Bute Inlet, British Columbia
|
|
|
AN INTUITIVE VIEW OF THE WHOLE. |
|
|
|
|
In the mid-70's as a teenager in Wales, this web weaver spent some weekends working at Nantllanerch, a hill farm high and remote in an east-facing valley in the Brecon Beacons National Park. Sedley Sweeny, a former British army major from British Columbia, with the backing of a charitable organisation had brought to Nantllanerch several young Tibetan men and women from northern India. Not surprisingly the Tibetans seeming to me to be almost other-worldly with their prayer flags and a language quite unintelligible. Sedley was often to be seen transporting a couple of ewes on the back seat of his Volvo saloon and I remember him as a restless, perhaps almost driven, bristle-'tached, hungry-eyed, ginger-haired dynamo. He had visited, and worked, in parts of the world about which I have only read, and they included the Himalaya(s) which I still find fascinating. Sedley had concentrated down his global experience into very local and practical approaches to issues. He certainly had an intensity about him and I sometimes wondered whether or not he was a little hard of hearing, or simply distracted by huge thoughts. Now I think that it was probably both. While appearing to totally concentrate on repairing a fence, he would simultaneously expound with confidence upon issues so vast as to seem to me to be almost earth-shattering. He taught the Tibetans basic practical farming and blacksmithing skills. These included fabricating a plough from little more than a tree trunk, with some re-used heavy gauge steel for the ploughshare, and then hands-on ploughing with a big, tough, hardworking horse. At that time there was still a tendency for charities, despite unreliable fuel supplies and insufficient spare parts, to send tractors to poverty stricken refugees. Whether or not the Tibetans would ever return to Tibet, there would be no tractors for them there. It may seem odd that Tibetan refugees had any need to be taught farming skills, but take a look at this time line. In 1959 "our" Tibetans were very young children and the circumstances of their growing up in India had meant that skills vital to their previous generation had not been passed on. My family made a point of buying great pats of swirl-patterned butter prepared by the Tibetans and sold from their weekly market stall in Brecon. (My dad liked the butter so much that he would continue to eat it long after it had passed its best).I was aware that Sedley certainly had leanings towards the Buddhist faith and in my mind's ear I remember the recordings of sitar and other Indian music which he brought to our house. My parents invited Sedley, his wife and the group to spend most of Christmas Day with us and my memory is of the Tibetans' happiness and uncomplicatedness. Balloons were excitedly and quite firmly patted around the sitting room and some of them burst. With unreasonable poignancy, I recall our visitors showing great resourcefulness way beyond our western squanderings as they seized the blasted remnants and sucked, blew and twisted them into new mini-balloons with which to continue their celebration of our culture's big holiday. Sedley had a little of their language, but for "our" Tibetans learning English was irrelevant, definitely off the curriculum. There were sad, half-secret stories of individual Tibetans coming to harm through excesses of our far-from-wonderful western culture, (not dissimilar, of course, to stories of the indigenous peoples of Australia and America). The Nantllanerch scheme was short-lived and had fizzled out by the time I went away to college. The purse-strings' holders had determined that any similar projects would be carried out in India. In 2002 I searched the www and found Sedley Sweeny! In British Columbia! He is elderly, of course, but it seemed he was still very much involved. Below is an extract from a 150703 e-mail from Sedley: "It, (Nantllanerch), was a rewarding project while it lasted, but we had the Powers-that-be (ie the "Charity Business") against us. They felt I was putting the clock back (& challenging their methods) by stressing small-scale organic self-sufficiency. It was particularly encouraging to learn, 18 months ago, that the Tibetan Government-in-Exile has decided (and written it into their Constitution) that all the Tibetan agricultural settlements in India are to convert to organic self-sufficiency because the fertility of their land has dropped by more than 50% over the last 40 years. This is proving to be a gigantic task which is taking all the time and resources available to train instructors and get the scheme moving. Eventually eco-forestry will become part of their farming, but will not start until the autumn of 2004." It amused me that Sedley didn't remember us, (although he did remember the converted Congregational chapel in which we used to live). |
|
In July 2003 Sedley Sweeny sent to me from his home in British Columbia a copy of his, "An Intuitive View of the Whole". I am so enthused by the book(let) that, with permission, I've reproduced it verbatim. 160804: E-mail from Cortes Island: "Sedley's taking it easy at 90. Had a kidney removed last winter, handed the TETP project to the Dalai Lama and even sublet his corner cafe to some good young folk. His dear partner is an Austrian sweetheart by the name of Trude, who makes legendary conditori cakes. On this island of a thousand souls, their profound contributions to community happiness have already made them legends in their own lifetimes." |
by Sedley Sweeny.
|
Bute Inlet, British Columbia |
| ` | Dedicated to the Klahoose First Nation and especially to the late Doreen Reedel and her extended family. They set an example of sharing and leadership desperately needed in the modern world. |
CONTENTS
| PART 1 | Nature, Interrelation and Interdependence |
| Sharing Communities | ||
| Hill Farming in South Wales | ||
| Village Life in India and Nepal | ||
| Amarpurkashi Rural Polytechnic | ||
| Ladakh | ||
| Tibetan Refugees | ||
| Nepal |
| Cortes Island | ||
| Cooperation for Self-Sufficiency | ||
| Tibetan Eco-Forestry Training Partnership | ||
Photographs are by Irene Blueth, John Ackerly, Stephen Philp, Sedley Sweeny (and unknown others).
|
Modern man does not experience himself as a
part of nature, but as a force destined to dominate and conquer it. He even
talks of a battle with nature, forgetting that, if he won the battle, he
would still be on the losing side.
E. F. Schumacher, Small Is Beautiful (1) |
| An "Expert" might be defined as,
"One who learns more and more about less and less until, eventually,
he knows all there is to know about nothing". Thus has modern science
advanced on narrower and narrower fronts in growing isolation from the
whole picture of Nature.
At the other extreme is the "Impert", one who tries his hand at more and more, and in the process begins to realize how little he knows about the interwoven wonders of the Universe. At the same time he absorbs the sight, sound, taste and gut-feeling of all that goes on around him until in the end he may possess a measure of intuitive wisdom, that sixth sense that makes so little sense to the scientist. Such intuitive wisdom, (2), (3), in so-called "backward" people can still be witnessed worldwide, although globalized western society is doing its best to wipe it out through modern education. Subsistence farming, with local family and village cooperative self-sufficiency can no longer be tolerated in our greed-driven economy where material wealth and growth are the over-riding aims. Trees, water, air, soil, birds, fish, animals, minerals, fossil fuels, vegetables and genes; each is seen in terms of cash profits and quite disconnected with the rest. Many of these essentials can be patented to prevent them from becoming the property of others, except at a high price. Although most such resources are limited and disappearing, and all are interdependent on the rest, it is still permissible to strip them bare. "Science will find a replacement", is the cry. Even disease, conflict and human misery are seen by some as sources of income, while there is little money to be made from peace, health and grass-roots cooperation. "What", one might ask, "is the ultimate purpose of all this wealth? Is it security? Few, if any, billionaires feel free to move about unguarded. Is it pleasure? Large estates? Beautiful homes? Luxury cruises? Unlimited food and drink? Sex? The admiration and envy of the less fortunate? All these pleasures are completely ephemeral and unsatisfying. An escalator to heaven? More likely a skid-road to hell! Happiness, on the other hand, is a completely different gift. It stems from peace, serenity, contentment, respect for self and others, from loving human relationships, generosity and sharing. These qualities, as so beautifully explained by His Holiness the Dalai Lama, (4) come from enlightenment, (intuitive wisdom?) which in turn springs from the discipline of detachment from material desire and the development of compassionate human relationships in which one shares the suffering of others and tries to help them to be happy. This compassionate sharing lies at the root of the Buddhist faith and is reflected in the serenity and generosity of the Tibetan people. In this detachment from materialism they, and many other folk living close to Nature, see the whole picture and intuitively recognise the interrelationship between its innumerable parts. Instead of striving to rule the world they are happy to accept their responsibility to preserve and share it with the rest of Nature. |
******************************************
I have been privileged to witness the serenity and generosity of several societies: hill farmers in South Wales, Tibetan exiles, villagers in rural India and Nepal, the Klahoose First Nation and many others on Cortes Island. For all their problems and imperfections these people tend to measure their wealth in terms of what they share and give away.
Personal relationships and cooperation within their extended families, their villages and grass-root areas are more important than competition, personal achievement or short-term pleasure. Involved in all aspects of family and village life from earliest childhood, simple people can achieve a remarkable depth of intuitive wisdom without formal education, and given access to but a small amount of land, can provide the essentials of happy lives.
HILL FARMING IN SOUTH WALES.
My farm in Wales bordered onto the Brecon Beacons, over 200 square miles of unfenced rolling hills on which we shared grazing rights. The rules were precise and strict: the number of sheep and ponies each farm could turn to the hill; grazing boundaries; shearing dates; the grouping of farms and gathering and shearing were all fixed. We all knew exactly where we stood.
|
Hill sheep near Builth Wells in Breconshire, South Wales. |
Each hill farm had a copy of the Beacons "earmark book" and apart from this, nothing was written down! No money changed hands for the mutual help and there were only two formal meetings a year, the annual harvest festival and the village sports which everyone attended. Otherwise one met friends and neighbours on Fridays at the livestock market in Brecon. There was no hierarchy of any sort. |
We all relied on three imperatives: the breed of our sheep who knew their beat on the hill, our border collies and the integrity and cooperation of our neighbours. On the extremely rare occasion when a hill farmer broke the rules, his neighbours gently leaned on him until he saw the light.
