Who's gonna ride your wild horses?

Had a great evening with Davor the other night. Went to see an exhibition of Expressionist art that's on in Zagreb and the moment. And despite Davor's initial misgivings ("They're ugly!", he told me when I asked him if he wanted to go), the exhibition did not disappoint. Quite the opposite. Most of what we saw was far from ugly. Quite beautiful, allegorical and emotionally charged in fact. There were a few wood carvings of horses that I wouldn't mind having next to the Magritte, Kahlo and Chagall that I plan to buy when I hit the jackpot.

Horses, horses, God damn horses, hubby would say. He asked me a strange question the other day. Strange 'cause hubby doesn't care too much for my blogging, facebooking and all the rest of this internet mumbo-jumbo, as he puts it, that I've gotten into of late. Has yet to read one of my posts. Now don't get me wrong, he's a good man hubby is, but a bit on the serious side. I guess you'd have to be, to be a scientist. Likes the black and white, the tangible, the physical. So, his question put quite a smile on me face, almost made me laugh. "Why do you use a horse as your blog photo?", he asked. I wasn't quite sure how to answer. The simple answer is, I'm striving to be more like a horse. But it doesn't sound quite right when you say you wanna be a horse in Croatian. Calling someone a horse is a bit derogatory in these here parts. But really, that's exactly what I'm trying to do. Be more like a horse.

Like I've already mentioned several times during the course of writing this blog, I've really gotten into a book lately called "The Tao of Equus". Perhaps I'm just an wide-eyed, impressionable person, but this book has really changed the way I see life, death and everything in between. It has made me realise even more the importance of seeing with the heart, how the essential is invisible to the eyes. So I'll try to cull the main findings of the book. And try not to go on, as I am wont to do...

The first reason I wanna be a horse is that they're more in tune with nature, with their instincts, with their intuition. They have the power to discern the true nature of a person, despite the mask they may be wearing. I already told you the story of a lady called "Joy" in the book who, while talking about saving a doomed relationship, made the horse buck. Because despite the verbal message she was giving, the spiritual message her body was giving was something entirely different. I believe that we humans have this gift - why do we "buck" when we enter a room that is filled with negativity? Why do we feel empathy for others? But we need to develop this gift much, much further.

The second reason is that horses have two legs in this world and two legs in the "other" world. They are in tune to the universal memory, a memory that has existed from the beginning of time, a memory of our past lives and what is yet to come. We too have this gift but, again, it has been dulled since the onset of the mechanical age and we need to regain it. The only way I see us regaining this gift is to become closer to nature. She has all the answers we're looking for.

The third reason is that they are synonymous with all things feminine. Now, many fellas out there would tend to disagree with me. What can be more masculine than a powerful thoroughbred horse at full speed, they say? Or a bucking rodeo horse? But then, why are we chicks so drawn to horses? Why does my 6 year old daughter go completely and utterly nuts at the sight of a horse? Because it is mirroring many aspects that she as a chick has - intuition, empathy, strength, being in tune with nature.

I too loved horses as a kid, always wanted to have one. That unfortunately died down a bit upon the discovery of boys. But last May, I went to Vienna and completely on a whim, went to see the horses of the Spanish Riding School. While watching them, I was so awash with tears in my eyes that I could barely see them through the blur. I later realised that I was crying because I saw all that I had lost in losing my interest for horses. I had lost some of my innocence, some of my feminine traits, some of my strength and will power. I have since tried to regain these - through reading, through having a better relationship with Mother Nature, through interaction with others, even through writing this blog. Because in telling eachother our stories, we open our hearts and minds. And like the saying goes: Our mind (and I would say our heart!) is like a parachute. It works much better when it's open.

But enough of my going on. Although I like U2's "Who's gonna ride your wild horses?" well enough, I'll leave ya with my all-time favourite "horse" song, namely Patti Smith's "Horses". I've often wondered what it was really all about - teenage homosexuality coming of age? rape? suicide? murder? From what I found on the net (thanks for the tip Davor!), it seems that it's a bit of all of the above. The only quote I could find from the venerable Ms. Smith on the subject was "When I was talking about doing the pony maroney, I wasn't talking about dancing". I imagine so...

Do not scorn a weak cub. He may become the brutal tiger (Mongolian proverb).

Watched a fabulous film yesterday. Had been meaning to watch it for a while, but, as always, there just haven't been enough hours in the day. But two of the three kiddies went to grandma's place over the weekend so it wasn't quite the nuthouse it usually is around here. So last night I finally found a couple of hours to sit down, put my feet up, get knitting in hand and watch "Mongol".

Having grown up in Australia, I didn't study history that much. My ten year old son knows more history than I do. The only history I ever learnt about was through books I had chosen to read as opposed to being forced and at Uni as part of my music degree. Other than that, I learnt in primary school that Australia has existed since 1788 (???) and that it became a federation in 1901. Beyond that...nada!

So all I knew of Genghis Khan before I watched the movie, considering he wasn't a significant figure to the flourishing of music or a character in a Jane Austen or Bronte novel, was that he took over half the globe and was reverred for his warriorship, reviled for his tyranny. As such, the film was quite an eye opener in terms of the "man behind the myth". Because just like the rest of us, whether we're tyrants or matyrs, he too was a man of flesh and blood.

This may sound quite odd, but the thing that struck me most watching the film was that I felt that his life held a number of parallels with mine. No, I have no desire for world domination, far from it. A somewhat okay career singing in a couple of clubs or at a wedding or funeral or two, that's as far as my professional plans go. Rather, first of all, he too lost his father at quite a young age. His was poisoned when he was 9 (how poetic!), while I lost mine somewhat later at the age of 13 to cancer. And of course, just as it did him, it affected me terribly. I didn't want to avenge anyone for it, had no reason to. I just went a bit nutty and I am grateful everyday of my life for God and my mum for getting me through the ordeal as wound-free as possible.

But the parallel that I found most with Genghis Khan was the fact that he was bullied as a kid. Now, I don't know how many of you were bullied as kids but I can tell ya, up until Year 5, I was the most bullied kid in the class. There are a number of reasons behind this. First of all, I was a bit on the plump side and this was the foremost source of inspiration for being the butt of most of the class' jokes and pranks. One episode that comes to mind was being pushed off my chair in Year 4 by Shane Lodge (yes, you always remember your bully's name), being called a spastic and the teacher saying that I had brought it all on myself.

The second reason was because I had more consonants in my surname than vowels. In other words, I was a wog, as the Aussies colloquially call us immigrants. I was always Mary ummmmm. I don't want to even mention the names they concocted out of my surname. No one besides people of Croatian descent could ever pronounce my surname. In fact, many people that know me don't even know that my first name isn't really Mary: I was actually christened Marija. But my dad spared me at least a bit of ridicule by changing my name to Mary. Thanks Dad!

But the third, and in hindsight, primary reason that I was harrassed as a kid was the fact that I was a chick. Most of the bullying was done by the guys in the class, not the chicks. It seems to me that there are some men in the world that feel that just because we don't have a spare appendage, they can do what they will with us. But see, they forget one thing. They forget the power, strength and fortitude that we chicks posess - my mum always says that the human race would become extinct if men had to have babies. To be honest, I think these kind of men do realise just how much strength we have and feel more than a little threatened by it. Hence, the brutish behaviour. They feel that in being beastly to us they can tame our unbridled power, they can break us like a wild horse, put us in our place. Unfortunately for those men, many of us chicks invariably find even more strength in their denigrating us and attempts at breaking us. Look at Medusa. That Poseidon fella obviously thought that by violating her he would put her in her place. Unfortunately not. Or Mata Hari. Her first alcoholic husband beat her to a pulp and had a couple of chicks on the side but that only put the wind in her sails.

And that made me think about the ultimate chick, the head honcho, the capo di tutti capi - Mother Nature. How many men, both past and present, have violated, reviled, pillaged, scorned and bullied her? How many were threatened by her beauty, fortitude, strength and benevolence and as such, behaved brutishly towards her? Well, it seems to me that it's payback time. Just as the formerly beautiful Medusa transformed her locks to serpents after having being raped by Poseidon, so too will Mother Nature unleash her terror after having been raped time and time again by too many men to name. God only knows what serpents she will send forth to us all...

So yes, do not scorn a weak cub. He may become the brutal tiger...or tigress...

End of a civilisationist

I know that my friend Ross is gonna read the title of his post and his first reaction is gonna be "Hey! That's the title of my song! And was the title of my blog until 3 or so weeks ago! Why the hell is The Knitting Songbird using it for her blog?!?!" Just before I go into why, let me tell y'all that it's a bloody good song. You can listen to it here: http://www.myspace.com/rossmusician and can take a look at the lyrics here: http://rossmusician.blogspot.com/2008/04/end-of-civilisationist.html

Hope you don't mind me using your song Ross! But I've used it here 'cause, besides it being a bloody good song, it's got a lot to do with what I'm about to write about, sort of goes hand in hand with it you might say. We're at a crossroads in our civilisation and no amount of recycling premium A4 paper's gonna help us...so here's where the story begins...

As you may or may not know, hubby "officially" got his PhD diploma last week even though he's been a PhD for almost 2 years. He's been working at the Forestry Institute for a while now, just over 10 years, and has done a lotof research on many aspects of forestry but his specialty is soil and water science. He also recently became part of an EU task force working on climate change and its effects on various aspects of forestry.

Yesterday night, he came home a bit tipsier than usual, one beer too many you could say. When I asked him what was going on, he told me he has to write a chapter in a book to be published by some fancy publisher on climate change and it's a bit difficult for him. Not because it has to be done in English (although, it is a bit difficult for him to write in English sometimes!) but because of the data and information he has at hand. What frigging data? So he showed me a presentation he gave in Vienna a couple of weeks ago on the current situation regarding Croatian forests and climate change. And, I have to say, I couldn't sleep all night after having seen it.

There are sooo many things that the mainstream media, in Croatia in particular, has been keeping out of the news to make way for supposedly "important" stuff. Stuff like Wall Street, tourism income, the latest gadget, Brittney Spears and a plethora of other insignificant crap. Well, you can put Wall Street and the rest of them where the sun don't shine - Mother Nature has a more important message for us and we better bloody well sit up and listen.

Here are a few pretty scary facts that you don't see in the Croatian news:

• 2003 was the hottest year in history since 1500 (that's apparently when they started taking climactic measurements). Have a look at the table below table to get a better idea of where we're headed. Anyone who tells me that man has had no influence whatsoever on climate change can go to hell. Just have a look at where the temperature's gone since the industrial revolution...what temperature the mercury's gonna hit in future is anyone's guess:
  

• So the temperature's been going up - what about that thing that comes down, you know, rain? Here's a table to show you exactly what's been happening. Namely, Northern Europe's been swimming in it, while us Southerners have been praying for it:

• Okay, the temperature's have been going up, rain hasn't been coming down. But here's a true illustration of what climate change is all about. There were three consecutive years of drought in Croatia since the year 2000. Then there was a major flood the year after. Great, you may say, water, just what we need. But it ain't as great as it sounds. See, in terms of forests, the droughts wiped out a lot of oaks, a tree of major importance in Croatia, which made way for hornbeams as they need less water. Goody, at least there's something left, nothing as important as the oak, but something at least. Well, a year later a flood came and wiped out the hornbeams 'cause they like drier conditions. This is what some of the forests look like now:

And that's the thing - 'cause the climate's gone amuck, we can't really predict what's going to happen in future - is there going to be a drought? Is there going to be a flood? Seems there's more to climate change than CO2 and human influence, things like sunspots, tidal wave movement, meteorite activity Ivan explained. But the problem is he added, is that there's never been this much human influence at any point in history and that's why we don't know what the hell is going to happen, can't predict a bloody thing. But Ivan let me in on a secret in his drunken stupor last night, a secret that not many people know about, something that may give us a bit of a key as to what's gonna happen in future and we'll be able to, if nothing, predict things a bit more accurately. If there is a drought in Croatia in 2010, that means that man's influence outweighs nature's. If not, Mother Nature's mucking round with us as she well should.

My personal theory is that Mother Nature is giving us a message and her message is this - you reap what you sow, man, you reap what you sow. We have to pay for the pillaging, drilling, cutting, asphalting, dumping and all the rest of the crap that we've done to her. That's her frigging message, whether this climate change has more to do with her or us. Problem is, are we listening?

On a happy note, Ivan is quite optimistic about it all. Says that we should be able to adapt, Croatia at least. The population is going to go down 10 or percent in a few years. And apparently, despite the forest dieback I talked about above, there is 10% more forest land in Croatia than there was 15 years ago, due mainly to the war. Basically, people moved away from areas like Slavonia, the bread basket of Croatia, to major cities and as such, arable land has turned back into what it had always been - forests.

And now I'm gonna sign off. I'll leave ya with the folkmeister Pete Seeger and his universal song of peace and love, "Where have all the flowers gone?" Yes, when will we ever learn...