Supporting People Standing Up

[beingstillness]

See willows buds crack yellow across the field As the dawn chorus explodes the air Magnolia blooms opening just so slowly you cannot see Hear the arms fire crack the bodies of children Mothers and fathers across the battle fields Smell the iron in the air of blood and shrapnel As the bumble bees wander finding sweeter scent And in this madness find clarity in who to be And confusion often on the way Shattered by mystery by love by beauty In the universe in other people and in me Torn to pieces seeing the brutality Feeling the harsh tread on soft ground My heart stops my chin falls my tears run It’s like my spirit rejects this form I am now in People unlimbed in front of their loved ones deaths If not so bound I wonder if I would flee And brought back by witness to generous simple acts Human beings being decent and brave They are always there as we will be in our turn Standing strong in gentleness Evoking love without ambition

[beingstillness]

He watches snow Falling Through a window Curtain drawn Far enough from me For every part of me to cry In loss and joy And sensing joy Feel sadness At releasing him To his own life Together Falling Watching snow

[beingstillness]

I bend my knee, take the knee, out of respect for all those who campaigned for our human rights and freedoms and the principle of peaceful protest

[beingstillness]

There’s the warm light soft falling across this land wide. Leaf tree colours turning yellow and browning gold. Yet animals tight curl into their backs against their dreaming nightmares. As human used words bring destruction to the very brink of fact. So I send my gentleness, decency and courage into where I am.

[beingstillness]

Almost sickly the fieldfare dance The long grassed meadow pecking Prey As the swallows wheel and cirrup And swallow The rainbows made by the lightest Evening rain close by I sit as I like to on logs Watching the mountains bend To the light

[beingstillness]

As a parent activist encouraging the neurotypical world to understand "challenging behaviour" as communication expressed differently it seems clear that the planet is speaking to us through this onslaught of natural disasters. Perhaps we could listen and work with and care for every element of the natural world - including ourselves. Less than this and we will turn out to be another example of the parasite which over exploited and so killed its host and then became extinct.

[beingstillness]

A buzz within my ears and wind aloft the peregrine sweeps close the ground green and shy up behind ash stone pavement of Rome steep curve to rivers fall behind the rounded hill rise crag topped path sharp line descends steep cut to waters lake splash cool and muscle burning ease my cranberry tang throat washed I fall within my heart find expand love so complete like a flood rushed out across flat lands I ache lost full empty everything and can I tell the blue

[beingstillness]

I will show you this land A deeper home Provocative it is Touching me Into action Holding me Close Time will be here watching And all can fall apart Released together The oldest rocks Clothed now gently Dive into the still young waters And gasp at the beginning Of it all

[beingstillness]

My son needs support All day every day Is how he is Smiling, singing oddly noises Making life intensely rich and tough For us who care Yet caring does this thing In someone else’s need we find Our own In finding that we find Ourselves again In joy sadness both Our worth and purpose Is there before us clear And in our hearts warmed up And being this We radiate to others They are we we they And together we are whole

[beingstillness]

Today became gentle beneath the rock Waking hard against my dreams To the reality that I changed yesterday Echoing still to the stories I have heard My head still throbbing from the heart ache The brain numbing details of sadness Of living lives lost to them themselves In places that echo to the air lock’s slam

And yet while holding all this widely Narrowly when it hurts openly with effort Not sure, not knowing, lost and aware Of gnawing doubt a sickening energy in soul It changed just because I met a friend and Being friends talked quietly of not very much Healing the tightness the needs explored

So off I went and swam with my wordless Singing son – joyfully and carefully As carefully as has to be quite loose and fun To sit again and let thoughts gentle pass me by Our minds spinning away from our sinking sun

[beingstillness]

Remembering my brother

William Now My heart has broken Some few times Yet now I remember 20 years has passed The phone call that All would be ok Yet the nurses voice next morning My brother gone Suddenly without my love Spoken through those Moments when he left And now it touches me Deeper than I've ever known His face repeated his His courage not seen Because he fought those Demons for us in his head He became not safe to us Or him yet saved us all Lost to stupid lack of care Poisoned by a meal and Condemned by a doctors prejudice Turned public lie he died His smile his frown his Shouting truth or gibberish Who knows which Behind my broken heart - love

[beingstillness]

Be gentle, be decent, be brave There are an infinite number of ways of describing being a human being. There are funny distinctions between being a human being and being a human doing. Thoughtful honest intelligent ideas and concepts abound. Ways of looking, listening and feeling. Millions of words are written each year about what we get up to and how and why and when. Libraries are written and read. And yet we get no closer to each other. The wars do not stop. The aggression escalates People suffer. People we could look after suffer. We fail to look after each other We fail to look after ourselves We've lost our way But I know – because I've seen it That people do care That people are gentle, decent and brave Just see them when they are called upon To support each other in communities People don't fail this test when asked We all can be this So please, for all our sakes Be gentle, decent and brave And compassion, clarity, precision and love will flow again

[beingstillness]

Caring for people is not a cost. Not caring for people kills people and creates a cycle of suffering. Supporting people to live good ordinary lives doesn't cost us anything - even when it means paying people's wages so they too can live good ordinary lives. They then buy things which pays for other people's wages and on and on - it enlivens the economy.

[beingstillness]

In the basement

In response to Ursula LeGuin’s ‘The ones who walk away from Omelas’

I am held captive in a basement covered in my own filth fed and watched and shown to others in case they think of change.

Each moment is as though sadness, grief and despair all swept through me at once – that constant complete realisation that there is no heart here, no one knows or even guesses how another might feel. Just the cold objective filled defensive, conspiring to ensure nothing is risked, nothing shifts.

Perhaps all might do that – have our tenderest parts so hidden they rot putrid. Walking around in our seeming perfect worlds – confirmed and evidenced by everything being so pretty around us – our guilty secret, our aliveness locked in a basement. Sometimes we too visit only to avert our eyes and head shake going on our way. Others walk away believing they can pass through some border and truly find a different way.

Yet once you’ve witnessed the horror played out for your habitual pleasure, your jewel encrusted pastel coloured joy, is travel possible? Or will I come with you?

[beingstillness]

What's now

I am learning from training for Meg Wheatley’s “Warriors for the Human Spirit” of the beautiful depth that being gentle and decent and bravery brings.

It is a simple way of making now what it needs to be.

Of being the change we wish and making human contacts human.

[beingstillness]

Olympian dreaming

Suddenly I am inspired by people putting themselves totally into their work to achieve their best. Olympians or support workers. Particularly all who support my son Rowland and also the heptathletes and the way they walked around together after finishing their gruelling events. And I'm wondering what it would be like if as a society we had the same aspirations for how we support each other and our communities as we do for our Olympic athletes? Who would inspire us? Who would lead us? My answer, obviously, is people, starting with ourselves!

[beingstillness]

People inspire people - even politicians!

I want to rebalance the conversation about people with disabilities and benefits. I want to remind us all how people inspire people to be compassionate, generous, purposeful and fully human in the best ways. People also employ hundreds of thousands of people and are creative, courageous and live extra ordinary lives. Their income is no more a burden than the prime ministers salary. The benefits they bring to our society massively outweigh the meagre benefits they receive. Remember as our senior politicians start finding their long hidden values that it was people with disabilities that inspired this. People like my son Rowland. Applaud their inspiration loudly and hold onto those values in case they get buried again