Three videos to show that there is far more to being 'human' than we normally think....perhaps inspiration for those of us doing National Novel Writing Month in 3 days time.

First, Stephen Wiltshire, an architectural artist who has been diagnosed with autism.

"In May 2005 Stephen produced his longest ever panoramic memory drawing of Tokyo on a 10-meter long canvas within seven days following a short helicopter ride over the city. Since then he has drawn Rome, Hong Kong, Frankfurt, Madrid, Dubai, Jerusalem and London on giant canvasses, and is in the process of drawing his last masterpiece of the series in late 2009. When Wiltshire took the helicopter ride over Rome, he drew it in such great detail that he drew the exact number of columns in the Pantheon." (wiki)

Funny montage of  a Brit group that call themselves the"Everything is OK" guys and "The Interstellar Anthropology Department - Humanity Wing". I like their style....




More about this group is here.

I imagine many of you in the US have already seen this. It actually made me feel a bit weepy.




I live in Ireland where healthcare is available for all, it is based on 'means' -- so if you earn a lot you have to pay a bit.

From wiki:

"All persons resident in Ireland are entitled to receive health care through the public health care system, which is managed by the Health Service Executive and funded by general taxation. A person may be required to pay a subsidised fee for certain health care received; this depends on income, age, illness or disability. All child health and maternity services are provided free of charge as is emergency care.

Everyone living in the country, and visitors to Ireland who hold a European Health Insurance Card, are entitled to free maintenance and treatment in public beds in Health Service Executive and voluntary hospitals. Outpatient services are also provided for free. However some people, mostly high-income earners, may have to pay subsidised hospital charges."

Now I will say that I think the US has some of the more advanced medical expertise in the world - particularly when it comes to unusual illnesses etc. But what use is this if you can't pay for it?

I have been lucky - I've lived in Ontario where, apart from dental work, health care is 100% free (well, no, income taxes pay for it) - three other provinces impose a fixed monthly premium but it's pretty low. And I've lived in the UK where even much dental work is covered by the NHS.

Germany has excellent health care, but unless you are on some kind of unemployment benefit etc, you pay a very high monthly fee - I've heard of up to 400 euros per month per person. If you are employed, this is paid for by your employer, but if you are a low-wage self-employed person, it's not a good situation. Well, I might have got it wrong, but this was my understanding when I lived there ( I was covered under UK health insurance). I was even told that if you could not pay for your medical costs -- your family would be tracked down to pay for it. 

Anyway, I was very touched by Michael Moore's passion.

I found this marvelous video on a fun site called TYWKIWDBI  -"Things You Wouldn't Know If We Didn't Blog Incessantly"

The video is about an unusual friendship between a dog and an elephant.


And.. because YouTube so kindly finds 'related' videos, here are a couple more ..  a cat adopting a baby rabbit:


Rat snake Ao-chan and dwarf hamster Gohan-chan ...

As a 'wordsmith' I thought this very clever .... (keep watching and you'll see why) & touching.



The video was created for the AARP U@50 video contest and placed second. It is based on the Argentinian Political Advertisement "The Truth" by RECREAR - below:

I'm sorry,  I couldn't resist this one. Bad language alert.

I loved this video....

The Buddha observed mind states after a physical or mental object enters the mind, describing them as "Thought Moments" ...

Recently I made a post in the Quotes about Writing room on Diving Deeper,  where I posted a couple of excerpts from a wonderful article "Why I Have to Write"
By Zen monk Zoketsu Norman Fischer.

I love this piece so much I thought I'd share it here.

The summary given of the article is: "Aren’t words and concepts the antithesis of enlightenment? In an essay published in the March 2007 issue of Shambhala Sun, Norman wonders why he is compelled to write, and concludes that all language is a form of prayer."

Norman Fischer was trying to see if there was a connection between meditation and writing - two activities he is deeply involved with. He writes:

"I remember Jackson MacLow, the great avant-garde poet, saying, "I am chary (I particularly remember his use of this word) about mentioning these two in the same breath. They exist in different worlds. Writing is effective and public; meditation is private." Something like that.

But, one could argue, MacLow's writing was utterly private. He worked with chance operations and cut-up words, so that there was no intention or conventional communication in his work. He was never trying to say or describe anything. Still, he published copiously. Why?"

But is writing so different? In Diving Deeper - in the online workshop here on Gaia and in the 'real life' workshops I give, I often say that the process is a kind of meditation - and that why I am so attracted to the particular process of Freefall, out of which most of my writing comes, is because of its similarities with spiritual approaches I have been involved with.

Norman discusses something a little different in his article - but it still feels deeply connected to how I feel about writing:

“…if you are a writer, you write. But here's the strange part: you write for the writing, you write alone and in silence, and you don't know if it does anyone any good-yet somehow you need a reader. This shouldn't be the case, but it is. Until there is a reader, some reader, any reader, the writing is incomplete. This is not true, for instance, with meditation practice or, say, with working out. You can run or bike or sit watching the breath without anyone ever witnessing it. It makes no difference whether someone witnesses or not. Because nothing comes of your running or sitting; there's nothing to share. But when you write you produce something that can be shared and somehow must be. You can't write without being read. This doesn't have to do with ambition or desire; it is built into the nature of writing..

….Years ago I went to the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem and did what all tourists there do: wrote some words on a scrap of paper that I tucked into a crevice in the wall. When I closed my eyes and touched my head to the warm stone, it came to me: “All language is prayer.” This must be so. Who is it we are speaking to when we speak to anyone? To that person, and also past him or her to Out There. If there is language, it means there is the possibility of being heard, being met, being loved. And reaching out to be heard, met, or loved is a holy act. Language is holy.”

What he says seems also connected to what we are doing here, on Gaia.

"..if there is language, it means there is the possibility of being heard, being met, and being loved."

 

 

 

 

On the flight from Toronto to Heathrow I read a funny article in the Telegraph by Richard Alleyne about the effect of voices on plant growth:

"Talking to plants really does help them grow, especially if the speaker is a woman, horticulturists have found.

In an experiment run over a month, they found that tomato plants grew up to two inches taller if they were serenaded by the dulcet tones of a female rather than a male.
 
The findings vindicate comments made by Prince Charles that he talks to his plants although they suggest that for maximum results he would be better off recruiting the Duchess of Cornwall.

Appropriately the most effective talk came from Sarah Darwin, whose great-great grandfather was legendary botanist Charles Darwin, one of the founding fathers of the RHS' Scientific Committee.

She read a read a passage from the On the Origin of Species and beat nine other 'voices'.

Her plant grew nearly two inches taller than the best performing male and half an inch higher than her nearest competitor.

Colin Crosbie, Garden Superintendent at RHS, said: "We predicted that the male voice would be more effective but it turned out that the ladies were far better than the gentlemen.

"We just don't why. It could be that they have a greater range of pitch and tone that affects the sound waves that hit the plant. Sound waves are an environmental effect just like rain or light."

The experiment began in April at RHS Garden Wisley in Surrey, with open auditions for the public to record excerpts from John Wyndham's The Day of the Triffids, Shakespeare's A Midsummer's Night Dream and Darwin's On the Origin of Species.

A variety of voices was then picked to play to 10 tomato plants over a month. Every plant was played a voice through headphones connected to the plant pot, and the conditions for all the plants remained the same throughout the experiment. To ensure the experiment was fair, two control plants were also left to grow in silence.

The results showed that women on average saw their plants rise by an inch on their male counterparts. Some men were so bad that their plants actually grew less than a plant that was left completely alone."

When I was in B.C. recently I found out about Lucy, an elephant who is totally isolated, in a cold climate zoo and not doing well physically.  A  group of writers (including Michael Ondaatje and Margaret Atwood) are trying to have Lucy moved to a better place.

Here is a link to a news article, published May 23.

On Zoocheck Canada there is a letter written by the writers to the Mayor of the City of Edmonton - it's really worth reading. There is a link on this page where you can email the Mayor.

As some of you know I have just participated in an extraordinary workshop led by Deena Metzger and heard some of her personal experiences with elephants in Africa and elsewhere -- she's written about them too, beautifully - given what I know from Deena I can't help feeling Lucy could do with all the support we can give her, even if it's to send our love to her.


Not an elephant, but another wonderful being, Frosty the Parrot. There are lots of 'dancing' parrots on YouTube but I think Frosty is the best one: