and everything moves

 The sky this afternoon just before sunset, 28 days to midwinter.

 

Today, suddenly and with a strong wind, it got mild again. I went for a long walk along the river, feeling lucky and content for the moment. The nasty cold is behind me and as for the rest of my health concerns, something will work out eventually. Maybe, hopefully. Enough to feel good. For the moment.

Unlike last Friday evening, when I attended a debate on the war in Ukraine and what could, may, will happen next, now that the madman in Moscow has begun to deploy his new range of weapons. It was not an evening of easy listening. What do I know. All I could think of afterwards was how glad I am my parents are both dead, my mother would be so frightened, so freaked out. 

After reading Eve (Cat Bohannon), I am now halfway through Mother Nature (Sarah Blaffer Hrdy) another book on motherhood and evolution or according to the subtitle: Maternal Instincts and How They Shape the Human Species. It helps to engage with a broader viewpoint of humanity for a change, to consider how recent and how pretty amateurish and stupid our footprint as homo sapiens has been to date and how minute in the bigger picture.

Meanwhile, this country I am living in is preparing for a general election in February. The tone is getting increasingly nasty, the hype of fake news while not quite (yet) trump material, nevertheless gaining ground. I try to remind myself that although it appears that the cement within this society is no longer solidarity with one another, but common hatred of others, every system, be it a democracy, a dictatorship, an autocracy, you name it, is led by individuals.   

In view of this, I have started to set up a little toolkit, a collection of essays, handouts, opinions, guiding voices from here and there, maybe just to calm my nerves, maybe to reassure myself that there are outspoken, sharp, caring, attentive, thoughtful people out there, around me. People who will keep their eyes and ears open, ready to step in, step up. I may figure out a way to create a link to it eventually. Currently it's just a mixed bag in three languages. While I am working on this, here the main theme (taken from here):

• As much as possible, we should do things fascists cannot do. 
• As much as possible, we should not do things fascists want us to do and we should do things fascists don't want us to do. 
• Never accept the fascist offer.

Thus,

We do have to call them out, and name them as the Windigos that they are, with all the ethical, moral jeopardy associated with that.

Robin Kimmerer

 and

What is a tyrant but a grotesque clown, a farcical reflection of humanity’s darker nature? He, like all despots, will pass. The earth will continue, wounded perhaps, but enduring. 

Philippa Perry

Hence,

Underground is where the work gets done.
For decades this has been true and the moment to get to work has been here for a long time…. A long time.
I think it’s time to go underground. Stealth care… Create women’s health clinics that are safe and secret. Create assistance and care for climate disaster victims. Create portable homes for people in motion. Create safe havens for whistle blowers and dissidents. Create help for immigrants. Create care centers for substance and tech addiction. Tend the communities of people who are making new paths. Make music. Create restoration of waters and soil that are not state bound. Time to go beyond borders and tend beyond nationalistic boundaries. Tend your and others’ mental health. It’s time to get off the stage and on the ground. Time to get to work in ways that are not ensnared in polarized politics. Unseen and unnoticed acts of generosity and triage are needed, regardless of who has the microphone.
No meme or model or glamor will do it.
Be a dandelion; persistent and filled with healing gifts. Expand into the minutia.

Nora Bateson

and more:

I'm just a sucker for courage. As I say so often, I'm moved by the gift of courage, because when you walk towards danger, in the danger, and dare to do what's needed, you put your own safety at risk so you become in some way larger than life. Fear makes you shrink, doesn't it?

Joanna Macy

As the institutional care of dominant politics breaks down, as politics becomes a vassal for something else, revealing other desirous vocations that disrupt the idea of the isolated discerning human subject, may we find the openings to do more than we think possible now. Something more compelling than victory (and the moral assemblage that makes finish lines and trophies meaningful) shimmers in the near-distance. Something that urges us to lose our way, together.

Bayo Akomolafe

We say everything comes back. You cannot divert the river from the riverbed. We say every act has its consequences. (. . . ) We say look how the water flows from this place and returns as rainfall. Everything returns, we say, and one thing follows another. There are limits, we say, on what can be done, and everything moves. 

Susan Griffin

It is a help towards sanity and calm judgment to acquire the habit of seeing contemporary events in their historical setting, and of imagining them as they will appear when they are in the past.

Bertrand Russell

 

Totally unrelated, but as (grand-)parent, I can feel it:

the best day, the hardest day

Today is the birthday of our daughter. The hardest day of my life, the most beautiful day of my life, the best day of my life. (I have written about it here.)

This morning, we woke to frost and a dusting of snow, so we wrapped up well and went for a walk. Every year on this day, when we share memories, it's different. Today, R talked about how he feared we were close to death, how he thought we would die, our premature baby and myself, how he tried to stay calm. And I remembered his shaking, cold body when I tried to lean against him, his white face, and that I asked the midwife to look after him. I remember watching blood running down my legs and trying to think why. I also remember signing my name under a short note I wrote in a shaky hand (when this is over, never again) but no note was ever found. I remember roaming the house all night, shouting and laughing and roaring. It has taken me years to speak calmly about the nuns and the nurses at the hospital where S spent two weeks incubated in a brightly lit room, where we had to fight for access, had to beg for my milk to be fed through the gastric tube. So on this cold and grey day we walked full of wonder how it all turned out, how we are all sane (?) after all. And at one stage, this girl was walking towards us, maybe six, seven years old, on her way home from the school down the road. She was deep in an imaginative play, gesticulating, hopping, whispering, not noticing us or anything else. And R looked at me and smiled, wonder what's her story, he said.

 

And I will raise my hand up into the nighttime sky
And count the stars that's shining in your eye

only 32 days to midwinter

There's the good and the not so good but what the heck. It's November, what do you expect.

The good news. We spent most of the weekend potting small tree sapplings and then putting up notices online and by hand on the garden gate and throughout Sunday, people came to pick them up. Once upon a time, these sapplings were squirrel food storage, now long forgotten. I checked and no, squirrels are not into planting trees for future harvest. They just bury too much stuff and also, they are forgetful, which, if you happen to be a growing forest, is a nice touch of evolution but when you have a medium sized garden in suburbia, the number of trees you can grow is limited.

Next, I potted most of the aloe vera offspring, all the small bits that grow around the big ones. I'll give them some time in the greenhouse to grow roots and then they'll go the way of the sapplings.

After much deliberating, we moved all the plumeria into the big basement room where there's almost no daylight.

The bad news, I divided up the amaryllis shoots into individual pots and now they look miserable and maybe won't flower at all. 

Also in bad news, I am still working on that cold. I tried ignoring it and went for a long walk in the rain and did some yoga and cycling around for an hour or three - not all on the one day - but this cold is of the stubborn variety it seems.

Almost forgot the other good news which arrived in the shape of an official letter from the back and beyond of County Sligo in the far northwest of Ireland, which is where the Department of Social Affairs (pension, contributory) has been abandoned relocated in an effort to decentralise things away from Dublin. Anyway, the good people inform me, in a long letter written both in English and as Gaeilge, that I am entitled to a pension as of November of last year and that I will therefore first of all receive an arrears payment, followed by monthly instalments. Hurray for paying PRSI tax back in the dark ages while working for pennies in the worker's co-op. I am now able to afford a large pizza for three every month. Or maybe one for two including drinks. And since I am currently unable to digest pizza and don't partake of the drinks, this is even better. I will be rich!

Another bit of not good news is that the weight loss has moved from discreet, which was deemed acceptable, to concerning. But I tell them it's probably an outlier, a bad month, that kind of thing. This was met with disbelief. Instead, I had to provide another stool sample to check on flare-up control, with mediocre results. I may be looking into a change of monoclonal antibody, which is tedious but still preferable to surgery. Or maybe not. Some days, I get a brief and sudden taste of some almost forgotten food right there in my mouth as if I'm eating it. Odd things, like bland chicken breast, or, yesterday, warm German custard. German custard  - Vanillesosse - is usually runny, a thick sauce poured over overly sweetend desserts. Even with a healthy digestive system, I wouldn't really eat or cook either but who knows, maybe one day. Which is to say, I am still hopeful that this digestive conundrum will come to an end eventually. 

Temperatures are in the single digits (Celsius) and there has been snow in the distance which means rain and more rain here. Four and a half weeks to midwinter.

The news from Europe are that Europe stares war in the face because Trump is aligned with Putin who wants to crush Ukraine, and also maybe the Balkans and Poland and the governments of Sweden and Finland are now instructing households on how to prepare for war. While we watched the footage from hīkoi mō te Tīriti, yesterday's march for the treaty, in Wellington, NZ, knowing that our family is somewhere there in the happy, peaceful crowd, we felt such relief knowing that where they are, neither Putin nor Trump can touch them, yet. And that maybe, maybe, maybe, a strong indigenous community will continue to keep this corner of the world safe and alert.

 

small acts of resistance

This here, watch, spread it and think.

 

When the nazis came to power in Germany, my father was a toddler, when Germany finally capitulated, he had just turned 16. Throughout his childhood, his primary school years and a big chunk of his secondary education, access to literature, art, music, media, was strictly controlled. Only one radio station was permitted and households had to purchase a specially designed radio, the Volksempfänger, for this. I know from his recollections that many households had more than one radio and that even on the Volksempfänger, foreign radio stations could be listened to. It took some fiddling and obviously, secrecy. There is this story that one day, my father's older sister was picked up by a suitor for a date and apparently, he turned pale and rushed to my grandfather's big old radio to quickly move the dial from BBC back to where it had to be. 

Anyway, imagine a childhood and education where most books were banned, where all education materials, including songs, music, outdoor activities, sports and so on were strictly controlled. Also, imagine children in compulsory uniforms. (This is one reason why there are no school uniforms in Germany and youth organisations like the Scouts are not very popular here.) In 1939, six years after the nazis came to power and just before Germany started WWII, the Hitler youth, which had existed for a decade as a "voluntary" youth club for boys (in fact a paramilitary training camp) became mandatory for all boys from age 10 upwards. My father turned 10 that year. My grandfather managed to convince the local police chief that my father, his 10-year old son, a small shy boy, was very skilled with horses and could be trusted to look after the parade horses the police kept for special occasions. My father had never been near a horse but one of his uncles gave him a crash course and so my father - instead of marching and parading with uniformed school boys - mucked out stables and groomed horses for many years, all of which could obviously not be done in uniform. I call this an act of resistance, albeit a small one.

Another one was my father's classics teachers. Secondary school with only nazi approved literature, just try and think what it may entail.  While the officials were busy banning and burning novels and picture books and history books, my father and his school mates studied Latin and Greek, they translated and discussed in the original language, texts on democracy, failed tyrants, how to debate, the power of public participation, philosophy, but also the beauty of nature, poetry, art. Nobody stopped them, ancient classics, these old dusty books, they meant nothing to the nazis, they had no idea. We used to laugh at my father's party pieces, quoting original verses and lines from Homer and Plato, Aristotle and Tacitus. 

 

news in brief

"A Russian state news channel aired nude photos of former U.S. First Lady Melania Trump as newscasters reported on her husband, Donald, who, since launching his successful campaign for 45th presidency of the United States in 2015, told supporters that being eaten by a shark was better than being electrocuted, said that he wanted to purchase Greenland, claimed that American bowel movements require fifteen flushes, speculated that the hairspray he uses to maintain his “gorgeous head” does not contribute to climate change because he keeps his windows closed while spraying it, stared directly into a solar eclipse as his aide shouted “Don’t!,” told a widower that her husband was looking up at her from hell, denied his first ex-wife’s accusation that he assaulted her in a fit of rage after a botched operation to reduce the size of his bald spot, buried his first ex-wife near his New Jersey golf course, recounted to a group of boy scouts the details of a decades-old cocktail party featuring a pro-segregation real estate developer that was attended by the “hottest people” in New York, repeatedly praised a fictional serial killer, said that “Second Amendment people” could “maybe” kill his opponent, accused congress members who didn’t clap for one of his addresses of treason, reportedly condoned the idea of his supporters killing his vice president for certifying the presidential election he lost, said black Americans should vote for him because he was “discriminated against” when he was arrested and charged in Georgia with attempting to subvert the state’s vote tally in that same election, and said he would act for one day as a dictator if he was reelected as the 47th president, which he was, by a margin of almost 4 million votes."

 

Harper’s Weekly Review, today

news? truth?

"Social media is mainstream media now. It’s where the majority of the world gets its news. Though who even cares about news? It’s where the world gets its memes and jokes and consumes its endlessly mutating trends. Forget “internet culture”. The internet is culture. And this is where this election was fought and won … long before a single person cast a ballot.

Mark Zuckerberg has ditched his suit, grown out his Caesar haircut and bought a rapper-style gold chain. He’s said one of his biggest regrets is apologising too much. Because he – like others in Silicon Valley – has read the runes. PayPal’s co-founder Peter Thiel, creeping around in the shadows, ensured his man, JD Vance, got on the presidential ticket. Musk wagered a Silicon Valley-style bet by going all in on Trump. Jeff Bezos, late to the party, jumped on the bandwagon with just days to go, ensuring his Washington Post didn’t endorse any candidate.

These bros know. They don’t fear journalists any more. Journalists will now learn to fear them. Because this is oligarchy now. This is the fusion of state and commercial power in a ruling elite. It’s not a coincidence that Musk spouts the Kremlin’s talking points and chats to Putin on the phone. The chaos of Russia in the 90s is the template; billions will be made, people will die, crimes will be committed.

We’re all wading through the information sewers. Trump is a bacillus but the problem is the pipes. We can and must fix this."

 

Carol Cadwalladr (klick on her name to read the rest)

seven in flower

 

the one in the middle only flowers in summer

 

In the analysis and debate following German reunification in 1989, when things didn't exactly proceed as fairy-tale-y as imagined, there was this one statement that - at the time - captured it: A nation has risen to be able to go shopping. 

Today, in one of the many comments on the US election results, I read: You voted for fascism because cereal, eggs and gasoline have become more expensive?

Obviously, that's not the whole picture and I am an ignorant old woman from Europe. But still. I made the mistake (?) of downloading the entire Project 2025 and started to get the shivers on page 3: Fatherlessness is one of the principal sources of American poverty, crime, mental illness, teen suicide, substance abuse, rejection of the church, and high school dropouts. WTF. No source given, of course, no research results, no statistics, no evidence, just a nasty piece of opinion.

Also, on Wednesday after we got the news on the US election in the morning, our own government collapsed in the afternoon - these two events are not (yet) related and while our own versions of the ultra right wing and the not quite ultra right wing but nevertheless nasty populists are all getting ready, we don't seem to have as nasty a piece of shit in line as trump (yet). But when in the far future, two German historians should meet and one asks the other, what's your area of research? and the answer is, November 5th 2024, the next question inevitably will be, am or pm?

I believe there are two things that can stop the fascists. The first is their own vast incompetence. The second is all of us. I think I'd rather count on the second than the first. Actually, here is a third thing: climate change. 

Remember. There is a lot of power in society that is not in hands of elected heads and their staff. There is power in state and local governments, the courts, federal bureaucracy, schools, nonprofits, businesses, churches, mosques and synagogues, in local communities and yes, in families, with or without a father. Much of this power can be used to work to stop or mitigate the bad things that a fascist, autocratic whatever government is imposing.

I have a cold, my throat is raw, R made me do a covid tests (neg) and I am grumpy. Also, angry, because I want to go outside but: too exhausted.   

Finally:

The most dangerous worldview is the worldview of those who have never looked at the world.

Alexander von Humboldt

Now pay attention: you and I are among the most privileged people on this planet. We have access to information. Not only do we have the right to freedom of expression, we can even exercise it. We can be politically engaged citizens in our societies. It is absurd for people like us to think about despairing or giving up.

Anne Applebaum

A depressing day for freedom and tolerance.  The outcome of the election in the US points the way to an age of intolerance, lies and violence - worldwide, not just for Americans. Other, smaller countries have long since gone down this path. And my country, Germany is already on the way.

What do people around the world may learn from this? Why be honest and kind when lying and being rude/criminal gets you elected president twice. This overwhelming desire for leadership through authoritarian conservatism will serve as a model for populists everywhere whereby malice, unscrupulousness, brutality, isolation, lies, selfishness, wealth, lawlessness, oppression are the accepted means to success. 

Our world and humanity have suffered a great deal of damage. Yes, and maybe the only positive thing about this day for some will be to remember it for the rest of their lives. But people everywhere, we have no choice but to show courage, solidarity and organization. First and foremost, we must look after the planet, each other and the less privileged and show them that they are not alone. 

When in Germany earlier this year, the ultra-righwing fascist party gained 30% of the vote in three federal states, we went through a period of shock. But eventually, we recognised that 70% did not vote for them and that we must concentrate our efforts there. And the same is true for what happened now in the US, a slim majority voted for intolerance and hate, but a large minority did not.

This day has a great tragedy, let's make it a great strength.

 

Here a good example of what a joint effort can look like, from Valencia, Spain, earlier this week.

migration

I often feel embarassed to admit that I'm an optimist. I imagine it knocks me down a peg or two in people's estimations. But the world desperately needs more optimism. The problem is that people mistake optimism for 'blind optimism', the unfounded faith that things will just get better. Blind optimism really is dumb. And dangerous. If we sit back and do nothing, things will not turn out fine. That's not the kind of optimism I'm talking about.
Optimism is seeing challenges as opportunities to make progress; it's having the confidence that there are things we can do to make a difference. We can shape the future, and we can build a great one if we want to.

Hannah Ritchie

All day, we were busy in the garden. I was busy sitting down and watching and drinking cups of tea while R was busy mowing and clearing and mulching and all the stuff that he has been doing for ever.

And all that time, thousands and thousands of crane were flying above us, on their way from Sweden and Finland to their summer homes in northern Africa. They do make a lot of noise. I waved to them and asked them to please come back next March.

to refrain from encroaching on what we don’t quite understand

 

 

I did many wonderful things this week, I laughed often, appreciated my excellent fortune of where and how we live, had enjoyable and enlightening times outdoors, indoors, in conversation and while contemplating.

Somewhere along the line in the past years or so, I think, I must have figured out that I want to have all that (above) despite the ongoing ill-health issues. After a while, it's either giving in and breaking into pieces or getting on with it, sort of.

When I had the three sessions with the clinical nutritionist earlier this year, I was introduced to the proper way of recording food intake, its positive and negative results and why. At first, I found it tedious and thankfully, I only need to do this for 2-3 days every so often to keep on track, but in hindsight, it makes sense and yes, shows some sort of cause and effect.

Anyway, the barium paste seems to have left the body and the bad days are not quite as bad which gave me enough energy to go for another long hillwalk with the man.

We started with a short steep climb to a 11th century castle ruin.

 and proceeded through dense forest in gorgeous autum colours

and found a small cemetery from the middle ages

some excellent views once we got up high

and a soft path with thick gorse bushes on the way down

with plenty of mushrooms

On Thursday was Samhain, one of the Celtic quarter days better known as Halloween and wrongly described as a US custom. I don't mind, really. It's slowly arriving here too but the few kids we saw running around were basically just after bags of sweets.

We built a small fire in the fire bowl on the patio and R talked about the Samhain rituals of his Irish childhood which involved apples and nuts and bairín breac (barmbrack) and much scary laughter and story telling. Athough he grew up in middle class suburbian Dublin, the ancient folklore traditions were part of his life. It was around this time of the year, when I first arrived in R's family and I had No Idea. Especially when the barmbrack was served and my slice miraculously contained the much cherished ring. A barmbrack is a sweet raisin bread that is used for fortune telling (more here). I also thought the entire family was slightly mad when we proceeded to do the weird thing with apples in a bucket of water. 

This here is a lengthy but enjoyable podcast episode put together by the National Folklore Collection of the University College of Dublin explaining and celebrating the Samhain origins of Halloween:

AmbasadaIrlandii · Samhain event recording

 

Folklore is a beautiful way for us to connect with our local landscape—our own natural environment—through the symbols and stories and narratives that are told about it. I think there’s a tendency nowadays to look at these things in terms of “They may be a bit twee,” or “They’re slightly footy because they’re so odd,” or “Ha-ha, who could take those silly things seriously?” But I think they should be afforded much more dignity. So much of this has been distilled through countless generations. The contemporary experience of modernity that we’re passing through now is a sort of restless discord, a feverish hand-wringing. And these structures—whether fairy lore or ritual or belief or custom found in our traditional practices—hold a lot of joy, profanity, wit, wisdom, humor, darkness, even, which is useful. They’re meaningful, they orient us, they ground us. They can help us move from disenchantment to enchantment with the world around us. When you look out across a landscape, it’s not just some bleak void—there’s a mystery and depth and richness to it. Suddenly, there’s a flash of the fantastic into the ordinary, into the everyday.

 Jonny Dillon (archivist of the National Folklore Collection at the University College of Dublin)