My Somerset Life

A diary by Brian Snellgrove

The fear factor and how to avoid it

The following essay is aligned to my state of mind at this time of year to reflect on what I have done or tried to do in the past and compare it with the prioritization that I would ideally like to see in place for the so-called future.  Having said that, our soul or the eternal part of us (bear with me) is not aware of time as such because it is irrelevant. Light has no time. It is only the spirit and the body, i.e. that which has to do with the business of every day living that time becomes relevant.

On we go.

To what extent are we controlled by fear? Today’s discussion will focus on some of the possible causes and then discuss remedies. As I am basically a Christian I am reminded of the statement “perfect love casts out fear”. I wonder how many others are afraid of the future. As ever, we can find a wise person somewhere who have something to say on the topic. The quote I’m thinking was by CS Lewis about imagery “has this world been so kind to you that you should leave with regret? There are better things ahead than any we leave behind”. In other words, we are afraid of losing what we have but it may be the loss of something, and image, and identity, a possession, clears the way in order that we can embrace something else more indicative of future potential than past experience.

Is fear a type of funk? Are we turning round and round in our mind consequences that we emerging could happen if we did something. Could we consider the possibility that in this instance we are completely and utterly programmed to be hurt or damaged by some mysterious invisible force which in fact has no power in us unless we allow it. It seems that pain, or involuntary adjustment, is a part of learning and fear of the unknown is just a part of learning. Again I like the C S Lewis quote “what do people mean when they say ‘I am not afraid of God because I know he’s good’? Have they never been to a dentist?”

Fear may also be a type of pride. “I don’t want others to know what I’m doing because I may fail”. This would be foolish as well as prideful because you might deny yourself the opportunity to get some useful hints and tips. Why not replace the fear or tendency to fear by taking someone into your confidence and telling them of your difficulties or concerns and asking them to hold hands with you so to speak. You do not wish to lean on them and get them to make your decisions, but simply to be with you in the time of transition.

The fear of fear may be of our own making. If we base ourselves more or shall we say have our insurance policy based exclusively in the physical world, which itself contains an endless cycle of renewal and decay, that has an inbuilt insecurity in and of itself. If we can base our faith system on something else for example the value of the community or the value of love and caring, this in itself will become a stabilizer to our moods, our faith and our emotions. The problem with the latter is that it may contain a portion of self-pity and even laziness and this needs to be pragmatised.

Stepping forward into the darkness – or the clouds – may be the only way we can develop our character. On a very banal level, we take a risk when we ask someone on a date for the first time. We take a risk when we make a phone call to a stranger and want to do business with, come to that, we make a risk when we cross the road. What is the least risky life? No life. If our mortal stand consists in just clinging on to the familial what scope for progress is there we do not get a chance to exercise our brain or express our uniqueness of soul. What a waste!

Fear of being rejected, or being seen to be different from other people, is a major driver for good or for bad particularly in young people where instant communication is so prevalent. It takes a lot of character to stand out and be different but unless you do so will you ever become individuated?Has it occurred to you that by making a stand people might actually admire you will be a grudging and nervous sort of admiration? We had to decide whether we’re going to go round in circles for ever or whether we’re going to move forward.

I do not think fear is entirely bad. A young child be afraid of being found out about stealing apples or from a shop and that will inhibit them from doing acts which they know deep down are wrong. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” is a biblical quote of note but does it mean fear as in anxiety or does it mean fear as in respect? There is no such thing as a perfect translation from one language or group of languages, in this case Greek and Hebrew to another. The Hebrew verb yare can mean to fear, to respect, to reverence something or someone, so it has very little to do with any emotional context that people may carelessly attribute to this word. By the way, the quote goes on, the one from Proverbs chapter 9 verse 10 “….and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding” so it is always best to read the context when trying to understand anything.

I can understand a certain healthy fear of the consequences when we go against the word of someone whose mastery of human nature is second to none. King David tells us in one of his psalms “come, your children, listen to me; I will teach you the fear of the Lord… (then follows good advice)… Keep your tongue from evil, and your lips from speaking deceit. Depart from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it. I like this quote “When we fear man, we walk in a dangerous place, because we are no longer trusting in the Lord” I don’t know the attribution of this quote.

Incidentally, this address is not directed exclusively to religious people. It is a principle that if your conscience says one thing and you do another, you weaken yourself. This principle does not depend upon the existence of a god or a philosophy. We can say that beliefs such as Christianity can help you to neatly and cogently organise the facts and range one set of policies against another

What about angst? How does this compare with fear? Angst is a nameless fear, fear without an object, existential fear, and it is the state of mind that the shadowy people who run this planet want us to remain in. Has it not occurred to you how strange it is that there is a fashion for lone drivers running into people on pavements and killing some of them? Have you noticed that it happens in different parts of the world? Could you possibly cope with the idea that this is part of a plan to keep us fearful?

If you do not accept this I fully understand and sympathize because it took me years and years to understand the duplicity of the media and the governments in claiming to have our interests at heart but in fact have nothing of the sort. The whole of the world is a corporation. The world is run by corporations. Corporations have no heart. End of story. The only alternative endings would happen when we collectively wake up and see what is really going on. I am not in a position to judge the wake-up fullness of the world versus the guile and cunning of those 1% of 1% who decide what people will think.

*****

lovely yummy green stuff

Tesco will have good cause to regret selling mouldy turkeys. I can think of nothing worse than assembling all your family and friends around you for what should be a celebration lunch to find that the turkey is so smelly, typically smelling of bleach, and general decay that the bird had to be thrown away. The company have claimed that they function to the highest standards. Clearly their understanding of high standards and ours do differ. I can see Turkey and chicken sales plummeting and I can see that next Christmas people will shun Tesco for smaller reliable butchers. I read that the Food Standards Authority is going to do an enquiry. Obviously the number of complainants involved must have been quite substantial.

*****

On that rather downbeat note I close my diary for today noting that in contrast to the continual rain last night we now have lovely blue sky. Life is not all bad.



My Somerset Life

A diary by Brian Snellgrove

Setting out our life stall part two

I ended the first part of my discussion by saying that the perceived disadvantages of childhood were no excuse for not achieving full potential (how is that for a double negative). In order to demonstrate the truth of that hypothesis you would have to show that the people with most pampered childhoods have achieved the greatest potential in life and those with deprived childhoods, the least. The most casual glance at contemporary history will indicate that this is a wasted exercise.

Ambition* is a two edged sword. Ambition for ourselves and our own glory could well corrupt our own essential value, whereas ambition for the world may bring countless blessings to ourselves and others. I think we might well replace the word ambition by the word “vision”. This word has less force and a more inclusive feel. The whole landscape depends on whether your philosophy includes an obligation to benefit or bring value to other human beings. This in turn depends on your belief of who we are.
* from the Latin ambire, to go around canvassing for votes

Example: there are some who believe that we were all one consciousness and we are all aspects of the same consciousness in which various elements are manifested. In this context, competition and individual ambition seems shallow. By affecting others we effect ourselves. By hurting others, we ourselves diminish so some would see that as a mugs game. People who do this are not necessarily evil but ignorant. For me and others like me of whom there are many I am sure the question will be where to place ourselves that we can make a difference.

I totally respect the fact that there are some people who like creatures on a treadmill are quite happy to maintain themselves in a physical state of comfort following the policy of “eat drink and be merry for tomorrow we die”. This phrase, originating in the old Testament actually from Isaiah chapter 22, could be seen as an expression of hopelessness, though I hope you don’t find me too puritanical to make that statement. “If this world is all there is, we are of all beings most to be pitied” ( I forget whose quote this is). It would be extraordinary if there were nothing greater than ourselves though quite frankly looking at the way mankind behaves it is quite difficult to imagine something less.

I do not believe in the predestination of souls and take the view that we make our own future, neither am I a fatalist (the philosophy that means you cannot change your future) but I do believe that a measure of free will which most of us have in spadefulls we can choose to make the world a better or a worse place. In my terms, “better” means a more human, or community minded, a more purposeful, a more loving place which is concomitant with the world view of such great teachers and philosophers as Jesus Christ, Mohammed, Buddha etc.

There is no small or large action. We either choose to bring people closer together by default, or we allow or ignore factors that are moving people apart. I could call it “passing by on the other side”. When we die, I think there is some sort of automatic evaluation and direction setting. The system has to be automatic otherwise St Peter, who reputedly officiates in these matters, will have to attend in quick order to 151,600 people each day will attend the Pearly Gates. The nature of our consciousness when we die is in essence so I believe a continuation of the way we were pointing when we were alive or shall we say when ourselves which I believe to be eternal was resident in a particular body. It would seem therefore a good and sensible investment to planning the long-term.

It is interesting to note the testimony of people who have died and returned to life again perhaps on an operating table and seeing aspects of themselves and their future environment that are either good or dystopian. There is no reason for these people to lie so I think we need to take their testimonies seriously. The conclusion I that I reached this morning is that it is not what you do but who you seek to become that is the main factor. So, you can have any job you like. Jesus was the son of a carpenter which you could count among the manual trades. If you look at many of the saints through the ages they had quite humble jobs and Albert Einstein worked in the patent office at one point in a career that was difficult and problematic to say the least.

‘Setting out our stall’, therefore, is not for the sale of goods for services but the individual embodiment of the type of society and the quality of living that we believe in. It seems to me that this brings a certain freedom. If we act on behalf of eternal values we embody a preview of eternity itself and we are not so reliant on the appetites and vagaries of human life. As St John and others commented “be in the world but not of it”. This means that our values distance us from the more ridiculous and nonsensical activities of the world. By that I mean, activities and mindsets that lead nowhere or on a downward spiral.

Whilst  on this subject, I have always had a good feeling about the adjuration of Jesus when he said “behold, I am sending you out as lambs in the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves”.  This is a very clever analogy as most of them are. Doves are white, they reflect light. They look down on the situation and see it without being involved. The servant is the streetwise half very definitely know what’s going on on planet Earth. We are asked to embody the dove and the snake in one psychology. This is not a contradiction and we do not need to be schizophrenic but to be aware without upper brain, the neocortex, and the reptilian brain which is designed for physical survival.

If only people could realise that each and every individual is unique on the planet and if they acted like it and not one of the crowd I’m convinced that most psychological problems could be healed. Sad to say, some people go through their lives without thinking one original thought. These people are not even aware that they are in a box where everything they do, say and think is conditioned by the media and so forth.

People do not have to try and be unique because they already are. If you think I’m exaggerating imagine that every person has 50 qualities or talents and each one of them is capable of being developed in a different way in a different context you realise that the permutations and combinations are much greater than the numbers of people on this planet.

In this context, the idea of competing with others and attempting to be better than them seems to me to be futile. As a prelude to ‘setting out your stall’ why not enjoy this idea for a few days or weeks. Whilst on the subject, I think we need to address the topic of so-called failure. Failure means that the attempt to succeed did not have the results that you anticipated. However, unbeknown to us all, the experience gained comprised and essential stepping stone to achieve something else. I recall the saying “if at first you don’t succeed then try and try again”.

That’s all I want to say at the moment or rather that is all I’m inspired to say. I have given the number of clues for us who wish to to work on so ‘watch this space’. Oh and one more thing, if this is the first time you have read one of my blogs, this is an exceptional outpouring of inspiration, by no means my average diary entry which is indeed concerned with normal things that happened to me every day and my experiences in Somerset. Sometimes, a combination of things behind-the-scenes elicits such a phenomenon.

As I speak these words, I’m looking out on a bright blue winter sky, such a change from the grey skies and continual snow of yesterday. Time for lunch.

Over and out.



My Somerset Life

A diary by Brian Snellgrove

Works of art being exhibited in Frome, Somerset

There are few things I enjoy more than talking to artists and looking at works of art though I do not have formal art training. I believe and try to live out the ideal that we are all mobile art installations, instantly responsive to others, claiming the moment and making the best of it as we shall probably not meet in the same circumstances again.

Ref: Eckhart Tolle ‘The Power of Now’.

We are so busy obsessing over what we did, might have done, should have done, could have done differently that we don’t see what we did right.

Anyway enough of this philosophy, for now (ha ha) today’s topic is…..

not sure how old this photo is

Hans Borgonjon (sculptor) and Rosalind Robinson (painter) are working colleagues whose works appear in the show.
Hans has lived with his partner Liz Kozlowski for the past 10 years in Frome itself. Liz has curated the music side of this exhibition and is playing in some of the music performances, apart from being a natural therapist and healer.
The posh art web site  can be visited here.  Rosalind is an associate member of the Society of Women Artists. I am hugely impressed by her observation of the human eye as the window of the soul

Rosalind is the one in the middle.

as the following examples will show you.

Use Ctrl and the + key repeated to enlarge the images

We two together

“Ready when you are”

‘Waiting”

“Robin”

Moment of doubt (left) and Moment of uncertainty (right)

mischievous boy?

The venue, the Silk Mill, 5 minutes from the centre, BA11 1PT The show is called ‘Outside Insight’.

Now follows some of Hans’ works in oak, using special paint including gold. The work draws inspiration from his Flemish roots.

The Kiss

‘Squeeze’ am I going mad?

three studies of the face (not the exact title)

work outside the studio in the open air

There are many other centres where work is being shown. The one below is by Fiona Campbell whose work reminds us of the neural connections between trees and also between us and nature. It is almost impossible to photograph; you really have to see this installation in the flesh. I love the use of birch trees. I am going to put in two examples taken from different angles.

angle one

second angle

Look like its from the same artist, this time on the exterior of the building.

yes its a real post box

 



My Somerset Life

A diary by Brian Snellgrove

The ideal gardening job

Sunday 14 August 1664

..He gone, comes Mr. Herbert, Mr. Honiwood’s man, and dined with me, a very honest, plain, well-meaning man, I think him to be; and by his discourse and manner of life, the true embleme of an old ordinary serving-man…

…By and by comes W. Joyce, in his silke suit, and cloake lined with velvett: staid talking with me, and I very merry at it. He supped with me; but a cunning, crafty fellow he is, and dangerous to displease, for his tongue spares nobody…

I do admire Pepys’ honesty when describing people. He is a very good observer which on the Enneagram scale is a five. In the days before the telephone, people’s mindset had to be different because if you wanted to see someone you had little alternative but to turn up at their property. I consider this ‘community mindedness of quality’ which is so much lacking in cities today and remains only in small villages. So much current instant communication is nothing of the type. I think people’s brains are too frazzled to know what real communication is.

Today dawned bright and sunny with only the odd cloud obscuring the horizon of the sky. This is the season of plenty; we are running out of places to store beans and potatoes. The neighbours that we offer them to already have enough.

lovely fresh beans going begging. Unfortunately, they do not freeze well but bean chutney can be made

my wife has split up a large tuber of aloe vera and intends to let them grow and then give them away

I was truly looking forward to today’s gardening job which consists in remodelling and disciplining a garden area, a lawn of 7 m x 20 m with various trees and overgrown bushes surrounding. The customer was about as close to the ideal as I have ever had in my years of gardening. She is a farmer’s wife. Farmers wives are used to mucking in and doing what is required so true to form she had her Wellington boots on when we arrived and helped us in with our tools.

When will customers understand that the more helpful and supportive they are to us, the more we will do. We are not robots. This was a lesson that our customer did not need to learn. She had empathy by the spadeful. It was very good as it is in most cases that the customer is there while we work because we need to ask questions as we go because garden layout and design is a matter of opinion. We will do anything the customer requests  but it is much better if we ask their opinion when we are actually doing the job rather than discussing some theoretical event that could take place in future.

Rather like the National Trust’s attitude to renovating old properties you have to figure out what was originally intended by the design which is quite tricky in the case of gross overgrowth which we had in this case. The principles of gardening are just the same as the principles of painting a picture. You have the background, the main features, and the job is to harmonise all and to remove the redundant, allowing the key features to stand out. Only plant may be perfectly fine in its own right but maybe out of place or deceased or too large, or excluding light for its neighbours and it is not inappropriate to cull such plants or bushes.

This is a ‘before and after’ impression of three different types of bushes plus a tree that is occupying the same space. Thinning out is the order of the day.

a three-part clump of bushes in disarray and disorder with a tree in the background

The same scene, three hours later when we tried to restore some individuality to the various types of plant. it is not easy to see due to the green hue but there are two separate types of bush that have been distinguished from each other by removing extraneous material.

I was fascinated to read that Paul Gauguin, a leading post impressionist artist and writer known for his primitivist style and philosophy decided to sail to the tropics to escape European civilisation and ‘everything that is artificial and conventional’. He made this move at the age of 43 in 1891, frustrated by the lack of recognition and financial security in his home country. He spent his remaining years in Tahiti and the Marquesas Islands. I guess we idealise well known artists and think they had easy lives.  Try Frida Kahlo for size. Actually, try almost any artist.

Gibbons took carving to a new level, abandoning oak for softer lime wood.

You could count yourself fortunate if you obtained Royal Patronage as Grinling Gibbons the artist and wood carver did – after a long struggle. He came to UK from Holland in 1667 but languished doing routine work for ships in a dockyard in Deptford until spotted by someone with royal connections. He later came to be known as the Kings carver.

 



My Somerset Life

A diary by Brian Snellgrove

Victims of our own communications – The day that never was – less is more

3 June 1664

Up, still in a constant pain in my back, which much afflicts me with fear of the consequence of it. All the morning at the office, we sat at the office extraordinary upon the business of our stores, but, Lord! what a pitiful account the Surveyor makes of it grieves my heart. This morning before I came out I made a bargain with Captain Taylor for a ship for the Commissioners for Tangier, wherein I hope to get 40l. or 50l..

To the ‘Change, and thence home and dined, and then by coach to White Hall, sending my wife to Mrs. Hunt’s. At the Committee for Tangier all the afternoon, where a sad consideration to see things of so great weight managed in so confused a manner as it is, so as I would not have the buying of an acre of land bought by the Duke of York and Mr. Coventry, for ought I see, being the only two that do anything like men; Prince Rupert do nothing but swear and laugh a little, with an oathe or two, and that’s all he do.

Thence called my wife and home, and I late at my office, and so home to supper and to bed, pleased at my hopes of gains by to-day’s work, but very sad to think of the state of my health.

Poor old Pepys, barely a day goes by without him mentioning suffering of the body of some sort and yet he just gets on with it and puts in a good day’s work. This is the very opposite of ‘pulling a sickie’ by the young and lazy are so fond of. In their own slender defence, if you are treated like a living robot there is not the feeling of belonging  especially when you see your bosses getting paid stellar amounts of money. The resentment must build up.

Wall to wall imagery of fear and panic, but the police did a good job. eight minutes from the first call to shooting the perpetrators dead.

So, here we go again, another group of three zealots shouting ‘this is for Allah’. They drive into people with their van on the iconic London Bridge, succeeding in injuring 48 people and killing 7 before being shot. I heard about it at the same time and in the same manner as I did the Manchester debacle whilst listening to Radio Five Live shortly before midnight. Now we have endless overreactions by the police though I admit they have a difficult job, people being barred from their own homes, wall-to-wall coverage and generally spreading the idea of fear in our midst.

The BBC would not dare discuss exactly why UK in general should receive this treatment. It would have nothing to do of course with the UK and America’s support of Saudi Arabia, and the wars tacitly approved of by UK which killed thousands of people in the Middle East. Heaven forbid that people should actually think or take collective responsibility. ‘Make ’em afraid then tell them what to do’. Endlessly asking people ‘how they feel’ and ‘what they saw’ is not enough. Strange that the miscreants  used fake bomb attachments ‘to spread fear’. That’s an odd thing for a suicide bomber to do.

This forthcoming observation may help people who are thinking of planning something  involving travel for the first time. Our local horticultural Society arranged an all-day coach outing to North Devon. The first feature was Tapley Park Gardens near Bideford where there are terraces, woodland walks, and a lake. The second feature was Marwood Hill Garden  near Barnstaple which has a 20 acre private garden with three lakes set in a valley. This was to be followed by a substantial cream tea in the local church. On the face of it and for £30 it sounded good.

I had provisionally reserved four places but all did not sit well and as regular readers to this diary will know, my instinct about travel is fairly good. The client group will be people in their 60s and above. We are looking at a summer Sunday in North Devon and as locals will know, anything other than the M5 / A303 is very slow and prone to traffic jams so you can reckon about 30 miles an hour average.  The organiser ‘thought’ (first danger signal) that the trip from Somerset to Tapley Park Gardens would take ‘about two hours’.

The AA in their automated wisdom estimate it will be 2 1/2 hours and 111 miles. That’s about the same distance as going to London by the faster motorway from where we are in Somerset. Then we have a half hour 25 mile journey to the second gardens. Then we have the best part of the 100 miles to return home after having gone to the church for tea. That makes three lots of embarking and disembarking with an 8 am start with  total time on the road of not less than 5 1/2 hours probably nearer 6 with a total mileage of about 240. If you add to that the time that each of these gardens would require for walking round, the math simply does not work.  I get exhausted even thinking about it.

This is a classic example of wanting to fit in too much to please people and give them ‘value for money’. As the headline for today says  ‘less is more’ which is a good philosophy especially if you are unfamiliar with the territory and as a general principle in any event. A day normally fills itself in by some magical process without having to make a big effort.

I think the less is more philosophy applies more as you get older because you learn that it’s not the point of the number of things you do as in “Europe in seven days” so beloved of our cousins from the USA but just example being in nature, having a conversation with somebody, enjoy a cup of tea and talking to the other people in the restaurant.