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The Nation of Britain is a Monarchy. We have no finer example of a life lived in duty than that of the late Queen Elizabeth. We are subjects in Britain. That does not mean we are subjected, but that each is an individual and recognised as such. We do not suffer the anonymity of being a ‘citizen’.

The advantages of being part of a monarchy are numerous and manifold. This cannot be replicated. I have written extensively in my blogs of the difference between a leader who is born to it and those who are elected. The self interest of those who struggle to get ‘the top job’ often replaces the sense of duty to which one who is born to the role inevitably feels most acutely. The burden of such a role cannot be overstated.

But I wanted to address the question of an elected president, rather than to extol the virtues of a monarch. For a period a person is elected to rule the country as they see fit. We have so many examples from around the world that we need not focus on any one of them. For the duration of their tenure the president leads and guides the nation according to the values that he or she holds dear. Like all people they are limited by their own perspective and so will reinforce those values for the nation.

Suddenly another person is given the role and they act according to their own lights. When those values are the well-being of the people and the land all may be well. But when those values are guided by the notion that they hold all the power in the nation, then things become sour and bitter and, truth be told, very sad for the nation. Corruption usually becomes rife.

What constancy can there be when every so often a new hand is on the tiller. The nation lurches from one side to another.

And so to those republicans in Britain I say look before you leap. Look at what it is motivates you to deny the nation you were born into, to demand a different regime than that which has served us well for so long. More than 500 years before the discovery of America England became united. More than 100 years before France considered a revolution Britain tried it. The result was that they wished Cromwell to become the new king which he refused, but instead chose the title Lord Protector. Even France after its revolution, and the savagery attendant upon it, made Napoleon Bonaparte an Emperor.

I don’t wish to pretend that all monarchs share a sense of duty comparable to that demonstrated by the late Queen. There is no question that the Stuarts as a family were inveterate gamblers. This same failure was embodied once more in the Prince Regent who became King George the Fourth, a vain and pompous man. Faithless towards those who served him and indulgent of his whims. But the woman who followed him, Victoria, shone an entirely different light on monarchy and the role of a good monarch right across Europe.

It is false to believe that these are accidental happenings and that nations do not have a destiny of their own. It is this destiny which draws the best out of those given to govern them. It will be recalled that King George the Sixth was not destined to be king, but, due to the abdication of his brother for the cause of love, he stepped into the breach and lead the British people through the darkest times of World War Two. Such is the power of a Nation to draw the best from its people.

Put aside your jealousies of imagined wealth and luxury and try looking at what it is that drives people in positions of power. Then make your decision.

I woke from a long dream last night, as far as these things can be measured in time. It had involved some strange expedition beneath the sea with a pipe being sent back to the surface to syphon off oil. It ended with a number of Aztec like figures in silhouette walking to the right followed by a long legged bird dripping as if in oil.

I woke with the thought going through my head. “The birds are complaining that they have no clean air to breathe any more.”

“They say no matter how high they fly now, it is still there, because we fly higher. The air, reeking of petrol fumes, gets on to their feathers and leaves them feeling soiled.”

They say it will take centuries for the air to become clean again. In the space of a mere 100 years humanity has managed to damage the air with pollutants that will take centuries to clean. How uncaring and careless we grow.

I have just watched an article on BBC Breakfast about the reintroduction of a species of flower that had become extinct in the wild in Wales. It has prompted me to write once more on the subject. Not to say anything new but to remind interested readers of the short-comings of the current view held by most scientists on the question of extinction and preservation of the species.

I want to use an example from the world of music and dance with which I am most familiar.

In the 1960s the erstwhile widespread use of the hurdy gurdy in Hungarian music was reduced to a single master musician. The hurdy gurdy is not to be confused with the barrel organ, nor with the piano accordion which has come to replace many of these traditional instruments.

The hurdy gurdy has been described as the only continuously bowed instrument we possess. It has, usually, two or more drone strings and two melody strings which are sounded by the turning of the wheel, acting like a bow of a fiddle or violin. For more details on the hurdy gurdy wikipedia has a page devoted to its history and usage. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurdy-gurdy)

Had it not been for the enthusiasm of a few nationally minded students the tradition would have died out completely in Hungary. As it was several young people gathered around the master and learned his technique. It is to be considered that since he was the only surviving hurdy gurdy master it is quite likely that other regional styles of playing have been lost completely. Once a tradition, or we may say culture, of playing has been lost, it cannot be reconstructed with any certainty. We can only guess at what it may have sounded like, which embellishments may have been used and when.

To return to the re-introduction of species, a lot of noise is made concerning the retaining of DNA from species on the brink of extinction, and indeed of breeding programs in zoos and parks around the world. Such creatures – here I am speaking most specifically of animals rather than plants – are not typical examples of their species. Many have been hand reared or are familiar with humans in other ways. In many instances of filming such creatures, the keepers repeat often ‘it is necessary to remember we are dealing with wild animals’. But in truth they are not. They are dealing with semi-domesticated animals, even though these may have unpredictable responses.

The culture of any group of animals will vary within the species. Yes, all dogs hunt. Humans call it playing when they observe it. But just as human families have particular qualities, of integrity, of ambition, of emotional blackmail and so on, so too, all creatures have their cultures, which they pass on and enforce to their generations. An elephant reared in captivity cannot be expected to behave like an elephant reared in the wild by its own species.

Science is only now beginning to awaken to the significance of culture among other species besides our own. This is not to suggest that some scientists have not recognised this important facet in the makeup of an individual species. A recent example concerns the use of a medicinal plant by an injured orangutan who chewed leaves of a plant and applied them to his face. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LotIelkiZHM)

It is to be hoped that further observations will become widespread and, most importantly, that the commercial world will begin to realise the importance of biodiversity for far more than its own profit margin.

Despite the upbeat title to this piece, the story that attaches is not so. Indeed it is quite dreadful.

Passing four badger corpses between Bleddfa and, 8 miles away, Llandrindod Wells yesterday, it become quite apparent to me that Badger Baiting is alive and well in Eastern Powys.

When I lived in the Central in the 1990s I was wakened one night by the most dreadful howling and frightening wailing coming from across the fields. I lay awake wondering what on earth it could be. It wasn’t like a football crowd, though it had something of the same strength to it.

I realised it was badger baiting the following day when I came across the body of a female badger discarded by the side of the road. The perpetrators of this dreadful gambling pursuit like to pretend the torn bodies are ‘road kill’. The horrible thing was that this female was, herself quite young, pregnant with three little ones inside her.

Let’s be clear, this is not a new thing in Wales. The Mabinogion, that Medieval chronicle, records a pastime called ‘Badger in the bag’. In this a supposed badger was thrown in a bag on the the floor where it was kicked and beaten with staves until the thing was lifeless. Of course, needless to say, it was often not a badger but some person the host of the event had taken exception to and wanted to get rid of them. Bound and gagged there was no way of knowing that it was not a badger until the identity might be revealed at the end of the night.

I am saddened to see such barbarous practices are still carried out in Wales – no doubt in other parts of Britain as well. Where money is concerned there is little room for conscience.

Last night I had an amazing dream. I was with a group of people – could be called several groups of people – around a sort of informal camp site, or farmyard. Difficult to say, there were buildings there, but the dream took place outside, around at least one camp fire.

I was thrilled to be announcing to others that we had finally rid ourselves of the dreadful disease that has infected the human race and blighted the planet for several millennia. The Bible tells us it has been 6 millennia, I don’t know if that is correct. To me it feels a lot longer. But finally we are rid of the egotistical selfish sickness which besets some souls in our sector. As I explained this to one group of listeners, to emphasise the point, I formed my hands into fists and sprang them apart to form a wide opened channel. Like slamming the doors wide open to allow at last a breath of fresh air into our cloistered world. A Cross! It is Done! Like the Long Man of Wilmington, that Pictish carving in East Sussex of their God Atlas. Not that I claim to be Atlas, that honour goes to Plato.

In the original story Atlas did not hold the heavens on his shoulders, as is presented in the story of Hercules in his encounter with the God on his way to retrieve the Golden Apples of the Garden of the Hesperides. No! Originally Atlas held two staffs keeping the Heavens apart from the Earth. It was as if I held those staffs in my hands and tore them open, thrusting them wide apart.

Naturally the whole race suffers from the sickness when that disease arrives on the planet, which serves for a duration, as a sanatorium for those poor souls who take themselves to be praiseworthy, and the source of bounty to others, and forget that everything comes from the One, whatever name one calls That by. There is plenty on this site about that particular condition if you need more information on it. Dig around.

So for a long time now we have all suffered under this blighted sense of self-importance. We have forgotten that the soul roves through the animal kingdom, weaving in and out of human incarnation, and somehow take ourselves to be different from animals, superior to, and no relation to, them. This has lead to the dreadful exploitation we witness, and the pollution which destroys our rivers in the run off from over-exploited animals’ waste.

These bales of ‘haylage’ are addictive. The cattle love it and get their heads stuck into it, but it weakens their bodies, as can be sensed from the stench of the scours it gives them that pervades the fields after ‘muck spreading’. Once cattle poo smelt healthy. Now it just smells sour.

To add to this sense of wonder with which I awoke, after the dream announcing the end of our trial, I heard on the news, of the amazing aurora that appeared last night across the whole of the United Kingdom. An unusual event indeed. The Sun itself, it seems to me, is celebrating the end of that sickness with a Heavenly Rainbow event.

To complement all of this I notice that the Sun is one day short of conjunction with Uranus, ruler of Aquarius, the New Age. Our sign of release, respect and fellowship.

In the early 1960s my master Bernhard Wosien recognised the danger of a loss of culture. The dances, he told us, were being taken from the villages and used as performance pieces to attract tourists, both from within the nations involved as well as from abroad. For Bernhard the dances were the way the village healed itself. ‘It is not possible to dance in a circle with someone and remain angry at them.’, he told us.

Even in the 60s tourism was seen as the saviour of faltering economies. However it was not to speak of cultural collapse through removing artefacts, such as dances and music, from their natural setting to become pieces performed by professionals that I wished to write, but rather of the ramifications of tourism and its impact on local cultures. This is particularly with regard to the planned removal of the Maasai from their ancestral lands, though these are but a single example of a global policy by the wealthy.

It was tourism which decimated the plains cultures of North America. Through the use of railroads cutting through the grazing and migratory lands of the buffalo a conscious policy was adopted with the intention of destroying the Native economy. We are all familiar with the destruction of the buffalo by glory hunters riding trains and shooting into the midst of the herds indiscriminately and taking only the heads, or the skins, as trophies. America almost lost it iconic animal through these joyriders.

A similar venture is currently planned in Finland running a railroad through the grazing lands of the reindeer.

Today we find every culture around the world – other than the pseudo culture of coke, burgers and crispy salty snacks – under threat.

But lets look at why that is? Surely it cannot be the luxury hotels and burger bars alone who are backing this global exploitation? Do you remember the American dentist who lured the Kenyan Mascot lion out of the national park so that he could take its head home as atrophy? Of what? His courage? As crass and uncaring an action as that of the vandal who sawed down the Cumberland Gap Sycamore that so outraged the British people. Why do some people assume they have the right to destroy things which they do not own and which hold a place in many other people’s hearts? Truly I disavow this species.

Tourism promotes not only luxury hotels, but also the means to get to these exotic locations. We can assume the travel industry is also behind pushing people off their land to make a quick buck from those that can afford its indulgent prices. Lets face it the majority of people will never get to go to an African tourist park, so it is only the few who will benefit from this. Meanwhile an entire culture will be lost – along with its wildlife – through the move to a new location. All the stories and history of the people remain there, where now there is a tourist trap. Its sacred places desecrated in the name of profit. A nation knows the land it has been forced to leave, it knows its seasons, grazing and droughts. What does it know of the land it is forced on to? And what of those displaced from there to make way for their neighbours? How do they feel?

The whole situation is deplorable. Money bullying its wants forward – no question of need in commerce, it is greed which directs it and the desire for conquest and success. But how is success to be measured? An ancient culture that has survived from ancient times into the modern era has to be considered a success. A momentary promotion which is likely to collapse after 30 years can only be seen as a failure.

For the last year we have been hearing about the terrible state of British rivers overrun as they are by the waste water from the water companies that are supposed to protect British waters. But while the fat cats sit and pour over their shares and returns little thought is given to the fish that frequent these waters.

I have no doubt the fat cats like a plate of fish now and then, but at what price? The sacrifice of their income? Probably not.

The legislation is in place, but the will from central government is not there to enforce it, and instead meekly accepts the ‘overflow through excess rainfall’ excuse. No thought given to the lack of investment to provide a modern efficient water cleansing system.

How many stop to think of the plight of the fish?

Salmon young are born in the headwaters of the rivers, amongst green meadows and languidly lolling trees. They find their way downstream to the estuary and off on the grand adventure of the open seas. How long do they wander the oceans? According to one report they might be in the ocean for from one to seven years. Finally the mature fish feels the need to return to its breeding grounds and, using its acute sense of smell, follows the current’s stream back to the river from which it was born.

Consider the Teifi river in Ceredigion, what used to be called by the anglicised Cardiganshire. I quote ‘Welsh Water has admitted illegally spilling untreated sewage at dozens of treatment plants for years.’ (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-67077510). One of these spillage points is at the very mouth of the Teifi as it enters Cardigan Bay.

The poor salmon, breathing as they do through gills, swim with their mouths open looking for the familiar taste of home and their breeding grounds. What they are greeted with is the foul taste of p*ss and sh*t which they are expected to swim through to reach the – hopefully – unpolluted waters beyond. Of course we know that rivers beyond are polluted by the run off from the poor agricultural practices encouraged by banks and big business, of over fertilisation and pesticides. In the 3, 4, or 7 years the fish have been away the waters will have become unrecognisable to the returning wanderers.

Is it not understood that if the fish stop breeding in these rivers there is no impulse for them to return to them in the future? Once lost the fish will not return.

‘Oh’, cry the pseudo-envioronmentalists, ‘we can soon reseed the waters with fresh eggs. They will soon breed again.’ But I doubt it. I don’t believe these well-meaning people have considered the lack of culture the young they introduce will suffer from. ‘Culture is fine arts and opera. Fish don’t have opera and theatre.’, comes the cry. But culture is learned behaviour. Young fish learn from older fish which rivers to flock to and at what seasons. They learn where to seek food and shelter. This is culture. Instinct is another garbage term invented by science to cover ‘anything we cannot explain by our current ideas’. Like shizophrenia in medical practice.

As for the rest, consider, the next time you have a high evening out in the city attending a performance of your favourite artist, as you eat your salmon broquettes that you are ingesting a creature that has absorbed with both mouth and gills the polluted waters this decadent species to which we belong is imposing on them. See if that makes you feel well.

I saw an article in the news the other day about the Japanese moon landing. Part of the aticle said it was a precursor to creating a settlement on the moon constructing buildings from materials found on the moon’s surface.

I find myself wondering how arcades, entertainment lounges, laboratories and administrative offices might stand up to being built of cream cheese. The original Pie in the Sky.

However there is a serious note to this post.

Wherever on the Moon a settlement is placed the settlement itself will be in darkness for a portion of each lunar cycle. At New Moon the lit surface of the Moon faces away from the Earth while at full Moon the lit surface faces the Earth full on. In between, as we know, the lit surface grows, with more of the face facing the Earth becoming lit, only to shrink away on passing full. This has the effect of a 20 day sunrise and setting for the community there. The remaining 8 days will be effectively in darkness.

I wonder the effect on the body and consequently on the mental health of anyone living in such an environment. I cannot believe it will be healthy at all.

And what of settling on a Moon of Jupiter, as has been suggested so often in science fiction novels and movies? In place of the Sun as a dominant force there will be Jupiter booming away in the face of the settlers. They won’t suffer from Sunburn but from Jupiter-burn, or gain a jovial tan. The Sun will be relegated to a small light in the distant sky with many of the other Moons of Jupiter being yet more visible than the Star itself.

I mention this only in terms of mental balance and wonder what consideration has been given to this in the scientific communities who seem so ready to throw money into the sky, while turning their backs on the world in which we all currently live.