We are the World Blogfest ... # 9 - Sound rather than Sight ...

The University of Victoria, Vancouver Island, British Columbia has a new course: The Anthropology of Sound - reading the article I noted that most of us do not use all our senses to their maximum ... 

Latin jazz clave percussion
sticks

... here in the article below Professor Alexandrine Boudreault-Fournier asks students to write down what they've seen since waking up ...= lots of things their eyes have absorbed ... 


... then what they've heard ... = few - traffic noise, chatter, bird song (perhaps) ...

Breughel (1618): Taste, Hearing and Touch

The article should be thought provoking for us, who are all enabled in most ways ... I know I don't utilise my faculties (perceptive and cognitive), as much as I, a human, am enabled to do ... please read:


Listen up: There's nothing like a sound education. 

Imagine feeling: The Dying Galation -
a 3rd century BC work of art

Damyanti in her WATWB post this month has highlighted Siddhant Shah, a Heritage Architect and Access Consultant, and his work with the visually impaired experiencing art ... another way of looking at how under-utilised we use our abilities ... 

Take some time out and smell the roses (not the right season in this hemisphere - I know!), stop and step aside to listen to the bird song, experience our food ... taste what's in each mouthful, look at our natural world and realise each part makes the whole of this bountiful earth, then that feel ... how often we reach out for a hug, a friendly touch ... unplug, relax and experience all the things we were born with ... 

Remember in our wonderful mind: all our senses ... and help all those not so enabled to experience them too ...

We Are The World - In Darkness, Be Light ... 

in our day to day life let us help others experience senses we take so much for granted ...

Hilary Melton-Butcher
Positive Letters Inspirational Stories

Different Life ... moved "a little" ...

I woz 'ere ....

... living in Eastbourne .... now

I hopped the Atlantic and some continent ...

usually known as North America ...

landed on the far west Prairie lands in Calgary ...

stayed overnight ... and then hopped on again to:



Vancouver Island .... I am now living here (for a while) ...

I am in clarification mode re settling in ... and will be back blogging as and when I can ... lots to sort out - I'm staying with Emily Hobhouse's great niece ... so will learn lots from Jenny in more ways than one ... and will pick up things about my own mother and her family ...





Saw this: 

Greenland ... all in the pink ...

then this ....

Calgary Airport - chilly, but could have been worse

Happy Anniversary to our Queen and Prince Philip on 70 years ... just longer than I've been around!

Camera in hand in the early days
of their marriage

Right I'm off ... tea needed ... but I'll be back and around as and when ... life is interesting!!

Looks like I didn't make that clear ... I'm here for at least 6 months ... ?!?!

Hilary Melton-Butcher
Positive Letters ... Inspirational Stories

Remembrance Day ...

It is now ninety-nine years since the end of World War One - but the echoes of lives lost, bodies injured, families torn apart still impact our lives today - as so they should ... 

I am going to quote from words written by Emily Hobhouse in 1923 pointing out the futility of war ... which I think are more pertinent today ... as we do not seem to have progressed very far ... 

‘It is astonishing that though so long a list of the world’s greatest thinkers in all periods have pronounced against war, yet (to this time) no statesmen has appeared capable of abolishing it as a means of settling disputes … 

Great therefore will be the statesman who takes his stand on Permanent Peace … He will teach the world that Peace is not a mere absence of war; that it is not a passive ‘do nothing’ existence … but rather an agreement to join together in work of mutual interests … 

In a word he will substitute Co-operation in place of Competition …’

‘Histories should be re-written showing how mistaken statesmen have invariably been in leading their countrymen into war, and how little is gained and at what enormous cost.  

The attention of youth should be fixed on the really great men of history – thinkers, poets, discoverers, scientists etc, who have laboured to advance civilization, not destroy …’

‘Only in South Africa is there a monument to the civilian dead, often the main sufferers in war.’

Emily Hobhouse 1923

(Permission granted to reproduce these words by Jennifer Hobhouse Balme – May 2016)

 

In our difficult present times … we need to

… remember others

… encourage our leaders to co-operate

… bring peace

… let us all live together in an harmonious world – global, region, country, area, town and parish – everyone supporting and encouraging each other … sharing and giving joy to the world.

May we be and remain at peace this Remembrance Day weekend … with all our fellow humans …

Hilary Melton-Butcher

Positive Letters Inspirational Stories

Bran Tub # 16: A seaside scene: a lollygagged, vibrissae pinniped …

These three words inspired me to write a short story … as our Autumn grabs hold … I have to say I prefer Spring time – but enjoy each season for its variety … but my tale:

Pinnipeds - various

The Pinniped was chill-axed flapping the occasional fin as the waves rocked him gently …

… he was resting his brain – one half shuts down, the other ‘works his bobbing in the waters’ … 

Not his father! but good vibrissae

... and lets him think about his father’s vibrissae and how he needed to become more skilled interpreting the vibrations he’d been told were in the water …

A lollygagging pinniped

… but for now he was a typical youngster lollygagging around enjoying the midday sun in the lustrous sea …

That is my tale of the whacked, whiskered marine mammal ...

Godrevy Beach in St Ives Bay

This was the beach we came to when the wind direction necessitated us to find a more sheltered spot for the family day out ... we played amongst the waters and off the rocks - glorious fun times.

I meant to mention Karen and her blog - where I'd come across Lollygagging ...
Write Now: the Value of "Pockets" of Time ... so belatedly added in - sorry Karen!

Hilary Melton-Butcher

Positive Letters Inspirational Stories