National Marriage Week

As we celebrate National Marriage Week, IT IS

time to "reflect" on the incalculable value of

this social institution.

THE contribution that marriage makes to social life does not end with the intensive period of raising a young family. When a couple marry, they are not simply legalising their sexual relationship – a step which few couples might think necessary given the relaxed mores of contemporary society. They are making a public declaration of their commitment to one another which joins their two families. IT IS the interconnecting network of all those conjoined families that constitutes a community. Marriage is not simply a testament to the present feelings of a man and a woman but to their readiness to accept responsibility for the future. So the stability of a long-standing marriage can offer emotional security not only to the first generation of children it produces, but to grandchildren, extended family and friends.


Twenty years or more ago when my soulmate, Linnie, made this Panda Birthday Cake, on the occassion of one of our three children's birthdays, the Giant Panda was already an "endangered species". My middle daughter Alison became a vegetarian at that time, following her child-hood researches into LIFE on EARTH and subscribing, out of her own pocket money, to Junior Membership of the World Wildlife Fund as well as becoming one of its fund-raisers. It was a family tradition for each of the children to choose what KIND of cake they wanted for their birthdays, and Linnie baked the cake of their dreams for the 18th of January, 12th of February and 18th of February, EVERY year for several years. A diverse multiplicity of cakes, from bird's nests and OWLs to volcanoes and fireworks, including of course one of her masterpieces as pictured above.

MOST of the diverse multiplicity of confrontations, conflicts and consequences, which the peoples of this planet endure, on a day to day basis, fall into the category of mis-understanding, as has long-since been demonstrated between The Peoples Republic of China and Taiwan.

However, following The Peoples Republic's threats of war with Taiwan and the building of the "secret" submarine base on Hainan Island, it was The Peoples Republic which offered an olive branch to Taiwan , in the form of a pair of Giant Pandas, despite the devastating consequences of the earthquake in China last year.

Although Jeff Randall has suggested in his article today that - Bit by Bit Brown's fantasy is being pulled apart by the FACTS - and that - IF this were China we'd shoot the banker's - a reaction, no doubt, that a substantial proportion of the peoples of  America  would subscribe to, following this week's congressional hearings of those who have had their fingers in the "honey pot "; IT would appear that Barack Obama IS facing not unsimilar problems, in building a team of experts to support him in his own "position of integrity".

Following ALL that has happened this week, across the planet, THE FACT NOW to be considered IS THAT ALL the break-downs of mis-understanding; at the core of EVERY problem, issue, crisis that the peoples of the planet face; IS that ALL the models on which we ALL depend, for politics & democracy, bankers & economics, religion & spiritual behavious, science & the research and development of technology are based on a predominately patriarchal mind-set. 

A mind-set which even permeates the concept of ALL THINGS integral & spiritual.

UNLESS the NEW model/s IS/are seen to tear up the "OLD Model Rule Books" of
the last several millenia of evolutionary development of our species; as a result of
"opening the door" to the establishment of  "NEW Model Rule Books" which are based on an internetwork of networks of equitable thinking, we shall ALL experience the re-building of a mechanism which will take ALL LIFE on EARTH INTO THE ABYSS.



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