Group Apathy?

At this current moment in time, in a couple of areas that affect my life, some more than others there is a distinct sense of apathy or perceived apathy. People are getting stressed about inaction or are already assuming there will be inaction so are not bothering, if people stop thinking things will be thus & start being proactive surely it should help chivvy people along rather than just assuming that people will not be willing & then not bothering to do anything about it, thus creating a self fulfilling prophecy. I have become an employee forum rep for the company I work for & it does appear that there is a sense that it is impotent so people think why bother, no one is going to listen to you if you don't say anything, so speak up & people may want to listen. this applies to other areas of my life too, but people taking this attitude is surely self defeating. If women, gay people & black people had such an apathy in trying to get their rights then they wouldn't have got them. Nothing is achieved by saying why bother, don't assume people wont be interested, don't assume things won't get done & maybe, just maybe you will be proved wrong.

Would the world be a better place without money?

With the world seeming to be going belly up financially at the moment it almost makes me feel that it would be better if we didn't have money & people just did skill & product exchange, no corrupt bankers screwing people over, no wars over financial gain & no imploding on a vast scale that could leave us all doomed. It could be argued that society would not have advanced so much without out it, but have we advanced? We have nice things yes, society has expanded, we trade further afield & therefore communicate further afield, We experience different cultures more as we travel, though as to whether we treat them as positive or negative comes down to the individual. We still need law enforcement though, to keep people from doing wrong, we still get sick, we are living longer but half the time we are sticking our older generations into retirement homes to let someone else take care of them & shipping our children off to child minders or nurseries from an ever younger age so we are longer bonding with the older or younger generations like we used to, just so we can earn more money. I suppose it all comes down to status, people think that money is the key to that, are they wrong? Should money equal power? Are we failing our poor just so we can lord over them with our money, shouldn't we be helping all of society? Would having no such thing as money sort out these problems? Money is just a man made construct, if we reset the worlds finances as zero in all countries or cancelled all debt would the world end up in a better place because of it? Would making one pound equal to one euro, one dollar, one yen etc make the world a fairer place to live in, with people earning from their commodities but not then going from country to country for a better deal as their money is worth or in a different country? It is hard to tell but soon the world's economies could implode with the euro destabilising even further with the possibility that Greece may have to pull out & that Spain & Italy could also need bailing out, it could then be that Germany, the richest country in Europe could see it finances going down the toilet which could see the economic world come crashing down as Europe is one of the major powers in the economic market. I'm hoping things will turn out well in the end but until things either settle or go horribly wrong we will not know how best to tackle whatever financial situation is on a personal level. Hopefully if we keep paying our taxes that the government will try to see the country right (though not holding my breath)

2012 The Year of Dead Musicians?

It does seem to be the year of it doesn't it? not sure whether I'm noticing it more but there does seem to be some quite notable deaths this year & we aren't even half way through. Will this be the cursed year for musicians? Is it a dangerous year for them? Perhaps its the Mayan Calendar's fault, well what ever it is we have lost a lot of talent so far this year. Makes me wonder who is next. (fingers crossed for Celine Dion, on second thoughts scrap that otherwise we will be subjected to My Heart Will Go On over & over & over again & that is not something you would even wish on your worst enemy) Goodbye to:-
Herb Reed http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbQuYgPrM0k&ob=av2n
Robin Gibb http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yAkkpbm_8E
Donna Summer http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8TBmeK9Abg
Donald 'Duck' Dunn http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-7QSMyz5rg
Adam Yauch http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBShN8qT4lk
Tommy Marth http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FufL80hJsP8
Chris Etheridge not my taste but they ho http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BwPTYimAE7E
Earl Scruggs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_NUVf3Pysg&feature=fvst
Greg Ham http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeG-hNXXy6I
Barney McKenna http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46EXY4oP1Do
Davy Jones http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfuBREMXxts
Whitney Huston http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eH3giaIzONA&ob=av2n
Kay Davis http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnVHtelH1rE
Etta James http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsSS9VcMidA

There have also been a lot of opera singers & organists that seem to have died too but have to admit they are not in my repertoire. So if you are a musician take care. I hope not to have to add more onto this list.

I'm also writing this on the day of a none musical friend of the family's funeral goodbye Bob

Herbal Remedies for Hayfever

I'm no stranger to herbal remedies, I have used a fair few in my time to great effect, at the moment though I'm using eyebright for my hayfever & although it is doing its job it should come with a side effect warning that it may leave you with your eyes not adjusting automatically from sleeping to being awake, as I wake up with dilated pupils & everything looks a little blurry first thing, it does go after a short time, this is not written on the bottle & it is sold as a dietary supplement, though what its dietary values are I'm not entirely sure. I have tried giving local honey ago, but getting local honey is not easy & can be expensive, but again works, it puts the pollens in your system so you are less sensitive to them. Lavender is also good but is generally a good all rounder anyway, though I have run out of this. So when taking herbal remedies do look up its side effects, make sure that they are suitable for you, as some herbal preparations can trigger off health problems, negate the effects of medication, leave you sleepy or may not be suitable for use in pregnancy. I'm hoping to have a sneeze free year without feeling drunk on antihistamine or having to wash eye gack off my eyelashes just to open my eyes

The Meaning of Dreams

Do you have a dream dictionary? A dream journal? Does the interpretations from looking up even fit? I find when looking at dream dictionaries they seem ill fitting or even contradictory & a jumble that doesn't even make sense. i tend to try & put the rational sheen on it for instance this morning I had a dream that I was in a teddy bear shop that also had a soft play area in it, I met with an old school acquaintance of mine,  I was also with my partner & I kept losing both of them & all kinds of cakes & refreshments were being served there & all I wanted to do was buy a teddy bear. So this is how I have interpreted it, yesterday I saw a post from said school acquaintance about him taking his son to the cinema for his birthday, this is why he appeared in my dream, his son is only young so that wouldn't make it unheard of that he was in a teddy bear factory, my reason for being there I found out that I'm an 'uncle' again (the quotation marks will disappear when marriage happens), as my partner got a text at ridiculous o'clock in the morning saying that his sister had given birth. The cakes & refreshments I put down to the bake sale that the chaplaincy had to raise money for Christian Aid (which raised an impressive £157) & the soft play bit came from a post I saw on UK Pagan about a bouncy castle of Stonehenge. The reason I kept losing people is whilst most of these things were happening I missed out doing them or something else during yesterday. Logical maybe but when you them all together it makes sense, it is not a case of what is happening in the future but your brain processing things that have either happened or you need to do, but somewhere in your head everything jumbles up into one place, either that or it was that I ate too much cheese last night.

I think I've forgotten something

You know those nagging feelings you get, sometimes it is teamed up with the paranoia did I remember to do whatever it is usually lock the back door or switch the oven off, which when you are walking down the road & then all of a sudden do a U turn must make the people in my neighbourhood think I am nuts, which admittedly many people accuse me of even my nearest & dearest. At times it makes me think I am paranoid or OCD, but I have come to the realisation that it is neither, as the other day whilst setting out for work I got halfway up the road & thought I don't remember locking the back door or switching of the oven, I went back to check & low & behold I hadn't. Last night I thought I had left the oven on when I went to check it was off, but I new there was something I had missed, I hadn't closed the window downstairs. So other than my tending to get distracted & general mind on too many other things than what is in logical order I find that it is good survival instinct. But there are times when I do things as a course of habit & pay no attention to doing it. Most of the time I double back on myself I find that the house is all safe & secure & I beat myself up for not having the confidence in myself not to have forgotten anything. I also forget my shifts at work a lot generally because I'm taking all the things I have to do or need to ponder on from the day. I have tried writing down my shifts but most of the time my shifts change so that is about as much use as a chocolate teapot. I often find that I have to phone in to find out, they must get fed up of me doing it & I very much apologise for that. I just thank goodness that...... oh the irony I can't remember where I was going that statement, I will kick myself later, nope still not there. I shall leave it at that & post a reply if I remember where I'm going with it. Yours forgetfully Pagan Chaplain

Is gay marriage doomed before we even get it?

With the political dust settling, with few people voting, the Conservatives are being told to scrap some of their policies including gay marriage & concentrate on squeezing more money out of the poor to line rich peoples pockets, sorry I meant get us out of the recession, sorry that should be credit crunch to sound more like a cereal rather than the monetary sink hole we are in. I have one question, why? Gay marriages will provide income for people, so therefore will boost the economy. Plus they want to ditch the nasty party image so giving equality would also do that. There are very few bills put through parliament that don't get someone's back up somewhere along the line. At one point my view on the Tory/coalition government was softening a little because of this (when I say softening it went from stone to house brick level of softening). So why are they backing down? There are some senior members of the church who are anti us, not all of them but so far the ones that are getting most of the press attention are. But the church does not own marriage & it never used to in this country until the Reformation. Plus there are religious groups who are backing the bill. They could kill 2 birds with one stone though at this time of year the only game birds in season are pigeons & Canada geese. Please everyone support the bill for gay marriage we are so close, we can't lose it now. This Birmingham Pride instead of a vigil we (Birmingham LGBT Interfaith Network) are doing a support of gay marriage ceremony, please come along & show your support.