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FOR SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURS IN SCOTLAND |
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Bulletins
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Bulletin End Bits
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Sponsors
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17 May, 2013
The advances in brain science mean that we can now detect the physical effects of love in the human brain. Dr Barbara Fredickson, a psychology professor at the University of North Carolina describes the fascinating, subtle biology underpinning love, and what this means for making healthy, resonant connections happen in your life.
"We now know that a steady diet of love - of these micro-moments of positive connection - influences how people grow and change, making them healthier and more resilient. And we're beginning to understand exactly how this works, by tracking the complex chain of biological reactions that cascade throughout your body and change your behaviour in ways that influence those around you as you experience love." See, http://www.senscot.net/view_art.php?viewid=13582
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10 May, 2013
To the question - 'What Makes us Human?' - Rabbi Jonathan Sacks answers that we are made human by relationships - which are best learnt in the context of a family. But he worries for the future:
"We invest immense time and energy in electronic communication: smartphones, texts and social networking software. But are virtual relationships the same as face-to-face ones? A 2012 survey carried out by Macmillan Cancer Support revealed that the average 18-to-35-year-old has 237 Facebook friends. Yet when asked on how many of these they could rely in a crisis, the average answer was two. A quarter said one. An eighth said none." See, http://www.senscot.net/view_art.php?viewid=13566
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03 May, 2013
On 12th October 2007, I wrote my column on Cormac MacCarthy's book The Road - the impact it had on me - see, http://www.senscot.net/view_art.php?viewid=13502 This week George Monbiot considers the book "the greatest environmental work ever written." He remembers - as I did - that final haunting paragraph:
"Once there were brook trout in the streams in the mountains. You could see them standing in the amber current where the white edges of their fins wimpled softly in the flow. They smelled of moss in your hand. Polished and muscular and torsional. On their back were vermiculate patterns that were maps of the world in its becoming. Maps and mazes. Of a thing which could not be put back. Not to be made right again. In the deep glens where they lived all things were older than man they hummed of mystery."
Monbiot expands on the theme of trout - as a powerful metaphor for the environmental movement. See, http://www.senscot.net/view_art.php?viewid=13499
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26 April, 2013
Wendell Berry, the 78 year old American activist writer and farmer - wrote last year about sustainability, as it applies to small communities; he says it requires a 'continuously turning cultural cycle'.
"The cultural cycle is an unending conversation between old people and young people - assuring the survival of local memory; as long as it remains local - this has the greatest practical urgency and values. This is what is meant - and is all that can be meant - by 'sustainability'. The cultural cycle turns on affection; the primary motive for good care and good use is always going to be affection - because affection involves us entirely."
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19 April, 2013
I'm back reading James Robertson's 'And the Land Lay Still' - which is sometimes hard going, but very rewarding. He took his title from this poem. The Summons, by Edwin Morgan (from Sonnets from Scotland).
"The year was ending, and the land lay still. Despite our countdown, we were loath to go, kept padding along the ridge, the broad glow of the city beneath us, and the hill swirling with a little mist. Stars were right, plans, power; only now this unforeseen reluctance, like a slate we could not clean of characters, yet could not read, or write our answers on, or smash, or take with us. Not a hedgehog stirred. We sighed, climbed in, locked. If it was love we felt, would it not keep, and travel where we travelled? Without fuss we lifted off, but as we checked and talked a far horn grew to break that people's sleep."
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See all previous bulletin end bits here
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SENSCOT supporters
Senscot works closely with these social enterprise intermediaries: The development work of Senscot is also supported by the Scottish Government.
54 Manor Place, Edinburgh EH3 7EH
Tel: +44(0)131 220 4104 Fax:+44 (0)131 539 9999
E-mail: mail@senscot.net
Registered in Scotland. Company Registration No. 278156. Scottish Charity No. SC 029210 |
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