capitalism | These Isles

How many of my blog entries begin ‘it’s been a while, and much has happened’?

Absorbed in the scarily high-stakes parliamentary chess game of Brexit… Will Northern Ireland achieve reunification by default? Does England need her own independence, instead of co-dependently dominating her neighbours? Is Scotland the only healthy corner of the UK? Will we all end up prey to big bully American corporate interests? Is it a choice between those and the likes of pharmaceutical Bayer as our overlords?!

Brexit is a terrifying, but also thrilling, three-way fork in the road between centrist capitalism (business as usual in the EU), Tory capitalism (extreme Thatcherist business in the WTO) and the remotest chance of the beginnings of a mutualist utopia (relatively speaking) led by Corbyn and McDonnell in partnership with the Greens, the nationalist parties and the British people, all informed and energised by the wonderful, furious, counter culture and the equally wonderful, furious European left who’ve actually tasted successful socialism and municipalism in living memory. Maybe we (the Eurpoean left), can supersede the EU’s neoliberal treaties and help thoroughly green the whole bloc – there is certainly some appetite for that in France, and I should imagine especially in socialist Portugal, progressive Catalonia, suffering Greece, mutualist Sardinia…

And if we don’t turn the growth-dependent capitalist ship around, and fast, will climate change leave all or most of us screwed – us and the thousands of species we are taking down with us? Chances are.

High damn stakes indeed.

I’m currently convalescing in a pretty borrowed cottage in Brittany (temporary accommodation has its upsides). Nearby is the only village in France to have held out against Nazi occupation. We’re in the middle of a vast forest. Next door is a café-librairie, centre of high culture and hub of resistance extroardinaire. Brittany has always known resistance, and I’m told that the protest vandalism of the gillets jaunes elsewhere in France will never harm a crêperie, out of respect.

The weavery bus in a Devon valley saw winter trade that was busy busy, thank god – and thank you to my customers; after a business-threateningly slow 2018, the winter compensated and brought my figures to something resembling an actual wage. My March monthly income fell back to zero. This is not entirely surprising, but the panic re-emerges nonetheless, as a constant threat underlying everything, like Brexit, and like climate breakdown.

And then suddenly, unexpectedly, prematurely, on a night when I’m feeling sorry for myself and counting the biggest blessing in my life that is Murphy, Murphy gets a twisted gut, somersaults out of the van vomiting with a heart attack, and dies.

Here he is, from the nervy, ratty, rescue youngster I nearly overlooked, to the crown prince, drawer of crowds, maker of friends and love of my life that I thought I didn’t coo too much about on social media but which your wonderful, overwhelming condolences confirm that I must have done at least a little. Ouch.

Murph at play on the Dunes de Saint Marguerite 4

Murph at play on the Dunes de Saint Marguerite 2

Murph in van w rug close landscape by Eloise Sentito of These Isles

I’m also nursing another heartbreak – one that paled briefly into insignificance on Murph’s death, but one which has taken a great deal of processing nonetheless, both before and since: someone I perceived as steady and a friend for life, and then fell in love with, but whose parting poetry proved hollow as he disappeared for good. A very Irish story (in case you were reading between the lines of my blog back then).

I’m also facing, after about seven years, that I have a serious health issue: ever-increasing electro-sensitivity. Like any allergy or intolerance, it sets in when you’re down, and now has me unplugging appliances, disconnecting batteries, flipping trip switches, avoiding devices and having to stay in the wilds to avoid being a nervous, sleepless, nauseous wreck. And this at a time when I thought I might have had enough isolation in the wilds and want to rejoin ‘civilisation’ and community.

It has serious implications for both social and working life: mobile internet access is a toxin to which I’m having to limit my exposure to about 10 seconds a day – and still pay for for an hour or so, if not a whole night. (An actual, physical marketplace would be every bit as bad due to everybody else’s mobile phones, cell towers and neighbours’ Wifi.) And so, when I’ve managed to make business and lifestyle so apparently miraculously synergistic so far, for want of a landline and a Murphy, I may have to make some very big changes.

Electro-sensitivity is a very 21st century problem, as yet little known, under-researched and poorly understood, though it apparently affects some 25% of us, in different ways, and military research has long recognised the impact of high frequency radiation on health. If you have persistent unexplained symptoms like non-specific anxiety, insomnia, headaches, nausea, tinnitus, nosebleeds, then SWITCH EVERYTHING OFF! (In fact, please switch everything off in between use always and anyway, for everyone’s sake!) I recommend the work of British radiographer Dr Erica Mallory Blythe (helpful videos on Youtube); TED talker and Silicon Valley ‘refugee’ engineer Jeromy Johnson; and the Stop Linky anti-smartmetre brigade in France, who have put me in touch with knowledgeable doctors, geobiologists and eco-electricians. (Thank goodness, again, for the French spirit of resistance, for in this, as in many things, they are more advanced than the British.) Most people will suggest a tinfoil hat, but increasing numbers do actually understand and can help. You can’t imagine my relief to hear that Brussels has just become the first city to refuse 5G. For the sake of the electro-sensitive among us (including birds and probably most other wildlife), please let’s halt the indiscriminate march of radiowave technology that may be mass suicide by sterilisation! (And yes, maybe our species is actually killing itself off for the sake of our host and our fellow guests on this planet.)

Anyway, back to the wool (always a relief): meantime I’m treating this hideaway as a product development period. I’m honing my spinning skills and experimenting with plant dyes and will shortly have a range of subtle coloured earthen yarns to offer for your own creativity to flourish. Unless and until I work out a better way to trade, they’ll be in my Etsy shop as usual.