Heroes Not Zombies

Bamboo is a remarkable plant. It’s strong, yet light, firm, but seemingly delicate. It’s a remarkable coloniser, spreading rapidly and many people fear it in their gardens because of its ability to grow and spread virtually uncontrollably.

I think it’s a great example of nature at its best….strong, resilient and adaptable.

We need those qualities too, and I’m still surprised that Medicine pays such little attention to the natural mechanisms of defence, repair, healing and growth.

From anti-inflammatoires to anti-biotics, anti-histamines to anti-depressants, modern Medicine seems based on the war concept of fighting enemies in an attempt to overcome them. During the pandemic we saw repeated attempts to find a magic bullet – lockdowns, masks, vaccines – nothing stemmed the tides of infection, nothing inhibited the proliferation of variants and a whole succession of waves.

At various stages in this pandemic I’ve thought – the virus isn’t the problem, it’s how we are living – because we’ve seen that those hit hardest are those who are most vulnerable – those living in poverty, those living in overcrowded housing, those already suffering from other incurable chronic ailments, the frail elderly, those living in care facilities or working in poor work conditions with inadequate ventilation, space, etc.

But are we addressing those issues? Because the magic bullet never came, and, probably it never will.

We know a lot about what we have to do to promote and sustain health and adaptation. We just need to turn that into political will and tap our human creativity to follow through.

Will we do that?

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I took this photo a few years ago inside Montaigne’s chateau. I loved that visit. It’s a fascinating place. In this one room, used as a place of worship I noticed that the light was of two very different kinds. The natural light coming in through a high window seemed softer or gentler than the artificial light in the altar, so I took this photo to capture both kinds of light, setting the exposure to a general setting which balanced the total light in the room.

Now that I see the image there’s a distinct difference of “temperature” between the two kinds of light. The artificial light seems warm, and the natural light seems cool. Don’t you agree?

This is one of many photos I have where the light itself becomes a main subject. I find that so appealing – it doubles the pleasure. I enjoy looking at the features of the room AND I enjoy seeing the light itself.

So here’s my “challenge” for you today….see if you can notice the light, either in your home, or when you’re out and about….not just what the light illuminates but the light itself.

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You know there’s a general recommendation not to take a photo “into the Sun”, and certainly it’s not a good idea to look directly into the Sun at any point.

However, using a camera, with an LCD screen, there’s no risk and, actually, sometimes the results can be stunning. As is the case in this photo.

With an automatic exposure setting everything in the frame is under exposed in relation to the Sun, but that just heightens the drama.

Two things I notice in this photo is how the foreground seems so dark it looks like night time – actually that contrast between the dark land and the bright sky reminds me a particular Magritte painting – you know the one? And the other is the sheer beauty of the sky. Aren’t those clouds simply gorgeous?

(The Magritte painting is called “The Empire of Light”)

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Have you ever seen a moth like this? I think it’s a “White Ermine” moth. Isn’t it beautiful?

I took this photo yesterday at the front of my house. My first reaction was, how beautiful. My second, how unusual, I wonder what it’s called? My third was, look at the symmetries! My fourth, “as above, so below”, followed by, ah, there are two of them….mating!

I moved here in December and the garden is quite big, and semi-abandoned. There are trees on all sides, and a significant area of wild woodland. I’m immersed in birdsong all the time. There’s a rich diversity of plants and creatures here.

In recent days, I’ve seen this moth, spotted a very colourful woodpecker, delighted in the reappearance of redstarts and hoopoes, and heard a nightingale for the first time in my life.

I often write about l’émerveillement du quotidien (search for that exact phrase using the search box at the top of this site), but I don’t think my everyday has ever been so richly filled with Life and Nature. What a gift!

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You know the old saying that if the only tool you possess is a hammer then everything looks like a nail?

Or the teaching I received from my mentor in General Practice training, about referring to specialists, “If you send your patient to a man with a knife, he’ll use it”.

I’m a big fan of taking the holistic view, of always trying to see the contexts, and connections. I’m suspicious of simplistic, “two value” thinking. I’m uncomfortable with decision making based on “outcomes” and “targets” which obscure the uniqueness of the individual and reduce their nuanced experience to a single dimension.

So when I look at this photo, I see the ouroboros, an ancient symbol of the cyclical nature of reality and of wholeness. And as I look through the centre I see a tall hedge with many arched entrances, each offering a different way through, then I think of how a holistic perspective enables us to see that reality always offers a multiplicity of options, paths, and dimensions to explore.

We live in such a richly diverse universe. Our lives are so multidimensional. Every life story reveals a multiplicity of experiences, events, thoughts, feelings and actions. When we narrow our focus too tightly, embed our habits too rigidly, then we diminish our lives and those of others, and we create a distorted view of reality.

Seeing the whole, the contexts and the connections is an ongoing, cyclical process. It doesn’t have distinct starting and ending points. It’s dynamic. It flows. It’s alive.

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I’m a sucker for a great reflection. I can’t resist it. Isn’t this beautiful? I took this photo at the weekend in the grounds of a nearby chateau.

There are strong themes of alchemy, legend and myth in this chateau, which creates an atmosphere of mystery and something sacred.

“As above, so below”, is the old esoteric teaching and I think of that when I look at a scene like this.

That’s what reflection opens up….an appreciation of the here and now setting off ripples of connected thoughts which deepen and enrich the experience.

The bottom line though, is that reflections in water have the same power to catch and hold our attention that sunsets do. They are phenomena which hit our pause button, and that’s something we don’t do often enough.

So, I’m sharing this one with you today, and hoping you’ll enjoy the pause.

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I’ve written many times about the benefits of forest bathing. In fact spending time “in Nature” is beneficial but there’s something extra added by spending time amongst trees. So I was delighted to find a magical garden around an old chateau near where I live now. It’s the Château Renaissance at Dampierre-sur-Boutonne, known for its “alchemical gallery” (which I’ll tell you about another time). One part of the grounds is a poplar forest. That’s it in the photo above.

It’s wonderful in there. There are several sculptures depicting characters or symbols from Arthurian legend amongst the trees and in one particular place there is…..a sun lounger! What a strange thing, to find a sun lounger in the middle of a forest!

I couldn’t resist. When you lay down on it you can’t help but look directly above you.

And what do you see when you look up?

Of course! How magical! What genius!!

You know, I like these photos, but looking at something and being inside it, experiencing it, is completely different….which reminds me of C S Lewis’s piece about the sunbeam in the woodshed – how you can look at the light or you can stand in the light looking within it.

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And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom

Anais Nin

“Épanouissement” – opening up, blooming, blossoming – a becoming, not being.

Flowers do this, and so do we. Never fixed. Never static. Always in the process of becoming, of fulfilling our destiny as we move towards it.

Becoming defies categorisation. It breaks free of any label or box.

Becoming defies outcomes and endings, reveals the circular nature of time and the interconnectedness of all that exists.

Becoming is a kind of alchemy, transforming, transitioning, emerging.

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Now that pretty much every mobile phone has a camera, many of us are constantly equipped with the means to take photos. And now that publishing photos onto the net is so, so easy, we are all much more able to share those photos with others. We are able to share photos directly with friends, family or colleagues. And we’re able, if we choose, to share them much more widely.

These two young women are sharing the experience of noticing, one taking a photo of some blossom while the other looks at it too. The camera can raise our awareness so that we notice more in the here and now and it can direct both our attention and that of others.

I’ve been writing this blog for many years now and some time back I developed the habit of basing every single post on a photo I’d taken. I do that for several reasons. It allows me to revisit photos I’ve taken over the years, as well as to linger a while over individual photos, enjoying them, contemplating them, and letting them set off whole threads of thought in me.

It also let’s me share.

I enjoy sharing both the photos and the words they inspire and my hope is that they set off ripples of delight, wonder and awareness which can travel through the four dimensions of space and time.

These are two different everyday acts and I recommend them both. Consciously noticing by deliberately taking photos. And choosing to share, whether with one other person, a handful of friends, or more widely.

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Charles Babbage is often referred to as the father of the computer. He invented both the “Difference Engine” and the “Analytic Engine”, probably the first computing devices.

He also wrote about how change propagates throughout the world, suggesting that the air, the oceans and the rocks act like vast libraries.

In a paper he published in 1837, he describes how every word we utter creates movement in the molecules of the air (that’s how others can hear us) and every molecule which moves changes the position of other molecules.

The air itself is one vast library, on whose pages are forever written all that man has ever said or even whispered.

He wrote that the same principle applies to water and rock, but there it is actions which produce the changes. He gives examples of the wake caused by passing ships. And I wondered about how often you can find fossil sea shells high up in land far, far above sea level. I also wondered about the changes to landscapes, forests and rivers produced by the actions of Industrial society over the last couple of hundred years.

Whilst the atmosphere we breathe is the ever-living witness of the sentiments we have uttered, the waters, and more solid materials of the globe, bear equally enduring testimony of the acts we have committed.

All this also reminded me of the way our bodies remember, of how memories of events and experiences remain in our cells because they are changed by the words and actions which impact on them.

I love that such a clear, and even imagination inspiring, idea was published almost two hundred years ago, but I wonder how much longer it will be until we live according to this discovery that everything is connected.

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