A conspiracy theory . . .

I'm sure you've seen the photos from Malaysia and Singapore, the poor people who are currently suffering from problems of severe smog.
Blazing forests in Indonesia send their smoke haze spreading across the region, closing schools, affecting the vulnerable, and forcing a large percentage of the population to wear face masks.

Without going into the rights or wrongs of forest burning, it's unarguably detrimental to air quality.

Not only that, when it comes to air pollution we were told last week that London has the highest levels of nitrogen dioxide in Europe.   It's hardly a distinction to be proud of.

However, except when such occasions hit the headlines, we give very little thought to the subject of air.

I saw a cartoon the other day, it featured a puzzled fish swimming in a pond, "Water . . .?" the fish was enquiring, "What's water . . . ?"

It could be said that we are equally oblivious to the vital life force that surrounds us, "Air . . . ?" we could well be guilty of asking, "What's air . . . ?

If you're wondering what gave rise to these thoughts, it was a talk I heard the other day.  Not on the subject of air pollution, but on meditation.
As an exercise in stilling the mind, the audience was given a seemingly simple exercise.  We were asked to relax in our seats and give our whole attention to watching our breathing . . . not interfering, not commenting, just watching.

Simple it may have sounded, but it was far from easy.
Try it for yourself and you'll see what I mean.

But this exercise taught me something else, it showed me how little thought we give to this vital procedure that continues quietly in the background throughout every moment of our lives.  The life-maintaing act of breathing is something we take for granted.

More than that, as I realised, we take the air itself for granted.  We give careful consideration to the food we eat . . . to the liquid we drink . . . to any health supplements that we consider beneficial . . . but rarely, if ever, do we stop to question the quality or the components of the air we breathe.

You can't go to the super-market in search of a canister of top-quality fresh air.  Unthinkingly, we inhale and exhale the air around us, changing its structure as we do so.
Do we ever go to bed worrying whether the air will be there in the morning?  Of course not . . . why should we?

I'm no scientist, and I've no wish to be an alarmist, but isn't that trust of the highest magnitude?  Could it be that, like the fish, we are so identified with our natural element that we fail to recognise its vital importance . . . and thus fail to appreciate that, like everything else in creation, the element air is in a constant state of flux and evolution?

Climate change  . . water shortage . . . food shortage . . . all these are factors that regularly hit the headlines.  But the availability and reliability of the air we breathe . . . ?  Such a question rarely gets a journalist reaching for his pen.

Yet, as we know, every living thing breathes . . .  every living thing from a blade of grass to an Olympic athlete.
And, as nothing has been added to, or detracted from, our planet since the universe was created, you and I are breathing in the air that circulated in the lungs of the dinosaurs . . . the air that filled the sails of Cleopatra's barge . . . the air that inspired Shakespeare.


I'm sorry . . . I'm in danger of getting blown away by the subject of air!  
But may I share one last thought . . .  something that I learned the other day?  Do you know the derivation of the word 'conspire'?  I was surprised to find that it means 'to breathe together'.

Let's end with a conspiracy theory . . . the concept that in acknowledging the air around us, in acknowledging our breathing,  we are, in fact, acknowledging and endorsing our basic unity.
I'll settle for that!

Are You Writing This Down?

Shortly after my mother's death, I did what she'd requested:  I wrote, and had published, an account of what we'd experienced together during her final days.

My mother was a strong believer in celebrating birthdays.  As her birthday was June 18th,  may I share these memories with you to mark the occasion?  It's what she would have wished.

Are You Writing This Down?
A Record of an Inner Journey

MOTHER LOVED to travel. What little experience I have of the world is due mainly to her unquenchable thirst for exploration and discovery. When I was a small child, and flying still an adventure, we regularly took to the skies in aircraft of such questionable disposition that each passenger was weighed at the airport to ensure a trouble-free take-off. Together, we travelled by the Orient Express to Venice, explored the Turkish coast-line by cargo boat and bumped across the desert in the airless discomfort of a local 'bus.

More recently, her travels were limited on account of Sophie, her Siamese cat. Although Sophie's love of travel equalled her own, an unsympathetic rabies law clipped their wings. Mother lived in Somerset and I in London, but in recent years she rarely travelled without me. I was the driver who planned the route. Mother, with Sophie on her lap, was the alert, appreciative and inquisitive passenger. Good friends, rather than mother and daughter, we were very close, and enjoyed a close telepathic contact. It was not, I suppose, surprising that we should have shared her final journey.

On   Friday, 10th January, mother — now living with me in London — enjoyed an hour's walk in Kew Gardens. On the Sunday we went to church and had lunch with friends. During that evening, feeling unaccountably hot and dizzy, she discovered with a shock that she was running a high temperature.

By Wednesday, mother's temperature was a hundred-and-four. For the first time I experienced the constricting grip of panic. On Thursday she voiced the question I dreaded:

"Am I . . . ", her eyes held mine, ". . . am I going to get better. . .?"

We had always been completely truthful with each other. Not knowing the answer, I found myself unable to reply.

"I can't believe this . . ." she murmured, bewildered by the way events had spun out of our control, "I can't believe what's happening . . ."

The doctor returned on Friday and suggested she be moved to hospital. I insisted — motivated by love rather than common sense — that I could cope on my own at home. However, by late afternoon mother had decided what should be done.

"You need sleep. Surely we can get a night-nurse?"

As with everything that happened during those heightened days, a night-nurse — an ideal. Irish night-nurse — was found with the minimum of effort. She arrived at nine o'clock that evening to start a twelve-hour spell of duty. I retired to bed with Sophie, not to sleep, but to rest in the knowledge that mother was in kind professional hands.

The following morning, although her temperature had come down markedly, mother was convinced that she had embarked on her last journey. It was one that I was to share. Together, we prepared for this final journey in much the same way as we had prepared for all the previous ones, the difference being that this time it was not a question of what we were taking, but of what mother was leaving behind.

Calmly and thoughtfully, with occasional flashes of humour, she remembered all those she wanted to receive gifts and carefully laid down the instructions for her cremation. Knowing how much she loved the countryside, I asked whether she would like her ashes to be scattered in Somerset.

"No . . ." she was quite definite, ". . . you have them . . . not that they'll be worth much!"

She was silent for a few moments before adding, "Scatter them under a seat ... in Kew Gardens."

Never once did she give any indication of fear as to what was happening to her. On the contrary, she stressed the absence of fear:

"It isn't frightening, you know."

"No?"

"No . . . it's . . . it's marvellous . . . marvellous."

"A great adventure?"

"Yes . . . that's it... a great adventure."

"Are you writing this down?"

She displayed no anxiety for herself, but constant concern for me.

"Do get yourself some brandy . . ." she urged me at one point, ". . . you will take care of yourself, won't you . . . promise me?

Later, her voice rose up again.

"We've had a happy life, haven't we?"  "We've had a wonderful life."

"I've tried to support you."   "You've been a marvellous support."

"I'll still be helping . . . you know that. . . I'll know what's happening."

"I know you will", I told her, ". . . and we'll meet again, next time round."

There was a pause.

"In the country next time," said mother with the determination of one who had never come to terms with London traffic.

It had not been my intention to tell friends and relations of mother's death until after the event. She had other ideas and asked me to 'phone them on the Saturday.

"I'm afraid it's going to be a big shock . . . but do let them know."

I  'phoned each one. The upshot was a powerful surge of supportive prayer and thought, a support that provided her with love and sustenance to the end. She had been right in wishing them to know and I, too, benefitted from their knowledge. It was unforgettable proof of the power of absent, loving care.

As on all our previous travels, mother was anxious that I should share in minute detail everything she was experiencing — the feathers and leaves that she saw descending on my head, the small bird that frequently came to perch on the end of her bed, the many visitors, visible to her if not to me, who crowded the bedroom. Each time she carefully checked with me as to their reality.

"They're real to you," I told her, '"it's just that I can't see them."

She struggled to describe her new surroundings.

"It's not a garden . . . It's much larger . . ."

"A landscape?"

"Yes . . . with beautiful lawns . . .", her face relaxed into a warm smile, ". . . and the angels are little children . . ."

For hours I concentrated on the need to provide support, the need to listen and respond. She was fascinated by all that she was experiencing and recounted it as just another journey that she wanted to share with others.

"Are you writing this down?"

"Ribbon . . ." she whispered, "... pink ribbon . .."

"Pink ribbon?". I was puzzled.

"In ... in the top drawer."

In the top drawer of her dressing-table I located the pink velvet ribbon that she wanted to be tied around her hair.

Her lips twitched.

"I always was conceited!"

At ten o'clock she asked if the vicar could come. He came and managed to give her a fragment of the communion wafer. Contented that this had been accomplished, her head fell back.

From then it seemed that time no longer mattered, it no longer existed. I found myself sharing mother's timeless repose. There was nothing to be done, nothing that could be done, we were both in the hands of a process that was inextricably carrying us with it. Carrying both of us to a point at which mother alone would journey on and I would come back to a new and different world.

She-was to experience one more short return: "Is it over ...?"

"Not yet, love."

She slipped into a coma, and died the following morning.

She is continuing on her journey of exploration. We continue ours in the certain knowledge that she has not really left us and that one day — in the country if she gets her wish — we will embark again together on another shared journey.