The Echo Remains, the song won't fade

Is it so wrong hanging onto your song?

Was I just mad?
that time - the best ...?

And if not plain crazy
Was I just lazy?
How did I lose?
Did I just fail to choose ... ?

Of course I survived.
But
what stayed alive?

Deep in my head,
like a book I've just read
the story returns

an echo which burns
but
wont
fade
away

My grandmother said: Sorry? Three steps: the Mouth, Hands and Head

I'm Sorry - but am I really? Three steps to genuine forgiveness.

The Mouth, the Hands, the Head

We all learn it when we are very young: "I'm sorry Mommy!" "I'm sorry Daddy!"
And if you aren't saying saying it, then someone is saying to you "Say you're sorry now!"

What does it mean, all this saying sorry?
It's a sorry state of affairs that we don't look at the kernel of being sorry: Really, we want to be forgiven for something we did.  How to get forgiveness?. That's the crux of the matter.

Here's my Grandmother's take on it

After the umpteenth time of saying sorry (for the same old thing of course!) she took us kids aside and said:
"Look at me"!
"To be really sorry, you must remember the Mouth" (pointed to her lips) "the Hands" (clapping them lightly in front of her) "and the Head" (tapping her temples quickly). She then proceeded to explain:

The Mouth

The first thing you have to do to show that you are sorry for what you did is to say it out loud. Tell the person. As soon as possible. Its best to do it face to face, that works best of all because the other person  sees it, but sometimes it's not possible, so you send a message. And if you have left other people with the wrong impression with what you did, then they have to hear it too.

The Hands

Its not enough to say sorry.
We all know the phrase "Lip Service". Don't pay Lip Service:
Something is broken, its got to be fixed.
The hands are a symbol for that.
Spilled some coffee? Say sorry - and clean up the mess. Properly.
Spread some gossip? Say sorry - and now go to the people who you told the story to and tell them the truth. And say sorry to them for creating that bad impression.
Broken something? Say sorry - and fix it, or replace it, doing your level best to replace it with the same one.

The Head

But that's still not enough.
Why, you could be breaking someones cups, telling lies, using their stuff without permission and so on over and over again - would saying sorry work? Of course not. they would pretty soon get tired of it all.
No, the only way to show that you are truly sorry is to not do it any more.
In other words, you have to change your behaviour, and sometimes, even how you think.

So that's it.
You show that you are truly sorry by not doing it any more, and by talking and behaving in a different, better way.

And I remember it all by those three quick little motions she made, as she touched her lips, clapped her hands, and tapped the side of her head all the while repeating the Mantra "the mouth, the hands, the head"

The path to true Forgiveness is a 3 step process: and if you follow it, everyone will know that you are truly Sorry.

...

Its not personal: Value and Need

(prelude: I was thinking ...)
What I do not need: it has no value
unless
I have it, own it
then another's need imposes
but if
I do not need that offer in return
Then give away what has no value
Or be entrapped by that which has no value
(well, that  seems easy, doesn't it?)

I do not need her
Does she have no value?
I do not need her yet I have her
Will another’s need attract her?
Will I feel the need to keep her?
I do not need her
Yet I keep her
Am I possessed by that which has no value?

(Interlude ...)
time imposes value from the past
I did not need it then
I did not need her then
I did not see what was before my very eyes
I did not need yet there indeed was value
Will I now pay the price of careless loss?
Am I possessed by that which had no value?

Image (c) Copyright Cyril Souchon

The Pearl as a Symbol of Commitment

 There is a story told, probably apocryphal, about a wealthy couple, their wedding day and his wedding gift of natural black pearls to her. On the eve of the wedding, she caught him kissing one of the servant girls. Angry with him, but not angry enough to lose her love, they went ahead with the wedding, but she refused to wear the pearls. Instead, she left them unopened in their box, and there they lay for the 70 years of their marriage. The family of course knew about the famous pearls which were said to be both beautiful and extremely valuable.
 Thus it was with some considerable interest that the family gathered at the reading of the will to see them brought to the light of day for the first time. The box was opened: the flannel cover unwrapped and there was revealed ~ a small pile of dust. With no one to care for them, they simply disintegrated away.

The Pearl and Commitment and this little anecdote
What does this little story says to us? And why am I telling it?
A pearl is not like any other jewel. It is not a hard and cold crystalline mineral or piece of rock. You could say it remains alive, and it needs love and care throughout its lifetime. This is why it has so often been a symbol of love.
The gift of the pearl holds within it a message of commitment.

From the past to the Present to the Future
Ten years ago my good friends Niranjan and Nimi brought into the world a little baby girl: Nimesha.
Now she stands on the threshold of a Commitment: On Sunday the 7th of November she takes her confirmation vows.
And since Religion is itself a deep commitment, a commitment of faith in the face of a disbelieving world, this is the gift I have chosen for her ~a little string of freshwater pearls, and a locket.
Here is a note that I wrote her: maybe it says something to you too.

Nimesha's letter
Dear Nimesha,
Today is your confirmation, the day that you confirm your faith openly for the first time.
So here are some thoughts to take with you after the ceremony.
Of all the things that we commit ourselves to, Faith is at the same time the closest and the furthest.
Unlike your parents, or your friends, or even a boyfriend!, you can’t argue with it or confront it anywhere but inside your own self.
It must sustain you even at that time when it seems to be the furthest from you, and when everything in the world seems to be dragging you away from it, somehow you must find yourself returning.
But this is not something that happens on its own. To love a thing you must look after it, care for it, even, and especially, when it is furthest from your mind.
Pearls are like that: you can't just leave them in a box with all your other jewelry, they have to be kept separately in a special place and regularly taken out and kept moist and clean. You have to put yourself into them, and you have to do this all through your life: just as you have to do with your Faith. Always growing it, always looking after it, always including yourself in it.
With this pearl necklace, there is little locket. This is what you can do with it: whenever you feel that something important needs to be remembered, something that might be slipping away, either a person or an idea or a cause: write a little note about it, and put it in the locket and then take it out occasionally from time to time to re-affirm your commitment to it.


With love,
Cyril
 

all images (c) cyril souchon

Climate Change: From Mae West to Einstein

Somehow, from somewhere two delicious little stories, one about Einstein and the other about that Man’s Man’s Girly Girl Mae West, come to mind.

Mae West! She never invented curves, she just put them out there on show and nothing's been the same since.

You'll probably say this story is apocryphal. Whatever. It goes like this: somewhere out in the mid-Atlantic on one of those marvelous mid-war cruise liners that used to take people from New York to London, Mae ate something that didn't quite agree with her. The captain called for a doctor to come and assist. The medical doctor was beaten to it by a Dr. of Economics, one of Divinity, and three others hoping to play doctor-doctor! You see, when you have a deep interest in a thing, it doesn't matter how little you know about it: you're going to get stuck in.

Just recently, and to the bitter sound of his decreasing research funds, Professor Harold Lewis, the Emeritus professor of Physics at the University of California threw a hissy little fit and publicly stormed out Of the American Physics Society. Like the eager doctors who had degrees which were several degrees South of medicine, self-interest is not going to stop him from meddling in another discipline, even if the world comes to a sloppy slurping washed out end. Not when it means losing out on all those research funds.

Einstein

The sculptor Jacob Epstein tells the story: "when I was doing Prof Albert Einstein's bust he had many a jibe at the Nazi professors, one hundred of whom had condemned his theory of relativity in a book. ‘Were I wrong,’ he said, one professor would have been enough!’"

One would have been enough ...

Ironically, he would of course have had to be a professor of Physics.

Unlike, ... Oh what the heck! Just enjoy the pictures of the perfectly curvaceous Mae West

(Try to ignore poor old Albert stuck in the middle again!)

Oh, and Salvador Dali Designed and Built a two-seater Love couch in tribute to her lips

... who could resist that?

In the shadows of relationships: “Notafrend” and “Justafrend”

“Notafrend” and “Justafrend”
Such a world of difference between them!
I've been both, and I guess sometimes I returned the compliment.
So picture this in your mind for the moment:
You're walking down the road with him or her, and someone sees you.
Oh, is this your new boyfriend?
"No, no - he's just a friend".
You've just become a "Justafrend".
Someone's not ready to acknowledge the relationship yet, and a small pin prick of hurt might just find its way through. Or maybe they don't even notice that there is this budding relationship, and you wonder momentarily whether they ever will.
Any half decent soapy can spin this scenario out into several seasons :-)
Well in the movies and in the soapies things always work out, don't they?
And sometimes it works its way out in real life too.

What about the other one?
The “Notafrend” situation?
How do you know you're one?
Well actually, it's not that difficult.
Small things tell you, for instance:
You find yourself being bcc’d in e-mails.
(Now, this is not to be confused with a secret romance!
That's a completely different situation ...
Of course you're going to be under the radar there!)
No, this is something different.
You find it in the voice when you're with them and someone phones.
You sense the question being posed, and the answer comes out:
"oh, no one really! Who? ummm"
And as they drift away to somewhere a bit more private you hear the voice saying, somewhat quietly, "oh, no - he's not really a friend, just someone I know".
So there you are. You're a “Notafrend”.

Maybe cultures are clashing,
maybe it doesn't do to know this person better.
Maybe.
Maybe you were close to once, and life has brought you back together again. But he or she doesn't feel comfortable with acknowledging their feelings openly, maybe pride holds them back: the fear of looking foolish. Maybe, maybe you're even little happy to go along with it.
Maybe.
“Notafrendz”: when they're gone and you miss them, you wonder how it might have worked out.
Maybe, you think.
Just Maybe.

all images (c) cyril souchon

one new message! but its not from you.

one new message! but its not from you.
I miss you.
dormant, an undercurrent,
now it feels real again.
"when you miss me close your eyes and enfold me ..."
I can't do that
People would see me self-absorbed and no more work being done
no more play  possible
just an endless vanity of virtual hugging
yet still
still at the never-ending
end of it all ...
still I would be missing you.
One new message ... but its not from you.

Arising: beyond body, belief, and into the meaning of it all

My Grandmother and knowing yourself, reaching towards your soul

Stephen Hawkins has plonked himself firmly on the side of Physics in the battle between pro- and anti- God Factions.
Of course, he assumes the constituent parts for Universes to evolve exist, so that knackers his argument too, as it begs the question where do those constituents parts spontaneously erupt from (his answer is nothing coming and going to nothing)? ... it's a circular argument that supports every opinion.
And, since it's a fight no-one can win, let's digress away from that and reflect on the steps that spiritual people might go through to become able to rise above the arguments.

When someone says to me "I don't believe in mourning" or "I don't believe in wasting my time pining over a relationship" I look askance and I look askancer. Because what I am really hearing is that this person is not mourning, or pining. Their feelings were never that deep about the missing person/object/pet/whatever in the first place. Belief has nothing to do with it; turns out their feelings were just plain shallow to begin with. Otherwise they would have to go through a period of mourning or pining or whatever. In the same way, atheists just don't need that communal religious thing, their religion is atheism. Go figure.

My Grandmother, who had a thing or two to say about a thing or two, was once put in the awkward situation of explaining life's progress towards God: a sort of phasing of the soul, as it were. Explain that to the under 8's. So this is what she said (as best I remember - although I paraphrase and use my own words … obviously …)

There are three stages to the liberation of the Soul.
The body, the idea, the spirit ~ that's pretty much as I understood it.

The Body 
We are born, she said, with what we are born.
So far so easy: If you believe that you have a Soul, then it is contained within your body, and what you've got is what you've got (despite the best efforts of Change Artists, be they stylists or surgeons!).
For example. If you have a bad temper, it's there, isn't going away. No amount of "get rid of your temper" is going to help. "Control your temper" now that'll work ~ if you keep trying sooner or later it will come under control. The message is: Learn to cope with your body, it's the base animal encapsulating you, and until you learn to master it, it masters you.

The terrible tragedy of Abusive/abused people is that their abusive/accepting natures have never been brought under control. They are both victims of their natures, and the villains too. (It seems that culture vs nature has plumped down on the nature side, which would have been satisfying for her had she lived. "In the blood" is more correctly phrased "in the DNA …")
Back to the point. Our Parents, Teachers, Friends, Society, and the rest *should* be helping us to learn the vital art of Coping with our bodies: their physical state, their natures and temperaments.

Until we have mastered our bodies, the animal natures will dominate.
When (and only when) we have mastered that, we are ready to tackle our …

Our Beliefs 
We are immersed in a myriad of interlocking belief systems: the backdrop to our lives and cultures. As a small sub-section include Religion, Nationality, Race, Gender, Language, Local custom, etc. etc. etc.
Where do we learn, take on these beliefs?

From wherever we were born to wherever we travel, of course.
They stream in early: Parents, extended Family, Teachers … in fact the same crowd who teach us to control our animal natures use these belief systems to be the agents of control. Since it worked the first time round, we naturally assume this is good too.
Here's a generalization: Most people accept beliefs blindly and are contained within them for most or all of their lives. What does it mean if you never challenge your beliefs? Necessarily, you remain in blind obedience of them. Maybe that's because it's the safest position to be in, vis-à-vis the communities you must interact with and survive in.
If you never challenge your beliefs, then you are the servant of them.
It seems to be a perfectly natural thing to challenge them. From late teenage to mid 20's, all of us, to a greater or lesser degree "rebel" against authority. To the degree that society lets us, to the degree that our upbringing supports it, to the degree that the spark in our breasts demands it, we challenge.
By the time we reach our early 30's most people are patterned into, have accepted the basic truth of, their belief systems.
For most, this is a lazy acceptance of the status quo.
For the rest, the journey can result in a radical change in belief systems.
And it can happen more than once too.
For those who have never contained their baser natures, the combination of a powerful animal nature and unchallenged beliefs is a monster that behaves outside reason. Sorry for them, sorrier for those under their sway …

So here's the important thing:  

• The best we can do about our animal natures is to learn to cope with them;
• We have the power to take on or let go the beliefs taught to us: they can be challenged, modified, discarded, assumed…

Once we have done that, we are ready to approach …

The Spirit, the Soul, the Meaning of Life 
In whatever way you would like to express it.
If there are Eternal Truths, if there is a God, it/they certainly do not need anyone to stand up for it/them. By definition, being omnipotent, it is beyond existence and time, is what was before the physics of Universes became possible.
So here we stand at a threshold. For those who truly believe, their belief systems are utterly immune from challenge. To be utterly immune from challenge requires a good deal of thought and introspection, and will only happen after the side tracking body has been dealt with, and the beliefs imposed accepted and rejected with conviction.
This is that point at which one can truly approach one's place beyond the Universe (which, after all, lives and dies and rebirths like anything else we know).
To approach God, whatever that might be, we must rise above the physical animal that is our container, the self serving beliefs that govern us, into a space where the mind and body is accepted and accepting of the search.
Wisdom, Spirituality, the meaning of it all, my old grandmother implied, will only be for those who have mastered their bodies, stripped and examined their beliefs, and are then ready to move forward into those Eternal Truths.
And for those who will come with, come with.
And those who do not, well their pain and fear will be a constant threat.
Its hard work, consumes that spark of life, and in ,most parts of the world - dangerous, to go beyond.

So, Back to Stephen Hawkins!

It’s not a new position for him, but it is a rather silly one – having no religion he is better off with pure Physics.

Truly spiritual people aren't concerned with the nature of the Universe, with whether a button initiated it, even whether it exists.

They are concerned with whether the infinitesimally small spark of life contained within themselves has a purpose, and having assumed that is the case, with how to fulfill it. And that is a far, far cry from evolution debates, after all.

In fact, got nothing to do with it …

 ______________________________
The images are from the Goddard Space Station:
© http://dayton.hq.nasa.gov/copyright.html
Top image: Image # PR00-07: Hubble Reopens Eye on the Universe
Bottom image: Image # : PR00-14 Galactic Silhouettes 

A Tale of Two Ties

November 1986.

It's an age of an age ago, yet it sits clear in the memory.
At the time I had been working for the QPac group of companies, then the owner/developer of the most widely used payroll system in the Western world, and after many years there I headed up the Financial Software division, QFin. QFin held the agency to the leading Financial Software Package of it's day, and our customers were a who's who of South Africa. When we held our user conference, 85 of the top 100 companies on the JSE were represented by their Financial Managers, Directors and Management Accountants … there wasn't a sector of Business that we did not straddle. SAP and Oracle would come later, but that was later. And on the Payroll side we ran even deeper. The model of pay-for-usage with affordable implementations kept our eye firmly on the goal of customer service and the pot-of-gold was a flood of recurring income.
.c.
Another company in the IT Sector was rising. Data Trust was the pre-eminent Software consultancy, and in the months leading up to November the two companies were locked in merger negotiations: my boss Des Gers led the Q team and Piet den Boer the Data Trust team. With the final talks done, the due diligences completed, the 2 companies were merged into a single entity called QData, and the success story of the SA IT world was underway. In its heyday the Q group employed 4500 highly skilled IT staff and even today, after many changes and re-arranges, BCX continues the tradition. In 1995 it was the winner of the Top 100 award and remained in the top 3 until it merged with Persetel.
.c.
In the Boardroom chosen for the day, all the Q and DT directors were gathered. Piet and Des had brought us together to meet: the listing had been a success, and QData was stretching it's wings. It was a curiously muted occasion, and what with the predominantly Afrikaans speaking directors from Piet's side and the largely English speaking Q people, the difference in language and culture held us back a bit: but we shared a common culture with regards to our view of the customer and this would pull things through later.
Brief introductions, a handshake, followed by an exchange of ties. That's them up there in the photo, the original ties from the first joint operational meeting of the newly formed QData Group.
.c.
From the Q side, a QPac tie and aQFin tie.
From Data Trust, their signature Blue and Red ties.
.c.
We came away from the meeting believing that the future was bright, but Piet came away wanting a whole lot more. He wanted to own IT is South Africa, and he near as dammit did: driving us all forward and extending the company's reach. He did it all from a little notebook that he used to keep in his shirt pocket, along with his cigarette box. We used to joke that the perfect design, perfect system, perfect anything could be described sufficiently on the back of a cigarette box, because that was as much as Piet ever needed, and look where it took him! Not too many people called him out, and survived it. I know one such, we met up in Sanlam's offices towards the end of 2009.
René's Story
She tells this story of Piet's comeuppance. She was a Business Analyst back then, and had been given a Business Case to work with. "Who wrote this piece of crap?" she asked. Piet's head popped up from behind a cubicle. "I did" he said.
So René, as one of the few people who has crossed Piet and survived, will now get one of those original ties :-). I guess she deserves it.  Two of the original set of four, one from each side, is enough for me, after all.
_________________
QPac was founded in 1967 by Des Gers and Ron Warren
Data Trust was founded on April Fools day in 1981 by Leen van der Bijl,and Bushy Bester ~ Piet (as I recall) joined them in January the following year.
Together in 1986 they were to be the driving engine of the most successful IT company in South Africa’s history.

I admit it: I loved Doris Day *sigh*

Back in the 60s, it really did not do to admit to liking Doris Day.

I mean like hey, what with the Beatles, Rolling Stones, blah, blah, blah admitting to liking Doris Day was as near as dammit committing social suicide.

So now, after all these years, I finally have the courage to reveal it: I was secretly in love with her.

And yes, she really was quite sexy, there was always something going on underneath that bubbly personality, not just cute, something quite deeply erotic always hinted at. And she had one hell of a figure, and never afraid to use it. That girl in a low-cut dress, when she squeezed her shoulders together then Wham! things would get confused ...

Maybe it's because my mom liked her, and all the other moms liked her.

Maybe.
They do say you fall in love with a girl like your mother, don't they?

All I know is that babe had something: and it's there to see in this clip.
Her natural charm is vividly on display, and, besides everything else, she is just so appealing.
Watch her eyes ... oh lordy lordy, just watch those eyes....  and the little bobbing on her chair when she's into the chorus, or how she turns to people and overwhelms them with a quick, deep look: and then there are her hugs! Who wouldn't want to be hugged by her?
I think I just fell in love all over again *sigh* ... *deepest sigh ever* ...

I reckon I'm going to go right out now and buy myself a CD of her recordings.
I owe it to her after all these years ...

 

From the Glass Bottomed Boat, this, the impromptu version is my favourite version
But never mind the song: look at the girl and tell me ~ what's not to love?