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- Love Lifts Me: Hafiz (1) Selected Verses for Meditation - Sufi Mystics
  - 30 Mar 2021
  - Keith Johnson
- Love Lifts Me: Hafiz (1) Selected Verses for Meditation - Sufi Mystics
  - 30 Mar 2021
  - Keith Johnson
- Another Bridge to Reconciliation?
  - 15 Mar 2021
  - Keith Johnson
  - The lynching that Black Chattanooga never forgot takes center stage downtown By Chris Moody, Washington Post, 12 March, 2021 CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. — On a recent warm winter afternoon, hundreds of Chattanoogans flocked downtown to stroll along the Walnut Street Bridge, a picturesque walking path that towers over the Tennessee River. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/the-lynching-that-black-chattanooga-never-forgot-takes-center-stage-downtown/2021/03/11/67405b4e-7c27-11eb-85cd-9b7fa90c8873_story.html Dog walkers look out toward the Tennessee River near the Walnut Street Bridge on March 4. The bridge is a popular destination in Chattanooga, but it has a history of being a site where lynchings took place. Once a decrepit eyesore, today the refurbished bridge is a jewel of modern Chattanooga and a symbol of progress for a city that has undergone an urban renaissance. As part of a years-long effort to transform Chattanooga into an outdoor destination, the bridge is now a popular backdrop for marriage proposals, festivals and summer fireworks. Pictures of its bright blue beams appear on the city’s tourism websites and brochures. There’s a rock-climbing wall on one of the bridge’s pillars. “It’s our Eiffel Tower,” said Mitch Patel, a businessman who owns a hotel at the southern entrance of the bridge. But for many of Chattanooga’s Black residents, the city’s beloved pedestrian bridge isn’t an architectural beacon of the New South, but a painful reminder of the old: Before the Walnut Street Bridge became a tourist draw, it was a lynching ground. In 1893 and again in 1906, enraged White mobs hanged Black men from the bridge. “A lot of those people don’t know what happened on that bridge. In the White community, it wasn’t spoke out in the open so much” said Eric Atkins, a local activist who has worked to raise awareness of the killings and memorialize the victims. “In the Black community, you never forget one of these atrocities. You never forget a lynching.” Even as the bridge became a central gathering place of the city, some Black Chattanoogans who know its history have refused to cross it. …Death on the 'Long Bridge' DEATH ON THE LONG BRIDGE ‘Bolt quick’ - sweet soul whose life they would suppress: You who knew no peace and very little love Must take this chance for freedom’s slight caress - Must run … and run … and call to God above! What men or ghouls are these? What deadening fright? What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape? What hue and cry? What wild and desperate flight? And you must run … and run … for freedom’s sake. Such truth is more than beauty needs to know And in your death the flow of time runs slow. On the escape of a Female Slave from the 'Yellow House' private prison in Washington D.C. in 1842, and her suicide by throwing herself into the Potomac River from the 'Long Bridge' to evade capture. 'One dramatic escape attempt from the Yellow House was documented in 1842 by Seth M. Gates, an antislavery New York Whig in the U.S. House of Representatives. Writing as an anonymous “Member of Congress” in the pages of the New York Evangelist, Gates described an unnamed “smart and active” woman deposited in Williams’ private prison who, the evening prior to her scheduled departure from Washington for sale in the Deep South, “darted past her keeper,” broke jail, “and ran for her life.” She headed southwest down Maryland Avenue, straight toward the Long Bridge that spanned the Potomac and led to that portion of the District of Columbia ceded by Virginia. “It [was] not a great distance from the prison to the long bridge,” Gates observed, and on the opposite side of the river lay the Custis estate and its “extensive forests and woodlands” where she could hide. Her flight took the keeper of Williams’ jail, Joshua Staples, by surprise. By the time he secured the other prisoners and set off in pursuit, she had a sizeable head start. Also working in her favor, “no bloodhounds were at hand” to track her, and the late hour meant that Staples had no horses available. A small band of men at his immediate disposal would have to overtake her on foot. Although they “raised the hue and cry on her pathway” to summon the public’s aid, the woman breezed past the bewildered citizens of Washington who streamed out of their homes, struggling to comprehend the cause of all the commotion along the avenue. Realizing the scene unfolding before their eyes, residents greeted this act of protest in starkly different ways. Those who were antislavery prayed for her successful escape, while others supported the status quo by joining the “motley mass in pursuit.” Fleet of foot and with everything to lose, the woman put still more distance between her and her would-be captors. In this contest of “speed and endurance, between the slave and the slave catchers,” Gates related, the runaway was winning. She reached the end of Maryland Avenue and made it onto the Long Bridge, just three-fourths of a mile from the Custis woods on the other side. Yet just as Staples and his men set foot on the bridge, they caught sight of three white men at the opposite end, “slowly advancing from the Virginia side.” Staples called out to them to seize her. Dutifully, they arranged themselves three abreast, blocking the width of the narrow walkway. In Gates’s telling, the woman “looked wildly and anxiously around, to see if there was no other hope of escape,” but her prospects for success had suddenly evaporated. As her pursuers rapidly approached, their “noisy shout[s]” and threats filling the air, she vaulted over the side of the bridge and plunged into “the deep loamy water of the Potomac.” Gates assumed that she had chosen to take her own life. The unnamed woman who leaped from the bridge would not have been the first enslaved person imprisoned in the Yellow House to engage in a willful act of self-destruction. Whittier, the abolitionist, mentioned that among the “secret horrors of the prison house” were the occasional suicides of enslaved inmates devoid of all hope. One man in 1838 sliced his own throat rather than submit to sale. The presumed, tragic death of the woman who fled down Maryland Avenue, Gates concluded, offered “a fresh admonition to the slave dealer, of the cruelty and enormity of his crimes” as it testified to “the unconquerable love of liberty the heart of the slave may inherit.” The Notorious ‘Yellow House’ That Made Washington, D.C. a Slavery Capital Washington, D.C. was a capital not just of the United States, but of slavery, serving as a major depot in the domestic slave trade. In the District, enslaved men, women and children from homes and families in the Chesapeake were held and then forcibly expelled to the cotton frontier of the Deep South, as well as to Louisiana’s sugar plantations. Slave dealers bought enslaved individuals whom owners deemed surplus and warehoused them at pens in the District of Columbia until they had assembled a full shipment for removal southward. Half a mile west of the U.S. Capitol, and just south of the National Mall (and today, across the street from the Smithsonian's Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden - land registered as Block 433), sat William H. Williams’ notorious private slave jail, known as the Yellow House. By Jeff Forret, Zócalo Public Square, Smithsonian Magazine 22 July 2020 SEE: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/how-yellow-house-helped-make-washington-dc-slavery-capital-180975378/ The 'Long Bridge' from the DC shore, looking towards the woods and swamps on the Custis Plantation where the Runaway hoped to hide. Posted 18th September 2020 by Keith Shorrocks Johnson 1 View comments Bronwyn JonesSeptember 19, 2020 at 3:14 PMThe history that continues today under a different cloak. Tragic.
- Another Bridge to Reconciliation?
  - 15 Mar 2021
  - Keith Johnson
  - The lynching that Black Chattanooga never forgot takes center stage downtown By Chris Moody, Washington Post, 12 March, 2021 CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. — On a recent warm winter afternoon, hundreds of Chattanoogans flocked downtown to stroll along the Walnut Street Bridge, a picturesque walking path that towers over the Tennessee River. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/the-lynching-that-black-chattanooga-never-forgot-takes-center-stage-downtown/2021/03/11/67405b4e-7c27-11eb-85cd-9b7fa90c8873_story.html Dog walkers look out toward the Tennessee River near the Walnut Street Bridge on March 4. The bridge is a popular destination in Chattanooga, but it has a history of being a site where lynchings took place. Once a decrepit eyesore, today the refurbished bridge is a jewel of modern Chattanooga and a symbol of progress for a city that has undergone an urban renaissance. As part of a years-long effort to transform Chattanooga into an outdoor destination, the bridge is now a popular backdrop for marriage proposals, festivals and summer fireworks. Pictures of its bright blue beams appear on the city’s tourism websites and brochures. There’s a rock-climbing wall on one of the bridge’s pillars. “It’s our Eiffel Tower,” said Mitch Patel, a businessman who owns a hotel at the southern entrance of the bridge. But for many of Chattanooga’s Black residents, the city’s beloved pedestrian bridge isn’t an architectural beacon of the New South, but a painful reminder of the old: Before the Walnut Street Bridge became a tourist draw, it was a lynching ground. In 1893 and again in 1906, enraged White mobs hanged Black men from the bridge. “A lot of those people don’t know what happened on that bridge. In the White community, it wasn’t spoke out in the open so much” said Eric Atkins, a local activist who has worked to raise awareness of the killings and memorialize the victims. “In the Black community, you never forget one of these atrocities. You never forget a lynching.” Even as the bridge became a central gathering place of the city, some Black Chattanoogans who know its history have refused to cross it. …Death on the 'Long Bridge' DEATH ON THE LONG BRIDGE ‘Bolt quick’ - sweet soul whose life they would suppress: You who knew no peace and very little love Must take this chance for freedom’s slight caress - Must run … and run … and call to God above! What men or ghouls are these? What deadening fright? What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape? What hue and cry? What wild and desperate flight? And you must run … and run … for freedom’s sake. Such truth is more than beauty needs to know And in your death the flow of time runs slow. On the escape of a Female Slave from the 'Yellow House' private prison in Washington D.C. in 1842, and her suicide by throwing herself into the Potomac River from the 'Long Bridge' to evade capture. 'One dramatic escape attempt from the Yellow House was documented in 1842 by Seth M. Gates, an antislavery New York Whig in the U.S. House of Representatives. Writing as an anonymous “Member of Congress” in the pages of the New York Evangelist, Gates described an unnamed “smart and active” woman deposited in Williams’ private prison who, the evening prior to her scheduled departure from Washington for sale in the Deep South, “darted past her keeper,” broke jail, “and ran for her life.” She headed southwest down Maryland Avenue, straight toward the Long Bridge that spanned the Potomac and led to that portion of the District of Columbia ceded by Virginia. “It [was] not a great distance from the prison to the long bridge,” Gates observed, and on the opposite side of the river lay the Custis estate and its “extensive forests and woodlands” where she could hide. Her flight took the keeper of Williams’ jail, Joshua Staples, by surprise. By the time he secured the other prisoners and set off in pursuit, she had a sizeable head start. Also working in her favor, “no bloodhounds were at hand” to track her, and the late hour meant that Staples had no horses available. A small band of men at his immediate disposal would have to overtake her on foot. Although they “raised the hue and cry on her pathway” to summon the public’s aid, the woman breezed past the bewildered citizens of Washington who streamed out of their homes, struggling to comprehend the cause of all the commotion along the avenue. Realizing the scene unfolding before their eyes, residents greeted this act of protest in starkly different ways. Those who were antislavery prayed for her successful escape, while others supported the status quo by joining the “motley mass in pursuit.” Fleet of foot and with everything to lose, the woman put still more distance between her and her would-be captors. In this contest of “speed and endurance, between the slave and the slave catchers,” Gates related, the runaway was winning. She reached the end of Maryland Avenue and made it onto the Long Bridge, just three-fourths of a mile from the Custis woods on the other side. Yet just as Staples and his men set foot on the bridge, they caught sight of three white men at the opposite end, “slowly advancing from the Virginia side.” Staples called out to them to seize her. Dutifully, they arranged themselves three abreast, blocking the width of the narrow walkway. In Gates’s telling, the woman “looked wildly and anxiously around, to see if there was no other hope of escape,” but her prospects for success had suddenly evaporated. As her pursuers rapidly approached, their “noisy shout[s]” and threats filling the air, she vaulted over the side of the bridge and plunged into “the deep loamy water of the Potomac.” Gates assumed that she had chosen to take her own life. The unnamed woman who leaped from the bridge would not have been the first enslaved person imprisoned in the Yellow House to engage in a willful act of self-destruction. Whittier, the abolitionist, mentioned that among the “secret horrors of the prison house” were the occasional suicides of enslaved inmates devoid of all hope. One man in 1838 sliced his own throat rather than submit to sale. The presumed, tragic death of the woman who fled down Maryland Avenue, Gates concluded, offered “a fresh admonition to the slave dealer, of the cruelty and enormity of his crimes” as it testified to “the unconquerable love of liberty the heart of the slave may inherit.” The Notorious ‘Yellow House’ That Made Washington, D.C. a Slavery Capital Washington, D.C. was a capital not just of the United States, but of slavery, serving as a major depot in the domestic slave trade. In the District, enslaved men, women and children from homes and families in the Chesapeake were held and then forcibly expelled to the cotton frontier of the Deep South, as well as to Louisiana’s sugar plantations. Slave dealers bought enslaved individuals whom owners deemed surplus and warehoused them at pens in the District of Columbia until they had assembled a full shipment for removal southward. Half a mile west of the U.S. Capitol, and just south of the National Mall (and today, across the street from the Smithsonian's Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden - land registered as Block 433), sat William H. Williams’ notorious private slave jail, known as the Yellow House. By Jeff Forret, Zócalo Public Square, Smithsonian Magazine 22 July 2020 SEE: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/how-yellow-house-helped-make-washington-dc-slavery-capital-180975378/ The 'Long Bridge' from the DC shore, looking towards the woods and swamps on the Custis Plantation where the Runaway hoped to hide. Posted 18th September 2020 by Keith Shorrocks Johnson 1 View comments Bronwyn JonesSeptember 19, 2020 at 3:14 PMThe history that continues today under a different cloak. Tragic.
- Prepping for St Patrick's Day
  - 14 Mar 2021
  - Keith Johnson
  - Doireann Ní Ghríofa with LeAnne Howe In Collaboration with the Embassy of Ireland Monday, March 15, 2021, 6:30 pmVirtual Reading 6:30pm-7:30pm ETTICKETS: $15 (suggested price) to $5 (minimum price)Buy TicketsIn collaboration with the Embassy of Ireland, the O.B. Hardison Poetry series welcomes poet and writer Doireann Ní Ghríofa to read from her work in both Irish and English. After the reading, she will be joined by poet LeAnne Howe, a member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, for a conversation on the long-standing connection between the Irish and Indigenous communities. Doireann Ní Ghríofa is a bilingual Irish writer whose writing explores birth, death, desire, and domesticity. She has published six books of poetry, most recently Lies, a bilingual volume of her own translations and original Irish language poems. Her prose debut A Ghost in the Throat was awarded Book of the Year at the Irish Book Awards. Other awards for her writing include a Lannan Literary Fellowship, the Ostana Prize, a Seamus Heaney Fellowship, and the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature, among others. Poet, fiction writer, filmmaker, and playwright LeAnne Howe is a member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. Her lyrical poems engage Native American life. She is the author of the poetry collection Evidence of Red: Poems and Prose, which won the Oklahoma Book Award. Her honors include a Fulbright Scholarship to Jordan as well as residencies at the MacDowell Colony, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Ragdale, and the Atlantic Center for the Arts. The Honorable Daniel Mulhall, Ambassador of Ireland to the United States of America, will welcome the poets. While Bleeding In a vintage boutique on Sullivan’s Quay, I lift a winter coat with narrow bodice, neat lapels, a fallen hem. It is far too expensive for me, but the handwritten label [1915] brings it to my chest in armfuls of red. In that year, someone drew a blade through a bolt of fabric and stitched this coat into being. I carry it to the dressing room, slip my arms in. Silk lining spills against my skin. I clasp the belt and draw a slow breath as a cramp curls again, where blood stirs and melts. In glass, I am wrapped in the weight of old red: red pinched into girl cheeks and smeared from torn knees, lipstick blotted on tissue, bitten lips, a rough kiss, all the red bled into pads and rags, the weight of red, the wait for red, that we share. In the mirror, the old coat blushes. This pocket may once have sheltered something precious — a necklace, a love letter, or a fresh egg, feather-warm, its shell brittle around a hidden inner glow, held loosely so it couldn’t crack, couldn’t leak through seams, so it couldn’t stain the dress within. - by Doireann Ní Ghríofa Riders to Avalon RIDERS TO AVALON Keith Shorrocks Johnson Beautiful flaxen-haired oneDaughter of the Sea-KingRiding alone from the beachOutlined on the hillsideAs the sun sets westward. Spindrift lady of the wave-crestsOn your father’s white horseChased inland by the deer huntersThe protectors of the shoresBrought to bay by their leader. Too late in chastened hesitationTo break the encirclementFascinated by the strangersSo much like and so much notIn the meeting’s enchantment. Pale princess, fairy and bewitchedAt the mercy of a love of the landTaken aback by the hero youth -The bright bronze bridle seizedThat she should come to fastness. But her horse stalled and would not moveAt which, while holding her gaze heMounted the sure-swift steedTo take its reins and she for fearGrasped his waist as the stallion flinched. Then the wondrous horse Enbarr,Shaking his mane, free now of curb and reinBolted abruptly, swiftly for the shoreGalloping down to the broad, dry beachThence into the sun-dipped shallows. Until his furious hooves, plashing the surfBore his prize of lovers to the open seaAnd across its waves and wastesTo Avalon the Blossomed Isle of Apples -Home to the mares and fillies of his following. It was thus the riders were borne to Eden,Neve the pearl-pale high-born lady of the seaAnd Oisin the land-guardian, hunter and hero -Set down at last on the gold-screed beachAll former longings faint and only scarce recalled. O treacherous and self-willed steedTremulous, headstrong and untrammelledBearing heedlessly, endlessly into the nightThose lost to the ride’s enticementsAmidst the sea-spray moonlit storm How many others have you deceivedCoupled by your breakneck homeward flightThighs and limbs locked against your flanksAching for release from clouded blissful painIn the headlong riding of the tides of love? [Art by Claudia Fontes] Posted 3rd July 2018 by Keith Shorrocks Johnson
- Prepping for St Patrick's Day
  - 14 Mar 2021
  - Keith Johnson
  - Doireann Ní Ghríofa with LeAnne Howe In Collaboration with the Embassy of Ireland Monday, March 15, 2021, 6:30 pmVirtual Reading 6:30pm-7:30pm ETTICKETS: $15 (suggested price) to $5 (minimum price)Buy TicketsIn collaboration with the Embassy of Ireland, the O.B. Hardison Poetry series welcomes poet and writer Doireann Ní Ghríofa to read from her work in both Irish and English. After the reading, she will be joined by poet LeAnne Howe, a member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, for a conversation on the long-standing connection between the Irish and Indigenous communities. Doireann Ní Ghríofa is a bilingual Irish writer whose writing explores birth, death, desire, and domesticity. She has published six books of poetry, most recently Lies, a bilingual volume of her own translations and original Irish language poems. Her prose debut A Ghost in the Throat was awarded Book of the Year at the Irish Book Awards. Other awards for her writing include a Lannan Literary Fellowship, the Ostana Prize, a Seamus Heaney Fellowship, and the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature, among others. Poet, fiction writer, filmmaker, and playwright LeAnne Howe is a member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. Her lyrical poems engage Native American life. She is the author of the poetry collection Evidence of Red: Poems and Prose, which won the Oklahoma Book Award. Her honors include a Fulbright Scholarship to Jordan as well as residencies at the MacDowell Colony, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Ragdale, and the Atlantic Center for the Arts. The Honorable Daniel Mulhall, Ambassador of Ireland to the United States of America, will welcome the poets. While Bleeding In a vintage boutique on Sullivan’s Quay, I lift a winter coat with narrow bodice, neat lapels, a fallen hem. It is far too expensive for me, but the handwritten label [1915] brings it to my chest in armfuls of red. In that year, someone drew a blade through a bolt of fabric and stitched this coat into being. I carry it to the dressing room, slip my arms in. Silk lining spills against my skin. I clasp the belt and draw a slow breath as a cramp curls again, where blood stirs and melts. In glass, I am wrapped in the weight of old red: red pinched into girl cheeks and smeared from torn knees, lipstick blotted on tissue, bitten lips, a rough kiss, all the red bled into pads and rags, the weight of red, the wait for red, that we share. In the mirror, the old coat blushes. This pocket may once have sheltered something precious — a necklace, a love letter, or a fresh egg, feather-warm, its shell brittle around a hidden inner glow, held loosely so it couldn’t crack, couldn’t leak through seams, so it couldn’t stain the dress within. - by Doireann Ní Ghríofa Riders to Avalon RIDERS TO AVALON Keith Shorrocks Johnson Beautiful flaxen-haired oneDaughter of the Sea-KingRiding alone from the beachOutlined on the hillsideAs the sun sets westward. Spindrift lady of the wave-crestsOn your father’s white horseChased inland by the deer huntersThe protectors of the shoresBrought to bay by their leader. Too late in chastened hesitationTo break the encirclementFascinated by the strangersSo much like and so much notIn the meeting’s enchantment. Pale princess, fairy and bewitchedAt the mercy of a love of the landTaken aback by the hero youth -The bright bronze bridle seizedThat she should come to fastness. But her horse stalled and would not moveAt which, while holding her gaze heMounted the sure-swift steedTo take its reins and she for fearGrasped his waist as the stallion flinched. Then the wondrous horse Enbarr,Shaking his mane, free now of curb and reinBolted abruptly, swiftly for the shoreGalloping down to the broad, dry beachThence into the sun-dipped shallows. Until his furious hooves, plashing the surfBore his prize of lovers to the open seaAnd across its waves and wastesTo Avalon the Blossomed Isle of Apples -Home to the mares and fillies of his following. It was thus the riders were borne to Eden,Neve the pearl-pale high-born lady of the seaAnd Oisin the land-guardian, hunter and hero -Set down at last on the gold-screed beachAll former longings faint and only scarce recalled. O treacherous and self-willed steedTremulous, headstrong and untrammelledBearing heedlessly, endlessly into the nightThose lost to the ride’s enticementsAmidst the sea-spray moonlit storm How many others have you deceivedCoupled by your breakneck homeward flightThighs and limbs locked against your flanksAching for release from clouded blissful painIn the headlong riding of the tides of love? [Art by Claudia Fontes] Posted 3rd July 2018 by Keith Shorrocks Johnson
- The Great Imperial Hangover
  - 11 Mar 2021
  - Keith Johnson
  - British troops on the way to Baghdad, 1917. How the Dead Hand of Imperialism Continues to Influence World Politics By Fareed Zakaria, NYT, 8 March 2021 – Review of ‘The Shadows of Empire: How Imperial History Shapes Our World’ by Samir Puri https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/08/books/review/the-shadows-of-empire-samir-puri.html We are all in the throes of a hangover, Samir Puri writes, a “great imperial hangover.” He explains in “The Shadows of Empire” that we are living in the “first empire-free millennium” in history and yet the legacy of these empires still powerfully shapes our times. He is aware of the notion of informal empires but makes a strong case that there was something distinct and notable about formal empires, which existed from the days of the oldest human civilizations until 1991, when the Soviet Union collapsed. This juxtaposition — imperial legacies in a postimperial world — is an intriguing idea that proves a clever prism through which to look at the world. Russia’s annexation of Crimea, Britain’s exit from the European Union and the breakdowns in Iraq and Syria all have deep roots in an imperial past that still casts shadows on the present. Once you start to think along these lines, you see the shadows of empires everywhere. The day I began the book, I had been reading about a topic that Puri does not discuss but is one more example of his thesis: the roiling debate about what to do with the hundreds of thousands of artifacts that were, over the centuries, taken from across the globe and now sit proudly in the great museums of the West. In recent history, because of the reach of Western power, most countries have either acted as imperialists or found themselves subjugated, and in both cases their national identity was profoundly shaped by the experience. Even the United States has been deeply affected by imperialism, Puri says, arguing that American slavery was an idea imported from Europe’s empires and was “the ultimate manifestation of colonization, not of land but people.” In fact, the MSNBC anchor Chris Hayes has described the historical circumstance of African-Americans as “a colony within a nation.” Puri, an expert on armed conflict who has worked in the British Foreign Office, makes the case that Britain’s two pivotal decisions of the last several decades — joining the United States in the Iraq war and Brexit — were both crucially conditioned by the country’s imperial hangover. Once the world’s greatest imperial power, Britain clung to the idea that it had the military strength, the diplomatic skill and above all the ambition to shape far-flung parts of the globe. In addition, modern-day Iraq was a British creation, cobbled together in 1920 out of three provinces of the collapsing Ottoman Empire. London could once again decide Baghdad’s fate. Brexit was animated by a view that Britain was not a country defined by its proximity to Europe. In fact, what had often characterized British nationalism was its separation from the Continent. (In Shakespeare’s “Richard II,” John of Gaunt gives voice to a deep-rooted English nationalism when he describes the island nation as “this precious stone set in the silver sea / Which serves it in the office of a wall / Or as a moat defensive to a house, / Against the envy of less happier lands.”) The leading Brexiteers, including now-Prime Minister Boris Johnson, often spoke about a “global Britain,” continuing its historical mission around the world, forging closer ties in particular with its old colonies and dominions from Canada to India to Australia. The Russian case is in some ways even easier to make. Puri points out that “the evolution of Russia was inextricably linked to its expansion, so much so that it is unclear whether Russia created an empire or the process of imperialism created Russia.” He dates the start of Russia’s European-facing empire to the kingdom of Kievan Rus, which began in the ninth century in Kyiv, the present-day capital of Ukraine. From those modest beginnings grew an empire that at its height, after the Soviet Union’s victory in World War II, spanned 11 time zones and comprised almost 200 million people. When you consider this history, Vladimir Putin’s remark that the collapse of the Soviet Union was “a major geopolitical disaster of the century” makes sense, especially if you listen to what he said immediately after: “Tens of millions of our co-citizens and co-patriots found themselves outside Russian territory. Moreover the epidemic of disintegration infected Russia itself.” These deep imperial ties with Ukraine help explain why Putin’s brazen annexation of Crimea was broadly popular within Russia. We enter the postimperial 21st century with an unusual geopolitical dynamic. The two leading powers on the planet, the United States and China, both derive a great deal of their internal legitimacy and purpose from the notion that they are anti-imperial nations. In America’s case, its identity is tied to its birth story of rebelling against the British Empire. In China’s case, every schoolchild is taught that the country’s modern history began with Western imperialism humiliating and crippling the Middle Kingdom for over a century. And yet both countries have informal empires. The American one is a vast network of economic alliances and military bases scattered around the world. China, for its part, is trying to develop something quite similar with its huge Belt and Road Initiative, which may swell to 10 times the size of the Marshall Plan. How will these two distinctive postimperial superpowers interact in the 21st century? What will be the consequences of the imperial shadows cast in this new, emerging bipolar era? Unfortunately, Puri does not have much to say about any of this. Having provided a fresh perspective on all the issues I have raised above, he offers brief and intelligent speculation, but mostly proceeds to simply recount the imperial histories of major countries or parts of the world. Much of this is well written, comprehensive and judicious, but it is still potted history. Having introduced a fascinating subject, Puri declines to fully engage and explore his own thesis. He seems to imply that this task is left to the reader, but that leaves too much to us, and lets the author of this stimulating book off the hook too easily. FEB1On the Centenary of the Death of Rosenberg’s Rat: 'there is only hope and imagination left' On the Centenary of the Death of Rosenberg’s RatI Cosmopolitan Sympathies Being of follower of Tom Paine - Like Rosenberg’s Rat I have cosmopolitan sympathies. No doubt Remy would have said: ‘The world is my country To be a rat is my condition’ Though in its squeak There would have doubtless been: “Un peu de sarcasme – Monsieur” [In an attempt to engage obliquely We idealists feign the droll and sardonic]. Across in the opposition trenches A German Corporal of Austrian origins Would not have approved of Remy or Rosenberg As he said some very nasty things About rats and Jews, purporting Both to be scavengers Who fought bloodily among themselves - With the latter hell bent on world domination - But Isaac wrote simply: “Nothing can justify war. I suppose we must all fight to get the trouble over." How the Gefreiter could have believed What he did is hard to credit Given that he was awarded the Iron Cross First Class At the special intercession of his Regimental Adjutant Leutnant Hugo Guttman who was also Jewish And who personally pinned the award to his chest. This he later wore as Führer und Reichskanzler. Hugo had been awarded the Iron Cross First Class Four years earlier to the day but was forced Twenty-five years later to flee to St Louis Where lived out his days as Henry G. Grant. The Regimental Runner’s life had been spared At the Battle of St Quentin Canal in late 1918 When the most decorated private in the British Army Henry Tandey had held his fire at Marcoing After Adolf had tottered into his rifle sights And as a sentiment the latter kept a copy Of an English newspaper report of Henry Being awarded his Victoria Cross For carrying a wounded comrade under fire And later acquired a copy of the painting by Matania That depicted Tandey’s courage at the Kruiseke Crossroads Of which he commented to Chamberlain at the Berghof: “That man came so near to killing me that I thought I should never see Germany again; Providence saved me from such devilishly accurate fire As those English boys were aiming at us”. Just a few short miles away my countryman Wilfred Owen died crossing the Sambre-Oise Canal Having won the Military Cross near Amiens And two years later his mother wrote to Rabindranath Tagore That Wilfred had said goodbye with: “When I go from hence, let this be my parting word”. After the shrieking iron had stilled, the flames had cindered And the poppy was lustrous red, free of the dust of war, When the silence had come - the rats had a lean time With the end of their fresh meat rations But the trenches were filled, the borders opened And eventually dismantled in many places So people came and went as they pleased - Under Schengen and EU acquis communautaire - And scion Remy Ratatouille became a famous chef in Paris. It would be sweet to have dessert and sit back at this juncture But true stories are a movable feast and there is no separation. II Small Horizons Growing up as a country boy of small horizons I was much in awe of old Edmond Tickle Who lived in a cottage on Long Lane in Wettenhall And worked then as a platelayer on the railways But who had been with the Cheshire Regiment In Iraq ‘chasing the Turks’ - with his comrade Charlie Dickens, Who souvenired a copy of the Maude Proclamation in Baghdad: “Our armies do not come into your cities and lands As conquerors or enemies but as liberators - In the hope and desire of the British people that the Arab race May rise once more to greatness and renown...” Britain had fielded an army of half a million men In the ‘Mes-Pot’ or Mesopotamia Campaign Of whom three quarters were from British India. Provisions and armaments for the sepoys were hugger-mugger And there were 3-4 doctors for every 3-4 thousand wounded. But conditions were not cushy for T. Atkins and E. Tickle either. During a three week period in 1917, temperatures Did not fall below 116 degrees Fahrenheit And 423 British and 59 Indian troops died of heat stroke. Though every effort was to be made to score as heavily as possible before the whistle blew And in October 1918 General Cobbe broke the Armistice of Mudros and occupied Mosul. Outback of Townsville and up into Cape York I got to know Jack Kelly who had been a trooper With the Australian Light Horse in Palestine No doubt Jack have concurred with his English comrade Bob Wilson That, on crossing the border from Egypt, the land around Gaza Was "delightful country, cultivated to perfection with chiefly barley and wheat If not better looking than on most English farms. The villages were very pretty – a mass of orange, fig and other fruit trees. The relief of seeing such country after the miles and miles Of bare sand was worth five years of a life." The charges of the Light Horse and the Mounted Rifles became legendary. So in December 1917, General Allenby walked Through the Jaffa Gate in Jerusalem to show respect - British Prime Minister Lloyd George having described its capture as "A great morale boost and Christmas present for the Empire". Allenby was the first Christian in many centuries to control Jerusalem. In 1099, Godfrey de Bouillon and the Roberts II of Flanders and Normandy Had taken Jerusalem from a Fatimid Garrison and ‘No one ever saw or heard of such slaughter of pagan people, For funeral pyres were formed from them like pyramids, And no one knew their number except God alone’. And the Jews were incinerated in their synagogue refuge. But things had not always gone to plan. Sir Charles Vere Ferrers Townshend’s 6th Poona Division Had been besieged for five months at Kut-al-Amara And surrendered with 13,164 soldiers being taken prisoner. For the British, this humiliation was followed by another Defeat in the Battle of Gallipoli four months later - Leading Curzon and Chamberlain to renew the campaign With greater vigour, arguing that ‘there would be no net saving In troops if a passive policy in the Middle East Encouraged Muslim unrest in India, Persia and Afghanistan’ So Jack and Edmond had to stick to the job. And finally, the Australians under Chauvel swept in a Great Ride Spear-heading the capture of Homs, Damascus, Beirut and then Aleppo Traversing 800 kilometres from the Palestinian coast Across the plains of Armageddon and into Syria, As thousands of Turks and Arabs died and 78, 000 were captured And T.E. Lawrence snarled at the Aussies winning the race to Damascus "Too sure of themselves to be careful... thin-tempered, hollow... instinctive" Meanwhile Townsend was made a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath, And given the use of a yacht by the Pashas in Istanbul, Though they had executed, starved and brutalized his Indian troops. And he eventually became Member of Parliament for The Wrekin in Shropshire III What goes around, comes around And now in the Pas-de-Calais and Picardy Come the summer, the rape seed will be gold Kissed by the deep high sky and the noble sun And the poplars will rustle in the light wind. But in the ancient land of the two rivers The crescent moon fades on barren land With sheep unshorn and the wheat unsown Shells, wrecks and sumps in the wilderness The sun rising pitiless where the shade is cut: So its sculptors rule with sneers of cold command And hands that kill let children go unfed. And there will be wars and rumours of wars Folk wanderings and escapes from bondage Pillars of fire before, and writing on the wall, Angered gods and stiff-necked supplicants, Promised lands flowing with milk and honey And homesick girls amid the alien corn. That there is nothing new under the sun is sure That we will wander following an empty ark For a century living off the fat of the land Or smitten by famine, plagued by boils and vermin Visited with iniquity to the third and fourth generations. What goes around, comes around And what goes over the horse’s head Comes out under its belly or behind its arse. So now we have thousands of dispossessed Fleeing from Aleppo and Baghdad The subject of a distant war and a want of peace For the pity is in the hundreds drowned And the thousands of fleeing children abducted: Of small figures floated face-down And brought to the shore and its pebbles With their tiny faces posed for reportage. Higgledy piggledy - it starts again Rats in a hamper, sheep in a pen Flies in a bottle, frogs on the boil Trusting to sieves in seeking safe soil, Longing for harbour, haven and rest Risking it all – the worst and the best: Food for the waves, praying for land Children now mute with mouthfuls of sand Hist! Square shoulders, close up your gates We’ll not let them in to our privileged states. Now the dispossessed are again like rats For them the world is their country And to do good for their own is their denomination - With no place for them, they take their place In forced marches, in queues at broken fences Dashing, evading... on the look-out for scraps. But then the sea did not part for our own children As fired with portents and miracles They crusaded and sought Jerusalem But were sold Into slavery by cruel merchants Or played to the deep by the Pied Piper “There must have been a moment when There not being a war on went away - How did we get from the one case of affairs To the other case of affairs?” “Do you mean "Why did the War start”? “The war started because of the vile warmongers And their villainous empire-building?” “No - the real reason was that It was too much effort not to have a war”. The logic remains the same. There have been many villainies in pursuit of power Many treacheries in pursuit of oil, land and resources But the real reason is that life is not held sacred. When a shepherd in Lemnos named Nasos Milks his goats early to feed half-starved children When a Croatian policeman turns away in tears As a little girl embraces him for small kindnesses When helpers who visit The Jungle in Calais conclude: "Beneath the tragedy lies a painful, beautiful humanity of the most raw kind” The world is still ours and doing some little good keeps faith. © 2016Posted 9th February 2016 by Keith Shorrocks Johnson Posted 1st February by Keith Shorrocks Johnson
- The Great Imperial Hangover
  - 11 Mar 2021
  - Keith Johnson
  - British troops on the way to Baghdad, 1917. How the Dead Hand of Imperialism Continues to Influence World Politics By Fareed Zakaria, NYT, 8 March 2021 – Review of ‘The Shadows of Empire: How Imperial History Shapes Our World’ by Samir Puri https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/08/books/review/the-shadows-of-empire-samir-puri.html We are all in the throes of a hangover, Samir Puri writes, a “great imperial hangover.” He explains in “The Shadows of Empire” that we are living in the “first empire-free millennium” in history and yet the legacy of these empires still powerfully shapes our times. He is aware of the notion of informal empires but makes a strong case that there was something distinct and notable about formal empires, which existed from the days of the oldest human civilizations until 1991, when the Soviet Union collapsed. This juxtaposition — imperial legacies in a postimperial world — is an intriguing idea that proves a clever prism through which to look at the world. Russia’s annexation of Crimea, Britain’s exit from the European Union and the breakdowns in Iraq and Syria all have deep roots in an imperial past that still casts shadows on the present. Once you start to think along these lines, you see the shadows of empires everywhere. The day I began the book, I had been reading about a topic that Puri does not discuss but is one more example of his thesis: the roiling debate about what to do with the hundreds of thousands of artifacts that were, over the centuries, taken from across the globe and now sit proudly in the great museums of the West. In recent history, because of the reach of Western power, most countries have either acted as imperialists or found themselves subjugated, and in both cases their national identity was profoundly shaped by the experience. Even the United States has been deeply affected by imperialism, Puri says, arguing that American slavery was an idea imported from Europe’s empires and was “the ultimate manifestation of colonization, not of land but people.” In fact, the MSNBC anchor Chris Hayes has described the historical circumstance of African-Americans as “a colony within a nation.” Puri, an expert on armed conflict who has worked in the British Foreign Office, makes the case that Britain’s two pivotal decisions of the last several decades — joining the United States in the Iraq war and Brexit — were both crucially conditioned by the country’s imperial hangover. Once the world’s greatest imperial power, Britain clung to the idea that it had the military strength, the diplomatic skill and above all the ambition to shape far-flung parts of the globe. In addition, modern-day Iraq was a British creation, cobbled together in 1920 out of three provinces of the collapsing Ottoman Empire. London could once again decide Baghdad’s fate. Brexit was animated by a view that Britain was not a country defined by its proximity to Europe. In fact, what had often characterized British nationalism was its separation from the Continent. (In Shakespeare’s “Richard II,” John of Gaunt gives voice to a deep-rooted English nationalism when he describes the island nation as “this precious stone set in the silver sea / Which serves it in the office of a wall / Or as a moat defensive to a house, / Against the envy of less happier lands.”) The leading Brexiteers, including now-Prime Minister Boris Johnson, often spoke about a “global Britain,” continuing its historical mission around the world, forging closer ties in particular with its old colonies and dominions from Canada to India to Australia. The Russian case is in some ways even easier to make. Puri points out that “the evolution of Russia was inextricably linked to its expansion, so much so that it is unclear whether Russia created an empire or the process of imperialism created Russia.” He dates the start of Russia’s European-facing empire to the kingdom of Kievan Rus, which began in the ninth century in Kyiv, the present-day capital of Ukraine. From those modest beginnings grew an empire that at its height, after the Soviet Union’s victory in World War II, spanned 11 time zones and comprised almost 200 million people. When you consider this history, Vladimir Putin’s remark that the collapse of the Soviet Union was “a major geopolitical disaster of the century” makes sense, especially if you listen to what he said immediately after: “Tens of millions of our co-citizens and co-patriots found themselves outside Russian territory. Moreover the epidemic of disintegration infected Russia itself.” These deep imperial ties with Ukraine help explain why Putin’s brazen annexation of Crimea was broadly popular within Russia. We enter the postimperial 21st century with an unusual geopolitical dynamic. The two leading powers on the planet, the United States and China, both derive a great deal of their internal legitimacy and purpose from the notion that they are anti-imperial nations. In America’s case, its identity is tied to its birth story of rebelling against the British Empire. In China’s case, every schoolchild is taught that the country’s modern history began with Western imperialism humiliating and crippling the Middle Kingdom for over a century. And yet both countries have informal empires. The American one is a vast network of economic alliances and military bases scattered around the world. China, for its part, is trying to develop something quite similar with its huge Belt and Road Initiative, which may swell to 10 times the size of the Marshall Plan. How will these two distinctive postimperial superpowers interact in the 21st century? What will be the consequences of the imperial shadows cast in this new, emerging bipolar era? Unfortunately, Puri does not have much to say about any of this. Having provided a fresh perspective on all the issues I have raised above, he offers brief and intelligent speculation, but mostly proceeds to simply recount the imperial histories of major countries or parts of the world. Much of this is well written, comprehensive and judicious, but it is still potted history. Having introduced a fascinating subject, Puri declines to fully engage and explore his own thesis. He seems to imply that this task is left to the reader, but that leaves too much to us, and lets the author of this stimulating book off the hook too easily. FEB1On the Centenary of the Death of Rosenberg’s Rat: 'there is only hope and imagination left' On the Centenary of the Death of Rosenberg’s RatI Cosmopolitan Sympathies Being of follower of Tom Paine - Like Rosenberg’s Rat I have cosmopolitan sympathies. No doubt Remy would have said: ‘The world is my country To be a rat is my condition’ Though in its squeak There would have doubtless been: “Un peu de sarcasme – Monsieur” [In an attempt to engage obliquely We idealists feign the droll and sardonic]. Across in the opposition trenches A German Corporal of Austrian origins Would not have approved of Remy or Rosenberg As he said some very nasty things About rats and Jews, purporting Both to be scavengers Who fought bloodily among themselves - With the latter hell bent on world domination - But Isaac wrote simply: “Nothing can justify war. I suppose we must all fight to get the trouble over." How the Gefreiter could have believed What he did is hard to credit Given that he was awarded the Iron Cross First Class At the special intercession of his Regimental Adjutant Leutnant Hugo Guttman who was also Jewish And who personally pinned the award to his chest. This he later wore as Führer und Reichskanzler. Hugo had been awarded the Iron Cross First Class Four years earlier to the day but was forced Twenty-five years later to flee to St Louis Where lived out his days as Henry G. Grant. The Regimental Runner’s life had been spared At the Battle of St Quentin Canal in late 1918 When the most decorated private in the British Army Henry Tandey had held his fire at Marcoing After Adolf had tottered into his rifle sights And as a sentiment the latter kept a copy Of an English newspaper report of Henry Being awarded his Victoria Cross For carrying a wounded comrade under fire And later acquired a copy of the painting by Matania That depicted Tandey’s courage at the Kruiseke Crossroads Of which he commented to Chamberlain at the Berghof: “That man came so near to killing me that I thought I should never see Germany again; Providence saved me from such devilishly accurate fire As those English boys were aiming at us”. Just a few short miles away my countryman Wilfred Owen died crossing the Sambre-Oise Canal Having won the Military Cross near Amiens And two years later his mother wrote to Rabindranath Tagore That Wilfred had said goodbye with: “When I go from hence, let this be my parting word”. After the shrieking iron had stilled, the flames had cindered And the poppy was lustrous red, free of the dust of war, When the silence had come - the rats had a lean time With the end of their fresh meat rations But the trenches were filled, the borders opened And eventually dismantled in many places So people came and went as they pleased - Under Schengen and EU acquis communautaire - And scion Remy Ratatouille became a famous chef in Paris. It would be sweet to have dessert and sit back at this juncture But true stories are a movable feast and there is no separation. II Small Horizons Growing up as a country boy of small horizons I was much in awe of old Edmond Tickle Who lived in a cottage on Long Lane in Wettenhall And worked then as a platelayer on the railways But who had been with the Cheshire Regiment In Iraq ‘chasing the Turks’ - with his comrade Charlie Dickens, Who souvenired a copy of the Maude Proclamation in Baghdad: “Our armies do not come into your cities and lands As conquerors or enemies but as liberators - In the hope and desire of the British people that the Arab race May rise once more to greatness and renown...” Britain had fielded an army of half a million men In the ‘Mes-Pot’ or Mesopotamia Campaign Of whom three quarters were from British India. Provisions and armaments for the sepoys were hugger-mugger And there were 3-4 doctors for every 3-4 thousand wounded. But conditions were not cushy for T. Atkins and E. Tickle either. During a three week period in 1917, temperatures Did not fall below 116 degrees Fahrenheit And 423 British and 59 Indian troops died of heat stroke. Though every effort was to be made to score as heavily as possible before the whistle blew And in October 1918 General Cobbe broke the Armistice of Mudros and occupied Mosul. Outback of Townsville and up into Cape York I got to know Jack Kelly who had been a trooper With the Australian Light Horse in Palestine No doubt Jack have concurred with his English comrade Bob Wilson That, on crossing the border from Egypt, the land around Gaza Was "delightful country, cultivated to perfection with chiefly barley and wheat If not better looking than on most English farms. The villages were very pretty – a mass of orange, fig and other fruit trees. The relief of seeing such country after the miles and miles Of bare sand was worth five years of a life." The charges of the Light Horse and the Mounted Rifles became legendary. So in December 1917, General Allenby walked Through the Jaffa Gate in Jerusalem to show respect - British Prime Minister Lloyd George having described its capture as "A great morale boost and Christmas present for the Empire". Allenby was the first Christian in many centuries to control Jerusalem. In 1099, Godfrey de Bouillon and the Roberts II of Flanders and Normandy Had taken Jerusalem from a Fatimid Garrison and ‘No one ever saw or heard of such slaughter of pagan people, For funeral pyres were formed from them like pyramids, And no one knew their number except God alone’. And the Jews were incinerated in their synagogue refuge. But things had not always gone to plan. Sir Charles Vere Ferrers Townshend’s 6th Poona Division Had been besieged for five months at Kut-al-Amara And surrendered with 13,164 soldiers being taken prisoner. For the British, this humiliation was followed by another Defeat in the Battle of Gallipoli four months later - Leading Curzon and Chamberlain to renew the campaign With greater vigour, arguing that ‘there would be no net saving In troops if a passive policy in the Middle East Encouraged Muslim unrest in India, Persia and Afghanistan’ So Jack and Edmond had to stick to the job. And finally, the Australians under Chauvel swept in a Great Ride Spear-heading the capture of Homs, Damascus, Beirut and then Aleppo Traversing 800 kilometres from the Palestinian coast Across the plains of Armageddon and into Syria, As thousands of Turks and Arabs died and 78, 000 were captured And T.E. Lawrence snarled at the Aussies winning the race to Damascus "Too sure of themselves to be careful... thin-tempered, hollow... instinctive" Meanwhile Townsend was made a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath, And given the use of a yacht by the Pashas in Istanbul, Though they had executed, starved and brutalized his Indian troops. And he eventually became Member of Parliament for The Wrekin in Shropshire III What goes around, comes around And now in the Pas-de-Calais and Picardy Come the summer, the rape seed will be gold Kissed by the deep high sky and the noble sun And the poplars will rustle in the light wind. But in the ancient land of the two rivers The crescent moon fades on barren land With sheep unshorn and the wheat unsown Shells, wrecks and sumps in the wilderness The sun rising pitiless where the shade is cut: So its sculptors rule with sneers of cold command And hands that kill let children go unfed. And there will be wars and rumours of wars Folk wanderings and escapes from bondage Pillars of fire before, and writing on the wall, Angered gods and stiff-necked supplicants, Promised lands flowing with milk and honey And homesick girls amid the alien corn. That there is nothing new under the sun is sure That we will wander following an empty ark For a century living off the fat of the land Or smitten by famine, plagued by boils and vermin Visited with iniquity to the third and fourth generations. What goes around, comes around And what goes over the horse’s head Comes out under its belly or behind its arse. So now we have thousands of dispossessed Fleeing from Aleppo and Baghdad The subject of a distant war and a want of peace For the pity is in the hundreds drowned And the thousands of fleeing children abducted: Of small figures floated face-down And brought to the shore and its pebbles With their tiny faces posed for reportage. Higgledy piggledy - it starts again Rats in a hamper, sheep in a pen Flies in a bottle, frogs on the boil Trusting to sieves in seeking safe soil, Longing for harbour, haven and rest Risking it all – the worst and the best: Food for the waves, praying for land Children now mute with mouthfuls of sand Hist! Square shoulders, close up your gates We’ll not let them in to our privileged states. Now the dispossessed are again like rats For them the world is their country And to do good for their own is their denomination - With no place for them, they take their place In forced marches, in queues at broken fences Dashing, evading... on the look-out for scraps. But then the sea did not part for our own children As fired with portents and miracles They crusaded and sought Jerusalem But were sold Into slavery by cruel merchants Or played to the deep by the Pied Piper “There must have been a moment when There not being a war on went away - How did we get from the one case of affairs To the other case of affairs?” “Do you mean "Why did the War start”? “The war started because of the vile warmongers And their villainous empire-building?” “No - the real reason was that It was too much effort not to have a war”. The logic remains the same. There have been many villainies in pursuit of power Many treacheries in pursuit of oil, land and resources But the real reason is that life is not held sacred. When a shepherd in Lemnos named Nasos Milks his goats early to feed half-starved children When a Croatian policeman turns away in tears As a little girl embraces him for small kindnesses When helpers who visit The Jungle in Calais conclude: "Beneath the tragedy lies a painful, beautiful humanity of the most raw kind” The world is still ours and doing some little good keeps faith. © 2016Posted 9th February 2016 by Keith Shorrocks Johnson Posted 1st February by Keith Shorrocks Johnson
- From the Past: 'Time cannot devour this bright circumstance' [Poetry commemorating NZ Poetry Day, August 2020]
  - 10 Mar 2021
  - Keith Johnson
  - Time cannot devour this bright circumstance FOR NZ POETRY DAY 2020 [It was a thoroughly wonderful late morning today, here on the South Coast - with the brightest of springtime sunshine available to relish brunch at the Scorch-O-Rama cafe.] Quietly I catch its Presence The morning is one of the most glorious: The sunlight is making surfaces shine Transmuting their forms to treasures Such that presence and beauty align. Do what you must restless relentless time To take away the lightness for shadow: This pure sunlit scene will always abide And I will protect it from foreshadow. Time cannot devour this bright circumstance: Aside the lion’s paws, the tiger’s jaws, Like the Phoenix it is immune from fears And will always signify existence. Quietly I catch its presence then And trace its beauty with a golden pen. And how fortunate I am to live my life with poetry in mind - and still be able to write and celebrate NZ National Poetry Day with some links to recent poems: All Shall Be Well https://kjohnsonnz.blogspot.com/2020/08/lady-julians-revelations-of-divine-love.html Lymph Massage https://kjohnsonnz.blogspot.com/2020/08/lymph-massage.html Pain-Ridden https://kjohnsonnz.blogspot.com/2020/07/pain-ridden.html Text for the Day https://kjohnsonnz.blogspot.com/2020/04/text-for-day.html Let us Talk of Quiet that We Know https://kjohnsonnz.blogspot.com/2020/08/already-dark-and-endless-ocean-of-end.html One Equal Temper https://kjohnsonnz.blogspot.com/2020/07/so-must-ship-seek-still-by-star-and.html
- From the Past: 'Time cannot devour this bright circumstance' [Poetry commemorating NZ Poetry Day, August 2020]
  - 10 Mar 2021
  - Keith Johnson
  - Time cannot devour this bright circumstance FOR NZ POETRY DAY 2020 [It was a thoroughly wonderful late morning today, here on the South Coast - with the brightest of springtime sunshine available to relish brunch at the Scorch-O-Rama cafe.] Quietly I catch its Presence The morning is one of the most glorious: The sunlight is making surfaces shine Transmuting their forms to treasures Such that presence and beauty align. Do what you must restless relentless time To take away the lightness for shadow: This pure sunlit scene will always abide And I will protect it from foreshadow. Time cannot devour this bright circumstance: Aside the lion’s paws, the tiger’s jaws, Like the Phoenix it is immune from fears And will always signify existence. Quietly I catch its presence then And trace its beauty with a golden pen. And how fortunate I am to live my life with poetry in mind - and still be able to write and celebrate NZ National Poetry Day with some links to recent poems: All Shall Be Well https://kjohnsonnz.blogspot.com/2020/08/lady-julians-revelations-of-divine-love.html Lymph Massage https://kjohnsonnz.blogspot.com/2020/08/lymph-massage.html Pain-Ridden https://kjohnsonnz.blogspot.com/2020/07/pain-ridden.html Text for the Day https://kjohnsonnz.blogspot.com/2020/04/text-for-day.html Let us Talk of Quiet that We Know https://kjohnsonnz.blogspot.com/2020/08/already-dark-and-endless-ocean-of-end.html One Equal Temper https://kjohnsonnz.blogspot.com/2020/07/so-must-ship-seek-still-by-star-and.html
- International Women's Day - Giving Life No Less
  - 9 Mar 2021
  - Keith Johnson
  - International Women's Day That there may be a Deep Human Ancestral Homology of Myth, concerning the Male and the Female Counterparts of Life and Death, is undeniable to many of us. Hence my delight at being reminded of extraordinary Folk Memories of the Power of Ancient Feminism in Western Europe [through the imagery of the Open Vulva / Transformative Vagina] - and of the opportunity to match this imagery to that of the Archetype some 20,000 km distant, as exemplified by 'the regular encounter with the Sacred Vagina' at Maori Meeting Places or 'Marae' here in New Zealand: Big vagina energy: the return of the Sheela na Gig Jenny Stevens, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/mar/08/big-vagina-energy-the-return-of-the-sheela-na-gig @jenny_stevens, The Guardian, 8 Mar 2021 Some say the explicit medieval carvings were fertility symbols; others that the figures were meant to ward off evil. Now a group of Irish feminists are bringing them back – as a reminder of women’s struggles. Carved into stone, these women squat, naked, sometimes cackling, pulling open their enlarged labia: it’s no wonder Victorian clergymen attempted to destroy or hide the glorious, mysterious figures known as sheela na gigs. The carvings are found on medieval churches, castles and even gateposts in Ireland, the UK and much of mainland Europe. They seem to have their origins in the 11th century; the oldest discovered in the British Isles so far dates back to the 12th century, the youngest to the 16th. Yet their beginnings are an enigma. Early theories from art historians claimed they were grotesque hag figures to warn against the sins of lust – a way of keeping the minds of churchgoers and monks pure. Others suggest they are a talisman against evil: the act of women flashing their genitals has been believed to scare off demons as far back as the ancient Greeks. More recently, researchers have leaned towards the idea that the sheela is a pre-Christian folk goddess and her exaggerated vulva a sign of life-giving powers and fertility. Even her name is an enigma – although one theory is that “sheela” could mean an old woman or crone, and “gig” was slang for genitals. If there ever was such a thing as “big dick energy”, the sheela na gig is the embodiment of big vagina energy. She has long fascinated and inspired academics and artists alike – a PJ Harvey song is devoted to her: “You exhibitionist!” Harvey sings on her 1992 single Sheela-Na-Gig; Sarah Lucas has also incorporated them into her work. And now, the sheela is being given another lease of life. In Dublin this week, new sheelas crafted in clay with 22-carat gold-lustred labia and beautifully glazed vulvas will be covertly placed in sites that are significant to women’s struggle. “Irish feminists have reinterpreted the concept of the sheela,” says the ceramicist behind Project Sheela, who has asked to remain anonymous. “Some scholars thought the sheela was an image of evil, or the embodiment of sin, but we see the sexuality of the sheela as positive and empowering,” she says. The scandal of Irish mother and baby homes, where thousands of unmarried mothers and their young children were subject to horrific cruelty and abuse by a network of institutions run by the state and the Catholic church, is still coming to light - as are the mass graves where neglected babies were buried in secret. Last year, Project Sheela placed one of its sheelas outside one of the former homes – or Magdalene laundries, as they were known – on Sean MacDermott Street in Dublin, the last laundry to close when it shut its doors in 1996. “We wanted to honour the women who suffered there,” says the project’s spokesperson. “The reason women were sent to these laundries was because of the Catholic church seeing women’s sexuality as dangerous and sinful – the women were punished and abused by the nuns, who believed they were evil.” The sheela, she says, is an important “symbol against misogyny – one of unapologetic female empowerment and sexuality”. The two artists behind Project Sheela – one a ceramicist, the other a street artist – want the project to “be independent from us as artists”, hence their anonymity. Due to Covid, they have been confined to Dublin, but they want to spread the sheelas to other cities too. Whatever its origins or meaning, there is something entrancing and alluring about the image of the sheela. Dr Barbara Freitag, a former lecturer in intercultural studies at Dublin City University and author of the 2004 book Sheela Na Gigs: Unravelling an Enigma, was the first to put academic muscle behind the idea of the sheela as a goddess or talisman. She became fascinated by sheelas in the 1980s after reading about a US academic who had been denied access to see some that were “hidden away” in the National Museum of Ireland in Dublin. What could possibly be so frightful, she thought. “And, of course, the prevailing theory at the time was that these were portraying the evil of lust – and that they were put up on churches as warnings – which is absurd.” Why? “Because they’re so high up,” she says. “You’d almost need binoculars to see some of them!” Freitag travelled widely through England and Ireland and found that “they were obviously figures that had nothing to do with the church originally. They were found predominantly in rural areas, and we have quite a lot of documents showing that people there guarded these sheelas with their lives against the priests, in particular here in Ireland, who were trying to destroy them – and did destroy them. There are various decrees from bishops saying they should be hacked off walls.” When Freitag visited communities where sheelas were present, “fertility was always the first word that came up”. One of the women she spoke to told her that, at lambing time, farmers still present a ewe to the sheela in the hope that it would lead to a fertile spring. They are rural phenomena, because those people “relied on life-giving powers”. The notion of sympathetic magic – that you can touch an object and receive its power – is key to understanding the sheelas, Freitag believes. “In medieval times, there was such a high maternal mortality rate that you wanted a big vulva to ensure the child came out as quickly as possible, because a long, protracted birth could well mean the death of the child and the mother.” Medieval childbirth aids “were about making the vulva flabby and big – such as putting butter in the vagina to help the baby slide out quicker,” she says. So it makes sense that the sheelas would act as a talisman to aid childbirth. Ireland has by far the highest concentration of sheela na gigs, with more than 100 of them, as documented by enthusiast Jack Roberts and his Sheela Na Gig project. But they have also been found as far and wide as England, Wales, Scotland, Italy, France, Spain and Norway. “There is a great variety in the ways sheelas are presented,” says Prof Georgia Rhoades, who published a paper on sheela na gigs in 2010. “We don’t have to lock them down with just one possible interpretation.” Rhoades points to the sheelas’ similarities with other figures, such as the ancient Greek goddess Baubo, who was depicted with her vulva showing. “I really hope that people are beginning to see the joy in some of them,” says Rhoades, pointing to several sheelas that clearly look like depictions of masturbation. “There is one in Oaksey in Wiltshire and her vulva is right down to her knees and she’s grinning, like she’s celebrating something – and I like to think she’s celebrating female sexuality. And she’s really the only decoration in the church.” One thing that most of these figures have in common is that the upper parts of their bodies belong to elderly women. This fascinated Freitag. Why were these figures of fertility also so reminiscent of mortality? “The answer is, of course, because life and death go hand in glove,” she says. In Church Stretton, in Shropshire, a sheela na gig sits above the door that the dead would be brought in and out of. “The ideas of birth and death are essential to thinking about the vulva,” says Rhoades. “To me, the Church Stretton, Sheela is saying that you come out of the earth, you return to the earth, you come out of me and you return to me … You can ignore death as much as you want to, but death is going to come. A FEMINIST ENCOUNTER WITH THE ARCHETYPE IN AOTEAROA An Encounter with the Sacred Vagina https://www.serendipitousencounters.com/single-post/2018/05/14/An-Encounter-with-the-Sacred-Vagina As I enter the marae-atea, the sacred open space in the front of the wharenui, the traditional Maori meeting house, I feel already the process of transformation taking place. I hear the voice of our haukainga, Maori host, inviting us to come together in preparation for the karanga - the ceremony of calling to the guests, to welcome us onto the marae. He is inviting us to leave behind any mis/pre/conceptions we have of the indigenous ways of seeing the world around us, and dive deep into another space, full of symbolism of the sacred feminine. It is a delicate, early spring afternoon, after days of non-stop rain. The large yellow flowers of the Kōwhai tree, heralding spring, add a tint to the translucent, timid almost light that surrounds us. I am standing on the grass, in bare feet, listening to our host requesting us to acknowledge nature, whenua, the elements and I instinctively place my hands in a triangle shape just below my belly button, attuning myself to whatever it is that is happening around me, through this man’s invocation. I am drawing energy from Papatūānuku, mother earth, the sacred dragon, inviting the serpent to climb up into my body through my legs. I am mystified. Where are these thoughts and the obeying of the body coming from? I am in some kind of cosmic flow. Te-noho-kotahitanga-marae The haukainga’s voice acts both as an anchoring presence and a guiding force to something new… he is now talking about the nearby Wairaka stream, its sacredness and its ability to nurture and heal people. I am drawn more and more into another dimension that is opening up to me like a revelation. How is it possible that what I already know is felt like a new experience? Perhaps it’s ‘the feeling’ that makes the difference rather than just ‘the knowing’? We are all now walking in formation towards the Wharenui. The kaikaranga’s voice acts as a compass: Karanga ra ki nga ope tūārangi Kua eke nei Ki te marae e te iwi e The young Maori woman in dreadlocks leading us into the Wharenui is visibly emotional, tears streaming down her face, making an effort to contain her sobbing. I feel what she feels, the connection with the ancestors bringing up, from deep in the subconscious, our need to belong, to be part of a continuum that gives meaning to our lives. I, the visitor, become a guest on the marae. I am given birth into my new status, but only because the vagina---represented by the carved entrance to the Wharenui--- “aggressively, lovingly and soulfully-- earthily and spiritually”- strips me of all remaining tapu from my accumulated life to that moment. “Transformed by the ancestor’s digestive and sexual orifices, people grow into new relationships and therefore new people.” Entering this beautifully carved building is like entering the vagina, where the masculine---represented here by the procession led by the kaikaranga and us the guests--- meets the feminine and gives birth to a new self, a rebirth or recreation of the self. Once I go through the doors and into this space, I hear our host say, I am expected to come out transformed, in the manner of “I will not be the same again.” I love this metaphor and it amuses me somewhat when I realize the synchronicity, involved in this unexpected ceremony. For just the night before, I had fallen asleep listening to a piece of music by Neonymus, recorded in the Neanderthal Cave of San Pelayo, after spending my evening reading a chapter from a book on the Healing Power of the Sacred Woman that talked about the need for women and humanity to reclaim the sacred vagina, the mother earth, the feminine, subjugated by patriarchy for thousands of years. Te-noho-kotahitanga-marae Neonymus’ music was very evocative with sounds coming from deep within the earth, echoing the planetary womb. I was reminded then that just a few days earlier, while traveling abroad, I had bought an agate crystal, cut in a big round thin sliver that brought out translucent rich reds and oranges and yellows, all in a concentric formation resembling a sperm like looking head entering the egg in the uterus. I bought it because of its colours but also because of its symbolism, the coming together of the feminine and the masculine forces of life. Could this be one of those synchronicity cases Jung talked about, where our subconscious seems to attract situations that on the outside they look arbitrarily thrown together but upon close inspection you discover a linking thread that makes the events part of the same story; a story that is still unfolding and where serendipity comes to play a role? The voice of our host brings me back. The process of transformation is complete, I hear him saying, with the mingling of breath, when tangata whenua - the people of the land - and us, the manuhiri (guests) hongi (press noses together); and when we share food after entering the body of the shared tipuna via the ancestral mouth/vagina represented by the meeting house. “We eat having been eaten!” The visualization of this cannibalistic sounding act is so powerfully earthy that I long to be taken in by the ancestral mouth, devoured by mother earth, enclosed by the deep dark inner sanctum of the sacred feminine and being transformed. Welcome to Aotearoa, I whisper to myself. In a few days, I am going to be at another ceremony, a civic one this time that will confirm my New Zealand citizenship. But I feel this spiritual ceremony is what binds me now to Aotearoa and the tangata whenua; the day I experience my own entry into the ancestral vaginal mouth and reclaim my own sacred feminine power. Post Script Three days after this symbolic and deeply affecting event, I agreed to an impromptu day trip to Bethells Beach, an iconic seascape near Auckland. It was a wet spring day. While at the beach the weather held dry but still moody and heavy cast with a light breeze. We walked towards the far end where there is a big cave. My friend turned to me to ask if I was “ready to brave it.” I was not sure. A few years back – it must have been three years ago - she had taken me there knowing that I have a natural dislike to enclosed spaces, especially caves. Although I had reluctantly agreed to follow her in, it was with a terrible sense of uneasiness and once inside I fought an overwhelming sense of claustrophobia that was almost nauseating. This time, she let me brave it on my own, perhaps sensing that I can do it myself, without holding my hand as she did the first time. I walked all the way into the far lower end of the cave and sat in the darkness feeling completely at ease with my surroundings. I felt cocooned and protected, the silence surrounding me a natural, empty and yet pregnant with energy space. Could it be that by entering the sacred vagina at the Marae, I symbolically acknowledged my feminine side and made amends with it? Perhaps the haukainga was right, once you enter the Marae’s vagina you are never the same again. *** Three months later, I went back to the Marae to talk to Whaea L about my looming operation. She is known to be a wise Maori elder, well respected for her indigenous grounded spirituality and healer’s touch. I started talking about my Marae experience and the exploration of the indigenous concept of the vagina and femaleness, crucial elements I felt to my health-related issues. She abruptly stood up, asked me to wait for her for a few minutes while she went to her car to bring something she felt it was meant to be shared with me. What she brought back was a gray blanket she was given to as a child full of personal and collective symbolism. I was perplexed, a blanket? Once she unfolded it, I understood. I saw photos of landscapes pinned to the fabric. Perhaps it was our talk about vaginas but that's all I could see in them. The entry and exit point of a tunnel into a mountain that indeed looked like the opening of a woman’s body. Whaea L explained that this was of part her childhood’s landscape, the photos were taken from her ancestral land. The tunnel was carved by her great-great uncle for the women of his iwi, a place to perform their monthly ritual passage through the darkness of mother earth, Papatūānuku, and into the light and the sea for cleansing on the other side. *** I felt drawn to this landscape, wishing I could have performed that passage myself when I most needed it, remembering with regret how my own passage to womanhood went unnoticed, filled first with fear and then apprehension at the appearance of that first blood through my legs. My eldest sister gave me a sanitary pad while providing kindly but with the briefest of explanations, “Ah, that! You just got your first period.” And that’s what my passage to womanhood was all about, an uneventful moment that did not even merit a chat with my mother who feeling exhausted by her demanding job was, I am sure, relieved to hear that the ‘incident’ was dealt with by her eldest daughter. No ritual passage, no ceremony, no celebration in a household full of women. And what followed was years of the convenience store woman wrapping up the sanitary pads in newspaper so the men sitting in the little town’s square would not see what I was carrying. Years of being excused from going to church or having holy communion on those Sundays blood run through my legs, always wondering why God created women if ‘HE’ disliked them so much. But that was a male God and that explained it all. The Maori Legend concerning the Permanence of Death: Tane and Hine-nui-te-Po Painting by Danny Ngene Ngene Tane and Hine-nui-te-Po May verse seed hope in death,Being spent in bliss of love,Into that great darknessWhere Tane came in dreadTo seek redemption and redress. Formed from the earthHis wife gave birthAnd their daughterThe girl of the flashing dawnWas born in sunlit splendor But he took this daughterAs his slave and playthingUntil shame caught herAnd she fled and soughtThe spirit world. And at its gateShe stopped her lover-fatherBidding him returnTo care for their children Saying: ‘I will see them againThey will come to me in due time”So death itself was bornAnd she became the night. But Tane grew angry,As those he loved were claimed,Hating the Dark Child-MotherBut lusting for her still Then he sought to enter her,A once and final act,This time to claim her forever,Becoming a penis for the task,Penetrating so deepHe would leave through her mouthTo void the curse. But vain as he was,He had summoned the birdsTo watch his vengeanceAnd the little pied tumblerOr pi’waka’waka laughed,Waking Hine-nui-te-PoWho slew Tane with her thighs And she appointedThenceforth the tiny fantailAs her messenger. Then was mankind lost. Now as we seek releaseEach little death quietensTo an after-silenceSacred to the dark daughterAnd only poetry betraysOur longings and regretsFor that ever-risen dawnStill misted from her breath. ---------------------------- http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/artwork/28776/hine-nui-te-po https://kjohnsonnz.blogspot.co.nz/2012/12/ogden-nashs-australasian-bestiary.html Posted 20th February 2017 by Keith Shorrocks Johnson
- International Women's Day - Giving Life No Less
  - 9 Mar 2021
  - Keith Johnson
  - International Women's Day That there may be a Deep Human Ancestral Homology of Myth, concerning the Male and the Female Counterparts of Life and Death, is undeniable to many of us. Hence my delight at being reminded of extraordinary Folk Memories of the Power of Ancient Feminism in Western Europe [through the imagery of the Open Vulva / Transformative Vagina] - and of the opportunity to match this imagery to that of the Archetype some 20,000 km distant, as exemplified by 'the regular encounter with the Sacred Vagina' at Maori Meeting Places or 'Marae' here in New Zealand: Big vagina energy: the return of the Sheela na Gig Jenny Stevens, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/mar/08/big-vagina-energy-the-return-of-the-sheela-na-gig @jenny_stevens, The Guardian, 8 Mar 2021 Some say the explicit medieval carvings were fertility symbols; others that the figures were meant to ward off evil. Now a group of Irish feminists are bringing them back – as a reminder of women’s struggles. Carved into stone, these women squat, naked, sometimes cackling, pulling open their enlarged labia: it’s no wonder Victorian clergymen attempted to destroy or hide the glorious, mysterious figures known as sheela na gigs. The carvings are found on medieval churches, castles and even gateposts in Ireland, the UK and much of mainland Europe. They seem to have their origins in the 11th century; the oldest discovered in the British Isles so far dates back to the 12th century, the youngest to the 16th. Yet their beginnings are an enigma. Early theories from art historians claimed they were grotesque hag figures to warn against the sins of lust – a way of keeping the minds of churchgoers and monks pure. Others suggest they are a talisman against evil: the act of women flashing their genitals has been believed to scare off demons as far back as the ancient Greeks. More recently, researchers have leaned towards the idea that the sheela is a pre-Christian folk goddess and her exaggerated vulva a sign of life-giving powers and fertility. Even her name is an enigma – although one theory is that “sheela” could mean an old woman or crone, and “gig” was slang for genitals. If there ever was such a thing as “big dick energy”, the sheela na gig is the embodiment of big vagina energy. She has long fascinated and inspired academics and artists alike – a PJ Harvey song is devoted to her: “You exhibitionist!” Harvey sings on her 1992 single Sheela-Na-Gig; Sarah Lucas has also incorporated them into her work. And now, the sheela is being given another lease of life. In Dublin this week, new sheelas crafted in clay with 22-carat gold-lustred labia and beautifully glazed vulvas will be covertly placed in sites that are significant to women’s struggle. “Irish feminists have reinterpreted the concept of the sheela,” says the ceramicist behind Project Sheela, who has asked to remain anonymous. “Some scholars thought the sheela was an image of evil, or the embodiment of sin, but we see the sexuality of the sheela as positive and empowering,” she says. The scandal of Irish mother and baby homes, where thousands of unmarried mothers and their young children were subject to horrific cruelty and abuse by a network of institutions run by the state and the Catholic church, is still coming to light - as are the mass graves where neglected babies were buried in secret. Last year, Project Sheela placed one of its sheelas outside one of the former homes – or Magdalene laundries, as they were known – on Sean MacDermott Street in Dublin, the last laundry to close when it shut its doors in 1996. “We wanted to honour the women who suffered there,” says the project’s spokesperson. “The reason women were sent to these laundries was because of the Catholic church seeing women’s sexuality as dangerous and sinful – the women were punished and abused by the nuns, who believed they were evil.” The sheela, she says, is an important “symbol against misogyny – one of unapologetic female empowerment and sexuality”. The two artists behind Project Sheela – one a ceramicist, the other a street artist – want the project to “be independent from us as artists”, hence their anonymity. Due to Covid, they have been confined to Dublin, but they want to spread the sheelas to other cities too. Whatever its origins or meaning, there is something entrancing and alluring about the image of the sheela. Dr Barbara Freitag, a former lecturer in intercultural studies at Dublin City University and author of the 2004 book Sheela Na Gigs: Unravelling an Enigma, was the first to put academic muscle behind the idea of the sheela as a goddess or talisman. She became fascinated by sheelas in the 1980s after reading about a US academic who had been denied access to see some that were “hidden away” in the National Museum of Ireland in Dublin. What could possibly be so frightful, she thought. “And, of course, the prevailing theory at the time was that these were portraying the evil of lust – and that they were put up on churches as warnings – which is absurd.” Why? “Because they’re so high up,” she says. “You’d almost need binoculars to see some of them!” Freitag travelled widely through England and Ireland and found that “they were obviously figures that had nothing to do with the church originally. They were found predominantly in rural areas, and we have quite a lot of documents showing that people there guarded these sheelas with their lives against the priests, in particular here in Ireland, who were trying to destroy them – and did destroy them. There are various decrees from bishops saying they should be hacked off walls.” When Freitag visited communities where sheelas were present, “fertility was always the first word that came up”. One of the women she spoke to told her that, at lambing time, farmers still present a ewe to the sheela in the hope that it would lead to a fertile spring. They are rural phenomena, because those people “relied on life-giving powers”. The notion of sympathetic magic – that you can touch an object and receive its power – is key to understanding the sheelas, Freitag believes. “In medieval times, there was such a high maternal mortality rate that you wanted a big vulva to ensure the child came out as quickly as possible, because a long, protracted birth could well mean the death of the child and the mother.” Medieval childbirth aids “were about making the vulva flabby and big – such as putting butter in the vagina to help the baby slide out quicker,” she says. So it makes sense that the sheelas would act as a talisman to aid childbirth. Ireland has by far the highest concentration of sheela na gigs, with more than 100 of them, as documented by enthusiast Jack Roberts and his Sheela Na Gig project. But they have also been found as far and wide as England, Wales, Scotland, Italy, France, Spain and Norway. “There is a great variety in the ways sheelas are presented,” says Prof Georgia Rhoades, who published a paper on sheela na gigs in 2010. “We don’t have to lock them down with just one possible interpretation.” Rhoades points to the sheelas’ similarities with other figures, such as the ancient Greek goddess Baubo, who was depicted with her vulva showing. “I really hope that people are beginning to see the joy in some of them,” says Rhoades, pointing to several sheelas that clearly look like depictions of masturbation. “There is one in Oaksey in Wiltshire and her vulva is right down to her knees and she’s grinning, like she’s celebrating something – and I like to think she’s celebrating female sexuality. And she’s really the only decoration in the church.” One thing that most of these figures have in common is that the upper parts of their bodies belong to elderly women. This fascinated Freitag. Why were these figures of fertility also so reminiscent of mortality? “The answer is, of course, because life and death go hand in glove,” she says. In Church Stretton, in Shropshire, a sheela na gig sits above the door that the dead would be brought in and out of. “The ideas of birth and death are essential to thinking about the vulva,” says Rhoades. “To me, the Church Stretton, Sheela is saying that you come out of the earth, you return to the earth, you come out of me and you return to me … You can ignore death as much as you want to, but death is going to come. A FEMINIST ENCOUNTER WITH THE ARCHETYPE IN AOTEAROA An Encounter with the Sacred Vagina https://www.serendipitousencounters.com/single-post/2018/05/14/An-Encounter-with-the-Sacred-Vagina As I enter the marae-atea, the sacred open space in the front of the wharenui, the traditional Maori meeting house, I feel already the process of transformation taking place. I hear the voice of our haukainga, Maori host, inviting us to come together in preparation for the karanga - the ceremony of calling to the guests, to welcome us onto the marae. He is inviting us to leave behind any mis/pre/conceptions we have of the indigenous ways of seeing the world around us, and dive deep into another space, full of symbolism of the sacred feminine. It is a delicate, early spring afternoon, after days of non-stop rain. The large yellow flowers of the Kōwhai tree, heralding spring, add a tint to the translucent, timid almost light that surrounds us. I am standing on the grass, in bare feet, listening to our host requesting us to acknowledge nature, whenua, the elements and I instinctively place my hands in a triangle shape just below my belly button, attuning myself to whatever it is that is happening around me, through this man’s invocation. I am drawing energy from Papatūānuku, mother earth, the sacred dragon, inviting the serpent to climb up into my body through my legs. I am mystified. Where are these thoughts and the obeying of the body coming from? I am in some kind of cosmic flow. Te-noho-kotahitanga-marae The haukainga’s voice acts both as an anchoring presence and a guiding force to something new… he is now talking about the nearby Wairaka stream, its sacredness and its ability to nurture and heal people. I am drawn more and more into another dimension that is opening up to me like a revelation. How is it possible that what I already know is felt like a new experience? Perhaps it’s ‘the feeling’ that makes the difference rather than just ‘the knowing’? We are all now walking in formation towards the Wharenui. The kaikaranga’s voice acts as a compass: Karanga ra ki nga ope tūārangi Kua eke nei Ki te marae e te iwi e The young Maori woman in dreadlocks leading us into the Wharenui is visibly emotional, tears streaming down her face, making an effort to contain her sobbing. I feel what she feels, the connection with the ancestors bringing up, from deep in the subconscious, our need to belong, to be part of a continuum that gives meaning to our lives. I, the visitor, become a guest on the marae. I am given birth into my new status, but only because the vagina---represented by the carved entrance to the Wharenui--- “aggressively, lovingly and soulfully-- earthily and spiritually”- strips me of all remaining tapu from my accumulated life to that moment. “Transformed by the ancestor’s digestive and sexual orifices, people grow into new relationships and therefore new people.” Entering this beautifully carved building is like entering the vagina, where the masculine---represented here by the procession led by the kaikaranga and us the guests--- meets the feminine and gives birth to a new self, a rebirth or recreation of the self. Once I go through the doors and into this space, I hear our host say, I am expected to come out transformed, in the manner of “I will not be the same again.” I love this metaphor and it amuses me somewhat when I realize the synchronicity, involved in this unexpected ceremony. For just the night before, I had fallen asleep listening to a piece of music by Neonymus, recorded in the Neanderthal Cave of San Pelayo, after spending my evening reading a chapter from a book on the Healing Power of the Sacred Woman that talked about the need for women and humanity to reclaim the sacred vagina, the mother earth, the feminine, subjugated by patriarchy for thousands of years. Te-noho-kotahitanga-marae Neonymus’ music was very evocative with sounds coming from deep within the earth, echoing the planetary womb. I was reminded then that just a few days earlier, while traveling abroad, I had bought an agate crystal, cut in a big round thin sliver that brought out translucent rich reds and oranges and yellows, all in a concentric formation resembling a sperm like looking head entering the egg in the uterus. I bought it because of its colours but also because of its symbolism, the coming together of the feminine and the masculine forces of life. Could this be one of those synchronicity cases Jung talked about, where our subconscious seems to attract situations that on the outside they look arbitrarily thrown together but upon close inspection you discover a linking thread that makes the events part of the same story; a story that is still unfolding and where serendipity comes to play a role? The voice of our host brings me back. The process of transformation is complete, I hear him saying, with the mingling of breath, when tangata whenua - the people of the land - and us, the manuhiri (guests) hongi (press noses together); and when we share food after entering the body of the shared tipuna via the ancestral mouth/vagina represented by the meeting house. “We eat having been eaten!” The visualization of this cannibalistic sounding act is so powerfully earthy that I long to be taken in by the ancestral mouth, devoured by mother earth, enclosed by the deep dark inner sanctum of the sacred feminine and being transformed. Welcome to Aotearoa, I whisper to myself. In a few days, I am going to be at another ceremony, a civic one this time that will confirm my New Zealand citizenship. But I feel this spiritual ceremony is what binds me now to Aotearoa and the tangata whenua; the day I experience my own entry into the ancestral vaginal mouth and reclaim my own sacred feminine power. Post Script Three days after this symbolic and deeply affecting event, I agreed to an impromptu day trip to Bethells Beach, an iconic seascape near Auckland. It was a wet spring day. While at the beach the weather held dry but still moody and heavy cast with a light breeze. We walked towards the far end where there is a big cave. My friend turned to me to ask if I was “ready to brave it.” I was not sure. A few years back – it must have been three years ago - she had taken me there knowing that I have a natural dislike to enclosed spaces, especially caves. Although I had reluctantly agreed to follow her in, it was with a terrible sense of uneasiness and once inside I fought an overwhelming sense of claustrophobia that was almost nauseating. This time, she let me brave it on my own, perhaps sensing that I can do it myself, without holding my hand as she did the first time. I walked all the way into the far lower end of the cave and sat in the darkness feeling completely at ease with my surroundings. I felt cocooned and protected, the silence surrounding me a natural, empty and yet pregnant with energy space. Could it be that by entering the sacred vagina at the Marae, I symbolically acknowledged my feminine side and made amends with it? Perhaps the haukainga was right, once you enter the Marae’s vagina you are never the same again. *** Three months later, I went back to the Marae to talk to Whaea L about my looming operation. She is known to be a wise Maori elder, well respected for her indigenous grounded spirituality and healer’s touch. I started talking about my Marae experience and the exploration of the indigenous concept of the vagina and femaleness, crucial elements I felt to my health-related issues. She abruptly stood up, asked me to wait for her for a few minutes while she went to her car to bring something she felt it was meant to be shared with me. What she brought back was a gray blanket she was given to as a child full of personal and collective symbolism. I was perplexed, a blanket? Once she unfolded it, I understood. I saw photos of landscapes pinned to the fabric. Perhaps it was our talk about vaginas but that's all I could see in them. The entry and exit point of a tunnel into a mountain that indeed looked like the opening of a woman’s body. Whaea L explained that this was of part her childhood’s landscape, the photos were taken from her ancestral land. The tunnel was carved by her great-great uncle for the women of his iwi, a place to perform their monthly ritual passage through the darkness of mother earth, Papatūānuku, and into the light and the sea for cleansing on the other side. *** I felt drawn to this landscape, wishing I could have performed that passage myself when I most needed it, remembering with regret how my own passage to womanhood went unnoticed, filled first with fear and then apprehension at the appearance of that first blood through my legs. My eldest sister gave me a sanitary pad while providing kindly but with the briefest of explanations, “Ah, that! You just got your first period.” And that’s what my passage to womanhood was all about, an uneventful moment that did not even merit a chat with my mother who feeling exhausted by her demanding job was, I am sure, relieved to hear that the ‘incident’ was dealt with by her eldest daughter. No ritual passage, no ceremony, no celebration in a household full of women. And what followed was years of the convenience store woman wrapping up the sanitary pads in newspaper so the men sitting in the little town’s square would not see what I was carrying. Years of being excused from going to church or having holy communion on those Sundays blood run through my legs, always wondering why God created women if ‘HE’ disliked them so much. But that was a male God and that explained it all. The Maori Legend concerning the Permanence of Death: Tane and Hine-nui-te-Po Painting by Danny Ngene Ngene Tane and Hine-nui-te-Po May verse seed hope in death,Being spent in bliss of love,Into that great darknessWhere Tane came in dreadTo seek redemption and redress. Formed from the earthHis wife gave birthAnd their daughterThe girl of the flashing dawnWas born in sunlit splendor But he took this daughterAs his slave and playthingUntil shame caught herAnd she fled and soughtThe spirit world. And at its gateShe stopped her lover-fatherBidding him returnTo care for their children Saying: ‘I will see them againThey will come to me in due time”So death itself was bornAnd she became the night. But Tane grew angry,As those he loved were claimed,Hating the Dark Child-MotherBut lusting for her still Then he sought to enter her,A once and final act,This time to claim her forever,Becoming a penis for the task,Penetrating so deepHe would leave through her mouthTo void the curse. But vain as he was,He had summoned the birdsTo watch his vengeanceAnd the little pied tumblerOr pi’waka’waka laughed,Waking Hine-nui-te-PoWho slew Tane with her thighs And she appointedThenceforth the tiny fantailAs her messenger. Then was mankind lost. Now as we seek releaseEach little death quietensTo an after-silenceSacred to the dark daughterAnd only poetry betraysOur longings and regretsFor that ever-risen dawnStill misted from her breath. ---------------------------- http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/artwork/28776/hine-nui-te-po https://kjohnsonnz.blogspot.co.nz/2012/12/ogden-nashs-australasian-bestiary.html Posted 20th February 2017 by Keith Shorrocks Johnson
- New Zealand Covid-19 Vaccination Strategy finally clarified!
  - 8 Mar 2021
  - Keith Johnson
  - New Zealand is tailoring its vaccination strategy for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, moving away from its prior plans that relied on various manufacturers and products. https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/03/08/coronavirus-covid-live-updates-us/#link-WUUA44HRN5D6TC2N2SUCHNOPSQ The change was announced by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern on Monday, who said her government had purchased an additional 8.5 million Pfizer-BioNTech doses, bringing the country’s total supply this year to 10 million. The additional doses mean that New Zealand expects to be able to vaccinate all of its about 5 million inhabitants with the same product, similar to the efforts that are already underway in Israel which are also primarily centered around the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. “The decision to make Pfizer New Zealand’s primary vaccine provider was based on the fact the Pfizer vaccine has been shown to be about 95 per cent effective at preventing symptomatic infection,” Ardern said, according to the New Zealand Herald. Ardern said that previously struck deals with other companies would remain in place, indicating that the country could donate excess supply. The additional Pfizer-BioNTech doses are expected to be delivered in the second half of the year. The country’s vaccine rollout has been slower than in the United States or Europe, but New Zealand has so far recorded only 26 deaths from covid-19. Ardern’s efforts to stamp out the virus within the country have won widespread acclaim around the world. Recent virus outbreaks have prompted warnings that the country may still face challenges in the coming months, however, as enthusiasm about the vaccine rollout may result in waning compliance with coronavirus restrictions. The country’s most populous city, Auckland, on Sunday ended a week-long local lockdown that was introduced following the discovery of a cluster of new cases there late last month. The expected vaccine deliveries bring the country “one step closer to moving away from restrictions to manage covid-19,” Ardern said Monday.
- New Zealand Covid-19 Vaccination Strategy finally clarified!
  - 8 Mar 2021
  - Keith Johnson
  - New Zealand is tailoring its vaccination strategy for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, moving away from its prior plans that relied on various manufacturers and products. https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/03/08/coronavirus-covid-live-updates-us/#link-WUUA44HRN5D6TC2N2SUCHNOPSQ The change was announced by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern on Monday, who said her government had purchased an additional 8.5 million Pfizer-BioNTech doses, bringing the country’s total supply this year to 10 million. The additional doses mean that New Zealand expects to be able to vaccinate all of its about 5 million inhabitants with the same product, similar to the efforts that are already underway in Israel which are also primarily centered around the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. “The decision to make Pfizer New Zealand’s primary vaccine provider was based on the fact the Pfizer vaccine has been shown to be about 95 per cent effective at preventing symptomatic infection,” Ardern said, according to the New Zealand Herald. Ardern said that previously struck deals with other companies would remain in place, indicating that the country could donate excess supply. The additional Pfizer-BioNTech doses are expected to be delivered in the second half of the year. The country’s vaccine rollout has been slower than in the United States or Europe, but New Zealand has so far recorded only 26 deaths from covid-19. Ardern’s efforts to stamp out the virus within the country have won widespread acclaim around the world. Recent virus outbreaks have prompted warnings that the country may still face challenges in the coming months, however, as enthusiasm about the vaccine rollout may result in waning compliance with coronavirus restrictions. The country’s most populous city, Auckland, on Sunday ended a week-long local lockdown that was introduced following the discovery of a cluster of new cases there late last month. The expected vaccine deliveries bring the country “one step closer to moving away from restrictions to manage covid-19,” Ardern said Monday.
- Some of My Earliest Poetry - from 2012
  - 7 Mar 2021
  - Keith Johnson
  - At Quilter's Bookshop having Coffee With maturity comes freedom?Rubbish.With an absence of choiceHave I ceased to be a man? Reading Antony Burgess on moralityIn the New Yorker,I wrestled with predestination -Nowt so queer as a clockwork orange. As far as I could tell, things you think are OK –Action makes it predestined. I squeezed a glance at the twenty-or-so blondeBending over a second-hand book,Wellington all the way – black and grey –But great legs, dark tights.Pity the haunches are hidden under a shift. And then back to Burgess –Maybe skins are choice –It’s just peeling that’s wrong. A very late middle-aged man having a coffeeLooking hopefully conspicuous –Fruit for thought. The girl barista is also personable, As well as making a great trim flat white. ‘Girl, I’m goin to make you sweat’, the song has it.Not in my case, I don’t have options –They are just lookers. Time was when the blush would bloom above the breastsAnd heads would roll back –Now sin is passing me by.Good has been imposed upon me. I never had to contend with mind control –All the girls knew what I was thinking -Some tossed their curls, some bit lips - some smiled.Most just practiced being admired - and were dismissive. But in the roundSad-to-say, I have lost free will -Now destined to an absence of choiceBy unreciprocated zest. An orange that just ticks.Posted 4th July 2012 by Keith Shorrocks JohnsonLabels: Anthony Burgess and Predestination Coffee Poetry in Wellington Keith Johnson Poetry Keith Johnson Wellington Poet Quilter's Bookshop Unreciprocated Zest and the Clockwork Orange Jill Clayburgh (1944 - 2010) FOR AN OLD LOVE Hey Jill, I still love you gal – dance again! I used to joke about my ballet career And splitting my tights with the Junior Kirov, On my pas de deux debut in Omsk - But we never met and my lifts are dodgy Though an entrechat might have easily disappeared Between your broken smile and mine, Entre chats with a coffee and bagel. Few watch now as you swan Odette And, as a clod with encroaching klutz My dancing days are curtain-called By a sore spot on my right foot. You were born in April, I in June Under Von Rundstedt’s spell - And as the children of Operation Overlord I could have spun a line to be your Siegfried. You could have swooned or swanned - Thighs caressed by the dark webs, Held in my arms or wings Quivering to the feathered glory. Or then again, we could have walked and laughed And watched the ducks in Central Park And you could have sashayed your curls And tippy-toed a deux or quatre avec moi. Posted 19th September 2012 by Keith Shorrocks JohnsonLabels: Born in 1944 Jill Clayburgh 'An Unmarried Woman' Jill Clayburgh Poem Jill Clayburgh remembered Leda and the Swan and Swan Lake Operation Overlord Von Runstedt More Remarkable Occurrences in the South Seas FROM STUFF TO SKY NEWS AND THE HUFFINGTON POST July 16, 2012 linked the New Zealand and international media [including the Huffington Post] in exploring the intersection between the Transit of Venus and Polar Circumnavigation in South Auckland. Otara-Papatoetoe Local Board representative Donna Lee says the culprits who are bending and breaking street signs are local prostitutes who pole-dance around the signs like strippers in a dance club. HELLO BOYS I, Krystal-Stace on high-heels tottingThis dawn the Johns besottingLiving the high life turning tricks -One of Auckland’s dancing chicks Have been arching til I’m numbWiggling stop signs round my bum.What better way to flush a punterThan inside-leg a flash eye-opener I live a full life – no better than I shouldSustained by poles of steel or woodRisking burns to arse and nipple,The balm of love must keep me supple. But if my spiral gets upendedWith these words I’d be appendedNone should pull a fireman fairy-spinWhere the Slow Down signs have rusted thin. Posted 23rd July 2012 by Keith Shorrocks Johnson
- Some of My Earliest Poetry - from 2012
  - 7 Mar 2021
  - Keith Johnson
  - At Quilter's Bookshop having Coffee With maturity comes freedom?Rubbish.With an absence of choiceHave I ceased to be a man? Reading Antony Burgess on moralityIn the New Yorker,I wrestled with predestination -Nowt so queer as a clockwork orange. As far as I could tell, things you think are OK –Action makes it predestined. I squeezed a glance at the twenty-or-so blondeBending over a second-hand book,Wellington all the way – black and grey –But great legs, dark tights.Pity the haunches are hidden under a shift. And then back to Burgess –Maybe skins are choice –It’s just peeling that’s wrong. A very late middle-aged man having a coffeeLooking hopefully conspicuous –Fruit for thought. The girl barista is also personable, As well as making a great trim flat white. ‘Girl, I’m goin to make you sweat’, the song has it.Not in my case, I don’t have options –They are just lookers. Time was when the blush would bloom above the breastsAnd heads would roll back –Now sin is passing me by.Good has been imposed upon me. I never had to contend with mind control –All the girls knew what I was thinking -Some tossed their curls, some bit lips - some smiled.Most just practiced being admired - and were dismissive. But in the roundSad-to-say, I have lost free will -Now destined to an absence of choiceBy unreciprocated zest. An orange that just ticks.Posted 4th July 2012 by Keith Shorrocks JohnsonLabels: Anthony Burgess and Predestination Coffee Poetry in Wellington Keith Johnson Poetry Keith Johnson Wellington Poet Quilter's Bookshop Unreciprocated Zest and the Clockwork Orange Jill Clayburgh (1944 - 2010) FOR AN OLD LOVE Hey Jill, I still love you gal – dance again! I used to joke about my ballet career And splitting my tights with the Junior Kirov, On my pas de deux debut in Omsk - But we never met and my lifts are dodgy Though an entrechat might have easily disappeared Between your broken smile and mine, Entre chats with a coffee and bagel. Few watch now as you swan Odette And, as a clod with encroaching klutz My dancing days are curtain-called By a sore spot on my right foot. You were born in April, I in June Under Von Rundstedt’s spell - And as the children of Operation Overlord I could have spun a line to be your Siegfried. You could have swooned or swanned - Thighs caressed by the dark webs, Held in my arms or wings Quivering to the feathered glory. Or then again, we could have walked and laughed And watched the ducks in Central Park And you could have sashayed your curls And tippy-toed a deux or quatre avec moi. Posted 19th September 2012 by Keith Shorrocks JohnsonLabels: Born in 1944 Jill Clayburgh 'An Unmarried Woman' Jill Clayburgh Poem Jill Clayburgh remembered Leda and the Swan and Swan Lake Operation Overlord Von Runstedt More Remarkable Occurrences in the South Seas FROM STUFF TO SKY NEWS AND THE HUFFINGTON POST July 16, 2012 linked the New Zealand and international media [including the Huffington Post] in exploring the intersection between the Transit of Venus and Polar Circumnavigation in South Auckland. Otara-Papatoetoe Local Board representative Donna Lee says the culprits who are bending and breaking street signs are local prostitutes who pole-dance around the signs like strippers in a dance club. HELLO BOYS I, Krystal-Stace on high-heels tottingThis dawn the Johns besottingLiving the high life turning tricks -One of Auckland’s dancing chicks Have been arching til I’m numbWiggling stop signs round my bum.What better way to flush a punterThan inside-leg a flash eye-opener I live a full life – no better than I shouldSustained by poles of steel or woodRisking burns to arse and nipple,The balm of love must keep me supple. But if my spiral gets upendedWith these words I’d be appendedNone should pull a fireman fairy-spinWhere the Slow Down signs have rusted thin. Posted 23rd July 2012 by Keith Shorrocks Johnson
- Some of My Poetry from 2016
  - 7 Mar 2021
  - Keith Johnson
  - No Separation When sun has set and night has come The road not taken leaves no trace Of journeys once so near begun All thought to part now left in place. But all roads cross and come to ground As dark paths shift and circle back There is no loss there is no found Thorns and flowers will edge each track. And deep within the wily wood Other lanes will branch in offering Promises which are best withstood Though such is neither bad nor good. No difference then to choose The high road or the low No use to fear to gain or lose If way there be, the dawn will show The Last Word? They may never come again who knew the joy Of youth among the mountains there As time and use degrade and then destroy All but the memories those hearts alone still bear. But yet the hillsides graft a gentle scar To bind the happenings of those who care So that neither time nor loss can mar The roots that land and lives forever share. Daramoolen and The Dreamtime [For the Ngunnawal people - traditional custodians of the Monaro Plains and the Canberra region] DARAMOOLEN AND THE DREAMTIME Then there was no man Or even woman And the sky was clear Only the sun And beneath the sun Lay the snake. So the snake slept For long Alone and inert Until it awoke Hungry and thirsty Ready. Then the snake Made a woman From the moonlight And when she Had grown He drank from her. After the snake had Tasted the blood The rain came And the land came to life With many creatures And the snake became a rainbow. Then the woman said ‘Daramoolen Make me a man So that I can give birth’ And the Rainbow Snake Made a man And the woman was glad. So people came to the world And children played. And as the children grew The mother told them: ‘With blood and rain The snake made you.’ But the man was curious And when the moon came He tasted the blood From the woman And cut himself So that he too could bleed. Then the man Mixed her blood with his And the Rainbow snake Became very angry Saying: ‘these children Are mine’. Then the snake went along Far away And drought Covered the land So that the people Had no food and were afraid. So the woman Sent her two eldest sons To find Daramoolen And they found him Coiled cold against a Great mountain. And the boys said: ‘Our mother has sent us Open your mouth And give us hope That blood can Bring the rain again’. And Daramoolen Ate the boys And they were gone But he said to the woman: ‘Here is Jedinbilla - Where boys become men’. And the snake made Murra bidgee mullangari [To keep the pathway To the ancestors alive] Saying: ‘Now the boys Are colours on my skin Ngunna yerrabi yanggu [So you are welcome To leave footprints on the land] Where your people Will see the rain again And the man must dream’. An Abandoned Farmhouse Garden in South Wairarapa FOR ANNIE GRANT She was a heavy, red and freckled lassie Shipped from Greenock as a serving maid But women were few in the colony And Jack stumped up with her passage paid. He was older, with money, but she was strong And she loved the work in making a farm: This was a place where she might belong Weary at dusk with a bairn on her arm. So they passed, the aching treasured years As the orchard in golden fullness bore A bounty of apples, peaches and pears Sweet and tart to the homestead kitchen door. But seasons came when the fruit just fell And who was the gardener none could tell. For England 2016 You were so beautiful my own country Your fields and fells the honest sun received And under open skies the air was free As all were equal and all bonds redeemed. My place of birth you have grown sour and old Uplifting hate to heart with evil lies And now I find a touch that's coarse and cold With devilment in hard deceiving eyes. No longer does the land I loved seem green: Three scores and ten to ashen grey have turned The sparkling summer's days that once were seen When truth glowed bright as lamps of justice burned. For fear of which, I cannot leave unsaid My dread thy beauty's summer is forever dead. Kamchatka Lilies LET US ACCEPT To begin with, let us accept the following: Poetry is love. Now we can continue: So in Kamchatka lilies are blooming In their naranja zest / burnt-gold hue More beautiful than the russet curls Of the youngest and most loved prince, A scion of the Tsarskoye Selo world From times that have passed to legend long since. See the little boy gathered by the Tsarina Her hair dressed with a dark diamante tiara, Less in loveliness with all its arcane power Than the Sarana's purpure-petalled flower. So I gift with awe the verse that nature writes In startling suns and jet-tipped star delights. We Are Surrounded By Ghosts – Now We Have To Live With Them Watching you, I felt chill winds of springtime blow Among white cherry trees and purple sprays - Saw the lost gardens amid the scents of long ago Of the last lands whose lids are closed in final days. Pressing flowers into the leaves and loneliness Kneeling to the mud or delving for the sand Quiet frames of countenance and loveliness I longed to comfort you and take your hand And catch your eyes and gaze at you my lost girl In wonder at the years now left in beauty’s stead And you would laugh and say ‘Kind Sir’ and twirl - Tossing bemusedly your wise angelic head. Only time divides our souls – and time is on our side And those who went before will leave the window wide. The Copper Beech [A visit to the family graves at St Mary's Churchyard, The Barony, Nantwich] Home to haven, thanksgiving and prayer Where earth had settled the ferryman's fare: Safe from the crossing, at refuge from care, Rows of skiff-kists beached to memory there. Guarding the landing where they had come home A grand copper beech resurges the graves Tumbling gently both kerbing and headstone In quiet relentless insistent waves. Magnificent homeward-harbour tree Channeling blood and bone, both tide and quay Swelling your crowning bronze to ecstasy At one with the slipway and the sea Brimming and breaking and welcoming me My loved ones at one in your majesty. High Country Hymn High the mountains rise in spur and summit Headed up to frozen tracts and recent snows Clear to the blistering ice-blue sky Ringing bluffs and cliffs and ragged flumes Hard country gullies topped to waterfalls Drop to native beech and sweet short pasture. Into the easy country, the creeks are bound By rubble walls spilled from tussock heights Each fissure with its self-built stop-banks Breaking through to foothill flats and meadows And below the river laces braids with willows Stilled to lakeside once among the poplar stands. One Equal Temper I Ulysses have seen much and I repent. Always when the storms cease, the horizon Flattens and the circumference returns. So must the ship seek still by star and lode That at least there is some hope of harbour Come to ground in calm clear waters. Do not tell me again of mystery islands Or the sirens seductive in their melody Or empires to be conquered come the dawn. Let me simply find a sand shore and footfall Set down and landed on the ocean's edge And feel again the particles of broken shells. I will not be so foolish as to think of home Or finding hearth and solace in an ancient hall Or dream of sons to carry name and blazon. My only thought is that the storms are done And that the line is drawn so clear and straight That sets the lesser and the greater blue.
- Some of My Poetry from 2016
  - 7 Mar 2021
  - Keith Johnson
  - No Separation When sun has set and night has come The road not taken leaves no trace Of journeys once so near begun All thought to part now left in place. But all roads cross and come to ground As dark paths shift and circle back There is no loss there is no found Thorns and flowers will edge each track. And deep within the wily wood Other lanes will branch in offering Promises which are best withstood Though such is neither bad nor good. No difference then to choose The high road or the low No use to fear to gain or lose If way there be, the dawn will show The Last Word? They may never come again who knew the joy Of youth among the mountains there As time and use degrade and then destroy All but the memories those hearts alone still bear. But yet the hillsides graft a gentle scar To bind the happenings of those who care So that neither time nor loss can mar The roots that land and lives forever share. Daramoolen and The Dreamtime [For the Ngunnawal people - traditional custodians of the Monaro Plains and the Canberra region] DARAMOOLEN AND THE DREAMTIME Then there was no man Or even woman And the sky was clear Only the sun And beneath the sun Lay the snake. So the snake slept For long Alone and inert Until it awoke Hungry and thirsty Ready. Then the snake Made a woman From the moonlight And when she Had grown He drank from her. After the snake had Tasted the blood The rain came And the land came to life With many creatures And the snake became a rainbow. Then the woman said ‘Daramoolen Make me a man So that I can give birth’ And the Rainbow Snake Made a man And the woman was glad. So people came to the world And children played. And as the children grew The mother told them: ‘With blood and rain The snake made you.’ But the man was curious And when the moon came He tasted the blood From the woman And cut himself So that he too could bleed. Then the man Mixed her blood with his And the Rainbow snake Became very angry Saying: ‘these children Are mine’. Then the snake went along Far away And drought Covered the land So that the people Had no food and were afraid. So the woman Sent her two eldest sons To find Daramoolen And they found him Coiled cold against a Great mountain. And the boys said: ‘Our mother has sent us Open your mouth And give us hope That blood can Bring the rain again’. And Daramoolen Ate the boys And they were gone But he said to the woman: ‘Here is Jedinbilla - Where boys become men’. And the snake made Murra bidgee mullangari [To keep the pathway To the ancestors alive] Saying: ‘Now the boys Are colours on my skin Ngunna yerrabi yanggu [So you are welcome To leave footprints on the land] Where your people Will see the rain again And the man must dream’. An Abandoned Farmhouse Garden in South Wairarapa FOR ANNIE GRANT She was a heavy, red and freckled lassie Shipped from Greenock as a serving maid But women were few in the colony And Jack stumped up with her passage paid. He was older, with money, but she was strong And she loved the work in making a farm: This was a place where she might belong Weary at dusk with a bairn on her arm. So they passed, the aching treasured years As the orchard in golden fullness bore A bounty of apples, peaches and pears Sweet and tart to the homestead kitchen door. But seasons came when the fruit just fell And who was the gardener none could tell. For England 2016 You were so beautiful my own country Your fields and fells the honest sun received And under open skies the air was free As all were equal and all bonds redeemed. My place of birth you have grown sour and old Uplifting hate to heart with evil lies And now I find a touch that's coarse and cold With devilment in hard deceiving eyes. No longer does the land I loved seem green: Three scores and ten to ashen grey have turned The sparkling summer's days that once were seen When truth glowed bright as lamps of justice burned. For fear of which, I cannot leave unsaid My dread thy beauty's summer is forever dead. Kamchatka Lilies LET US ACCEPT To begin with, let us accept the following: Poetry is love. Now we can continue: So in Kamchatka lilies are blooming In their naranja zest / burnt-gold hue More beautiful than the russet curls Of the youngest and most loved prince, A scion of the Tsarskoye Selo world From times that have passed to legend long since. See the little boy gathered by the Tsarina Her hair dressed with a dark diamante tiara, Less in loveliness with all its arcane power Than the Sarana's purpure-petalled flower. So I gift with awe the verse that nature writes In startling suns and jet-tipped star delights. We Are Surrounded By Ghosts – Now We Have To Live With Them Watching you, I felt chill winds of springtime blow Among white cherry trees and purple sprays - Saw the lost gardens amid the scents of long ago Of the last lands whose lids are closed in final days. Pressing flowers into the leaves and loneliness Kneeling to the mud or delving for the sand Quiet frames of countenance and loveliness I longed to comfort you and take your hand And catch your eyes and gaze at you my lost girl In wonder at the years now left in beauty’s stead And you would laugh and say ‘Kind Sir’ and twirl - Tossing bemusedly your wise angelic head. Only time divides our souls – and time is on our side And those who went before will leave the window wide. The Copper Beech [A visit to the family graves at St Mary's Churchyard, The Barony, Nantwich] Home to haven, thanksgiving and prayer Where earth had settled the ferryman's fare: Safe from the crossing, at refuge from care, Rows of skiff-kists beached to memory there. Guarding the landing where they had come home A grand copper beech resurges the graves Tumbling gently both kerbing and headstone In quiet relentless insistent waves. Magnificent homeward-harbour tree Channeling blood and bone, both tide and quay Swelling your crowning bronze to ecstasy At one with the slipway and the sea Brimming and breaking and welcoming me My loved ones at one in your majesty. High Country Hymn High the mountains rise in spur and summit Headed up to frozen tracts and recent snows Clear to the blistering ice-blue sky Ringing bluffs and cliffs and ragged flumes Hard country gullies topped to waterfalls Drop to native beech and sweet short pasture. Into the easy country, the creeks are bound By rubble walls spilled from tussock heights Each fissure with its self-built stop-banks Breaking through to foothill flats and meadows And below the river laces braids with willows Stilled to lakeside once among the poplar stands. One Equal Temper I Ulysses have seen much and I repent. Always when the storms cease, the horizon Flattens and the circumference returns. So must the ship seek still by star and lode That at least there is some hope of harbour Come to ground in calm clear waters. Do not tell me again of mystery islands Or the sirens seductive in their melody Or empires to be conquered come the dawn. Let me simply find a sand shore and footfall Set down and landed on the ocean's edge And feel again the particles of broken shells. I will not be so foolish as to think of home Or finding hearth and solace in an ancient hall Or dream of sons to carry name and blazon. My only thought is that the storms are done And that the line is drawn so clear and straight That sets the lesser and the greater blue.
- Suspicious Poet Threat
  - 6 Mar 2021
  - Keith Johnson
  - Amanda Gorman Says Security Guard Confronted Her, Saying She Looked ‘Suspicious’ Ms. Gorman, who recited a stirring poem at President Biden’s inauguration, said the guard had followed her as she walked home. By Michael Levenson, NYT, March 5, 2021 Amanda Gorman, who became a national sensation when she delivered a stirring poem at President Biden’s inauguration in January, said on Friday that a security guard had followed her home and told her she looked suspicious. “A security guard tailed me on my walk home tonight,” Ms. Gorman wrote on Twitter. “He demanded if I lived there because ‘you look suspicious.’ I showed my keys & buzzed myself into my building. He left, no apology. This is the reality of black girls: One day you’re called an icon, the next day, a threat.” Ms. Gorman said in another tweet: “In a sense, he was right. I AM A THREAT: a threat to injustice, to inequality, to ignorance. Anyone who speaks the truth and walks with hope is an obvious and fatal danger to the powers that be.” Ms. Gorman, 22, who is from Los Angeles, did not immediately respond to a message sent through her website on Friday night. She is the youngest inaugural poet ever in the United States and was named the United States’ first youth poet laureate in 2017, when she was a student at Harvard. At Mr. Biden’s inauguration, she drew widespread acclaim when she recited, in a voice filled with clarity and emotion, “The Hill We Climb” in front of the sunlit Capitol, just days after a violent mob of Trump supporters had laid siege to the building as Congress met to certify the results of the presidential election. In the poem, Ms. Gorman spoke of “striving to forge a union with purpose, to compose a country committed to all cultures, colors, characters and conditions of man.” She described her background as a “skinny Black girl, descended from slaves and raised by a single mother,” who can dream of being president one day, “only to find herself reciting for one.” After the inauguration, IMG Models, which represents supermodels including Alek Wek, Paloma Elsesser and Joan Smalls, announced that it would represent Ms. Gorman for fashion and beauty endorsements. And “Good Morning America” broke the news that Ms. Gorman would perform at the Super Bowl preshow, which she did in February.
- Suspicious Poet Threat
  - 6 Mar 2021
  - Keith Johnson
  - Amanda Gorman Says Security Guard Confronted Her, Saying She Looked ‘Suspicious’ Ms. Gorman, who recited a stirring poem at President Biden’s inauguration, said the guard had followed her as she walked home. By Michael Levenson, NYT, March 5, 2021 Amanda Gorman, who became a national sensation when she delivered a stirring poem at President Biden’s inauguration in January, said on Friday that a security guard had followed her home and told her she looked suspicious. “A security guard tailed me on my walk home tonight,” Ms. Gorman wrote on Twitter. “He demanded if I lived there because ‘you look suspicious.’ I showed my keys & buzzed myself into my building. He left, no apology. This is the reality of black girls: One day you’re called an icon, the next day, a threat.” Ms. Gorman said in another tweet: “In a sense, he was right. I AM A THREAT: a threat to injustice, to inequality, to ignorance. Anyone who speaks the truth and walks with hope is an obvious and fatal danger to the powers that be.” Ms. Gorman, 22, who is from Los Angeles, did not immediately respond to a message sent through her website on Friday night. She is the youngest inaugural poet ever in the United States and was named the United States’ first youth poet laureate in 2017, when she was a student at Harvard. At Mr. Biden’s inauguration, she drew widespread acclaim when she recited, in a voice filled with clarity and emotion, “The Hill We Climb” in front of the sunlit Capitol, just days after a violent mob of Trump supporters had laid siege to the building as Congress met to certify the results of the presidential election. In the poem, Ms. Gorman spoke of “striving to forge a union with purpose, to compose a country committed to all cultures, colors, characters and conditions of man.” She described her background as a “skinny Black girl, descended from slaves and raised by a single mother,” who can dream of being president one day, “only to find herself reciting for one.” After the inauguration, IMG Models, which represents supermodels including Alek Wek, Paloma Elsesser and Joan Smalls, announced that it would represent Ms. Gorman for fashion and beauty endorsements. And “Good Morning America” broke the news that Ms. Gorman would perform at the Super Bowl preshow, which she did in February.
- Marita Solberg 'Solveig's song' Edvard Grieg Peer Gynt [Norwegian and English]
  - 5 Mar 2021
  - Keith Johnson
  - Kanskje vil der gå både Vinter og Vår Maybe it will take both winter and spring; Og naeste Sommer med, op det hele År And also next summer, and the whole year too; Men engang vil du komme, det ved jeg visst. But one time you will come, I know for sure; Her skal jeg nok vente, for det lovte jeg sidst Here shall I wait, 'cause I promised you 'ere. ♫♪♫♫♫♪♪ [interlude] Gud styrke dig, hvor du i Verden går God give strength to thee, you who walk in the world; Gud glaede dig, hvis du for hans fodskammel står God pleasure thee, for whom his footstool stands; Her skal jeg vente till du komme igjen Here I shall wait for you 'till your next coming; Og vente du hisst oppe, vi traeffes der, min Ven! And wait up here, 'till we meet again, my friend!
- Marita Solberg 'Solveig's song' Edvard Grieg Peer Gynt [Norwegian and English]
  - 5 Mar 2021
  - Keith Johnson
  - Kanskje vil der gå både Vinter og Vår Maybe it will take both winter and spring; Og naeste Sommer med, op det hele År And also next summer, and the whole year too; Men engang vil du komme, det ved jeg visst. But one time you will come, I know for sure; Her skal jeg nok vente, for det lovte jeg sidst Here shall I wait, 'cause I promised you 'ere. ♫♪♫♫♫♪♪ [interlude] Gud styrke dig, hvor du i Verden går God give strength to thee, you who walk in the world; Gud glaede dig, hvis du for hans fodskammel står God pleasure thee, for whom his footstool stands; Her skal jeg vente till du komme igjen Here I shall wait for you 'till your next coming; Og vente du hisst oppe, vi traeffes der, min Ven! And wait up here, 'till we meet again, my friend!
- The Phoenix and the Turtle-(Dove) by Shakespeare - a Buddhist Interpretation
  - 4 Mar 2021
  - Keith Johnson
  - The Phoenix and the Turtle BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARELet the bird of loudest lay On the sole Arabian tree Herald sad and trumpet be, To whose sound chaste wings obey. But thou shrieking harbinger, Foul precurrer of the fiend, Augur of the fever's end, To this troop come thou not near. From this session interdict Every fowl of tyrant wing, Save the eagle, feather'd king; Keep the obsequy so strict. Let the priest in surplice white, That defunctive music can, Be the death-divining swan, Lest the requiem lack his right. And thou treble-dated crow, That thy sable gender mak'st With the breath thou giv'st and tak'st, 'Mongst our mourners shalt thou go. Here the anthem doth commence: Love and constancy is dead; Phoenix and the Turtle fled In a mutual flame from hence. So they lov'd, as love in twain Had the essence but in one; Two distincts, division none: Number there in love was slain. Hearts remote, yet not asunder; Distance and no space was seen 'Twixt this Turtle and his queen: But in them it were a wonder. So between them love did shine That the Turtle saw his right Flaming in the Phoenix' sight: Either was the other's mine. Property was thus appalled That the self was not the same; Single nature's double name Neither two nor one was called. Reason, in itself confounded, Saw division grow together, To themselves yet either neither, Simple were so well compounded; That it cried, "How true a twain Seemeth this concordant one! Love has reason, reason none, If what parts can so remain." Whereupon it made this threne To the Phoenix and the Dove, Co-supremes and stars of love, As chorus to their tragic scene: threnos Beauty, truth, and rarity, Grace in all simplicity, Here enclos'd, in cinders lie. Death is now the Phoenix' nest, And the Turtle's loyal breast To eternity doth rest, Leaving no posterity: 'Twas not their infirmity, It was married chastity. Truth may seem but cannot be; Beauty brag but 'tis not she; Truth and beauty buried be. To this urn let those repair That are either true or fair; For these dead birds sigh a prayer. MARVELOUS, ENIGMATIC, CHALLENGING: ----- A strictly Buddhist interpretation is possible, with the death and resurrection/enlightenment/reincarnation of the Phoenix seen as illustrating the 4 Noble Truths - the immolation of the Self. Hence, ' reason (is) in itself confounded' - 'love has reason, reason none'. The dying and reinstatement of the Phoenix is inherently 'unreasonable' but a prelude to Enlightenment and Compassion. So between them love did shine That the Turtle saw his right Flaming in the Phoenix' sight: Either was the other's mine. Property was thus appalled That the self was not the same; Single nature's double name Neither two nor one was called. Reason, in itself confounded, Saw division grow together, To themselves yet either neither, Simple were so well compounded; That it cried, "How true a twain Seemeth this concordant one! Love has reason, reason none, If what parts can so remain." The Four Noble TruthsThe Four Noble Truths comprise the essence of Buddha's teachings, though they leave much left unexplained. They are the truth of suffering, the truth of the cause of suffering, the truth of the end of suffering, and the truth of the path that leads to the end of suffering. More simply put, suffering exists; it has a cause; it has an end; and it has a cause to bring about its end. The notion of suffering is not intended to convey a negative world view, but rather, a pragmatic perspective that deals with the world as it is, and attempts to rectify it. The concept of pleasure is not denied, but acknowledged as fleeting. Pursuit of pleasure can only continue what is ultimately an unquenchable thirst. The same logic belies an understanding of happiness. In the end, only aging, sickness, and death are certain and unavoidable. The Four Noble Truths are a contingency plan for dealing with the suffering humanity faces -- suffering of a physical kind, or of a mental nature. The First Truth identifies the presence of suffering. The Second Truth, on the other hand, seeks to determine the cause of suffering. In Buddhism, desire and ignorance lie at the root of suffering. By desire, Buddhists refer to craving pleasure, material goods, and immortality, all of which are wants that can never be satisfied. As a result, desiring them can only bring suffering. Ignorance, in comparison, relates to not seeing the world as it actually is. Without the capacity for mental concentration and insight, Buddhism explains, one's mind is left undeveloped, unable to grasp the true nature of things. Vices, such as greed, envy, hatred and anger, derive from this ignorance. The Third Noble Truth, the truth of the end of suffering, has dual meaning, suggesting either the end of suffering in this life, on earth, or in the spiritual life, through achieving Nirvana. When one has achieved Nirvana, which is a transcendent state free from suffering and our worldly cycle of birth and rebirth, spiritual enlightenment has been reached. The Fourth Noble truth charts the method for attaining the end of suffering, known to Buddhists as the Noble Eightfold Path. The steps of the Noble Eightfold Path are Right Understanding, Right Thought, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness and Right Concentration. Moreover, there are three themes into which the Path is divided: good moral conduct (Understanding, Thought, Speech); meditation and mental development (Action, Livelihood, Effort), and wisdom or insight (Mindfulness and Concentration).
- The Phoenix and the Turtle-(Dove) by Shakespeare - a Buddhist Interpretation
  - 4 Mar 2021
  - Keith Johnson
  - The Phoenix and the Turtle BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARELet the bird of loudest lay On the sole Arabian tree Herald sad and trumpet be, To whose sound chaste wings obey. But thou shrieking harbinger, Foul precurrer of the fiend, Augur of the fever's end, To this troop come thou not near. From this session interdict Every fowl of tyrant wing, Save the eagle, feather'd king; Keep the obsequy so strict. Let the priest in surplice white, That defunctive music can, Be the death-divining swan, Lest the requiem lack his right. And thou treble-dated crow, That thy sable gender mak'st With the breath thou giv'st and tak'st, 'Mongst our mourners shalt thou go. Here the anthem doth commence: Love and constancy is dead; Phoenix and the Turtle fled In a mutual flame from hence. So they lov'd, as love in twain Had the essence but in one; Two distincts, division none: Number there in love was slain. Hearts remote, yet not asunder; Distance and no space was seen 'Twixt this Turtle and his queen: But in them it were a wonder. So between them love did shine That the Turtle saw his right Flaming in the Phoenix' sight: Either was the other's mine. Property was thus appalled That the self was not the same; Single nature's double name Neither two nor one was called. Reason, in itself confounded, Saw division grow together, To themselves yet either neither, Simple were so well compounded; That it cried, "How true a twain Seemeth this concordant one! Love has reason, reason none, If what parts can so remain." Whereupon it made this threne To the Phoenix and the Dove, Co-supremes and stars of love, As chorus to their tragic scene: threnos Beauty, truth, and rarity, Grace in all simplicity, Here enclos'd, in cinders lie. Death is now the Phoenix' nest, And the Turtle's loyal breast To eternity doth rest, Leaving no posterity: 'Twas not their infirmity, It was married chastity. Truth may seem but cannot be; Beauty brag but 'tis not she; Truth and beauty buried be. To this urn let those repair That are either true or fair; For these dead birds sigh a prayer. MARVELOUS, ENIGMATIC, CHALLENGING: ----- A strictly Buddhist interpretation is possible, with the death and resurrection/enlightenment/reincarnation of the Phoenix seen as illustrating the 4 Noble Truths - the immolation of the Self. Hence, ' reason (is) in itself confounded' - 'love has reason, reason none'. The dying and reinstatement of the Phoenix is inherently 'unreasonable' but a prelude to Enlightenment and Compassion. Meditation is the vehicle - it is the Way to Non-Separation. To where there is 'no other', 'no mine' and 'neither two nor one' is relevant - the point at which the love of the Turtle Dove for the Phoenix is both absolute and harmonious. So between them love did shine That the Turtle saw his right Flaming in the Phoenix' sight: Either was the other's mine. Property was thus appalled That the self was not the same; Single nature's double name Neither two nor one was called. Reason, in itself confounded, Saw division grow together, To themselves yet either neither, Simple were so well compounded; That it cried, "How true a twain Seemeth this concordant one! Love has reason, reason none, If what parts can so remain." The Four Noble TruthsThe Four Noble Truths comprise the essence of Buddha's teachings, though they leave much left unexplained. They are the truth of suffering, the truth of the cause of suffering, the truth of the end of suffering, and the truth of the path that leads to the end of suffering. More simply put, suffering exists; it has a cause; it has an end; and it has a cause to bring about its end. The notion of suffering is not intended to convey a negative world view, but rather, a pragmatic perspective that deals with the world as it is, and attempts to rectify it. The concept of pleasure is not denied, but acknowledged as fleeting. Pursuit of pleasure can only continue what is ultimately an unquenchable thirst. The same logic belies an understanding of happiness. In the end, only aging, sickness, and death are certain and unavoidable. The Four Noble Truths are a contingency plan for dealing with the suffering humanity faces -- suffering of a physical kind, or of a mental nature. The First Truth identifies the presence of suffering. The Second Truth, on the other hand, seeks to determine the cause of suffering. In Buddhism, desire and ignorance lie at the root of suffering. By desire, Buddhists refer to craving pleasure, material goods, and immortality, all of which are wants that can never be satisfied. As a result, desiring them can only bring suffering. Ignorance, in comparison, relates to not seeing the world as it actually is. Without the capacity for mental concentration and insight, Buddhism explains, one's mind is left undeveloped, unable to grasp the true nature of things. Vices, such as greed, envy, hatred and anger, derive from this ignorance. The Third Noble Truth, the truth of the end of suffering, has dual meaning, suggesting either the end of suffering in this life, on earth, or in the spiritual life, through achieving Nirvana. When one has achieved Nirvana, which is a transcendent state free from suffering and our worldly cycle of birth and rebirth, spiritual enlightenment has been reached. The Fourth Noble truth charts the method for attaining the end of suffering, known to Buddhists as the Noble Eightfold Path. The steps of the Noble Eightfold Path are Right Understanding, Right Thought, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness and Right Concentration. Moreover, there are three themes into which the Path is divided: good moral conduct (Understanding, Thought, Speech); meditation and mental development (Action, Livelihood, Effort), and wisdom or insight (Mindfulness and Concentration).
- Celebrating the Northern Hemisphere Spring 2021
  - 2 Mar 2021
  - Keith Johnson
  - Ode to the West Wind Percy Bysshe Shelley - 1792-1822I O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being,Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves deadAre driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing, Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,Pestilence-stricken multitudes: O thou,Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed The wingèd seeds, where they lie cold and low,Each like a corpse within its grave, untilThine azure sister of the Spring shall blow Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill(Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air)With living hues and odours plain and hill: Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere;Destroyer and Preserver; hear, O hear! II Thou on whose stream, 'mid the steep sky's commotion,Loose clouds like Earth's decaying leaves are shed,Shook from the tangled boughs of Heaven and Ocean, Angels of rain and lightning: there are spreadOn the blue surface of thine airy surge,Like the bright hair uplifted from the head Of some fierce Maenad, even from the dim vergeOf the horizon to the zenith's height,The locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge Of the dying year, to which this closing nightWill be the dome of a vast sepulchreVaulted with all thy congregated might Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphereBlack rain, and fire, and hail will burst: O hear! III Thou who didst waken from his summer dreamsThe blue Mediterranean, where he lay,Lulled by the coil of his crystalline streams, Beside a pumice isle in Baiae's bay,And saw in sleep old palaces and towersQuivering within the wave's intenser day, All overgrown with azure moss and flowersSo sweet, the sense faints picturing them! ThouFor whose path the Atlantic's level powers Cleave themselves into chasms, while far belowThe sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wearThe sapless foliage of the ocean, knowThy voice, and suddenly grow grey with fear,And tremble and despoil themselves: O hear! IV If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear;If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee;A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share The impulse of thy strength, only less freeThan thou, O Uncontrollable! If evenI were as in my boyhood, and could be The comrade of thy wanderings over Heaven,As then, when to outstrip thy skiey speedScarce seemed a vision; I would ne'er have striven As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need.Oh! lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed! A heavy weight of hours has chained and bowedOne too like thee: tameless, and swift, and proud. V Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is:What if my leaves are falling like its own!The tumult of thy mighty harmonies Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone,Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce,My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one! Drive my dead thoughts over the universeLike withered leaves to quicken a new birth!And, by the incantation of this verse, Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearthAshes and sparks, my words among mankind!Be through my lips to unawakened Earth The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind,If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind? FROM THE WASHINGTON POST https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2021/03/01/lenten-rose-how-to-grow/?arc404=true https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2021/03/01/meteorological-spring-2021/
- Celebrating the Northern Hemisphere Spring 2021
  - 2 Mar 2021
  - Keith Johnson
  - Ode to the West Wind Percy Bysshe Shelley - 1792-1822I O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being,Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves deadAre driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing, Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,Pestilence-stricken multitudes: O thou,Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed The wingèd seeds, where they lie cold and low,Each like a corpse within its grave, untilThine azure sister of the Spring shall blow Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill(Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air)With living hues and odours plain and hill: Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere;Destroyer and Preserver; hear, O hear! II Thou on whose stream, 'mid the steep sky's commotion,Loose clouds like Earth's decaying leaves are shed,Shook from the tangled boughs of Heaven and Ocean, Angels of rain and lightning: there are spreadOn the blue surface of thine airy surge,Like the bright hair uplifted from the head Of some fierce Maenad, even from the dim vergeOf the horizon to the zenith's height,The locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge Of the dying year, to which this closing nightWill be the dome of a vast sepulchreVaulted with all thy congregated might Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphereBlack rain, and fire, and hail will burst: O hear! III Thou who didst waken from his summer dreamsThe blue Mediterranean, where he lay,Lulled by the coil of his crystalline streams, Beside a pumice isle in Baiae's bay,And saw in sleep old palaces and towersQuivering within the wave's intenser day, All overgrown with azure moss and flowersSo sweet, the sense faints picturing them! ThouFor whose path the Atlantic's level powers Cleave themselves into chasms, while far belowThe sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wearThe sapless foliage of the ocean, knowThy voice, and suddenly grow grey with fear,And tremble and despoil themselves: O hear! IV If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear;If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee;A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share The impulse of thy strength, only less freeThan thou, O Uncontrollable! If evenI were as in my boyhood, and could be The comrade of thy wanderings over Heaven,As then, when to outstrip thy skiey speedScarce seemed a vision; I would ne'er have striven As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need.Oh! lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed! A heavy weight of hours has chained and bowedOne too like thee: tameless, and swift, and proud. V Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is:What if my leaves are falling like its own!The tumult of thy mighty harmonies Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone,Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce,My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one! Drive my dead thoughts over the universeLike withered leaves to quicken a new birth!And, by the incantation of this verse, Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearthAshes and sparks, my words among mankind!Be through my lips to unawakened Earth The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind,If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind? FROM THE WASHINGTON POST https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2021/03/01/lenten-rose-how-to-grow/?arc404=true https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2021/03/01/meteorological-spring-2021/
- In appreciation of Black Cop Martinus Mitcham gunned down in White Supremacist Myth and Mayhem
  - 1 Mar 2021
  - Keith Johnson
  - Anti-masker murders police officer who was escorting him away from basketball game Travis Gettys, RawStory, March 01, 2021 https://www.rawstory.com/martinus-mitchum/?utm_source=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=6686 A police officer was shot and killed in New Orleans during a dispute over mask requirements at a high school basketball game. Police said 35-year-old John Shallerhorn tried to enter George Washington Carver High School's gymnasium Friday about 6:15 p.m. for a playoff game against Warren Easton High when he was stopped by an employee who was checking temperatures and enforcing a mask mandate, reported NOLA.com. Shallerhorn fought with the school employee before Martinus Mitchum, a Tulane University police officer and 2nd City Court deputy constable who was working for the school as a security guard, tried to break up the altercation. The 38-year-old Mitchum was escorting Shallerhorn off the campus when the man allegedly pulled out a gun and shot the officer twice, police said. Shallerhorn then placed his gun on the ground, police said, and Orleans Parish sheriff's deputies who were at the school arrested him. Mitchum was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital. Before the shooting, Shallerhorn also robbed a medallion chain at gunpoint from a 39-year-old man sitting in a parked car. Shallerhorn could potentially face the death penalty on charges of first-degree murder of a police officer and armed robbery. Policing while Black: Remembering Montrell Jackson DECENCY BEYOND MEASURE For Montrell Jackson - with Immense Respect CORNERSTONE I was tired physicallyAnd emotionally:Disappointed by the reckless commentHurting at heartlessness that wouldn’t relentDisappointed by the hate we couldn’t preventEntrusting my heart in the prayers I sent. I swear to GodI loved this cityThose who cared were much appreciatedBut I wondered that few in the city reciprocatedOut of uniform I was a threat that colour createdIn my uniform my own people were alienated. Look at my actionsAnd how they speakI was guarding the streets to keep you freeA gentle giant and protector that sure was me:Questioning my integrity, can’t you seeYou’ll tear us apart indefinitely, it’s a tragedy. This city must get betterThis city will get better:Love my baby son Mason with all your mightGive him the hugs that are his birthrightGet together and build a citadel of lightLet him see his old man was right That we go nowhere when we hate and fight. Posted 24th July 2016 by Keith Shorrocks Johnson “My heart is heavy, but the admiration and pride I feel gives me the strength I need to carry on,” https://apnews.com/e123fbf8761b40518f6dbee0fc88ac25 by Michael Kunzelman, AP News, Baton Rouge, La. 29 July 2016 The gunman's bullets that killed three law enforcement officers in Baton Rouge also targeted the country and "touched the soul of the entire nation," Vice President Joe Biden said Thursday at a memorial service for the fallen officers. "We need to heal," said Biden, who was joined at a Baton Rouge church by Attorney General Loretta Lynch, Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards, the officers' widows and hundreds of others. Biden spoke directly to the three officers’ relatives from the stage. He promised them that a day will come when the memory of their loved ones will “bring a smile to your lips before it brings a tear to your eye.” “They were defined by their courage,” he said. “It matters who they were, and it matters who we are as a country.” Baton Rouge police officers Matthew Gerald, 41, and Montrell Jackson, 32, and sheriff’s deputy Brad Garafola, 45, were shot and killed by Gavin Long, an Army veteran from Kansas City, Missouri, outside a convenience store on July 17. Authorities say the gunman was targeting police officers. “When that assassin’s bullet targeted our heroes — and he was an assassin — he not only targeted them, he targeted the city. He targeted his country, and it touched the soul of the entire nation,” Biden said. Long, 29, also wounded three other officers before a SWAT officer gunned him down. Long killed the officers less than two weeks after protests erupted in Baton Rouge over the death of Alton Sterling, a 29-year-old black man who was shot and killed during a scuffle with two white police officers. The killing was captured on cellphone video and circulated widely on the internet. Biden said he heard that Sterling’s aunt embraced the father of one of the slain officers during a chance encounter after the shooting. He said they prayed together because “loss is loss is loss.” Lynch said it can feel as if the world is “broken beyond repair” after tragedies like the deadly shootout in Baton Rouge. But she said the gathering shows the community is united by “collective heartache” and a “common humanity.” Friday, July 24, 2020Policing while black Listen 19:19As a black police officer in Plainfield, N.J., Martesse Gilliam thought he could change policing from the inside — until he ended up on the outside. In this episode The duty and burden of the black police officer Posted 25th July 2020 by Keith Shorrocks Johnson
- In appreciation of and commemorating Black Cop Martinus Mitchum gunned down in White Supremacist Myth and Mayhem
  - 1 Mar 2021
  - Keith Johnson
  - Anti-masker murders police officer who was escorting him away from basketball game Travis Gettys, RawStory, March 01, 2021 https://www.rawstory.com/martinus-mitchum/?utm_source=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=6686 A police officer was shot and killed in New Orleans during a dispute over mask requirements at a high school basketball game. Police said 35-year-old John Shallerhorn tried to enter George Washington Carver High School's gymnasium Friday about 6:15 p.m. for a playoff game against Warren Easton High when he was stopped by an employee who was checking temperatures and enforcing a mask mandate, reported NOLA.com. Shallerhorn fought with the school employee before Martinus Mitchum, a Tulane University police officer and 2nd City Court deputy constable who was working for the school as a security guard, tried to break up the altercation. The 38-year-old Mitchum was escorting Shallerhorn off the campus when the man allegedly pulled out a gun and shot the officer twice, police said. Shallerhorn then placed his gun on the ground, police said, and Orleans Parish sheriff's deputies who were at the school arrested him. Mitchum was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital. Before the shooting, Shallerhorn also robbed a medallion chain at gunpoint from a 39-year-old man sitting in a parked car. Shallerhorn could potentially face the death penalty on charges of first-degree murder of a police officer and armed robbery. Policing while Black: Remembering Montrell Jackson DECENCY BEYOND MEASURE For Montrell Jackson - with Immense Respect CORNERSTONE I was tired physicallyAnd emotionally:Disappointed by the reckless commentHurting at heartlessness that wouldn’t relentDisappointed by the hate we couldn’t preventEntrusting my heart in the prayers I sent. I swear to GodI loved this cityThose who cared were much appreciatedBut I wondered that few in the city reciprocatedOut of uniform I was a threat that colour createdIn my uniform my own people were alienated. Look at my actionsAnd how they speakI was guarding the streets to keep you freeA gentle giant and protector that sure was me:Questioning my integrity, can’t you seeYou’ll tear us apart indefinitely, it’s a tragedy. This city must get betterThis city will get better:Love my baby son Mason with all your mightGive him the hugs that are his birthrightGet together and build a citadel of lightLet him see his old man was right That we go nowhere when we hate and fight. Posted 24th July 2016 by Keith Shorrocks Johnson “My heart is heavy, but the admiration and pride I feel gives me the strength I need to carry on,” https://apnews.com/e123fbf8761b40518f6dbee0fc88ac25 by Michael Kunzelman, AP News, Baton Rouge, La. 29 July 2016 The gunman's bullets that killed three law enforcement officers in Baton Rouge also targeted the country and "touched the soul of the entire nation," Vice President Joe Biden said Thursday at a memorial service for the fallen officers. "We need to heal," said Biden, who was joined at a Baton Rouge church by Attorney General Loretta Lynch, Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards, the officers' widows and hundreds of others. Biden spoke directly to the three officers’ relatives from the stage. He promised them that a day will come when the memory of their loved ones will “bring a smile to your lips before it brings a tear to your eye.” “They were defined by their courage,” he said. “It matters who they were, and it matters who we are as a country.” Baton Rouge police officers Matthew Gerald, 41, and Montrell Jackson, 32, and sheriff’s deputy Brad Garafola, 45, were shot and killed by Gavin Long, an Army veteran from Kansas City, Missouri, outside a convenience store on July 17. Authorities say the gunman was targeting police officers. “When that assassin’s bullet targeted our heroes — and he was an assassin — he not only targeted them, he targeted the city. He targeted his country, and it touched the soul of the entire nation,” Biden said. Long, 29, also wounded three other officers before a SWAT officer gunned him down. Long killed the officers less than two weeks after protests erupted in Baton Rouge over the death of Alton Sterling, a 29-year-old black man who was shot and killed during a scuffle with two white police officers. The killing was captured on cellphone video and circulated widely on the internet. Biden said he heard that Sterling’s aunt embraced the father of one of the slain officers during a chance encounter after the shooting. He said they prayed together because “loss is loss is loss.” Lynch said it can feel as if the world is “broken beyond repair” after tragedies like the deadly shootout in Baton Rouge. But she said the gathering shows the community is united by “collective heartache” and a “common humanity.” Friday, July 24, 2020Policing while black Listen 19:19As a black police officer in Plainfield, N.J., Martesse Gilliam thought he could change policing from the inside — until he ended up on the outside. In this episode The duty and burden of the black police officer Posted 25th July 2020 by Keith Shorrocks Johnson
- Valedictory Manila Hash House Harriers' Run for 'Tyke', 1st March 2021
  - 1 Mar 2021
  - Keith Johnson
  - I was awed and brought to close to tears this morning on learning that I had been commemorated with a Special Run by 'Manila's Finest' - the Manila Men's Hash House Harriers. My most heartfelt thanks to the Lads - especially the MH3 scribe 'Squatta' [Tom Crouch] who has been a friend since 1983. Crossing to the Island Where the Blessed Belong CROSSING TO THE ISLAND WHERE THE BLESSED BELONG Drink too quick as though this drink’s the lastDrink up from what is past and taste regretDrink down through what is left and what has passedDrink deeper still - drink deeper to forget. From dregs and froth the recollections pourIn loss and bitterness their flavours foundThe thirsts of youth grown old and sourA glass most-empty or a potion downed. But think of when the glass was bright and fullA brimming bowl with zest and lust to rim,With warmth that love, delight and friendship mull Sweet draughts and quaffs that headiness makes trim. With age the vintage grows too tart or strong -Blend it with freshness savoured by the young -And steer a middle course to best times wrongCrossing to the island where the blessed belong. [photograph: crossing to the volcanic island at the centre of Lake Taal in the Philippines with the Manila Men's Hash House Harriers for a trail run around 1990] Posted 18th April 2018 by Keith Shorrocks Johnson
- Valedictory Manila Hash House Harriers' Run for 'Tyke', 1st March 2021
  - 1 Mar 2021
  - Keith Johnson
  - I was awed and brought to close to tears this morning on learning that I had been commemorated with a Special Run by 'Manila's Finest' - the Manila Men's Hash House Harriers. My most heartfelt thanks to the Lads - especially the MH3 scribe 'Squatta' [Tom Crouch] who has been a friend since 1983. Crossing to the Island Where the Blessed Belong CROSSING TO THE ISLAND WHERE THE BLESSED BELONG Drink too quick as though this drink’s the lastDrink up from what is past and taste regretDrink down through what is left and what has passedDrink deeper still - drink deeper to forget. From dregs and froth the recollections pourIn loss and bitterness their flavours foundThe thirsts of youth grown old and sourA glass most-empty or a potion downed. But think of when the glass was bright and fullA brimming bowl with zest and lust to rim,With warmth that love, delight and friendship mull Sweet draughts and quaffs that headiness makes trim. With age the vintage grows too tart or strong -Blend it with freshness savoured by the young -And steer a middle course to best times wrongCrossing to the island where the blessed belong. [photograph: crossing to the volcanic island at the centre of Lake Taal in the Philippines with the Manila Men's Hash House Harriers for a trail run around 1990] Posted 18th April 2018 by Keith Shorrocks Johnson

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