Roses

Does a rose exist that I might behold it? Or do I exist that a rose might be beheld? (Robert Brault)

Security

I always thought security was having the things and people I needed around me, until one day I had to do without them, and I realised that by learning to do without I gained a new sense of freedom.

Security depends not upon how much you have as upon how much you can do without.
Joseph Krutch.

Ubuntu

Ubuntu is the traditional African way of life and is encompassed in the saying:

Umuntu Ngumuntu Ngabantu

meaning: a person is a person through other people.

Writing in their book "Clued up on Culture", Margaret Elion and Mercia Striman point out that Ubuntu is intuitive and is done without intellectual forethought and means acting kindly towards others, being hospitable, compassionate and fair and, above all, having sound morals. In traditional African societies, Ubuntu is demonstrated through the way adults take on a parental, sisterly or brotherly role to others in the community; orphans and problem children are absorbed into family life; weddings are open to everybody; the elderly are revered, respected and cared for.

On Understanding

A C Grayling, writing in the Times Review 8.10.2003

When individuals get to know one another it is usually impossible for them to like or hate each other on the basis of mere generalities about race, religion or history. To hate successfully, you must hate an abstraction - the totality of Arabs or Jews or whomever - because once you put a face to a person and with it a home, children, an enjoyment of hamburgers or football, all abstractions melt.

This wisdom from AC Grayling was encompassed in the Myndscape workshops which Mundy and Bee set up in the early 2000s. They started when, at a talk to an art group about the portraits which he had painted about people's minds - Myndscapes - Mundy was asked if he would give a demonstration. Artists love demonstrations! He replied that this was not possible because, in doing a mind painting, the artist requres a personal discussion with the 'subject', which, in some cases, can take up many hours,  Then he would spend as much time as necessary in deconstruction all the information into symbols that represented what was being said before actually doing the painting. Myndscapes seemed to be a naturally creative combination from his many years as a psychologist and as an artist.


We then suggested to the artists that we could work on a process to develop a workshop whereby he could show them how they could paint their own myndscapes. This we did, and ended up doing many workshops, not only with artists, but with people from various groups, clubs, organisations and corporations - we called the business workshops Teamscapes, because they were often a part of teambuilding exercises.

The workshops were most successful; there was not a single participant who failed to paint their myndscape, despite the fact that many had never painted before. The most striking outcome from these workshops was that it enabled people not only to get to know one another better, but also to get to know themselves better than they had before.

It is widely acknowledged, as the statement by AC Grayling points out,  that greater understanding within communities breaks down prejudice, builds empathy and encourages harmony - something the world needs today more than ever before.

Sadly, Mundy died in December 2015, but his spirit lives on through his work.

Bee Mund-Castle 8.6.2017.

Reading Time

Philip Howard, Literary Editor of The Times, reviewing Philip Ward "A Lifetime's Reading", Books and Bookman, September, 1982:

We have to fit in our reading in the corners and interstices of our life, on which the toad work squats.

Unseen Infamy

Mark Thomas, writing in The Guardian 8.8.09:

The summer holidays provide the government with plenty of good days to quietly lift the sluice- gates of the pools of political sewage.