the dalai lama said

Of all the various delusions, the sense of discrimination between oneself and others is the worst form, as it creates nothing but unpleasantness for both sides.

a walk in the field

I am worried: I go out for a walk in the hay field and look at myself, heavens! am I looking a bit Boden/Country Living?? Achieved with secondhand & cheap I might add.... I ask the dog but he declines to answer. The dock beatles keep munching and the cows, the cows...the worst has occurred, one has failed her TB test, totally, a test that even the ministry vet says is next to useless, there is a much much more accurate test but it is not used. So both cows will have to go...will we be able to avoid the lorry and slaughter house for the dispatch of the other? It is something I can hardly think about. My parents are not sentimental about animals - though I think in older age it is creeping in, but they don't want to put a cow through the stress of the journey and the slaughterhouse, they stopped doing that some time ago. When the pigs that you are keeping for your own consumption come back with evidence of pre-slaughter bruising it is not OK. And this whole TB problem: the test in very unreliable, many many cattle are slaughtered that don't have the disease - immunity is bred out of the herds and some people blame the badgers. All the while there is a test that is much much more efficent... Oh and the more that an animal is tested (in TB areas more regular testing) the more it will build up antibodies and test positive.... We are having enough of death in this household.

So my lovely lush green walk is tinged with sadness and anger. And I no longer worry about Boden/country Living look. The dog never was worried. then we face the mud as we come back across the stream, nothing like a bit of slippery, wet muddy, deep muddy, stuff to bring ones attention to the NOW.

Remembering Hiroshima

To Share
On contemplating the fate of Hiroshima on August 6th 1945 and the world in 2005..06...07

We breathe in the air that rushed through their lungs
We breathe in the atoms that were their bodies

We slip our feet into sea
that touches all land

We feel the same sun on our skin
as the people who die
as the people who kill
as the people who wait
as the people who order
as the people who obey
as the people who do nothing
as the people who sing
as the people who love
as the people who hate
as the people who are bewildered
as the people who grieve
as the people who accept
as the people who struggle

as the people who cry and laugh and wonder in awe

as the people who have nothing
as the people who want more
as the people who want no more
as the people who want peace

We feel the same sun on our skin
The same air in our lungs
You and I

poppy

Poppies - big red orangey ones, always remind me of my Nan, she had so many in her garden and we would look at them together. She died quite some years ago, but currently the memory is very poignant, perhaps grief filled, as the garden is about to be destroyed and the house demolished. Perhaps an example of justice being mainly for the rich (and devious), and consequently powerful, in our society. It is very difficult to be poor and powerful; not that I have any particular want to wield power, but I would have liked to have prevented the loss of a unique tin house and garden.

Yesterday I heard Gordon Brown saying that he was campaigning to be leader of his party and therefore prime minister of the UK of GB because he wanted to help people, not for power, wealth etc. The trouble is it is his idea of what people need, his judgement. Have I really mentioned politics/current affairs alongside this gorgeous poppy? The wages for MP's, A.M's etc would not be so high, and would not go up by huge percentages if they were truly involved in politics to help people.

The sun is shining briefly, there are the every day things to be done - such as washing clothes..and making tea.....