Moving Blog

I'm moving my blog to a Google site http://marycolwell.blogspot.com/
Please join me there.
Thanks
Mary

Spring News, Soup and Songs

NEWS
Lovely to get good news about what's happening out there, Chris Sperring brings great tidings about tawny owls and Andrew Dawes, a BBC colleague, keeps us all amused and informed about what is happening on Sand Point in Somerset. I love your poem Andrew, never knew you were so talented, but if you don't mind my saying, although it starts well it kind of loses it towards the end. Still - good effort!

And we have been admiring the Spring flowers - here is wild garlic making part of the Mendips smell like a French restaurant. Lovely.



SOUP
And talking of food - a chef friend of mine, Kate Benson makes wild garlic soup, here is the recipe:

Wild Garlic Soup

Finely diced gammon
Wild Garlic – shredded
Chicken stock
Finely chopped garlic
Finely sliced onion
Parsley
Hot paprika
Amontillado Sherry
Poached Egg.

Sweat onions and garlic until slightly coloured. Add stock plus gammon and cook for 20 mins.

To serve:
For each serving put in the mixture a handful of shredded wild garlic and cook for a further minute. Serve in a bowl with a poached egg and a pinch of hot paprika. Goes well with toasted sour dough on the side.

Lovely soup but no amounts - make them up and see what works!

And here are some more recipes with nettles - great time of year to try these...



Songs
And finally - I was on Songs of Praise last night - a programme all about Bristol. There is a link to the programme on the website - but only for another 6 days.

The Prince the Pope and the Amazon

This is a letter I sent to The Tablet this week about Prince Charles's visit to Pope Benedict. For sure the Amazon was on the agenda.

This week Prince Charles visited Pope Benedict and high on the agenda was protection of the Amazon. Prince Charles runs the Prince’s Rainforest Project which aims to galvanise international support to protect all tropical forests and is specifically aimed at putting measures in place to coincide with the Copenhagen Cop in December this year. What I hope Prince Charles stressed is that all of us are implicated in the destruction of tropical forests, and when it comes to the Amazon, Italy is high on the list of countries accelerating its demise. Italy ranks in the top 4 countries importing Amazonian soy beans (statistics from FAO). The home of Roman Catholicism is (I’m sure unknowingly) actively contributing to the demise of the greatest Catholic natural icon on the planet.

Einstein, Trust and End Games

Bluebells in woodland in Membury, Wiltshire. Is this lovely spectacle produced by cooperation, partnership, conflict or exploitation between the flowers and the trees?

CONFERENCE ON COLLABORATION AND WORKING TOGETHER
Last week I went to an afternoon's seminar on cooperative working. It seemed like a good thing to explore to help with my environment/religion work. And it was really interesting. It began by a quote from Einstein -"A problem is never solved by the same type of thinking"

Here are the main points:

• Collaboration makes the issue bigger than any single individual.
  
  
• The sum of what is produced is greater than the parts.
  
  
• Collaborative ventures take TIME to develop, they have to be built around TRUST (a word that cropped up again and again), relationships, knowledge and a sense of shared purpose - all of which take time to formulate.
  
  
• A contract lawyer said a fascinating thing. When his firm negotiated contracts they had a rule of thumb. if the contract took less than 2 years to negotiate it was bound to fail. Complex collaboration between different parties takes YEARS often to formulate.
  
  
• Collaboration continues even if individuals move on to other things.
  
  
• Collaboration always produces better results than sheer competition. Here it got wonky as one of the main presenters pointed out of the window and said "Look at nature! There is as much collaboration as conflict and look at how well it works. All the answers we need are provided by looking at nature!" Eh? Some examples please, because all I can see is self interest.
  
  
• Collaboration grows through fun and conflict. And remember conflict and conflict resolution have to be part of the process, difficult though it may be.
  
  
• Different agendas often emerge through the collaboration process - very important to name and recognise them.
  
  
• Collaborators don't need to share the same values but they do need to share a vision of the end game.
  
  
• Are all collaborators equal? How do you give small players the same status as big ones?
  
  
• What is the end game? Is it to produce one "big potato" or lots of "small seed potatoes"?
  
  
• Collaboration is good but can be seen as suspicious by those outside the group.
  
  
• If collaborators have different values how do you solve problems that arise about the best way to do something? Ends justifies the means or not?
  
  
• What collaborators have to do is concentrate on bringing out the "shared connective tissue" that exists in society - the shared values. This was seen as a big problem because many thought society had lost its shared values in many cases as we have become more and more individualistic.
  
  
• How does leadership work in collaborative partnerships? Isn't a leader of the group contrary to the idea? Someone suggested "emergent leadership" was often experienced. Creative leadership supports "creative emergence". Not sure what that means though - but I like the idea.
  
  
• There was a general acknowledgement that at times in the process there needs to be a unilateral decision making time - but who makes that?
  
  
• We are surrounded by collaboration, more than we realise, all of society depends on it.
  
  
• The language of collaboration has to be different - don't use the language of accusation or division - always try to be inclusive. He used the example of:
  "that's a very good idea BUT..." should be "that's a very good idea AND..."
  
  
• Interesting how different types of information get around the system quicker than other types - usually the info about money spreads very quickly!
  
  
• Don't imagine there is an answer to be got from someone - the answer lies in the process.
  
  
• Beware that collaboration can be addictive and therefore not helpful or constructive and can hinder forward movement.
  
  
• What are the conditions under which collaboration isn't possible?
  
  
• It was generally acknowledged that trust has to be the number 1 requisite for collaboration, and that trust was founded in a belief that you were going to be heard and your views valued.

I thought this afternoon was very helpful and full of ideas and I am thinking about it with reference to my work with the Catholic Church. What kinds of collaboration are possible? If you look at the Uk only, if you compare membership of the RSPB and National Trust and membership of the Church of England and other Christian denominations I reckon you would get a pretty close match. So cooperation between a UK conservation body and church groups to make church environments wildlife friendly or get help with monitoring and assessing biodiversity in an area or to get help in setting up campaigns to protect local wildlife should be very straight forward. It is definitely something I want to explore.

What will the conflict be? Will there be trust? Probably in this case because there is so much that binds these organisations together and they have a shared vision - a better local environment that is good for wildlife. Most church people would agree that is a good thing.

But what about my desire to make the Amazon, (see Call of the WIld in the The Tablet) a focal point of concern for the global Catholic Church? Partnerships suddenly become much more complicated. And is there a shared vision? Politics, business, development all mix with pure conservation and human centered religion. But I know this is worth exploring, we have to do something to protect the rainforest and I think the Catholic Church is the best placed organisation to do this. It is global, it has a central leadership, it is connected and it can have a lot of consumer/advocacy power. It must be an important track to follow.

Spring has Sprung

Dandelions in Ashton Court in Bristol



Anemones at Sudeley Castle in Gloucestershire


When daisies pied, and violets blue,
And lady-smocks all silver-white,
And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue
Do paint the meadows with delight,
The cuckoo then, on every tree,
Mocks married men, for thus sings he:
“Cuckoo!
Cuckoo, cuckoo!” O word of fear,
Unpleasing to a married ear.

When shepherds pipe on oaten straws,
And merry larks are ploughmen’s clocks,
When turtles tread, and rooks, and daws,
And maidens bleach their summer smocks,
The cuckoo then, on every tree,
Mocks married men, for thus sings he:
“Cuckoo!
Cuckoo, cuckoo!” O word of fear,
Unpleasing to a married ear.
Song, from Act V, Scene 2 of Love’s Labors Lost by William Shakespeare (1598)

Wouldn't it be lovely to hear the song of the cuckoo again every spring all over the country? It is in decline but there are still hotspots. I had the unbelievable privilege of seeing a cuckoo chick in a reed warbler's nest a coupe of years ago, astonishing.

Go With the Flow

A wonderful lady told me this weekend that the only thing that goes with the flow is a dead fish. How true. Lovely image.

A Love of the Ordinary - and the Sad Loss of Sparrows

I love sparrows - always have. Growing up in the 60s and 70s they were everywhere and part of everyday life. I like them because they are so ordinary. They are not showy, don't have wonderful calls, don't do amazing displays, they are just dumpy little ordinary brown jobs, and nothing wrong with that. They give the more showy birds something to compare themselves with.

I got my deep appreciation of the ordinary from my dad, a GP in Stoke-on-Trent. He always snubbed the glamour of private practice to spend his time with the ordinary folk of the city. He always appreciated the everyday working people, especially those who had real standards of behaviour and led utterly decent, upstanding, solid lives. He greatly admired the men who worked in the steel mills where he worked for a year painting girders as a young man. Working class and by no mens well off, but they wouldn't tolerate any bad language and lived their lives with dignity and honesty. I will always treasure the appreciation of the ordinary because of my dad, and why I feel the adoration of celebrity so uncomfortable.

And so it's sad to watch the disappearance of sparrows from our garden. A couple of years ago we had about 20 who bred very happily in scrubby area near the house. But then the people who owned the scrubby area cleared it and the sparrows, along with many other bird's, have simply gone. There used to be many garden birds visiting my table and fat balls, and as we live right in the city centre the bird table is a constant source of joy - but talk about population crash. Perhaps another area will become overgrown, we'll plant a hawthorn bush but it will take years to mature. Still - worth doing. Check out the RSPB site on House Sparrows - let's all go scrubby!

Abortion in Brazil

This is the letter I sent to The Tablet in response to the editorial about the 9 year old girl and her mother who were excommunicated because she (with the help of her mother) aborted the twins she was carrying - fruit of serial rape by her step-father. The decision is abhorrent. Of course the father is still a Catholic- but in jail...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7926694.stm

Every time I hear of another decision such as the one made against the 9 year old Brazilian girl and her mother I feel sickened to the pit of my stomach (Casting Stones in Brazil, Tablet Editorial 7th March 2009). The Brazilian bishops are far better versed in the rule of canon law than I am, but their God is not my God. As was evident from my article on the Amazon (The Call of the Wild, The Tablet 6th March 2009) it seems the more theological one becomes and the higher up the hierarchy one climbs the smaller and more constrained God gets. My God is infinitely compassionate and loving beyond all understanding. He knows the true heart of the sinner and judges them in the light of their inner desires. He doesn’t look in the rule book, he looks into the soul. If a 9 year old is capable of cold bloodied murder then so be it – but I doubt that was the case. I think this was a last resort decision taken by a terrified and abused child and her mother. Where were the men in robes when they were needed most? Peering into a rule book. I feel the bishop who was so quick to make the pronouncements should resign.

Lighten Up or We'll All Lose It!

The Independent would make even Spiderman despair

Come in Inde, you have to know some basic psychology. If you constantly tell us it is the end of the world why should we bother. Your environmental reporting is unrelentingly gloomy, I read it with a growing sense of hopelessness. I go into a state of apathy and denial (see blog below!).

Here is the latest - so the Amazon has had it, no matter what.

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/fate-of-the-rainforest-is-irreversible-1643083.html

Instead of telling me what I can do to help (lots), you just tell me it is all too late so go back to bed and wait for the end.

I used to be a great fan, but I can't take your depression any more. No more Inde for me.

Question - How many Inde environment editors does it take to change a light bulb?

Answers on a postcard....

Nature Through Rose-Tinted Spectacles - A Conference on Psychology and Climate Change

Our relationship with nature is complex and competitive, as well as sustaining and nurturing and until we get real about that we won't get very far. A walk in the countryside on a summer's day can lead to a wasp sting as well as poetry, people know that deep down and that is why the misty-eyed approach which seems to be everywhere leaves us dissatisfied. It reminds me of the images we get of parenthood from parenting magazines etc, cute babies, always smiling and always loving. Not my experience. Of course they are those things, but the experience of having babies is much more complex than that and not all of it is warm feelings of love and togetherness.

Shot through parenthood is self-sacrifice, tiredness, anger, frustration, resentfulness and exasperation, as well as love that inspires people to die for their children, protect them at all costs, do anything to help them and love them through their difficult times and so on. Perhaps if we got real about parenting to begin with there may be less of the horrific reports of violence towards children that seem to be be endlessly in the papers at the moment and which are so deeply distressing.

And so too with our view of nature - if we accepted that we are often in competition with the natural world and other species for food, space, resources of all kinds; that we control and manipulate it to make our life better, but at the same time get deep satisfaction, spiritual insight and nurturing from it, we may have a better chance of finding the right solutions and inspiring people to do the right thing.

Nature can bite back, often with devastating results. We love pretty butterflies but we are terrified of poisonous snakes, it creates a "cognitive dissonance" as the psychologists say, and that can lead to denial when faced with the enormity of what we are being asked to do.

These thoughts have come from a day's conference I went to at the University of West of England on "eco-pyschology" (sometimes I think I need to lighten up!)

http://www.uwe.ac.uk/hlss/research/cpss/events/2009/20090307_facing_climate_changes.shtml

It was a standard conference day involving talks and workshops, endless cold cups of tea and coffee and the intensity that only coffee breaks in a conference can generate. The delegates were nearly all psychotherapists and psychologists and immediately I felt out of my depth and out of my comfort zone. I couldn't stop imagining rooms with small candles, statues of Indian goddesses, mirrors, velvet drapes and large cushions with kleenex by them.

The day concentrated on the psychology behind the reaction to climate change, especially why there is a strong sense of denial about what is happening. Some of it was fascinating and I learned a lot from the first two speakers. George Marshall was inspirational and amusing about why so many groups and individuals simply won't admit to the reality of a changing world.

One of the main problems he highlights is that climate change (he really only talked about that) has been totally captured by the environmentalist lobby. Right from the early days it was all about shrinking glaciers, drowning polar bears and rising sea levels. These are not things most people care about in their everyday lives. They might like polar bears but are hardly likely to change their lifestyles for them. He believes that climate change is as much, and perhaps more, concerned with human rights, but because it is "environmental" it is taking the human rights groups a long time to make it their own. He believes we have to give this agenda to other groups than just environmentalists and let them make it their own. And that might mean letting go of our ("environmentalist") agenda and letting others speak about it and act on it in their own way, whether we agree with that or not.

His youtube short talks are great and summarise a lot of his ideas:

People Don't Care About Polar Bears:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sn2S00_xp4M

End of the World? You Decide!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGPnFiXC2Q0

Climate Change Denial
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbGAKJTqOtE

I found Paul Hoggett fascinating too
http://www.uwe.ac.uk/hlss/politics/staff_pHoggett.shtml

He talked about denial of climate change in terms of perversion and used the work done on big business such as Enron before it collapsed to show that it believed its own hype, was caught up in a comforting web of lies and self-congratulatory behaviour, found allies to support its house of cards and simultaneously accepted reality but was able to live as though it wasn't the case. He talked about "virtual policies" where we can construct all manner of "measures" of how well we are performing as a society - or as an individual- whereas the reality is very different. He used the education targets used by the UK governments which show that through the SATS exams our children are better and better educated. But when UK children are compared to other European standards, we are failing. We are good at passing particular types of exams, bad at general education. But we believe we are doing well. And so with climate change. We believe the government hype about our constantly declining reductions, but actually we are producing more and more, but because of the way the emissions are measured we ignore large areas of concern. "The kingdom of the blind" as it was described. And so on - all good stuff and there was a lot more.

We then had a talk by Mary-Jayne Rust, an eco-psychotherapist http://www.mjrust.net/index.htm

May-Jayne was emotional, not at all scientific, very earth-mothery and to be honest I found the talk irritating. She said some very meaningful things and some ridiculous things. On the whole it was worth listening to but I realised something about myself that was uncomfortable - how intolerant I am of other approaches, especially emotionally charged psychological type approaches! I can't abide misty-eyed nature worship. It drives me mad when all people show when describing our relationship to nature are beautiful sunsets and pretty flowers (as Mary-Jayne did). Nature is beautiful and sustains us is the picture we are presented with and it is so restricted in its understanding of our relationship to this extraordinary planet. Of course it is beautiful, of course it sustains us, but it is also terrifying, full of lethal creatures like malarial mosquitos and lions and can snuff thousands out in one shake of its plates.

Mary-Jayne described how a walk through woods by her house everyday nurtured her spirit and she showed pictures of the green-man pagan figure. I agree with her, a woodland touches something very deep and I am reading Roger Deakin's Wildwood at the moment which is utterly inspiring.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Wildwood-Journey-Through-Roger-Deakin/dp/0241141842

But I can't help this feeling of unease about this type of talk, when that is all there is. The only reason Mary-Jayne or I can walk peacefully through a wood is that we killed all the wolves and bears a long time ago. The "natural woodland" is an emasculated version of what it is meant to be, we tame, control and modify nature to suit ourselves, we always have and we always will.

However Mary-Jayne said some insightful things too though - she said our image of progress was of a constant journey towards better everything - power, happiness, control, freedom, security etc. She made the hugely valid point that there is no room in our myth of progress for darkness, for the need to go through the dark to come into the light which is an essential part of our being and growing (and is also central to Christian understanding of life). She also showed how ridiculous Margaret Thatcher's words are today when she said that anyone over the age of 30 who travels by bus is a failure. How much damage that era did to the earth.

But Mary-Jayne also did something very special - she was the only one to do what I consider most important of all - take time to say thank you for the great gift that is the natural world, in all its danger and bounty - because if we continue to take it for granted we are on a path to oblivion.