The View from the Hill 2

By Terrence Aubrey

The view from the hill 2 is a collection of observations of life. I have tried to take a far from the madding crowd perspective. It is, if you like a view from afar, an appraisal, a stock take.
These observations whilst covering a wide spectrum of modern day woes are not in truth modern. They are, I would suggest, timeless and cut through many of our concepts of life in the new millennium. Are they valid, worthy of sharing and considering? Obviously I think yes, but you the reader must draw your own conclusions.
We all happen to be alive at a crucial moment in time. Life on earth is under threat from myriad directions, why? Simply because the road we have followed is a dangerous one. To put it simply, we have evolved in a very unbalanced way. We have either presumed, or assumed that our actions are independent of the very World we share. Whilst increasing numbers of people are now questioning, our audacity in treating Mother Earth as little more than our personal warehouse, we have left it very late.
Why we find ourselves where we are right now forms the basis of my observations. Whilst I accept that many will disagree, I hope that at the very least, the alternative perspective I present here is worthy of your consideration.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Terrence Aubrey
• Release date: Jul 15, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301509102

Terrence Aubrey

Terrence Aubrey was born in Bristol, England, the only son of a Ballet dancer mother and composer father. Rebellious of nature and from an early age, he abandoned his education at the earliest possible moment, fifteen. He showed no inclination of following in the artistic footsteps of his parents during his formative years. Preferring a self enlightening process, he set off upon an adventure that led him to experiment with understanding the mind and the development of self awareness. During that period he enjoyed extensive World travel across the countries of Europe, the America’s, north and south and the FSU. He found those travels, enriching, mind opening and educational and in equal measure. He discovered both a passion and love of writing by chance, while establishing a website. It was a website than required a lot of varied content. That ultimately led him to the writing of many articles upon diverse subjects. That in turn led to him creating a blog. The leap from blogging to writing full length novels was a gradual process. Many of his novels reflect his environmental concern for the way we, the human race have evolved and the consequences that path has led us towards. Whilst many of his novels are dramatic, even apocalyptic, they also show a way forward. Whether you believe that way to be better or worse than the current status quo is for you to decide. Terrence Aubrey currently lives on a farm in southern Spain and cultivates Avocados. He has four sons, three dogs and writes. He has now published several works of fiction and they can be found on Smashwords.

Book preview

Man versus Nature

Unlike every other life form with whom we share this planet man has detached himself from nature. Why should this be? It seems that from our earliest days of evolution we have raped, pillaged and taken from mother earth whatever we wanted and with no conscious consideration of the consequences. We are in fact the only animal that takes what it wants, rather than what it needs. Why should this be and what is the price to be paid?

There can be no doubt that mankind stands alone from the rest of the animal kingdom in our intellectual capacity. Our ability to plan, scheme, develop and construct complex forms of both machine and technology. Unfortunately due to that crucial missing link, that link that we seem to have lost a long way back in our history, we have a problem. Our developments and advances have given no consideration to anything other our desire to progress, to make more and have more, a grave error.

The consequence of our unbalanced development as a species is now becoming increasingly apparent. The Worlds wildlife is in danger, some species of becoming extinct, as we bulldoze our way into the future. Even nature itself is now struggling to accommodate the lifestyle we have chosen to live. In fact the very way we have chosen to live, it becomes clearer by the day is, incompatible with the very planet we live on!

Now call me pernickety, but this seems a particularly bad idea to me, is this not something very strange, very not right? Ok analogy time, Imagine we live in a tree house and we feel cold, would we cut down the tree we live upon for firewood? An absolutely preposterous suggestion, who in their right mind could, would, do such a thing? Us, yes as unbelievable as it might seem, us and with the passage of time, with ever greater efficiency.

What went wrong, how could this have happened? Did we lose our senses? Well actually yes, that is exactly what happened; let me explain by giving some examples. The fact that we alone, mankind have been blessed with the power of intellect, of a mind and thinking capacity came at a price, a huge price that we choose to ignore, conscience. The action of good not selfish good, but for the good of all the benefit of all and that includes mother earth and all who live upon it.

Unfortunately conscience within humankind is something that we allowed to wither and become corporately extinct long ago, long, long ago and the price we have paid? That is clear to see for all that have the eyes to see. Can we see that which we have lost, that which we have disconnected ourselves from? Yes every day and all around us, but again, only if we have the eyes to see and the heart to mourn. There is a river of life, love, energy that flows through creation, which is in fact sustaining creation moment by moment and upon mother earth we the human race are the only life form that can no longer feel it, have become detached from it and even worse, have no time for to even consider it`s existence.

We are surrounded on a daily basis of this river, of this astonishing power of belonging and magical glory, but we choose to dismiss it as irrelevant, not something we even have time to consider in our busy lives.

There are so many examples of this magic that surrounds us every day if only we can see it. Migratory birds that will travel thousands of miles each year, without map, compass, or even thought. Dogs and cats left behind by owners in a house move that find there way to their owners new home, again sometimes thousands of miles away. Miraculous acts of whales, dolphins and other members of the animal kingdom, yet do we see it, are we even interested? Often no, we would prefer to dismiss it as some kind of genetic function and get on with the real business of getting on in the world. It is actually a huge pity and is the very reason that we are unconsciously destroying the very planet we live upon. We have in fact sacrificed the Garden of Eden, paradise to the altar of getting on in the World, are you really sure the exchange is a good one?

The tragic irony of this, we are in our desire to get on in the world we are actually turning our paradise into an angry and hostile place. Does than seem a fair exchange to you, irrespective of how much you may have gotten on in the World?

Is it possible that even at this the 11th hour we might again find that connection to the river of life, or even better, plug into it and begin to lead lives from that higher level of understanding?

Sadly we have designated any glimpses of this truth to the weird, the unworldly, ironic or what? Even the few that believe have relegated it to the occult. They call it sixth sense, or intuition, but many have experienced knowing something that they had no logical right to know. Intuition, sixth sense, is but a glimpse of what we can be, if we can turn backs to our worship of the material at all cost and really look at ourselves.

Look into the mirror and ask of ourselves, why, why is it me I see in this body, why am I here, is there a reason for me being here, right here, right now? Yes, yes and yes again, but only if we really, really want to know, really want to understand. To do that we need to reshape our priorities and look at what we really want. Yes we need shelter we need food, but this we can accomplish. Do you not envy the birds and other wildlife that build each year a new house, nest in a matter of days and without bank funding! Surely we can simplify our lives?

We have travelled a very long way down the wrong road, we have allowed ourselves to be misled and so we must share the blame. We will not find it easy to exchange the, yes of course I know into the I do not know and why is this even necessary? Because a vessel that is full can not absorb anything new, or different, but it can be done. If we channel the same energy that we have put into making it into rediscovering our true potential then most definitely we can find anew our own individual, magnificent connection to that river and flow of life.

If, (a very big if right now), enough of the Worlds population can make that change, that shift of priorities, we might just make it.

Only it’s a pity that we had to wait until Mother Nature literally punched us on the nose, to consider that we might be at fault, better late than never, maybe?

Money

I’m not sure when money became a popular form of repayment for goods or services offered, but it was, at least initially, a really neat idea. Unfortunately the concept was hi-jacked; we will get back to that later. For hundreds, perhaps thousands of years the system of exchange of necessities was very simple, I’ll fix the hole in your roof in exchange for a sack of potatoes and a few cabbages. Everyone was happily. Gradually and over a period of time, we opted to live in ever greater proximity with each other, small clusters of human habitation became yesterdays news. Now why that should be is another question altogether and worthy of another article. Was it safety in numbers, bigger is better or simply part of our evolutionary process?

For whatever reason, exchanges of goods and services became increasingly inconvenient and a medium of payment became a great idea and freed up the whole process, the beginning of money. It was in