Blog

Chris Yeomans

I am brushing my teeth.  I reach across to turn off the tap, as advised by the water conservationists. In the field at the back of the house, the irrigators are chucking thousands of gallons of water onto the potato crop.  

We are told that sometime soon – in this century probably – the planet will run out of water.  How can this be, I wonder, when earth is a closed system?  Water circulates.  It evaporates and comes back as rain; it seeps down to the water table and comes back through our taps; it flows back into rivers from effluent plants.  How is is possible that it can run out?

I reflect that I don’t have enough understanding of physics, or even or geography.  Why is drought?  Boiled water becomes steam and condenses back into water.  If the water molecule is somehow split into hydrogen and oxygen, does that molecule of water disappear for ever?  And how might this happen?  I consult with my step-grandson, who tries to explain how, with global warming, water will remain suspended in the atmosphere and never fall again as rain. 

My human body is 60% water and, whilst it circulates, this amount effectively remains trapped.  If this body is cremated, is this water lost to the system?  If it is buried, is the water reclaimed? And does the amount of carbon released either way mitigate any gains? If the human and animal population of the world increases, does too much water get trapped in bodies, so that it is not available for the planet?  

If humans start to use de-salination plants extensively, will the oceans become too salty for marine life to survive?  When the icecaps melt and polar species are devastated, will this nevertheless mean more available water? Or will it mean that the planet heats up so much that life can’t survive anyway?

How fortunate we are to live in a time when streams still bubble down the hillsides and waterfalls plunge over rocks.  How fiercely we must appreciate a draught of clear, clean tap water with a cube of ice clinking against the glass and condensation gathering on the outside.  

How sweet the falling rain.

When learning to walk again after surgery, my physiotherapist would often instruct: No stooping, elbows out, go up and wide, dare to take up space!

Standing erect, taking up space, walking tall even if our steps feel less then confident, speaking up, trusting the inner compass, it requires courage.

This shibori collar was designed as an expression of daring to go up and wide, of daring to take up space.

Karen Richards

I learned what a Rupa is, today; in essence, it is how something appears and holds our attention. An example, on a mundane level, is the effect the glorious taste and smell of the coffee that I am drinking has on me and how that then affects me, spiritually. I learned this definition from a book by David Brazier, called Not Everything is Impermanent. I was looking for an inspiring and sustaining read. Life is full-on. Amongst other things, my dad died recently, my mum is starting to look like she might not be far behind him and gazing out at the political landscape, it feels like we are already halfway to hell in a handcart.

Brazier’s title caught my attention (another Rupa) because it was positively worded and I suddenly realised that I had acquired an interesting attitude to the word ‘Impermanent’, that might need a little tweaking. Anicca or Impermanence really relates to the ‘flow’ of existence. It is neither positive nor negative; it just ‘is’. The Pali word Anicca is both descriptive and neutral. However, by using the prefix ‘im’ meaning ‘not’ in the word Impermanence, the mind can easily pick up on a negatively charged connotation. It wasn’t until I read the ‘upbeat’ title of the book that I realised I had done just that – not overtly but subtly – and in part, the cause was simply the etymology of the word ‘Impermanence’.

So, when I noticed this, I helicoptered out, away from the word itself, and took a look at how I accept the changes or flow of my own life. I’d give myself an 8 out of 10 for accepting and embracing the things that I cannot change – the things that are out of my control and just happen – like old age, illness and death (I’m a school teacher, by profession, so forgive the grading). On the other hand, I’d probably get a 4 for acceptance that I’m not personally responsible, either for preventing the suffering of those around me or for ‘fixing’ it. There are earworms and reactions to events in my past, some culturally originated, some from individual experience, that jangle around me, clouding my judgement sometimes. Catching such jangles in the light, understanding them, not just intellectually but deep down in the very cells of our being, can take a lifetime. That’s the work that I hope I’m doing on myself – the one thing that I can do.

I really like the word ‘Rupa’. It has alerted me to the effect that seemingly insignificant things can have on me, giving me clues about how I operate, what motivates me and what holds me back, spiritually speaking. David Brazier’s book is turning out to be a good read, which presents Buddhist teachings in a slightly different but nevertheless powerfully engaging framework to the one that I’m used to. Most importantly, it reaffirms the existence of that which is Eternally enduring and how to awaken to it.

1. Not Everything is Impermanent – Zen Therapy & Amidist Teachings of David Brazier is published by Woodsmoke Press and is priced at £9.99

Chris Yeomans

In February and March, toads, newts and frogs are all on the move, travelling from their winter hibernation places towards the ponds on the common.  To get there, they have to cross the lane where they are in danger of being squashed by cars.  They tend to linger, waiting for a passing female to jump onto, or just preferring the marginally warmer conditions of the roadway.  To save them, they have to be moved to the common side of the lane or all the way to one of the ponds.

There is an official toad watch group: a number of volunteers who go out to rescue every evening. I am not part of this, but I find myself a reluctant volunteer because I walk my dog last thing at night and can’t avoid meeting up with amphibians on the move.  I don’t like picking them up at all, but neither can I bear to leave them there to take their chances with the traffic.  And if I don’t move them, I’ll be the one to find their flattened bodies early in the morning when next I walk the dog.

The toad watch volunteers keep records and dead ones have to be moved off the road so that they don’t get counted twice. Bizarrely, I prefer doing that, picking them up by one delicate, clawed foot, reciting the three homages and throwing the bodies into the undergrowth where at least they will naturally be recycled. What I dislike is picking up the living, getting hold of their little bony bodies, throwing them rapidly into the long grass where I pray they have a soft landing.  Sometimes I drop them and they squirm on their backs, their pale underbellies exposed, their little curved mouths tightly shut, until they right themselves and I have to catch them and try again.  I wear gloves, not being able to bring myself to pick them up with my bare hands.  

The official volunteers, out just after dusk with head torches, high viz clothing and buckets, gather them up and carry them in batches to the ponds.  But I can’t cope with a bucket as well as the dog on a lead and just have to chuck them one by one into the grass.  I report numbers of each, but sometimes it is difficult to tell which are frogs and which are toads.  If they hop, they’re frogs.  But both species come in many different shades of brown, gold and green.  Toads are supposed to be ‘warty’, and this means that they have a rougher, pebbly skin, whereas the frogs are shiny, gleaming in the torch light.  And the frogs seem to be more angular, more powerful swimmers perhaps, built for moving faster through the water, though at this time of year the females have bulging egg-filled bellies which makes them waddle and wait.

Some nights I move around forty: frogs, toads, and often too newts, slim, golden slivers which are easy to miss in the darkness. The newts wriggle at amazing speed, their tiny legs just raising them off the asphalt, their graceful bodies propelling them along.  Over the few weeks of the watch, altogether we move nearly four thousand creatures, though I’m not entirely convinced that I’m not moving the same ones, which could so easily have hopped back into my pathway as I return.  

It is with some relief that I receive the message that the watch has come to an end.  But to some extent it never does for me.  On warm summer evenings along the lanes there are always toads, squatting on the asphalt, apparently going nowhere.  I ought to move them and yet I just can’t bring myself to pick them up. I nudge them gently with my foot or with my torch.  The frogs will leap away, the toads either lumber slowly a step or two, or simply refuse to move at all. Many of them are exquisite in their tininess, this year’s or last year’s hatchlings, some no more than the size of my fingernail, perfectly formed down to their little clawed feet, their tiny, shiny black eyes. I marvel at them.  I love them.  And yet still I hesitate to pick them up and move them to safety and then suffer agonies of guilt at my own ridiculous weakness.

Often, when I get home, there is a toad or two walking across the gravel on the drive or sitting on the flight of steps that leads up to the front door.  ‘Welcome,’ I say to them.  ‘You’re safe here.’  And I go in and turn off the lights and leave them to the warm and mothy darkness.