good though is it? We’ve got to defend each other. 

In a timely way, as I drove down there in the blizzard, someone on the radio said that, in Ireland, you are never more than 5km away from people who are living in some sort of slavery; passports taken, not being paid, working without rights or reasonable hours. Do not let anyone or anything be exploited on our watch. And as they say on the trains, about inexplicable left luggage or dodgy behavior “If you see it, say it”

Readier than ever for Veggie Visitors!

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Wonderful vegan times on the road in England and Ireland. I can't recommend it enough! Mainly I was gardening and campaigning for animals, peace, the environment and not least the inordinate amount of people too that I found in trouble along the way. As many of you will have found, once you have woken up there is no going back to sleep. It is like you have a radar on your head that recognizes the life and trials of others. Empaths get no rest until they learn to switch off at bedtime.  That is what has made me come back to Harmony Hall with renewed purpose. There is a need for a place like this for people to get back in touch with nature.

Photographs by Frances Micklem

If you are just such a traveller, this bio-architecture vegan sanctuary might be a place to visit in Ireland. There is a meditation garden, some very friendly animals and energy clearing, all part of the service.

Cody Buckalew Photography

I have returned to Harmony Hall to move my idea of a food brand forwards…apparently sales of vegan foods have risen 967% but let’s see if a cheerful and resourceful, but previously unsuccessful, entrepreneur can participate in that supermarket sweep!  I have offered a raw vegan organic ‘meals onwheels’, which was really delicious but even providing for my first customer proved to be a full time job. There’s a café in the offing now where I plan to offer slap up Sunday lunches and also hand over pre-ordered weekly supplies!

In the meantime, I am hopeful that I can offer to guests at least a good night’s sleep. The sacred geometry of the building and the acoustics mean you will also get inspiration to finish your project if you are a writer, researcher or musician. Although it is off the beaten track it has a funny way of getting people back on track!

New Meat Preservative Invented!

The Media, eh! Say whatever they're told to!

New Meat Preservative Invented

This article will make you chuckle, as long as you don't have friends or family that still doggedly eat meat.

Is Meat Bad For you, WHO said it was

The discussion on Irish radio went on,meat is bad for you, nonsense said the meat industry, thank God said the veggies (thinking thank God that some research was allowed out that might make people change their diet, even if for selfish reasons rather than a shred of empathy arising!) Probably another health fad said most people.

Did Anyone Say Nitrites? Oh No, Only When They Were Replaced by Fruit

No one knew about or mentioned the nitrites. These are the chemicals DELIBERATELY injected into meat to make it pink, add taste and most importantly preserve it ad infinitum so that the meat industry can flog it to people as food. Only now does the actual quote from the World Health Organization come out, as clear as day:

'Eating two rashers of normal bacon a day increases the risk of contracting bowel cancer by 18 per cent, according to the World Health Organisation, which puts the food in the same danger category as smoking and asbestos.'

Why now? Because now they have invented a preservative made of meditteranean fruit and spices that do the same jobs

 

Articles That Offer An 'Explanation'... or Don't!

Even in this article they have a bit at the end called 'Explanation' where they loosely justify having systematically poisoned the food chain thus far. I found this interesting too as I went to the Peace Group Christmas Party Quiz and one of the questions was about the media coverage of Israel versus Palestine. They were told they were allowed to put in as many action photos as they wanted but not allowed to put in any 'explanation'. This is obviously as it would raise questions why we have armed Israel up to the hilt to slaughter the Palestinians, who have no resources, food, water, homes, let alone weapons to defend themselves.

Do Explain The Use of Carcinogens Added to Food but Don't Try and Explain Arming Oppressors Against Their Neighbours: Israel Against The Palestinians and Saudi against The Yemen. 
My least favourite was the fact that we had people in Palestine sharing information about where thousands of Palestinian civilians, many of them children were sheltering in school grounds and splinter bombs well nail scattering bombing raids were immediately carried out to finish them off en masse.
 
So yes, this idea of an 'Explanation' at the end of an article is all contrived (by the meat industry this time no doubt, arms industry last time) and so we need to decide what we care about individually and do everything we can to bring some fairness to the situation.

Lock Up Your Daughters...or social services will have them!

They used to say 'lock up your daughters' when there was a silver tongued, handsome youth around but now it is the social services that want your children and they won't want to give them back.

 

Dear Minister,

Thank you very much for your letter in regard to animal sentience.

 

The concern I am raising today is the removal of children from their parents. It would gladden many hearts this Christmas if these cases were to be reviewed and the children returned. Unfortunately it has become big business for social services to place children with fosterers. There is even an advert up in Abingdon and probably elsewhere saying ‘Have you got what it takes to foster a child?’ and promoting the whole process along with some sort of tough love.

 

Of the three friends I have reconnected with in Oxfordshire this autumn, an unbelievable two of them have lost their children in to care. That is an extremely high percentage. Neither mother has any addiction problem, excessive financial or housing problems, nor have they abused or neglected their children. In fact they are the most dedicated, warm and pro-active people you could meet. Any attempt to keep in touch with their children is met with threats to reduce their access time or to move the child again. They are not allowed to write letters or cards and support their child or maintain their relationship that way either.

 

In the Oxford Times this week, I see that Oxfordshire County Council have voted unanimously to ask the government to give them greater powers and funding to access children who are home-schooled, even if there is no reason to suspect neglect or abuse. The fifteen or so children I know who were home schooled are confident, well adjusted, able to participate conscientiously and effectively in 3^rd level education and work environments, with very little mental illness or low self esteem issues that many children are dealing with.

 

Next it will be people who raise their children on a different diet or who do not want to enter a blanket vaccination programme. It has been suggested by some who understand politics that the government plan to have all children in the care of the State eventually. At very least, you will see the risk of abuse of power and random discrimination by social services. A decision to take a child into care is followed swiftly by justification of their actions. It is clearly this that keeps situations entrenched (as in children still in foster care 3 and 5 years later) as inspectors won’t back down and or take the responsibility of saying that the situation is now safe and children can be returned.

 

The reason you do not hear directly from the parents affected is that if they question anyone in authority, they will literally never see their children again. Can you imagine that happening to someone in your family? What the parents are doing instead is attempting to take their cases to court outside Oxfordshire. No doubt, during that process, they will face the whole defensive legal weight of the state that will tell their lawyers that they must not, at any cost, be found to be wrong. They will not want a parent to win their child back and have to pay court fees, possibly damages and have to review all the cases that will then arise.

 

Therefore the costs will be carried by the parents. If they were just about financially secure enough to care for a child before such a case, they certainly won’t be afterwards.

 

The only thing that will help is a directive from government, saying that all cases of children in care can be reviewed independently, on request or annually. Also certain criteria should be decided, upon the fulfilling of which, children can go home. At the moment, the fosterers have a say – one mother’s access to her child was instantly cut in half, on the request of the foster family. Also opinions of relations and social workers are all being taken into consideration but the parents and the children are not being heard.

 

Please make sure the extra powers and funding are not given to county councils and that the good parents that want their children back and have sorted out their difficulties, can get them back.

"They said there'd be snow at Christmas and Peace On Earth"

"They said there'd be snow at Christmas, they said there'd be peace on earth" Spare a thought for the 60 million war- and environmental refugees there are in the world at the moment.
What are environmental refugees? Whole populations displaced and on the move as there is no longer water available for hundreds of miles and coastal countries that are now under water during their growing season and have nothing to eat.
The unfair fact is that it is western excessive consumption and fuel-heavy habits and habitats that have caused a lot of it, so I'm thinking I want to support them in some way? Does anyone know of a charity theu know to be doing great work?

Overall, I am hacked off to focus on the fact that all society's necessities and problems are addressed by non-governmental organizations and public money just circulates in an economy of trade deals, massive building and meat and other unethical contractors and of courses weapons testing and building (in Ireland and England, respectively). I thought government was for governance. But maybe it is like that amusing consideration, 'if kings rule kingdoms, just speculate on who rules countries' ?! Makes me laugh whenever I think of that! I went to a talk a couple of weeks ago from a historian Symon Hill on World War 2. He showed that because that war was considered justified against Hitler, somehow every other war since has been considered justified and necessary, by most people. Why complacently accept that when we know that agendas have always been greedy more than protective of democracy? I will attach my transcript of the talk.

Simon Hill, Talk about how we took the wrong lesson from WW2

Simon Hill, Talk about how we took the wrong lesson from WW2

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Pope Francis, opposes all nuclear weapons

False sense of security, mental support of fear.

The real priorities, poverty, peace, health and rights are relegated. Nuclear bombs would have a catastrophic effect for humanitarian and environmental solidarity – 122 nations signed on 7/7/2017 an agreement that in addition to nuclear weapons being immoral, they should be made illegal. 

Historian Symon Hill Explores How Britain’s Collective Memory of World War Two has become a justification for all wars since

Symon Hill is a pacifist from the Peace Pledge Union and Fellowship of Reconciliation He also teaches WEA – Workers Educational Association - courses. With a focus on the resistance in the 1^st world war, he has only recently started his exploration of WW2. History is always an interpretation of the past. A particular motivation to study WW2 were the arguments he had met (and he found that we had all met) as people working for peace.

These included:

Pro-nuclear: “It was the bomb that ended the war” (WW2).

“If there had been no guns, Hitler would have won”

“People like you were responsible for the appeasement of Hitler in the ‘30s”

“You only have the freedom to say that because of brave men who fought for you.” (in WW2).

The overall difficulty is that people, in one way or another, hold WW2 in their memory as a ‘just’ war, a ‘necessary’ war and that there had been ‘no other choice’ but to go to war.

Symon realized therefore the importance of being able to say something convincing about WW2. Without tackling this collective memory, there is a grave risk and indeed evidence that people have come to see all wars in the same light.

We were reminded of all the references, like Allo Allo and Dad’s Army. He noticed that different ages said different things to him about WW2 and that they revealed subtle differences in reasoning.  Older people, who were actually here during the war remember that England was on the brink of invasion and that is why they had to fight. It was described how membership of the PPE (…) went down during the war, not at the beginning of the war. This showed that it was only when England was in imminent danger of being invaded, did people decide it might be necessary to fight.

Younger people describe how we fought fascism and the holocaust.

We are dealing with living memory and collective memory but they all reinforce a narrative that associates war with the defeat of an oppressive and racist regime. Rather than WW2 being understood as an exception, it is seen as representative of war, in general, making it somehow okay.

Interestingly, both anti war and pro war people have used WW2 as justification of war.

Fascists and fundamentalists are different. The British Armed Forces are also different from the British Armed Forces who fought in WW2.

Whatever view of WW2, it doesn’t make the assumption right that all wars are justified.  There is a conflation of all, even though there is no resemblance and no surviving members.

Another area where this happens is in the production of arms. A good example is the BAE who have built tanks during WW2. Employees still see their work as a proud role, even though their tanks are now used to drive into peaceful protests in Bahrain.

These are the inconvenient truths and they create problems for militants and problems for pacifists.

Some people accuse pacifists of being the ones to appease Hitler in the 1930s. Appeasement was an international policy that involved cooperation between countries as a way to avoid another war.  Appeasement was actually driven, though, by the far right.. They had thought that fascism was a good antedote to communism.

There were many atrocities commited by our side too. The bombing of Horishima and Dresden, where many civilians were killed. The UK were still arming Musillini until 1939 and the US were still selling planes to Japan until 1940.

George Paxton wrote a book ‘Non Violent Resistance to The Nazis. One example was Norwegian Teachers who refused to teach Nazi science. They said it was teaching racism as science.

It is hard to say that the UK atrocities were on a similar level to the fascists. Some peace activists were naïve but were also infiltrated by fascists.

1937 there was the white poppies demonstration, to say no war , outside the House of Commons. Chamberlain had sympathy with Hitler. The British Ambassador to Germany stated that the UK would support Germany as long as she promised not to attack the British Empire.

All through the decade of the 1930s, military spending had been increasing.

 Responses we can use: WW2 had nothing to do with war and the armed forces now.

WW2 would not have happened without fascism being actively wanted in place of communism – The UK was not fighting for democracy.

Accept that pacifists make (and made in the past) some mistakes.

 Show respect for those who felt that they had to fight

Non-violent resistance to fascism.

We have our rights due to centuries of activism, NOT because of wars.

Point out the nationalistic narrative, the way we say ‘we’ did this and ‘they’ did that to us. This is an artificial construct of a country. It builds a historical collective memory to justify war.

When shall we ever learn?

Christmas - for Empaths