Modern humans spend a lot more time dwelling on the past rather than contemplating the future. This is reflected in the words we use (as are most things). Times are changing and, with Earth in crisis, we are needing to imagine our futures ~ preferably, good ones.
With so many things re-quiring a very new approach (at least in living memory), I am beginning to dislike the prefix RE.
re-wire, re-covery, re-weave, re-wild, re-store – ‘re’ as in to go back. Latin re- again, go back, Latin possibly from PIE ~ wret.
We need to look forward into newness that’s just. And that needs to be reflected in our language.
Instead, I propose a whole new suite of words beginning with ‘for’ Old English prefix usually meaning “away, opposite, completely,” but from PIE ‘per’ forward, hence. Per has been adopted in English to mean in front of (as in perform), so I suggest we for-quire FOR as in forward, a well-used term from forth – out and away from a starting point. It is forsilience.
for-wire, for-cover, for-weave, for-wild, for-store… and not least, to foreducate…
El amor y la ecología como fuerza integradora para el bien y como resistencia contra la mercantilización de la naturaleza y los daños planetarios.”
“Fluminism. Love and ecology as an integrative force for good, and as resistance to the commodification of nature and planetary harms.”
I have some exciting news. My treatise and narrative on Fluminism is to be published in Spanish as a 100 page book. Better still, it has been a collaboration of love, kindness and generosity.
The great ecopoet and moral philosopher, Professor Jorge Riechmann, along with his dedicated community of students in Madrid, have translated it from English to Spanish. It will be published by Ediciones del Genal (the Genal is a beautiful river in the province of Málaga). Also, my photo will feature on the cover.
I am very honoured. My sincere gratitude to all involved, especially Jorge! The book will be available to purchase. And an online PDF will be available to download… free!
Release date coming soon.
~~~
Tengo noticias emocionantes. Mi tratado y narrativa sobre el Fluminismo se publicará en español como un libro de 100 páginas. Mejor aún, ha sido una colaboración de amor, bondad y generosidad.
El gran ecopoeta y filósofo moral, Profesor Jorge Riechmann, y su dedicada comunidad de estudiantes en Madrid, lo han traducido del inglés al español. Será publicado por Ediciones del Genal (el Genal es un hermoso río en la provincia de Málaga). Además, mi foto aparecerá en la portada.
Me siento muy honrada. ¡Mi más sincera gratitud a todos los involucrados, especialmente a Jorge! El libro estará disponible para su compra. Y un PDF en línea estará disponible para descargar… ¡Gratis!
Fecha de lanzamiento que se anunciará próximamente.
Credit: Paula Bronstein Click on image to find out more.
Biosemiotics is an increasingly important study for our westernised species Homo hubris. Observant of signs between living beings, it is a process and, therefore, relevant to the ecophilosophy of Fluminism.
“Relationships are strengthened via language in multiple forms, indeed a world of biosemiotics exists between all living beings (Wheeler, W), experience and even memory.” Introducing Fluminism (Battson, G).
“Biosemiotics is dedicated to building a bridge between biology, philosophy, linguistics, and the communication sciences.” Springer Editorial.
Increasingly, in a volatile and rapidly changing climate, there is a need to draw attention to the signs emanating from ‘above’ – the climatic symbols of change (sometimes violent). The messages from the ‘gods’.
Picture the smashed car windows from hail, or the coal tip on fire from lightning strikes, the flattening of buildings from violent tornados, man-made reservoirs empty of water, lorries blown over in the wind, wet markets sealed-up with notices and people wearing masks every day of their lives, car factories submerged in stormwater, planes in crosswind landings in lashing rain, failed intensive monocultures subject to drought.
Gathering storms or searing hot sun rays are portentous. The resulting damage, a sign or symbol. Caelosemiotics.
Caelo ~ latin ~ the heavens, weather, climate, sky.
Semiotics ~ Coined by John Locke from Ancient Greek σημειωτικός for portending, that which is ominous, a calamity to come ~ the study of signs and symbols and their use or interpretation.
Caelosemiotics ~ SIGNS of climatic havoc, warnings to all (homosapien and teresapien).
Hidden farm dump next to the River Wye at Glasbury, nr Hay-on-Wye
I have been looking at the word social in relation to symbiosis/fluminism. ‘Sociability’ in teresapien life is studied by biologists. But its daily use relates to human sociability, sociology, etc.
The ‘ecosocial’ is already in use, but again this is largely interpreted as human-centric with a bias towards external ‘environment.’ For instance, in ecosocial ‘design.’
When we charge subjects or objects, even acts, as being anti-social, there is a shaming element. Shaming is important in moral evolution ~ a moral rejection of the ‘wrong’.
So I’m going to use the word anti-symial (anti-symbiotic), to introduce the same effect for all life.
Anti-flumial is to specifically block the flows of life. Anti-symial is the disgrace of it all.
The brutal scars of industrial prowess upon our atmosphere (above Hay-on_Wye), therefore, all life. Photo by me.
Look up in a clear blue sky on any given day and you’ll most likely see at least one vapour trail, if not many. It depends on where you are in relation to global aviation flight corridors. From satellites, they are often seen to scar up so badly it’s as if giant whips have been unleashed : The Whipped Peters of Planet Earth.
Planes don’t simply contribute to the climate emergency by direct CO2 emissions from burning fuel, although that contributes around 2.4% of all global emissions. They also create clouds, which the scientists call Contrail Cirrus RF (Radiative Forcing). Although temporary, they trap warm air below, therefore contributing to the green house effect.
Jet engine exhaust is made up of CO2, oxides of sulfur and nitrogen, soot, metal particles, water vapor, and even unburned fuel. Soot metal and other particulates already in the atmosphere provide condensation opportunities for the water vapour to form ice crystals and, therefore with the right conditions, visible trails. All we see in a blue sky with the ‘naked eye’ are the two strips of white clouds from the water vapour turning to ice after escaping from the main jet engines.
The extent to which the warming is happening is very uncertain, and not obvious in the machinations of the IPCC process.. Any albido effect is low because these manmade species* of cloud are fairly thin. The problem is an aggregate accumulation; just how many are there at any one moment on a global scale. And NASA has been warning since at least 2004.
Rates of growth of these clouds are also on the up, by the signficant increase in global flights. Yet airport expansion plans over the next decades are presented in glorious style, such as the one locally to me here in Cardiff.
Vapour Trails scarring the Moon. Photo by me.
Perhaps there is an immediate case to divert flights at altitude away from fire-prone zones, at least in the short term, especially in the so-called Winter season.
More: there is growing concern, plus a call for regulation, of rocket launch pollution, the effects upon the stratosphere where pollution stays for a very long time are also largely unquantified.
One day, our surviving descendents will wonder what injecting CO2 directly into the atmosphere, for the sake of human engineering prowess, war and overstated claims of liberty and adventure, must have actually looked like.
Perhaps, we should document our Whipped Peter skies to contribute towards understanding. Perhaps, @ClimateMuseumUK may be interested in such a project.
Put simply (over-simply), it is ice-crystal clear, we do not fully understand what we are doing. All life is subject to a giant experiment with no ‘scientific control’ and with no Planet B. The signs are there – look up. You’ll see the welts of a continuing enslavement of the biosphere.
Perhaps, also, a caution for the geoengineers among us ~ in the Symbiocene, there will be no direct human-made clouds. Neither will there, of course, be slavery!
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*Clouds made by planes and other human activities, largely from industrial, nuclear and spacecraft and satellite launch activity, are called homogenitus clouds. They can transform over time into other species of clouds and this process is called homomutatis.
Once they appear as other clouds, they are difficult to distinguish from non-manmade cloud. And so the idea of accuracy in prediction climate models seems ever more uncertain.
Lemn Sissay speaks at the Cambridge Union. Photo by me.
At the top of a wide staircase, under the light of a golden chandelier, I met an elderly man with depth to his eyes, leaning on a stick. We smiled, and began to speak of love and nature ~ that sponteneity, with a stranger. It’s rare. And memorable.
A few moments before, we shared an audience downstairs in the Cambridge Union; the talk by Lemn Sissay at the Cambridge Literature Festival. I have written before about his book, My Name is Why. Now, we were at the back of a long booksigning queue.
I didn’t learn his name, but the man’s voice held a gentle tone and lilt. I recognised it from Questions. Holding the mic close, he’d said his question may not make a lot of sense. Either way, it inspired me to write.
On the nature of love, love is good in acts of compassion, and more ~ forgiveness. Lemn had found forgiveness for the foster mother who rejected him at the tender age of twelve. It demonstrates an unconditionality to any love he has/had for her, an understanding that she too was damaged, and a wound going some way to being healed.
Some background: Lemn describes the institution of ‘Care’ in Britain as The Authority. The question was, if the foster mother could be forgiven, and the rest of the family, shouldn’t The Authority be forgiven too? Under those bright chandeliers in the cradle of Western free speech, where Presidents and Prime Ministers have communed before, the old man pointed out that any Authority was made up of people; in this case, people who were supposed to be in loco parentis. Could he forgive them? The answer, he suggested, may be useful for whatever comes next for Lemn.
The question was poignant, difficult. And I suddenly felt like an intruder. I’ve not written much about forgiveness, but its integral to unconditionality.
The Authority was entrusted to care for a human being, trusted by a young Ethiopian visitor to this land, Lemn’s birth mother, Yemarshet. It was to make sure he was safe and loved, care being upsized to in loco parentis. Fostering was only intended to be until such time this young woman, alone and far from home, could finish her studies and return with her son safely to Ethiopia. But The Authority failed them both. Trust was shattered. More, it behaved with a inexplicable callousness. It re-named Lemn, covered up the trail, and deliberately lost him from his mother’s sight.
I contend love as a verb is good by way of consequence. Love reveals itself in good, beyond one person’s mind, in public. Love is a psychological exchange, like the hyphae, the lover and the loved. Love constitutes more than an isolated thought. It’s a mutual relationship.
In Lemn’s case, there seems to have been no love on either side in terms of The Authority. It would, therefore, not be a weakness to admit any failure to forgive.
We must ask The Authority, instead, why its response to a young boy carved away from his birth and foster families for any ‘normal’ resistance to the emotionally violent events endured during his teenage life, resulted in even more opression. He was not loved. The Authority must have seemed like an impossible edifice, channelled through a string of social workers, with no continuity, no compassionate hugs, and exposure to so much abuse.
The Authority files of his life were surrendered in 2015 after a considerable fight. Contained on the pages, a story unfolds in a mix of truths from strangers and lies from his closest. Truths typed of talents. Lies typed of character. What a maelstrom of emotion it must have unleashed to read the reports. Lemn has since taken The Authority to court, winning costs and damages. Care, as it turns out, was a carelessness, so less that it was more; a dehumanisation. Given that ‘The Authority’ as Lemn describes, depends on a “sleeping prejudice of assumptions,” it is there that attention must lie in the detail of communication, not just with carers but with individuality of the cared-for (see ‘Ethic of Care’ below).
But the elderly man, with the gentle tone, was right. The lawyers were not dealing with an edifice, but a number of people who no doubt swore individual affidavits for the case. Had any of them shown an ounce of love in the years preceding, perhaps the case would never have been brought.
Something bigger has emerged from the pain of one man’s past. For whatever reason Lemn felt compelled to publish this story, it offers us the best reasons to change everything. It’s as if a body was found and taken away ~ love. In its place, a line has been drawn around where love should be, and in perfect detail. And it is love to search our souls about this fundamental component of the social contract in society.
We surrender certain freedoms in favour of the legitimacy of the State. The State is then charged to care for us. If it cannot even uphold the basic levels of care for a baby, child or teenager in the deepest folds of its cloak, then it doesn’t deserve our subservience. If it cannot care for any vulnerable person or living being, then it has simply failed.
I think we live in a failed State.
More, if the baby comes from another region, another biome, another race, for instance, and grows up to feel ‘othered’ and aching for cultural roots and a language lost, then it’s a type of colonialism on top. This is one of many obvious rips in the fabric of post-colonialism. Awareness gives rise to insight and, hopefully, prevention of repeated injustices.
And then it was my turn with the mic.
“On love and nature…”
“Oooh, love and nature,” came the reply.
“Can we trust love?”
In my work, I contend love is life itself, the connecting, irreplaceable relational symbiosis between all living things that moves towards a flourishing ~ The Good Life. I write this even today after a week bearing witness to the opposite, in the hate-filled election of liars, racists and climate criminals.
Lemn likened bringing his childhood experience into new relationships as if carrying a dead bear over his shoulder, and how weighty that could be, exposing and ‘different’. It would take him to find love for himself before he could trust love in anyone else. And he told me he has.
Ethics of Care
In all aspects of society, as a complexity of relationships, the ‘Ethics of Care’ approach (Gilligan) facilitates case by case solutions bringing compassion/empathy to the equation each time rather than a universal carte blanche policy. It’s especially loving with regard to individuals involved (human and non-human), andtheir interdependencies, vulnerabilities and relations between all the living beings, sapien and teresapien.
It’s clear, after this last election, we simply cannot treat species, fauna or flora, nor each other, with such utter contempt as to deliberately cause suffering. And we cannot continue to allow the State to do so, by reflection.
As in most things, there is a range-boundedness of each complex problem, but all are ultimately connected in flows. This is a way of ‘seeing’ and ‘being’. I want to relate all to a new structural love in society ranging from ‘care’ and education, health, food growing, food giving, shelter, planning, energy, justice and equality, to economics and, critically, animal and teresapien welfare (their welfare also being ours in our shared biospheric system). I contend ecoliteracy as a pedagogy is already form of structural love. So too is trauma informed justice. Creating climate refugias and building ecological social housing are additional acts of love. And there’s boundless room for more.
I am not talking about the role of Religions, Charities or The Big Society, although they will surely play a part. And random acts of kindness at all scales will enrich. This is a full, cultural secular acceptance of love as a verb into our daily lives ~ top down, bottom up and everything in between.
For too long, Hollywoodish, Mills and Booning and Cosmopolitantric commodified versions of romantic and sexualised intimacy have dominated Western culture. It’s beyond time to correct it. Lemn’s pain, and the pain or suffering of so many living beings, should never happen. His is a modern-day fairy tale in the original style of Grimm, but true, bringing the whole ethic of our civilised society into a stark, cold light.
Assert love, akin to symbiosis, as capable of being nothing short of anatomic, not least in Fluminism. But also in other ways. Begin in the care of our most vulnerable. Re-structure support for the poor, the homeless, the lonely and the ill. This world, the biosphere, deserves it.
Like flesh around bones, we can grow muscle around structured processes which demonstratively centre an ethic of care in any social contract ~ love; the word used by those less afraid, not least under the light of golden chandeliers, in an historic arena of political debate and free speech.
Art by NATASHA ZETA, Cracked Perspective (butterfly piece). Please click on the image for more information about this artist and her work.
~~~
Seven years, they say, of bad luck. This UK Election was a mirror, a moment for deep change. And today, it feels like the mirror cracked.
This is precious time; this seven years ahead. This will be time for a very structured organisation, meticulous and detailed (the genius being in the detail) investment in time to slow the worst effects of inequity, racism, climate volatility and ecological depauperation. We can prepare now, away from the political bubble of The City and Westminster and the BBC and the billionaire press, amongst ourselves. No-one can stop us. Protest the press. Educate widely. This is our Ardean moment.
Seven years (five with Johnson, another two to heal some wounds). Time to look deeper into those cracks, and act to counter the ignorance, privilege and selfishness. Conjure and share the ideas and stories. Articulate the imagination, and aim high for those goals of a Good Life. Good will attract good. Shake-up the foundations of an ill-education, an ill-economy and an ill-wit.
Bring down the borders, at least of hearts and minds, with a strong arm and a smile. Be angry, with love.
It’s beyond time to structure love into the fabric of our daily lives, in personal and in public, and to re-draft the social constructs and contracts to make them beyond reproach. Structure them. Make them steel. Love can be steely, and uncompromising. It’s usually the best.
I will write about this more, and soon. I call it, for now, #StructuralLove.
Life-force conjoins and bifurcates in three dimensions. Maybe four. This glistening, spinning spherical delta of life flows to a huge ocean we call the biosphere. But it’s dying, a tidal death-surge, in ways that have not been experienced by any living being for some 55.5 million years. And it is happening now. It’s rippling through all living beings, sapien and teresapien life, and most are on the move to escape, no matter how quick or how slow.
We are nature and nature is us. Remember this. The climate of political upheaval correlates with the unrest we feel of the Earth; the volatility is the same energy; the same culture of power over others. So even it.
The movements of wind, drought, rain follow the desperation, and desperation will follow. So, in community, like the hyphae, we can be more than the sum of ourselves, to reverse this, like a tide. Be that tide.
Love is the life-flow when it leads to flourishing beings, symlings among symlings, in all their majesty and in all their exquisite relational semiotics and song, unineterrupted. See the flow, pure, as innoculation and salve to symling life. Be defiant.
Listen to and feel it. Touch and taste it.
It is in the dying where suffering exists, not death. An ecological death even gives rise to Life. Just as Extinction gives rise to eons of new Life. Like death, it is not Extinction that is pain. Those that are dead do not feel pain. It is the process of Extinction, and all that it does to Life, which we see before us right now, and the inconsolable grief of the hacking and sawing of life-flows leading to Extinction ~ racism, poverty, trauma (TRAUMA), pollution, soil-sealing, fragmentation and utter abject cruelty.
And the loneliness. Please, don’t be lonely. To be singular is to be empty, more, dying. Join, like the delta to the river, and to the ocean…
And sing the needlessness of it all, because we are conscious beings, able to choose. Others have treatised, through war, that much power. Instead,let go a little of that much power, And channel the processes of life and the forces of renewal leading to Life.
These are some of the processes that, flowing well, do err towards Life not Extinction. We’d do well to remember them in our daily lives, perhaps the greatest moments of human potential, and to silence the evolution of hate. Because hate it is.
Brazen liars, cheats, racists and climate criminals may have their time now. And their media ilk. They are the ones who privatise their Rights over stolen places and sapien and teresapien life. But history will judge them, and severely. Through neglect and spite, they have pinned their blue/white-skinned flag on the end goal of Extinction. We’ll not be judged the same way. Please don’t bear their responsibility. Please don’t accept their ignorance. Our flag is Life itself.
Simply keep the flow of life-love flowing.
Basic introduction to the four main ecological processes. There are countless others. Please look them up, read, remember and facilitate them to their utmost, as #Fluminists. Process is also about communication. Please tell others. #Ecoliteracy
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