Our Shadows

Shadows joyfully merge together to become one
In the warm sunshine that decorates the beach with light.
Movements of devotion cast their designs upon the sands,
Opening unseen curtains to life’s passions and possibilities.
Nearing the water’s edge, two hearts beat together,
Aware of just one another and the precious gift they both hold.

by Edward

Jubilant eyes and merry songs rise from one curving stream. From another the downcast sorrow and regret of chances neglected seep up like a putrid vapour. Over there, a myriad of minds in contemplation, concentration and cranial composition. All the streams of life visible from the canvas of a liberated cognizance. Hide the anchor! Let it flow! I want to see more.

Then I saw you, in your stream. Eyes shimmering in the light of being and your hair aglow with hidden passions tamed. I watched you for a while, my mind a mix of emotions and desires, your lips a cradle of my ambitions. Out of sight and back again, you appeared once more from under the obscurity of other’s stories. Then it happened. Sweet innocence of hope did my legs make leap, and plunged my spirit into your soul.

Painting reprinted here with permission from the artist herself. Missy Poem.

I wish I could show you the spirals my fingers make upon the tapestries of recollection. The weaving circles and curving thumbs that seek your face to tender touch. Possibilities pose themselves across the walls where I paint. With brush in hand, there are no limitations to haunt our souls nor fears to cease the bond I thought we held. Onerous thoughts that mere words will not alleviate. Hold the love I bestowed into your hands and come here soon, for in this darkness a heart yearns to beat.

I wish I could show you I’m more than just words. That in this soul of mine there is a sea of forgiveness waiting to be released. A willingness for you and I to meet as one and sail across this ocean’s pride. A journey where our silence heals and gentle touch two spirits seal. Take pause and lift your lantern high. Raise my face unto your eyes and seek the treasures that within I hide. Pittance’d verse of poet’s flair come short of all that inside I’ve now become. Uncover me from the shadows deep and I will shine within your heart, forever more.

Picture reprinted here with permission from the artist herself. Nicoleta Hanu.

One word of love whispered in our ears and we become elevated up into the stars. Our gaze surveying the majesty of the world and our thoughts soaring across the vast oceans and mammoth mountain ranges. How delicious the word of love can taste together with affectionate fingers sailing gently across one’s cheek. Freedom from the plains of mind and the battlefields of soul. Transcendence from the roots of experience to the heavenly branches of eternal possibility.

The power of love is worth the climb. A single word whispered in our ears can make meadows bloom in mid-Winter snow and sunlight blossom at the stroke of midnight. One hand interwoven with another can reveal the stars more clearly than the strongest telescope known to man. A cultivation of shared hearts beating in unison beneath skies of splendour.

Painting reproduced here with permission from its creator Missy Poem.

Word in the centre of the hand is the Hebrew for ‘love’.

A little Victorian boy whose mother would have been delivered the news one ordinary afternoon. How she must have wept and cried and even screamed when the heart was ripped from her soul. Forgotten moments that are without a hook to the modern world but for the slowly disintegrating words passed down from one generation to the next. Another few decades and no one will even know nor care about the story behind the little gravestone in the lonely churchyard at the bottom of the country lane.

Extinguished bodies and memories wrapped together in the void of nothingness. How sweet the non-existence for the aged cries of a torn mother’s heart, now silent. Old bones resting in the soil where a consciousness is no more and the daily cares of a 19th Century school day are but figments of an onlooker’s imagination. I went to the graveyard frequently as a child and lightly mourned the distance between the mother and he, when the heart beat ceased and the blood solidified. In some small way the story will live on with me, until I die, about the little gravestone in the lonely churchyard at the bottom of the country lane.

The bud of comfort splits and out pop my legs onto the woven floor. Natural fibres sink into the bare soles of my feet as I seek the memories of the night before. Images flicker and feelings form in the blank voids that are slowly disappearing. Secret desires are rekindled and forgotten fears brandish their swords in the cold beams of splintered daylight peering through the closed blinds. My fingers touch a faraway face of beauty as my feet take control and towards the kettle descend.

Outside the wind howls and blasts its way through the streets like a wild animal drunk on blood. I can feel its rush as I sip my tea. Caffeine curated pictures emerge of leaves being ripped off wintered branches and then carried high into the air and taken god knows where. Then the cat comes and tells me her news whilst thoughts of work and wandering dreams peruse my mind.

The cat is excited today and seeks to return to the garden as soon as possible. For the first time in her life she met with strange little creatures she’d never before seen. Fairies to you and I. Consciousness had been a one way street from one quiet incident to the next prior to today but now she knows the burden of contemplation and awareness of self. These little creatures taught her everything and now she claims to know the world and what is right and what is wrong. Out she goes again.

From my desk in front of the large window, I can see the grey sea in the distance together with the white cliffs adorned with cloaks and caps of green. Seagulls bark and dogs screech whilst ferries rousing themselves from their terminals sound their horns and belch out thick putrid smoke. Orange droplets hang from small tree twigs just below my window, dancing their last proud tango before the winter shuts them down. Branches become roots and roots become branches, as the cascading seasonal changes take effect.

Winter reveals what lies beneath and the darker the evenings get, the less they truly hide. Senses wander in the darkness and meet with fluttering objects invisible to the eye. Some are good whilst others are bad and each tugs at the mind and heart in its own unique way. Black blankets are tossed over heads and ripped with violent vigour while soothing wisps comfort tensed muscles and relight lanterns previously extinguished. It’s a mixed bag of positive and negative, each itching to be seen, or felt, in the light of awareness, if only for a moment. Then they disappear but not before leaving their mark on the body of the lamp.

Art offers little relief from the questions that tumble and trip over coils of ticking days. Scenes from the masters of yesteryear, the remains of toil, lust, longing and tumultuous incandescence that are now lost to the emptiness of absent memories. Paintings where nobody moves until the canvas is devoured, whenever that moment comes; stark insight into one enigma sunning itself on the other side of the room. Paint strokes continue, as they should and always will.

Elenchus tones and shortening loans, how true the medley of months and years that eliminate all extraneous dreams. A claustrophobia that seeks not the sky to ablaze but contents itself in the corner of a painting, tugging the shirt sleeve, asking when it’s time to leave. Yet mystery keeps us hungry for, as do the rhymes of love beating across the expanses. Euphoric flashes, contented beams, sought and found from one era to the next and detailed on the walls of pitch black caves.

Quod scripsi, scripsi.

A wave of fury has descended on Germany with poor Dr Sarrazin being placed in the firing line of political and public opinion. The Social Democratic Party of whom Sarrazin is a member has promised to expel the gentleman. The Bundesbank have also handed out statements condemning him for his words as has German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Thilo Sarrazin’s book, ‘Deutschland schafft sich ab’ which translates to ‘Germany does away with itself’ is a 464-page study of the effects immigration has had and continues to have on modern-day Germany. The book is heading for the best-seller lists and Dr Sarrazin has insisted “It’s very balanced”.

Below I address the words which have caused so much anger and add my penny’s worth on each.

“most of the cultural and economic problems are concentrated in a group of the five to six million immigrants from Muslim countries”

This is true. Whether it’s politically incorrect or not to say so is irrelevant. An interesting article on this can be found here: Study says Turks are Germany’s worst integrated immigrants.

A particular study mentioned in the above article found that, “Immigrants of Turkish origin were also found to be the least successful in the labour market: they are often jobless, the percentage of housewives is high and many are dependent on welfare.”

Last year in a magazine interview Thilo Sarrazin stated:

“I do not need to accept anyone who lives on handouts from a state it rejects, is not adequately concerned about the education of their children and constantly produces new little headscarf-clad girls.”

A 1996 book called Turkish Culture in German Society Today (Culture & Society in Germany) by Eva Kolinsky and David Horrocks found that while 2nd and 3rd generation Turks usually adhered to German culture in school, outside of school, Turkish culture was still very dominant even for those who’d been born in Germany. They found the self-desired “segregation line remains just as effective as ever”.

This fits into my own experiences of living in the German capital city of Berlin. I lived in the centre of the city for 15 months and found little to no shared community between the Germans and the Turks, regardless of whether the latter had been born there or not. I never saw what could have been a Turkish girl walking hand in hand with a German boy, nor did I see Turks generally conversing with their German neighbours. Most spoke Turkish and very poor German.

My own experiences tell me another of Sarrazin’s comments was also based in reality:

“I don’t want the country of my grandchildren and forefathers to be in broad swathes Muslim, where Turkish and Arabic is widely spoken, where women wear headscarves and where the daily rhythm of life is set by the call of the muezzins,”

Apart from the call of the muezzins, this quote sums up exactly what I saw and heard on the streets of Berlin. I attended German classes with young Turks whilst living in the city and became acquainted with a number. The girls mostly wore headscarves and a few of them were met at the gates of the school by their parents, dressed in Islamic Turkish attire who gave rather unsavoury looks to myself and East European friends I was with. These were girls of 19 or 20 who could easily have made their own way home on the very safe German transport system.

“A large number of Arabs and Turks in Berlin have no productive function other than selling fruit and vegetables”

Dr Sarrazin’s words again echo with my experiences. I lived in a very Turkish neighbourhood of Berlin and so saw first-hand what society was like. Turks and Germans lived completely separate lives except when it came to fruit and vegetable stalls. There were hundreds of these stalls all over the city and all, without fail, were manned by Turks or Arabs. The only occasion when the lives of Germans and Turks collided was during shopping and the asking of particular portions of fruit and veg. This was, really, the only period where the two peoples acted as though they were one.

Another comment by Thilo Sarrazin was one about Jews and genetics. As a strong Judeophile, I briefly squirmed at the following sentence and thought the anti-Semite accusations might be sticking for good reason.

“All Jews share a particular gene, Basques share a certain gene that sets them apart,”

This single line has caused fury and delirium in Germany and for reasons I don’t particularly understand. Is he not right? Is what he said merely scientific fact? According to Jewish religious law, “a child is not Jewish if the child’s mother is not Jewish.” and is best known as matrilineal descent. Most Jews I know agree with this. If this isn’t a shared genetic heritage, then what is?

What are your thoughts on this?

The United States, the European Union nations and Israel have met this Persian nuclear breakthrough with barely a word in opposition. Experts and leaders claim the reactor is not likely to be a key component in any possible nuclear weapons manufacture. Under the close supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Russians, Bushehr is guaranteed to be purely for domestic power purposes and not for nuclear weaponry and this might be true.

However, the damage which has already been done is not related to the dangers posed by the Bushehr nuclear reactor itself but by the benchmark it has provided other nations in the region. Already, in the last week alone, three countries have stated their intentions to build similar reactors. This is where the true catastrophe of this Iranian success story lies and why, in the coming months, something must be done to extinguish the Iranian nuclear reality.

Today, Egypt announced it would be constructing a nuclear power plant on the Mediterranean coast. Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak, who is said to be suffering from cancer and is not expected to live for another 12 months, first announced plans for nuclear power back in 2007 and has stated he has no desire to create nuclear weapons. This may or may not be true but it is nonetheless irrelevant as the resulting plants will be operational after he has gone and with the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood on the rise.

Yesterday, it was revealed that the African nation of Sudan plans to build a nuclear power plant. Like with Iran, the nation’s leaders proclaim the technology will be used for peaceful purposes but one must remember the Sudan is an Islamist-run state and is responsible for the genocide of the people in Darfur as well as the harbouring of Islamic terrorists.

Lebanon is another country that has expressed its desire for nuclear technology albeit mentioned via the Shia terrorist organisation Hezbollah, which has an iron grip on the ineffectual secular government. As has been seen over the last five years, Hezbollah’s desire to eradicate Israel and act as a proxy for Iran has been clear to anyone willing to open their eyes to the reality on the ground.

Joining these three nations are countries that have previously expressed, although often hesitantly, a desire for nuclear power in the past and who will no doubt push forward with their plans over the coming months if nothing is done to halt the Iranian nuclear ambitions. These countries include Saudi Arabia, Syria, Kuwait, Qatar, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and United Arab Emirates. Now Iran has reached the aforementioned milestone, the nuclear race has been set well and truly in motion. Due to rogue Islamic regimes, lack of proper infrastructure, natural disasters and terrorism, the results could be devastating.

Doyle: I think most pundits expected Argentina to cruise past Germany seeing as the Germans have had a suspect defence in recent matches. Argentina’s superior attackers should have given the opposing goalkeeper a lot more of a test.

Hibbert: Typical German efficiency and organisation which constantly see them hitting above their weight. On paper, you would not have expected Germany to reach the Semi-Finals but as with previous competitions, you just can’t rule out the Germans, ever.

You have to admit though that they do have some star players like Miroslav Klose, Bastian Schweinsteiger and the little heard of Thomas Müller.

Doyle: All great players but compared to the skills of Lionel Messi, Carlos Tévez and Gonzalo Higuaín, they are not in the same league. Argentina should have won.

Langton: You forgot to mention the young star Mesut Oezil. Brilliant player who has been the revelation of the whole tournament rather like Michael Owen back in the 1998 World Cup. A wonderful story of Germany’s modern and multicultural society. Kevin-Prince Boateng is another of these success stories.

Hibbert: Think you’ll find that it’s Jérôme Boateng, Kevin-Prince’s younger brother. Kevin-Prince Boateng actually plays for the Ghanaian national team. Apparently he decided at the last moment back in 2007, that he didn’t want to play for Germany and would instead play for Ghana. The two nations actually played one another in the group stages of this World Cup, with the two brothers facing one another on opposing sides. First time in World Cup history that this phenomenon has ever happened.

Langton: Sign of the times and a welcome one at that. Nations evolve and change and this should be seen as a good thing. Mesut Oezil of Turkish descent will soon become one of the greatest German players ever.

Pilcher: Yeah, just a shame he doesn’t care for the German anthem and recites the Koran instead.

Langton: Perhaps he can’t sing and your Islamaphobia is doing nothing for this discussion.

Doyle: Going back to the match. I was expecting Argentina to make a comeback in the second half but that never materialised. Germany in fact repeated the feat they carried off against England, where they made use of counter attacks, pace and highly functional team play. Three times in one World Cup tournament where they have scored four goals in one match. They have got to be favourites now, right?

I should think so but I still fancy Spain to finally reach the summit.

Langton: Can’t see it. This is Germany’s year. No doubt about it.