Category: goodnews editorial

Critical Mass

How many Swiss citizens does it take to change a light bulb? (As you may know, we recently shot down a law involving CO2 that should have helped us on the way out of our environmental misery.) Now I wonder: how many active citizens does it take for a society to change? Really only six percent? Is that how many of us need to jump on our bicycles, take to the streets, demonstrate, march, hold up banners and call for international solidarity until we can make our demands more concrete? How many people would have to agree among themselves? And could they? (If two conservatives meet, they are happy; if two lefties or greenies meet, neither is left or green enough for the other.) And even if they agreed, would they be capable of creating the consensus needed for change to happen? The climate is everyone’s headache. Coastal cities, mountain villages and arid areas are bracing themselves, African and Asian climate refugees are on the run. Homeowners are worried, storm follows storm, heat wave follows heat wave, fire follows fire, flood follows flood, landslide follows landslide, eruption follows eruption, earthquake follows earthquake and still there is no jolt going through our society. I go on vacation by train (flying is even more ineffective now) and try to keep my footprint small in other ways as well. I express my love of nature and of the environment in many ways, but it is not enough, even if hundreds of thousands of us behave this way. Change doesn’t just happen bottom up, it must also come from industry, from government, from businesses, from manufacturers and farms. Is the climate perhaps not sexy enough? How critical is the mass? Where and how can people be turned around? Where are the advertisers and public relationists who’ll give the fight for Mother Earth and against mass extinction a more winning image? One that creates in us an urgent desire to invest large sums of money in the environment and to earn money from this project. Repeat after me: My weather, my climate, my world!

Heatedly, yours
Susanne G. Seiler

A Vendor of Dreams
(After Ben Okri)

Vendor of Dreams
You are a recorder of rag-ridden destinies,
a pimp-impressario.
You sell us phantasies in cloud-packets.

Our favourite dreams are of incidents at
The shrine, masquing with masquerades,
Placating the jealous gods
After all, it is only Lactogen,
a quiet hallucinogen.

Night, and you must pay for the
murdered sleep of the world.
In your best nightmare
you unscrew your head
and hide it under your armpit,
to escape the wrath of creditors.
But you can’t keep away the flies.

Niran Okewole

Orthorexia nervosa

Besides anorexia and bulimia, a third eating disorder has been officially recognized, I recently read. You may well be familiar with it already. Orthorexia is about the obsession with healthy food, a relatively common disorder nowadays, though often unrecognized. Most of us would like to lead a healthy lifestyle. There is nothing wrong with that, although opinions differ widely on what that might entail. Some people cannot do without meat, fish and dairy, while others eat few or no animal products at all. I don’t need to explain to you what vegan means. In the past, people were obsessed with food because they did not have enough to eat; today we suffer from oversupply, often produced under questionable circumstances. For me, healthy food is locally grown, does not come from factory farming and is as natural as possible. I refuse to eat animals that were born just to die – for me! Though I have a sweet tooth, I try to avoid sugary stuff. I don’t always manage to drink enough, but I drink little alcohol and keep my psychoactive habits under control. Things turn unhealthy when people strictly investigate every bite to make sure that nothing «bad» goes down their throats. When all food can only be organic, and they have to decline when they are invited to eat at friends’ houses who don’t do as they do. Most likely because shopping at the health food store exceeds their budget. This I can well understand, because I too can’t afford to gold-plate every morsel of food I eat. Except for eggs and fish. They must be local and certified in order to reduce animal suffering. Since I eat healthy in general, I allow myself an exception now and then. Rudolf Steiner already said that it is better to drink a glass of wine than to think about it all the time. My motto: the secret of good health doesn’t lie in what you eat, but in what you don’t eat. Exceptions confirm the rule. To think that one can control one’s health through nutrition alone seems to me to be too short-sighted; enjoying your food is just as important, and enough movement and good relationships too, of course.

Healthily Yours
Susanne G. Seiler

A Center

You must hold your quiet center,
where you do what only you can do.
If others call you a maniac or a fool,
just let them wag their tongues.
If some praise your perseverance,
don’t feel too happy about it—
only solitude is a lasting friend.

You must hold your distant center.
Don’t move even if earth and heaven quake.
If others think you are insignificant,
that’s because you haven’t held on long enough.
As long as you stay put year after year,
eventually you will find a world
beginning to revolve around you.

   Ha Jin 

Editorial: Conformity vs individuality

Were live in constricted and regimented times, with little room for otherness, not even in the comfort of our own home. Each posse or group, large or small, has its own uniform, the young, the hipsters, the successful, the nerds, the good mothers, elegant society, the bums in the park. At home, we work at keeping our body fit while having our mind set on the right furniture, clothes, diet, reading, series, shows, holidays. We work hard to belong, to be able to reassure each other that we are not mistaken, chose the right path in life, determine our own lives, are moving forward, spiritually, emotionally, physically, materially. The countryside as well as foreign countries are our escape. People are more conservative away from the big cities, but there is more room for singularity as well. It is not people, however, that make country life attractive but the immediacy of nature in all its glory. Mother Earth surrounds us, carries us and strengthens us. The moment we venture abroad, we become paying guests. Our hosts indulge us and keep an eye on us, so we may act for a brief moment as if we lived in a fool’s paradise. At least we manage to escape the conformity of our daily lives from time to time this way. Though there is more individuality in the world than ever, individualism is in high demand. Everything is integrated, no matter how consistently you follow your star. Lucius Werthmüller did not to follow fashion or fall prey to groupthink. He stayed true to himself while his lifestyle edged from the fringe towards the center of society. I think of him with deep regret. Kind and competent, he has become a role model for me through his unexpected death, earlier this month. If only he were just Luci, like before.

We miss him very much.

Sadly, yours
Susanne G. Seiler

Late Echo

Alone with our madness and favorite flower
We see that there really is nothing left to write about.
Or rather, it is necessary to write about the same old things
In the same way, repeating the same things over and over
For love to continue and be gradually different.

Beehives and ants have to be re-examined eternally
And the color of the day put in
Hundreds of times and varied from summer to winter
For it to get slowed down to the pace of an authentic
Saraband and huddle there, alive and resting.

Only then can the chronic inattention
Of our lives drape itself around us, conciliatory
And with one eye on those long tan plush shadows
That speak so deeply into our unprepared knowledge
Of ourselves, the talking engines of our day.

   John Ashbery

Lessons Learned – Knowledge Earned

Learning is the intentional or incidental process of acquiring new insights, knowledge, behaviors, skills, values, attitudes and preferences, says Wikipedia. Humans, animals, but also plants, fungi, bacteria, viruses and certain machines or their software are capable of such attainments. From the cradle to the grave and perhaps beyond, we learn in many different ways. Science distinguishes between non-associative learning, such as schooling by habit, or sensitization: a (hopefully only slightly) burned child won’t touch a hot stove again. Active learning asks for a conscious effort; associative learning, operant and classical conditioning are a form of learning by way of positive or negative stimuli; observational learning involves what we glean from others; imprinting is a behavioristic concept often applied to animals, and one-shot-learning is an evolutionary mechanism not only applied to the computer world. Young dolphins are taught not to aggress humans by their mother’s fin in one fell swoop. Playful learning, often referred to as learning by doing, is something we all know. Practice makes perfect, many skills accumulate through repeated experience, a prime example being sex. Another important example of a kind of training we all experience is enculturation, whereby we are habituated to our particular culture by our environment. Episodic learning refers to avoidance behavior such as disliking dogs because of a bad experience; multimedia learning may be used in acquiring a new language by depending on both visual and auditory experiences, as well on interpersonal exchange. The list goes on, but all learning patterns share one particularity, a learning curve telling us how well we learn. It often looks like a bell: our learning gains momentum, reaches a plateau and decreases again. Just as often, we benefit most in the beginning, like when taking medication, where our body initially responds well but later reacts but slowly. We’ve all had the opportunity to learn some new behaviors recently. They didn’t exactly inspire enthusiasm, but we keep at it, because we hope to get rewarded further down the line, and that lies at the core of all learning.

Cordially Yours,
Susanne G. Seiler

Walkers with the Dawn

Being walkers with the dawn and morning,
Walkers with the sun and morning,
We are not afraid of night,
Nor days of gloom,
Nor darkness–
Being walkers with the sun and morning.

Langston Hughes

Editorial: Spirituality

For me, spirituality means first and foremost adhering to certain ethical standards: being truthful, walking in peace, not breaking my word, and being there for others. Naturally, I don’t always succeed in this. To be spiritual means to be concerned with questions of the spirit, of the mind. At first, this can be all kinds of things, but it starts with being interested in matters that go beyond one’s own person and immediate situation in life. In this sense, small children are deeply spiritual; they treat all and everything they encounter as infused with being, leading us to concern for the environment is an important part of spirituality. To try to understand the world in its materiality as an extension of the self and to handle it with care. Reflecting on oneself and the world as well as engaging with the divine, cosmic or universal are also steps along the way. The ancient Greeks held the striving for what’s beautiful and good in the highest regard. These can be things, values or attitudes such as the search for truth, for liberation and for the right measure in all things. There are many people who draw their spirituality from their religious faith. Others are guided by the perennial philosophy, the wisdom of the world. Most people do not want to kill, but to live in peace, to honor their parents and families, to pursue a meaningful occupation and to grow old in dignity, if at all possible. In my experience, people are the same everywhere, only their customs vary. What spirituality cannot be for me, however, is to tell others by commandments or dogmas what or how they must believe, or which feelings are allowed, and which are taboo. It is not in practices like meditation, mindfulness or contemplation that the spiritual proves itself, but in everyday life. Good deeds are not enough; it is the attitude that counts. And even if one exchanges ideas with like-minded people, in their spirituality, everyone is on their own.

With spring greetings, yours
Susanne G. Seiler

Light of the moon
Moves west, flowers’ shadows
Creep eastward.

Yosa Buson

This month, we, the Swiss people, are voting as to whether burqas should be prohibited here. We already have to live with an unnecessary ban on new mosques, our first “fake law.” As a peaceful and freedom-loving citizen, I don’t like to tell other people what to do, as long as they don’t exert coercion. I imagine women being “forced under the veil”, as they used to be disposed of in convents in our culture. They are few, and our laws must suffice to protect them, and all of us, from such assaults. If a woman cannot leave the house because she is only allowed to go outside fully veiled, she will hardly find an opportunity to stand up for herself. I have only seen one fully veiled woman here so far, except in photos of tourists, and I found this hidden person a tad disconcerting. But did she hurt me in any way? Rather, she gave me the impression that she liked to hide under her burqa, that much was visible in her movements. As everyone knows, a covering or disguise offers a certain amount of freedom. What nobody minds at our Carnavals: you don’t know who is hiding underneath the costume. We want to be able to assess whether someone is about to aggress us, that is our right. But is the cowardly Islamophobia hiding behind this fake law also our right? Disguises abound, there are no limits to the imagination. Terrorists walk around like normal people. Will three dozen burka-wearing women in Switzerland be able to shake my sense of security? Hate should not be stirred up – where will it end!

Cordially yours,
Susanne G. Seiler

The Peace of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Wendell Berry

There is an angst, a kind of apprehension in the air. Nobody knows what happens next with a virus that we may or may not be regaining some control over these days. We are helplessly hoping for a better world again and again, maybe in the spring? Maybe in the summer? Or have we become indefinitely toxic for each other? And while some progress is made, regress is just as real. We advance like crabs, two steps forward, one step back. What to do? The only solution I can think of is to green our lives at high gear. Get a new plant as often as you can and make your place the greenest possible. Unless it is already that, then kudos! The lucky ones among us have gardens or a piece of yard they can green, or at least a balcony or – enlarged – windowsill, and they will soon start to prepare what goes in or on the ground later, or rather sooner these years. The days will be getting noticeably longer soon. Let’s enjoy the winter, which has barely started, and let’s enjoy it outside where we can keep at a safe distance from each other – for now! Soon we’ll know more.

I wish you a happy & prosperous 2021!
Susanne G. Seiler

Dance 9 Dancing With Nature

Let me dance with a free mind,
In tune with nature,
In alignment with nature,
Fearless and firm,
Faithful and friendly,
Holding the ‘Mudras’
So meaningful,
So powerful,
My head held high,
In dignity and poise,
In absolute joy,
With a deep sense of gratitude.

Geeta Radhakrishna Menon

We are grieving the passing of the eminent mycologist and author Jochen Gartz, PhD. Dying is a natural process, it is often said, and yet losses are usually reported clinically and impersonally as something that happens to others. There seems to be a persistent fear that the confrontation with death might somehow attract it, a strange form of magical thinking, since we will all surely die when our time has come, which can be anytime. Moreover, the process of dying awakens irrational feelings that are deemed “private” and better kept under lock and key. It is also said that there is nothing wrong with dying as such. And what speaks for it? Are the people who comment from a distance on the dying of others ready to go themselves? Are they so much looking forward to “another life” and a “reunion in the hereafter” as a reward for their worldly toil and sorrows that their own death would not matter to them? Let us not forget the suffering that has come over countless families and their loved ones in the past weeks and months. Let us think of them when we celebrate the arrival of a new and better year with the advent of the winter solstice.

With my sincere wishes for the holiday season,
Susanne G. Seiler

Poem

The Resident by Michael Hofmann

The times are far from easy, and when I look at the worldwide case numbers of the microscopic infestation in our midst, I feel like hiding under my bed. To hell with that idea though! Would I rather grit and bear it? Even less. Although I feel a visceral compassion for the those suffering around the world, where, as usual, the poorest are hit the hardest, I often turn up the music for a bit of dancing, scour virtuality for the funniest sketches and movies and laugh along, tell the friends in my bubble about the droll adventures in my past, just like they amuse me with their stories; I raise my glass to life, eat a little something sometimes to see if it will make me taller or smaller, giggle, sing and hum to myself and take pleasure in the happiness I feel for having such a good life at home. And I am in the process of labelling the first books, DVDs and other items of our media library, which can be perused at Hochstrasse 70 in Basel. Soon also virtually on a PC near you. Let’s keep it up, take our vitamins, and hopefully we will all stay healthy this way!

Emphatically yours,
Susanne G. Seiler

P.S. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1Ybm6ToJBI I wish…