Jane Goodall quotes – Saving the planet and speaking on behalf of the animals who are being butchered.

Posted on by Opher

Jane is a naturist who first caught my attention from her work with chimpanzees in Tanzania. Way back in the 60s I was captivated by her book – In the Shadow of Man. She is someone I greatly respect who has worked to support wildlife.

Jane Goodall: 50 Years at Gombe

The least I can do is speak out for those who cannot speak for themselves.

Me too. There are millions of creatures being killed daily. If nobody speaks up for them they will continue to be slaughtered. The world is already depleted of its fantastic array of life. Soon they will be gone if we do not do something.

Only if we understand, will we care. Only if we care, will we help. Only if we help shall all be saved.

I am only a writer. The people who make the decisions are the rich and powerful. They have to be made to understand that this cannot go on.

The greatest danger to our future is apathy.

Throughout my teaching career I have strived to get my students thinking. They are the future. They need to be aware and involved.

Every individual matters. Every individual has a role to play. Every individual makes a difference.

We can all make a difference. There are millions of us who care. We have to keep making the powerful aware.

Change happens by listening and then starting a dialogue with the people who are doing something you don’t believe is right.

We have to keep telling them to stop – there are better ways.

Lasting change is a series of compromises. And compromise is all right, as long your values don’t change.

The bottom line is that the environment needs protecting.

“I don’t have any idea of who or what God is. But I do believe in some great spiritual power. I feel it particularly when I’m out in nature. It’s just something that’s bigger and stronger than what I am or what anybody is. I feel it. And it’s enough for me.”

I’m an antitheist. I do not believe in god and I think that religion is very bad for us, but I do believe in a power that exists in nature, a vibration that connects us to the universe. That is something I’m prepared to call spiritual. That is what requires protection.

If you would Like to purchase any of my books they can be purchased in paperback or digitally from Amazon

In the UK:

In the USA:

An Antitheist’s Prayer For The Planet

Posted on by Opher

An Antitheist’s Prayer For The Planet

In the chaos of a warming world,
Ecological disaster unfolds before our eyes
Species slip away into the shadows of extinction
Nature on the run, fleeing from our careless hands

Food webs unravel, connections severed
Habitats lay in ruins, destroyed by our greed
No thought for the future, no concern for the consequences
We march forward blindly, leaving chaos in our wake

No harmony, no intelligence in our actions
Man is not apart from nature, but a part of it
Yet we act with cruelty and heartlessness
Ignoring the cries of the earth, the pleas of the wild

We must remember our place in this delicate balance
We must tread lightly, with reverence and respect
For the world around us is a fragile web of life
And we hold the power to protect or destroy

Let us choose wisely, let us choose with love
For the future of our planet, of all living beings
Depends on the choices we make today
In a world where man and nature must find harmony once more.

Opher – 2. 4. 2024

The myth is that our nomadic hunter gatherer ancestors cared about nature; the truth is they didn’t.

We’ve always been cruel and heartless, unintelligently hunting to extinction, killing for pleasure.

There is a War

Posted on by Opher

There is a War

There is a war raging

Using chemical and machine,

Counting the casualties

In numbers astronomically obscene,

Laying waste the land,

Hunting the helpless in fantastic amounts,

Spraying poison indiscriminately –

Where profit is the key

And the only line that counts.

Opher 13.9.2016




There is a War

There is a war going on. It is a war against nature. Pest and weed are being decimated. There is collateral damage.

A pest is a creature that we don’t happen to like. It wants to live. It eats our crops and lives on our land.

A weed is a plant we don’t like. It grows on our land. It takes nutrients and light from our crops. It makes our garden look untidy.

We have to eradicate anything that encroaches on ours.

We can take what we want but nothing should dare to intrude on what we have claimed as ours.

We wage war on it. With chemical poison and machine we slaughter in huge numbers. The bees, butterflies, frogs, newts, and toads are all collateral damage.

The invertebrate population has been decimated. 56% have gone. That’ll teach them! 10% of all wildernesses have been claimed by us in the last twenty years. We have laid waste to it all. It is now denuded, coffee plantation, palm oil or simply desolate.

There’s a war going on. We won’t be happy until we have beaten it all.

Poetry – No More Squashed Hedgehogs

Posted on by Opher

No More Squashed Hedgehogs

I drove through the country lanes.

There were no squashed hedgehogs in the road

And I was saddened.

I know some people

Actually went out of their way to squash the spiky creatures

With their cars.

They veered across the road

And laughed at the little bump they made as the tyres

Crushed their delicate bodies.

It used to make be sad

To see their flattened little corpses with their guts

Spewed out.

But right now

I would crave to see any number of them

Murdered on the highways.

Opher – 18.4.2019

It used to be a common sight. Jokes were made about them:

‘Why did the hedgehog cross the road? – To see his flat mate!’

I never found them funny.

Hedgehogs are such wonderful creatures. We used to have one who came to visit frequently. We fed it cat food from a saucer. It became quite tame. But that was long ago.

There are no squashed hedgehogs because there are so few hedgehogs.

Poetry – Two Swifts Shrieking

Posted on by Opher

Two Swifts Shrieking

Two swifts wheeling in the sky

Shrieking with delight –

Not missing their brethren?

In days not long gone

Those same skies

Were full of flocks of screaming swifts.

The air, now a desert,

Teemed with insects

That were scooped with such glee.

There was enough

For many swifts

To gorge themselves and feed their chicks.

Now those insects

Are hard to find

And the future is looking dim.

Do they now shriek with delight or horror?

Opher 23.6.2018

It is so noticeable to me that the skies are emptying. We were so used to seeing the swifts, swallows and house martins, the filter feeders of the skies, putting on their aerial displays.

Where once there were flocks now they appear in pairs. The flocks have gone.

The skies that once buzzed with insects are empty. The insects have gone. There is no food.

The barns and house eaves that provided nesting sites are all knocked down, cleaned up and gone.

It is hard to believe the changes that have taken place in the space of one lifetime.

Were those two swifts really shrieking with delight! I feel they cry in desperation.

Poetry – Caught Between

Posted on by Opher

Caught Between

Between the profits and the greed,

Between the money and the seed,

Between the madness and the war,

Between the illness and the sore,

There’s no room.

Between the pillar and the post,

Between the devil and the ghost,

Between the hard place and the rock,

Between the explosion and the shock,

There’s no room

Between the funfair and the ride,

Between the hunter and the pride,

Between the arrow and the gun,

Between the baiting and the fun,

There’s no room

Opher 13.4.2018

It seems to me that something is missing from this modern life. We’ve lost it somewhere along the way. It has been squeezed out.

Now, with our life of fun, comfort and ease, between the leisure and entertainment, between the purchasing and throwing away, we have lost something that was immensely important.

Now that most of us do not need to struggle for survival, when the food is on the table, the fridge bulges and we just have to turn the central heating or air-conditioning up, something has been lost.

Now when the trip to church, mosque, temple or synagogue and the reading of the verses has no impact on our daily life or the way we act, something has gone badly astray.

Somewhere in the het up struggle between NeoCon and LibTard, where all minds are clouded with tribal fury, a real sense of purpose has been waylaid.

I think I know what it is.

I think we have lost our connection with nature.

Poetry – Stalked

Posted on by Opher

Stalked

Stalked by our own virility

The cthonic monster of fertility

Will drown us in our own flesh.

The Malthusian oceans of humanity

Riding swells of pleasure and vanity

Have snared us in its mesh.

Like a flood

Inundating

The Earth

Sweeping all before it.

Like a fire

Consuming

The land

Turning it to ash

Like a plague

Infecting

The body

Dissolving the breath

Swamping everything

Reducing everything

Killing everything

In the pangs of pleasure.

Opher 13.4.2018

The flood of humanity is consuming the earth, destroying the forests, slaughtering all creatures and leaving smog, pollution and devastation in their wake.

We are busy turning this beautiful green planet into a sterile ball of concrete, plastic and bacterial slime.

It’ll take us some time but the project is well under way.

Unless we put an end to this capitalist religious impetus for more, for growth and expansion we will destroy the very thing that gives us life and nourishes our souls.

Poetry – Laughter as the ship goes down

Posted on by Opher

Laughter as the ship goes down

Laughter

As the ship goes down;

Entertainment

To distract.

No need for thought

As everyday

We pay

Our income tax.

As forests burn;

Flesh fries;

Guns crash

And creatures die.

The chauffeur

Is greed.

The mantra

Is fun.

As long as we are Ok

For now

There is no need to fear.

Everything is alright

In Eden

Isn’t it?

There is nothing we can do;

Nothing we can say.

So let the avaricious fools

Get on with it

As we play the day away.

Opher – 9.5.2016

Laughter as the ship goes down

If you want to be popular you produce fun things for people to read and avoid anything with gravity. If you want to attract a following you avoid all subjects that can cause division or distress. No mention of death, politics, war, environmental destruction or social conditions. No hint of trouble in paradise.

You keep things uncontentious.

We can produce nice humour-filled pieces of fun.

We can report on entertaining films and books.

We can write about everyday life.

We can do safe fashion and style, or perhaps cookery and meals.

We can write about inconsequential trivia and pop culture.

Meanwhile, just over the hill, they are strip-mining the wilderness, pouring effluent into the river, skinning dogs alive, bombing hospitals, burning people in cages, indoctrinating children to hate, poaching elephants and rhinos, slaughtering chimps, producing more children than can be kept alive, playing in sewage, dying in droves and filling the torture chambers.

But I see that Doom has just been released on PlayStation.

Poetry – By the carpark

Posted on by Opher

By the carpark

By the carpark

Where the wood one stood;

By the stream

Long since culverted in;

Where the new housing estate now stands

On what used to be a marsh,

A vole hides among the rubbish.

Near the runway

For the new airport;

By the side of the new field

Reclaimed from wasteland;

Alongside the new road

Bringing travellers to and fro;

On the roundabout

That used to be a copse,

A tiny mouse shivers

Under a newly planted shrub.

Opher 18.4.2016

By the carpark

I was sitting on the bus going back to pick up my car. It gave me a higher view over the hedgerows into the fields beyond. I could see all the new builds.

As we approached the town there was more and more. New estates were springing up. The trees, streams and ponds were disappearing along with the remaining patches of wasteland. Even the word wasteland betrays the attitude. If it is not being built on or used for agriculture it is wasted.

So where do the voles, mice, hedgehogs, newts, frogs and toads go? Is there space foe the lizards, slowworms and snakes? Are we sanitising the countryside of insects?

I looked out over the fields and all the birds I see are pigeons, crows, magpies and sea-gulls – the scavengers. They are having a fine old time.

But how far can we continue pushing nature into the periphery before it runs out of room?

Is it all going to be ploughed fields, manicured lawns and ornamental shrubs?

How many creatures are shivering in the wreckage of their homes?

Poetry – Once

Posted on by Opher

Once

Once grasshopper jumped with every step

And ponds were full of frogs.

Once there were stag beetles

That lived in rotten logs.

Once there were huge flocks of swallows

Wheeling through the sky.

Now they are all gone

And we’re left to wonder why.

Once great forests covered every hill

Bears and wolves hunted the deer.

Once people lived in harmony with nature

And the seasons of the year.

Once there was a balance

Full of bounty for the gleaning.

We lived a natural life;

An existence full of meaning.

Opher – 23.1.2021

We live in the Anthropocene, in a landscape designed by man. The wilderness has gone. Nature is tamed.

All that lives only does so through our benevolence; vestiges of what once was.

The forests have given way to green fields of crops, sprayed with death.

Now we life an artificial life and search for meaning.