The river

Message from the Hopi Nation

There is a river flowing now very fast.
It is so great and swift that there are those who will be afraid.
They will try to hold on to the shore. They will feel like they are being torn apart, and they will suffer greatly.

Know the river has its destination...
The elders say we must let go of the shore, push off toward the middle of the river,
keep our eyes open, and our heads above the water.
See who is there with you and celebrate.

At this time in history, we are to take nothing personally, least of all ourselves!
For the moment we do, our spiritual growth and journey comes to a halt.

The time of the lonely wolf is over.
Gather yourselves!

Banish the word struggle from your attitude and vocabulary.
All that we do now must be done in a sacred manner and in celebration.

We are the ones we have been waiting for.

 - The Elders, Oraibi, Arizona, Hopi Nation

Meta-economics (cont.)

(Vintage book cover 2011 edition)

I owe any readers of this blog a definition of meta-economics...

"Prof E.H. Phelps Brown, in his Presidential Address to the Royal Economic Society on ‘The Underdevelopment of Economics’, talked about ‘the smallness of the contribution that the most conspicuous developments in economics in the last quarter of a century have made to the solution of the most pressing problems of the times’, and among these problems he lists ‘checking the adverse effects on the environment and the quality of life of industrialism, population growth and urbanism’.

Interlude: My eternal frustration with smoking....

Give me a break!

A: Well, good day to you! And have you had your daily whiff of cigarette smoke yet? No? Care for some by any chance?
B: No, thank you very much!

Blindness, absurdity and meta-economics

No hear, no see, no speak

Blindness

Blindness to the true human condition - even within ourselves - is amplified by the doom and gloom coming from our media and our politicians:

We all constantly hear in the news how high street sales etc have gone down, and how terrible this is for an economy that is (still) in recession. "We hope that sales will pick up soon!" And then, we will all be happier, will we?! Okaaay...

On food, (super)markets, streets, and smell & co.

Is the local market dead?

I got very excited about some of the passages I read today in one my favourite books, which I have already mentioned previously - "Hungry City: How food shapes our lives" by Carolyn Steel. So I decided to share a "flavour" of it here...

.... on markets:

"Borough [market] feels odd because it exists in a country that has lost touch with its food culture - where the vast majority of us do most of our shopping in supermarkets. [...] Borough is not really about buying food at all, it is about celebrating it. [...]

At Borough, food has become an end in itself. It has become fetishised, as if it were invested with some cathartic power to transform lives. The people who come here, although plainly enjoying themselves, seem to be searching for something more: for roots, for meaning, for salvation, even. [...]

Utopian Imagination postscript

How is this for a coincidence: In the Evening Standard Magazine (24 Aug 2012) - a magazine I just picked up from the seat next to me on the train, Richard Branson's response to the question "What would you do as Mayor (of London) for a day?" was written up as follows: "Grass over about two-thirds  of the city so the streets became places for kids to play and London was a collection of lots of little villages and not dominated by cars." Considering that this is what my post from 23 Aug 2012 was about, I wonder....

Utopian imagination

Imagine a city, town or village without petrol-guzzling, noisy vehicles (their heyday long gone). No cars, buses, coaches, trucks and vans...

Imagine the relative peace and quiet (you could probably hear people walking and shuffling about), the absence of exhaust fumes (smell the bread from the bakery around the corner), the serenity even (no more road rage, no accidents).

Imagine how this would affect the way we lead our lives...

Late summer impressions - from the heart and from a city

From the heart...

Back from a "Friends' Working Weekend" at Embercombe last night.

Feeling dreamy and strangely emotional today. It feels like Embercombe and the experiences surrounding it have stoked that fire in me again, and perhaps putting pen to paper (I am now copying this from handwritten notes - the keyboard feels strangely uncomfortable after the pen gliding across the paper) is making me admit it to myself. I feel shy and vulnerable in front of myself. Perhaps that is why I am prone to tears while writing and re-reading this.

Interlude: Navigating people traffic

Have you ever noticed that you don't bump into people or don't do the "dance" to avoid bumping into people coming the opposite way, when you look into their eyes when walking through a crowd?

Try it next time you are walking through a train station at rush hour or a busy shopping street (or anywhere busy with people for that matter)!

Concrete jungles and nature - a match made in heaven?

I am a proud first time urban
vegetable grower! But slugs and snails
were difficult to keep away...
(Photo added summer 2012)

Starting with a quote again: 

"Has there ever been a time when we in the West have been so out of touch with the natural world? We live in towns or cities flooded by street lighting, blinded to the stars in the night sky, unable to tell a waxing from a waning moon, let alone recognise the constellations. Who wakes with the dawn chorus of birdsong these days, rather than an alarm clock? Most city dwellers can't even hear the dawn chorus any more. [...]

Simple is good - or is it?

Nature's perfect
complexity, seemingly
so simple...

Following on from the P.S. in my previous post on 21 March 2012 ("Interlude: Ode to pen and paper"), below is what I came across when googling "simple is good":

"Why do we assume that simple is good? Because with physical products, we have to feel we can dominate them. As you bring order to complexity, you find a way to make the product defer to you. Simplicity isn’t just a visual style. It’s not just minimalism or the absence of clutter. It involves digging through the depth of the complexity. To be truly simple, you have to go really deep. For example, to have no screws on something, you can end up having a product that is so convoluted and so complex. The better way is to go deeper with the simplicity, to understand everything about it and how it’s manufactured. You have to deeply understand the essence of a product in order to be able to get rid of the parts that are not essential." 

Interlude: Ode to pen and paper

I am currently dealing with blog technicalities and finding that I quite like the good old pen and paper. What you see is what you get! Simple is good *.

In fact, I wrote this and my first blog entry at our dining table after 11pm (on a weeknight) and an exhausting day at work in black ink on white, lined paper. There is something very satisfying about the pen gliding across the paper, the faint scratching sound it makes in the process and witnessing the result of it all - your handwriting - scrolled across the pages, whether it is beautiful or not (it changes constantly, like my state of mind/being) **.

"Why?" and "Why!"

Welcome to my blog!

First off, a few answers and definitions:

• Why the title?

impression [ɪmˈprɛʃən] n
1. a strong effect produced on the intellect, feelings, conscience, etc.
2. the first and immediate effect of an experience or perception upon the mind; sensation.
3. the effect produced by an agency or influence.
4. a notion, remembrance, belief, etc., often of a vague or indistinct nature: He had a general impression of lights, voices, and the clinking of silver.
5.a mark, indentation, figure, etc., produced by pressure.
Source: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/impression (20/03/2012) 

I chose "impressions", because it seems appropriate for what goes on in a blog - I intend to post to my blog only when I have been "impressed" by something. Very often this is the truest of our responses to something, as it is instinctive and happens before any learned or habitual thought kicks in.