Mixing SA and NZ together with a wooden spoon to make a MINGLE MOUSE

 

  

GOOD  BAD, UGLY....  
EARTHQUAKES, 
VIOLENCE
LONG WHITE CLOUDS, 
SMILES,SUNSHINE & 
BRAAIVLEIS.  
 'Wouldn't it be wonderful if the we could all live in Nirvana or Utopia' the woman said.. 'And what would that be like?' the child asked.
    I'm sure we would all have a different answer to that !
 'Oh' said the woman, 'there would be sunshine and birds singing and flowers that smiled at the sun'. 'That sounds lovely' giggled the child. 'But isn't that where we live?'
The woman replied,' Well some people may have been fortunate enough to find it, but for many they are still looking for it.' 'Can't we show them the way?' the child asked, wide-eyed with innocence.
'Unfortunately not' replied the woman. 'Why ?' quizzed the child.
      The woman replied that Nirvana or Utopia were very difficult to find. It was a place where there was hardly any fighting or cruelty to one another; a place where everyone was kind nearly all of the time, a place where there was hardly any illness and where most people had a job, and enough food to eat and felt safe and happy most of the time and never got scared at bedtime... There were also no earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanoes, floods or droughts.
This was indeed difficult for the child to understand, as she had all the happiness, laughter, love, food, warmth and safety she desired and never ever got ill, nor felt any fear and her cloud never ever trembled or rumbled, nor got washed away. 'Ah' the woman said, 'But you see, you are an angel'.... 

    This is a mere metaphor, but it did get me thinking as I wrote it... the way kids are brought up with fairy tales, although there is invariably a wicked witch or a monster that lurks - and most stories have themes with hero's, princesses and villains as the primary characters, as though it is in the human blueprint... to attempt to overcome badness, and to seek a happy ending in which the princess is rescued from the villain or fire spitting dragon by the courageous, valiant prince.
     I got to thinking today when I heard that there had been an earthquake 150 km below New Zealand and one that also affected Melbourne, Australia, that it would be a good idea to have a massive wooden spoon and large mixing bowl in which to mix the yummiest ingredients from different countries; generous oodles of safety and security, not to add any pandemic diseases, violence-gluten free, several cups of employment, large spoon fulls of happiness, sprinklings of kindness and generosity, cup fulls of sunshine, well- sieved rain drops and sturdy chunks of robust non-shake terrafirma.
       Mingle Mousse recipe stirred with big wooden spoon !
   As a psychologist I have researched Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) ( check out www.mayoclinic.com/health/post traumatic stress disorder.) Evidence-based research has supported the theory that natural disasters are reportedly less traumatic to deal with than war, violence and man -made destruction.     
     However, I personally don't think that any of us can start to imagine or weigh up these factors, and certainly not minimise one person's trauma at the expense of another's trauma. We have absolutely no idea, unless we have been at the defining moment of death or extreme tragedy, with a gun to the head, boiling water poured over us and asphyxiated with a plastic bag, been exposed to other heinous atrocities, or been trapped in the bowels of a crumbled building after an earthquake in which we have had to have our limbs amputated to be freed, or watched our children being sucked out to sea in a ten metre high torrent. 
    I think that anyone who has not experienced such a phenomenon simply cannot start to understand or conceptualise the fear, the raft of terrifying emotions, the intensity of the pain or the horrific level of trauma which people are exposed to in their lives.

I do not want to dwell on sadness nor on the negative facets of life, but rather on the good things, although none of us should ever be ostriches ! It's a harmless dream to think of the wooden spoon analogy or of child-like metaphors. It's about acknowledging that life is fraught with drama and thinking of ways in which we can reach out to one another. A future blog post will be an article of mine- previously published- called 'The ripple effects of Kindness'. ( It was inspired by our lovely waitress at Crossways Hotel in Hilton, KZN, SA prior to our emigration, and was written in an endeavour to use the philosophy of kindness within the collective consciousness and through synchronicity.)


This blog is dedicated to all the people, worldwide, who have experienced immense and immeasurable trauma in their lives, and to the many folk in SA who have been affected by crime, as well as to our Christchurch NZ 'family' who have suffered immensely since September 2010.