We cannot go as far back as the first intellectual discussions human beings had about the world, but as far back as we are able to go we find reflected in our beliefs the dichotomy between good things happening and bad things happening. Born from the experience of everyday living and from the observation that…
Tag: nature
This Mobile Living
There is a scene in the book ‘How Green Was My Valley’ (I believe) in which the protagonist walks with a girl from another village and gets home late to find his male relatives sitting with their boots on waiting for trouble. The reason being that the girl comes from the next valley and they…
Lions And Lambs
I am surprised that people universally seem to think animals are stupid. I am sure this is to do with the fact that we have an immeasurable sense of our importance – we have created religions in which we are just off centre of most important beings in the Universe (we have to put god…
Seasons
As everyone knows by now winter has come early to the UK and far from me at the moment, people are struggling to get through the snow and ice to school and work. In the old days when communities were communities, people just closed the front door and gathered around a fire and kept warm…
After The Rain
I know people in the USA have had severe hurricanes the past week and usually when it hits the East Coast, bad storms sweep across Cornwall, and sure enough we had some wild weather with masses of rain; to be expected at the tail end of autumn. It cleans the trees and brings down the…
When It Is Too Late
There has always been much discussion about forgiveness. Even when people come down on the side of being unforgiving they usually do so from a deep sense of injustice or hurt and see the lack of forgiveness as justice. After all countries are appallingly bad at forgiveness which is why they go to war so…
Area Code
It is strange to think that the United Kingdom, with thousands of miles of coast and sea view properties, has given an postal area code to every inch of sea. Almost as strange as through International treaty having three miles of the Atlantic all the way round as a buffer zone in which everything becomes…
Terror
The terror in Western history is associated with the time in the French Revolution when the guillotine was used to murder around a thousand people. But terror has a far longer and more unsavoury history in human society. It has been a determinate for change and one of the factors behind our need for Community….
The View
You know it well of course, you look over a house and one of the first things you look at is the view from the windows. It is deeply within us to look out, like our ancestors crossing vast stretches of tundra, we look not only to see what is around us but also simply…
Dr Doolittle
I was a reader, and still am a fan, of Hugh Lofting’s Dr Doolittle books. Apart from the sheer fun of using giant moths to fly to the moon and huge snails to cross the seabed, I just liked the idea of being able to talk to animals. It’s an idea that has followed me…