Medical Cannabis: the Case for Palliative Care

It is welcome news that both Jersey and Guernsey are considering the legalisation of medical cannabis for treatment of pain and palliative care. The story was reported in the Bailliwick Express:

Senator Andrew Green told the States Assembly that he was just waiting for some final information from the Misuse of Drugs Advisory Council (MDAC) before he can make the change.

The Health Minister's announcement follows a recommendation made to him by the MDAC. The first scientific review on the subject of cannabis-based medicinal products, ‘Cannabis: the Evidence for medical use’ known as the 'Barnes Report', was released last year by Professor Michael and Dr Jennifer Barnes. Among its conclusions, it said that: "...cannabis does have medicinal value and continuing placement of cannabis under Schedule 1 of the (UK) Misuse of Drugs Act, which thus states it is of no medicinal value, is inaccurate and misleading.”

There is an interesting review of how the law is changing in the USA, entitled “Medicinal Marijuana and Palliative Care: Carving a Liberty Interest out of the Glucksberg Framework” by Adam Hyatt in the Fordham Urban Law Journal.

He considers the case of Diane Monson who suffers from a degenerative disease of the spine, which causes her "severe, chronic back pain and constant painful muscle spasms."

While it is true that other remedies are available, they have adverse side effects:

“The intensity of her pain is such that she is unable to work or sit down, and thus she is limited to lying down. Under the care of a Board-certified physician, Monson has tried an array of prescription drugs, including muscle relaxants and anti-inflammatories, but each has been ineffective as a painkiller or has produced extreme side effects. Medicinal marijuana, on the other hand, significantly alleviates Monson's pain and eradicates her muscle spasms almost entirely. Accordingly, her physician has concluded that medical marijuana is the sine qua non of a successful treatment of her pain and suffering.”

Professor Tatiana Shohov has also conducted clinical trials and says that even when it has some adverse effects – and one has to remember other painkillers also do – it has a medicinal value:

“Shohov provides scientific evidence proving that marijuana can provide relief from nausea and increase appetite, reduce intraocular pressure, reduce muscle spasms, and provide relief from chronic pain: it can thus treat symptoms of cancer, AIDS, and multiple sclerosis. “

Indeed, a growing number of health care professionals and organisations now conclude that “the use of marijuana may be appropriate for a small class of patients who do not respond well to, or do not tolerate, available prescription drugs."

There is a fear, which I think is false, that there is somehow a “slippery slope” if we start prescribing cannabis in such cases because there is no clear and obvious rule to distinguish between “severe” pain and “ordinary” pain.

However, to avoid facing that problem, which would probably need a case by case decision, is an easy way out, and it can be argued that it is actually unethical to restrict the patient’s right to access a painkiller that would be more effective, and with less side effects, for palliative care and in the case of severe disabling conditions.

Writing in History Today, herbalist and historian , Vivienne Crawford has examined how up until the modern period, doctors saw both that cannabis could be used in a medical situation, and also when it was unwise to do so.

“Cannabis has recently been redefined as a medicinal plant. Experimentation since the 1980s has established beyond doubt that the plant is a cornucopia of therapeutic constituents. New uses are being found almost monthly, as pharmaceutical companies scramble to patent profitable analogues and establish national monopolies following clinical trials of cannabis-based medicines.”

“However, the plant already has a venerable, if largely forgotten, history of therapeutic use in England. Hence its recent legalisation for medicinal purposes is less an innovation than a restoration of the status quo ante.”

“How did a herb which for centuries had been of therapeutic benefit in Indian, China, and Europe, and which early 20th-century English orthodox medicine summarised as an anti-pyretic, analgesic, anti-diuretic, anti-asthmatic, hypnotic, anti-anorectic, anti-emetic, and anti-convulsive muscle relaxant (BMA Report, 1997), come, fifty years later, to be classified as being `of no therapeutic benefit', unavailable for use, inaccessible to research (Schedule 1 of the Misuse of Drugs Act, 1971)?”

She finds the answer in the attempts of Western governments to control domestic consumer behaviour, in part for good intentions, but also blinded by particular social and cultural prejudices of their day.

This is surely why the laws, as she notes, “rather arbitrarily, distinguish acceptable substances from those deemed pernicious.” Alcohol and tobacco both can be as dangerous to individual health as cannabis, but the laws permit their use as acceptable.

What is needed, she thinks, is a more rational policy on cannabis that is evidence based, and also a greater awareness of the prejudices of our own age.

As C.S. Lewis observed: “Every age has its own outlook. It is specially good at seeing certain truths and specially liable to make certain mistakes... We may be sure that the characteristic blindness of the twentieth century—the blindness about which posterity will ask, "But how could they have thought that?"—lies where we have never suspected it.”

One such blindness I believe is the result of seventy years of demonization of cannabis, and in looking at that in 1998, the House of Lords committee (1998) concluded that, “The acute toxicity of cannabis and the cannabinoids is very low: no one has ever died as a direct and immediate consequence of recreational or medical use”.

Everyone is aware of the dangers of drug abuse, and no one who is advocating medical use is calling for an open door policy, or for recreational use, but studies chosen to examine potential side effects are often used without consideration of how low risk those are. In other words, they are chosen to support prejudice, not to give a wider picture, which they screen out. There is often a confirmatory bias in statements made which are, quite honestly, not good science.

Drugs for the heart have side effects, and one I remember being listed as “sudden death” [flecanide, prescribed in Jersey]. Notwithstanding that it is a pretty permanent side-effect, what doctors do when prescribing is not to consider just the potential and life threatening adverse effect, but the risk associated with that event, and balance that against the heart failing if left untreated.

It is time that the same risk based approach is adopted with regard to cannabis for severe medical conditions, where often alternative painkillers either have greater side effects, sometimes potentially lethal, or so numb the patient's thought processes that they lose any quality of life as well.

A Bit of Comic Strip Nostalgia - Part 2

The Perishers was a British comic strip about a group of urban children and a dog. It began in the Daily Mirror on 19 October 1959 and was written for most of its life by Maurice Dodd (25 October 1922 – 31 December 2005).

I used to enjoy reading this in the Daily Mirror, which my parents got, along with the Daily Telegraph – there’s balance for you!




As the Shadow Gallery blog explains: “The central characters are a little boy and his dog (a dog who believes himself to have had a previous life as a human being). One of their friends is an obnoxious and overbearing little girl; another is the unwilling object of her affections, another is her little brother.”

Thematically, the strip draws upon nostalgia for childhood experiences and often has a static, almost limbo-like atmosphere, in a similar manner to its companion strip, Andy Capp. The main characters largely exist independently of 'the real world', and adults are rarely seen

It can be seen therefore to inhabit the same kind of world as Peanuts, although “The Perishers” is resolutely English in its feel and tone. The children are all scruffy, and one feels are latch key kids, largely left to their own devices.



The Gambols is a British comic strip created by Barry Appleby which debuted 16 March 1950 in the Daily Express where it ran for almost 50 years. We used to read it when the Mirror was not available and we got the Express instead.



The two central characters are George and Gaye Gambol, a happily married, suburban, middle class couple. George is the main breadwinner working as a salesman while Gaye is primarily a housewife, but she does occasionally take on part-time office jobs. The stories revolve around the Gambols' everyday life, in particular Gaye's passion for shopping and George's attempts at home improvements.



In a way it is like the TV sitcoms Terry and June or Fresh Fields, in cartoon form, but covering the same kind of domestic incident around which the comedy is based, and which involves childless couples. The key theme of such comedies is domestic life and work.

The genre on TV has been subverted several times, once with "The Good Life", where Jerry and Margo are the same kind of couple, but their neighbours Tom and Barbara most definitely are counter-culture, and in One Foot in the Grave where it looks more at the future with pessimism, where Margaret is the long suffering wife, and Victor is the curmudgeonly retired husband.

Curiously, our French textbook at school, "Le Francais d'Aujourd'hu" also featured a comic strip with humor and childless couples. It must have been a part of the general culture. I remember the strip in which the wife prangs the car putting it into the garage, and the husband, seeing the dent, says "sacre blue", which the vocabulary at the back of the book says means "tut, tut"!




The Fosdyke Saga was a British comic strip by cartoonist Bill Tidy, published in the Daily Mirror newspaper from March 1971 - February 1985. Described as "a classic tale of struggle, power, personalities and tripe", the strip was a parody of John Galsworthy's classic novel series The Forsyte Saga.

However, the slightly bizarre and strange antics of the characters and those around them had a Lancashire "Trouble at t'mill" ambience with mangles, chimneys and soot ever present.



Even at a young age, I could see the strange almost distorted fairground mirror of the Forsyte Saga on TV which I remember very well watching with my parents. That was, of course, the 1967 series on the BBC which starred Eric Porter as Soames, Joseph O'Conor as Old Jolyon, Susan Hampshire as Fleur, Kenneth More as Young Jolyon and Nyree Dawn Porter as Irene.




At my age, I never quite could grasp all the plot of the drama, perhaps not surprising for with 26 weekly episodes, it ran for half a year, something almost unheard of today.

But the short comic strip, full of Northern humour, was great fun, with its over the top melodrama.



Bill Tidy was also responsible for "The Cloggies". This was "an Everyday Saga in the Life of Clog Dancing Folk", and a long-running cartoon that ran in the satirical magazine Private Eye from 1967 to 1981, and later in The Listener from 1985 to 1986.

It gently satirised northern English male culture, and introduced a shocked nation to the scurrilous delights of Lancashire clog-dancing!

Strength to tread a lonely way: the Story of Marie Ozanne

Strength to tread a lonely way: the Story of Marie Ozanne

For strength to tread a lonely way,
For darkness changed to shining day,
For burdens lifted when I pray,
I thank thee, Lord.

(Major Jane Kimberley, on Marie Ozanne)

For my blog on Liberation day, I have looked over the Guernsey for a story which, shamefully, I have only just come across. Living in Jersey, we tend to concentrate on those who displayed bravery in our own Island, but it is sometimes worth looking across the small divide of water from our Sister Island, and seeing instances of courage to inspire there, as well as here.

In 23 February 2013 a blue plaque was unveiled on the former home of Marie Ozanne at an event attended by 50 Islanders. Miss Ozanne, a major in the Salvation Army, publicly protested about the treatment of labourers on the island of Guernsey. For her actions she was imprisoned, but died shortly after her release in 1943.

Speaking at the unveiling, Guernsey Bailiff Richard Collas said: "This extraordinary lady, whose strength of spirit, generosity of heart and Christian principles, made a significant contribution to this island, to islanders and indeed to people beyond our shores. She continues to be an inspiration and an example through the life that she led and what she did."

Miss Ozanne was awarded the Salvation Army's highest honour, the Order of the Founder, in 1947. The award cites:

“an outstandingly brave witness for God and for Salvation Army principles” and a “self-sacrificing concern for men’s freedom to serve God.”

The Guernsey Donkey website gives some details of her background:

Major Marie was born in 1906 in the Vale where she went on to became a faithful member of the Salvation Army St Sampson’s Corps. She trained as an officer (that is, a vicar in the Salvation Army) where she rose to the rank of Major. When war broke out in 1939 Major Marie found herself serving at a Belgian Corps. Upon hearing of the outbreak of war she returned home immediately to lead the St. Sampson Corps in Guernsey.

The Salvation Army Midlands blog told her story in more detail in 2011, in the following article.

Courage under fire: a profile of Major Marie Ozanne
By: Valerie Murray, Estate Coordinator, Midland Division

In June of 1940 an event little known today occurred: The German army invaded and occupied the Channel Islands, a part of Great Britain off the coast of Normandy an occupation that lasted until war’s end. A part of this story belongs to a young woman of Guernsey, Major Marie Ozanne. Major Marie, a Guernsey native, served at a Belgian Corps. However, when World War II began, she returned home immediately to lead the St. Sampson Corps in Guernsey. When the German army took over the island, they ordered The Salvation Army disbanded, its worship services forbidden, and its officers forbidden to wear uniforms. The Commandant even forbade the band to perform.

However, Major Marie refused to bow to the German authorities. She wrote to the Commandant she would not close St. Sampson Corps. She continued her duties in full Salvation Army uniform at the Corps and in the marketplace, speaking to anyone who would listen to her. The Germans referred to her in Occupation documents of this period as simply a “lunatic and religious fanatic.”

Finally, the Commandant personally directed Major Marie to give up her uniform. When she ignored this order, the military police arrested her and forced her to give it up. Yet, in street clothes, she continued preaching the word of God, in defiance of the Commandant’s orders. She even began to teach herself German in order to minister to the German soldiers who might listen.

Hitler ordered six thousand slave labourers to these small islands during the Occupation, to build huge concrete fortifications and bunkers in advance of the British attack he believed would soon come. These men were from Spain, France, Russia, and Poland and treated like animals. Many were worked to death, others flogged and tortured, subsisting only on minimal rations. Many heard theirs screams. Major Marie heard these screams. She would not ignore them. She went to the slave labour camps to minister to the men and to bring them the word of God and hope. She complained unrelentingly to the camp’s commandant about their inhumane treatment.

After two years of her interference, in August of 1942, the Commandant realized that Major Marie was more than a lunatic or religious fanatic. He ordered her arrested and imprisoned. From prison, she wrote to him that she would “not take back a single word”; that she would not stand by to watch her fellow men treated so savagely. She told the Commandant she was revolted by the oppression and hatred with which the slave labourers were treated. He released Major Marie was after only two months, in October of 1942, but she died shortly afterward as a result of the horrible mistreatment received while imprisoned.

We will not forget Major Marie Ozanne’s courage and bravery in the face of evil. She is a witness to the precept that we are not put on earth for ourselves, but for others. As Catherine Booth said, “The world is waiting for you!” Pray that we, like Major Marie Ozanne, are ready to act.

Writing of her story in the Salvationist, Kersten Rieder wrote:

Not everyone agreed with the major’s action. She was branded a fool by some people – including some Salvationists – who tried to quieten her, to no avail. They feared the Germans might regard Marie’s conduct as an invitation for severe repercussions on all members of The Salvation Army, including heavy fines, imprisonment and perhaps deportation.

However, Marie’s resolve could not be broken and so she continued writing letters, preaching and offering herself in place of those sentenced to death for misconduct.

Marie was 37 years old when she died. To this day it is a mystery what really happened in that prison. There was speculation that she was tortured, even poisoned – traces of toxins were found in her body at post-mortem, leading to the suspicion that small amounts were introduced to her sparse prison diet.

Marie was buried quietly and quickly without a church service or grand recognition. It seemed she should disappear once and for all.

But Marie’s legacy did not die with her body. Her bold witness to humanity and faith under oppression remained intact. On a rainy Sunday in November 1947 at St Sampson she was posthumously warded the highest Salvation Army honour – the Order of the Founder.

General Albert Orsborn conducted the ceremony and Marie’s mother accepted the honour on her daughter’s behalf.

The heroism of this young Salvation Army officer was not only unique to the island of Guernsey, but across Europe – history unveils many stories of resistance, but few stories chronicle such fierce boldness. Her ability to stand up for what was right, regardless of the cost, did not only witness to an exceptional life of faith but was a true mark of humanity.

References
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-guernsey-21557669
https://salvationarmystlouis.wordpress.com/2011/12/19/courage-under-fire-a-profile-of-major-marie-ozanne/
http://guernseydonkey.com/?p=9362
http://guernseypress.com/news/2013/02/25/islands-fourth-blue-plaque-honours-inspirationalfigure-who-stood-up-against-the-occupying-german-forces/
https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/uki-cache.salvationarmy.org/7f0a1227-9ba3-4c03-bdb9-982bd0fab9a6_Salvationist+9+Mar+2013.pdf

Fry and Dostoevsky

Fry and Dostoevsky

Gay Byrne: “Suppose it’s all true, and you walk up to the pearly gates, and are confronted by God. What will Stephen Fry say to him, her, or it?”

Stephen Fry: “I’d say, bone cancer in children? What’s that about?

“How dare you? How dare you create a world to which there is such misery that is not our fault. It’s not right, it’s utterly, utterly evil.

“Why should I respect a capricious, mean-minded, stupid God who creates a world that is so full of injustice and pain. That’s what I would say. ”

I don’t think for a moment that is an unreasonable thing to say. This is a supposal. He is not saying he believes in God, he is saying what he would say if confronted with God.

It is worth noting in passing that the Irish laws, as I understand, carry a fine or prison sentence as a penalty.

13 countries currently have laws on the books carrying a penalty of death for blasphemy or apostasy. Including Pakistan, the other 13 countries are Afghanistan, Iran, Malaysia, Maldives, Mauritania, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, United Arab Emirates and Yemen. Each of these countries have adopted Islamic law as the ideological foundation of the government.

People have died because of accusations of blasphemy in those countries. If Fry and the Irish laws highlight that the law should be rescinded in Ireland, how much more should pressure be brought to bear to make countries in which the death penalty is acceptable in law change matters. Those countries which do so, have not just a vestige of past that is absurd, as in Ireland, but which is dangerous and barbaric.

And yet we happily trade with them.

It is absurd to treat Stephen Fry’s comments as blasphemy, because otherwise you would have to ban Dostoevsky's "The Brothers Karamazov" (1879) where the following dialogue takes place, and which puts matters just as strongly as Fry, in discussing the suffering of innocent children.

Shall Ireland now ban Dostoevsky?

This is a problem for religions such as Christianity, how to reconcile suffering of the innocent with the belief in a good God, and it will not go away when we stifle comments that raise these deep and challenging questions by invoking archaic laws to silence speakers. 

Dostoevsky's "The Brothers Karamazov": An Excerpt:

This poor child of five was subjected to every possible torture by those cultivated parents. They beat her, thrashed her, kicked her for no reason till her body was one bruise. Then, they went to greater refinements of cruelty- shut her up all night in the cold and frost in a privy, and because she didn't ask to be taken up at night (as though a child of five sleeping its angelic, sound sleep could be trained to wake and ask), they smeared her face and filled her mouth with excrement, and it was her mother, her mother did this. 

And that mother could sleep, hearing the poor child's groans! Can you understand why a little creature, who can't even understand what's done to her, should beat her little aching heart with her tiny fist in the dark and the cold, and weep her meek unresentful tears to dear, kind God to protect her?

Do you understand that, friend and brother, you pious and humble novice? Do you understand why this infamy must be and is permitted? Without it, I am told, man could not have existed on earth, for he could not have known good and evil. Why should he know that diabolical good and evil when it costs so much? Why, the whole world of knowledge is not worth that child's prayer to dear, kind God'! I say nothing of the sufferings of grown-up people, they have eaten the apple, damn them, and the devil take them all! But these little ones!

If all must suffer to pay for the eternal harmony, what have children to do with it, tell me,please? It's beyond all comprehension why they should suffer, and why they should pay for the harmony. Why should they, too, furnish material to enrich the soil for the harmony of the future?

You see, Alyosha, perhaps it really may happen that if I live to that moment, or rise again to see it, I, too, perhaps, may cry aloud with the rest, looking at the mother embracing the child's torturer, 'Thou art just, O Lord!' but I don't want to cry aloud then.

While there is still time, I hasten to protect myself, and so I renounce the higher harmony altogether. It's not worth the tears of that one tortured child who beat itself on the breast with its little fist and prayed in its stinking outhouse, with its unexpiated tears to 'dear, kind God'! It's not worth it, because those tears are unatoned for.

What do I care for a hell for oppressors? What good can hell do, since those children have already been tortured? And what becomes of harmony, if there is hell? I want to forgive. I want to embrace. I don't want more suffering. And if the sufferings of children go to swell the sum of sufferings which was necessary to pay for truth, then I protest that the truth is not worth such a price.

Tell me yourself, I challenge your answer. Imagine that you are creating a fabric of human destiny with the object of making men happy in the end, giving them peace and rest at last, but that it was essential and inevitable to torture to death only one tiny creature- that baby beating its breast with its fist, for instance- and to found that edifice on its unavenged tears, would you consent to be the architect on those conditions? Tell me, and tell the truth."

"No, I wouldn't consent," said Alyosha softly."

And can you admit the idea that men for whom you are building it would agree to accept their happiness on the foundation of the unexpiated blood of a little victim? And accepting it would remain happy for ever?"

"No, I can't admit it."

Who can Excommunicate?

From "The Pilot", 1968 comes this, an interesting historical ramble. 

Some Church Customs Explained
By S.G. Thicknesse

Who can Excommunicate? (By Bell, Book and Candle)

England still retains the skeleton of what, before the Reformation, was a body at times so powerful that it threatened to form a separate State within the State of England. This was the Estate of the Church which until the death-blow dealt in the time of Henry VIII had managed to maintain, in Convocation, its own system of clerical taxation (which indeed it only surrendered in the time of Charles II) and its own system of law-making, and through the country at large, its own law-courts, punishments, appointments and appeals. (Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, was murdered for upholding the exclusive right of the Church courts to try accused clerks whatever their offence.)

The thousands of English clerics and members of religious orders-indeed everyone subject to Church discipline-in some formidable sense owed their first obedience not to the local king but to the Church and to its head on earth, the Pope in Rome.

It was to the papal court and not to the supreme royal court of England that the final appeals were carried from the network of English Church courts. Of all the sanctions which the religious authorities wielded none was more feared than excommunication, except only the anathema, which devoted the offender to eternal perdition. This excommunication, then as now, could be pronounced with bell, book, and candle.

In such a case in the twelfth century, the book from which the sentence of excommunication was read was shut, the candle was dashed to the ground and extinguished, and the bell was struck, with the words `Do to the book, quench the candle, ring the bell'. From that time until if ever he obtained absolution, the excommunicated person was shut out from the sacraments and from all Christian fellowship and so, it was believed, from all hope of salvation.

Where participation in religious rites was required by civil law, such excommunication carried with it also civil penalties, sometimes the most severe. At the Reformation the power of excommunication was retained in the English bishops. The king, however, absorbed into his person all the old powers of the Pope as head of the English Church. From then on, therefore, all appeals from any Church sentence, including excommunication, were to be made to the king or to his delegates.

If a sentence of excommunication were upheld, the excommunicated person would still suffer the civil penalties of being unable to hold a benefice, to practise as an advocate or attorney in the courts, to be admitted as a witness, or to receive Christian burial, as he would to-day. Further penalties, whereby such a person if unrepentant could even be arrested and imprisoned by the sheriff, were abolished in the reign of George III.

But the English tendency has constantly been to limit peculiar authority. English common and statute law even before the Reformation claimed to bind every citizen whether layman or cleric. It also steadily decreased the number of citizens who could be touched by Canon law. Once it was all `clerks'; to-day it is only those members of the Anglican Church who are in holy orders, and, with reservations and in a very specialized field of duty, churchwardens.

As late as 1860, cases of laymen brawling and otherwise committing nuisances in the church or churchyard were removed from the jurisdiction of the Canon law. The law-making functions of the Convocations have been severely restricted ever since the Act of Submission of the Clergy (1533-4), and for centuries Convocations dissolved themselves as soon as they had met.

The Canon law continued to be employed in ecclesiastical courts, but these now meet but rarely and for business of diminished importance, as defined in the nineteenth century in the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction and Church Discipline Acts.

The ancient Archdeacon's court is now virtually defunct. The Consistory court of the bishop, with the bishop or the chancellor of the diocese as president, may still try and penalize clergy convicted, for example, of immorality, and in extreme cases the bishop could excommunicate.

Most of the court's modern business, however, is concerned with faculties and church fabric. Although the courts of the two Archbishops-Canterbury's supreme court of the Arches, and the Chancery court at York-have, besides, a good deal of appellate jurisdiction, the final appeal is to the Privy Council.

Robert Gray  (Bishop of Cape Town)

In a notable case of appeal, in 1865, against a sentence of excommunication, pronounced by Bishop Gray as Metropolitan of Capetown against Bishop Colenso of Natal, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council argued that Bishop Gray had acted ultra vires and reversed the sentence.

Maybelieve

One from the back catalogue today. This was written on 5th March 2007, when Annie and myself would set each other titles for poems for the coming week, and we'd read them to each other at the weekend.

This one draws a lot from Ursula Le Guin's Earthsea stories, and the idea that when we really change the world, be it Earthsea or our own world, we can risk upsetting the balance, the equilibrium, of the natural world. There's also a fair bit of Aristotle there as well.

Maybelieve

The Master Hand took the jewel,

Spoke softly the illusion spell,

And made it appear a flower;

This was his art, his power:

To change the appearance,

And fool the beholders sense,

Make it seeming now a flame,

Ruby red and bright. The name

Is the key to the art, the word

Changes outer form, not inward

Essence, and transubstantiate

Matter. This is a steady state:

The true name remains, in art,

Unchanged, one thing, one part

Of the world; the great balance

Of the substance and accidence

Must be kept, or else to change

The world could instead derange

Equilibrium. Power must follow

Knowledge, serve need, and so

Keep the boundaries of the act,

Lest reality distort, be cracked,

Beyond the alchemy to repair:

That all will end in dark despair;

To light a candle, cast a shadow,

This is the maybelieve we know.

Jersey In Colour - Part 2

Today is an extract from an early 1960s Jarrold Guide to Jersey, entitled "Jersey In Colour". How beautiful the Island looked in the 1960s! Even St Aubin looks lest spoiled. The text also mentions the German War cemetery at St Brelade's Church: all German Military war dead were transferred to Mont de Huisnes, close to Mont St Michel, in late 1961.

Jersey In Colour - Part 2

St Aubin’s is today only a tiny town on the shores of the bay of the same name, but there are many reminders of the days when it was the principal port of Jersey and a town of considerable importance.

The harbour was begun in 1675 with the building of a pier extending from the Fort, and completed by the construction of the South Pier in 1754 and the North Pier in 1816. For many years St. Aubin's was a prosperous port, but the building of the harbour at St. Helier saw the beginning of a decline.

However, ships continued to be built at St. Aubin's until well into the nineteenth century. In 1870 Jersey's first railway from St. Helier to St. Aubin's was opened. It was later extended to La Corbière, but in 1935 it closed and was replaced by a bus service.

It is a pleasant walk from St. Aubin's to Belcroute Bay and the view of St. Aubin's from this spot is a charming one. Belcroute with its tree-clad cliffs is in many ways one of the most delightful bays on the southern coast of Jersey.

Yet there were days when Belcroute was far from popular, for it was here that ships which had sailed from ports where plague was raging were forced to lie at anchor during their period of quarantine.

The great headland of Noirmont, which forms the south-western arm of St. Aubin's Bay, is now the property of the islanders.

It is an impressive mass of dark rock, clad with heather. Noirmont Manor was built in 1700 but the original house was pulled down and replaced by the present structure a century later. Lily Langtry, the "Jersey Lily", spent her honeymoon here.

Between the points of Noirmont and Le Fret is PORTELET BAY, a pleasant spot with a fine sandy beach enclosed by green hills.

In the centre of the bay rises the Ile au Guerdain on which stands a round Martello tower. This is often wrongly called Janvrin's Tomb, for Philippe Janvrin was buried on the island, but nearly a century before the tower was erected. He had brought his ship from Nantes with the plague aboard and was refused permission to land. Most of his crew died and finally the captain too, but it was still forbidden to bring his body ashore. So he was first buried on the Ile au Guerdain, but afterwards he was reinterred in the churchyard of St. Brelade's.

The western headland of the bay has yielded many examples of primitive flint implements.

The "Fishermen's Chapel" in the churchyard of St. Brelade's Church is one of the smallest and certainly one of the oldest places of worship in the island.

In the fourteenth century the interior of the tiny building was adorned with frescoes depicting Biblical incidents; one, over the altar, representing the Annunciation, was discovered beneath a later painting.

There were originally two little chapels in the churchyard, the second is still here, for it was incorporated in the chancel of the present church nearby which is without doubt one of the very oldest in Jersey. It was begun in the eleventh century and is notable for its saddle-back tower and Celtic turret.

The churchyard of St. Brelade's, which is washed on two sides by the sea, is the last resting-place of over 200 German soldiers who died in both world wars.

The Innovation Fund: Failings of the Board

Sir Desmond: "So it all boils down to the Industry Co-partnership Committee. Still, I find that quite acceptable."
Sir Humphrey: "Well, it is within the gift of my Minister, and you would only put in appearances once or twice a month."
Sir Desmond: "Are there lots of papers?"
Sir Humphrey: "Yes, but it wouldn't be awfully necessary to read them."
Sir Desmond: "Then I wouldn't have anything to say at the monthly meetings."
Sir Humphrey: "Splendid, I can see you're just the chap I'm looking for."

Yes Minister, Jobs for the Boys
I’ve been reviewing the recent report, and the chief defence of all the Ministers involved is that they were given bad and incorrect advice by their officials, and the Innovation Board, which knew about matters, concealed the problems which had arisen.

There may actually be some substance to that. Looking at a scrutiny report in which links of responsibility were set out, Philip Ozouf said to Scrutiny:

“We are] saying: ‘We do not mind you taking some risks, Chief Officer, but obviously you are going to need to do this properly and have a good governance structure." So our job and Jim Shilliday’s job is to make sure that we have forged a good governance structure and we have questioned E.D. (Economic Development) and questioned and had a constructive tension between Economic Development and Treasury to ensure that we have got a governance structure that works, so that is why in the report we have got an independent chairman, we have got non-execs we have got a reporting line about who signs off and all the rest of it, so there is a whole gubbins of rules, but also what we have got to be careful of is that we do not smother.”

So much for the innovation board! As this report is just on Ministerial responsibility, their part is not questioned, but clearly was deficient.

Why is their bizarre censoring of the report? The name Ms. M. Drummond (Strategy Manager) is blanked out, but visible in the report it refers to. There is no point in taking out names if they are visible in the public record.

The key paragraphs in the report are as follows:

“From my consideration of Email correspondence and Board Minutes, as well as interviews with the relevant Ministers, there is nothing to suggest that up until at least 2016 and possibly later, Ministers were aware of the problems that the JIF Executive and Board were experiencing nor that there were any problems with the OTRs; on the contrary the evidence was that the Ministers believed that the fund was being run properly by both their officers and the Board.

Indeed, the C&AG herself was concerned that "reporting at Ministerial level was inaccurate or delayed: (i) during 2015 the quarterly reports from the JIF Executive state that there were no breaches of conditions of loans, despite significant non-compliance with the requirements for reporting by borrowers and the known failure of one company to have complied with a specific requirement of a loan immediately after drawdown; and (ii) ._ there was a six—month delay in officers formally briefing the Assistant Chief Minister on issues concerning one loan. This was despite a need for this briefing having been identified and minuted at three meetings of the Board’:

Further, the JIF Board Minutes of 1 July 2014 record that Chair was now meeting with Alan Maclean (Minister for Economic Development) on a monthly basis- However, in interview, Senator Maclean said that he was not aware of any failure to comply with the 0TRs, nor had he been informed of any change in risk profile of the Fund- Senator Farnham also stated that he was not aware that there had not been compliance with the OTRs-

Similarly, an E-mail from Senator Ozouf to ‘ (JIF Executive Officer) dated 23 January 2015 suggests that any concerns the Board had about the operation of the JIF were not, at least at that stage, passed on to Ministers- Senator Ozouf wrote: "I met with Tim last night and very, very pleased with what I heard. It was an excellent meeting which filled with me confidence. I'm very pleased with the Board, structure, processes in place and he clearly excellent support you are giving this massively important project.” 

It is clear from later E-mails that Senator Ozouf did not meet Tim Herbert again until at the earliest sometime after 20 October 2015. Indeed, Senator Ozouf in his follow-up written response to my questions noted that in reading through E-mails to respond to the review: "I have also learnt about a very significant amount of information that I was never told - despite asking."

It does look as if Philip Ozouf has some cause for complaint because of this – having selected “the great and the good”, it turned out that they were “the inept and the useless”. If there is one lesson which must be learnt it is that paid boards like this need careful monitoring to ensure they are doing their job right! An impressive CV does not indicate how useless they might turn out to be.

Is it any wonder that the Chairman – “due to other commitments”, as we were told in January 2016, stood down just as the Fund and its operations were suspended? The rest of the Board should also be dismissed forthwith, and composition of future "boards" given greater examination than has been the case in the past. 

If there is one lesson which must be learnt it is that paid boards like this need careful monitoring to ensure they are doing their job right! An impressive CV does not indicate how useless they might turn out to be. They should not be cosy jobs for the boys, as Yes Minister suggests.

Three Boos for Democracy

An Assembly of the Principals and Electors of the Parish of St. Helier will be held at the Town Hall on Wednesday 29 March 2017 at 7.00pm.

Parishioners are asked to take into consideration and, if deemed advisable: to approve the recommendation of the Constable, Procureurs du Bien Public and the Roads Committee of the Parish of St Helier that the States be asked to negotiate with the Parish to agree a fair price for the lifting of the 'Bellozanne Covenant' P.05/2017

Now anyone seeing that in the JEP or online would be forgiven for thinking that this was a relatively low cost proposition. Unfortunately, as the Minutes reveal, an amendment was brought, which was not advertised prior to the meeting:

Proposer: Mary Osmond
Seconder: Deputy Andrew Lewis

The Constable advised the Assembly that legal advice had been sought and that the consensus was that if a member of the Assembly wished to amend the proposition in a way that they wanted the Parish to take the matter to the Privy Council prior to the States Assembly this was in order, however that was for the Assembly to decide, because as it stood the proposition was as set out in P.05/2017.

He also explained that before giving a short background to the proposition that he had to also inform the Assembly that he had received confirmation from the States Greffier that in order for the States to debate the matter the wording of the proposition would need to be altered to read the following;

‘to request the Minister of the Department of Infrastructure to enter into negotiations with the Parish of St Helier to agree a fair monetary settlement of the dispute concerning the Bellozanne Covenant’

The Assembly was asked if they wished to proceed with the matter based on the new wording and on putting the matter to a vote by a show of hands the amendment was approved unanimously.

Peter Pearce proposed an amendment to the wording of the proposition, which was seconded by Geraint Jennings. The revised wording was;

"to request the Minister of the Department of Infrastructure to enter into negotiations with the Parish of St Helier to agree a fair monetary settlement of the dispute concerning the Bellozanne Covenant, the Parish having first appealed the judgement of the Appeal Court at the Privy Council’ "

The amended proposition was put to the vote by secret ballot and was approved by 56 votes for 4 against and 1 spoilt paper.

It is amazing that this came in and was permitted without advertising the amendment, which could cost the Parish a significant sum, because evidently there was time to seek legal advice on whether such an amendment could be done.

It evidently was not last minute enough for Simon Crowcroft to seek legal advice, and if he had advice, why didn’t he update the way the proposition had been significantly changed, at least using the Parish Website.

John Baker commented that £7million in the collection of commercial waste was a lot of money and against that, £700k did not seem that bad. He would not put money on the States agreeing to pay anything. He would be prepared to back a 50/50 chance at Privy Council.

The minutes record that the Constable shared Mr Baker’s views, so how could he been seen to be quite impartial? Surely the Assembly in which the Constable had a stake should have been chaired by a Procureur, as has happened on occasion in St Brelade, where Constable Steve Pallett decided that he should step away from the chair.

It also raises that point again as to why there was enough time for the Constable to seek legal advice for an amendment, but not enough time to advertise the potential revised amendment.

In the discussion running up to the amendment, Deputy Sam Mezec said there was less risk taking it to Privy Council and that it was right that a public authority stood up for its business community.

It seems to have been a night for Reform to be there, because Deputy Monfort Tadier, who is a St Brelade Deputy, decided to speak out and said that the Minsters only understand hardball. He would take it to Privy Council and pressure would be put on the Minister from other Ministers. So it may not get there but he didn’t think it was a bad deal at around £100k.

Is this a growing trend, and can we expect Reform Deputies to turn up at Parish Assemblies elsewhere?

Where the figure of £100k comes from, I can’t see from the minutes, but the total figure, or at least a figure mentioned by John Baker was £700k.

On this, Ben Shenton remarked that:

“Constable Simon Crowcroft has led the fight on behalf of his parishioners but made it quite clear where accountability for the £750,000 lies – not with him but with the St Helier Parish Assembly. ‘I will take this fight further. But I need the Assembly’s backing because two years down the line, if we are faced with a £750,000 legal bill, I don’t want people saying it is the Constable’s fault,’ he said.”

“So that’s clear, then. Accountability lies with the 56 parishioners who turned up and voted to continue the fight and it has nothing to do with the parish Constable when it goes wrong.”

But it is partly the Constable’s fault! He could have at the very least lodged an amendment or found someone willing to lodge an amendment to advertise the revised proposition before it was debated so that there might have conceivably been more than 56 people voting on the matter. That could also have involved finding someone capable of doing proper costing. Reading those minutes, the calculations given out, even by the Constable, seem rushed, last minute, like figures scribbled on the back of a beer mat.

He could have alerted the media and placed the amendment on the Parish website just after he had his legal advice. Instead, like a modern day Pontius Pilate, he washed his hands of the matter, ostensibly leaving it in the hands of his Parishioners.

All he did do was to legally protect himself from blame. Whether his Parishioners think that is enough, or he should be held morally accountable, remains to be seen. History, it may be noted, was not too kind to Pontius Pilate, who also took the view that the people should make decisions.

What we also don’t know is how many of those present have a business in St Helier, and hence a vested interest in getting the matter past. Remember that the largest businesses on the High Street are pretty well all owned by UK shareholders who contribute nothing in the way of taxes towards waste disposal, whereas the individual Parishioner pays for his sewage and other waste disposal through general taxation.

As Ben Shenton notes:

“According to the MTFP, the preferred route is through a ‘non-domestic Island wide rate’. This makes sense and, given the state of current finances, a contribution from UK high street businesses which do not pay income tax is a sensible one. Indeed, this could be a useful revenue stream to reduce the tax burden on individuals.”

In the meantime, a costly amendment has been pushed through without advertising it, and at 56 votes, voted on by less people than voted for most of the failed candidates for Deputy in St Helier! Here are the two lowest:

Risoli, Gino – 192
Ttokkallos, John – 104

Voting at Parish Assembly on spend of at least £100,00K -  56

Parish Assemblies were fine when the number of Parishioners was so small that most of them could turn up to vote - as can happen in St Mary - but as things stand now, if even a quarter of the St Helier electorate turned up, there would be no room for them in the Assembly Hall.

If the Parish Assembly is to remain viable in this century, and I sincerely hope it does, then electronic means of participation is the way forward, with eVoting on propositions. Then at least, we would have a real democratic vote, rather than the tokenism of 56.

John Stuart Mill wrote:

"the only government which can fully satisfy all the exigencies of the social state is one in which the whole people participate; that any participation, even in the smallest public function, is useful; that the participation should every where be as great as the general degree of improvement of the community will allow"

We have many improvements needed to increase participation, and it is about time decisions on Parish matters allowed pre-polled voting and eVoting.

And amendments to propositions in the States Chamber have to be made before a debate, so that there is enough time to review them. Shouldn't the Parish Assembly adopt this very sensible position to avoid expensive amendments being made and approved "on the hoof"?

Prayers from the Ark

Saturday was lovely and sunny, but Sunday and Monday have been very wet and very windy, heavy showers and gale force winds. As a bank holiday it has been a bit of a washout. It reminds me of some lines from a poetry book "Prayers from the Ark", where Noah says:

All this water makes my heart sink.
When will the ground cease to rock under my feet?

That is at the opening of Prayers from the Ark by Carmen de Gasztold, and one of my favourites is this one, especially appropriate for such a deluge as we have had:

Prayer of the Little Ducks

Dear God, give us a flood of water.
Let it rain tomorrow and always.
Give us plenty of slugs
and other luscious things to eat.
Protect all of us who quack,
and bless everyone who knows how to swim.

Amen

or, in the original French

Carmen Bernos de Gasztold (1919-1995) was a French poet. She spent her childhood in the province of Bordeaux, France. She had 5 sisters and brothers. After World War II she went to live at the Benedictine Abbeye Saint Louis du Temple at Limon-par-Igny.

Choral Net tells her story:

“The poems were written in the 1940's during the German occupation of France. Having lost her mother and suffered both a physical and mental breakdown, DeGasztold was accepted into the Abbaye of Saint Louis du Temple at Limon-par-Igny, just south of Paris, where she was encouraged to refine her poetry by the nuns who cared for her on their farm. Their encouragement over the course of four years resulted in "Prayers from the Ark", a series of 27 prayers to God from the inhabitants of the Ark.”

Rumer Godden

The English translation was written by poet Rumer Godden (1907–1998) who went to the Benedictine Abbey in France and spent time with the poet to do the translation. It is an extraordinary story as well. She stumbled upon a copy of the "Prayers" in the early 1950's quite by accident as she was helping the nuns at the Cenacle Convent in London clean out a cupboard.

She immediately sought out De Gasztold to request her permission to translate them. After quite a bit of work, first to locate , and then to win her confidence - and that of her nun advisers - Godden set about her task with the assistance of De Gasztold, helped from behind the Abbaye grille by two of the nuns. 

How well she did in her translation, and how the humour in some of these poems comes over can be seen in this one:

Lord,
I am the cat.
It is not exactly that I have something to ask of You!
No--
I ask nothing of anyone--
but,
if You have by some chance in some celestial barn,
a little white mouse,
or a saucer of milk,
I know someone who would relish them.
Wouldn't you like someday
to put a curse on the whole race of dogs?
If so I should say,
Amen.

That just captures the essence of a cat, doesn’t it? The cat asks no one, not even God, for any favours, but if favours are to be granted, it is food, and a curse on dogs!

And I suppose we should have the one from the "Prayer of the Mouse" as well as a counterpoint;

I am so little and grey,
dear God,

how can you keep me in mind?
Always spied upon,
always chased.
Nobody ever gives me anything,
and I nibble meagerly at life.
Why do they reproach me with being a mouse?
Who made me but You?
I can only ask to stay hidden.
Give me my hunger’s pittance
safe from the claws of that devil with green eyes.
Amen.

Aaron Beard wrote of her poems: “Each poem is a simple but sincere image of what the author really thinks the animal feels. The poems have a degree of universality about them that is not only concrete and intense but contributes to literature some new approaches to basic ideas”

Some almost seem to mirror human concerns, about the pace and pressure of life, as in “The Prayer of the Ox”:

Dear God, give me time.
Men are always so driven!
Make them understand that I can never hurry.
Give me time to eat.
Give me time to plod.
Give me time to sleep.
Give me time to think.

As Jessica Brown says:

"By giving voice to the animals, these poems speak for a range of aspects within us: the workaday ox that will labor long, the hidden self that spins with majesty and imagination like the oyster at the bottom of the sea, that part that keeps chirping like the cricket at dusk... "

"Was it painful to re-reflect on these lines because one side of me kept striving and driving on while another side, like the sturdy and slow ox, simply needed more time to just be?.... Carmen Bernos de Gasztold helps create for us. She helps, via deceptively charming verse, give a voice to that part within that often has no voice, the visceral, unheeded, hidden, suspicious aspects of us."

I came across the book “Prayers of the Ark” in a second hand book shop, and it is still available in second hand copies, and I still find them magical in their simplicity, and I also find it amazing that a nun, enclosed away from the world in a religious order, could be given the encouragement and opportunity to write these poems. 

And the book ends with what must surely be a prayer for these trouble times, a song of hope and peace:

The Prayer of the Dove

The Ark waits,
Lord,
the Ark waits on Your will,
and the sign of Your peace.

I am the dove,
simple
as the sweetness that comes from You.

The Ark waits,
Lord;
it has endured.
Let me carry it
a sprig of hope and joy,
and put, at the heart of its forsakenness,
this, in which Your love clothes me,
Grace immaculate.

Amen.


Links
http://archive.choralnet.org/view/222505
Carmen Bernos de Gasztold's "Prayers From The Ark" an Approach to Writing Poetry by Aaron Bernarr Beard, in Elementary English, Vol. 45, No. 7 (NOVEMBER, 1968), pp. 968-971

http://www.arthouseamerica.com/blog/prayers-for-the-animals-inside-of-us.html

The Sign of Fire

A story of magic for Belane, 1st May!

The Sign of Fire


The mist was coming in over the waters, and I sat on the rock, in the darkness, the waves lapping around my ankles; I gazed ahead, seeing faint shapes, outlines in the dark haze, that came and went.

I hear a voice, calling softly across the sea, and I lose myself in the mist. It is hard to see anything but a dark space ahead of my eyes. The voice is that of a woman, calling softly across the waves as they ripple beneath the fog:

Beltane fires, burning bright
Take me back to yester night
To a time that I may learn
How to see, and how discern
Flaming spirits in the night
Burning fire, victory sight
Open up the gates of time
Show me now the way sublime


The House of Dr Dee

The mist clears, and I found myself looking at an old man in an simple black robe, with a small skull cap on his head. He is seated at a desk in a large library, the walls full of old books and manuscripts. Somehow, I know that I am inside a study, within the house of Dr Dee.

On the desk is an astrolabe, a short wooden wand, some papers written in a thin, spidery hand, and a dark obsidian stone, with a mirrored surface, and a candle, half-burned down. It is night, and through the window, the crescent moon shines faintly in the sky, as dark clouds blow across, obscuring its light.

The man is speaking softly to himself.

"The Queen wishes to see the shades of what may yet come to pass, and how peril may be averted. May the angelic wisdom guide me with my shew-stone, that I may see the coming dangers."
He takes up the stone, and peers at it, and chants in a tongue unknown to me, strange words that seem full of power. And as I watch, the surface of the stone clouds, so that it no longer reflects, and then, after a short span, it clears. But it is no longer reflecting the room. And he chants:

Beltane fires, burning bright
Take me back this mystic night
Let me see the burning past
Let me see the ships and mast
Show me true, and show me well
Here I summon, cast my spell
Take upon this eve to see
Danger sailing close to me


The Armada
Inside the shew stone, I see a dark moonless night, and waves rising and falling, in the midst of an immense ocean. And sailing across the sea, a vast fleet hoves into view, a great mass of ships, assembled in a tight formation, and on them flies the Spanish flag. It is the Armada, on its way to England, ready for invasion.

My line of sight changes, and I am flying over the ocean towards the land. Across the jagged rocks, up onto the hillside, where there are gathered watchers looking out. A watchman sounds an alarm, and a burning torch is plunged into the bonfire. Slowly the yellow flames begin to glow, as the fire takes hold, and soon there is a roaring flame, tongues of fire leaping high into the night sky, and glowing ashes carried higher still, caught in the updraft as the beacon blazes its warning.

I look across the land, and another hill suddenly burns brightly, as another beacon blazes its warning note. Then across the hills, one by one, the lights come on, the beacons set ablaze, the warning flame across the land. And on, and on, without a pause, they sprang from hill to hill.

And Dr Dee gazes at this sight in his shew-stone, his dark mirror, and his gaze reaches across the land, and he chants:

All night from tower to tower they sprang;
And in the valleys, with bells they rang
As flames sprang forth from hill to hill
As danger blew forth bitter chill

Till the peak blazed high on the rocky dales
Till as volcano flared the hills of Wales,
Till twelve fair counties saw blaze on lonely heigh,
Till streamed in crimson far and wide the crest of light

And I see across the sea, and English ships sail into view; they exchange cannon fire with the Spanish, but the formation holds. Then the English fleet sends forth ships alight, fire ships, into the heart of the Armada, and the formation breaks apart.

Tilbury


I am on a hillside, and soldiers are massed there, some on foot, some on horseback, in shining armour, with banners unfurled, the English flag waving in the wind. There were all kinds of other people present. I see many noblemen, wearing embroidered woollen tunics, fine cloaks fastened around them. And also around are peasants who had come from the fields.

Suddenly trumpet players sound a fanfare, and a lady rides up in silver armour, her red hair glowing in the sunshine, and I know it is Queen Elizabeth. She halts and addresses the crowd.

My loving people:
We have been persuaded to take heed,
But safety must give way to need;
And while treachery may be around,
I will not cower, but stand my ground;
I trust my loving people, faithful, true;
I will not shy away, the day to rue;
But under God, I come to fight,
To take upon the Spanish might
In midst of you, in heat of battle,
We will not bow like docile cattle;
To live and die amongst you all,
And if we bleed, in dust to fall:
This is the noble way I'll die,
Fierce fighting, and with battle cry.

I know I have the body but of a weak and feeble woman; but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England too!


And she takes a flaming torch handed to her by one of her knights, and tosses it into the beacon. Dry and ripe for burning, the flames crackle and take hold in an instant, and the fire burns high over the land, as she rides off with her army, to see what may be, if the threat of invasion comes to pass.

The Witch on the Shore

The sun was gleaming on the tranquil sea beside the shore, and reflecting in the rock pools. Dark seaweed lay strewn around the tide line on the sand.

And there, standing on the shore,  I saw an old woman in a white robe; she pushed back her hood, and I saw her white hair, and blue eyes. She held a leather pouch, and reached into it, and drew out one card, the Ace of Staves, then another, until she had four cards in her hand, the Two of Staves, the Three of Staves, and the Four of Staves. She held them fanned out in her hand, and waved them towards the sea in a beating motion. All at once, a breeze sprang up, and the sea, still until then, began to ripple in the breeze. And she began to chant.

Let the wind be loose, let the wind be free
Loose the cards, across the sea
Raise the wind, and raise the storm
Let the cards their shape take form

Let the wind be loose, let the wind be free
The hanged man on the broken tree
Raise the wind, and raise the wave
Gusts of wind, and beating stave

Let the wind be loose, let the wind be free
Loose the cards, let Staves be key
Raise the wind, and raise the cloud
Death is coming, with a shroud


She got out four more cards from the suit of Staves, and added them to her hand. Again she fanned them out, and stood there, beating them out to sea. Small wavelets appeared, and leaves began to rustle; the breeze grew steadily stronger, loose leaves and small twigs began to move, and out at sea the wavelets grew in size, crests of waves beginning to break, white horses on the blue sea.

Once more she reached into her bag, and brought out the rest of the suit of Staves, and began to beat the air with the cards fanned out., and small branches in the trees began to sway. The waves started to break upon the rocks, sometimes throwing up spray, and dark clouds rolled over the sky. Small trees were swaying, and soon large branches began to move. Out at sea, long foaming crests were forming, and the sea was breaking over the rocks, throwing up spray high into the air.

She began to raise and lower her cards in a strong, vigorous action, becoming faster, and now the large branches began to move, and still the wind rose. With a cracking sound, some branches broke off the trees, and the waves were high, dashing down upon the rocks, and soon very high waves began to appear, their crests overhanging, them collapsing with a crash of white foam. The sky was dark with thick clouds, and it was beginning to rain.

And on the horizon, the Spanish ships came into view, struggling to retain some semblance of formation, trying to keep in line. They rose and fell with the huge waves out at sea, the wind howling through their sails, as the storm rose to its height. The water was swirling, and the ships rose and fell; the cries of the crew, desperately trying to control their path, are lost in the shrieking gales. The wind was gusting, beating, beating, like the Staves let loose into the world, free elemental forces in the dance of life.

The old women collected the cards up, and placed them back in her pouch, and withdrew one card, and held it up against the storm. It was the Tower, struck by lighting, the fire let loose upon the world. A Greater Trump had been unleashed, and would be made manifest. Once more she chanted an incantation.

The hour has struck, the cards make clear
The time has come for fire and fear
Bolts of light, come down from sky
And see the card, and let them fly

The hour has struck, the cards make clear
The time has come for loss and tear
Bolts of light, the Tower struck
And see the card, it brings dark luck

The hour has struck, the cards make clear
The time has come, the wind will hear
Bolts of light, come with my art
And see the card, all falls apart.


A violet glow like fire appeared on the masts of the ships, and the sailors crossed themselves fearfully, muttering in Spanish that the spirit-candles had come, a sign that their ships had been cursed. Then suddenly a loud flash rent the air, as a dagger of light streaked down from the heavy clouds above, and hit the leading ship, and as it blazed, the other ships fell apart, losing all formation. A deep rumble of thunder rent the air. And so it was that the ships were scattered, some lost, some to limp around the coast of Britain and back to Spain, defeated, beaten for good.

The card was replaced in the pouch, and the old woman walked slowly up the path, away from the beach. The storm was dying down, the sea becoming calm once more. The final threat was over; the Armada had been blown away by the winds, by the fire from above, and through the dance of the staves, beating against those ships in each gust of wind.

The Burning Shore


The sun is rising, breaking through the mist, and I am back by the shore; the shades of the past have faded, returning to their time and place, and it is the start of May day. The fog lifts, and I see tide is now receding, and the beach is coming clear.

In on a raft, comes an effigy in wicker, a wicker man, drawn in by the subtle currents within the bay; it gently comes to rest upon the sand, and the waves slowly drawn back, the tide going out, and it is standing there alone.

I walk down to the wicker man, and take from my bag a brushwood torch, which I set on fire with a match. I hold it out to the wicker man, and he catches fire, and is blazing, a sign of fire in the dawn sky.

Beltane fires, burning bright
Here is now the sign of light
Remember true, remember well
When the tide did rise and swell
A virgin Queen, a golden age
Now in history's crabbed page
Tarot loosed the winds they say
Now rejoice for bright May day


I sit on rocks just above the sea line, and watch the wicker man burn. As I watch the wood burn, and crumble to ashes, I notice on the ground below me an old worn Tarot card, which I pick up. I turn it over. It is the sign of the Sun, the sign of light. And I know that Beltane will shine forth and there will be many blessings on our land.