Hope gives you wings

 

 

"They say a person needs just three things to be truly happy in this world: someone to love, something to do, and something to hope for."
(Tom Bodett)

 

 

What is Hope?

As a word, we scatter it like seed throughout our everyday conversations; we hope it won't rain, we hope to get there by two, we hope England will beat Slovenia, we hope you feel better, hope to hear from you soon. Yet this benign four letter word, so handy and familiar, has such huge connotations.

Hope is a word of wonderment, desire and longing, chance and miracles. A little word of really epic, Biblical proportions. It fuels our dreams, it holds Love's hand; life partners with Trust, they sit like a gentle mantle around the broad shoulders of Faith itself.

Heady stuff, this Hope. I've always loved Emily Dickinson's poem " Hope Is The Thing With Feathers": my association of Hope with angels, flight and rescue I suppose. Like many, I feel comforted when a white feather flutters towards me; a message of goodwill and encouragement from the heavens. Although in this part of Brighton, perhaps I should be more wary of flying feathers and the well-being of my feathered friends, Jonathan Seagull and his somewhat hooligan companions.

In a week when one of my neighbours has tried to do something unspeakable to Jonathan, the bird's hope and faith in general and in me in particular feels humbling. He was back in the comparative safety of my garden within an hour of the shameful incident,  around my feet and within spitting distance of the cat. I hope my neighbour realises that Jonathan is indeed a fine specimen of a species protected by the law; I hope Jonathan doesn't rely on that intelligence.

Hope is indeed the birds chirping in my garden each dawn and dusk, possibly recognising that the strange dweller of a place bedecked with lanterns, chimes and Buddhas is probably good for a digestive biscuit or two. Hope is my own persistent watering of what a friend described as a marooned twiglet until it became a fuchsia once more. Most essentially, Hope is that fuchsia.

Mankind is all hopefulness. We have built our society on Hope. Victor Hugo noted that our future is made up of today's hopes. And indeed we live our lives in the hope of becoming someone's memory.

Hope really does "spring eternal". Like Faith, it is naturally occurring; as essential to the spirit as nourishment is to the human body. Yet it's evolution can't be tamed or mapped by our sciences; we cant reproduce it in a test-tube. The unsung, extra-sensory gift; it's the Desert Island Discs luxury that we all have as standard/

A few years ago, I toyed with the idea of a bright tattoo. I wondered about a Celtic cross on my upper arm, but my sister's reminder that I've inherited sturdy Celtic limbs chastened me that I might resemble a merchant seaman. The only other design I was taken by was a pair of angel-wings between my shoulder blades. To me, they signified optimism and nurturing, being both protected and protective. Finally, friends convinced me I could hold on to my dreams without looking like a reject from The Only Way Is The A27.

Far away from the angels, I often hear folk hoping for darker things than a football score or a lottery win. They "hope" that others will get what they deserve, or come undone; terminal illness is often a preferred option. Can something as unsullied and beautiful as Hope really become hitched to a curse?

Hope is universal. Like Freedom, it is not divisible; you cannot have it at someone else's expense. I'm certain that Slovenians were praying just as fervently for an extra goal against England a few days ago; Hope cheers on both sides of what is, truthfully, only ever a Beautiful Game, favouring only skill and recognising fortune.

I'm equally sure that my seagull-hating neighbours hope I will pack up and move and take my feathered friends, chimes and lanterns with me. By return, I hope they'll leave me and Jonathan in peace. Hope is not partisan. And war, where Hope flourishes as battlefield flowers and kindles homefires - how can Hope ever be available to our enemies? The neutrality of Hope should be comforting: Hope didn't want conflict in the first place.

If I can find some inexpensive, vegetarian-friendly angel-wings in Brighton, I hope to wear them to our Pride festival this summer. Meanwhile, the white quill feather I found on my doorstep at the weekend is now propped in one of my garden pots. I've checked that it isn't one of Jonathan's. He's already given it a beady eye. I hope he doesn't mind.

 

 

 

 

"Hope Is The Thing With Feathers"

(Emily Dickinson) 

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chillest land
And on the strangest sea;
Yet never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.

 

 

 

"Faith goes up the stairs that love has built and looks out the windows which hope has opened."
(Charles H. Spurgeon)

 

"The road that is built in hope is more pleasant to the traveller than the road built in despair, even though they both lead to the same destination."
(Marion Zimmer Bradley)

 

"Hope is a waking dream."
(Aristotle) 

 

 )

"Not About Angels"  Birdy

Epiphany - Star of Wonder

 

 "Without the quest, there can be no epiphany."
(Constantine E. Scaros)

 "Epiphany Poem"

 

The red king
Came to a great water. He said,
Here the journey ends.
No keel or skipper on this shore.
The yellow king
Halted under a hill. He said,
Turn the camels round.
Beyond, ice summits only.
The black king
Knocked on a city gate. He said,
All roads stop here.
These are gravestones, no inn.
The three kings
Met under a dry star.
There, at midnight,
The star began its singing.
The three kings
Suffered salt, snow, skulls.
They suffered the silence
Before the first word.
                                                   (George Mackay-Brown)

 

I've always liked the sound of the word "Epiphany". I probably use it far too often, way out of context and largely inappropriately. I also know some very charming and articulate atheists who enthuse about their "epiphanies" and "road to Damascus" moments.

The Christmas story tells us that wise men and uneducated shepherds alike followed an uncharted and unusually bright star as a celestial augury; many might find this naïve in these times of out-of-this-world technologies such as space telescopes and particle physics. We've witnessed eclipses of the moon and sun, the appearance of "new" stars and planets, asteroid storms and catastrophically extreme weather; the latter, all too prevalent in our Christmas and New Year news. Sometimes jaded about disasters in the Great Elsewhere, we call it misfortune closer to Home.

When I was little, someone told me the sun was the morning star. Far from being scientifically correct, it seemed very comforting. It still does, even after discovering the joys of the late lamented Sir Patrick Moore, Professor Brian Cox and of course Doctor Who. Our solace in familiarity and continuity evolves from childhood fears: the moon lights the night and the sun will be there to greet us in the morning.

Maybe we're so keen to establish continuity, order and control, unravelling the mysteries of the universe as we harness new ways to exterminate mankind, that we take for granted the true wonders of our lives. A Facebook friend pointed out today that the sun really is always waiting beyond the dark, stormy skies and unprecedented tides. Aside from being our morning star, the sun never actually sets, blazing in the Great Elsewhere while we sleep. We've lost the wonder of things we cannot recreate or fully capture because they support our everyday existence.

The thing I find most haunting about George Mackay-Brown's poem for Epiphany is that it makes no mention of the traditional gifts associated with the magi. Frankincense, gold and myrrh would be heady gifts for an infant even by Kardashian standards. The real gift from these learned and respected men was that they acknowledged wonder and followed faithfully into the unknown; an epiphany for them and the greatest gift of all to themselves, as much as any offering they could make to an unknown baby born in a barn.



"There's nothing better when something comes and hits you and you think 'YES'!"  
(J.K. Rowling)

 "I never made one of my discoveries through the process of rational thinking."  
(Albert Einstein)

 "I had an epiphany a few years ago when I was out at a celebrity party and it suddenly dawned on me that I had yet to meet a celebrity who is as smart and interesting as any of my friends.”
(Moby)

"Looking into the spirit of others is sometimes like looking into a pond. Though we aim to see what's deep in the bottom, we are often distracted by our own reflection."
(Katina Ferguson)

"The magic of the street is the mingling of the errand and the epiphany."
(Rebecca Solnit)

"God's voice is usually nothing more than a whisper, and you have to listen very carefully to hear it. But other times, in those rarest of moments, the answer is obvious and rings as loud as a church bell."
(Nicholas Sparks)

"These are maybe the most exciting stars, those just above where sky meets land and ocean, because we so seldom see them, blocked as they usually are by atmosphere…and, as I grow more and more accustomed to the dark, I realize that what I thought were still clouds straight overhead aren’t clearing and aren’t going to clear, because these are clouds of stars, the Milky Way come to join me. There’s the primal recognition, my soul saying, yes, I remember."
(Paul Bogard)

"I always like those moments of epiphany, when you have the next destination."
(Brad Pitt)

 

"Lark in the Clear Air"  Cara Dillon (version)

 

'Twas the Twelfth Night after Christmas...

(All photos: Gigi, album)

 

"And all those sayings will I overswear;
And those swearings keep as true in soul
As doth that orbèd continent the fire
That severs day from night."

(All quotations: "Twelfth Night", William Shakespeare) 

 

I used to feel quite melancholy on the evening of "Twelfth Night"; I don't like taking decorations and lights down and packing away Christmas for another year. Traditionally, I think many people believe that's exactly what the twelfth day of Christmas is: an ending of festivities, sensitivities and niceties.

Twelfth Night for the western Christian Church also commemorates the Epiphany, from the Greek word meaning of striking or unusual appearance; when some learned men and others followed an exceptionally bright comet to Christ's birthplace. The eastern churches also celebrates the infant's baptism by John the Baptist around this time, although their adherence to the Julian calendar would bring their Epiphany to around 19th January in our New Year diaries.

Some confusion persists in whether Twelfth Night falls on 5th or 6th January. The old Celtic tradition of the new day starting at sundown rather than midnight seems to pull the twelfth day of Christmas back to 5th January. My Mum always said it was unlucky to leave the Christmas decorations up after Twelfth Night; so the Roman Catholic me went off to mass to celebrate Epiphany yesterday morning and the half-Oirish, superstitious me made sure the lights, garlands and beads were down by midnight.

Particular attention has been paid to Twelfth Night for many centuries. It marks the end of a traditional winter festival that actually starts on All Hallows Eve back in October. It feted the pagan "Lord of Misrule", who turned the seen world upside down and reversed fortunes; so kings would become peasants and vice versa. In theory of course.

Shakespeare's play "Twelfth Night" or "What You Will" was written especially to be performed on this date. His play has many reversed elements, including a leading female role disguised as a man and a servant who pictures himself as a nobleman. The Christian story poignantly and pertinently turns the world upside down, with nobles and wise men humbled by a newborn baby and shepherds chosen to witness the birth of a king. Interestingly, Shakespeare's Twelfth Night is the only one of his plays that makes no reference to children at all.

 

Initially this morning, my home and garden looked quite bare without festive decorations. My long-suffering Christmas tree (Noel), now in his ninth year and his biggest pot ever, has come a long way since his own humble beginnings as a "disposable" Christmas decoration for the mantelpiece. He was the tiniest of the small potted pine tree cuttings in the Lewisham branch of Sainsbury's; he looked pathetically cute when I bought him for £1 as a little extra for Mum and my cat Sooty. He now guards my Brighton back-yard and I have to stand on the storage bench to fix his star properly. In my eccentric little way, I like to think he enjoys the dressing up, although that wouldn't be unusual in Brighton, even for a tree.

Between work shifts and 'phone calls, I managed to get all the trimmings untied and unravelled in time, fortified by crumpets with humours and cranberries; another quirk of mine. My sister gave me a bottle of Celtic mead at Christmas and I've discovered this goes down very neatly with ginger ale. My blogger friend Pagan Annie has said she's pleased that the blog is continuing, but would like more recipes. So included here for her is the traditional recipe for the old wassailers (literally, "apple howlers"), who drank as they sang as they went at both Halloween and Twelfth Night.

It would be lovely to see the twelfth day of Christmas as a new chapter of kindness and hopefulness, rather than the packing away of merry togetherness, gratuitous cards, gifts and greetings and goodwill to all with the tinsel and baubles. Family, friends and faith in the future really should be forever. not just for Christmas.

 

"Well, God give them wisdom that have it; and those that are fools, let them use their talents."  

 

 

"But rather reason thus with reason fetter:

Love sought is good but given unsought is better."

 

 

The Lambswool Wassail

1.5 Litres (3 x 500ml bottles) of traditional real ale or traditional cider
6 small cooking apples, cored
2 tablespoons of grated nutmeg
1 tablespoon of ground ginger
150g brown sugar (Demerara)
Preheat the oven to 120C.
Prepare the apples in advance, so they're ready when you want to put them into the ale to serve.
The apples should be fully cored, with no pips.
Lightly grease the baking tray. Place the apples on the baking tray about 6cm (2 inches) apart – they will swell.
Bake the apples at 120C for about an hour, so they become soft and pulpy and the skins are easy to peel away.
In a large thick bottomed saucepan add the sugar and a small amount of the ale (or cider) and heat gently.
Stir continuously until the sugar has dissolved. Then add in the ground ginger and the grated nutmeg.
Stir, and keeping the pan on a gentle simmer, slowly add in all the rest of the ale.
Leave for 10 minutes on a gentle heat.
Take the baked apples out of the oven to cool for 10 minutes.
Break open the apples and scoop the baked flesh into a bowl, discarding the skin.
Mash the apple pulp while it's still warm, into a smooth purée.
Add the apple purée into the ale and whisk.
Warm everything through for thirty minutes, on a gentle heat, until ready to drink.
Whisk again for a couple of minutes, vigorously frothing the drink up.
The apple froth will float to the surface, looking "woolly"!
To traditionally froth drinks up they were normally poured continuously between two large serving jugs to get air into the drink.
Ladle the Lambswool into heat-proof mugs or glasses, topped with some grated nutmeg; share, drink and be merry!

 

 

"A Spaceman Came Travelling"  Gregorian (version)

  

"Be not afraid of greatness. Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and others have greatness thrust upon them."

 

 

Storm damage

 "One of the first conditions of happiness is that the link between Man and Nature shall not be broken."
(Leo Tolstoy)

The storm that crashed against the south coast of these islands before ripping it's way upland on the 27th and 28th of October has inevitably left it's mark on Brighton. A local estate agent told me he'd been retrieving TV aerials, roof tiles and garden furniture from his rental properties from literally high and low across the city. Having previously walked the seawall at the marina, apparently the largest in Europe; I was staggered to see footage of the waves dwarfing the wall and the yachts, almost reclaiming the manmade enclosure to the open sea.
"Storm St Jude" was named after the patron saint of lost causes, arriving with a crash on the eve of his feast day. It certainly carved a desperate path; I'm respectful that tens of thousands of people across this county and others were left without power for days and that four people lost their lives in the UK. A further thirteen people have died as Storm Jude evolved into Cyclone Christian, wreaking destruction across northern and eastern Europe.
My little house is a hundred and fifty years old and full of leaks, creaks and gremlins on a daily basis. Faced with torrential rain and predicted gusts of more than eighty miles an hour, I brought in garden mirrors, lanterns, tree baubles and next door's cat and tied down everything else; including Noel the seven foot Christmas tree after even he was blown over in his ridiculously heavy pot. The house, Ginger Tom and I braced ourselves. I watched my tall pear tree appear to double over against the wind at around two in the morning, while the guardian angel sun-catcher in it's highest branches (I couldn't reach her without a ladder) was whipped about mercilessly.
As Monday opened up and the winds dropped to a manageable 60, I realised that my house and garden were largely intact. A section of guttering has loosened, but then Jonathan Seagull has been using it as some kind of high-rise latrine for a couple of years. All the paint above my bathroom window has ripped away, taking a layer of mortar with it, but I've never liked that stale buttermilk colour and intend to paint the house a zesty yellow as soon as possible. My windows seem spattered with every kind of seaside muck that could be airborne, but they're due a cleaning anyway.
In the garden, only one of a few marooned tree baubles didn't make it; even the tiniest, most delicately budded patio roses and fuchsias have only conceded some petals. The pear tree has uncurled to it's full height; the angel still miraculously spinning round at the top. I went round oohing and aahing, patting potplants and shrubs reassuringly, while Ginger watched from the safety of the kitchen step, clearly bemused that he'd spent a day and night sheltering with an idiot.
The BBC's southeast reportage seemed to focus on Brighton, with one hapless reporter stationed on the pebble beach in front of the skeletal West Pier. Blue-faced in his puffa jacket and woolly beanie hat, he flapped about a bit and spluttered that this type of weather was not uncommon on this windy little edge of East Sussex. Worryingly close to the waves himself, he stressed that the Sussex police had warned folk to stay away from the piers and indeed the sea for the next few hours, just as a hardy local family splashed past him while he struggled to stop his microphone from hitting him in the face.

I was thankful to see the West Pier still standing, albeit at a more precarious angle than ever before. The pier was built within a year of my little workmen's terrace and it's remains are Grade II listed, one of only two piers in the UK to be granted what should be a level of protection. Not that the West Pier has been shielded from outrageous fortune in any way in her long history. Yet, after three fires, the great storm of 1987 and several others, countless horrendous winters (including each one since I moved here) and even being crashed into by an RAF fighter plane in 1944, the West Pier has never been completely destroyed.
On several occasions, the structure has had to be partially demolished for safety reasons. Now completely severed from the shore, the pier is nonetheless increasingly part of this city. The remaining fretwork seems to float in the rising and falling tides; her fragility belies the Victorian engineering that keeps her cast iron legs firm in the seabed. Now frequently compared to am upturned fruit basket or burned out wedding cake, she was known as "The Pleasure Pier" in her heydays, I know some people find the pier a sorry sight. Technically, she's been terminally deteriorating since the 1970s; to those of us who love her and find her beautiful, the West Pier is constant to the point of persistence and embodies the spirit of the city of Brighton.
Walking down to the West Pier after St Jude, I wasn't surprised to see several others standing in the cracked sunshine and sea breeze, all there for the same reason. One very dapper middle-aged man with what I think was a French accent described her as "wretchedly lovely". I think the West Pier is a bit like a Bronte heroine; ageless and virginal but fatally bedraggled in sodden hooped petticoats. For every person who sees the old pier as an eyesore that should be completely dismantled, there will be many more who cherish her as an essential part of Brighton beach's skyline. Her iconicity has swelled as her original purpose built structure has diminished.

It's been weeks since I've posted on this blog. I almost wish I could say it's been due to sheer volume of work, being away with friends or even just doing possibly unmentionable, hedonistic things. Alas, I can't rely on any of these excuses.

It's true that I've been working rather difficult hours, but the most complete story of my extended writer's block is that my heart just hasn't been in it. My heart has been scuttled away like a deflated little bird. Like the West Pier, it feels like it's had the stuffing kicked out of it. Aside from any continuing neighbourhood unpleasantness, beyond the bereavement, unemployment and upheaval of fortune of the past few years, it felt as though something had finally broken me. One gust just too harsh, one wave too fierce. Mark Twain once said that a broken promise was better than none at all; much as I admire Mr Twain, I've often thought him uncharacteristically, utterly wrong on that one. Promises hold both the recognition of long held wishes and our hopes for the future; a broken promise or dream damages who we've been and scars who we've yet to become.

A few people who actually read this blog but have never met me realised something was wrong and I'm grateful for their concern and wishes. My friend Lin put it quite bluntly: "Not blogging, not talking: not you! Sick??" My confidence in myself and my instinctive faith in others is obviously dented, but I find I'm still here, just as the West Pier is right where I left it. Sometimes, the strength isn't in holding firm against the break but in what you do with the broken pieces. In circumstances that I guess were quite different from Mr Twain's, Oscar Wilde noted that broken hearts allow God and love to seep in. And so you can either focus on what's tearing you apart, or on what's holding you together.

Storms like St Jude unleash the omnipotence of nature but also magnify the resilience of even the smallest plants and creatures. For some reason, "The Lightning Strike" has always been my Snow Patrol song: I have the expressed permission of Mr Lightbody to add it to this post that breaks my writer's block! I'm sure my little house, for all it's cracks and groans, will stand beyond the end of my years; I hope the West Pier might do the same. Even with feet of iron, that kind of fortitude feels as organic as that of my pear tree or the tiny buds on my patio roses. I guess it's all in the foundations.

 

*Especially at this time for Gill A, Luci, Marian and Stuart*

 

 

"The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places."

(Ernest Hemingway)

"Man is born broken. He lives by mending. The grace of God is the glue."
(Eugene O'Neill)

The West Pier Trust:
www.westpier.co.uk
 
 

"The Lightning Strike (What If The Storm Ends)"  Snow Patrol

 

 "What if this storm ends
And I don't see you,
As you are now
Ever again?
Painted in flames,
All peeling thunder;
Be the lightning in me
That strikes relentless"

(Gary Lightbody)

"The violets in the mountains have broken the rocks."

(Tennessee Williams)

 

Faith and fortune

"I have always believed, and I still believe, that whatever good or bad fortune may come our way we can always give it meaning and transform it into something of value."
(Hermann Hesse)

I was playing Phil Ochs' haunting "There But For Fortune" this morning when today's date dawned on me. Folk singer, activist and unequivocal humanist Ochs wrote the song in 1963, fifty years ago. Thirteen years later, his disillusionment with humankind and his personal demons drove him to take his own life. I've always found it bleakly sad that a young man who defended universal human rights so passionately would perceive his own life so without value or salvation at the age of thirty six.
And today is the twelfth anniversary, for the want of a more fitting word, of "9/11". Ochs' words resound eerily across half a century:
"Show me the country, where the bombs had to fall;
show me the ruins of the buildings, once so tall,
and I'll show you a young land
with so many reasons why;
there but for fortune may go you and I."
More than a decade ago, the tallest of the tall crumbled and the most powerful nation on earth was brought to it's knees, in grief, despair, fear and faith. Yet this 11th September, as the new and gleaming World Trade Centre building points skywards once again, the United States and others debate the most reasonable response to the reports of gassed and burnt children in Syria.

My Mum used to say "There but for fortune", or sometimes "There but for the grace of God". She essentially meant that the misfortunes of others could so easily happen to us all: be thankful for the gift of life and it's blessings. I used to wonder whether the grace of God could be seen as fortune or favour; can faith and fortune ever overlap? 

I have an atheist friend who, year after year now, has demanded what God was doing as the planes hit the Twin Towers. He will no doubt be questioning the existence of a higher power today, as the terrible aftermath of chemical warfare seeps from the tea-time news. My response to him has at least always been constant. I believe that God created mankind and gave us the gifts of life, knowledge and willpower. Man has repeatedly chosen the ways of war, segregation and destruction. Man commits atrocities, not God. Man's use of knowledge and reason can not only limit the devastation of what we sweepingly deem "acts of God", but could limit the impact of future disasters. I mean no disrespect to anyone in saying again that if we all truly believed in a loving God, we could not take up arms against each other His name, regardless of whatever that name might be.

Faith is an acceptance of fortune, but not complacency. I honestly believe that faith opens doors that mankind can't even get a handle on. Today the incisive shard of light that is the One World Trade Centre rises from Ground Zero as the tallest building in the western hemisphere. It's a defiant beacon in the face of terrorism and natural disasters; many fortunes may be made and lost there. As I type this, New Yorkers are gathering in it's long shadow to commemorate the moment the first plane hit the Twin Towers. We rebuild beautifully and respectfully, as we debate, apparently endlessly, whether we should bomb and break elsewhere.
Whether you sympathise with politicians of any flavour or none, whether you are a fan of Barack Obama or not, their anxiety over Syria as fellow human beings is palpable on this day. We can prevaricate and protest and preach and we can pray. There but for fortune go you and I.

"We may lack riches, but the greatest fortune is what lies in our hearts."
(Dean Koontz)

"There is a tide in the affairs of men,

Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune.

Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries.

On such a full sea are we now afloat."

(William Shakespeare)

 

 

"There But For Fortune"  Phil Ochs

A sleepless dream

 "Is a dream a lie if it don't come true,

or is it something worse?"

(Bruce Springsteen)

"A Change Is Gonna Come"  Sam Cooke (1963)

 

 "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."

(Dr Martin Luther King)

On this day, Wednesday 28th August, exactly fifty years ago, a soft cheeked and slightly portly black American thirties-something stood up in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. to address more than a quarter of a million people. A fervent and eloquent Baptist minister, he eventually veered off his prepared speech, encouraged or even heckled by his friend, renowned Gospel singer Mahalia Jackson, to "Tell them about the dream, Martin!" As he improvised around his own vision of a united and just world, the fiery preacher in him came to the fore. With a single phrase, the minister from Atlanta, Georgia, joined the ranks of Jefferson and Lincoln and those whose words have helped to define modern America: "I have a dream today."

The rally was the Great March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, one of the largest political or human rights rallies in the history of the United States. The march was organised by civil rights activists, labour groups and religious bodies, with the theme of jobs and freedom. Supportive of the innovations of the Kennedy administration, the march is widely credited with helping to pass the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act the year after.

The Baptist minister was of course the Reverend Dr Martin Luther King Junior. He had helped organise the rally, but his address to the masses at Washington and the watching world established him as one of the greatest natural orators in American history. Unfortunately, it also established his reputation as a radical, who would become the object of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's attentions for the remaining five years of his life.

The "Dream" speech is a masterpiece of rhetoric and poetry. King invoked the Declaration of Independence, the Emancipation Proclamation and the United States' Constitution. He alluded to both Lincoln's Gettysburg Address and William Shakespeare. The pastor in King referred poignantly to Psalm 30 and also quoted from the Book of Isaiah. King's speech has now been ranked the most important American speech of the 20th century by scholars of public address. It is as accessible, emotive and relevant today as in the long hot summer of 1963. Clearly, the power of the dream is still alive ; but does that mean little has changed?

Fifty years ago, King's words so moved my father that he copied out the full text, nearly twenty minutes long. I found the notebook in his study, long after Dad had passed away. When I myself was a fifteen year old Rebel Without a Clue, Dad encouraged me to properly read Dr King's speeches, particularly the Washington address. At the time, I was outraged that fascist groups marching through south London were being given police escort. My Dad explained that freedom has to be indivisible: you cannot have your own human rights at another's expense: my first real lesson in the intricate but simplistic truth of equality.

Today, a handsome and charismatic black man sits in the oval shaped office in the white mansion on the hill in Washington D.C. Now in his historic second term of office, President Barack Hussein Obama is married to the strong and beautiful great-granddaughter of African American slaves. In line with Dr King's own vision, Obama's daughters will study and socialise with girls and boys of all cultures and creeds. When I was fifteen, I dreamt this might happen but it still seemed improbable.

Yet the president struggles with his own Senate to establish healthcare and social protection for the disadvantaged of all colours. Inspite of Obama's extraordinary rise, the Senate's glass ceiling for African Americans still seems largely unbreakable. In 1963, there were no sitting African American senators in Congress; this year, briefly, there were two, for the first time in history. Incredibly, in Obama's united nation only three states have ever elected black senators.

In recent weeks, when an innocent black American youth was gunned down after being mistaken for a potential offender because of his colour, age and dress, Obama ruefully noted that the boy might have been him thirty years ago, or indeed one of his own offspring today.

I've reproduced some of the "Dream" speech here, lifting away direct references to places and events in America. The message remains undiluted in universality. The bloody reality of racial and cultural prejudice and genocide stalks through Egypt and Syria and across the globe today. Even in comparatively safe and liberal areas in the UK, such as my own Brighton, division between the haves and the have-nots is palpable and increasingly uncomfortable.

We have still have far to go to realise Dr King's dream. He told us that: "Faith is taking he first step, even when you can't see the whole staircase."  The reverence of his Washington speech today continues to lift people onto that first step. You've got to have a dream; if not, how you gonna make a dream come true?

"I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.
But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this cheque, a cheque that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and security of justice.
We have also come to his hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of Now. This is not time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism.
Now is the time to make real the promise of democracy.
Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice.
Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood.
Now is the time to make justice a reality to all of God's children.You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed. We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal.I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by their character.
I have a dream today.I have a dream that one day every valley shall be engulfed, every hill shall be exalted and every mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plains and the crooked places will be made straight and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to climb up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.
This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning: "My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring!"When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every tenement and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old spiritual: "Free at last, free at last. Thank God Almighty, we are free at last."

 

 

"How many years can a mountain exist
before it's washed to the sea?
How many years can some people exist
before they're allowed to be free?
Yes and how many times can a man turn his head,
pretending he just doesn't see?
The answer my friend is blowin' in the wind
The answer is blowin' in the wind."

(Robert Zimmerman)

 

"Blowin' in the Wind"  Peter, Paul and Mary (version)

 

 

The drop and the ocean

 "Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground."

(Rumi)  

 

 

I don't like what snails invariably want do to my garden, but I am quite fascinated by and respectful of them. I've learned that they re-trace their steps across, through, up and under obstacles and natural or manmade boundaries to return to their most fruitful habitat. You could relocate them in a wilderness five minutes walk from your backyard, but if they feel they're meant to be contentedly chomping their way through your lettuces, they'll do their darnedest to return. If this takes them several days over rocky ground or a busy road, so be it: for such tiny, fragile little messers, they are fearlessly determined, with a do-or-die attitude.
Although the snail is probably the slowest creature on earth, the species has survived for millions of years. Unable to hear at all, they rely on touch and an exceptionally sense of smell to follow their own path back to snail-happiness.

I suppose they're actually little mollusc travellers, their caravans on their backs. The same self-secreted track they follow "home" also enables them to repair wounds and regenerate cells. Elements of snail-trail have been used in some "wonder" anti-wrinkle creams; I shall be keeping to my Nivea, thank you.

I do believe that we humans carry "home" on the inside: and that God, Spirit and the universe if you will are within us all. If we open ourselves to our capabilities and have faith in ourselves and the love of a higher power, we can find our way over any rocky ground to realise our home. It may be the very house we were born in or hundreds of thousands of steps away from family and what should seem familiar to us. Each path will be different in the detail if not obviously in direction.

Faced with calamity in my working life again, my immediate reaction has been dismay and a weary "Why?" Yet truthfully, I haven't been content with what I've been doing and know I'm capable of doing more. Better the devil, drudgery or simply apathy you know? A comfort zone is often little more than a closed but otherwise unprotected box. And those nearest to us frequently have surprisingly strong, closed opinions when we change direction in life: it threatens the sense of familiarity and mutual status quo.

In particular, when we take a damaged soul under our wing, they can seem suddenly ruthless in their desperation to prevent us from altering our path; not yet willing to contemplate their own. For all their frailties and fractures, they can almost become bullying, although they have first-hand knowledge of the inexorable damage done by constant denial of purpose and the crushing of someone's spirit. Just like stepping on a hapless snail, however accidentally; with his disproportion tenacity and remarkable sense of direction destroyed by a single misplaced heavy step, he will die where you tread.
I've been reading a lot of Rumi, the 12th century Persian poet and mystic. I've found it comforting to absorb his themes of salvation through both romantic love and the love of God. Passion and divinity are intertwining vines in Rumi; his soul is both his conscience and his compass throughout life.

Today, Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī would be seen to be a Sunni Muslim, yet his writings are embraced as ecumenical in nature. He felt religion was a very personal experience and that the urge to reconnect with Spirit should be the pinnacle of life towards which everything moves. Ever conscious of it's divine origin, Rumi was passionate about preserving the dignity of life and honouring the truth of our paths and others: "The nation of Love has a different religion of all religions - for lovers, God alone is their religion."  His writing transcends ethnic and national borders: within the past five years, he's been described as the most popular poet in the United States.
Taking favourite lines from all over Rumi's teachings and poems, from different periods of his life, I've brought them together in my own personal affirmation; I find it as beautiful as any poem and as uplifting as prayer. Career paths and other trusted structures and channels through life may suddenly twist and turn menacingly or simply appear to fall away. Breathe deeply: your home is within you and the SATNAV in your ear may not be tinnitus or the onset of a psychotic disorder; it might just be your guardian angel.

 

 

 

 

 

"You are the drop, and the ocean.

You are not a drop in the ocean. You are the entire ocean in a drop.

 Are you jealous of the ocean’s generosity?
Why would you refuse to give this joy to anyone?

Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.

The wound is the place where the Light enters you.

Suffering is a gift. In it is hidden mercy.

Sorrow prepares you for joy.
The moon stays bright when it doesn't avoid the night.

Where there is ruin, there is hope for a treasure. 

Maybe you are searching among the branches, for what only appears in the roots.

I searched for God and found only myself. I searched for myself and found only God.   Only from the heart can you touch the sky.
If you want to be more alive, love is the truest health.
Remember, the way you make love is the way God will be with you.
Dance in the middle of the fighting. Dance in your blood.
Reason is powerless in the expression of love.
Set your life on fire. Seek those who fan your flames.
Judge the moth by the beauty of the candle.
Christian, Jew, Muslim, shaman, Zoroastrian, stone, ground, mountain, river; each has a secret way of being with the mystery, unique and not to be judged.
The fault is in the one who blames. Spirit sees nothing to criticize.
Spend less time with nightingales and peacocks.
One is all talk, the other only colour.
Look carefully around you and recognize
the luminosity of souls.
Sit beside those who draw you to that. 
You were born with wings, why prefer to crawl through life?
Birds make great sky-circles of their freedom.
How do they learn it?
They fall, and falling, they're given wings.
Try something different. Surrender.
Give up to grace.
Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment.
The ocean takes care of each wave 'til it gets to shore. You need more help than you know.
Wherever you are, and whatever you do, be in love.
Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.
Stop acting so small. You are the universe in ecstatic motion.
Be a lamp, or a lifeboat, or a ladder. Help someone's soul heal. Walk out of your house like a shepherd.
Don't be satisfied with stories, how things have gone with others. Unfold your own myth.
Silence is the language of God, all else is poor translation.
No one can take your place in existence,
or in absence.  
Never will a lover's body be found buried in the earth.
To love is to be God.
Ask all from yourself.
The garden of the world has no limits, except in your mind.
Do not be lonely for you carry the whole universe within you.
But Love is the whole thing. We are only pieces.
Lovers don't finally meet somewhere. They're in each other all along.
Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.
My soul is from elsewhere, I'm sure of that, and I intend to end up there.
I didn't come here of my own accord, and I can't leave that way.
Whoever brought me here will have to take me home.
And still, after all this time, the Sun has never said to the Earth,
"You owe me."
Look what happens with love like that.
It lights up the sky.”

 

 

 "Home"  Gabrielle Aplin

 

  

 "Where there is ruin, there is hope for a treasure.”

(Rumi)