Yesterday I was at Cragside and noticed how the fruit glasshouse is rotting away. The National Trust is struggling for money and volunteers across the country it seems and an internet search reveals a number of complaints. Predictably there are voices bemoaning the so called 'woke' environmental and social justice initiatives. But this is just noise. Irrespective of any questions over whether or not we 'should' save historic structures (and on that one I'm flexible but would say generally there is a debate to have here, centring largely on 'for what purpose') the real problem is a nationally systemic one I think. Across almost every sector of UK life there is a lack of investment. It seems that more than other European countries we have taken to heart and mind the neoliberal idea that private enterprise and markets will solve all ills. Some of us always regarded that as nothing short of one rule for the rich and another for the poor and it's no surprise to find evidence that it's not working.
Walking around the gardens I was struck by spring flowers in colours that I associate with Easter as they're so much part of this time of year.
Something of various thoughts was in my mind, and later reading this and that, I came across a commentary on the Red Thread koan pointing out that one way of looking at this koan is 'what is the strand that runs through your life, yet is so obvious you miss it?' I find this a valuable reminder, the Red Thread can stand for so many parts of the ongoing unfolding of our lives. Musing on this question I considered what in my life this could be. Was it the inquisitive side, interest in engineering and the built environment, exploration of the 'spiritual' side of life, my intention towards authenticity, the philosophical, etc...? But nothing particularly struck me.
Then on Wednesday morning DC sent me a picture from Bristol of a monument to Isambard Kingdom Brunel with the caption 'Your hero'. Although I've always been a bit sceptical of 'heroes', certainly as a teenager I was impressed by this man and there is no doubting his contribution. As DC said, he was a dude. DC and I have an informal list of dudes- people who... well defining dude isn't so simple but you get the idea. I knew IKB died young but I couldn't remember at what age so looked it up and in so doing found the following obituary:
Brunel was the right man for the nation, but unfortunately, he was not the right man for the shareholders. They must stoop who must gather gold, and Brunel could never stoop. The history of invention records no instance of grand novelties so boldly imagined and so successfully carried out by the same individual.
I found that moving! And that points to my Red Thread.
In Bristol, a city arguably built on slavery, stands a monument to a man who through ingenuity and struggle built structures we still use. Across the UK there are wonderful historic buildings, many built on oppression and exploitation. Our politicians are either frightened to speak the truth or peddle culture wars. The National Trust (who are NOT wrong to set in context the origins of the estates which have come to their custodianship) struggle as alluded to above. There is no real debate about what is needed going forward in much of our national life. Around the world stability is weakening and is threatened by oligarchs as history plays out familiar troupes. Power is allowed to concentrate and serve the few. And yet we are capable of what IKB achieved, of what those medieval cathedral builders and modern cathedral re-builders achieved, of seeing beauty and alleviating suffering. Through our minds and bodies we can do so much that is obviously good. It is NOT appropriate to make woke mean something wrong. It is wrong to wage war, to build jingoistic narratives, to mistake unfair socioeconomic conditions for nature. What I find moving in that obituary is a tacit understanding that it's good to act beyond short-term greed. Of course there's projection in that, but I think we know that it's good to do what serves our communities.
And the Red Thread? It's in the way we see and relate.
Another recollection illuminates this. As a child in school I always disliked PE and games. I'd neither interest nor ability and could see no value in sport. In those days the 1970's, the whole set up was such that to question the value of sport and competitive games was so bazar that the argument had to be made. And make it I did. Why, must I try to engage with this pointless business when it was obviously doing me no good whatsoever? By the time I was 12 or 13 I'd actually managed to extract from my form teacher who also took PE and games a confession in my school report that he had to agree that it was 'all rather pointless'! I was sensitive, thoughtful and interested in how things worked yet I was in an education system that was very much a product of its time. It was in some ways informed by the Plowden Report which likely generated some 'child centred learning' and was likely both of benefit to my age group and may have in other ways held us back a bit where it was poorly implemented. Who knows, but it didn't result in what we would now recognise as a really diverse educational environment. And whilst I seem to recall music and movement classes in primary school (I don't recall my reaction to them) they vanished by middle school as I recall. And whereas these days as I understand it, a conversation around what PE and games options might suit with yoga, dance etc. on offer, none of that was in anyone's mind in the '70's and '80's once we'd progressed beyond primary school music and movement... PE I could get some slight point to, provided I was allowed to go at my own pace and not have to engage in some kind of competitive tedium... I wasn't averse to clambering about things it was uncontrolled relatively high energy objects such as fast moving balls or people I disliked! Games meant football, rounders, cricket and for some rugby. Under virtually no circumstance was I willing to engage with these. This generated some consternation amongst peers and teachers. What I think is interesting is not just my lack of interest and skill in these but the mindsets at work. Clearly, many people enjoy taking part in and supporting sports teams. But for me the entire endeavour is nothing but a pointless tribal pursuit; I clearly don't have the key ingredient. I understand that the cooperation within the team and competition with others and the skill and chance etc. are all what provide the stimulation for a lot of people but it's meaningless to me. What I do find meaningful is that life is full of struggle and we can if we openly explore the available information, make things better. That's what I find moving in that obituary. The Red Thread for me is in the not playing sports games, not competing for enjoyment, not conforming to narratives and values because they're held by the majority to be true. It's in the exploration of what is and how it can be engaged with to make things better including with limited resource. The not and the in do the revealing of the thread and the koan.
The winter here in the Northeast is quite long and by this time of year most of us are ready for spring. And so it is so lovely to see the flowers doing the only thing they can - flower. The rot in the fruit glasshouse is doing the only thing it can too. We shape and shift our environment with our minds and bodies but the wider forces of the universe are on a far grander scale... The Taoists would have us be in harmony with 'nature' to be ourselves without getting in our own way, our 'natural' selves before ego and fear twist us. Those fears are part of the koan and the repeating patterns part of our Red Thread. A thread made of both our true face and the faces we wear as we move thorough the not's and the in's... a dance sometimes in the light of awareness and quite often in the dark of confusion, the patterns of light and dark reflecting our threads...
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