Paul and I have always been avid readers. Our favourite authors have accompanied us along our way and supplemented our story, giving us perspective, always teaching valuable lessons just when they were needed most. The best of these works I have reread at later dates because they have the capacity to teach me more when I am ready to hear it.
This is a « miraculous » process by which they present the necessary insights at just the right time. Consequently, these books and key insights have to have a place here to remind me of the value they brought me and their meaning in my understanding of what « is ».
As this understanding has broadened, recognisable themes have emerged that I come back to time and again. As I discover new perspectives that add to these themes, my understanding of them deepens. Increasingly, I discover these themes are all interconnected. Curiously though, nothing ever feels new, it is as though I had the understanding within me all along as though this truth should be perfectly obvious to everyone.
In the particular way I function, these insights give me the sense of « moments of deep comprehension » rather than representing a genuinely growing knowledge base. This explains why I feel the need to commit these nefarious constituent elements of my experience here at Kerolivier to this site as a suitable « resting place ».
Legacy
“Your legacy is never one thing. Your legacy is every life you have touched, every person whose life was either moved or not. It’s every person you have harmed or helped. That is your legacy.” Maya Angelou
Work
“It doesn’t matter how slow you go, so long as you don’t stop!” – Confucius
Sensibility
Pattern
Halldor Laxness wrote « Independent People » over 100 years ago:
« What is one to say? It so happens that it signifies little though a crofter may be offered a grant from the Treasury towards the cost of tractors and modern ploughs. Or a forty year loan to build a concrete house with double walls, water on tap, Lino and electric light. Or a bonus on his deposits. Or a prize for cultivating a large expanse of land. Or a princely manure cistern for the droppings of one and a half cows. The fact is that it is utterly pointless to make anyone a generous offer unless he is a rich man. Rich men are the only people who can accept a generous offer. To be poor is simply the peculiar human condition of not being able to take advantage of a generous offer. The essence of being a poor peasant is the inability to avail oneself of the gifts which politicians offer or promise and to be left at the mercy of ideals which only make the rich richer and the poor poorer. »
Nothing has changed. All this leads me around to asking yet again what it is in humanity that maintains these ancient patterns of war and strife, conquest and theft, over and over. Is it part of the evolutionary path mapped out for us that the most violent, devious and greedy will, time and again, allow themselves to usurp their positions of power and subjugate the fairer minded or weaker ones, leaving a choice only of resist or surrender?
Language
« 32 words for Field » by Manchan Magan
Language could be the only weapon in times of greatest need. Not that it can stop mass killing but perhaps it plays a role in keeping a shred of hope of better times alive in the darkest hour, eventually conspiring to let the phoenix of fair mindedness rise from the ashes when the time is right.
In these times of bizarre political events and machinations (Trump and Musk playing superhero in a geopolitical « comic » strip) what preparations can be made for the long winter that is surely ahead of us? How can spells/prayer/language help to keep the candle of hope alive where truth and righteousness are being abused at every turn. Misinformation and manipulation are hitting us, wave upon wave, and I see many good people get lost in the cabinet of smoke and mirrors.
Immigrants are not the problem. They are the consequence of catastrophic power politics of long standing, now taken to the next level of insult being added to injury. Ukraine will follow Afghanistan in short order. There will be nothing left to admire of western values by the time Trump’s term ends. A spectacularly unheroic end to what seemed like a promising cycle of history for a spell.
Meanwhile, we keep company with fair mindedness of any sort where ever it survives and keep the candle burning for the next new cycle of hopefulness until it is time for its resurrection.
Morning Prayer
May I live this day Compassionate of heart, Clear in word, Gracious in awareness, Courageous in thought, Generous in love.
John O’Donohue, Excerpt from ‘Matins’ in BENEDICTUS