Mum died peacefully with her family around her this afternoon- this is for her- it describes her so well and it is she I have to thank for my rebelliousness, my bolshyness and my love of life

Warning - When I Am an Old Woman I Shall Wear Purple
When I am an old woman, I shall wear purple

with a red hat that doesn't go, and doesn't suit me.

And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves

and satin candles, and say we've no money for butter.

I shall sit down on the pavement when I am tired

and gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells

and run my stick along the public railings

and make up for the sobriety of my youth.

I shall go out in my slippers in the rain

and pick the flowers in other people's gardens

and learn to spit.



You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat

and eat three pounds of sausages at a go

or only bread and pickles for a week

and hoard pens and pencils and beer nuts and things in boxes.



But now we must have clothes that keep us dry

and pay our rent and not swear in the street

and set a good example for the children.

We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.

But maybe I ought to practice a little now?

So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised

When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.


By Jenny Joseph

Found this on the Skeptic Zone's Website - I couldn't put it better myself- so here it is.

Swine Flu Scam Alert

You might also want to visit the site- it is packed full of excellent interviews and podcasts.

While I'm at- I found this over on the site - a most excellent pamphlet indeed!

This blog- sparse as it has been for the past year anyway - will now proceed to get more sparse as I start reading for my upcoming training in child and adolescent psychotherapy with the Tavistock Clinic. I f eel like I am having to relearn a lot of things from when I first trained in psychiatry back in the 90s - but from a different angle- no more medical model for me- but I have been working against that since I first qualified. My only regret is that I didn't find psychoanalysis training ealier in my career as to do it full time now would mean a loss in pay for me :( mortgages and other expenses mean I cannot give up my job so I am doing the training part-time and all the stress and overwork that entails means of course that this blog and many other things will fall by the wayside.

However- I can also see this blog being an outlet for my thoughts on my training and the process of changing me from psychiatric to psychoanalytical thinking - so maybe it will just evolve.? we shall see.

Aedh wishes for the Cloths of Heaven


Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

W B Yeats


1.

Welcome to the 35th edition of the Humanist Symposium- please be gentle with me as this is my first time :) the allusion will become clear as you read on.

Now, I'm supposed to try and find a connection between the various submissions that will help people relate to them in some way.

I at first found this difficult due to the apparent disparate nature of the posts but as I read on I found myself thinking that the overall theme of this month's symposium could easily be stated as 'The extremes of human nature': many of the posts covering topics such as death and sex but also some posts which could loosely be placed under the heading of extreme thought or an investigation of human feelings.

Which left me in a quandary- do I place the posts under these self-imposed headings or do I let the reader find their own groupings?

I decided that as I had the opportunity for an audience I would give my own thoughts on the posts some airing as this little blog is unlikely ever to have such an audience again :)


So- on to the submissions - under the loose heading of:




'Life as we know it'

Comes a post from Daylight Atheism which reminds us that life often needs support in a more practical way and asking us to think about how we, as atheists might lend that support through charitable means while also urging us to ignore the attitude of the 'perpetually disgruntled' in accusing us of being 'holier than thou'. I know I searched for a long time to find a charitable organisation without ties to any religion to which I could donate with a clear conscience - they are out there and Daylight Atheism appears to have found a good one.

I believe we have only one life and we should live it to the full - blinding myself to nature by laying a human face or feelings onto natural processes removes for me the wonder inherent in this world.A Nadder has a thoughtful post that reminds us of the extremes of nature and the way that the human habit of anthropomorphising blinds us to the real glory and wonder that can be seen if we only care to look.

Now for that allusion- under the loose heading of:



'A variety of sexual experiences'

Comes a wonderful satirical post from Cafe Philos designed to make us think about the inherent bigotry in religious beliefs about sex and sexuality.

Hot on the heels of that is a post by Glowing Face Man about human sexuality and the way religious belief constrains and changes it from something to be enjoyed and celebrated into something 'dirty' and deniable. In my practice as a therapist for kids, I come butting up against this 'belief' every day- it is a belief that I wish could be removed from the consciousness of many of the adolescents I see- it is a belief that hurts and maims the personality of many a teenager and carries on throughout their lives into adulthood and parenthood- it is a belief that makes me sad for all those people who do not enjoy life as a result of it.

To top off the sexuality theme a post by The evolving mind writes about a study undertaken by Prof Michael King into the use of therapy to change sexual orientation. As a therapist myself I found this disturbing and intriguing and hope that the wealth of possibilites for future posts is explored by evolving mind.

And from life comes......



'Death as we know it' which is explored by Living with Mormonswho writes with obvious sadness about attending the funeral for a friend who was a Mormon and successfully extrapolates this out to religious funerals in general and urges us to celebrate the life of the person, rather than the religion under which they lived.

And finally we have:




Human Nature and Extremes of Thought, a very loose heading indeed but probably containing some of the most thought-provoking submissions:

The Philly Chief over at You Made Me Say It proposes an alternative response to the assertion by many religious and non-religious people that 'you were never a real.......'.

Which brings me to loss of faith / religion which is explored by a submission from grrlscientist over at Living the Scientific Life which has a very good review of a book by William Lobdell about losing his religion- I must say that as a British native I had no idea who this person is but the review made it clear and helped me decide whether to read it or not. The most thought-provoking piece of the review comes at the end when the question is asked - who do people turn to in a crisis of life or faith? Are we as atheists, agnostics or Humanists ready to help people at these times?

Now to be completely honest with ourselves, in a crisis many of us will turn to what could be called 'prayer'- I know I have in the past- I may not have called it prayer but the way I was brought up, as an English child absorbing the culture of my time, a culture that told me 'when in crisis pray', I found it a hard habit to break and one that we all need to be more honest and thoughtful about- the post submitted from Blag Hag does just that and is another post that I would urge warrants further exploration in future posts.

Bigotry and anti-atheism is highlighted by The Atheist Revolution in a post about college student, Zac Smith, who wrote in his local college paper about the bigotry experienced as an atheist.

Epsilon Clue submits a post that at first glance I thought should go under the 'sex' heading but on closer reading is talking about application of the scientific method to everyday occurences, thoughts and questions - not the least of which are 'morality and feelings'- which leads me on to the human feeling of 'unhappiness'.

I see so many unhappy and damaged people in my everyday clinical practice - children and teenagers that have really good reasons to be unhappy, so that when I hear someone say they are unhappy due to, what to me is a spurious and unworthy reason, I have a tendency to get on my soapbox -why do people these days think they have a 'right' to be happy? Raptitude.com proposes a new way of looking at the 'struggle for happiness' that made me rethink my stance on the matter. Well worth reading and I would also urge a few more posts about the subject with deeper exploration of the new 'script'.

Lastly we have a post that can't really be placed under any heading - apart maybe from one that says- 'read this cos it is weird' :




Coquetting Tarradiddles (yes that's right) not only has a wonderful blog name but also a wonderful post on the extremes of human belief related to science and shows us that in the end religion is not the only harbinger of doom and repository for weird and wonderful thinking.

I hope you enjoy the submissions as much as I did and think about submitting to the next symposium which will be held at Bloc Raisonneur on 3rd May. Submissions can be made using this form.

I shall be hosting the next Humanist Symposium from 12th April. There should be a good variety of posts for your reading pleasure :) I look forward to it

Just booked to see Tim Minchin in October - coolness!!!!!!

here is a taste



I just realised how long it is since I blogged anything - bit busy these days- studying and whatnot - may get better soon :)