The lived experience, before the fire. Evidence.

People are still in the building, people raised safety issues for two years prior.

Grenfell Towers. 

Immediate necessities, a starting point, and a timeline of action. 

I think - and bear in mind my lack of expertise, or access to any resource, or experience in any of this, and my lack of knowledge on so much of the detail of this dreadful trauma, this unforgiving event, this horror and it's implications, I think that without delay – the nation, we the people and the state must meet the needs of the people who are affected, bearing in mind that  each and everyone of them will be an individual case, with individual dynamics and will need precisely attenuated support to meet their needs. No one size fits all protocols. Meet those needs in full, without any reservation. Attention to detail essential as these people process and deal with what has just happened, and is happening to them.

Appropriate support without question. Just a thought.

Provided with love, and shared grief, and all due care and intention.

Here's something else I thought about.

I'd like to share this perspective. I have not seen it anywhere else, though I have not looked so hard to see. I want to have it checked.

My question is am I making sense?  

The answer is not about me.

Here goes.

 
The lived experience, before the fire.

Bear in mind for a moment the time 2 - 3 year period, planning, installation, emergence of problems, emergence of evidence, emergence of detailed complaints brought to the management ‘organisation’ based on available evidence, and not being heard when raising these matters again, and again, and living all that time with a sense of the risk…. of a fire.

If I and my family were living on upper floors.

How nervous would I be?

Day in, day out.

Morning, noon and night, 24/7?

Over a period of two years or so.

Inadequate response and minimal action taken, grudgingly.

Issues avoided.

Threats.

There is evidence of all  this in the public domain.

Evidence.

Terror.

Evidence.

A constant state of being aware of an unbearable risk, and not being heard by those responsible for that risk? Your children? My mother?

Leaving those families, imagine leaving your family in that potentially lethal uncertainty for an extended period?

How that that happen? How is that possible? Where is this possible?

Cui Bono?

This  egregious incident, this dreadful trauma is set in a context of a political and economic ideology that is re-directing taxation revenue, (a shared community resource, with all that that should imply), and turning it towards commercial profit based contracted out work, as a cultural practice, placing the taxpayers funds into an arena where the ideology of business is to make something and do something, and then cut costs – usually labour costs, material costs, externalised costs – to increase profit yield well beyond the cost of the civil infrastructure and a fair fee, which ought to be the correct approach for a civil project of any kind.

Taxes are not for shareholders, or bond holders.

Taxes are for people.

Civic infrastructure cannot be a profit center.

Civic is not business., it is not commerce.

It is about us, as a people. Our home. Land.

Our money. Our lives. Our children.

The State can afford to bail out the Banks, whose behaviour was the root cause of the problem, yet it cannot afford to implement the recommendations of the Lakanal House Coroners Inquest … immediately?

That said, Eric Pickles first public response to the Coroner’s recommendation’s is interesting. He avoids more than he embraces. Have a read. Read it again. Break it down.

So from here, today I suggest a timeline:

1. Complete fire investigation, and while that is underway collect ALL evidence from residents related to the incident, and all material, hard copy or digital, related to the entire process from planning to delivery to emergence of issues to the incident, from all sources. Assign adequate, sustainable resources to complete the task rapidly, thoroughly.

PROTECT THE 650,00 people living in High Rise buildings. Now.

2. Initiate a police inquiry. Let that roll.

3. At the same time, as I outline above, which is now, should have been immediate, without delay – the nation, we the people and the state must meet the needs of the people who are affected, bearing in mind that  each and everyone of them will be an individual case, with individual dynamics and will need precisely attenuated support to meet their needs. No one size fits all protocols. Meet those needs in full, without any reservation. Attention to detail essential as these people process and deal with what has just happened, and is happening to them. Appropriate support without question.

4. Immediate implementation of the Lakanal House Fire Investigation and Coroners recommendations, by legislation, then  immediate action, starting with checks. 

5. Surely this is worth more to the tax payer, the ordinary citizen, and all our children than the 100 billion ear marked for Trident, another destructive nasty lethal mass accident waiting to happen.

6. Inquest on completion of the Fire Investigation.

7. If any form of criminal responsibility emerges, indictments, criminal investigations, sanctions, prosecutions.

8. Inquiry.  Must examine the culture, the behaviour,  the outcomes based on all the available evidence.

8.a There must be robust legislative response to the Inquiry, immediately after the Inquiry has published its findings.
9. Material action must follow on its heels.

And we must maintain oversight at the grass roots level, and have executive rights in terms of decision making during progress. Government instructed by the people.

Civic Infrastructure must be set aside from the corporate profit culture. It is wholly inappropriate and it creates a series of well known and well documented conflicts of interest. It’s a shit storm.

Hillsborough, et al.

The fact that folks think the emergence of the Hillsborough Inquiry is the exception that proves the rule, when it is the rule. The exception meme is a veil.

Denial, mitigation, preserving power, status, rank, organisation is the rule.

The History of Public Inquiries and Government or State response in the UK is appalling, and it is frequently toxic mime of Justice that is acted out, time and time again, against a relatively disempower people.

And some people have the temerity to complain about British Sovereignty? Give me a break!

This behaviour is not rational at the human level.

It is rationalised at the institutional level.

That cannot stand.

Start today.

Hold our brothers ad sisters, our mothers and fathers close.  Be strong enough to bear it and act on what we know, with what we have - our Human Rights.


Meet the needs of the people who are affected, afflicted with this horrific trauma - each and everyone of them will be an individual case, with individual dynamics and will need precisely attenuated support to meet their needs.

Call in the UN?

The UN issued a damning Human Rights Report on the UK in 2018, following on after a previous report in 2009 that was not exactly glowing, on Human Rights Breaches committed by the British Government, across the UK.

have a read : it's quite clear.

“This was the Committee’s first review of the UK since 2009 and thus its first verdict on the Austerity policies pursued by successive governments since the financial crash. Over eight months the Committee conducted a dialogue with government officials, the UK human rights commissions and civil society groups. 

In a wide ranging assessment, expressed in unusually strong terms, the Committee sets out the following findings:

• Tax policies, including VAT increases and reductions in inheritance and corporation tax, have diminished the UK’s ability “to address persistent social inequality and to collect sufficient resources to achieve the full realization of economic, social and cultural rights”. The Committee recommends the UK adopt a “socially equitable” tax policy and the adoption of strict measures to tackle tax abuse, in particular by corporations and high-net-worth individuals.
• Austerity measures introduced since 2010 are having a disproportionate adverse impact on the most marginalised and disadvantaged citizens including women, children, persons with disabilities, low-income families and those with two or more children. The Committee recommends that the UK reverse the cuts in social security benefits and reviews the use of sanctions.
• The new ‘National Living Wage’ is not sufficient to ensure a decent standard of living and should be extended to under-25s. The UK should also take steps to reduce use of “zero hour contracts”, which disproportionately affect women.
• Despite rising employment levels the Committee is concerned about the high number of low-paid jobs, especially in sectors such as cleaning and homecare.
• The Committee urges the UK to take immediate measures to reduce the exceptionally high levels of homelessness, particularly in England and Northern Ireland, and highlights the high cost and poor quality of homes in the private rented sector and the lack of sufficient social housing.
• The UK is not doing enough to reduce reliance on food banks.

Jamie Burton, Chair of Just Fair, said:

“The UN’s verdict is clear and indisputable. It considered extensive evidence and gave the Government every opportunity to show why its tax and policy reforms were necessary and fair. In many important respects the Government proved unable to do this. It is clear that since 2010, ministers were fully aware that their policies would hit lower income groups hardest and deepen the suffering of many already facing disadvantage without offering any long term gain for the pain they inflicted. We urge the Government to take heed of the Committee’s recommendations and commit to ensuring that it does not diminish human rights further in the UK.” 

Simon Duffy, Director of the Centre for Welfare Reform, a member of the Just Fair Consortium said:

"The past six years of Austerity have seen the UK Government intentionally diminish the rights of its own citizens. 

The Centre for Welfare Reform welcomes the news that the United Nations has strongly criticised the UK Government for these policies - policies that have harmed immigrants, asylum seekers, disabled people and those living in poverty. There is no good reason for these ongoing attacks; instead it seems likely that these groups have been targeted simply because they are convenient scapegoats for problems they did not cause.

"The UK Government's policy has been shameful, and so is the ongoing failure of most of the media to attend to the impact of Austerity. So, we are all the more grateful to Just Fair for coordinating the efforts of civil society organisations like ourselves, and for helping to draw attention to these injustices.

"The Government of the UK is now in chaos and its future leadership is uncertain. Sadly it is unlikely that any immediate change in leadership will lead to the recognition of the UK's human rights obligations. Given recent events, it is even to be feared that the Government might try to blame international bodies for holding them to account for the obligations they freely entered into.

"The Centre adds its voice to all those who seek an end to Austerity and to the mounting injustice we've seen over the past six years. We will continue to work with groups or organisations who seek to advance justice, human rights and respect for all human beings - in all our diversity."

The Just Fair Consortium includes 76 national and local organisations and has published a series of reports that have highlighted the impact of austerity measures .

Full report here: http://www.centreforwelfarereform.org/news/uk-in-breachhuman-rights/00287.html

Business as usual.

This dreadful, lethal fire, this horror must therefore be assessed within the wider context of an ideological political and social setting.

It is so much more, such that one can say that it is an institutional power culture.

An institutional culture that assumes the risk is, more often than not, worth it, when the poor pay the price.

And think too of the many, many others, innocents all, who die in wars our taxes are spent on. Risk Assessed. 

A culture where one will assess the cheapest manner in which to appear to meet the risk, and deal with any consequences, no matter how grave, with resistance to the evidence, followed by Public Inquiries, and much later on related some legislative change.. and as we see, repeatedly, responsibilities are not assigned for the harms caused, even if a settlement is made. The status quo is preserved.

Justice as a business model.
 
Pay the fee, no body is jailed. It is just another business expense.

Now then, what’s next?

Is it not quite appalling that we taxpayers are forced to accept this as good Governance?

“Strong and Stable?”

“Things can only get better?”

“All in it together?”

“Big Society?”

Empty slogans.

Bullying.

Resolvable.

Surely, in 2017?

Twenty First Century….

This is where we are.

And it's shit.

Which is why we really must deal with it, and clean it up.

Like healthy adults would.

The dead are now our ancestors.

We must listen to our ancestors.

We too will become ancestors.

What will we leave for our descendants?

We are alive now.

Start today.

Kindest regards

Corneilius

"Do what you love, it is your gift to universe."

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What I stand for, simply put.

What do I stand for? What is the closest to my whole being in all of this? I can answer that only for myself.

You, for your self.

This is what I stand for.

I stand for the politic of care. of empathy, of justice, of honesty, of human value, of love, of shared destiny, of shared habitat, of shared life. I stand for healthy human relationships where nurture and pleasure are the core experience.

WE need to Govern, with Corbyn and men and women like him overseeing how Government implements our evidence based, well researched and informed decision making, enacting our chosen policies with our taxation contributions..

The 'blowback' from trolling (which is what Cameron did to us all in his Tory Conference address) is the evidence, and it has to be clearly presented.

I try to keep it polite, evidence based and robustly clear as to where the harm is being caused and by whom.

I aspire to use the trolling, as a foil to publish the truth, to inform. assure and encourage those other readers, the silent ones, the many!

It's great practice for all sorts of key skills.

Identifying and deflecting triggering, for a start..

Which is a really good one to develop. 

Go Jedi on them, use their energy. ;-)

Human grace, honesty and justice. And Empathy.

Are these not the key markers of optimal human biological health?

It is therefore all about how we relate to one another, how we treat each other, from the individual level, to the collective.

There is a healthy, humane, biologically sound way to live in relationship to all others.... 

Human grace, honesty, empathy and justice. Nurture. These are the attributes of a genuine peace.

There is however, something obscuring that happy biological reality, and that is currently the dominant mode of relationships, something clearly disrupting the biological mandate, and that my friends is the mainstream power behaviour, on all sides, it is what we called in the 60s and 70s 'the straight world', a shituation where a violent hierarchical power system determines the context and material realities within which most peoples  life experience and relationships occur, and we quite clearly can see that this is clearly harmful, obviously dysfunctional and anti-democratic.

Violence, dishonesty, psychopathy, injustice and grooming. Might is right.

That's the simplest way to put this.

Apparently, for many people there is something quite disturbing with pointing that out, in such clear terminology, and then suggesting, cheerfully, that we must now  exercise our utmost effort to command an end to the harming, make safe and secure the harmed, likewise the most egregious offenders, justice is essential.

What is that all about?

End the behaviours that cause harm and move onto healthier social behavioural processes, that nurture and thus bring about the natural dynamic, a state of peace?

It could not be more simply put!

What’s not to like about it?

Kindest regards

Corneilius

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

2013. A message not so much of hope, but of work to do, which if done will benefit all.

Today is Jan 1st 2013. 

I am a human being, a biological organism. That is my first identity.

We human beings are in the first instance biological organisms. We have emerged from the biological processes of life on Earth. We are part of those processes. We are defined by those processes. We are alive courtesy of those processes.

The biological processes of life tend to increase the fecundity and diversity of life. This is reflected in the behaviour of all natural organisms, and is the outcome of all natural biological behaviour. All these living processes are connected and interdependent.

It follows that healthy natural human behaviour is a part of this reality.

All unhealthy behaviour is at odds with this reality.

When we look carefully, scientifically and honestly at the nature of the mother child bonding process, we see biology operating from the molecular level to the level of discrete organisms in ways that nurture both mother and child, in ways that nurture true humanity as part of the biology of Earth. We also see that the father is nurtured in the womb. In the womb we learn some the lessons of nurture, and in early childhood.

Oxytocin is no accident. It is a statement of intent.

In the case of Oxytocin, the intent is to bond mother and child during the intensity of childbirth, in ways that support each as separate, individual and conscious beings, living and growing within a community, a community which itself exists within the biology of Earth. The intent is to establish self awareness and awareness of others, in such manner as to enable empathy, understanding, care and love for one another. To nurture is our nature.

In biological terms this makes perfect sense. We are imbued with sense, with sensitivity, both towards ourselves – self awareness - and to others, including all that exists within the habitat into which we are born.

What this means is that our environment will play a large part in our emergent development and behaviour.

This sensing of life enables us to understand and work with the living biological processes that govern life itself, in ways that nurture more life.

The urge to power has it’s roots in the disruption of those processes around empathy that are the biological expression of love and care. The urge to power is not a natural outcome of biology. It is the outcome of the disruption of biology. The disruption of the child mother bonding process is central to the continuation of the urge to Power.

Evolution is not random, nor is it a question of programming, as some geneticists would have it. Evolution is governed by the ability of any organism to respond to a changing environment; all habitats are subject to change, to fluctuations of their constituents, and be it a bacterium, a human being or a rain forest, so too organisms respond to those changes to maintain the biological processes of life.

Evolution is the resolution of problems that arise for organisms as the habitat and conditions of life change over time.

Inability to resolve those problems leads to a dead-end.

In nature immense or sudden catastrophic changes can and do make it all but impossible to resolve certain problems, for certain species, in certain situations.

For example, a volcanic eruption is lethal to all life within the reach of its immediate outcomes. Species local to that event may indeed be wiped out. Yet in the long term, the volcanic eruption releases more material that supports life, and the habitat that is lethally affected by the immediate outcome of the volcano is always repopulated over time by living organisms, and brought to life once again.

The urge of life is to create more life, to nurture more life.

However the urge of Power, as a process amongst human beings, is to nurture itself alone, to retain Power, always at the expense of all which falls under it’s influence, and in particular all that cannot be manipulated to meet the demands of Power.

The urge to Power is the result of an unresolved problem. The urge to Power always avoids natural resolution of the problem it represents, because the problem is fear. That fear is related to the loss of self empathy inherent in Authoritarian Parenting, which is the predominant mode of parenting across the Dominant Culture.

That fear that drives the urge to Power, the desire to exert so much control, exists because Power does not trust the processes of life; this is an outcome of unresolved trauma.

Nature always seeks to resolve problems and stands in direct confrontation with Power.

Bacteria learn about anti-biotics and can circumvent their use, because bacteria are problem solvers rather than problem creators. Likewise the natural mind and heart of the human being. We all know of stories of people who somehow see through the veil of conditioning, who survive great trauma and yet retain humanity, empathy and human kindness.

This is why Power seeks always to inculcate the children of those over whom Power has agency. Education by Power is not designed for genuine learning, it is a form of social conditioning, a question of programming prescribed behaviours based on the knowledge of how a traumatised person or child responds to a trauma situation that they cannot control.

This can take can take the form of Religion or Ideology or Fantasy (consumerism) and always reflects the psychology of fear. It seeks to inject fear into the heart of all those who fall under it’s agency. Fear of God. Fear of The Devil. Fear of Poverty.

And this process starts in utero, for the mother, living as she does within a pre-existing structure of Power, is  most often ‘informed’ by the dominant psychology of Power. Part of this ‘information’ comes from her parents and grand parents childhoods, and what they were conditioned to, and may have generated unresolved issues which were passed on, most often unwittingly. I feel that most parents do love their children, yet are limited by the degree to which each generation can resolve what they lived through.

And it’s clear that Power inhibits the resolution of these issues.

The fears of the mother, fears that are injected by Power, replace her confidence in her biological body, which ‘knows’ how to nurture, to give birth, to care for and relate to the child she has borne. This is also true for the father.

The fears of the community that survives under the influence of Power, fears that are injected by the situation that Power determines, replace the natural communities humanity, strength and beauty and reduces community to the necessities of mere survival.

To resolve the problem of Power is the central task ahead of us.

Paolo Friere suggested that the process of liberation is in fact a process of humanisation: he wrote that both those who exercise Power and those they oppress are equally dehumanised, and that the contradiction of the oppressed lay in the need to humanise those who exercise power as much as their need to break the chains that bind them.

He pointed out that attacking, killing, destroying the oppressor dehumanises the oppressed as much as the Powerful are dehumanised by their oppression. He called for a deeper analysis, a praxis of liberation that seeks to humanise the dehumanised.

Religion, personal salvation, the accrual of wealth at the expense of others, are all the outcomes of living within a dehumanising situation, where Power dominates relationships. They are usually related to the individual’s own mere survival, rather than the nurturing of all.

Spirituality, personal growth and the sharing of resources so that all may benefit are the outcomes of a fully humanising situation. They are inextricably linked.

And it is this that I work towards and with in my life.

Kindest regards

Corneilius

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

A Nurturant Society

A Nurturant Society

In considering the fundamentals of a Nurturant Society, one has to define the ground upon which one stands.

If that is not taken in hand, and clearly defined, then it is inevitable that the ‘revolution’, as many are calling it, by positing an ‘alternative way’ to the status quo or by adopting a position of resistance to that status quo, is to a greater extent defined within the frame of reference of the status quo. It is a response to something : that something defines the response. It is a reaction.

Thus it was with Marx, and with many others. They did not see the trap they laid for themselves by talking in terms of production, ownership, and control, which are the terms and structural processes that the oppressive Society uses to exert it's power over people and the habitat. Transferring those to the workers does not change the nature of the Society as radically as people believed, it still permits the current dominant systemic mindset of control of nature as a resource to exploit. Thus the fundamental dynamic and psyche of Power remains, with a merely a change in the Actors and their behaviour towards each other within that set of structural processes. Kinder to one another,  yet damaging to the environment, the shared habitat.

And of course, it has to be said, Marx was a man of his times, and lacked the data we have today about neuroscience, endocrinology, psychological and evolutionary development and the reality of natural empathy. A lack accurate information can lead to the invention of theory out of rudimentary thinking that is without the appropriate evidence. Marx was rightly concerned with human suffering that he knew could be avoided. 

The Nurturant Society avoids that predicament by defining itself on it’s own clear terms.

The Nurturant Society is a fundamentally simple concept.

To Nurture, as a biological process, and as in human action, is to improve the conditions of the habitat or the environment within which life occurs. This process can be observed by anyone who is careful and honest in their explorations of nature. Henry David Thoreau made this abundantly clear in his work during the 1800s, as did Rudloph Steiner (Biodynamics) and Bill Mollison (Permaculture). These three are sequential in that their lives began as one ended and they form one example of continuous thread of exploration of nature that is free of the lens of what I call Empire Logic, the 'struggle for survival' etc etc. All these people and others who were and  their contemporaries looked beyond the Herbert Spenser doctrine of struggle for survival, of civilisation as the apex of natural biological evolution.

To Nurture is to provide both space and materials for life to flourish.

To Parent? Perhaps. However, the word Parent is itself troublesome, for it contains meanings that are to do with control. Control always inhibits emergence. Parental Control implies a mistrust of the child. Control is often a question of fear.

The etymology of Parent.

Pare

"to trim by cutting close," early 14c., from O.Fr. parer "arrange, prepare, trim," from L. parare "make ready," related to parere "produce, bring forth, give birth to,"

Thus Parenting has to be redefined or qualified. Natural Parenting or Nurturant Parenting better describes this new paradigm.

Nurturant Parenting then, is fundamentally about facilitating the emergent, about recognising the innate desire and ability of the natural child to learn, to master his or her self, to develop life skills, to be able to meet his or her own needs, and with that the needs of others, as an empathically alive human being, in essence to contribute to his or her family, community, society environment such that all may thrive.

All of which is diametrically opposed to the concept and awareness of the consumer, whose concern lies solely with consumption.*

And, because human life does not occur in a vacuum, but rather takes place in a continuum, in a non-linear web of activity that is typified by connection and interdependency, it follows that when life is nurtured, it is nurtured for all life.

Thus Natural Parenting is an activity that is not exclusive to the biological parents, but includes the entire community. "It takes a village to raise a child." And a forest. No community exists independent of the habitat.

Everything is food. There is no waste.

This can only be achieved by each element with the biological process web being it’s true self, having it’s own needs met. It is therefore a question of meeting inherent needs. Nature is a web of intersecting needs being met. Algae make oxygen. Bacteria eat all kinds of materials and transform them into their bodies, which are eaten. They also produced 'waste' which is not waste, but is in reality food. Plants take in Carbon Dioxide and release Oxygen. Bacteria in the plants take in Zinc, and other trace elements and create new chemicals the plants need. Animals breathe oxygen and eat plants. And so it goes.

This - being one's true self - is not a limitation, because in all living organisms we see the same responsive ability, the ability to learn, which has been called ‘adaptation’,  that is foundational to the maintenance of the dynamic equilibrium of the processes of life. That responsive ability is biological empathy in action.

THRIVIVAL

What we see in Nurturant Biology is an outcome that can best be described by the new word, Thrivival.

Thrivival goes beyond survival**.

Thriving, in relation to the human being, is that positive sense of well being that is inherent in the process of growth. Thriving, for the human being and for all mammals, originates in utero, and extends throughout life. Thriving applies to the individual, the family, the community, the society and to the environment from which all emerge.

Because this is a simple paradigm, and because it is an empathic paradigm, it will find expression in diverse ways, mirroring the diversity of the environment, the habitat, from micro to macro, leading to diversity in human expression of community and society.

The Nurturant Society is complex, and yet it is not at all complicated. This is the nature of nurturant empathy. The precise solutions emerge out of the experiential of each community.

*The consumer eats and does not seek to nurture anyone other than him or herself; for his or her eating is the penultimate act in the receipt of a service that the consumer has paid for, and having paid for it, the consumer does not trouble him or herself with the conditions within which the food was produced, or what happens to the by-products, but merely the presence of the food on the plate, it's appearance and taste, and other similar immediate considerations and the of course the price he or she has paid for the meal to be consumed. Quite often the consumer has no concept of what it takes to produce that end product on the plate. This because the human being, the citizen consumer, unlike every other living organism, is cut off from the source and the processes that create the food. Likewise the consumer is not concerned with what happens to that which is not eaten. It is considered waste, not food.

The 'consumer' is a dehumanising term which reduces each unique human being to an object to be crafted and then manipulated for profit. And for Power.

**Survival carries with it the sense of threat, the sense of scarcity. Whilst there exists the possibility of being eaten, for each individual, that does not in and of itself threaten any entire species, and what we see is that no predator nor herbivore will consume the entirety of that species which it eats.

Both prey and predator thrive in the natural state. The are interdependent, mutually nurturant. The struggle for survival is in fact a projection of the dynamic of fear that the Hierarchical, non-empathic Society feels, generates and promotes.

This is due to a fundamental undermining of natural empathy, which leads to disconnection, and with that insecurity arises, and the need to control follows and it is from this that violence flows.

Kindest regards

Corneilius

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

Common Law, Natural Living processes and Babies...

PERMACULTURE PICTURE HOUSE, Passing Clouds, London

I went to Passing Clouds, in Hackney, London, last week to watch : John Harris : Common Law : Cause no harm, cause no loss :

This show inspired me to consider a deeper perspective, relating common law to empathic societal practices and to natural living processes. Here follows a ramble through those thoughts.

There was also a presentation on behalf of The Peoples Supermarket, in London, a self organised supermarket, run by volunteers as a co-operative, and drawing on local food suppliers to reduce food miles, imports, waste etc etc….

Cause no harm, cause no loss.

Natural Hunting is not harm in the context of the entire living biology that we are emergent of.

Natural hunting is set within the context that all living cells, and therefore all organisms and macro entities (such as forests, plains, marshes, oceans etc) metabolise materials (eats) and creates more new materials, (new body mass) and releases those materials that are not required as nutrient (excreta, death and decomposition) such that the diversity, depth and fecundity of all life increases, year on year.

We are born, we eat, we shit, we die, life grows more abundant for all life as a result. All of us.

This is Natural Common Law.

Constantly nurturing living-ness in the habitat.

All cells do this. This is a natural constant.

It is neither enforced nor can it be resisted because it is inherent. It can be ignored, if only for a while. Ignoring Natural Law always leads to the undermining of the natural processes, and inevitably the failure or collapse of what ever community dependent upon Nature.

To cause harm or to cause loss in terms of those processes pertaining to the natural environment, culture, community, family or children of ANY species has to be understood as anything that, by way of human intervention, undermines or impairs the natural viability of that species or community, and this is, by definition, the measure most appropriate to this discussion.

And as we know, all organisms, in all known natural contexts, are embedded, connected, and integrated and therefore affects on one species will by definition impact on many other species, in a myriad of possibilities, as we are discovering in the science of bio-diversity.

The non-linearity of natural processes is becoming more and more evident. Abuse on, and you abuse all.

Thus the value of the measure must always relate to the entire habitat, and this conversely requires profound local knowledge, intimate experiential knowledge of the habitat.

A living knowledge, that is shared across communities.

Common Law exists in and of the human being, the man, the woman, the child; it is intrinsic.

Common Law is a living and lived knowledge.

How does Common Law stand in relation to actual harm or loss arising within biological communities?

The communities of traveller peoples? The communities of whales? The communities of the San people, of the Yanomami, of the Inuit, of the first nation peoples of North and South America, of Australia, Africa, Asia, Europe?

We all know the harm caused and the loss caused to all those communities.

It is offensive that we have such a task to address... and yet here it is and we must address it.

This is all about the psychology of the Dominant Society, in it’s Institutions (Instruments) of Power, in the exercise of Power (action) and even the assumption of any Power disparity, (authority).

People, as individuals and Institutions, do knowingly cause harm or loss, in grievous ways that are known, undeniable; where much of the evidence is well documented and much of the evidence is living; it is in and of living people.

People, as individuals and Institutions, also cover-up, mask and deny that harm.

There is an ever growing database of scientifically described evidence of the damage emerging as time flows. It's certainly a 'growth area' of study.

It is fortunate much of use is also being learned about how to avoid those damaging behaviours, how to break the cycles. In such manner that the cycles of abuse are stopped. So that healthy empathic relationships can then emerge, naturally. That's the point.

There's our true human nature, the child, the infant, the mother, the father and kin group, living empathically. It's inherent and intrinsic to who we are, what we are.

Our biology is perfectly 'adapted' to that in so many ways – and yet, one could say too that societal stress has become, the path-way towards addressing the full scope of the problem, (if only because the illusions and delusions of the Dominant Society, are breaking down under the stress and thus only remaining way out from there is total honesty)

This is both offensive, and a testament to the natural resilience and creativity of survivors.

And thus the diversity of voices, the telling of experience, the meaning of that resilience has to be known, sensed, it must understood as different shapes of the same pattern. Survivors must be heard as they are, they must not be made ‘media ready’.

Truth and Reconciliation cannot be subject to protecting the abusers – Restorative Justice calls for more than a public Apology, compensation dependent upon the silence of the Survivors and the indemnity of those State and other Institutions responsible for the abuses.

Lose the enforcing pattern, make different shapes.

And for me, the unifying aspect is the inherent vulnerability that comes with what we Sense, the combined message set from all our sensory capabilities, when we 'get' that being truly human community is very much about empathy as an active experiential modality. (This means that as far as we know are emergent sensory organisms who are of nature, not some unique creation of a mythical God or some Alien cross breed! ;-)

How we learn, what information we process, is through the sensory systems nature has crafted within us. Babies are conscious, and in many ways much more conscious than adults who have been conditioned into conformity.

However, here we are, and for sure, right now,  the human community needs Institutional Whistle Blowers in every aspect of the community life of human being where it is founds, enlightening us by revealing exactly where there is harm or loss caused, or cover-up of harm or loss caused, and who is culpable.

There's a meeting place for ALL humans in this; this need to tell the truth, to cease abuse, is intrinsic, it is independent of faith, culture, language, colour, height, weight, age, gender.

We must all be understood. Not the merely our difference noted. Empathy. 'Got'.  ‘Grokked’ was a 70s word. Comprehended, apprehended, understood. That's crucial for the healing and for the prevention. That’s how we will move forwards.

What so many people and the media – they really miss this! – don’t get is that the survivors are not ‘moving forwards’ in trying to facilitate restorative justice. When that happens we are at the equal level, and then, and only then will we surely move forwards, as people and as a diverse human culture.

Certainly with regard to the welfare of all children, how society dictates the 'treatment' of children has to be addressed, honestly, openly: because this is the reality, it’s toxic and it's harmful, and it causes loss, and that is qualitatively more vital to the well being of the human, and the entire living, community than perceived benefits that are paraded to mask what is being done to children, whole nations, to the habitat.

Faith

If faith is to mean ANYTHING it has to honour that benchmark of Common Law, of Natural Law : which is to cause no harm, cause no loss.

Any Faith allows harm or loss is a lie.

Those of Faith express the idea that their God made the Earth. We if that is the case, then that God also made the Natural Law, and Common Law, because these are intrinsic to all life, equally.

If that is felt and understood, then the only action is to tell the truth. That's the start of the end of the journey that human civilisation has taken for the past 15,000 years as far as current archaeology can determine.

It would appear that actually, nature works.

With regard to the harming of children, of entire indigenous nations and their children, that Institutional power dynamic has to be revealed as the human poison it is at the same time as the perpetrators are exposed, and brought to justice. As a writer, as me as a survivor, that argument has to be won.

Certainly the Institutions must fall. Change is not an option, in this regard. It's the very nature of Institution, of Empire Logic. Resistant. Rigid. Hard. Cold.

Those with Faith and Heart will have to 'step away from the structure,  to let go of it, as a public narrative, just as the survivors story is part public narrative, (those what wish the knowledge be public).......... that action, more than any other deals with the Institutional rigidity - without support, it is powerless.

It's not a matter of ethics, nor of doctrine, it's a matter of restorative justice.

It's a matter of Common Law, which prefigures all other legislation instituted by what ever authority. Common Law is clear.

Cause no harm, cause no loss : That's it.

Yes we will continue this work and link, and share and learn, and be nurtured to do this.

Even though it IS offensive that we are in this sorry state - because our Society is based upon causing harm, causing loss.

We are speaking up for ALL human beings.. me as me., you as you. I am one of ALL human beings. You are one of ALL human beings. It's all or nothing. Being honest about lived experience, the meaning of lived experience is whistle blowing on any dominant power-relationship culture where harm is caused, where loss is experienced, where natural empathy disrupted and balance is disrupted.

Unite the 'causes'. Unite the 'causes'. Unite. Common Law.

Passing Clouds is a self organised hub of information sharing, grass roots self governance, exciting music and arts projects, within a larger hub that is Hackney, with larger still hubs that extend across the Earth.

Kindest regards

Corneilius

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

Natural Building, Community, Vitality and fun!

Self reliance built from nature at the grassroots level is the best and only sustainable solution to the issues we are facing regarding our use of the environment.

Genuine autonomy also underpins a sense of community and shared values, which we in the industrialised world have all but lost, that is at the core healthy and psychologically functional living.

There is no genuine autonomy without self empathy, and with that empathy for others, a sense of how sacred each persons autonomy is, how precious a gift that is to share with others.

And note the vitality of peoples happiness, and their ability to be empathetic in spite of different languages!

Kindest regards

Corneilius

Do what you love, it's your gift to universe