The Car Crash
Our voices must be heard!
I passed by a car crash today.
It was horrific.
There for the grace of god go I.
Etcetera.
So we all stopped our cars
And got out our picnics
And started to discuss whose fault the crash was.
Most of us hadn’t seen the crash happen.
Somebody had. She filled us in.
We quickly came to our own VERY strong conclusions
About who was to blame.
Those conclusions differed.
Before long, our roadside picnic
Turned into its own kind of car crash.
Because, it turned out
Each of us was very attached to their own conclusion.
Things got a little feisty.
Families who a short while earlier
Had been travelling along quite happily together
Came to blows.
Meanwhile, the victims of The Car Crash continued to suffer.
Some of them dead. Some of them dying.
A lot of pain.
The ambulances managed to get through I think.
We weren’t really paying attention by now.
You have to understand.
It was very important
That our voices were being heard.
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They Are All Ghosts
… so, who ya gonna call?
The anxiety that comes from worrying about what other people think about us, is perhaps the most debilitating of all. It’s dominated far too much of my own life. And it’s also completely pointless. There are no redeeming features to this sort of worry.
It’s a fiction inside our heads that has the power to read itself aloud, like an internal audio book on repeat, whether or not the people that we are feeling anxious about are:
-In the room
-Thinking about us even a little bit
-Able to affect us
-Care about us
-Close by
-Far away
-Or even alive.
Yes, I’ve had internal conversations, regarding things I’m trying to sort out in relation to people who in actual reality are deid!
The thing is the dead people in our heads are no more or less a lie, a made up character in effect, than the living ones.
They Are All Ghosts.
And like all ghosts, all they really require is a little acknowledgement of their existence. They don’t need lengthy and repeated conversations that only we can hear, because only we can see these particular ghosts.
I’m finding if I recognise these internal conversations for the “Ghosties” they are, and if I don’t run and hide, but allow myself to “see” them, then they can and do quickly vanish into the ether. And perhaps they return. But then the same thing applies. It is very possible for them to stop returning.
So, in conclusion, we could give Ghostbusters a call. We could purchase our very own Ecto Goggles, Proton Packs, Ghost Traps, and Slime Blowers.
Or perhaps we already have the required tools to do the job ourselves.
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Nice To Meat You
…poetry in emotion.
A very quick riff below, with no particular direction home, after a conversation about animal welfare with my youngest son who is a vegan.
”Nice To Meat You”
Said the farmer to the horse
”It’s OK, this is Scotland,
I’m not French!
I’m not going to eat you.
Nor the frog that is sitting
Quite quietly on your back
With his legs crossed
As though afraid
That I might start thinking
About removing them
And frying them
And…
Anyway, I’m not an animal!
Or rather I am
But not the kind of animal
That eats your kind of animal.
It’s rather hard to explain
And I expect you’re both glad
That you don’t suffer
These kind of moral dilemmas.
Have a nice day!”
To Be Me
… but that’s you.
I’ve got the whole world in my head.
Or, my head is the whole world. All that’s there is all that’s there.
That hill I see through the window, away in the distance, is actually not “there” at all. It’s right here in my consciousness. In fact that’s the only place it is, as far as my own experience goes. It’s in the same place, in fact, as the fingers that are typing this text. And as my vision of that text.
These kind of thoughts, and more, could blow a blokes mind. But, when I examine them, they seem to be true. I didn’t work this out for myself. Other folk pointed me in this direction.
And now I’m in this direction, it’s inescapable. It’s also liberating. The whole experience is mine to be experienced. It’s a unique, lonely, complete, transformative place to be.
To Be Me.
A Little Bit Concerned
Say what you want to say.
I’ve always tried to acknowledge my own luck in living, as I have, through a period of time where peace existed in my part of the world, when my part of the world was relatively wealthy, and where there was a fair amount of equality and social justice. To a large extent this is still the case.
At some point I probably believed that, give or take the odd setback, the only way was up. I’m not so confident of that anymore for a whole host of reasons. One of the main ones being the changes that are occurring in regard in the realm of free speech - our recognition that everybody has the right to express their opinion, including provably wrong ones, or prejudiced ones, as long as that right isn’t used to incite attacks upon other people.
Free speech is the first thing to come under attack in a society heading in a bad direction, and if that goes, then there is an undoubted danger that other positive aspects of living in the kind of place that is good to live, will come under threat.
And the most important kind of free speech is probably the kind we disagree with.
I’ve been very slow to notice change, for all sorts of reasons, but the first time I became properly aware of how much this basic sign of a healthy society was coming under attack, occurred when I listen to a podcast, not so long ago, about the demonisation of a previous heroine of the liberal left, Harry Potter author, J.K. Rowling.
A few years ago she got involved in the widely publicised transgender argument, by speaking up in defence of others who themselves had been attacked or had had their jobs taken away. In this instance for expressing concern about the safety of women, if some human beings, born as men, could change their gender after the fact, and then be allowed to use facilities previously designated for women only.
Right or wrong, this is a completely reasonable concern. And yet Rowling became subject to enormous amounts of online abuse as well as genuine physical threats to her life, for voicing her opinion. Some of these mainly online attacks probably come under the designation of “free speech” themselves - she herself acknowledged this - but never the less were extremely excessive, and perhaps a sign that a freedom to “speak your mind” was not quite the given that it had been. The strange thing was that much of this abuse came from people who were fans of her books.
In my own world, during the Scottish Independence debates, I was aware that some people who opposed the idea said they were a little bit frightened of speaking their own minds, because of the vehemence of abuse they could get from some of factions of my own side of the argument. (Ironically, J.K. Rowling was one of those people).
At the time I went along with the idea that, though it was wrong that this should happen, the other side were worse. But that really isn’t the point, even if true. The fact that there is an atmosphere of fear, and I feel it too these days, about simply talking through certain subjects, is a sign of a sea change in the whole area of free speech.
And I’ve mentioned even more pertinent examples recently, when my wife lost her job because of opinions that she was expressing.
Something that we used to take for granted is under threat. It’s affecting all of us. And I haven’t got any great insights or answers. I think there are very complicated causes which I don’t personally understand.
But it is fair to say that I am more than A Little Bit Concerned. I don’t believe that real justice, or any kind of healthy societies and communities, can exist without true freedom of speech. I want to be able to speak my mind. I want to live in a world where everybody can. And I truly hope that other people can have that freedom around me, without fear or trepidation, or any sense of reluctance.
This Little Light
… is yours alone.
This Little Light of mine
I’m going to let it shine.
Which may or may not help if you’re in the same room as me.
On the other hand, be very cautious of the hands that have access to the fuse board. Or, to make matters a little less opaque, always watch out for attacks upon free speech.
More tomorrow on this one.
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Never Mind
… drip, drip, drip.
Drip drip drip.
We are getting drips. In a different place from the previous drips, which we have never managed to put an end to, either by ourselves or with expert assistance.
Water is quite an amazing thing. Life giving.
But also potentially destructive.
Over centuries, and millenium gouging out gorges, and valleys, and canyons, and caves and…
…over a slightly shorter period playing havoc with our plasterboards.
So after berating one of the boys about taking a shower, I’ve now had to tell the same fella to stop taking a shower. Never Mind.
Drip, drip, drip.
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Get The Sparks Flying
… and the arse kicked.
I mentioned that recently I had been struggling to get inspired in a songwriting sense, and in music generally. I’ve started doing a few things to Get The Sparks Flying.
Firstly, after many years of threatening to, but never really doing so, I’ve started to learn to play a couple of songs that I really like. I mean ones that I didn’t write. And then the plan is to learn more, and make them a small part of my repertoire when I gig. One of those songs, I kind of already knew, and I may even have played once. A cracker of a song by Christie Moore called Ride On. The second one is another love song, also one of my favourites by The Beautiful South called Prettiest Eyes.
I’m late to the party when it comes to singing covers, but the time feels right.
Secondly, I’m learning a new strumming/picking technique. I did the same a couple of years ago and wrote a song using that technique called Holy Water. The plan is to do the same with the new technique. I certainly haven’t mastered it yet, but I am at the point where I can start singing over it while I play. That gets the juices going.
Finally I’m taking part in a wee Songwriting Circle organised by Forest Of Songs and its founder Cecily Pearce. Cecily, I know, will get the ball rolling properly and (I’m just mixing and murdering a few metaphors to warm up) hammer the final nail in my apathetic coffin, putting an end to any songwriting malaise I’m suffering. (ps. The start date has changed to the 26th Feb if you were interested in joining the fun).
None of this is rocket science of course. And, sometimes, all ya really need is ye goode old fashioned kick up the arse!
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I Woke Up One Day
… inevitably.
Had a lovely talk about Determinism with one of my sons on Skype last night. As you do.
But …as the old joke goes … I was bound to say that.
Not many people are enamoured by the idea that, even if, in one sense we are capable of making voluntary actions, we don’t actually have free will - that there is an inevitability to everything we do. It’s an even less popular concept than trying to take “God” out of the equation.
On the surface it seems to go against our intuition, and how we feel that we operate in day to day life. But in practise, even when we “decide” to do something, that decision is simply the last domino to fall, in a long sequence of dominos that go back to the beginning of time. If there is such a thing. And we didn’t have any control over any of those dominos if we are honest.
It’s fine to say “I could have done that, instead of this”. But I didn’t. I did this. And I have, again if I’m honest, absolutely know idea what particular thought, movement or sensation is going to step to the front stage of my consciousness in the next instance.
An interesting thing happens though, if we take Free Will out of the equation. We can’t help but develop more compassion for ourselves and for everybody else in the world. Including the Bad Buggers.
”Yeah, but I want to FEEL better than other people. I want to take credit for my achievements. I want my hard earned status (!???) and sense of superiority”.
But I discovered, when I Woke Up One Day as a Determinist, just as I woke up one day not believing in God, that the world didn’t fall apart. Instead it opened things up a little bit more. I was still the same person with the same desires and motivations. I still wanted to develop good habits, make the most of this life, and live as though other people’s lives mattered.
But I was able to do so with a greater sense of wonder, and a great deal more inclination to feel forgiveness and understanding for everybody. Including myself. Just the inclination I should add. But also a new readiness to start again pretty much immediately, when I failed.
It’s a hard idea to get the old noodle around, and a little bit discombobulating at times. And it undoubtedly raises lots of relevant questions. But I’m finding it quite liberating. And actually, I can’t see things any other way now. The fact that my life is inevitable, doesn’t steal the pleasure away. It’s just a different, and uncluttered way of seeing.
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Neural Shorelines
… and trying to carry unnecessary objects.
Wasting time trying
To lift huge boulders lying
Stranded on these Neural Shorelines.
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When You Stub Your Toe
…it’s all forgotten.
For those of us who have suffered from mental health issues, here is an observation:
The weight of that history, the sense that it is something we are “always battling with”, the experience of sadness, the memories of being hurt, the lack of energy, the “unfairness”, the feeling of being unable to think outside of the dark bubble…
- All of THAT, however it is manifesting itself in a particular moment … is just a memory. A memory of past pain in our present consciousness. It isn’t ALL of that history. It is ONLY the memory of that history in the moment. It is occurring in our consciousness, and nowhere else. And only now.
There are plenty of ways that may and sometimes do help us to deal with mental health issues. But still, fundamentally, the main issue we are dealing is this moment, right here, right now. If it feels like an enormous accumulation of pain…well that feeling is itself just a memory in the moment.
We can and should notice it. In fact trying to push it away feeds it, and it will keep coming back. But when we notice it, look at it, we can then watch it pass by like every other memory and thought that we’ve ever had.
And if we think that is impossible, see how clearly all of history is forgotten instantly, When You Stub Your Toe.
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Pancake Day
…in loving memory.
Pancake Day, and a time to remember my mum with fondness.
She hated making pancakes, and it has been, periodically, a source of merriment, particularly for my sister and me, remembering what that day was like back in the past.
Let’s put it this way. We didn’t get many pancakes. The ones we got tended to be very holey. Or very dark. And yes, some of them did stick to the kitchen ceiling. She got quite flustered to be honest. But it’s fun remembering. It puts the Shrove in Tuesday.
This might not seem like a great way of honouring my mum’s memory. But I know for a fact that, when I’m gone, my own boys will undoubtedly recall and laugh about the way I manage to get all sorts of famous names wrong, usually in hilariously subtle ways. Hilarious to them anyway!
My mum, according to my dad, is in heaven, and I hope she’s having a laugh about it all herself now. And I will have a skeletal giggle (I won’t be in heaven…I’ll be getting tickled by worms) at the thought of my boys having a laugh at my expense.
It’s the way things should be.
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Only A Pup
…and a little rant :)
It’s been very quiet on the hill. But I saw my first “Other Person” of the month on my walk up to The Bench on Beinn Ghuilean today. Well, truth be told, I saw his dog first.
”He’s Only A Pup” was in fact very large and boisterous, and a little bit nippy. The man who appeared was apologetic and embarrassed. He’d clearly taken him on the hill because of the likelihood of not seeing anyone. But, hey, people get everywhere.
Dogs are great companions for some folk. But I do think, I have long thunk, that dog owners should be required (by law)to train their dogs to the point of obedience. I’ve been a reluctant dog owner in the past (kids and foster kids are very persuasive) and spent countless hours reading up about and training the two dogs in order to try to install basic obedience into them. It didn’t work perfectly, but it did work.
”Only A Pup” would undoubtedly have knocked over, certainly scared, and quite possibly hurt, one of my grand weans. I’ve got an adult son who still has a dog phobia by virtue of being attacked by a small dog when he was little. A foster son, who loves dogs, not along ago got bitten on the arse by somebody’s, and needed a precautionary injection.
So yes, dogs are great, man’s best pal and all that, but they are also a serious responsibility.
I got hold of “only a pup” at the owners request. He told me he’d need to keep him there for a while or he’d follow me up the hill.
And on my return there was a lovely Big Turd by the stile entrance.
Now there is a chip on my shoulder. (Sorry Chris ;).
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Keep Things Stupidly Simple
The next move
You may have noticed that the subject of Homesong, the thing itself, gigs in homes, is not being talked about very much on this here Homesong blog at the moment.
It has indeed been a while. After The Covid Years and my attempts to propagate things during that period with an online version of Homesong a kind of weariness gradually set in. Lots of reasons for that, but I’m not inclined to analyse them here at the moment.
But I am ready to get back on the horse again, albeit a slightly different kind of horse.
There is going to be much more of a local focus. Basically, I’m going to do my best to get any local songwriters in Kintyre to come and gather for a session once a month at my house. Along with anyone who wants to come and witness the thing. No big song and dance going to be made about it. It’s going to be on the last Thursday of each month. And we’ll see how things go.
There are several reasons for the change of focus. I’ll perhaps talk about those further down the line.
But the bottom line, I think, is that I’m not a great marketeer. And banging on about My Thing (a necessary component of getting anything off the ground consistently) is not really my forte. Though I have given it a good shot I feel.
Instead, I’ve got a new motto, which I adapted from the acronym that songwriting impresario Rosie Bans told me about - K.I.S.S. (Keep Things Simple Stupid).
My slight variation on the theme, less insulting to oneself, and more personally relevant is….Keep Things Stupidly Simple.
I know what that means for me. And that’s what I’m going to try and do.
Free Speech
…means we’re obliged to listen.
I’ve come to cherish free speech more than I ever did.
But part of the deal here, I’m coming to realise, in taking the notion of Free Speech seriously, is the need, our need, to start separating what is said from the person who is saying it.
I’ve been as tribalised in my thinking as anybody over the years. And part of that thinking means believing, firstly, that you, not Them, are on the side of good. And the other part is the tendency to demonise certain representatives of Them, to the point at which anything that person says is disregarded completely. Because They said it. Part of the mantra is, that if you take anything they say seriously, you are already kind of corrupted, and even worse, betraying your own tribe.
Examples of the sort of people who fell into my own category, my own tribe’s category, of Demon are well known names like Donald Trump, Nigel Farage and Piers Morgan.
(One of these people inspired, from a sense of incomprehension and anxiety, a whole album, “Too Much Of Everything” which I wrote and recorded as The Strunts with my friend Les Oman. You can probably work out who, if you happened to listen to it, or even if you didn’t. It remains an album of which I’m proud and which we both stand by).
The names I mention above are representative of the kind of “demons” who I stopped being able to listen to. Part of the reason for that was that I genuinely didn’t like listening to them. But the other reason undoubtedly was, that it is far easier to demonise someone, when we put our fingers in our ears and block out anything that is being said.
Because listening, genuinely listening, to anybody at all, means that we will inevitably find that, while we may well disagree with them on many or most things, and might find they themselves highly disagreeable, never the less we will bump into some words they say with which we actually do agree.
This is a very uncomfortable moment. Particularly for those of us who hate conflict, but love truth, because it stirs up a lot of cognitive dissonance. We want to fully BELONG (to our own tribe) but we also want to acknowledge TRUTH (where-ever it happens to show up).
So, as I say, the easy option, is to not listen at all. Then we can keep our “Truth” and still be loved and a fully paid up member of our own tribe. We can still belong.
I think this was my own subconscious working out.
But I was wrong. I was very wrong.
And I have come to believe that not listening to those I strongly disagree with, or dislike, and not separating the speech from the speaker, is one of the most dangerous acts that I have committed towards my own growth as a human. Towards my own integrity. And when many millions of us are doing this kind of thing (and we are) and when we are encouraged to do so, as seems to be happening much more in the last ten years, then it becomes dangerous for the whole of humanity.
That’s what I’ve come to believe.
So I’ve been challenging myself, and I challenge you - try listening to one of your own self labelled Demons, and do nothing more - nothing more - than try and find something they say with which you agree.
We don’t die or become corrupt when we do this. Though our hands might get a little bit dirty and we may need to hold our noses at times.
Yet in doing so we can’t help, at least in that instance, to grow and stretch ourselves a little bit, as human beans. And, most importantly, cease to play a part, at that moment, in a massive, uncoordinated but, I believe, very real, wall building psychology that has emerged, and that is calcifying our relationships and our peaceful co-existence world wide.
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It’s Baltic Out There
always take the weather with you
It’s Baltic Out There.
I don’t usually look at the weather report. About the same amount as I watch the news. I’m not a farmer, and I like surprises. Like weatherman Michael Fish, and everybody else, I was surprised by the hurricane that hit the south coast in the Eighties. Myself and Ineke were in Kent at the time, and got woken by a brick flying through our second floor window.
These days the weather is up and down like a yoyo according to my perception. Though I tend to trust my perception in relationship to time with a great deal of suspicion these days.
Anyway, I bet it’s Baltic where you are too if you’re in the UK. Or, who knows, maybe you live in the Baltic. I doubt it, but if you do, please tell me what “Baltic” is like before it starts travelling easterly. I suspect the real thing is even more impressive.
Walking into the very cold wind coming off the sea this morning I witnessed the birds carrying on as usual. I wonder how they feel temperature. Do they ever shiver? Do they squawk weather like small talk to each other?
For me, wrapped up around my core, I wasn’t suffering. In fact I was invigorated. A blast of cold air is part of life on these Islands in the winter. Even here on the balmy west coast.
It wakes a human being up.
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The Empty Bowl
Haikuesque
No more and no less
Enough to fill an empty bowl
The Empty Bowl is full.
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A Fly-By
photo by DerWeg
The Heron did A Fly-By with a stick in it’s mouth, circling a couple of times before landing to renovate its nest, high up above me.
That put a smile on my face. I pass that tree where the Heron’s nest very regularly. It’s a tall tree, in a group of three or four similar, and like any tall trees they are often blasted by the wind. But, from the Heron’s point of view, very convenient, as they stand close to the sea front, where the Heron spend most of its time, standing still, always alone, watching for passing fish.
Birds are living dinosaur ancestors, and the heron, along with the cormorants, always strikes me as a very dinosaur like bird.
Seeing them flying overhead, like I did this morning, with slow flight and big wings, is like a trip back in time to watch a Pterodactyl. It’s also a trip forward in time, towards the future springtime, and the sound of young herons, up on high, calling raucously for food.
But regardless of the portents it brings, or the images it creates, most of all it is simply wonderful to be able to witness nature at first hand.
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Focussing On The Niggle
To The Bench and Beyond
I decided I’d walk everyday up to The Bench on Beinn Ghuilean during the month of February. It’s just an attempt to up the ante a little bit. I’ve been taking a daily two mile walk first thing in the morning for quite a while, just along the sea front, to get into the habit of walking daily. Not that I didn’t walk before, but this has been more of a consistent routine.
It’s been great. But the February walk is five and a half miles, with a fair bit of uphill. And though I’ve been doing a lot of strengthening and stretching work on my legs, which does mean I’m feeling generally stronger and more flexible, today I was feeling an old niggle in my knee.
And when you’ve got a niggle, it’s very easy to start Focussing On The Niggle.
So many other things to focus on, appreciate, enjoy, think about, look at, during my walk. And yet the slight pain in my knee, which wasn’t stopping me walking, tended to dominate the show. Which is a shame.
Aware of my focus, I tried various tactics to avoid doing so. With mixed results. It’s clearly dominating my thinking even now.
I’m heading up the hill tomorrow again, and hoping that there isn’t a daily accumulative worsening of the pain. No reason to think there will be, as it’s fine in a rested state now.
Either way, I want to do the walk. And perhaps learn a little bit more about resting the mind in the midst of distractions.
Row To Shore
We need to.
Today is the fourth of the month, and on this day of every month, I religiously release a song, and have done for one hundred and forty one months in a row.
Those songs, like all our creations, all our words, are attempts to connect and communicate. And this month’s song, Row To Shore, is about that very subject.
It’s easier to stay quiet. To stay put behind our walls. To stay out there, all alone, on our little boat in the ocean.
It’s always easier to do that. And problems inevitably arise when we do try and connect, communicate, and build something more than the edifice of our own survival. It’s hard to break out, especially in a world that is looking more threatening and divided.
But, I believe, that we need to. Whatever our own particular walls, obstacles, comfort zones and blind spots are … we need to, more than ever.
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