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‘Humanity’s true moral test, its fundamental test, consists of its attitude towards those who are at its mercy: animals. And in this respect humankind has suffered a fundamental debacle, a debacle so fundamental that all others stem from it’      Milan Kundera

I have referred to pushback before, so I will not go into it here today (April, 17th, 2020).  Yesterday yet another pet cat was hurt. I found her dead on the road near our house when I was walking back from town. She had given birth a few days ago. We don’t have control over other people’s actions, and all I can do is manage my own experience in the aftermath of the event.

A quote from Brené Brown’s book, Braving the Wilderness, comes to mind:

‘I’ve shared opinions with my community and experienced pushback from some people that took my breath away. Everything from “Keep your mouth shut” to violent and graphic threats against my family. My visceral response is “Strong back, armored front.” But that’s no way to live. Vulnerability is the birthplace of love, joy, trust, intimacy, courage— everything that brings meaning to our life. An armored front sounds good when we’re hurting but causes us much more pain in the end. When we let people take our vulnerability or fill us with their hate, we turn over our entire life to them. Many of us armor up early as a way to protect ourself as children. Once we grow into adults, we start to realize that the armor is preventing us from growing into our gifts and ourself. Just like we can strengthen our courage muscle for a stronger back by examining our need to be perfect and please others at the expense of our own life, we can exercise the vulnerability muscle that allows us to soften and stay open rather than attack and defend.”

Two watercolours of a fictional cat and one of our pet cats.

 

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“I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn’t say any other way… things I had no words for” Georgia O’Keeffe

“A sister can be seen as someone who is both ourselves and very much not ourselves – a special kind of double.”  Toni Morrison

Georgia O’Keeffe is one of my favourite artists. Over the last few days I’ve been looking at her art and photos again, and also, reading about her. In one quote she says:  “I made you take time to look at what I saw and when you took time to really notice my flower, you hung all your associations with flowers on my flower and you write about my flower as if I think and see what you think and see—and I don’t.” It is so true that when we interact with others’ art much of our own meaning making and associations are imposed on the image or object that we see, which is natural and the way it is meant to work, as long as, we don’t insist that our own interpretations and reactions are necessarily the same of those of another. Art is multilayered and one simple image can become a metaphor of something else or tell a hundred stories or come to represent so many things both for the creator and the observer.

Georgia O’Keeffe came from a family of known and unknown artists. Some of her sisters and two grandmothers engaged with art and painting. One of her sisters also became known as an artist. Ida Ten Eyck O’Keeffe started off as a printmaker, studied art, worked as a nurse and arts teacher, and painted around seventy canvases, according to Wikipedia, during her lifetime. In 1974 she was featured in a solo exhibition entitled: “Ida O’Keeffe: Escaping Georgia’s Shadow”. She seems to have had similar artistic capacities to her older sister and yet unlike her, she did not achieve wide reclamation or manage to find the time and resources to dedicate herself to art. What were the complex dynamics and contributory factors that resulted in such different destinies for the sisters? Through reading we get a glimpse of some of the variables, but there is so much that cannot be known about another’s life or relationships.

In his book, The Pecking |Order: A Bold New Look at How Family and Society Determine Who We Become (2005), sociologist, Dalton Conley, explores the reasons of financial, educational and social inequity among adult siblings, the inequity within the family, and a family’s ‘pecking order’ reality that contributes to disparities between adult siblings. We all like to think of the family as a haven where all the children start on equal footing, but reality is often messier. Dalton Conley supports that the family is not a haven in a harsh world, but it is part of the world, and competition and inequality (or not) start at home. It is natural since families are embedded in sociopolitical contexts and are open to societal influences and survival pressures. He suggests that genes and nurturance do not always adequately explain socioeconomic success and that the issue is way more complex. The pecking order within the family unit is further influenced by the family’s sociocultural context and particular events of trauma, illness, divorce, death of a parent and other difficulties that may arise over different periods, and which may not be the same for all siblings. Then there is birth order, nature and nurture. So, there is always a combination of variables to consider.

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 “Making your unknown known is the important thing” Georgia O’Keeffe (artist)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Today I’m sharing two drawings with an underlying Easter thread maybe because Easter is coming up here in Greece. Of course, everything will be different this year with the enforced lock down. Customarily, many small businesses like guest houses, cafes, restaurants, hotels and other shops would be looking forward to this period, the many visitors and tourists and the additional income. Also, it is more an outdoor celebration. Now the town is empty, the roads are quieter, the buses are not running and very few people travel to and from the island by boat. It is hard to wrap one’s mind around the global consequences of job and income loss for so many people here and around the world. We will eventually all make different meaning of these events depending on our prior experiences, circumstances, value system and general outlook on life. For me it seems that the only way to move forward and to survive both as a species and a planet is to embrace a more collaborative, respectful view of both other people and the world at large. One invisible virus seems to have sent a big part of the world on an enforced lock down with consequences that we will fully understand as the health crisis recedes and the fiscal and social collateral damage comes into full view.

Maybe this general experience of being housebound could lead us to rethink prevalent cut throat competitive and aggressive attitudes and behaviours at work, at school settings and in other social group contexts. Instead of being at war with each other we could experiment with coexisting respectfully despite our diversity, considering that others are like us and have similar fundamental needs. In his book, The Winter of our Discontent, John Steinbeck wrote: “No man really knows about other human beings. The best he can do is to suppose that they are like himself.” After all, our own humanity is intertwined with recognising others’ humanity. Desmond Tutu has said “When we see others as the enemy, we risk becoming what we hate. When we oppress others, we end up oppressing ourselves. All of our humanity is dependent upon recognizing the humanity in others.” For the many of us who are healthy it could also become a time of retreat, rest, reflection and spending time in nature. We have been taking walks in places we hadn’t walked before, and have found that after decades of living here I am still moved by the beauty of the scenery of this small island. A few photos of places we have ventured recently.

 

Along with the photos and drawings I am posting poems in the form of journal entries, by the Greek Nobel prize winner poet Odysseas Elytis, of Saturday and Easter Sunday

Από τη συλλογή «Ημερολόγιο ενός αθέατου Απριλίου» που αποτελείται από 49 ποιήματα με τη μορφή σελίδων ημερολογίου, που ξεκινά 1η Απριλίου και τελειώνει 7 Μαΐου, καλύπτοντας όλη την περίοδο του Ελληνικού Πάσχα (πιθανά του 1981), η οποία περιλαμβάνεται στην έκδοση: «ΟΔΥΣΣΕΑΣ ΕΛΥΤΗΣ – ΠΟΙΗΣΗ», Ίκαρος 2002)

 Μ. ΣΑΒΒΑΤΟ, 25

Περαστική από τη χθεσινή αϋπνία μου       /       λίγο, για μια στιγμή, μου χαμογέλασε

η θεούλα με τη μωβ κορδέλα          /        που από παιδάκι μού κυκλοφοράει τα μυστικά

Ύστερα χάθηκε πλέοντας δεξιά       /       να πάει ν’ αδειάσει τον κουβά με τ’ απορρίμματά μου –

της ψυχής αποτσίγαρα κι αποποιηματάκια – εκεί που βράζει ακόμη όλο παλιά νεότητα  /  και αγέρωχο το πέλαγος.

Μ. ΣΑΒΒΑΤΟ, 25 β

Πάλι μες στην κοιλιά της θάλασσας το μαύρο εκείνο σύννεφο  / που ανεβάζει κάπνες  /  όπως φωνές επάνω από ναυάγιο

Χαμένοι αυτοί που πιάνονται από τ’ Άπιαστα

Όπως εγώ προχθές του αγίου Γεωργίου ανήμερα

που πήγα να παραβγώ μ’ αλόγατα όρθια και θωρακοφόρους

και μου χύθηκε όλη, όξω απ’ τη γης, η ερωτοπαθής ψυχή μου.

ΚΥΡΙΑΚΗ (ΠΑΣΧΑ), 26

Καθαρή διάφανη μέρα. Φαίνεται ο άνεμος που ακινητεί με τη μορφή βουνού κει κατά τα δυτικά. Κι η θάλασσα με τα φτερά διπλωμένα, πολύ χαμηλά, κάτω από το παράθυρο.

Σου ’ρχεται να πετάξεις ψηλά κι από κει να μοιράσεις δωρεάν την  ψυχή σου. Ύστερα να κατεβείς και, θαρραλέα, να καταλάβεις τη  θέση στον τάφο που σου ανήκει.

ΚΥΡΙΑΚΗ (ΠΑΣΧΑ), 26 β

Ανεμόεσσα κόρη ενήλικη θάλασσα      /    πάρε το κίτρο που μου ’δωκε ο Κάλβος      /     δικιά σου η χρυσή μυρωδία

Μεθαύριο θα ’ρθουν τ’ άλλα πουλιά   /   θα ’ναι πάλι ελαφρές των βουνών οι γραμμές  /  μα βαριά η δική μου καρδία.