The Seven Pillars Of Understanding
an exercise in looking back at the influences on a life lived, that helped shape me, within the confines of 7 specific subjects.
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Hello Red Cabbage Heads,
I initially sent out this post on the 2nd February 2024 see here. My audience has grown significantly from the 13-ish subscribers I had back then, so it’s worth revisiting.
Way back during the initial Covid times Alan Davies began a podcast talking about his ‘Seven Pillars’ with various guests. After listening to the podcast a friend of mine asked me to reflect on them. The Seven things nominated must have meaning/some influence on your life so far... not just "it’s good". Explanation is needed. Alan talks about the seven pillars this way .
What do you value most? What influences you? What inspires you? Who shaped you as a person? Everyone needs a bank of inspiration. Everyone has loves and passions, across different aspects of life and culture. These are the things that enrich and sustain our lives.
I’m not sure I’d have chosen the same seven influences, as Alan definitely has a male centric view, but in that first post I went with them, though I changed a couple slightly. For this post I’ve devised a new set now.
THE SEVEN REVISED PILLARS
1. A place - that made you feel something extra (whether that’s spiritual or not it matters not, something more than.
The first place I ever felt like there was more, like Gaia1 was there watching me, was atop of Filey Brigg in Filey, Yorkshire. R took me there before we had kids and it was very different to the Filey Brigg we explored recently again. I remember it as a green promontory that jutted out into the sea where I sat on grass and viewed then immensity of the ocean that went on forever before me. The wind whistled in my hair, the sun warmed me, the blue sky and the blue sea melded and had a whale soured before me I wouldn’t have been surprised. (It didn’t, there are no whales there). I felt something extra, something more. Not god, but akin to a oneness in nature: Gaia.
I have had to search the internet for a pic as this was in the days of physical film and I don’t have a pic on the computer. We went there again last year and it was different, very different indeed and I got none of the feeling I had had previously. It was busy, brown, foggy, rather eroded (especially the path) and just not the same.
A Community - a place that embodied community that you can’t get out of your head
I love the outside, the wild outside. it’s where I feel most at peace, no manmade noise, no interference, the wilder the better. The only noise the birds, the wind, the rustle of the grass. Community for me has been erratic from moving so often. The RAF provided a kind of community in that you knew people would help out, but friendships were skin deep in general, as we were all always on the move and as individuals not as a unit.
I loved it when we lived in the Falkland Islands, the wilderness surrounding us. It is the only posting we have where I still actually have dreams about going back. Amazing beaches, rugged mountains, vast tracts of wilderness on the doorstep. And penguins, lots and lots of penguins. The sense of community was wonderful. Need some teabags? Sure I’ll swap you some cheese? Yes parts of it were quite 1950s, the military was always a few decades behind the world. But it was also a place very few people volunteered to come with their families, so most of us were very like minded. It was so different and so wonderful. It made me feel at one with the world, part of the universe. It’s difficult to show community in my photos so here are some other pics instead.
Toy - what toy or stuff is do you still have now from your childhood, or wish you still had that helped you through the bad times?
I have a teddy bear that my Grandma made me and was given to me when I was 6 weeks old. So it’s basically as old as I am. He is called Cyclops even though he now has zero eyes. Once he had only one and was called Teddy One Eye until I learned bout Cyclops. He’s been mended a few times but is still in amazing condition really. I do still cuddle him at times and he sits by the side of my bed the rest of the time.
First impressionable memory - what is your earliest memory?
I was born in Zambia and I grew up there for a couple of years. My first proper memory comes from my time there. Our neighbours had a ‘pet’ monkey, how pet it was I don’t know but I remember it used to pinch my bananas all the time, I would run to my mum saying that the monkey had got the banana and she would give me another one. I’m sure it happened over and over again.
Picture - A picture that speaks to you, that you can’t forget
When I was at 6th form many eons ago, I went on a trip to London - I can no longer remember if it was a school trip or a trip with friends, but we went to an art gallery and I saw this painting and absolutely fell in love with it. I bought a postcard that I still have 40+ years later and one day I will buy a full sized print of it to hang in the house. I know exactly where it will go. I don’t know what it is about this painting exactly as opposed to his other work, but I love the colour, the calm repetition, the feeling of losing myself in foliage and flowers.
Family Pet - the one that you miss the most
I know you are not meant to have a favourite, but hey I do, so kick me. When I was 16 I was allowed a dog, this little scrap of a puppy who turned into the most wonderful dog and companion. Bilbo Baggins, cos he had large hairy feet. Affectionately known as Baggins. I spent such a lot of time with him, he heard all my secrets, he was just such a chilled and amazing dog. When he died it was hard. We’ve had dogs since but none have come close to him.
Ancestors - Those who have passed on, who influenced us in some way or another, good or bad.
Both my grandmothers were amazing. Both born in 1907, both lived to 99. Both suffered in life. Born in different social classes they never actually got on despite both going to school together. They are both in the front row, my Granny (mum’s mum) 3rd from left, and my grandma (dad’s mum) two on, 5th from left.
This must have been about 1918/9. Not long after my Granny would have left to go into service. She is on the left.
My Grandma did not have to leave school, nor go to work. Her family was much richer, though not as rich as it should have been due to gambling debts, whereas my Granny had to go into service as her parents died young and she needed to help raise the other kids.
Both were amazing characters. My Grandma married the widower lodger when she was 18 and he was early 30s and already had a daughter, she dressed as a boy when a year or so younger and was beaten by her father. She was creative and so very intelligent. My Granny was known as the Wicked One at church as she had a wicked sense of humour, and to my kids she was Granny the Great not Great Granny. I hope I live as long and with as much aplomb.
I hope you enjoyed these different seven pillars. I hope it inspires you to do one of your own and tag me in it so I can see.
Till next time, ta-ra Tx
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a) -The Gaia hypothesis also known as the Gaia theory, Gaia paradigm, or the Gaia principle, proposes that living organisms interact with their inorganic surroundings on Earth to form a synergistic and self- regulating-complex system that helps to maintain and perpetuate the conditions for life on the planet. (taken from Wiki)
b) In Greek mythology only Chaos precedes Gaia. Gaia was the Greek goddess of Earth, mother of all life, similar to the Roman Terra Mater (mother Earth) reclining with a cornucopia, or the Andean Pachamama, the Hindu, Prithvi, “the Vast One,” or the Hopi Kokyangwuti, Spider Grandmother, who with Sun god Tawa created Earth and its creatures.
My feelings about Gaia lie between the two. Maybe that’s something to be explored in a different post.