Women's suffrage100 years on

As we approach 100 years since Women received the vote it is sad to note how under-represented women are in Parliament, how small and lacking their voice is where it should be most heard. 

I think it is time for a radical overhaul. Every constituency should elect one man and one woman to represent it in parliament. At a stroke half of parliament would be female, and the voice of womanhood would no longer be echoing off the glass ceiling that has so far successfully stopped women from achieving equal representation, and more importantly, has stopped women having an equal voice in shaping this country. 

To achieve this reform constituencies would have to be redrawn, with each containing on average 200,000 people. This would produce a parliament of about 600 MPs, of which 300 would be women. End of problem. End of male dominance. The achievement of truly liberating equal representation at a stroke.

The other way has been tried for nearly a hundred years and has not worked. The glass ceiling seems just as firmly in place than it was, if not more so. Effectively, by whatever means, women are filtered out of reaching positions of power and influence, and most importantly, out of their rightful place at the centre of our democracy. 147 out of 650 is just not good enough after 100 years of trying. A meagre 22.6%, with only 4 Cabinet Ministers, an even more miserable 18%.

The life that is living you

The life that is living you is older than you, it has lived many lives before, passed on through generation to generation. Consider well its past and all the lives it has lived before it came to live you.

Ask what of it will pass on beyond you? Ask what of it radiates out from you?

Knowing this is to know that you are merely its guardian, its custodian, its keeper; it is on loan to you just for now from this planet that has let you be born and has sustained you through every breath you take.  

But an eye blink in its journey

The life that is you has lived a million lives before:

it was your mother,

it was your father,

it was your grandparents,

and your great-grandparents,

it was all your ancestors

back and back through time

until it was the first people;

and then before,

when it was not quiet human

but human becoming,

and then not so human becoming,

more ape,

more proto-ape,

more mammal that would become ape,

more early mammal,

more proto-mammal,

than anything recognisably human;

and then reptile,

and before,

even back to before any life crawled on land,

even back to that that swam in the sea,

to the sea microbe rich,

to many celled,

to single celled,

to the first life,

to the very seed of the first life itself.

We are all the first life grown old

with the passing through so many lives;

so many ways of being,

till,

just for now it flows through you.

What are you but an eye blink in its journey?

A sculpture by Henry Moore

Henry Moore (1898 - 1986): 

Large Upright Internal External Form 1981-2

Womb, coffin, embracing arms, protecting, foetus, man-to-be inside the parent, woman-to-be inside the parent, double womb, phallic and vulvic interwoven, cycle of life, conception, birth, death, renewal, eternal dance of being and becoming, nurturing, containing, love, child, love making, cycle of the child becoming in their turn the parent, enclosing, enwrapping, enveloping, procreative, fertility, fecundity.

There in all seasons, in all winds and weathers, in light and in dark, in moonlight, in starlight, frost rimed, mist wreathed, sun backed, wind whipped, rain lashed.

And the sheep graze and walk on.

I passing by on a summer's day with one I love, she saying some words, I others. I could see both the womb and the coffin, she only the womb. The sculpture's shadow now playing in my mind, it enigma's and ambiguities.

Pagan Roots/Routes

The routes that weave in and out of my roots, through wood and down dene, know of hop and beating the wassail – a man leading a wild procession with antlers on his head, all set to sing to the apple trees, to conjure forth fruit for the cider strong enough to bend the legs of the hardest man. A green man smiles forth from the ceiling of the church where sheela-na-gig exposes herself for all to see and Christ hangs on a fruiting bough, full in green leaf and growing yet. 

Doubt not the pagan depths from which all this is sprung. 

It is no accident that the Jesse Tree is close by at the mouth of the Gavenny, or that yew and thorn are to be found in every church yard. Each spring is formed into a well that bears the name of some saint or other, but was holy long before the first saint trod the earth, it healing spirit known and loved. The very word holy itself sprung from the words for a well, the hole from which the waters flow.

“Ah”, says the priest, “we baptise you with water”. “We always have”, the pagan says. 

“He died upon the tree” the priest says. “Just as he always did” the pagan says “to give us fertility, see”. 

“He rose again” the priest says. “Just as he always has”, the pagan replies “in fruit and ear of corn”. 

“He is our one true God” the priest says. “As you will” the pagan says, “but we will leave an offering at her feet none-the-less. And turn the coin in our our pocket on the full moon, and touch wood for luck when we need”. 

“Our pews are empty and the church doors locked” says the priest. “But we still cast a coin in a well for luck” says the pagan “and leave flowers by the wayside for the fallen”.

Flowers

She used to buy herself flowers a lot. “To cheer herself up”, she would say. Lots of flowers, even when we had very little money. Her need - to “cheer herself up”: my knowing that they were paid for with money we did not have; funny money, scary money, plastic money, money that becomes septic money; or if she was being “good”, not being reckless, not using borrowed money, not “just going for it”, then with money needed for basic stuff. Later we would be short of stuff that mattered, essentials, stuff that must be got, that had to be paid for come what may – a spending vacuum into which, like a black hole, what little I had would be remorselessly drawn. But, hell, she so needed the “cheering up”. She'd spend on the flowers. Later I would reach into my pocket for the dog's food.

Take a living thing, cut off its root, its connection with earth, that which nurtures and sustains it, its means of survival and the substance of its being. Put it in a jug and watch it die. 

She always bought flowers, no matter how poor we were. I watched them die. 

“Can't you see they are dead”, she would say, “Why haven't you thrown them out? Do I have to do everything? Why can't you look after things properly? It would not have taken much effort to have noticed. You never notice. All these dead flowers everywhere. Always left. You just don't care.”

Most-Played list on iTunes

Eleni Zoe [http://hope.gr/] asked what Secrets were Revealed by Her Most-Played List on iTunes, which set me thinking, what do mine say about me? My top ten is really a top 14 as six all tied for tenth place - well, clearly I am indecisive if nothing else.

Number one, the most played, clearly the most important tune in my library, surprised me; but it speaks of long sleepless nights of unhappiness, when being lost in its cadences was often the only way left. I hope in a few years time it is no longer number my one. Gregorian Chant

Few - number two - ah, still a Romantic at heart! There is hope for me :)
and Reggea to boot - plus who could resist Blonde? The Tide is High

Then comes that issue which is so much my conundrum - no wonder this gets played as often as it does. First heard it when it was sent to me by a friend who was undergoing a sex change. Wonder why he liked it? Hope she still does: Just a Girl

Four - gutsy stuff to jump around to - and says so much about attraction: I bet you look good ... . How can this have caught the feel of my university days when it wasn't released until more than thirty years after??? You can smell the North in it.

Now this really is from my university days - but what an anthem for the spirit! This is for those moments when you bounce back up. No. 5: Free and, yes, I did have hair like that! The studio version is the one on my iTunes, but this clip is just so 1970.

Six - another give away. Did not realise I had played it so often, but then it speaks directly to my what I am - a chimera - so not that much of a surprise then: Beautiful Garbage - Androgyny
and the Japanese manga style video? Well, I am part Japanese.

That square peg in a round whole feeling [the spelling error is NOT an error] when the world shouts at you so loudly that you are the one out of sync. The fear of discovery and exposure that haunted me for years. Now I am at peace with my biology those fears are receding, much like my hair - but still this song resonates with how it was for so long: Radiohead.
That is seventh.

Brass in Pocket What it has taken to cross the divide of my fear for those who have touched me. A fitting No. 8 and my indebtedness to those women with real courage.

Dylan - well, the master of words had to feature somewhere. This one spoke so loudly to me when an impossible love exploded. So Where are you Tonight?

Nine done, now comes the five that all have been played as much as each other, all tie tenth equal. Make of them what you will, but they all have their reasons, all say too much about me:
Pembrokeshire's best: Catatonia, Road Rage
Dawn Penn: No No No
Elvis Costello: I want you
Girl with one eye: Florence and the Machine
Lily Allen: Not Fair: being a chauvinist pig is NOT just a male preserve! Trust me :(