Three Kings: Kingfisher, King Arthur and the King of Fuh

Kingfisher

There have been three kings in my life, and all have a strong connection to the natural world. The Kingfisher, of course, is a well known and colourful bird that fishes like its name suggests. Kingfisher is also the title of a song of mine I wrote many years ago after seeing one of these birds whilst walking by the Glamorgan canal that runs from Whitchurch to Tongwynlais. My song has nothing to do with that experience really but it was the inspiration for the title. Kingfisher has proved very popular and shows what can be done with as few as two chords. I play it in E and A major. Back in the early 1990s I remember hearing it blaring out the doorway of a chip shop in Cardiff’s Caroline Street, and thought, wow, that is my song, I am hearing! It was being aired on Red Dragon FM, a local radio station, by my friend radio host Steve Johnson. Another time I was in the city centre when I heard the unmistakable voice of my friend the late Pixi Morgan, who was a fellow singer-songwriter and busker, singing “Kingfisher’s green, kingfisher’s blue, he’s so lovely but I love you, I’ll be your kingfisher.” Pixi often included my song in his set and must have entertained people with it in many towns and cities. It is a mark of success having a song of yours covered by another artist. Kingfisher is popular with Druids and pagans too and has the line, “Queen of the summer, Queen of the May,” making it an ideal song for Beltane celebrations, and I have often performed it at the Gorsedd circle at Avebury.

King Arthur

Speaking of Druids brings me to the next King. In 1996 I met and was knighted by King Arthur Uther Pendragon, who is a Druid and who believes he is the reincarnation of the legendary Celtic chieftain. King Arthur leads a Druid Order known as the Loyal Arthurian Warband and members are sworn to uphold the Ancient Virtues of Truth, Honour and Justice. I am a Quest Knight and Bard of the order. Once again Steve Johnson and Red Dragon Radio plays a big part in my story. I had been on Steve’s Round Table radio show on the 23 December and we had been talking about what I achieved by writing letters. Little was I to know then that the following morning was not to bring me more Christmas cards or presents but a single letter. It was a reply to me from King Arthur, in response to mail I had sent some time ago to his AWEN Newsletter. Arthur told me a bit about his Druid Order and suggested that to find out more I tuned into a Radio 4 show that was being broadcast in the New Year about him. I did so and was amazed to hear in an early part of the programme the voice of Pixi Morgan wishing people a “Happy Beltane.” It turned out that Pixi had been Arthur’s Herald at the Twyford Down protest camp. So that was how my introduction to King Arthur came about and it continued with my actual meeting with him in person when he travelled to Cardiff with a crew from Sky TV to make a documentary about reincarnation. I had agreed to be knighted in this at Tinkinswood Burial Chambers just outside Cardiff. Arthur extended the invitation to Pixi to be knighted there too and this happened for the TV cameras. Amongst the proceedings that got filmed was me singing Kingfisher. Some time after all this I wrote a song entitled King Arthur’s Coming and it got used by a number of TV shows. The Slate on BBC Wales included me singing a live version, a documentary on eccentrics on Meridian TV used a recording of the song, and so did another documentary on the German ZDF TV. King Arthur, besides being well known in the media as a Druid, is also famous for his work as an ecowarrior, who has been arrested many times at protest camps where he has been trying his best to protect the land. He is fulfilling the prophecy that King Arthur would return when the land was in its greatest need.

The King of Fuh

The third King is the King of Fuh. This King is a fictional character in a song of the same name by American singer-songwriter and actor, Stephen Friedland, who is also known as Brute Force. He and I became known to each other this year because we are both regular performers on the online show ReW and WhO? from New York. The show is hosted by singer, musician and actress Rew Starr and Green Party candidate James Lane. Brute Force has performed the King of Fuh on ReW and WhO? I was not surprised when I discovered that this amazing song had given Brute the nearest he got to his “big break.” In 1969, Beatles George Harrison and John Lennon were so impressed with Brute’s song and songwriting talent that they wanted him released on Apple. And so it was that a limited edition of 1,000 singles of the King of Fuh were pressed on the Apple label. Everything looked as if this was going to be a massive success for Brute but sadly EMI/Capitol Records and the BBC soon put a stop on this happening. It was thought by them that lyrics in the song that use the words “Fuh king” were not suitable for public airplay and so no radio station would play it either. Brute discovered that the taboo about using the F-word on the media at the time was so powerful that his song got pulled from the distribution it should have had. This is so sad because it does not actually use the F-word. The King of Fuh is a song with lyrics that for me make reference to the crazy world we are in, in which the beauty of nature has not been seen as vital to our lives. Lyrics of the song go: “You look up high and you see the sky so big and blue and you wonder why people don't worship beauty, You look down on the ground, you see the flowers there red and blue and brown, And you wonder why people don't worship beauty. There was a beautiful land, There was a beautiful land, There was a beautiful land called Fuh, And in this land there was a king and everybody called him the Fuh King.”

I am happy to say that I have been able to help Brute get some more publicity for his music because I introduced him to Michael Kennedy who runs the SWND magazine in Wales, and who is now interviewing Brute for the November edition. In conclusion, I’d just like to add that I saw a Kingfisher, wrote a song saying “I’ll be your Kingfisher, “ and then went on to befriend two kings! Make of that whatever you will!

Daniel Quinn’s Books: Ishmael and The Story of B

What can I do?

I think the late Daniel Quinn was a genius, and his books, Ishmael and The Story of B, have answered questions I had, as well as giving me a new view on how the world got in the mess it is in today. I have gained a useful understanding from reading his work, and while this is all very well and good, I find myself asking: What can I do? Quinn said in interviews that this was a question he had often been asked by his fans, fans who had understood the points he was making in his work and felt moved to want to take action. The author’s answer was to go out and get 100 more people to understand. So, this is what I am trying to do here. The idea is that if 100 people understand Quinn’s theories, that they can get another 100, and that 100 can get another 100. The word will keep spreading and eventually there will be enough change in how the world is run, and this will help stop the world being destroyed. So let me tell you about my understanding of what Quinn was saying in his work. Let me introduce you to Ishmael!

Ishmael

Gorilla (Photo: Public Domain/Pixabay)

The character of Ishmael is actually a gorilla, but he becomes a teacher for the narrator of the story. Ishmael challenges the storyteller and the reader with his questions and statements. Ishmael makes the point that all of us have been conditioned by our “Mother Culture” to share beliefs, and this culture has spread globally. It is the culture responsible for world religions, world politics, global corporations, and the daily damage being inflicted on the natural world. It is responsible for consumerism, for wasting natural resources, and for the crazy belief that humans are superior to other animals, and that the world is made for them to use as they please. This has led humans from this culture to be at war, not only with other humans and themselves, but with nature. They see nature as something to be conquered. The verb “conquer” is frequently used in common speech. For example, a mountain climber is conquering a mountain. Humans like this do not see that they are as much a part of nature as the natural world they are attempting to conquer and use.

Quinn puts forward the idea that this all began about 10,000 years ago, at the dawn of civilisation, as it is taught. We have been told that civilisation began in the Middle East area, when great cultures like the Phoenicians, the Babylonians, Sumerians and Egyptians began building cities, using writing, and living in a civilised way. It is as if everything that went before this was of little consequence, primitive, and not worth talking about. These early civilisations went in for agriculture in a big way. It enabled them to settle in one location and to feed the many people who lived and worked in the cities. But according to Quinn, it was what he calls “Totalitarian agriculture,” and I will explain more about this later. But what went before these cultures and societies were hundreds of thousands of years, in which people were living on the planet and getting along fine. We don’t hear about this period of human history. I never did, when I was in school. So the greatest span of time in which humans were living on the planet is more or less unaccounted for by Mother Culture. It has been very conveniently forgotten about. Quinn calls this the “Great Forgetting.” The very many tribal peoples that lived before civilisation were hunter-gatherers, agriculturalists and combinations of these life-support lifestyles. Some practiced the herding of animals, like goats and sheep. Many still do but they are at odds with the advancement of global civilisation and development that has no problem with taking these peoples’ lands, mining them, polluting them, and destroying environments and the ways of life of indigenous people.

The Takers and The Leavers

Ishmael, who by now we realise is voicing Quinn’s ideas, calls the cultures that were the ones recorded in history as the civilised societies, the “Takers.” Not in the book, but later on in his life he regretted using this term because it has been misunderstood, but I will use it here. The rest of the world, in other words, all tribal and indigenous peoples, were, and still are the “Leavers.” There are and were fundamental differences in what these cultures believed. Quinn, speaking as Ishmael, explains that the takers violated and continue to violate the “Law of Limited Competition” that all the rest of the animal world and that all Leavers obey. He explains this law in this way: “You may compete to the full extent of your capabilities, but you may not hunt down your competitors or destroy their food or deny them access to food.” The Takers hold the view that the Earth was made for them, that they are superior in the knowledge and lifestyles to the Leaver cultures, which they regard as primitive, and that they have the right to take what they want and do what they want. Biblical scriptures in Genesis 1:28 back up their views: ‘God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground."’ This is indeed, what has happened. Humans have increased so much that we now have over 7 billion, and many humans of the Takers who follow the Mother Culture and are in positions of power, have been thinking they are right to rule over all living creatures.The Takers feel that it is right to enforce their ways, their culture, their religions and their consumerism upon the Leavers and the rest of the world. This is where the Takers are “breaking the law,” according to Quinn. No other culture amongst the Leavers does this or has done. There are and were many other cultures!
Salvation and Prophets
At the same time that the Mother Culture of the Takers holds this view that it is right and that it should be enforced on the rest of the world, all the major religions followed by the Takers teach that humans are flawed and need some form of spiritual salvation. The patriarchal religions teach that we are born sinners and need to repent. These religions all have prophets, who came to Earth to show us the way to God. The religions of the Far East, Buddhism and Hinduism, also teach that we are flawed and need to follow disciplines, meditation, the use of mantras, etc., to attain enlightenment or to free us from the cycle of birth-death-rebirth. We are taught that we have something wrong with us, and thus need to follow scriptures with the aid of priests and gurus. Mother Culture has spread these ideas worldwide in all civilised societies, where even those people who are atheists, still understand the concept of sin and salvation. All of these religions came about and all of these prophets are said to have been here within the last 6,000 years. The question that came to my mind is what about the hundreds of thousands of years before this? Why had I not thought about this before reading Quinn’s books? The author takes a far greater look at this in The Story of B.
Totalitarian Agriculture

In the Takers “Totalitarian Agriculture” it is right to keep on increasing the amount of land farmed. It is right to destroy all potential other animals and birds that can damage the crops or eat farmed animals, and it is right to prevent them from having access to their natural food. It is easy to think of lots of examples of this, where animals such as wolves, coyotes, pumas, and foxes are hunted and culled. Sea mammals are not spared. Seals are killed because they might eat fish that humans want. Seals might take fish from fish farms, so they must be shot. This stops the animal having access to its natural food, classes it as an enemy and kills it. I have recently been reading reports of seals shot in Shetland because they are viewed as a threat to salmon farms.This culling is currently in progress in many places where birds and mammals are regarded as a threat to farmed crops and farmed animals. Quinn points out that only people of the Takers do this. Only Takers break the Law of Limited Competition.
Feeding the Starving Millions
Quinn explains that followers of the Mother Culture talk a lot about feeding the starving millions. Increased farming is given as the way to help these people by increasing food production. However, in reality even though the amount of land given over to farming is increased, the millions continue to starve. Food is unfairly distributed and often wasted in vast amounts, and this is becoming common knowledge. It is a myth that there is insufficient food for the people on the planet. What does continue to happen from the increased food production is an increase in population numbers. People from all classes of society, including those very poor ones in the starving millions, continue to reproduce and the population continues to rise. Many people die but still the population is increasing. Quinn points out that with all forms of life, increased food sources means an increase in population. Peoples of the Leaver tribes do not do this, so their numbers stay within the natural resources of the areas they are in. Quinn is not putting forward the idea that the Leaver peoples do not have conflict with other neighbouring peoples but they work out a system whereby each tribe has a territory. It has its own culture and belief system but it does not attempt to convert the rest of the world to its ways of living, unlike those of the Takers. Human population growth is continuing to use resources, destroy the environment worldwide and drive an increasing number of other species to extinction, estimated by scientists to be as much as 200 species a day. It is easy to see that the ways of the Takers are endangering all life on this planet.

Conclusion
The above represents my understanding of Quinn’s philosophical ideas. The author has given me a new way of thinking. This is what is needed. We need to think about where our beliefs are coming from. We need to understand we have all been influenced by the Mother Culture and are living in a world held in its power. Something big has got to change and each of us can contribute to that change. So what do I recommend? I recommend reading Quinn’s books and watching the interviews with him included in this blog. Hopefully you will then want to find the next hundred to spread the word!

Why Darwin and David Attenborough have doubts about God

Charles Darwin doubted God made the ichneumon wasps

Naturalist Charles Darwin, who became a famous historical figure because of his Theory of Evolution and his book On The Origin of Species, came to think of himself as an agnostic, when it came to his religious views.

Female Ichneumon xanthorius (Photo: Martin Cooper) 

Darwin's studies and great knowledge of the natural world had made him question how a supposedly "loving God." could have made all the parasites, with their complex but, to our minds, horrific life-cycles. In particular, he made mention of the ichneumon wasps as an example of what he meant, and what caused his doubts.

Darwin said: "I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidae with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of Caterpillars, or that a cat should play with mice."

Ichneumon (Photo:Public Domain)

Ichneumons are parasitic wasps, the females of which, lay their eggs on or inside the bodies of caterpillars of moths and butterflies. The ichneumon grubs live inside the body of their host gradually eating away at the living caterpillar, and leaving the vital organs till the last. When the ichneumon larva has completed its stage as a grub it kills the caterpillar host and emerges to pupate. Instead of a beautiful butterfly the caterpillar eventually produces a weird-looking wasp, with a long ovipositor for a tail. 

Many ichneumons prey on specific hosts, some types parasitise spiders, and some are parasites of other ichneumons. There are many more types of parasitic wasp and fly that use a similar life-cycle and metamorphosis.  In some species the parasite allows it host to pupate and is inside the chrysalis or pupa. 

I learned about these insects when I was a boy and used to enjoy keeping caterpillars to one day see them pupate and then to finally emerge as a moth or butterfly. I was naturally very sad to see that an ichneumon wasp or a parasitic fly took the place of the moth or butterfly, but I came to accept this.  I also came to understand that the parasites had a right to live too, and that they had to feed on something!

Sir David Attenborough's views on God and Creation

World famous naturalist and broadcaster David Attenborough describes himself as an agnostic too. Like Darwin, he has an incredible amount of knowledge about nature. He thinks that people who believe every word of the Bible as the truth are irrational. He asks why is it that there are so many versions of the creation story around the world and so many different gods. Obviously they cannot all be true. He points out that when you look at the fossil record you see the same picture all around the world, not a lot of very different stories, that we are asked to believe, usually depending on where we are born. 

Attenborough says: “If somebody says to me I believe every word of the Bible is true, you can’t argue against that degree of irrationality… there is actually a way of looking at the natural world and seeing the evidence and it’s all there. And what’s more it’s the same evidence whether it’s in Australia or Northern Europe or wherever. It’s all the same — it all produces the same answer and you can all see the evidence — if you reject that then there’s nothing I can say.”

Sir David Attenborough on God

Like Darwin he is very well aware of the gruesome lives of the many types of parasite in the world too, and asks would a loving and merciful God make these sinister creatures? 

Attenborough has been quoted as saying:

"When creationists talk about God creating every individual species as a separate act, they always instance hummingbirds, or orchids, sunflowers and beautiful things. But I tend to think instead of a parasitic worm that is boring through the eye of a boy sitting on the bank of a river in West Africa, [a worm] that’s going to make him blind.

And [I ask them], ‘Are you telling me that the God you believe in, who you also say is an all-merciful God, who cares for each one of us individually, are you saying that God created this worm that can live in no other way than in an innocent child’s eyeball? Because that doesn’t seem to me to coincide with a God who’s full of mercy." (Source : http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2014/02/15/naturalist-sir-david-attenborough-loses-his-patience-with-bible-literalists/)

I find myself in agreement with Darwin and Attenborough!