Change is not only possible, it is natural.

Natural Expectations : a definition

Natural expectations are sets of inherent, intrinsic design implications that emerge from within living organisms.

Another way to express this would be to say that a three legged stool has obvious immediate design implications, as would a mug, or a palm leaf woven basket. The stool is a seat or a table, the mug, an open container with a handle, is for drinking or scooping, the basket is for carrying, or holding objects within it, and it’s strap arrangement, if it has one, might indicate how it is to be carried. It’s an analogy because the stool, the mug nor the basket, are all non ‘living’ ‘things’ and are used by living beings. The materials that comprise those objects may in time be returned to nature, yet they as objects do not live, nor do they grow.

What I am writing about are the natural expectations’ of living processes.

Plants are an expectation of sunlight within certain frequency ranges, varying from plant to plant. Some utilise more direct sunlight than others. Each one has its place.

In the forest habitat Perma-culturists and Forest Gardeners describe 7 layers of light variation, from the ground to the topmost leaves, and have observed that a myriad of different plants work on all those varying levels of light, collectively and individually. Put any one of those plants in a layer it’s not normally naturally part of and it will struggle, and its natural growth cycles will be disrupted. The plants natural expectations are not being met.

Each plant in the web of life provides materials and more often than not often living space for many, many organisms, all of whom are part of the essential optimum health picture. In a forest with many hundreds and thousands of species those relationships will be incredibly interwoven in a non-linear fashion. The entire web is an expression of many, many specific natural expectations being fulfilled. All inter-related! That inter dependence is also part of the natural expectations, or design implications of living processes.

Eyes are an expectation of sunlight within a certain frequency range. We human beings cannot see ultra-violet or infra-red light with our eyes. Yet there are many animals that do use those frequencies. It is interesting to note that civilisation has developed technology to extend our sensory range, to ‘see’ those UV or IR frequencies, primarily as military/security tools and as such mostly for ill.

Ears are an expectation of sound waves. Again there is a limit, a certain frequency range outside of which nothing is sensed by that particular organ or organism or collective of cells operating as they do. Nature has determined this limit. It is no accident. Irrespective of whatever determines such processes, these naturally determined expectations are absolutely meaningful, and of vital importance to all living processes.

Plants need water. Some more than others. The local availability, source and quality of water determines what plants will thrive, and of course those plants will live there and will thrive. Salt Marshes and Bog Marshes are quite differing habitats. A few plants can handle both, most are specific to the precise habitat and it’s variations.

Another way to sense this would be to say that what we see in natural living processes is that those intrinsic, that is to say, essentially innate and natural expectations determine the parameters for the optimum health of any living process. Meeting those natural expectations ensures optimum health.

There is one other natural expectation that inheres to all living processes; that is that there is no such ‘thing’ or ‘concept’ as ‘thrash’, ‘rubbish’ or waste.

Nature does not create any waste. Ever. In natural living processes ALL materials utilised by living processes are returned to the nutrient cycles in forms that other organisms or living processes can metabolise. That return processes is pee-ing, poo-ing, leaf shedding, skin shedding, and of course dieing.

Decaying. Bio-degrading … though I don’t much like that term.

Bio-returning would be a better description, less judgemental.

This constant return of metabolised materials increases the over-all fecundity of the natural habitat. That too is a natural expectation of the entire biota or habitat.

Another way of saying this is that this very simple no-waste principle ensures the continued optimum health and growth of the habitat.

What it means, for me at least, is that EVERYTHING that lives on Earth, and everything done by those living organisms is inter-related, profoundly connected in a vast food web that feeds all life – all waste is food for life - so that life grows ever more abundant on Earth. And each and every living organism is embodied with a set of natural expectations.

However being an intelligent system, there is another dynamic that works with these sets of natural expectations that ensures that they are not rigid or brittle..... and that is the ability to take in information and to change or 'adapt' behaviour to meet new circumstances.

It follows that even the slightest input of ‘new’ or ‘alien’ materials will have consequences and those consequences cannot be easily predicted, especially where nature has not determined a bio-logical metabolic living process to handle that material, to utilise it and or return it to the nutrient cycle. The ‘new’ or ‘alien’ material can become toxic if it ‘accidentally’ interferes with natural bio-logical processes; though hind sight does of course reveal the extent and depth of those consequences, even as this is strangely ignored by so many in this modern dominant culture.

To recap, ALL natural living processes have specific and precise natural expectations that are intrinsic and that determine the parameters for the optimum health of each living process; and that the constant meeting those expectations at the individual and community levels increases the overall health of the entire species, and those many species living at optimum health, by metabolising materials created by each other they collectively ensure the optimum health of the entire habitat.

And that all organisms, living in a constantly changing environment have the ability to learn, that is to say that they can receive information from the environment, and use that information to make changes in their behaviour, in such manner as to maintain the overall balance of life. Thus there is no ‘waste’ in natural processes, because all materials are left in a state that specifically enables them to be metabolised by other living processes. Life feeds life.

Change is possible, even for a rigid Institutional Society such as the Dominant Culture which is undermining natural processes and causing great harm. The question therefore is will 'it' or it's constituents make those choices based on learning and on a desire to maintian the vitality of natural processes. That's you and I, my friends and all other human beings. Even David Cameron retains that possibility. Even the Pope.

If they chose not to make those choices, then they have to be held accountable for the adverse affects of their behaviour.

Kindest regards

Corneilius

Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe





Bookmark and Share

Climate Change Denial-ism Put into Context.

There has been lots of writings about Climate Change denial-ism.

One of the more frequent claims is that this denial emerges from the unwillingness of those whose material comforts are so great in comparison to those of previous generations to even begin to think of forgoing those comforts. Be they 'everyday folk' or wealthy Power players.

In my view this is wholly inadequate as a explanation. It also has potential to become a means to demonise and de-humanise 'others', and be used as a means of oppression and social divisiveness that feeds Power. The blame game is not the same as asking that people take on social responsibility  based on understanding.

When it comes to 'denial-ism' we have many, many precedents and analogues. Here's a just a few to indicate the tenor of denial-ism.

The German people during the late 1920s and 1930s, as Hitler was elevated into Power, at a time when Eugenics was a respected 'scientific' ideology amongst many, many ruling elites and everyday people across the world. The German people could see what was happening, and yet so many simply turned a blind eye to the growing abuses perpetrated by the movement of which Hitler was a figurehead, and actually worked within that system as the managers, clerks and manual labourers necessary for such a system to function. What had they learned about abusive power in their childhoods that made them so compliant with so obviously abusive Governance?

The 'American' European People during the forced removal of the Aboriginal Peoples of North America and Canada, (and ever since), and the 'Australian' European People regarding the oppression of the Aboriginal peoples of Australia. Where did they get the idea that the Aboriginal people were sub-human and could be so cruelly treated?

The Western World in general with regard to the Aboriginal World - the portrayal of those cultures as 'savage' or 'primitive' as a whole, and therefore suitable for 'assimilation' or 'extirpation'. And the denial of that vast historical trauma, as well as the claim that it belongs to previous generations, to the past, while in reality it is still being practised.

The Irish of the 20th and 21st Century regarding the political realities of the Irish 'Famine's of the mid 19th Century. The incidence of potato blight was intentionally utilised to depopulate Ireland, and to populate the USA and Australia by mass immigration, in essence to provide cheap labour for the expansionism of the Empires of commerce. This reveals to those with eyes to see the pattern of intentional cruelty and manipulation that led directly to the partition of Ireland, the Civil War and belies the carefully crafted illusion of Ireland's entry into the modern world of statehood and a friendly relationship between the installed Powers in Ireland's State with those Powers that had so cruelly abused the indigenous Irish for so long. Forget about the truth, there is money to be made.

The long term intergenerational trauma of this experience had horrific consequences for hundreds of thousands of Irish children placed in the 'care' of Church and State Institutions. This is still a taboo subject in polite Irish Society. Why?

The Catholic world-wide congregation's response in the past 30 years as the 'scandal' of widespread, centuries long, child abuse unfolds and as the Catholic Hierarchy continues to refuse to address the matter honestly and honourably. How can so much be known about this horrific history and so little be done to address it, not least by the people outside of that Institution, whose own family members were victimised?

The Western World post "Silent Spring'... The 'green revolution' has surged forwards since then, unabated. Birdsong is ever rarer. Bee populations are falling. Monsanto is still pushing GMO crops and Supermarket giants and Pharmaceutical Corporations are determining agricultural practice, whilst the adverse health affects are costing National health Services more every year. How can such an insane and obviously damaging practice prevail for so long?

The Western World in the lead up to, and during the Afghan and Iraq Wars, during the bombing of Libya. There were no WMD in Iraq, there is no solid evidence that 9/11 was planned and executed from within Afghanistan, and the threat of massive civilian slaughter in Benghazi is proven to have been a fabrication. David Cameron sold Military technology and weapons the the Egyptian Military which has been used to oppress the Egyptian people since the 'fall' of Mubarak. Why do people buy these lies about 'bringing democracy' tot he Arab world?

The widespread denial of the wounds associated with Coercive Compulsory Schooling Systems. 'Our' schools are failing children, punishing them with target based achievement training designed to put the children under intense psychological pressure; bullying is rampant and schools unwilling to admit the scale of the problem, let alone address it's roots in peer pressure that is largely driven by consumer marketing and media propaganda. Ritalin is the tool of choice to control those children whose energy and vitality and frustration threatens the illusion that schools are educational institutions, as opposed to doctrinal training centres. How can so many parents be blind to the problems their own children are faced with every day?

To suggest that it is merely a question of 'comforts' that accrue to those who benefit in some way from the status quo is to avoid a deeper analysis, as to the psycho-dynamics of denial. It might be comforting to some who might claim, in their own minds, to be ready for a down grading of their own comforts, for the benefit of all,  which might also be yet another way of claiming the 'higher moral ground', of self aggrandisement. Ruthless self honesty is essential here.

Alice Miller was the first modern writer to look at Germany and to elucidate the psycho-dynamic that fed the situation in Germany, and to source it's roots in how children were treated, and how parents were instructed by societal power in their relationships with children. Her book "For Your Own Good : The roots of Violence in Child Rearing" is one of the most important books of the 20th Century. She showed that when an adult mistreats a child, telling the child repeatedly that "This is for your own good!" the child internalises the meaning and values associated with the mistreatment and adopts them as her or his own, and that makes it more likely that as an adult they too will mistreat their own children, and that this occurs as an intergenerational behaviour pattern that is oppressive.

The child's natural anger at such mistreatment is suppressed by the child, and emerges in the adult as a diffuse anger that is unresolved and that can and is used by Power to manipulate hatred and anger towards 'others' who are carefully demonised, thus giving permission to a whole generation to attack those defined as 'others' : jews, gays, communists in Hitler's era; protestors, muslims, immigrants and 'terrorists' today in Great Britian.

James Prescott and John Bowlby researched the impact of the disruption of the natural child-mother bonding processes and to link those disruptions to how societies behave, and provided clear evidence that the disruption of the natural child-mother bonding processes underpinned the emergence of Hierarchically Violent Societies 

Prescott's 1975 paper 'The Origins of Violence' revealed two streams of society: the Hierarchically Violent Society and the Empathic Egalitarian Society.

Here's a brief outline of the differences he observed.

That research is now corroborated to some degree, though there are some doubts and questions yet to be answered, by neuroscience, by pre-natal developmental science and birth psychology.

The adverse behaviour patterns that have been perpetuated, that lead to the problems of Habitat degradation - of which Climate Change is but one symptom - have their roots in this disruption of natural, biologically mandated environmental and experiential processes that disrupt our natural maturation and development of sense of self, and of connection to others.

The psychology of any given society is both revealed and perpetuated in how that society treats it's children and most vulnerable members.

Change this and we change everything.

Failure to change this, and we will only create new rules with which to oppress each other, thinking all the time that our rules are better justified.

We have many, many examples of this 'revolutionary' approach and the abuses it perpetuates, from the French revolution to Pol Pot.

Healing and Recovery cannot be coerced, they must be chosen. It is also true that healing and recovery benefit greatly from adequate empathic and practical support, and it is true that some few have been able to engage their healing and recovery without much support, often in the face of strong opposition.

Loss of self empathy and the urge to power - a short video. :

We, all of us, have much work to do, in many areas. And for our children's children's sake it must be, above all, honest.

That honesty is the cleaning up of our internal personal ecology as much as the external.


Kindest regards

Corneilius

Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe

Bookmark and Share
 

The Generation Gap. Mind the Gap. It's a bridge back to nature.

Adults!

Are you tired of dealing with surly, uncooperative, sarcastic young people whose attitude has everything to do with not being accepted as seen, as valid, as complete and whole, unless they conform to the values of others, whose example and behaviour is not necessarily seen as being worthy of much respect, through they might love the person, the parent, they cannot mask what they see.

And it has to do with a masked and subconscious parental jealousy of the emerged young adults potential for freedom, a freedom many parents mortgaged, a freedom which voting and working atrophied, a wound not of their own making, for it is intergenerational. 

If it is not really talked about, the hurt is great indeed.

Generation after generation..... the trickle down effect.

They were told it was the 'right' thing to do. So they did it, in good faith, and the system betrayed them.Most unfortunately do not realise what they have been put through. Their identification with the system had penetrated too deep, and self empathy is replaced with fear or certainty.

Generation after generation..... the trickle down effect.

I have learned to accept it all, not fatalistically, but in order to observe, and to see then what happens, and perhaps sense how the resolution might be nurtured, within myself. This has taken some time. I was listening to me as I was, when others were not, and remembering. And connecting that to the fact that my life experience certainly left me wounded, and lacking self empathy and so it must be for so many others, just as intensely as I experienced it, and for many much worse indeed.

The least measure of a life of all measures, is the intensity of self loathing, (which is really the introjected loathing of society for the natural child, and the degree one has internalised that so deeply determines to some degree the intensity of it's external expression). Yet it is crucial in all power relationships.

We need to listen to our children, we need to get used to living lighter, on less cash, and understand the immense benefit of the experience of being present, with much more time to be, and to be with the children, more than at work. To be with life, more than with the 'economy'.

Parents and children need more free time together, and we need it across the generations, to help recover from this intergenerational re-traumatisation, be it from the adverse affects of hierarchical power structures behaviour, or laterally,  amongst us as people ..... we must see the setting into which we were born and have now to deal with.

Power Relationships vs Empathic Relationships?



this




has been


for decades, elsewhere .........

Of course, it has to be said, this applies across all generations .... the same dynamic occurs when a gap is perceived and 'us' and 'them' becomes the sense of the generations, rather than it being perceived and felt as a continuum - a healthy functioning empathic family, community or group.




Kindest regards

Corneilius

Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe

Bookmark and Share

Self empathy is the source of Wisdom.

Self empathy is the source of any 'wisdom' .... because from there genuine empathy flows, and it is a genuine empathy that is not an absorption of others feelings and content, but an accurate felt, sensed perception of these from a place of knowing oneself, where one is.

Genuine empathy accurately perceives both nurturant and non-nurturant realities, and responds as needed. The prey flees, not merely out of blind fear, but out of knowledge. It's what legs, eyes, ears, the sense of smell are all for.

And it takes psychological control over people to ensure that people remain attached to a system, to hierarchically imposed values and judgements, when we could have run, or walked, or said "NO!". That psychological control is engineered through the internalisation of the values of the system, such that we become judgemental, moralistic rather than empathic perceptual. This engineering is done by indoctrination, by marketing, by abuse and by trauma.

So all 'teachers' ought to lead us back to ourselves, and do so with a deep trust that from there we will know where to go.

There is no religion or spirituality that is for all: each person is their own way of spirituality.

There is no ideology in Nature.

There is one ethic of life, and that is to nurture life for all life. That's what nature does and we have emerged from Nature.

That's how I see it.....

Kindest regards

Corneilius

Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe







Bookmark and Share

The Bail Outs, Banking Fraud, Gambling and unelected Governments

With all that is happening, and happening fast - the Governments of Italy and Greece are now effectively an unelected, imposed Government, and populated by people who have been executives of Goldman Sachs, by 'economists' and technocrats whose conflict on interest is clearly weighted in favour of the banking system.

Whereas in Iceland this has been avoided by the determined action of the people ..... who put so much pressure on their Government that their demands were met...

The current Government in the UK is also effectively unelected, as the coalition was NOT voted for, but arranged behind closed doors, at a crucial time.

Here's a documentary that explores how the recent 'crash' was the natural outcome of policies of deregulation by Governments populated by people closely aligned to the 'Investment' Banking sector and the privatised Central Banking systems, fraud and unfettered greed.

The story of New York Governor and former Attorney General Elliot Spitzer's downfall is instructive, and well documented by the BBC Storyville Documentary "Elliot Spitzer : The Sheriff of Wall Street".










This documentary is clear, it is not overburdened with exotic detail, and it shows exactly HOW the current crash and bailout was engineered ..... worthy of a couple of viewings....



on Vimeo

Kindest regards

Corneilius

Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe











Bookmark and Share

The Roots of Participative Democracy : Children

We cannot have an effective and efficient democracy unless the children experience the reality of mutual responsibility and accountability.

Democracy goes wrong when people are trained by schooling to not have a direct participation on the decisions that are made that most affect their lives....... schooling is a 12 year conditioning process that instrumentalises the child's mind and body to obedience, to a dependency on the approval of others, to negating his or her unique insights, and innate right to pursue those insights, to such degree that it becomes a hard wired neurological and physiological response...

A response that they later defend in a visceral and almost feral manner....

That said the intentional process of 'compulsory' schooling is not 'perfect' : some do escape, intact, many more partially intact.. - hence the constant faux 'reforms' imposed by Central Government.... and their denial of the benefits of a truly libertarian education where children are self directing inner motivated learners facilitated by supportive and empathic adults.
It's also the case for me at least, that as I began to honestly appraise my OWN abusive and manipulative behaviour, I began to UNDERSTAND that of those who abuse.. and gain insight into political behaviours of all kinds.... the key is not just in 'being good' but also in understanding, empathically, the behaviour of those who are oppressive...
Which is another reason for activists to REALLY go deep within themselves and find that understanding all the better to help make the wider societal changes, and to provide pathways for others to free themselves of their need to oppress.

This is what Paolo Freire wrote about in Pedagogy of The Oppressed...


And what Alice Miller wrote about in "For your Own Good: The roots of violence in child rearing"


Kindest regards

Corneilius

Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe



Bookmark and Share

Letter to President Michael D. Higgins

Dear President Elect,

I urge you, as President of Ireland, to be a constant and energetic voice for the Survivors, and for all the children, past, present and future, to bring empathy and clarity to bear on Irish Governance, to be fearless in this, to use your privileged position to help Irish Society to undergo changes that are healthy, that are geared towards the long term, that are nurturant of life and that make the abuse of Power a thing of the past.

You used the term 'Historical Trauma' in one of your speeches. You must now bring this phrase and it's meaning to the fore, because it is this that has driven the dysfunctional behaviour of so many, inside of politics and outside for centuries.

Greed is a learned behaviour. Abuse is a learned behaviour.

The psychology of any given Society is both revealed and perpetuated in how that Society treats it's children. To change the Society, we MUST change how we relate to and treat all our children, for they are the future..

Kindest regards

Corneilius Crowley


Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe





Bookmark and Share

I Don't Fit In!

I am working on a song entitled "I Don't Fit In!"

I don't fit in to a Society that accepts War as a tool of State Policy.

I don't fit into a Society that tells children what to think and applies sanctions against them for dissent against the prevailing ideology.

I don't fit in to a Society that segregates children and elders from the activities of Governance.

I don't fit in to a Society that accepts poverty as a necessary outcome of the concentration of wealth.

I don't fit in, and I am glad of it.

After many,  many years of self criticism because I felt that I did not fit in, and was therefore somehow inadequate because so many others seemed to 'fit in', and also because of the frequent criticism from many others, not least people in positions of Authority such as politicians, clergy, social workers, media pundits etc,  who use the term 'misfit' all too frequently,  which appeared to corroborate and support that self criticism, I can finally say with utter clarity that I know why I don't fit in, and that my knowledge is absolutely evidence based and accurate.

This is not to say that 'the world we live in is rotten or horrid' - it is to say that the Earth has at this time a Dominant human Culture that is abusive, and that the self criticism I and many others experience is an internalisation of the values of that Dominant Culture, and that that internalisation is part of the self policing that culture depends upon to maintain itself.

From my experience and perspective, I say that Earth is a biologically nurturant environment, where natural processes function to improve the conditions of life, for all life, in a manner that can best be described as responsive learning leading to precise adaptations to the variations in the environment.

Here is an essay by David Smail (short video of David Smail speaking about psychological distress and depression) entitled "The Experience of School: Empowerment or Oppression" that looks at this, and contains some valuable insights into the dynamics of 'not fitting in', the aggressive attitude directed towards those who 'don't fit in', by both friends and family, by co-workers, and by Institutions and how to counter it....

What kind of human being would even want to fit it to such a Society?


Kindest regards

Corneilius

Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe





Bookmark and Share

Letter : Church’s brazen request for more funds: and a response from a Catholic supporter!

Church’s brazen request for more funds

Letter published in The Examiner, Friday, October 21, 2011

A Chara,

PARISH priests in the Cork and Ross diocese have introduced two new quarterly collections to meet a deficit in their finances.

One of the costs they are claiming is that of implementing best practice child protection policies.

Diocesan leader Bishop John Buckley said: "Two collections would be needed every three months from now on, to ensure the diocese had enough funds to carry out its day-to-day duties."

How brazen a move is this, in the aftermath of the Cloyne Report, to urge parishioners to cough up the cash that ought more properly be sourced from the Diocese’s property portfolio, or the Vatican direct, whose fiduciary responsibility in this matter is abundantly clear, in that it was the Vatican’s instructions to bishops that led the policy of denial, intimidation, secret settlements and avoidance of their legal and moral duty to report criminal acts to the civil authorities?

Given that the Irish taxpayer is facing a bill of €30 million, under a contractual obligation entered into by Bertie Ahern’s government, to pay the legal costs of the Church’s "contributions" to the various Governmental Statuary Reports, is it not time to counter sue the Church?

We could do so in the light of the Cloyne Report, to void those contractual obligations on the basis of fraud — that the Church made public commitments to the welfare of children and survivors it had no intention of delivering on.

Bishop John Buckley also noted that the extra funds would not be "used to compensate abuse victims".

How sad it is that parishioners are still willing to contribute to a Church so utterly unwilling to behave in an honourable manner on an issue of such grave importance, not least to the welfare of people from within their own communities?

What would Jesus say?

Corneilius Crowley 
Harrow
London
England

---------------------------------
On Wedensday, 26th October 2011 I received by post the following letter.


"Dear Mr. Crowley,

Reference to your letter in the Irish Examiner as to the priests in the Cork & Ross diocese seeking extra collections. Glad to hear that somebody in London is suffering from anxiety about the Church affairs and the need to sue it.

Many regret they were not abused, as they could afford to have a good deposit on a house - maybe you yourself are suffering from this regret or possibly not being able to claim from Bishop Buckleys collection like many are or is there some innate desperation still bugging you -- you need help or counselling without delay.

You ask what Jesus would say? He'd say 'get behind me you Pharasee.'

I enclose an article of defamation against a priest which you can read, this is only one of many cases brought  to court by priests here against false claims.

I trust that the counselling sessions will help you in so many ways, especially if you are working with others in your job.

Yours sincerely

"
I leave the senders name out for now....The article he sent was cut from The Universe, Dated October 16, 2011 (page 2) and told the story of the return of a priest ( against whom allegations were made, that have been proven false, but were broadcast as valid, by RTE, the Irish State Television station, in a program produced by  Prime Time, entitled, "A Mission to Prey") to his parish.

--------------

I WILL respond, and explain the situation in some detail. I am not offended by this letter, because it says nothing about me, though it says volumes about the person who wrote it!

Being offended is a choice, as Australian comic, Steve Hughes points out :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cycXuYzmzNg

I choose because I am mature enough to understand what Steve Hughes points out.


2. The assumptions the writer makes about me are without foundation. I KNOW this. The writer does not. His assumptions reveal more about him than they say anything about me.

His assumptions are false, yet the intent of his words are intended to be abusive, in that he makes a number of rather snide allegations:

I will deal with each point in his letter, in due course....


Kindest regards

Corneilius

Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe










Bookmark and Share

The Psychology of any Society is Revealed and Perpetuated in how they relate to the children.

 This chart, prepared by James Prescott, is based on detailed analysis of thousands of anthropological research papers and records, post Textor. It lays out social behavioural characteristics of a number of distinct cultures. This data indicates a key variable that can be used to infer whether or not a culture is Hierarchic and violent or Egalitarian and peaceful. This is spectrum rather than a binary.

"The Psychology of any Society is both revealed and perpetuated in how they relate to the children.

Change that and you can change everything."




Here's a song I wrote and produced in response to the Occupy Movement.



and here's my gentle song about the natural expectations of all our children.



Kindest regards

Corneilius

Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe









Bookmark and Share

Revolution or Emergent Recovery from a post traumatic stress Society?

By the way REVOLUTION is a rotation around a fixed point.... that fixed point may move forwards or backwards, which describes the trajectory of Power throughout History. That fixed point is the use of Power adversely against the most vulnerable, to meet the perceived needs of the most Powerful.

Thus all the prevailing mainstream and political media discourse is about how to 'save civilisation', to 'save Western values'.

The wars underway at present are driven mostly by the 'strategic interests' of Western styled Corporations and States

The values of the Powerful.

And, it must be asked, and answered honestly: who pays?

The truly impoverished, the relatively poor, the vulnerable, the elderly, the native peoples of the world, the environment...... and ultimately all our children pay, and their children will pay unless we - that's you and I, and my friends and family and your friends and family, our neighbours and our communities decide that we refuse to pay that price for the needs of Power.

What I want to see and feel is an emergent recovery from a post traumatic stress based Society, such that we recover our innate, empathic and nurturant psychology at EVERY level of our Culture.... this a long term project, the work of many decades, for all the children's futures (which is our primary responsibility as adults..)






Kindest regards

Corneilius

Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe





Bookmark and Share

PERFECT Description of Participative and Democratic Education FOR children

Just read the PERFECT Description of education FOR children, what it REALLY means in 7 easy to grasp points, which reveal not only the hidden oppression of schooling, but also the psyche of predominant Power relationship expressed through the behaviour of Institutional, Religious, Ideological instruction and punishment in the hard core psychological meaning, yet no fancy words, no theoretical guess work....

in

"The Terrace: An Educational Experiment in a State School"


from a lecture by Dr. Royston Lambert...... given in 1971, @ The University of Exeter.

Lambert had been a Head at Dartington Hall School, Totnes, a school that was libertarian..... Here he describes those key elements....

1. First the child is seen as a distinct individual whose whole development is the concern of education : personal, creative, moral and emotional growth being viewed as important as the development of basic skills.

2. Second, as people differ so their patterns of behaviour differ and thus individuals are allowed to develop at their own pace, supported by structures or stimulated by pressures which apply to that individual alone.The are not judged by collective standards and attributes or fashioned into an ideal model type of person.

3. It follows, thirdly that children as individual moral beings are encouraged to acquire their own values in an open society and not have certain selected values thrust upon them in the process of growth.

4. Equally, as moral agents, children are allowed to decide for themselves on all matters of personal taste and expression, and when the exercises of such freedom clashes with that of others, they are subject to processes of democratic decision: likewise when matters affecting their own short or long term interests are at stake, they have a real share in the making of decisions.

5.As everyone is either personally free or bound by decisions in which they genuinely participate, control is therefore a matter of self-discipline; there is no need for external rewards or sanctions or hierarchies or systems of authority and promotion.

6. As young people are moral agents,they are equal to older ones who are the same: older people have experience which may deserve respect (it all depends of what the experience is and what they have made of it), young people have a *lack* of experience which definitely commands respect!

Therefore relations between young and adult in education should be warm and informed, not based on fear or false ideas of authority.

These are the basic components of HUMAN(e) education designed to nurture the whole child....

My comment : these are also mirrors of what the adult Institutional society does not do, indicative of what it therefore inflicts upon children, what they them selves as a children endured and unfortunately internalised.. leading them to IMPOSE their will in turn "It's normal!"

Only it's normal in a VERY, VERY sick Society!


Kindest regards

Corneilius

Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe


Bookmark and Share

The Irish Presidential Candidates Curious Silence

A Chara,

The most troubling thing about this 'race', Presidential this election is that NONE of the candidates inspire confidence or hope.

That one of them will get the post, by default, is the reality.

Not a word from any of them about the Institutional Abuse of Children that has been deeply embedded in Irish Society for most of the Republics existence..... be it by the State or by the Church(es) or anyone else.

Indeed no-one is talking (yet) about the abuse which occurred in the 'better' schools - Clongowes, Blackrock, Newbridge, Rockwell et al where the scions of Irish elites were 'educated' in preparation for their future positions as the 'good and the great'. Is there a link between that silence, and the views of some who might, in private, claim that their experience in such schools ‘made a man of me’?

Of all the Political and Statuary posts in Ireland, surely it is the role of the President to be the voice of all those children, given the failures of the past, starting with Dev himself, who clearly ignored and suppressed the horrific truth from the word go, an omission that led directly to my own trauma as a child during the 60s and 70s.

Apparently not. I am appalled at the behaviour of Irish Society in this regard. I do not blame the candidates alone, for they are simply a part of that culture, and it is, in truth for ALL people in Ireland to think long and hard about this and to gather some courage and act as empathy, decency and justice suggests!

Kindest Regards


Kindest regards

Corneilius

Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe


Bookmark and Share

How do we see children?

I re-iterate my point because it is important….

The psychology of any given culture is revealed and perpetuated in how it treats it’s children – to change that culture, WE MUST address this fundamental issue.

The Church and indeed all Institutional Religions sees children as fodder for the expansion of their beliefs amongst the people of the Earth.
The Church regarded Indigenous Peoples, as ‘souls to be saved by Christianity',  and if they rejected that kind offer,  they were to be 'sent to hell', where they were going anyway.

The Corporate Government sees children as future workers.

Ideologists of all kinds see children as future ideologists.

Authoritarian Parents see children as either good or bad, depending on the child's subservience.
Marketing Psychologists see children as ‘evolving consumers’ and source of future revenues.

The Military sees children as potential cadets, who might become professional soldiers - killers without remorse once the chain of command has assumed responsibility.

How were YOU seen as a child, and how do you regard children today?


Kindest regards

Corneilius

Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe





Bookmark and Share

Empathy and Power : the message of the Occupations

The primary function of commerce, the exchange of goods, is to provide a service, that is to say, to serve the needs of the community; it stands to reason that it must be profitable, in order to sustain the effort, however it becomes irrational when the profit function becomes primary, and the activity – the serving of the communities needs - merely a means to that end.

That irrationality is made obvious by the profits of the military industrial complex which accrue over the ruined bodies of those whose lives are utterly destroyed by wars, launched by the Corporate State.

That irrationality is made obvious by the profits of the various ‘care’ industries, which come at the cost of the realities for those who are being ‘cared’ for, by for profit companies whose primary legal duty is to their shareholders.

That irrationality is made clear by the degradation of soil nutrients associated with modern technological farming, which is the basis of the profits made by the multinational agri-corporations.

This irrationality is made obvious by the turning of the home into an investment portfolio.

No amount of Government Regulation can address these problems as long as Government is populated by people whose allegiance is with the Corporate Profit Centre Ideology.

This ideology re-enforces a lack of empathy at all levels of society and as direct result people are suffering, people are being subject to abuse and trauma, mainstream society ignores these peoples plight, and often blames them for their pain, their suffering, their situation.

The work-shy poor, the evil Muslims, the dirty hunter gatherers, the ignorant subsistence swidden farmer, the ADHD children, the lazy depressed, the disease distressed, the clash of ‘civilisations’, the bling crazy youth, the riotous binge drinkers, the irreligious atheists, the money grabbing survivors of Clerical abuse and State ‘care’, the ‘criminal’ underclass are all urged to change their ways, pull up their socks, join the economy and get a job. Then everything will be just fine.

All these moralistic judgements reveal a lack of empathy that ought to be considered criminal, because it is not that Cameron and his like really believe these judgements – they couldn’t possibly given the massive evidence to the contrary, it’s that they use those judgements to distract and to dissemble, they use these arguments intentionally as emotional propaganda to divide and conquer.

By limiting the discourse to technological arguments, - the arguments about how best to bail out the banks to keep the cash machines running for ordinary people - to ideological debates, - David Cameron’s notoriously moralistic  “proper parenting, ethics, proper values” jibe at the rioters - and by omitting the real pain and trauma from the discourse, and the real causes of distress, - historical trauma, poverty, inequality -  Government, and the media, are holding the fort on this situation.

The occupiers form a large swathe of people who FEEL the pain and error of this situation, and are all too easy for media to typify as good, but stupid. “What is your Strategy?” asks the media, knowing that there is no strategy. This is not about strategy. This is all about empathy.

Put the empathy back into Power and the strategy will emerge. The situations will change. And it is this more than anything that Corporate Power fears and resists at every turn.

The sense that we are one community, one people, diverse and in solidarity, that we CARE for each other as our most basic and fundamental naturally emergent quality.

This is the basis of how we want our society to operate.

1. It's not the role of Business to Govern, nor is it merely to make money. It is to service the genuine needs of the people.

2. It's not the role of a genuine Religion to Govern. It is the role of of a genuine Religion to give voice to a profound and empathic Spirituality in ways that builds bridges, founded upon our innate sense of connection, between peoples, between Society and Nature.

3. It's not the role of Genuine Open Media to propagandise. It is the role of Genuine Media to host an open and honest articulation of the issues the people face.

4. The Role of Democratic Governance is one of Nurturing the people so that the genuine needs of the people are being met, by inviting full participation in the decision making processes related to how our communities function.

5. The role of Genuine Policing is Protecting the weakest people from the most Powerful. To balance any Power Disparity that is adversely applied.

6. The role of Education is not Indoctrination, it is one of nurturing the innate talents of children by LISTENING to the children, by giving them responsibility for their own choices, and by supporting those choices with all the tools available today.

7. The PRIMARY role of Health Services is to PREVENT illness and disease, not merely to manage symptoms. This includes educating the people regards diet, empathic parenting and honest relationships. It also has a precious role in the assisting the fullest recovery from trauma.

These are the demands of the people, based on genuine truths.

At present that are not the assumed and actualised roles of the Institutions of Governance, of Business, of Health Services, of the Police, of Education, of Religion though all these Institutions CLAIM that this is their role. There current role is one of exercising POWER over people and maintaining the Power Disparity at all costs.

That is not to say there are not good, honest people within those Institutions. It is to say that the good people have been intentionally and actively dis-empowered.

The occupations are the peoples statement of this awareness.


Kindest regards

Corneilius

Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe




Bookmark and Share

Limbic Imprint and The Emergence of Behaviour and Violent Societies

How Society Normalises Dysfunctional Behaviour.
An optimistic view.

Limbic Imprinting at Birth and The Emergence of Dysfunctional Behaviour

”We come into this world wide-open to receiving love. When we do receive it, as our first primal experience, our nervous system is limbically imprinted with an undeniable rightness of being.”  Elena Tonetti-Vladimirova 

Limbic Imprint is the term used to describe the processes of experience 'writing' the neural networks , the connections within our brain, heart and body during our time in the womb, and in particular during birth, and often in the immediate aftermath of birth.*
That is to say that our rapidly growing neural systems record whatever occurs, and that then becomes the base pattern from which we will evolve. In babies this growth is incredibly rapid, in the region of 200,000 connections per minute being created. Being held in our mother’s loving arms, feeding from her breast and other sensations provide us with a natural sense of bliss and security which forms the neural networks that will be the loving base from which we grow into loving adults.

If our first impressions are anything less than loving (for example, painful, frightening or lonely), then those impressions will imprint as our valid experience of love, and of life itself. It will be immediately coded into our nervous system as the norm, our comfort zone, acting as a surrogate for love and nurturing, regardless of how undesirable the experience actually was.

As adults, we unconsciously, automatically recreate the conditions that were imprinted at birth and through early childhood. Research conducted by the pioneers of prenatal psychology, such as doctors Thomas Verny, David Chamberlain and William Emerson, shows that an overwhelming amount of physical conditions and behavioural disorders are in reality symptomatic of unresolved traumatic gestational experiences during pregnancy and complications during delivery.

This is compounded by how the child is related to as he or she grows. If the child’s symptoms of distress are misunderstood, and treated as ‘bad behaviour’ and subject to sanction, this deepens the problem, the child becomes identified as the problem and will in turn internalise that identification.

Fortunately, not ALL children exposed to this dynamic will be overburdened by it, and many do 'escape' the worst affects, either through their own efforts of if they meet what Alice Miller calls an 'enlightened witness'. However enough do not survive intact, and may become as adults less than empathic, and will be absorbed by the Power structure where they will be 'successful'. Others are afflicted with the symptoms of thier distress, and are demonised by the Power structures and used as scapegoats. All of which, is of course avoidable....

Imposed Societal Values and How They Emerge.

The psychology of any given society is revealed in how that society treats their children. The adult world is created in the womb, the cradle and throughout childhood.

If a child, or adult for that matter, for whatever reason, is traumatised, and is unable to resolve that trauma, they remain in the 'coping strategy' stage, that is to say they will shut down awareness of aspects of their experience and feeling. As survival strategy; coping is a useful temporary strategy, but becomes adverse if extended, and it is this extension of the suppression of vital information (what is alive in the person) that leads to a growing loss of self-empathy, which undermines the development of empathy.

This compounds the fear inherent in traumatic experiences, and leads to an unconscious drive to exert adverse control over others (including the environment). Any adverse control imposed on a natural organism will meet resistance, and that resistance becomes the focus of violence, applied to overcome that natural resistance.

When any individual or group in this condition builds a societal structure, those structures will contain expressions of the unresolved fear and the drive to adverse control. This is how Hierarchically Violent Societies have emerged. Such societies codify their psychology over time, and thus behaviours such as war, concentration of wealth, racism etc become normalised and institutionalised. They are therefore more willing to inflict trauma than other more empathic societies, who are vulnerable because they are less likely to engage in whole sale violence to meet their perceived needs. To heal this dynamic is now the single most crucial work ahead of us. 

Fortunately Nature is With Us.


This dynamic does not affect every child in the same way, and therefore many people do recover to some degree. Were it not so, then we would not notice the costs. There would not be people like you, like me, like the many that are outraged with the harms associated with the current status quo. We would all of us be 100% normalised to the abuse. The urge to grow, to live as an empathic, connected, sensing member of our families, communities as a part of our Earthly environment is perhaps the deepest, most naturally embedded drive of all.

There is also ample evidence to suggest that people afflicted with dysfunctional behaviour can be nurtured in ways that enable them to recover. Thus it is also possible for entire societies. If the will is there. It is a question of making a choice.

The Current Situation


The current situation, of wealth and power disparity, of widespread institutional violence, of environmental degradation with all the costs to real peoples lives associated, is the result of the interplay of the limbic imprint and imposed societal values.

We know all to well what the dry facts and statistics tell us. To change how our Society behaves and operates, we must understand its roots, and learn again how to live without adverse controls on our natural growth. We must address how we treat our children, part of which is personal, resolving how we ourselves were treated as children, and part of which is societal which is where we must engage in peaceful, determined and well informed direct action, collectively, to confront the current situation. They are all of a piece.

 * a similar process also applies in the aftermath of any serious trauma....

Resources :        

http://www.whatbabieswant.org- a well researched and powerful documentary

http://www.birthpsychology.com-web portal for the research of Thomas Verny, David Chamberlain and William Emerson

http://www.alice-miller.com– pre-eminent researcher and writer on the sociological influences on parenting and child 'rearing' and the processes of recovery

http://www.johntaylorgatto.com– award winning teacher, author of the definitive history of Compulsory State Education


Kindest regards

Corneilius

Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe




Bookmark and Share

Common Sense

Ignore the ideologists, the dogmatists, the fear mongering divisive 'theorists' - stick to pure humane common sense.
ABUSE DOES NOT END ABUSE, IT NEVER HAS, IT ISN'T WORKING AND IT WILL NEVER WORK!






Bookmark and Share

Occupy! NO FEAR!



Kindest regards

Corneilius

Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe





Bookmark and Share

The roots of violence are clearly two fold :

The roots of violence are clearly two fold :

1. the disruption of the natural, biologically mandated child-mother bonding processes that occur, in utero, at birth and in early infancy.

2. the cultural or societal conditions of life for the people in that society, which are largely determined by Power.
In the former the fullest support for attachment parenting is crucial, in the latter Social Polices that are informed by what we now know to be true about the development of empathy, the disruption of the child-mother bonding process, the long term adverse effects of unresolved Trauma, of which Historical Trauma is possibly the largest affector.

We know that income inequality, war, adverse religious dogma, indoctrination all generate a Societal lack of empathy and must therefore be confronted.

I am working on a book 'Natural Child, Natural Society' which outlines the reasons why these processes exist, which will join the dots, so to speak in such manner as to present an opportunity for all parents to engage with their own children as Natural Children, to also heal any unresolved issues they might have and to equip activists across a wide range of issues with the same skills, because any activist who has been unable to resolve their own attachment issues will merely create other forms of control, which will replicate that which they seek to address.

The psychology of any given society is revealed in how that society treats their children. The adult world is created in the cradle.

If a child, or adult for that matter, for whatever reason, is traumatised, and is unable to resolve that trauma, they remain in the 'coping strategy' stage, and this leads to a loss of self-empathy, which undermines the development of empathy.

This compounds the fear inherent in traumatic experiences, and leads to a desire to exert adverse control over others (including the environment). Any adverse control imposed on a natural organism will meet resistance, and that resistance becomes the focus of violence, applied to overcome that natural resistance.

When any individual or group in this condition builds a societal structure, those structures will contain expressions of the unresolved fear. This is how Hierarchically violent Societies have evolved. Such societies codify their psychology over time, and thus behaviours such as war, concentration of wealth, racism etc become normalised.

To heal this situation is now the single most crucial work ahead of us.


Kindest regards

Corneilius

Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe





Bookmark and Share