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Haiku and Holidays in Ireland 3: The Burren and the Drystone Dykes

The Burren is a remarkable slab cake of layered rock that dominates the north west corner of County Clare. We drove round it and through it, walked on it and over it, and meandered at its edges where it meets the Atlantic Ocean. Sheila captured some of the flowers in the rocks on the camera – more of these the morn.

One of the features of the landscape we saw is the dry stone dykes and walls. I've always wondered at the skill, precision, and artistic flair of the dyke builder. All shapes and sizes of stone, worked and cut to fit into a straight, stable length of wall, and without the use of cement or mortar. So walls are built, statements of separation, dividing lines of ownership or rights, symbols of ownership and its boundaries.

When I was a boy I used to accompany old Jimmy Welsh, (not the artist in stone shown in the photo), the tractorman and dyker at one of the farms where I grew up. Every summer he repaired the drystane dykes around the fields, and once built a new dyke alongside our farm cottage. I was his helper as a 7 or 8 year old. Never learned his skill, but have since seen the dyke years later, standing neatly, straight and testimony to a skill I hope we never quite lose from our countryside.

Looking at these in Ireland, I couldn't avoid the Robert Frost poem, with its line, "something there is that doesn't love a wall – that wants it down."And I was left with those mixed emotions admiring the skill and beauty of a well built drystone dyke or wall, and realising its function, to keep out, or to keep in. So I wrote a couple of Haiku – not to make any particular point. Just to note that there are important points that walls make.

1.

Hand built drystone walls;

mortarless human constructs,

neat, strong, exclusive.

2.

Hand built drystone walls;

mortarless human constructs,

neat, strong, inclusive.

3.

Hand built drystone walls;

low enough for shaking hands,

and conversation.

29 July 2010
Haiku and Holiday in Ireland: 2 Cliffs of Moher

Sometimes we have to see what we see from the perspective of danger. The Cliffs of Moher are dangerous, and by accident or intent, have claimed many lives over the centuries. So there are walls and fences, and signs warning of danger, prohibiting passage, spelling out the consequences of risk taking. And I know about the health and safety imperatrive – risk assessments and policies and strategies to help people stay healthy and safe.

But these cliffs are not only to be seen – they need to be felt, their long argument with the sea heard, their wind carved faces seen as the indomitable expression of defiance. To look over the edge, to sense your own smallness, to feel the wind pushing and shoving, to make the mental calculation of height and drop from cliff top to rocks or sea – that too is part of the impact of these cliffs. Still. We sensibly viewed them from safety – and we saw them, and felt something of them. But not their utter thereness; not the seductive pull to the edge to really see and fear; and not that humbling awareness that these storm sculptured walls, towering out of the waves, were there before us and will be there after us.

You can take photographs. You can listen to the crashing waves. You can gaze for ages at the long held lines of the Cliffs of Moher which for incalculably longer ages have held back the sea. And still there is a surplus of significance, an awareness that this is a place where our humanity is reaffirmed, paradoxically, because it is a place where our transient living fragility is contrasted with these aeons old petrified rock fortresses.

28 July 2010
Haiku and Holiday in Ireland 1. Joyce Country and Connemara

Last week we were in County Clare, over in Ireland, visiting family and having our first visit and sighteseeing trip to the Eire. The flight from Edinburgh to Shannon was ridiculously fast at under an hour – but still long enough time to wonder if the Ryanair cabin crew were taking the mickey trying to sell smokeless cigarettes! While there I had a go at some Haiku, trying to condense richly varied experiences into 17 syllables. As a piece of indulgence because I am still on holiday I'm going to inflict some holiday photographs and several Haiku on unsuspecting, and even suspicious visitors.

Recently been listening to Chris De Burgh. Used to have several vinyl albums and never replaced them with CDs. One of his best love songs is Connemara Coast, which I've listened to a lot recently. The love for the country and his woman are both celebrations of beauty that needn't negotiate a surrender – the heart is won.

We spent a brilliantly sunlit day going up through Connemara and Joyce Country as far as Kylemore Abbbey (pictured) – a round journey of 270 kilometres. The scenery through the mountains and valleys was as wild, rugged, inspiring and beautiful as the west coast of Scotland. I still enjoy the freedom and the joy of driving through country that is there to be admired, and especially if the scenery is so attractive it becomes a matter of responsible citizenship to stop rather than drive on while distracted by such unabashed natural beauty. Oh, and I promised to mention Joyce's Craft Shop up in a place called Recess – because I'd asked the proprietor how I could get a piece of uncut Connemora marble for a friend, and he raked around a barrel over in a corner, found a lovely wee piece and told me to take it back to Scotland for nothing, and tell everyone that though Ireland is skint it's folk are still generous. Absolutely so.

Here are two Haiku written out of sheer pleasure taken in looking at scenery that was breathtaking. Cliche? Yes, but a cliche is a description that though used often is sometimes used quite precisely. That's how I'm using it

Inagh valley

Grey green pyramids,

landscaped stone, embroidered trees,

mirrored, framed with sky.

Sphagnum moss, gnarled trees,

ancient sky-reflecting lough,

green and blue at peace

The first describes a beautiful land; the second does the same, and quietly suggests a better harmony of colours than the history of Ireland, and our own West of Scotland, have often afforded. Sky and water, grass, trees and moss – the light and life of nature knows nothing of sectarian colour codes. This was a peace full day.

27 July 2010
Formula One Racing, Human Values and the Black Hole in Sporting Ethics.

I don't watch Formula 1 racing. Watching around 20 high octane, high performance, super turbo charged, high speed, precisely engineered, aggression driven egos, is not my idea of a relaxing, exciting, or even interesting Sunday afternoons. Quite apart from the environmental and eco-unfriendly consequences for the planet. What's the carbon footprint for one of these races anyway?

But yesterday while enduring a few minutes of the German Grand Prix, I became aware (again) of the ethical black hole that is contemporary multi-billion professional sport. Two cars from the same team are in front. We hear the radio instruction / information to the first placed driver that his team mate in second has the faster car, and incidentally has the best chance of the two of challenging for the championship. Note the ambiguity – information / instruction. There is no doubt whatsoever (as the post race judgement confirms) that the rules were broken and Ferrari were cheating.

But then we were treated to the moral wisdom of Michael Schumacher saying he would do the same. The only reason for being there is to win and you do all you can to win. Including cheating. Other ex-drivers also upheld win any way you can as the prime moral imperative. Eddie Jordan who knows the business inside out, was incensed. And how refreshing to hear unambiguous anger at blatant cheating being passed off as legitimate tactic! In 2006 Schumacher's own benefiting from exactly the same scenario caused the new rules to be written. That these rules clearly prohibit instructions from management to drivers to concede position in the interests of the team, are supposed to preserve the integrity of the race.

What was obvious yesterday was that there is a dark side to integrity, an anti-ethic, a moral obligation to ignore the ethical and regulatory framework that defines the parameters of the sport. Cheating isn't bad; it is to be redefined as hunger for winning, loyalty to the team, commitment that is absolute, not to upholding the virtues of the sport, but to being first even if it requires the negation of all sportsmanship. Thus a new virtue displaces all the other virtues and values that make sport as spectacle and genuine human activity meaningful. And the judgement of a £100,000 fine imposed on Ferrari is the equivalent of a premier league footballer on £100,000 per week having to pay a fine of £1000 for moving the goalposts or breaking an opponents leg – thereby nobly upholding the moral imperative to win any way you can.

And what about the savage erosion of the fundamental sporting ethic of excellence, fairness, honesty, admiration for achievement and genuine endeavour? If win any way you can were universalised as an ethic what would that do to business and the markets – well, we know the answer to that. Or apply such egotistic nonsense to community life, the fabric of social relationships, international and foreign policy, and the world becomes a bleak, unstructured free for all. In an age of globalised technology, instant and pervasive viewing of high profile sporting events, and an idolatry of power, competition, and mega-scale corporate interests, the moral imperative of win any way you can, rapidly corrodes virtues and dispositions essential to human community. Professional sport fueled by greed driven lust for victory, then becomes a social menace, a shop windowing of unprincipled egos, an arena in which we display not what is good, humanising and life-enhancing, but the very patterns of behaviour that if universalised would consign us to a world where goodness, truth and beauty take their place in the lower league places of human aspiration.

The picture shows Alonso contemplating his recked car. He was the one given the drive through yesterday. Wonder if the same picture doubles as Alonso contemplating the wrecked image of a sport whose moral engine has blown, and whose ethical wheels are smashed beyond repair.

The latest news on all this can be read here.

26 July 2010
A Week of Heschel: Sunday

God is not an hypothesis derived from logical assumptions, but an immediate insight,

self evident as light.

He is not something to be sought in the darkness with the light of reason.

He is the light.

A J Heschel, Man is not Alone, page 75

25 July 2010
A Week of A J Heschel: Saturday

Surely God will always receive a surprise of a handful of fools –

who do not fail.

There will always remain a spiritual underground

where a few brave minds continue to fight.

Yet our concern is not how to worship in the catacombs

but rather how to remain human in the skyscrapers.

A J Heschel, Insecurity of Freedom, page 23.

24 July 2010
Disappearing comments – an apology and explanation.

There are currently a number of problems relating to comments disappearing which Typepad are currently trying to fix. If you left a comment in the past week or so and it hasn't appeared, then something in the software has eaten it! Apologies for this, and also from Typepad who are trying to sort it.

There is also a problem with the edit function which means I am currently stuck with this font and size. Sorry for all of this. I'm hoping it will be resolved soon. Chris and Geoff and Catriona – your comments are amongst the recent casualites. If you still want them posted, then please resend them and I'll get them up. The problem arises when I want to delete spam – it seems deleting one knocks out other approved comments.

Will let you know when it is fixed. Meantime keep commenting and I will simply stop deleting anything till the problem is resolved by the very good team at Typepad. That ain't flattery – they are very good.

24 July 2010
Guernica – the novel and the painting

Guernica, Dave Boling, (Picador)

This is a
carefully researched novel about Basque village life in the 30's seen through
the eyes of three generations, culminating in the atrocity that was Guernica.
Picasso's presence is woven throughout, and the novelist makes him neither hero nor villain, but
simply what he is; an artist who lives with the ambiguity of his own life story
and the politics of his time. His painting of the raids on Guernica (which is
brilliantly repulsive in conception and creation) is an example of art as moral
outrage and political protest – and of how the representation of human anguish
when it is well done as in Picasso's Guernica, is potent not by its power to
attract, but by its power to repel. The medium conveys exactly human recoil
from the evil the painting depicts.

It’s an interesting
thought, that art, so naturally identified with the creation of beauty, grace
and human loveliness, is equally potent in depicting ugliness, violence and
human suffering. There are some paintings that are hideous both in their
content and in their execution, and that makes them great art because they
compel attention to the human experience of that which dehumanises, degrades
and violates. In class last year when looking at artistic representations of
Jesus on the cross, there were several images which students found repulsive,
even upsetting, there was “no beauty that we should desire him”. Crucifixion is
utter unremitting cruelty, and some artists refuse to surround such inhumane
infliction with light or hope or theological concessions. Likewise, Picasso in
his painting of the atrocity of Guernica, was unsparing of the sensitivities of
the public viewers of his art. There are times when art speaks truth, the
representation of a subject contributes to its reality, the medium successfully
conveys the message, the viewer is forcibly confronted with what we would
rather not see and think, and thus moral judgement is demanded by the stark
uncompromising portrayal of moral evil.

There is no
comfortable distance from which to view Picasso’s Guernica. It is an offence,
searingly effective, and the depth of negative reaction to its images and
overall composition is precisely the intent – a jolt in the nerve centre of our
moral perceptions and political complacency. This novel doesn’t operate at this
kind of level, at least not self-consciously. But by giving human face and
character to the villagers, by drawing us into the family life of the Basque
people, and by making us care for the outcomes in the stories of their lives,
such personal and moral reactions are inevitably evoked. Near the end, there is a beautifully conceived insight into how human beings deal with loss and love. It comes as a comment on how two men coped with the violent deaths of their wives and children in the bombing raid:

"…if you lose someone you love, you need to redistribute your feelings rather than surrender them. You give them to whoever is left, and the rest you turn towards something that will keep you moving forward."

So the novel is a romance and a lament, a celebration of human courage and consolation, an affirmation of the love that humans have for each other and the finite miracle of love that survives brutal death; but all this set against the chronic capacity of human beings to hate, or worse, to not care about the consequences for other human beings of military action and political violence. And Picasso's painting, now an iconic image, an artistic monument of 25 feet by 12 feet, ensures that the name of a the small historic town of Guernica is not forgotten. And Picasso's poignant image of the dove flying over broken weapons of war is also a necessary and urgent reminder that human creatvity, industry and reason, can also be persuaders and builders of peace. This is a fine novel, about a remarkable painting, a flawed artistic genius, and an act of human barbarity that changed the nature of war.

The book ends with the following few lines. It isn't a spoiler to quote it. The opposite in fact, it's an invitation to read the book, and enter with moral imagination the experience that inspired a masterpiece of poltical protest, moral outrage and symbolic resistance to war.

Picasso is sitting in his favourite cafe in Paris. He is approached by a German officer.

"One officer who considered himself culturally advanced approached the artist as he sipped his coffee at a table beneath the green pavement awninga. The officer held a reproduction of the mural Guernica, barely larger than a postcard size.

'Pardon me', he said, holding the card out. 'You did this didn't you?'

Picasso put his cup delicately on its saucer, turned to the picture, then to the officer, and responded, 'No. You did.'

23 July 2010
A Week of A J Heschel: Thursday

Everything depends on the person who stands in front of the classroom. The teacher is not an automatic fountian from which intellectual beverages may be obtained. the teacher is either a witness or a stranger. To guide a pupil into the promised land, she must have been there herself. When asking herself: Do I stand for what I teach? Do I believe what I say? she must be able to answer in the affirmative.

What we need more than anything else is not textbooks but textpeople. It is the personality of the teacher which is the text that the pupils read; the text that they will never forget.

The Insecurity of Freedom, 39-40

22 July 2010
A Week of A J Heschel : Wednesday

What do most of us know about the substance of words? Estranged from the soil of the soul, our words do not grow as fruits of insightas, but are found as sapless cliches, refuse in the backyard of intelligence. To the man of our age nothing is as familiar and nothing as trite as words…we all live in them, feel in them, think in them, but failing to uphold their independent dignity, to respect their power and weight, they turn waif, elusive, a mouthful of dust….

Words have ceased to be commitments.

Man's Quest for God, pages 23, 25.

21 July 2010