Energy
Energy is the only exchange,
Art the only purpose.
Symbols trap reality
Perception changes
Senses evolve
We learn to understand.
Isolation
The enemy.
Communication
A down payment
For a better future.
Opher – 7.2021
Living together in harmony with each other and the world, creatively, is the best we can hope for.
We just have to be more intelligent about the way we live.
Bigger than the parts
Once there was one
That transformed into billions,
All working in harmony, mysteriously,
All the same; all different,
Performing their tasks
For the good of them all,
To join in oneness
To create something
Much bigger than them all.
Opher – 22.6.2019
We all started from an egg – a single cell that split and split into billions – all identical genetically yet all differentiated into different types of cells. The worked together to form tissues and organs, mysteriously transformed, organised, and all with their roles, all different, all part of the whole. They create a new oneness – an identity – something far greater than the sum of its parts.
Hard Times are coming
From the waterworld to the droughts –
Hard times are coming.
From the Sahara ocean to the Artic desert,
Hard times are on their way.
Growing crops on mountain tops –
Hard times are coming.
From the arid Amazon to the flooded Gobi,
Hard times are on their way.
Fishing over Holland, trawling Bangladesh –
Hard times are coming.
Our cities under water our fields now sea,
Hard times are on their way.
Opher 24.4.2019
If we allow climate change to occur we will unleash forces that will devastate our civilisations and bring an end to everything we have.
In the past, when we were small in number and nomadic hunter gatherers, we simply moved to higher ground. Not so easily with eight million and the infrastructure and agriculture on low lying land. Not so easy with the need to feed eight billion.
Hard times are coming.
Overpopulation is the cause
Overpopulation is the cause of the pain.
Eight billion mouths to feed.
Sixteen billion feet head off in search of food.
While the population breed.
They are chopping down the trees
Killing everything that moves.
Providing for their children and
Ignoring anyone who disapproves.
But there’s only so much wilderness
So many creatures to eat.
They are battling against nature
And inflicting a defeat.
Opher 24.4.2019
We can’t go on chopping down the forests and killing everything. There are limits.
With eight billion mouths needing feeding, huge numbers of fish to be dragged from the water, massive amounts of land cleared and used for agriculture, we are reaching the limit.
Our sheer numbers are destroying the world.
Balance
Teetering 0n the brink
It’s all about balance and sense.
Clinging to life on the edge
For so many creatures it’s intense.
Do we possess the balance
Or do we not really care?
Is everything for the taking?
Do we want more than our own share?
Can we find the balance?
Or will our numbers swamp the earth?
Do we kill without a thought?
Not caring what any of it is worth?
One planet out of balance –
Plundered, ripped and torn;
Bewildered animals murdered
For fur, for space for horn.
Rivers, oceans, Jungles
Denuded, poisoned and cut down.
Gun and saw, fire and net
Turning land from green to brown.
Where’s the balance?
Opher 3.2.2019
A good balance would leave half the planet to nature and for us to live in the other half.
But no – we have to plunder and pillage for profit no matter what the cost.
Planet Earth
It is the thirteenth of June 2018
On a warm summer’s day
That I have spent writing and reading.
It was a pleasant day.
Yet there were no swifts in the sky this afternoon.
I am sorry for that.
My garden is full of flowers and the grass is mown
But there is no room for nature.
I am sorry for that too.
What are we doing to you?
How can you bear it?
As we dig and chop,
Fence and rip,
Sterilise and sanitise.
Is this what you want?
That we should tame and reduce?
Tie you in knots?
And reduce your complexity
To our simplicity?
How long will you put up with it?
Mother Earth
Are you powerless?
Planet earth can you hear me?
I am talking to you.
You gave me so much
And I value it all.
But this is becoming less by the day.
How can you bear to see so much destroyed?
So many creatures killed?
So much cruelty and pain?
Planet Earth
Is it alright if we cause you to bleed like this?
Planet Earth
You’ve given me a full life
Laden with stars, sunsets and rainbows
Rocks, trees and seas,
Creatures of all kinds,
Plants and wonders
Always wonders –
How can I repay you?
You’ve been my home for 69 years –
An endless time of love and change.
All I can do
Is say thank you.
I am so sorry.
Opher 13.6.2018
I do not happen to believe in Gaia – that the planet is really alive and has consciousness. At least I don’t think so. That type of mysticism is attractive but fanciful.
But I did find it an interesting poetic idea to talk to her as if she was alive.
So what is there to be said?
It seemed to me that the most important thing was to apologize for the mess we are making.
Life is so obviously the jewel in the crown. Life, in all its forms, is a marvel. Yet do we hold it sacred? No we do not. We are destroying species after species, ravaging habitats with impunity and treating life with disdain.
There is an arrogance about mankind that insists that humans are the only worthwhile life upon the planet. That is risible. All life is important. We all started from that same one miracle cell. We’ve all evolved for the same length of time. We all fit together in this remarkable jigsaw puzzle of life. Yet that is the jigsaw puzzle that we are dismantling. We are throwing away piece after piece. Soon we will lose sight of the big picture.
We need to start appreciating it.
I’m sorry Planet Earth. We’re acting like spoilt brats.
The Price of Everything
Everything has a price –
From a pen to a kidney;
From a baby to a new knee.
If you have the money
You can buy anything –
From a woman to a gold ring;
From a tree to a bird’s wing.
You can buy the land,
The water – even blood.
From a book to a life;
A trinket to a wife.
You can purchase an elephant
Or an elegant diamond stud.
Everything has a price –
From a new heart to a glove;
From a pin to simulation of love.
With enough cash
You can buy everything.
You can set out a new city
Lay it out and plane it.
The one thing you can’t afford
Is a new planet.
Opher – 23.1.2021
We are bought and sold.
Nothing is sacred.
There is nothing that cannot be bought.
The rarer something is the greater its price.
The last elephant tusk will be bought and sold.
Your daughters have a price.
Your life is cheap.
We consume and consume. There is no limit, no rationale, no control.
We consume our souls, our world and every creature and living organism around us.
We are on a sealed unit hurtling through space.
There is no life-raft.
We are buying and selling the very thing we depend on to stay afloat.
We cannot buy another.
Once it’s gone it’s gone.
The first step is to acknowledge that things are not so bad as they might be:
In fact we are exceedingly lucky when compared to the conditions most of the world lives in!
The second step is to realise that most of the things we worry about do have solutions:
All it takes is the will. Some of the things are hard but they are not impossible.
The third step is to recognise that there are a lot of things that are much better now:
We have a tendency to think that things were better in the past. But they weren’t. Looking back over the last three hundred years you can see the journey we have made. We have become more civilised.
Over the next hundred years we can, via the internet and education, create a quantum leap forward.
The fourth step is to help build that change in mass psychology – the new positive zeitgeist:
In future posts I will outline my thinking on how to deal with all of the major issues besetting us. They are all able to be solved.
Miniscule in Reality
I am always in awe of nature; there’s a wonder at work. Infinity with its swirling galaxies, spinning atoms and amazing mysteries of consciousness is inspiring, is full of majesty, is uplifting.
There is a harmony in a sunset, rainbow and the glow it produces. There is a spirit in the rocks, trees and seas. To sit beside the crashing waves and feel the breeze in ones face connects us to the universe. To feel the sun upon the face and bask in its benevolent warmth is to feel the congruence.
There is a mystical force that is natural, beyond religion, and integral to that dynamo of nature through which we are all one.
Calm and peaceful, without barriers as the vibration of energy flows through and on, forever.
Miniscule in Reality
Glowing dawns and standing stones,
Mystic storms, vibrations in the wind
And majestic trees.
Skies that swirl with stars,
Chasms of glowing rock at sunset
And crashing seas.
There’s a wonder at work –
A celestial spectacle of awe.
There’s a mystery in the mind
That’s knocking at our door.
Standing before the horizon
Outlined against infinity
Feeling large against the sky
But miniscule in reality.
Opher – 1.8.2016