Three Little monkeys.

While out walking yesterday we noticed some little fir trees that had taken root. The thing was there were no fully grown fir trees anywhere near. The most obvious conclusion seemed to be that some human had put it there, possibly as a future tree to remind us of Christmas. 

The trouble with this was that there were a great many of them all of the different sizes. The nearest fir trees were on the other side of the large expanse of water. had they come over the water as cones and been carried to various places by birds or squirrels. 

This sounded very much like the way evolution worked. So my mind could not stop looking around for other examples of this being the case. Like the Fir trees, I could see a similar happening with holly bushes. Probably brought there by birds eating the berries and in the process spreading the seeds.

As I wandered onwards I began to think more about and more about all the arguments of the past about Darwin and the monkey. The well-known drawing of the silly looking Darwin looking every bit like a monkey. 

I wondered what the monkeys thought of such a thing.

Three monkeys sat in a coconut tree 

Discussing the things that are said to be. 

Said one to another: "Now listen you two 

There's a certain rumour, but it cannot be true' 

That man descended from our noble race.

Why the very idea; it's a disgrace. 

No monkey ever deserted his wife, 

Starved her babies and ruined her life. 

Nor did ever a mother-monkey 

Leave her babies with others to bunk, 

Or pass them on from one to another 

'Till they scarcely knew who was their mother.

And another thing you'll never see 

A monkey building a fence around a coconut tree, 

And let the coconuts go to waste, 

Forbidding all other monkeys to have a taste. 

Why, if I build a fence around a coconut tree, 

Starvation would cause me to distribute to you.

Here's another thing that a monkey won't do: 

Go out at night and get on a stew; 

Or use a gun, a club, or a knife 

To take another monkey's life. 

Yes, Man descended, the ornery cuss! 

But Brother, he didn't descend from us."

Just a thought I hope not too controversial. Have a wonderful and thoughtful day.

Seeing the ghosts of despair.

Friends frequently laugh when I make comment about some of the things I am seeing as I walk. I do not mind their enjoying laughter at my expense especially when I know that many other artists I know also see things that are not there.

I passed this tree on a walk two days ago and could not believe what I was seeing. I took a picture of it and showed it to a number of friends none of whom saw what I was seeing. At last another friend mentioned that they were seeing the same as I was. 

What was I seeing?  A bear. I hope you can now also see it? I have drawn it in black and white and added some very little flecks of green moss but not on the, "Bear," that I have left clear to help him stand out more obviously.

It can be a very frightening experience to see things that are not there but you are seeing them because life has taken a turn for the worse and an addiction is taking a firm hold. I have heard many people explain to me the pink elephant experience. This happens when a person has become so addicted to a drug or alcohol. There are those times when the craving takes a frightening hold and the gremlins start to appear.

The next step is so often the desire to have this terrible life come to and end and suicide is contemplated or attempted. A dear friend spoke to me recently of just such a terrible feeling. To feel that there is non way back from the depths of nightmares.

At one stage in my life I allowed alcohol to take such a hold on my life that I had to make dramatic changes. For others the only remedy is cold turkey nothing at all of that which is causing the pain. 

For me this was not the road I had to travelling a fortunate and determined person I was able to take control of my life and make a change in lifestyle which allowed me to be in control and not controlled.

It is for others a frightening prospect. I would want all those who are going through such a nightmare to know they are never alone, there are always those around who care enough to be ready to offer support.  I want my friend to know that life may seem black at this moment but it can be better and this can end.

It begins with the reality check of what has gone wrong. 

Those who drink to drown their sorrows should know that sorrows know how to swim and drowning them is never an alternative. 

Another realism is the effects of what it is that is grasping your life and see it for what it is.

When I was younger I learned the following.

We drank for happiness and became unhappy.
We drank for joy and became miserable.
We drank for sociability and became argumentative.
We drank for sophistication and became obnoxious.
We drank for friendship and made enemies.
We drank for sleep and awakened without rest.
We drank for strength and felt weak.
We drank "medicinally" and acquired health problems.
We drank for relaxation and got the shakes.
We drank for bravery and became afraid.
We drank for confidence and became doubtful.
We drank to make conversation easier and slurred our speech.
We drank to feel heavenly and ended up feeling like hell.
We drank to forget and were forever haunted.
We drank for freedom and became slaves.
We drank to erase problems and saw them multiply.
We drank to cope with life and invited death.               

Once we grasp the reality we have made the first step to making the change. Tonight I will have a glass of Rose' with my my family or possibly a glass of beer with my son. For others this is not possible but it is not the end of the world. 

To all struggling in anyway remember you are not alone. Have a calm day and lean on those who care.

I hope all who read will understand my reasons for writing if this blog does not offer help to them.

Events and how they turn.

My son watched me finish off this painting of koi. He was honest enough to say that in his opinion it was not one of my better paintings. When I had finished telling him that it was a very good painting to hang in certain parts of a room because it was the kind of painting that encouraged good Feng Shui he was still not in the least impressed.

He is probably correct, but I am also probably correct that there is always more to things than we are at first aware of. It never fails to amaze me how the painting of any animal life brings from me another view of life. I never paint wildlife of any kind without a feeling of caring and love coming to my mind. 

It was so with this painting also. So maybe this was what I meant when I tried to explain that it brought good Feng Shui.

There is always more to situations than we first notice. Yesterday I walked along the side of Coniston water in all its beauty, but it was here that Malcolm Campbell the man who was determined to break the speed record of a boat on this very water. Thoughts of that day always pass through my mind as I reach the point where his machine took to the air flipped over and killed him.

As I walked I sensed that those walking with me were each in their own way seeing this view and perspective in a different way.

Things are not always as they seem.

On a lighter note we passed a field where a farm and his dog were at work gently herding sheep towards the gate to the field. 

I was reminded of the story of the person who saw this for the very first time being amazed by the clever animal. On each whistle the dog would turn or lie down stand or gently move forward. The lady watching said to the farmer, "That is amazing, what do you call the dog?"

The farmer looked at her and then over to his wife who stood nearby. He said to the woman, "You know that flower that is often red and has thorns on its stem?" "Yes she said," thinking the dog was going to be called Rose. She told him it was a Rose. He turned to his wife and said, "Rose, what is it that we call the dog?"

Another funny tale makes the same point. A man and wife were standing in a long line awaiting their time to get their boarding pass for the cruise they were about to go on. The man turned to his wife and said he had wished he had brought the piano. She looked at him amazed and reminded him they already had four cases each. She could not understand why he would also want to bring the piano. 

He turned back to her and said, "That is all very well but the tickets are on the piano."

Have a wonderful day and enjoy that things are never as bad as they may seem. Yes I know they might be worse. 

Life can be so full of surprises and happy events and thoughts.

Friends

Last night I had the pleasure of meeting up with this friend in the Lake District. Having not seen him for a few months it was nice to catch up with him. I painted this picture of him a year ago but having got better at using my pencil I thought I would return to it and see what I could do. I am happy with the result will see how he feels later.

Friendship is a wonderful thing. I have friends in the Lake District I do not see very often but it is always such a pleasure to be back in their company.

By friendship you mean the greatest love, the greatest usefulness, the most open communication, the noblest sufferings, the severest truth, the heartiest counsel, and the greatest union of minds of which brave men and women are capable.

Not that is a definition of what real friendship is and I feel honoured to be able to say that I have friends who would fill that measure.

I have friends and members of my family who would say that friendship could be summed up thus. "Nothing in the world is friendlier than a wet dog. "

A newspaper publication once offered a prize for the best definition of a friend. Among the thousands of answers received were the following.

 
"One who multiplies joys, divides grief, and whose honesty is inviolable." 

"One who understands our silence." 

"A volume of sympathy bound in cloth." 

"A watch that beats true for all time and never runs down." 

The winning definition read: "A friend is the one who comes in when the whole world has gone out."

My apologies that this blog is rather short, but I am sure my friends will understand.

It must be Love.

I was reminded the other day of one of the lessons I always enjoyed teaching. I taught the lesson after my first or second lesson with the class of students newly arrived from the lower school.

I began by playing devil's advocate and making a wild statement saying that I was so fed up listening to people talking about love. There is no such thing as love and nobody in this room who can prove to me that it exists. Of course, teenagers in the heat of the onrush of hormones were not going to take such a statement lying down.  Murmers started in the room and it was obvious that nobody believed what I was saying.

My next comment was of course, "if there is such a thing would you please like to break into groups of four and come up with one sentence that tells me without a shadow of a doubt that you have discovered the meaning of the word.

Much discussion took place until I called time on the exercise, I cannot remember a time when a group of four could agree about the sentence they were going to submit.

The trouble is not, does love exist or not, the trouble is that we have a word that is used far too frequently in our language.  It is a word that we have used to such an extent that it seldom if ever has a definitive meaning. 

Far too easily we can say that we love a beefburger and in the same breath say that we love another person. I had been captivated by this from a very early age in my life, hearing the word used so frequently that being me I could not work out what was meant by the word at all.

It was the philosopher Pascal who said the following about love.

If a man loves a woman for her beauty, does he love her? No; for the small-pox, which destroys her beauty without killing her, causes his love to cease. 

And if anyone loves me for my judgment or my memory, does he really love me? No; for I can lose these qualities without ceasing to be.

The real trouble is that we have only one word for Love. The Greeks had four words for Love, some say possibly five. I settle for the four. 

Storge which is an empathy for others, a feeling for what they are experiencing an attempt to stand along aside in their joy or need.

Philia or philos a love for friends a love that stands beside others because we know that the other would stand equally beside us.

Eros is a kind of erotic love a love that looks for something in return. A love that wishes to be loved. 

Agape is an unconditional love that gives and gives and looks for nothing in return just simply goes on loving because that is how it happens to be. 

Once I discovered this I began to see why it seemed that we used the word love in so many ways and never with the same meaning. using the word love became so much more important to me and I never use it now without first knowing the context in which I use it.

So Love can be.

Silence, when your words would hurt.

Patience, when your neighbour's curt.

Deafness, when a scandal flows.

Thoughtfulness, for other's woes.

Promptness, when stern duty calls.

Courage, when misfortune falls. 

And oh so much more.

Another  teacher in an adult-education creative-writing class told the group to write "I love you" in 25 words or less, without using the words "I love you." 

She gave  15 minutes. 

A woman in the class spent about ten minutes looking at the ceiling and wriggling in her seat. The last five minutes she wrote frantically, and later read us the results. She had written.

"Why, I've seen lots worse hairdos than that, honey."

"These cakes are hardly burned at all."

"Cuddle up, I'll get your feet warm."

Yes that gets close. have a marvellous day and think of all the ways you love and are loved. 

Just a thought.

One of the most frustrating things about friends on facebook is all those friends who since you last knew them have had a change of name. This is almost always the case when the friend happens to be a female from the distant past who have since you knew them well have become married and in the process, their name has changed.

This makes memories of times and incidents shared that much more difficult to remember. This came to me yesterday when I was talking to a friend from my youth about another friend from the same era. I became aware that the person I was talking to was not the same name as the person I remembered from that time and the person I was mentioning in the conversation had changed her name also. All so very confusing.

Memory is such a strange thing. More and more we now hear talk of Alzheimer's and the terrible way it affects the mind and memory.   How I would not like to be so inflicted.

Now that being said I do remember in my youth having real difficulty with remembering the things that were important. I dreaded when the homework assignments were being given out. I used to sit in the class saying to myself, "please oh please do not give me a poem to learn. Or even worse a large section of the old testament which seemed to be a favourite of many teachers. 

Both of those tasks were nightmare tasks for me.

Now if I jump forward a few years. At the end of every church service as the minister, I went to the door of the church and spoke to those who had attended that morning. I very quickly learned that remembering the names of those I was speaking to was very much appreciated. If I could also remember the names of the rest of the family that was even better.

My first church was a small church seating just over 600 people. The task of remembering the names was daunting but not impossible. My second church seated nearer one thousand so the task got much more difficult. 

It was possible and after a few months, I was 99% of the way there just making the very odd mistake. 

How was it possible? it was possible because I wanted it to be so. Learning a section of the old testament was that much more difficult and the poem slightly easier but still difficult. Why? because I really could not care about learning either of those other than to keep myself out of trouble.

So many of the problems of memory have nothing to do with illness or anything other than what I would call, "selective hearing. " if we chose not to pay attention to what is being told then there is little chance in us remembering later. 

My little secret with names was that having heard a name I immediately found some kind of association that would enable me to prompt my memory. So Jenny ....... was not just jenny ..... she was also jenny with the bun that looked like a penny on her head.  It worked and it still works to this day. I have a head full of useless information and useful facts all buzzing around awaiting the need to be recalled.

Improving one's memory is not all that difficult. 

Most of us simply don't expend the time or effort required. The true art of memory is the art of attention. We can improve our memories by simply putting our minds to it and by following a few simple rules.

1) Remember to remember. Telling yourself that you want to remember this or that fact and concentrating on it will improve your memory immediately. We remember what we WANT to remember. 

2) Sharpen your observation. Pay close attention to what you see and hear. Use images. Shut your eyes and try to SEE it. Notice details. really LOOK at things. Few people actually do. 

3) Practice recall. Forgetting is most rapid soon after learning. It helps, therefore, to make a deliberate effort to repeat and review immediately. Repetition will help fix the fact or image in our minds. 

4) Concentrate. Eliminate distractions. The mind is at its best when it is centred on one thing at a time. Avoid such things as fatigue, noise, and competing visual images during the time you are trying to learn. 

Why am I wasting my time and yours telling you this? Because it was brought to my attention as I have said and it was commented to me that I seemed to have a head full of memories. I do and such a joy they bring me so often. Little shared moments with friends are the smiles of a day. 

Old age is not an excuse or a reason to forget. The brain is a marvellous organ waiting to be fed more useless and useful information let it rest at your peril.

Today's homework assignment. I am smiling because I have already learned that verse from the Tao Te Ching this morning and will repeat it once or twice as I walk just to make it stay there.

Have joyful memory filled day. Thanks to those on pages like memories of past Rosyth and such thanks to friends like Jim and Malcolm who keep those things going a wealth of joy. 

Dogs and Beaches.

A painting of a dog on Easter? Now, why did I not do something more religious for this very special day for so many? 

I suppose the easy answer is that I have painted very little else this last week but this and another dog.  Each individual hair was painted and each individual stroke time and thought. I was doing it for somebody held special.

I will return to that thought before I finish.

I always find this time of year very emotional in so many ways. For years it was a very important time in my life. Good Friday I would conduct a three-hour service between 12 noon and 3pm in the afternoon of led meditation and the singing of hymns. One such that one of my friends reminded me of the other day. The last verse of that song written to the tune of Taste of Honey was about Resurrection.

Good Friday evening I held an all-night vigil in the church again people could come and go at any time.

Then on Easter Sunday up early to walk with others to Watch the sunrise on Easter Morning. 

All of those memories come flooding back and I see the faces many who shared those moments with me, some now no longer alive. I find it very emotional. 

No longer being a minister I do not have those things to fill my time and energy. I fill the days with another kind of intensity. I always try to do something that involves an act of love and caring.

This year it was the painting of two dogs and I hope in the days ahead they do just that. 

Not completely off the mark for this day. 

I said I painted every single hair and every stroke was done with meaning. One of the poems I wrote many years ago on an Easter Sunday on Iona.

Iona Beach

I stood upon that lonely beach

Sunrise and the beauty of it all

Coeruleum the sea stretched out,

to kiss the waiting sky

Caressing the Dutchman's cap,

Crashing on the shore of Staffa

Beating against the walls of Fingal's Cave with a timpani of sound.\Bare feet warmed by golden sand. Whispering grass atop the white-faced dunes.

No words will ere express that inner beat. In the midst of majesty so rare.

In the lingering moment when time stood still

so small I felt.

Stooping I took within my palm 

a million grains of sand

and let them trickle through outstretched fingers

reminding me that time moves ever onward.

He knows each grain, each golden gem.

In that same knowing care

he holds me also

each hair upon my head he counts.

Matter? 

Yes, I do!

For I am held in hands that do not let slip through

or fall away.

In every moment of each day, I am precious.

I know that for many who will read this today this will be a very important day full of thoughts and memories. 

Others will not. Easter will be just another day on the onward passage of life. For them, I hope that today they are aware, like me, that life and each of us are indeed precious and have a part to play in the beauty of creation.

A happy Easter to all. One last thought about dogs.  You own a dog, you feed a cat. Both in their own way return the love and kindness.

Forgive my emotional rants and thoughts. Have a great day.