Jon Kabat Zinn talk

Mwynhau’r Haul a Llygad y Dydd

Gad fi’n llonydd…

Rwy’n mwynhau gwres yr Haul

a Llygad y Dydd

ym mis Mai

ym Mharc Aberdar.

Y tu hwnt i’r waliau

clywaf Byd Dynol Aberdar

yn rasio ceir a pheiriannau

yn rhy brysur i werthfawrogi

yr hyn sydd ar gael

yn rhad ac am ddim…

yn nhawelwch y dydd.

The Most Complete Remains of a Cistercian Abbey in Wales

Photos of Neath Abbey are now available in the Gallery.

Neath was a Cistercian Abbey founded in 1129. Dissolved in 1539.

According to Rod Cooper in his book Abbeys and Priories of Wales (Christopher Davies, Llandybie, 1992) pg. 69-71 : “Neath deserves particular attention because there is some evidence that it was the most noteworthy ecclesiastical building in Wales in terms of architecture. Its origins date from the first Norman invasion of South Wales and in the eyes of the Welsh the foundation was another facet of that invasion.”

“Today the ruins present some of the most complete remains of a Cistercian abbey to be found in Wales. Much, however, is badly ruined.”

This Ugly Wales

Caught in the act of tearing up the Welsh countryside! Here is a photo of National Grid’s gas pipeline near Llanigon, north of Brecon.

The photograph was taken in mid June 2007. It is an ugly site to behold. The gas pipeline is a giant industrial phallus imposed on Wales by planners in London. A few corporations will benefit from this project. It will do little good to resolve the peak oil crisis we face in the next few years.

But do we not accept all the noise and the pollution ? Do we not rejoice at the smell and smoke that remind us of our industrial might ?

Ralph Borsodi’s book This Ugly Civilization (1929) reminds us of how man accepts the ugliness of his own creation :

THIS is an ugly civilization. It is a civilization of noise, smoke, smells, and crowds–of people content to live amidst the throbbing of its machines; the smoke and smells of its factories; the crowds and the discomforts of the cities of which it proudly boasts.

The places in which the people work are noisy. The factories are filled with the recurring, though not the rhythmic, noises of machines and the crash and clatter incidental to their operation. The offices, too, are noisy with the rat-tat-tat of typewriters, the ringing of telephones, the grinding of adding machines. The streets on which the people move about, and around which they work and play, resound with the unending clatter of traffic–the roar of motors, the squeaks of brakes, the shrieks of sirens, and the banging of street cars. And even the homes in which they are supposed to rest are noisy because they are not only packed close together but built tier on tier so that the pianos, phonographs, and radios in them blare incongruously above, below, and on all sides of them.

The people of this factory-dominated civilization accept its noisiness. For noise is the audible evidence of their prowess; the inescapable accompaniment of their civilization’s progress. The greater the noise, the greater the civilization.

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More photographs of the gas pipeline on Flickr.

There are many of Ralph Borsodi’s books available for free at the Soil and Health library.

Photographs of Aberdare Park in the Snow

There was a little time early today to steal a few moments at Aberdare Park following the heavy snowfall last night.

The snow brings a silence that provokes a sense of awe in nature. It is at times eerie.

Snow dusted onto the trees and shrubs accentuates their shape for the eyes.

Walking underneath the trees and a flurry of snow slips down on one’s head. The trees are old like the hills but they retain a school-child’s sense of humour.

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More photographs of Aberdare Park in the snow …

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“Nature is silent save when the poets lend her a voice. As soon as man is alone in the fields, he is overwhelmed by this mysterious silence; not a breath, not a sound; if his foot strikes a root; if he coughs, the ocean of silence immediately closes over that flowing noise like the calm waves over a stone fallen in the water. Silence here below is not an interruption of sound, it is sound which interrupts silence; and silence absorbs it, as darkness absorbs the meagre flash of a rocket, or the vanishing track of a shooting star. Let us look at the firmament; let us contemplate it, if we dare, for an hour, lying on our back with our face turned towards the milky way, and we shall then understand this thought of “Pascal” which makes us shudder : “The eternal silence of infinite space frightens me!”

Assuredly, there are sounds in nature; the leaves rustle, the brook murmurs, the wind roars or moans, the thunder rumbles; but in all this there is no language; and though we listen, attentive or anxious, we do not hear the words of consolation or revealation, for which we long. ” – Wilfred Monod “Silence and Prayer” (Allenson, London, 1931). (Translated by Gladys A. Slade).

Silencing the Songs of Spring

Imagine living in a world with no birds and no spring songs to enrich our lives and nourish our souls. A world where the fires of industry had burned all the trees and where the only sounds were artificial and anonymous sounds : a chorus of machines, rotating monotonously.

This weekend the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds organised their annual Big Garden Birdwatch, perhaps the biggest such birdwatching event in the world. This event offered many people an opportunity to ‘re-connect’ with their own natural environment.

We take our environment for granted at our peril. By our overuse of chemicals we risk losing not only our spring birds, but poisoning ourselves. This is a lesson that an American scientist and writer taught in her book Silent Spring (1962). Rachel Carson (1907-1964) was a marine biologist working for the US Government. She started investigating the use of pesticides after receiving a letter from the owner of a bird sanctuary that had been sprayed by the US Government.

Rachel Carson wrote about the abuse of chemicals and the perils they posed industrial society. She questioned the received wisdom of science, and faced a barrage of criticism and opposition from publishers, fellow scientists, and in particular, the corporations who profitted from society’s increasing over-reliance on chemicals.

The idea for the book title was taken from the poet John Keat’s La Belle Dame Sans Merci.

O WHAT can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
Alone and palely loitering?
The sedge has wither’d from the lake,
And no birds sing.

In her book Carson was able to communicate an ecology freed from the laboratory and her academic training as a scientist. It was a subversive ecology and her text is a seminal work for the environmental movement.

This brave woman’s voice helped shape a new consciousness as she challenged a materialistic, rational industrial society heading for self-destruction. In her book she concludes :

The “control of nature” is a phrase conceived in arrogance, born of the Neanderthal age of biology and philosophy, when it was supposed that nature exists for the convenience of man. . . . It is our alarming misfortune that so primitive a science has armed itself with the most modern and terrible weapons, and that in turning them against the insects it has also turned them against the earth. – last paragraph from Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring (1962)

May 2007 is the Centenary of Rachel Carson’s birth. In Wales, as we go to the polls in May 2007 for the Welsh Assembly Elections, we may like to consider the legacy of this woman. If we value our environment and all that lives in it, then we should consider what our politicians stand for and vote accordingly.