Storm Betty…..He Doesn’t Sugar The Pill…. Campaign Against Arms Trade…. Cut The String…. The Clue Is In The Title…..
by Bernie Bell - 08:03 on 20 August 2023
Storm Betty…..
Friday night/Saturday morning……Orkney got the tag-end of Storm Betty……wind & wave action…. Bradford’s Towers are no more…..
Walking towards the old Kirkyard…..
Fallen stones in a row….…
Looking back….
A neighbour suggested that next time Bradford might build a round structure, and I replied…
“Indeed.
I wrote this….
“In some cultures living places were/are built ‘in the round’, so that bad spirits can’t lurk in the corners. In some climes, they are built in a circular shape so that the weather can just whistle round them. Our house is a rectangle, and has a wind-tunnel at either end. A round shape can ease the wind flow, in windy places. Sharp edges make the wind do sharp things.”
....in this…..
https://theorkneynews.scot/2021/12/16/theres-something-about-roundness/
Maybe next time he will – maybe he’ll build a broch!
B”
Andy Goldsworthy comes to mind….
https://www.artnet.com/artists/andy-goldsworthy/2
And Julie Brook’s firestacks….
https://elephant.art/julie-brook-firestacks-land-art/
I think it’s time to post a link to Bradford’s site again…..
https://bradfordspencer.myportfolio.com/home
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He Doesn’t Sugar The Pill….
https://literaryreview.co.uk/curse-of-cane
I doubt that folk will stop eating it. We’re not born with a taste for it – that develops - or is developed – and then – we’re hooked!
Years ago – decades ago - my friend Mart refused to put sugar in my tea. If I was at his house and he made a cuppa, he wouldn’t give me sugar. Up to then, I had two spoons in every cup. Drinking tea with a friend - realising that it tasted just fine without sugar - I haven’t taken sugar in tea since - except when the tea is execrable – then it gets one spoon – just so I can drink it!
I must admit – I do like cake – and I still have most of my teeth.
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Campaign Against Arms Trade….
Interesting reading from C.A.A.T….
https://caat.org.uk/publications/caat-news-issue-266-summer-2023/
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Cut The String….
I’ve copied this from Matthew Manning’s Healing Hub…
https://www.facebook.com/matthewmanninghealinghub
I hope they don’t mind….
“The first police officer reaches under the one-ton bale of hay and attempts to lift it off of me. Of course, it doesn’t budge. He grabs his flashlight and shines it under the hay into my face. I blink. He yells over his shoulder to his partner, “He’s alive! He’s alive! Help me move the hay.”
Even working together two officers can’t move it – not a fraction of an inch. A thousand pounds each? Of course they can’t move it.
“Cut the strings,” I whisper. My voice is weak. They can’t hear me.
I am not going to last much longer. If they will just cut the strings, the bale will break apart, and they can drag me out of here.
“Lift, Joe, lift!”
“Just cut the strings,” I mumble, “Please cut the strings.”
“C’mon harder.”
“It’s too heavy! We can’t lift it. We gotta go for help! Hang on Chad, we’ll be right back!”
I am alone again in the growing darkness. Wonderful painless, peaceful, irresistible sleep beckons. I struggle to remain conscious. One. Two. Three. Four… Where are they? How long does it take for police, fire, ambulance, to arrive? Where is the Coast Guard? Where are the Marines? Where is that one old farmer with enough common sense to just cut the strings?
The desert air grows chilly as the sky darkens. I grow weaker. Dizziness overcomes me and I begin to drift off into that gray space somewhere between the living and the dead.
Help finally arrives. One of the police officers bends down so I can see his face. “Hold on! A fire engine is here. There are six men aboard.”
I do the math. Two big, strong cops and six burly firemen must move a ton of dead weight off me. That’s two hundred forty five pounds each. No way can they possibly do that – but somehow, miraculously, they do. A couple of neighbors who have arrived at the scene stand by to catch me. They lower my limp body to the ground where I lie in a broken heap.
Why didn’t they cut the strings? They could have saved a long, tortured hour.
How heavy is hay? A piece of hay is about the weight of a feather. How many pieces of hay does it take to make two thousand pounds? Lots. That package of sixteen bazillion individual pieces of hay wrapped in a gigantic bundle is a crushing weight. But separated, it would have been nothing. I feel bad saying this, because it makes me sound ungrateful – and I am very grateful to the guys who saved my life that night – but there is a point to be made here, isn’t there?
Is it too big?
Is it overwhelming?
Cut the strings – just cut the strings!
Are you buried under crushing burdens? Projects that are too huge? Schedules that are too complicated? Maybe you are trying to do too much at once – trying to do everything instead of doing something.
Cut the strings and cut yourself free. Do one thing at a time – and get it Done. Move “out of the strain of the doing into the peace of the done.”
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The Clue Is In The Title…..
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Here’s one I made earlier…. https://theorkneynews.scot/2022/02/15/the-ness-at-the-british-museum/
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