I have been being very festive of late, and since I'm not in England, and it's highly questionable whether I'd have bought you a present anyway, I thought I'd offer these poetic gifts for your enjoyment. One is truly silly – the result of eating too much chocolate that my sis and bro sent me, the others are hopes and flights of the imagination.
A note on Runes…one of the poems below references runes. For those unacquainted with runes, they are like tarot…ish. The word rune means mystery, and a whole lot more besides (kind of like saying 'being' is nought but a form of the verb 'is'). There are twenty four runes, each representing and being one of the universal forms of energy that help to make existence…there's loads more I could say, but here's not the time or place right now. If you want to know more, just let me know, or google 'runes'.
The holidays will be over on the 1st Jan. Nice and logical that – new year, new term. The AfterSchool club that is actually after school will begin then. In the meantime, I've been running the holiday afterschool club for the past week. It feels as though it's been fairly successful…but it always hardest to judge one's own work. There has certainly been a huge improvement in the 'straight-armed' bowling skills of all the children and in their ability to keep a volley ball airborn for longer than the duration of the serve. Perhaps the most heartening event occurred when one of the village boys came for the day and was ushered on to bowl during the now customary end-of-day cricket match. He spoke good English, so I told him that on the GMMCS ground one had to bowl with a straight arm. He said that this was not possible, as he had been burnt with boiling water as a toddler, and consequently couldn't rotate his arm fully. Having seen,
however, the way he bowled with a bent arm, I had a hunch he had never really tried. I asked him to rotate his straightened arm and asked if there was any pain. He replied that there wasn't. I said he had just done all he needed to do to bowl with a straight arm, the rest was simply a question of practice. I asked him to try bowling one ball with a straight arm, just to see if there was definitely no pain. He did so, and bowled the best ball he'd bowled yet, free of pain and with an enviable natural spin imparted to the ball. At the end of his allotted six balls, I asked him if he now felt confident that he could bowl with a straight arm whenever he wished. He replied 'yes sir, I think it was only my belief that was stopping me before'. Such words apply to so much in life, and yours truly felt pretty humbled to have been a part of this boy's realisation.
If you want to see some photos, they'll shortly be up at www.GeorgeGMMCS.blogspot.com
Tomorrow we're baking cakes (I hope) in the brick and clay oven the children and I have built together (with a little help from Kapil and Ramkumar, who are the school care-takers).
It's been pretty exhausting, though more from a mental than physical point of view – trying to manage 20 or so kids and make sure they don't hurt themselves or eachother, and are as much as possible engaged in some activity that will develop them as human beings. The 'teacher as pupil' theme of my experiences here has been continuing in fine fashion – I set the children the task to make string bags to keep the footballs in. they set about the task and after about half an hour I couldn't see where they were going with their idea and borrowed a few kids to help me make my design as an exemplary example (as if an example could be anything other than exemplary!) for the others to learn from.
My method would have worked fine – if I'd had a small army of malnourished child labourers and an unlimited supply of string. Of course about half-way through my abortive attempt one of the groups of children I'd written off announced they'd finished, and that their bag held 9 footballs, as opposed to the requested 8. Children 1 George 0.
Hopefully they'll be well impressed with my perfect chocolate sponge cake tomorrow. If it turns into a burnt cocoay mess, my teaching credentials will have taken something of a buffeting I'm sure…but you lives and learns…and I've always the boy who'd never bowled with a straight arm to keep me inspired.
Huge love to all. Enjoy the Poems…
xxx
Mars and the solstice…
After dancing myself into ecstasy
I was a little bit cheeky
And ate most of a big bag of Mars Planets
All at once…and claimed I was celebrating
In truth there was no reason to feel guilt
For enjoying such a pooja
And certainly there are bigger questions
That beg an answer
Like how do they fit even one Mars Planet into a bag?
You'd think it would have to be a pretty big bag
But this one's about the size of my hand
And I was always told that Mars was the red planet
Well these Mars Planets seem to be dark brown
And made of chocolate
Which of course would be quite appropriate
If the moon really were made from cheese…
This leads me to a new hypothesis of the universe
Which is quite in keeping with ancient myth and lore
Both Indian and ancient Germanic cultures
Held the cow as an object of highest reverence
This would make perfect sense if my new hypothesis is true
If, as I now assert, the galactic bodies are in fact
All formed from various Dairy based compounds
Such as cheese, chocolate, milk etc
Then worshipping the cow would be a logical step
For any pre-google human civilization
If we examine the evidence more closely
It becomes reassuringly obvious that
My ground breaking theory has some mileage
(Some being more than 1 remember)
We have the milky way, and that's a whole galaxy
Then there's the rings of Saturn
Which in actuality were formed when god
First became sophisticated and decided
To try out having cream in his morning coffee
You see on the 7th day god rested
And after a lie in he got up feeling a bit stiff
But otherwise pretty satisfied with himself
He had after all just realised the entirety of creation
In the same time it takes for a wife to pretend
She feels like having sex with her husband again
So anyway, God thought he'd treat himself
As reward for all the hard graft he'd put in
And decided to try a dash of cream in his espresso
He didn't want to go overboard
So he plopped in a single drop and waited to see what happened
At first nothing much, it just looked like
Someone couldn't quite decide if they'd
Badly poured a pint of Guinness
Or just miscarried a still-birth
Whose DNA was decidedly lactoid
But then God had the brain wave to stir
And lo and behold, from the vortex that followed
The rings of Saturn were born
Now I'd hate you to get the idea
That I spent so long describing in detail
The above episode because I'm lacking
Further examples with which to furnish my theory
No siree bob, not one bit
I was simply demonstrating how factual
And evidentially watertight my arguments are
In fact, my methodology is has proved quite inspirational
To all the climate change scientists who get paid
To scare us into surrendering our humanity
In the name of saving humanity
The Van Allen asteroid belt was created when
God opened a yogurt pot whose sealed lid
Was too well stuck down
You can picture it, it must have happened to you
You pull and you pull and you pull
And then it suddenly gives
And covers you with splattering of yogurt globs
That leave you looking like whore with a new pearl necklace
Well I don't want to demean god by suggesting
He partakes in such matriarchally demeaning fornication
I mean he might, for all we know
He is omnipotent after all, so he could probably come up
With a good excuse…if you'll excuse the pun
Running with this train of thought for a second…
It's conceivable that he might even be a she
And maybe she earns some extra pocket money
To spend on her days off from creating life as we know it
By letting Demi-gods or frustrated angles
Shoot their celestial fluid all over her neck and breasts
Of course we're just toying with possibilities here
I'm not seeking to tempt a thunderbolt
By claiming that any of the above heavenly-carnal allegations
Are in any way true…but it does give
A tantalising new angle on one of the theories of how
Life came to exist on our small water covered little rock
The theory is called pan-spermia
And it contends that way back in the eons of time
(Before E-On began paying European governments
to assert that such a thing as 'clean coal technology' existed)
Our planet was a big ball of water and rock
And steam and melted rock
Then an icy comet, which happened to have
Some friendly bacteria trapped in its ice
Crash landed on earth
The bacteria liked the conditions on earth
To pass the time they began to read Darwin and Richard Dawkins
And about a billion years later…here we are
Now here's where my Dairy-universe theory
Really starts to sow the cat among the pigeons
(by the way, if anyone knows where I can purchase
some seeds that will grow cats, I'd be grateful)
If god really is blowing his wad at his leisure
And indeed his liquid emanance is dairy in its nature
It stands to reason that every now and then
His mopping up might not be so efficient
And that one or two globs of godly jism
Might escape out into the totality of creation
Where upon they might crash land on a planet
And spawn life as we know it
This revolutionary new understanding
Is truly the bridge for the gap between
Creationists and Dawkinists
Though it is admittedly a bit of a black eye
For those who cleave to intelligent design
Afterall, it's not particularly likely
That god intended for his man milk
To permeate the universe willy nilly
Especially since he was proably aiming
At some goddess's mouth or eyes at the time of release
Still…the big man is omnipotent
So I guess anything's possible
Especially since this new way of viewing
Heavenly discharge brings a whole new meaning
To 'not crying over split milk'
It now seems we should be positively rejoicing
Since we might not be here were it not for such
Clumsy
To surmise our learning to date…
I have been propounding a new theory of life
Mars is a planet made of chocolate
Filled alternately with nougat
Crunchy biscuit or caramel
The moon is cheese…most likely Edam
If colour is any kind of indicator of type
The sea of tranquillity is probably
Some kind of alien fondue party
We humans never got invited to
Due to our propensity for drunkenness and lechery
Comets are droplets of God's jizz
That from time to time seed life on suitable planets
Saturn's rings are the cream in god's coffee cup
And the asteroid belt is the end result
Of a holy yogurt opening debacle
As you can see, the evidence in support
Of my theory of life as we know it is
As detailed and irrefutable as it is sizeable
So for some, I am Einstein and Jesus
All rolled into one…or I'm just a deeply sick man
Indulging the shocking fruits of a particularly warped sugar rush
The decision of what to believe, as ever, is yours.
A solstice fire…
In honour of the natural order of love
I danced by the light of a fire
In honour of the nurturing grace of the dark
I pressed my heart to the earth
In honour of the light the solstice signals
I let life's stillness fill my soul
And when love's peace had all descended
And time had become breath
I danced, danced, danced, danced and danced
Letting my elements with the spark of life unite
Until there was nothing left but love
Dancing to honour the solstice
By brilliant fire light
I journeyed once
I journeyed once to a far off place
Where the sun shone dark and cold
And every being of every race
Did just what they were told
I came to the banks of a still stream
And asked the river how it went
It said to flow was but a dream
For its motion all was spent
I asked a child to tell me why
The people lived not for themselves
She just pointed up on high
And went on stacking shelves
I looked up to know the reason
What could be so all coercive
The clouds became a brand
And marked me as subversive
Swiftly the men in white coats
Came and thrust me in a van
And told me I was being charged
With trying to be a man
I journeyed from their place
And woman's form I took
That I might know the fate of one
Who catches every look
I came upon a rune
And begged its mystery reveal
It replied by nature and by nurture
By study and by feel
I pondered long upon the rune
For aught teaching it might bring
Perhaps to heal this hellish place
And let the children sing
I wandered deeper into the land
Seeking out the truth
I asked the tree why it cried
It promised to show me proof
I climbed high into its branches
And there found the rune reversed
So knew the desolation's cause
Was that the land was cursed
I took up the rune, held it high
And called aloud its name
I merged myself with the tree
And flipped the curse's frame
At once the birdsong rose
In a luscious clamorous lilt
As the edifice of darkness
Crumbled swift as it was built
I thanked the trees, thanked the runes
Thanked the rivers and the Wights
I thanked the music, thanked the rhymes
And thanked Love for all its gifts
And then the call came loud
Urging homeward my return
Then I awoke in rapture state
And knew in partnership we learn
So these final lines are thanks
To all beings who counsel true
I hereby offer my self to love
As vessel of partnership for you
For together we emerge
The meaning and the rune
And then as three in one we sing
Love's sonorous new tune
In self surrender
Love make of me a still pool
In which your truth is reflected
Let not the stones of ignorance
Nor its consequent ripples of passion
Cloud the image of you
I offer in devotion to the world
Love make of me a crude clod
And grant I pray that each moment
You will shower me with your grace
Refining and sculpting me daily
Until I am become thy true image
Ready for thy breath of life to animate
Love make of me a keen blade
Forged of thy peerless truth
Honed with thy compassion
That I may pierce the heart of hate
And with its rank blood compose
Sonnets of transmuting joy
Love make of me an empty vessel
That by my yearning to be filled
I may learn of the plenitude
Found alone in thy pure substance
Then Love fill me when you will
That I may overflow to nourish life
Love make of me an endless sea
Be thou my currents and my waves
And the life with which I teem
Ignite my purpose, my flow
And by Tara's great effulgence
Guide me home Oh Love
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