Permaculture inspiration!

So impressed by this! I would love to have the initiative and confidence to launch on out and do this kind of thing. That is so cool!

And what about this, hey?!?

Well, today (March 1st but much later, it's only a quarter to two in the morning right now - must go to bed!) I am the speaker for a group of ladies.  I can speak about anything I like.  Though I can prattle on happily to the Badger for hours and have plenty to say to my family and a bad habit of interrupting at meetings, I confess I have No Idea what to say to these ladies.  I mean, who are they?  What do they want to know?   Strange thing, being A Speaker.  Still, it doesn't happen to me very often these days.  "Come and speak," they said, "we need a Speaker."  

"About what?" I asked.

"Anything you like," they said.


Update.  Now, at breakfast time, having woke up with the sun and pottered about on Facebook for a while checking out Innermost House and various friends, I have discovered that this very day is World Book Day.  Relevant, right?  I'll let that be a starting point.

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365 366 Day 60 Thursday March 1^st  
(if you don’t know what I’m talking about, see here)

Well, I have a funky little needle-book (A what? This kinda thing) that I got from Made In Hastings where I store all my needles and pins, so I no longer really have a need for a pincushion.  Every now and then this would’ve come in handy, but I’d rather have the space.

Simple complex life in its wholeness

Simplicity and holiness are bound up with one another, because “holiness” also means “wholeness” also means “integrity” also means “unity”.

“Universe” means “one-song”.

Sin is a fracturing, fragmenting or scattering of the pattern God is weaving, the web God is spinning, the mandala of creation.

The cross of Christ sits at the heart of creation reconciling all things to God and in/through God to each other, restoring the broken pattern, the torn web, re-making the scattered mandala.

This is the meaning of Christ’s words at the Feeding of the Five Thousand: “Gather up the fragments that are left, so that nothing may be lost”.

In its oneness, life exhibits ultimate simplicity – it does not grasp, does not divi up God’s creation as spoils.

So all who come into connection with the Christ at the heart of creation become simple because they are given back their innocence and made whole.  Do I mean that?  I mean at least, they are healed.  Maybe their wisdom is the same thing as their scars: we never lose what has happened to us or what we have done, though through God’s grace and loving-kindness it may be integrated, healed forgiven.

Simplicity is the Quiet Eye, the ability to focus, what one might call single-mindedness; as Jesus said, "When the eye is single the whole body is full of light" (Luke 11:34).  When we lose our simplicity/integrity/holiness/Quiet Eye, fracturing and scattering begins, complication and accumulation.  And, as Toinette Lippe pointed out, all illness is a manifestation of some kind of accumulation, because "problems arise when things accumulate".

On the Innermost House Facebook page this morning is a wonderful post.  Here's an extract:

“I got hold of Michael and he made a suggestion. When we first started this page he suggested that we look everything important up in the dictionary. He said that there is an "aboriginal wisdom" buried beneath the surface of words.
So this time he says to look up two words--Simple and Complex--and ask how one thing can be both at the same time.
We've already looked up simple, and that was useful because it helped us understand that it basically means "single"--as in the One thing as opposed to Many things. Remember that . . .  post Pen wrote on her own site about the Many and the Less and the One.
Complex was interesting. The first thing it says is: "composed of many interconnected parts; compound; composite: a complex highway system." Well that sounds somewhat like the mess we're in trying to figure this out. It also sounds a little like my underwear drawer.
But then I read about the history of the word and it starts to make a different sense. It says it means "composed of parts" alright--as in Many parts--but then it says it comes from an older word that means "surrounding, encompassing," and "to encircle, embrace," even "to comprehend." So complex it turns out isn't so much like my underwear drawer as it's like an ecosystem! (If my drawer ever becomes an ecosystem then I really will have problems).
But wait a minute I already know that. The question is how can something be simple AND complex. So I ask again, and this time he explains it more. He says that "the reason simplicity eludes us today is because it belongs to the condition of the beginning. And all the forces of history and modern life move away from the beginning. From where we stand we cannot go back, and we dare not go forward. We can only seek the wholeness that lies within us."
WHOLENESS, not Simplicity. Or anyway not just simplicity. That's a COMPLETELY new thought. A week or two ago one of us . . . said that Oneness had to do with Wholeness, so that the Simple Life was like the Whole Life. Complexity is a kind of wholeness, like an ecosystem is complex and whole.
Wow. This really is a startling conclusion. What if IH isn't really simple, or not just simple. What if it's more like an ecosystem, more like ONE...COMPLEX...WHOLE? Wouldn't that be both simple and complex at the same time?
Simple and complex and whole. Like an ecosystem. Like life. I've been saying I want simplicity. But maybe what I really want is Life.”

I love that.

Innermost House

Innermost House Facebook page

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365 366 Day 59 February 28^th

 (if you don’t know what I’m talking about, see here)

Two things you can freeze to keep stuff cool in transit.  So eminently useful.  And I so never use them   

Trees where you sit

I have no idea how this photo came to be on my camera.  I was uploading some pics to go on Photobucket to go with my Freecycle posts so wannabe junk acquisitors could see what they were letting themselves in for, when to my surprise I found this photo smuggled in too.  Trees, jostling together to peer into our back room.

Made me laugh, and reminded me of a recording I had of Aled Jones when he was a child, singing most beautifully Where’er You Walk, Handel’s setting of this snatch of Alexander Pope’s poem Summer:

Where-e'er you walk, cool gales shall fan the glade,  Trees, where you sit, shall crowd into a shade,  Where-e'er you tread, the blushing flow'rs shall rise,  And all things flourish where you turn your eyes.

It went on his album called (I think) The Best of Aled Jones or something, that travelled with me in cassette form until cassette machines dropped off the edge of the world.   So it came to pass that I had this tape with me when I moved in to Bernard’s cottage on the edge of Flatroper’s Wood, and often used to play it because he liked it especially.

After he had listened carefully to Where’er You Walk several times, he ventured to ask (this must have been something to do with Aled Jones’s Welsh intonation) why all those trees wanted to crowd into a shed when the lady sat down.

And it became a standing joke with us, about trees crowding into the shed.  Bernard came through from the bathroom one morning with a funny kind of grin on his face.  He’d found a leafy little twig on the bathroom floor – must have drifted through the window, we always had them open and there were trees and hedges all round the cottage.  But Bernard’s theory was that, not content with crowding into the shed, they were on their way in through the bathroom window when our backs were turned.

Bernard used to say the trees waving was what caused the wind – obviously really, once you notice the wind only arises when the trees are waving . . .  When he spent that long month in hospital before he came home to end his life in the peace of his own cottage, for part of the time he had a bed near the window looking across a parking lot ringed of the further side with trees.  He told me once when I came in for my daily visit (that is to say, he wrote it down; he couldn’t speak because of his tracheostomy) that a tree across the car park had recognised him at last.  He said the tree hadn’t known him at first but that morning it had waved to him  :0)

Bernard . . . When we went on our long rambles through the woods, every time we came to a bridge or log crossing a stream, we had to walk over it without speaking lest we rouse the troll living underneath it.  He didn’t discuss this.  Just put his finger to his lips with a warning look as we approached the stream – and we crossed in perfect silence, like the sages in Chapter 15 of the Tao.

The photo must have been taken by someone when  was out – our hapless builder maybe – showing a moment when the trees of Silverhill took a leaf out of the book of the trees of Flatroper’s Wood, and took it into their heads to see if they could crowd into the shed here.

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365 Day 21 (if you don’t know what I’m talking about, see here)

Ah – Kindle instruction leaflets.  It is not very hard to work a Kindle.  This picture is an example of a type of thing I have cleared out.  I was carefully keeping a number of instruction leaflets for things I could work perfectly well, or brochures that came with things I bought, “just in case”.  Well, I’ve thrown them away.

Dust, dirt, dogs and donkeys.

Hindu religious law sets in place a caste system allocating a place to every person born within that household of faith.  But there are some people in its community born so lowly that they are out-caste – sub-human.  They call themselves ‘dalits’, from a Sanskrit word meaning ‘oppressed’ or ‘broken’.  If this is unfamiliar to you, to understand their situation better you might be interested to read this essay that explains more fully.

The dalits, sometimes called ‘untouchables’, have this pronounced upon them in the Law of Manu, based on the Rig Veda, a foundational text of the Hindu religion:

Their wealth shall be dogs and donkeys; their dress shall be garments of the dead. They shall eat their food in broken dishes, and black iron shall be their ornaments. They must wander from place to place, and they shall not sleep in villages and towns at nights.

Their work comprises all the dirty things that nobody wants to do – shovelling away excrement and bearing away the dead, for example.

Jesus of course was Jewish, not Hindu; but there was much in His life that I think might speak peace and comfort to the dalits of India.

Consider these words of Scripture:

Jesus called them together and said, “You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them.  Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all.  For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”    (Mark 10:42-45 NIV UK)

Jesus replied, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” (Luke 9:58)

Jesus said “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” (Luke 9:60)

This took place to fulfil what was spoken through the prophet: Say to the Daughter of Zion, “See, your king comes to you, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.” (Matthew 21:4-5)

When he had finished washing their feet, he put on his clothes and returned to his place. “Do you understand what I have done for you?” he asked them.   “You call me 'Teacher' and 'Lord', and rightly so, for that is what I am. Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another's feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you.  I tell you the truth, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them.” (John 13:12-17)

As for being ‘untouchable’: A man with leprosy came to him and begged him on his knees, If you are willing, you can make me clean. Filled with compassion, Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. (Mark 1:40-41)

When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is— that she is a sinner. . . Then [Jesus] turned towards the woman and said to Simon, Do you see this woman? (Luke 7:39 . . .)

And Jesus died the death of the disgraced, the unclean, outside the city wall.  And the Christian faith reminds us in our Ash Wednesday liturgy at the beginning of Lent: Dust you are, and to dust you shall return - and that's all of us, dust of Adam.

I wonder if you know about this company, Dalit Candles?  The dalits of India must drink from special separate cups, to be dashed to the ground and broken after use, so that nobody else runs the risk of sharing with them.  Dalit Candles have taken the little cups the dalits use, and made something beautiful to treasure from them, filling them with candles made of beeswax from the mountainous region of Kashmir.  They are handmade by dalit people, and the profits from their sale go to take care of dalit orphans.

The dalits are supposed to dress in clothes the colour of dust, and they have a special place in my heart because they remind me of St Francis who chose to dress in garments the colour of dust as an expression of humility, and of the dusty feet of Jesus, the servant of all, who came to His own but His own received Him not, and who had nowhere to lay His head.

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365 Day 19  (if you don’t know what I’m talking about, see here)

Thinking of candles today, one of the ways I have chosen to lower clutter at home is by using things up rather than passing them on.    This beeswax candle had been in my drawer smelling divine for some time.  I made a point of actually burning the candle, enjoying its lovely perfume, its clean and refreshing flame.  One thing less.

Endeavouring to wind my bottom around the year - Thinking about John Wesley

John Wesley, who inspired, founded and led the people called Methodists, preached a very practical word and lived a very practical Gospel.  In one of his sermons he goes in detail into his own experiments in maximising the time available to him for the work of God by decreasing his allotment of sleep to the least he could bear and still function – “redeeming the time,” as he said.  John Wesley took his responsibilities as steward of life's blessing with absolute seriousness.  During one patch of his life he tried a mono-diet (I think he went for bread) to decrease the amount of time, thought and expense he spent on food.  Samuel… er… was it Johnson or Pepys… Johnson, I think – it was the one who did the dictionary, the accurist who, when his wife came in and found him doing that which he ought not with the maid and exclaimed in reproach “Sir!  I am surprised at you!” replied in the interests of clear definition: “No, madam.  I am surprised – you are astonished.”  Anyway, him – one of you will know which one I mean – must have been Samuel Johnson: he complained that John Wesley was no fun as a dinner guest because he would never stay to relax and chat – it was just eat the food, bid a courteous goodnight; then boot, saddle, to horse and away on the good works of the Lord.  He had work to do indeed.  Beau Brummel didn’t have much time for him as you can imagine (it was mutual), but historians looking back on the social impact of the preaching of John Wesley and the movement he founded are of the opinion that what he did in the power of the Gospel saved England from civil war as bloody as the revolution they lived through in France.  He showed a better way to take command of one’s own life and rise out of poverty, and God bless him for it.

John Wesley wrote pamphlets about the kingdom of God and the power of the Gospel, and these pamphlets sold very well – so well in fact that without really meaning to he accumulated quite a stash.

He preached on more than one occasion about money.  Wesley’s oft-quoted phrase, “Earn all you can, save all you can, give all you can,” comes from one of his sermons, and has been hi-jacked in error by more than one economically focused individual who doesn’t understand eighteen-century English.  They take it as the hallowing of the principle of hoarding, but it ain’t.  When Wesley said “save all you can”, he didn’t mean “store up as much as you can”, he meant “do without all you can”.  “Save” in this context is an injunction to restraint, frugality, thrift.  In an age when the fashion was for a man to keep his hair cropped and wear a wig, John Wesley grew his own hair and encouraged his friends to do the same.  Wigs were an extravagance he frowned upon; so were ribbons and bows and lace and abundant ruffles, and all such unseemly feminine frippery in the women of his congregation – as he let them know from the pulpit in no uncertain terms!

As a young man bounding down the stairs from his lodgings one frosty morning, Wesley encountered the chamber maid starving (as they say in Yorkshire where “starving” means not hungry but cold) and shivering in a thin cotton dress, and he urged her to add a warm coat, or at least wear a warmer dress.  Though he was himself one of a large family where they were put to it to make the money go round and his father spent some portion of his life in the debtors’ prison, Wesley was nonetheless both shocked and upset to learn that the girl was wearing the only dress she had.  Wesley’s mother, Susanna Wesley, would have seen to it that her own offspring were warmly clad, I think; this practical man came of a practical mother.  Anyway, his automatic response was to reach into his pocket to give her some money for a shawl, only to find it empty and realise with a pang of shame that he’d spent the last of what he had on books for himself, and was consequently without the means of charity for another’s need – and of this he was deeply ashamed.  And he preached about it: “Earn all you can, save all you can, give all you can” – earn the money, refrain from spending it, give it away – that was John Wesley.

But because he wrote these excellent pamphlets that sold so well, his critics thought they had something to fasten onto – Mr Wesley, advising frugality in others while raking in the dosh very nicely himself.  So in one of his sermons on the use of money he feels moved to give account of his own management of earnings.  This makes very interesting reading, but when I first came across it some twenty years ago I stopped at his phrase in defense of his financial habits: “I endeavour to wind my bottom round the year.”  What?

I asked here and there among clergy friends what this might mean, and nobody seemed to know.  Oddly it was my second husband Bernard – wild woodsman who hated the church but loved Jesus and His Gospel, and refused to let the Methodist clergy meet in his cottage – who solved the mystery for me one day when he was ruminating about the etymology of the words “dignity” and “gravity”.  I wish I could remember what he said now – probably something he had dug up in the writings of Patrick O’Brien or Robert Louis Stevenson or Rudyard Kipling or other well-travelled and informative mind.  But the connection suddenly clicked into place for me between gravitas, dignitas, substance and bottom.  These were all terms expressive of wealth or influence.  Actually dignitas in its Roman origins was descriptive of non-material substance: I come across it in a modern context when I hear Quakers describe a venerable and venerated member of the Society as “a seasoned and weighty Friend” – a soul of dignitas, gravitas, substance. 

So the word “bottom” implies substance – what you’ve got at the back of you, what you’ve got behind or underneath you (hence its migration to the slang usage of “what you’re sitting on”).

When Wesley said “I endeavour to wind my bottom round the year”, he meant that he did his best to eke out his financial means so that he didn’t incur any kind of debt.  It also (I think) can carry an implication of fundamental provision (hence “fundament”, like “bottom”, expressing “lowest place” then “posterior/sit-upon”) rather than abundance.  So it’s a well-chose word for a sermon on money, heard by the poor and the wealthy alike.  The wealthy man might be considered a man of considerable bottom (substance, got a lot behind him), but the poor man might be down to his bottom dollar – his having reduced to very little.  To both alike the example of “endeavouring to wind my bottom round the year” will speak: to the wealthy man it recommends prudence and thrift, to the poor man it recommends avoidance of debt where at all possible.  Wesley had a keen personal awareness of what it meant to struggle financially, and his advice is heartfelt as well as shrewd.

It's a good pointer to a sensible way of financial simplicity, because it's provident in the widest sense.  The Buddhists say all people are selfish but there are two kinds of selfishness: there are foolish selfish people who only look out for themselves and there are wise selfish people who look out for others as well - because we all belong to one another, so if the umbrella of provision shelters everyone it inevitable shelters thee too.

Wesley's way, with its huge impact on the whole of society, created a framework of stability and responsibility that served his country well in offering a good political base in a time of considerable unrest and inequality, and served his Lord well in the effective communication of an honest and practical preaching of the Gospel and the faithful example of a converted and sanctified daily life

That’s all; just happened to be thinking about it and thought thee might be interested.

Administrative detritus - the insidious creep of the clutterbeast

It’s time for a different kind of pruning.

I’ve been through cupboards and drawers and shelves again, sorting and chucking; and wondered why I’m still left feeling encumbered and snagged on the brambles.

More and more lately I get this feeling, which is becoming irresistible.

Imagine if you were holding onto something, maybe heavy or awkward or slippery, and you knew you couldn’t hold it much longer. Imagine if you called out to the people for whom you were holding it: ‘Look, I can’t hang onto this, I’m going to drop it! I’m going to let it fall!’ But they were on the phone or in the toilet or on their hands and knees looking for a spanner in the cupboard under the stairs and all you got back was a muffled: ‘Just a minute…’

Or imagine if your boat was drifting away from the mooring place, and the people on the quay wanted to tell you something before you went, but they were finishing off the washing up, or just putting the last touches to their email before shutting their computer down, or hadn’t quite ended the interesting story they were telling their friend: and you sympathise, you really do. Their washing up, their email their story – these are important and worthwhile and should have every moment they deserve: but your boat is drifting and soon it will be gone.

And that’s how I feel.

I have been a mother for thirty years now. My children have grown into responsible, intelligent, creative, talented people. They are wise and good and I admire them immensely. By a curious sequence of blessed events that still slightly takes my breath away I have come to be in this marriage that is the right person at the right time so that we groove along together in the most satisfying contented happiness: lovers, partners, friends. I love these relationships. I love these people. I love sharing my thoughts and their thoughts. I love their company. I love their undeniable dottiness.

But. This is it: the lurking but.

There is in my hands, and slipping out of them fast, an accompanying bundle of administrative detritus. My boat is drifting away from that shore however ready or not.

What I am here to do is primarily to write. Secondarily is to listen and heal and pray. Thirdarily (good word, eh?) is to provide an hospitable space.

I believe that living humbly and simply means things like doing your own chores and growing your own food where you have the chance to - but I feel able to support only the most minimalist and low-tech approach to that. All I have to do in the garden is water it in the evenings, but I can't keep my mind to it. Tonight I didn't do it :0( I felt all used up by the time the evening came. And I haven't done any weeding here at all.

I think it might have been a mistake to lay fitted carpets. They are comfy and look peaceful, but you have to persevere at vacuum cleaning and I can't keep my mind to it. I stick it on but it falls off. Any other bits of floor that need carpet replacement ministry should have wood floor boards laid (1970s chipboard at present I’m sorry to report) so they can be swept: because I don’t mind sweeping. Sweeping is natural and its fur lies the same way as my soul. Vacuum cleaners are inherently demonic: you can tell by the sound, and that’s just the start of it. I am happy to pass through the house tidying once each morning or evening – whichever – so it is calmed: but that has to be easy. No gradual bristling of ornaments growing through. No scattering of magazines and documents and music and half-finished nameless where-the-hell-am-I-meant-to-put-that junk on the kitchen counters – er.. babywipes ladles phonedirectory useful boxes reuseable plastic icelollymiddles rubber bands trays biscuits-we-all-hate pointless baskets and all that crap. My vocation is not always clear to me but it is clear to me I didn’t come here to be a minder for the flotsam and jetsam of 21st century over-production.

I have spent a lot of time on the builders and stove-installers and piano-movers and hearth-layers and wall-menders and electricians and TV aerial engineers this last winter: and that’s it now. They can stay at home. It has slipped out of my hands. My boat has drifted right out of the harbor. Bye-bye.

Here is what I have in mind.

A house with almost no possessions and no ornaments. Kitchen gadgetry to be pruned savagely. Food little and simple, enough for today or so, with space around it on the shelves. Enough plates/cups/bowls/glasses/cutlery for the people who live here and, say, four guests. Floors you can sweep. A garden with grass and fruit-trees and hedges. A hedge man to trim the hedges once a year and the trees once every two years.

Meanwhile, for the plastic flowerpots, atrophied rubber hose, mouldering shed junk, mounds of dead shrubbage, hacked up crazy paving, abandoned sacks of builder plaster, carpet remnants, never-used-in-fifteen-years cunning vacuum-cleaner fittings, the small vacuum cleaner that’s fine unless you have bits on the floor, the split bucket, the old fire surround leaning on the fence – A SKIP!!!

Four saucepans are enough. One set of glasses is enough. Two large glass jugs is two too many. And why have we got an entire drawer of kitchen foil and compost bags and whatever else is in there?

I have to, with profuse apologies, reclaim my days now. I have to write. It’s what I came here to do. Tonight we had a vegan take-away meal from the indian restaurant. I did cook last night but it was awful. I made myself do it but my attention wasn't in it, and I burnt the rice and the curry was seriously rubbish. And if the chores aren't always done; if friends who love me haven't had the attention they deserve; if the fireplace in the back room doesn’t get altered and the French windows aren’t built because no-one was here to see to the builders or make it happen: if the phone rings and nobody answers it, then I am very, very sorry (really) and I will feel very very guilty.

But I have stories going over-ripe inside me. I have to do what I came here to do: and the rest is slipping through my fingers. The season is here for a cull of the time-bandits. The discipline of simplicity needs to ratchet up another notch. Otherwise I shall join the ranks of the people who like to tell me: ‘Oh yes, I’ve always thought I should write a book. Everyone says I should. They say everyone’s got a book inside them don’t they? It’s only a matter of sitting down and writing it… when there always seems to be so much to do… it always gets pushed to one side… I’m just a bit busy right now… but one day I’m sure I’ll write that book…’

(Subtext. Nah. You won’t. Not unless, at some point, you put it first).