Working together

This last week or two has shown people working together to try to make politicians change their minds and realise that climate change is important. In some areas we have already seen good results from this and the subject of climate change has become important where before it was ignored.

I learned many years ago that trying to do something important like making changes in the world around me, was much harder on my own. If others joined me then we got results. But this applies to so many other things, like helping the elderly, the homeless, those with disabilities and so on. One person alone won’t change things although change does start with you, yourself. It needs a lot of people to make change happen.

So finding others who think and feel the same way is important. I am always very pleased when I meet new people, if I find they think the same way as I do, as someone once said ‘we sing from the same hymnbook’!

But first of all we have to rid ourselves of the conditioning from our childhood and further back too, and the conditioning of our current lives. It is easy to just go along with everything but when things get really bad and you wonder why, then that is the time to change and become who you really are, not the conditioned human being generated by years of abuse and conditioning.

I am in the process of listening and watching the movie, ‘Time of the Sixth Sun’. I am finding that so far, much of what is being said is something that I have known for some time but have been unable to do anything about. But we have to make change happen and together we can do this so find out who thinks like you do and get together to make those changes,

Walking your talk, balance and inner knowing

I have heard these words so often over the years, ‘Walk your talk!’ So I am pleased to see so many people starting to do this. It is very easy to talk about what you can do to recycle, or to respect others, or to help to save the earth for another generation. But do you actually do anything about it?

I started to talk to others about all of this and then managed to get a group of people together to talk about what we could do but to actually do something as well. We’ve only met twice so far but ideas are plenty and actions are starting. You can’t just sit there and do nothing!

But looking at the plastics problem I have found clothes made from bamboo and some with bamboo and cotton. Both of these grow so that in itself brings another problem. If we all decided to have bamboo and cotton clothes then growing the cotton and bamboo would take over areas meant for other things to grow like food crops, trees and various plants. So there has to be a balance.

Most of us have lots of plastic items in our homes. Some plastics are never replaced and that is fine I suppose. It is the single use plastic that is the real problem, the pop bottles, the plastic bags for food and so on. Here again we need a balance.

Some thing else that cropped up this week is inner knowing. I have knowledge at times that I know has not come from something I have learned but is inside me. Where does this knowledge come from? A example came to my mind. Years ago my mother said to me ‘Don’t go in that room, you could cut the atmosphere with a knife.’ In that room people had been arguing. Today I know that it was the negative energies that could be sensed but how did my mother know this (she was born in 1916)? She also said the wind would blow the cobwebs away if I went for a walk in the wind.Cleansing the aura of course. So does this inner knowing come from our ancestors or are we born with it?

The plant is Honesty!

Freedom

Over the centuries people have fought for freedom and today some of us think that we do have freedom. but do we? The definition of freedom is the right to say, think,and act as you want. It is also a word used when someone has been freed from prison or from other places or events. People have fought for better housing, better pay, the vote for all and unions to represent us in the working place. This fight for freedom has gone on for centuries and still does.

But do we really have freedom? With freedom comes responsibility. We cannot act as we want if it harms others so we try to be responsible in our actions. The same applies to what we say or write. We avoid hurting people with words as well.

But are we free to do things that others do that are perhaps good things. The answer is no as some things are only available to those who have money. Look at our current Parliament. Would you be able to become an MP if you were for example only a labourer in a work force?

But we do have quite a lot of freedom generally. We can choose where we live and who we marry if that is what we want. But there are often other things attached to that. If you don’t have a car then you can’t live in some very rural villages even though that might be best for your health.

Also we conform to criteria of what is expected of us. We go to school and wear uniforms then later as teenagers we all wear the same kind of clothes because our peers do. Freedom is the choice to wear what you want so why conform?

But doing certain things like stealing breaks the law so you cannot do everything you might want to do. However if you are a considerate, thoughtful, caring human being who respects others and everything else on this earth, then you will not want to steal or send hate mail or do things that would upset others.

Many years ago I used to say that freedom was a state of mind. I suppose if you feel free then you are free. But we need to be aware that many of our freedoms are gradually being taken away from us, When you have to think what you say or write because the powers on high are watching you then that is time to think about how to change things for the better. I remember reading the book 1984. That future is here now. Stand up for your freedom and be counted. Vote for change for the better when you can and support others doing the same.

Before the Internet

A few weeks ago I was looking for something in my filing cabinet and came across a dissertation I had written in 1964. I had written this while at college training to be a teacher and studying music. The pages were yellowing and brown around the edges. The typing was raggedy and inconsistent in colour. The music examples were fading as they had been hand written in blue ink. The work had been typed on a manual typewriter where you hit a lever to move to the next line. The pages were 8 inches wide and ten inches long not A4 as we use now.

Several thoughts came to my mind. How on earth did I manage this on a manual typewriter, 20,000 words or more and all the music examples? It must have taken me days to write. Then there was another thought, how did I find out all the information? There were no computers or search engines. The library and bookshops were my sources for the biographical information and descriptions of the music. I also used music scores as well. Listening to the music was done on a record player, the vinyl records playing at 33 rpm.

I decided to retype this and get it published via lulu, the company I use for my books so I had a much better copy of the work I had done. This was easier said than done however. I am managing the typing bit although there are lots of foreign names in it and strange characters that other languages use. A Google search helped me to solve that problem. So what about the music examples? I have music notation software but some of these examples were so complicated and would have to be printed and then scanned in order to place them in the document that I decided that handwriting them after all was the best policy. I still have to scan them but I find it quicker to handwrite them than to do them in the music notation programme.

While retyping, I am also learning. I have forgotten just how much I knew about these specific composers and their music which are the topic of the dissertation. It makes me realise just how much we learn at times during our lives and just how much we can forget as well. Do our memories only hold a certain amount of information so that when it is full like the memory on the computer, we have to erase some to make room for more? Some food for thought there! So this is an interesting experience. Not only am I relearning old stuff I am learning new stuff as well. Below is a scan of one of the original music quotes. The music is by Vaughan Williams.