 Dear Friends
Like you, we have been asking ourselves again and again in the last few months, ‘Why has our Land, whose very stones breathe sacredness, been allowed to become the scene of such mindless, needless carnage, a veritable animal holocaust? Why?’
And why, too, do we talk as if this were the only problem, when in reality it is only the ugly tip of an even more ugly iceberg? For, day after day, year after year, under our very noses almost, and certainly with our passive consent, millions of animals suffer and are needlessly slaughtered, for no better reason than to provide a so-called ‘food’ which in fact, far from nourishing us, may do all kinds of damage not only to our bodies but also to our souls, as the sages have been telling us since time immemorial.
And why do we stop there, with the plight of animals? Human beings are often every bit as cruel and inhumane to each other, not to mention our selfish pillaging of the Earth itself. Oh how ashamed we have been feeling to call ourselves members of the human race, when humanity’s predatory instincts are having such devastating, desecrating and dehumanising consequences, not only here in Britain, but everywhere.
Yes, in recent months, and in fact many times throughout our lives, we have explored pits of dark despair. What’s a human being to do, to stem this relentless tide of ruin? Nothing seemed, nor seems, enough.
The other day, though, our brains wrung out like squeezed lemons with all this fretting, this little rhyme emerged like a ray of sunshine from behind the clouds, and we hope it will give you the consolation and courage it gave us.
‘Wherever Light has shone most brightly,
shadows gather there most tightly.
Yet... wherever Light has been,
It shall surely be again,
and shadows that may come between
have no more substance than a dream
whose darkness fades when we awake
and from it our belief do take.
So let us not make darkness stronger
by believing in its power to conquer,
but rather choose to fix our sight
unwaveringly upon the Light,
to It alone our service giving,
before no other Master bowing.
Thus we hasten much the day
when Light shall gain the Victory!
Behold, emblazoned on our shield
are words before which night must yield.
“LUX LUCET IN TENEBRIS” they say:
In darkness shines the Light of DAY!’
But..... how do we know that beliefs like these are not mere escapism or wishful thinking? Or, worse still, ‘fiddling while Rome burns’? Can they really do anything constructive to help?
These very reasonable doubts have frequently gnawed at our vitals, and we bet they make lacework of yours, too, from time to time! These same doubts were explored, and brilliantly resolved, in ‘The Man of La Mancha’, that wonderful 1970s musical rendering of the story of Don Quixote. We must have watched this film half a dozen times when it first came out, but still its inspiring message had faded from our conscious memory. So how grateful we were to ITV for deciding to broadcast it a couple of weeks ago.
In an age of the most base materialism and cruelty, Don Quixote, the ‘Man of La Mancha’, dedicated himself to upholding the outmoded ideals of chivalry, loving-kindness and courtly love. Despite all attempts to dissuade him from his faith, he held onto a vision of the soul, the wonder and the magic in every person, thing and circumstance..... and, for his pains, was considered mad and a laughing stock, as he doddered along with his ‘golden helmet’ that was really only a brass shaving bowl, and his ‘shining sword’ that was really only a rusty old skewer.
“Surely”, said his fellows, “to believe in such ideals in a world like ours is just escapism and self-delusion? For in reality is not life merely ‘nasty, brutish and short’?”
“No!” said Don Quixote, “for to believe reality is merely ‘how things appear to be’ is to set foot on a road that can only lead downward, into cynicism, despair and misery. And that is no help to anyone! “No!”, said Don Quixote, “Reality is far more. It is not ‘how things appear to be’, but rather, ‘how things should be.’ ”
And by his actions, Don Quixote proved that to choose to believe – whatever the temptation not to – in ‘things as they should be’, is not madness or escapism at all, but the highest act of sanity and realism. For by such invincible faith we admit the Light, and allow ourselves and our circumstances, however dark, to be uplifted and transformed by It.
So, dear friends, let us go on believing it worthwhile
‘to dream the impossible dream,
to fight the unbeatable foe,
to bear the unbearable sorrow,
to go where the brave dare not go’
as our hero Don Quixote sang in ‘The Man of La Mancha’.
And if life does not appear to have granted us a shining sword to fight with, but only a rusty old skewer like the one the Man of La Mancha had ... right then! The rusty old skewer will do! And if the darkness appears to knock us down because all we’ve got to protect our heads is a dented old shaving bowl... right then! We’ll just get up again! And again... and again.
Dear friends, let us never lose courage, and never give in. Love will win, for only Love is real.
With much love from all of us!
Geoff, Ann, Jackie, Derek, Martyn, Jackie M, Sue, Samantha, Regina, Jon, Sam, Sandra, Pat, Karena, Louisa, Mary, Emma, and Belinda.
Text & photographs © Cygnus Books 06-Aug-2001
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