Russell and Carol - hayle and hearty

Seamus Heaney On Suffering, Self-healing, and Hope for a Great Sea Change

To mark Joe Biden's President-elect status, RTE put together a piece on his history and voiced by him reading an excerpt from the Seamus Heaney poem “The Cure at Troy” written in 1991 - his version of Sophocles’ Philoctetes written in the fifth century BC. 

As though Heaney wrote it for this exact time as we navigate a mighty sea-change.

Human beings suffer,
They torture one another,
They get hurt and get hard.
No poem or play or song
Can fully right a wrong
Inflicted and endured.

History says, don’t hope
On this side of the grave.
But then, once in a lifetime
The longed-for tidal wave
Of justice can rise up,
And hope and history rhyme.

So hope for a great sea-change
On the far side of revenge.
Believe that a farther shore
Is reachable from here.
Believe in miracles
And cures and healing wells.

“My mission is to seek beauty, find humour, and bring joy.”

As I spoke that aloud, I woke up.

It was as if a huge stone had rolled off my chest.

I had a mission statement!

Who knew, now that my hair’s turned white, to finally have a mission statement?  Let alone such a mission!

So simple, so delightful to fulfill. One that is not transactional; that does not include commodification. 

Your sea change has stimulated a sea change in me.

“Whither leads the voyage?

Today is the Tomorrow you Worried about Yesterday and All is Well
- attributed to Dale Carnegie

Seen on a wooden plaque repaired on BBC The Repair Shop

BBC iPlayer - The Repair Shop - 60-Minute Versions: Episode 19

Wood wizard Will Kirk repairs a hand-carved wooden plaque, the remarkable work of Carol Bolton’s father, in 1937 when he was just 12 years old

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0007znp/the-repair-shop-60minute-versions-episode-19

I did not know him before his rush to power, but
what I saw in him then was a man overhorsed by the glory
fate had handed him, riding by sheer force of will, knowing
he must be thrown sometime, and that it would hurt.

In my experience, men who find themselves in receipt of
unasked-for luck become either benign, believing themselves
unworthy, or dangerous, believing everyone else sees them as
unfit.

An excerpt from

Days of Kindness

In 1997, when I tutored on the Constitutional Law course at Liverpool Uni and was only ever a chapter of the book ahead of my students, the chapter on “Conventions” floored me. Coming from Germany, this way of securing democracy seemed positively insane.

Sing cuckóu, nou! Sing cuckóu!

Sing cuckóu! Sing cuckóu nou!

Somer is y-comen in,

Loudë sing, cuckóu!

Growëth sed and blowëth med

And springth the wodë nou

Sing cuckóu!

Ewë bletëth after lamb,

Lowth after cálve cóu;

Bullok stertëth, bukkë vertëth,

Merye sing, cuckóu!

Cuckóu, cuckóu,

Wél singést thou, cuckóu,

Ne swik thou never nou!

Miri it is while sumer i-last

With foulës song;

Oc now neghëth windës blast

And weder strong.

Ei, ei, what this night is long,

And Ich with wel michel wrong

Sorwe and murne and fast.