Who Benefits

Its been a funny summer Where so far, Bumblebee and I have driven up to Inverness and back down to the midlands we have seen a myriad of weather conditions, the sea mist creeping in at Easdale reminded me of the sea fog on the Isle of Wight where it was like something out of a movie, a wall of white moving forwards. These conditions made me understand how the vikings used the weather to arrange their attacks on shore. I recently read a fiction book called The Weaver and Witch Queen, the concept of raiding was so entwined in their culture that the men did not consider the other side of raids where they destroyed families and property in their own lands. It gave me a micro window into seeing how others may have lived. The inability to empathise with others when we have been conditioned to be wary and even hostile towards strangers still goes on. Where does othering actually benefit us as individuals? What it does is divide us and makes it easy to then play upon our fears as we have learnt to trust very few. It is worth thinking about some of our learnt behaviours and think who benefits from this?

Learnt Behaviours

I am going to pick apart some of my learnt behaviours and maybe these will resonate with you and it might help you see where they came from. When I was a child all adults were either Dad or Aunty Gilda or Uncle Rob change the fore name as it fits but they were all assigned the role of Aunt and Uncle if they were friends of the family. If they were acquaintances or newish to the family we got to call them Mr, Mrs or Miss. It was a form of respect applied regardless of whether they had earnt it. In fact I often heard ‘respect your elders’ when I was writing my book about hedgerow selfcare I considered if this was actually founded in respecting our earth elders, such as the trees and beings that had been walking this earth before any of us.

Some people believe that we have gone to the opposite end of the respect spectrum now, but in my personal experience I believe you reap what you say, if you are open and respectful I find most people are responsive and are respectful in return. Its an odd one, because they are strangers they have not earnt my respect, but if I come at connections with all from a position of respect it can stay that way until something changes and I would hope that was a good way to go about things.

There is a story I read once about a man who walked in the desert, as he travelled he disturbed a snake which coiled up ready to strike, the man had a moment where he was outside of time, it was offering him two different paths to select. The first path was to retreat, he could retrace his steps and choose another path letting the snake carry on with her day, or he could raise his walking stick and strike the snake before he was bitten. The man chose to withdraw and walked away, the snake relaxed and returned to her brood. What the man did not know was that hidden out of sight was a member of the snakes family and it was ready to strike against the intruder as well.

Conditioning in the mans life had told him snakes were the enemy and they must be cleared out. His culture did not value the snakes role in the world. But on this day the man withdrew with respect and luck was on his side he walked away with his life intact. Who benefits from partial truths being told about the animal kingdom?

Who benefits from this belief that human beings are superior to animals?

Who benefits from a kill first ask questions later attitude?