Right now a holocaust is going on in the world, the holocaust of the variety of humanity called a person with Down's syndrom. Down's syndrom doesn't mean that a person suffers, sometimes a Downs child can suffer from a heart disorder but it is easily fixed with modern medicine in the countries where human beings with Down's syndrom is a threatened species.
The curing of that heart disorder and the extra help a Downs child might need in school costs some money, and they will probably never become very rich since they normally don't get the most well paied jobs in society. For that reason medical care offers all pregnant women a so called KUB-test which shows if the fetus has 47 chromosomes in stead of 46 which is the cause of Down's syndrom.
Most people with Down's syndrom are more than usually light hearted, it comes with the syndrom. They are more than others musical and sociable, that's why they are said to be "friendly". They look a bit different than others with "Mongolian" features; almond eyes and a pale complexion. Their fingers and toes are often, all ten, of the same length and they are often short and a bit chubby. They are slow learners but given time they often learn to read and write and to conduct their own lives with some help. That is it.
Down's syndrom is simply a variety of being human. So why do they scan mothers for this syndrom? The simple answer is; we can do it. If we could scan ADD or alletgies we would do that. For the moment we can't do that, luckily enough, since insecure parents often choose to terminate the pregnancy when they find out that ther fetus has 47 chromosomes.
In the fragile position as a parent to be , the society tells you: "Here is some information for you. Do as you please" It sounds great, but when you get the fake impression that Down's is a serious condition which causes great suffering for the child, are you really free to make a decision? A decision based upon false information , is that a free choice?
And for how long can we choose to keep our babies with Down's syndrom? In Denmark parents who refuse to exterminate their off-spring if they have Down's syndrom are called "egotistic" and "irresponsible" so how far is it to the step when you are obliged to kill your child with Down's or some other minor disorder like allergies or stuttering?
Furthermore, what happens to a society where only the perfect are allowed to be born?
For all that I know I wouldn't want to live in that kind of society.
Chateau and her summer grazing friends Pila and Majan
Dorothea Brooke the heroine of Middlemarch quit riding since she didn't want to show off her wealth in a world of poverty. Today Sweden is such a wealthy country that anyone can ride and even less well-off people may keep a horse. I am one of those.
First of all my horse is my friend. Her name is Chateau and our friendship goes way back. I first met her when she was four years old and this June the 1st we will celebrate her 20th birthday. Even if I wouldn't be able to ride I would keep her with me. She has a lovely personality, a true pony, stubborn and very fond of food. At the same time she is true as gold and gentle as a lamb.
Galopping with Chateau
I have always tried to ride according to Chateau's gentle disposition and the last seven years we have practised Energizing equitation, a kind of equitation deriving from the French riding academies of the 16th, 17th and 18th C and the Mediaeval knights. The point is that you try to connect your brain with the horses brain, trying to ride with your soul in harmony with your horse's soul in stead of using strong aids and violence to command the horse.
Chateau and me last summer
The schools on ground like shoulder in and haunches in are basic gymnastic movements that strenghten the horse and are natural to horses and therefore you use them early in the education of horse and rider in Energizing equitation. Like the baroque masters, Ewa Kristina Petterson , who founded Energizing Equitation, has thight a lot on how to find a way to ride the horse with invisible aids and she teaches others how to reach there in much appreciated clinics in Sweden and Denmark.
Miss Smilla
However, there are many others who tries to reach the same goals with similar means and I try to listen to everybody and pick the things that work for me and my beautiful pony, although I have learnt most from Ewa-Kristina and her "Cougars" in Kalix.
Now I am doing exactly the opposite to Dorothea Brooke, I have bought a filly. By June the 23rd she will be one year old and she will be educated according to Energizing Equtation principles from the beginning. Her name is Smilla and her father is of pure Spanish breed mixed with Welsh and Arab blood from her mother, I hope this will be a perfect mix for an Energizing Equitation horse.
Every now and then I need to watch and listen to this clip with Gungor. Sometimes life feels dull and then this clip reminds me of all wonderful reasons to live there are:
Césária Évora était une star mondiale, mais elle n'oubliait jamais son pays, Cap Verte. Elle disait:
« Quand je voyage, j’emporte ma culture. Les mots chantent ma terre et la vie qui se déroule à Mindelo, chez moi »
Elle a devenue connue du monde assez tard. Elle avait 47 ans quand elle a fait son premier album. Mais elle ne doutait jamais de son talent, elle savait bien qu'elle était parmi les grandes chanteuses de l'histoire de la musique.
Maintenant elle a emporté Mindelo au ciel et sa voix d'argent chante avec les autres grandes divas, pied nus ou pied aux chaussures. Césaria Évora, Mahalia Jackson et Birgit Nilsson, quel chorale formidable!
Lucia with entourage; maids and Star Boys in a typical village church in Sweden
Lucia is one of the marvels of Swedish Advent tide. She is not celebrated as we do anywhere else, except in Finland. The 13th of December all schools, offices, work shops, hospitals and Day Care centres are filled with candles and singing children, youngsters and grown ups. The smaller the singers are, the more of them carry a special crown ornated with electric candles, a Lucia-crown, made in Sweden-where else?
The required equipement for a family with children has to be arranged the 12th of December, in the early morning the children will get dressed for the Lucia procession at the day care centre, at church or at school
In order to commemorate a teenage girl from Syracuse in Sicily, who was decapitated during the severe persecution of Christians under the Roman emperor Diocletian, all Swedes get up early, eat an extra- everything breakfast and listen to minor and bigger groups of singers of a very varied capacity.
A choir performing a traditional Lucia procession and ceremony; with Advent, Christmas and Lucia carols.
How come? Swedes became hardcore Lutherans as early as the 16th century, so why Catholic processions for a martyr saint from Italy?
The explanation is as complicated as it always is with most traditions. The first, and only evidence of a real Catholic cult regarding St. Lucia before the reformation is found in the diocese of Skara in the South- West of Sweden. In the rest of the Sweden -to-be Lucia seemed to be rather unknown as a person ,but her day was a remarkable day in the calendar since it, during the days of the Julian calendar , used to be the longest night of the year. All people residing in this dark Kingdom on the verge of the Arctics were afraid of darkness. They also were permanently half-starving so the long night of Lucia was a night to endure with eating, drinking and lighting fires and candles.
Lucia celebrated in her home town of Syracuse, Sicily
Some tales told about that night, told about "Lusse" as a kind of dangerous troll, others talked about Lucia as a saint very much like St. Nicholas, coming on a ship or ice yacht loaded with sausages, beef, ham and rice porridge to the poor and starving on the shores of seas, rivers and lakes in this country where water abunds.
Lussebullar
During the 18th century a new cult of Lucia was noticed in diaries, letters and descriptions of folklore in the south west of Sweden. This was a custom for the upperclasses and manors. One of the daughters in the manor dressed up like a Christkindlein in a white gown and a crown of candles because she carried a tray with coffee and special Lucia-pastry; ginger bread and buns spiced with saffron for all the guests and people of the manor.
She sang songs like " Good morning gentlefolks, here comes the Lucia bride. She comes to you with great honour. Lucia wants to entertain you for a while if she finds you in good health this early morning. Wake up now, gentlefolks, and eat and have a good time, if you do the heart of Lucia rejoices, she wishes you all a merry Christmas, and may God protect you all from all evil".
1901 the first Lucia-celebrations outside the diocese of Skara was recorded, it was at Skansen, the big open-air museum in the centre of Stockholm. The traditon spread in Stockholm and the church started to show interest in the Catholic Saint from Italy. First in the Christian Scout movement and soon also in the vigorous choir movement in the Church of Sweden, Lucia was introduced with processions and singng in honour of Lucia, but also as an equivalent to the British Carol tradition before and around Christmas. Then songs from the old St, Stephen tradition emerged into the Lucia-tradition and the riding boys who sang about the star from Bethlehem started to appear in the Lucia-procession before Christmas in stead of the 26th of December.
Star boys from the St. Stephen celebrations now appear with Lucia and they bring their St. Stephen songs with them
In 1927 the first beauty contest was held in Stockholm, it was a contest to become the Swedish Lucia of the year. This contest made Lucia popular all over Sweden in all social groups.
This year, 2011, the contestants raised funds for "Children of the World Foundation", children in need, and the candidate who raised most money also became the Lucia-but she was also extremely pretty. She comes from the mining fields in the very north of Sweden where I also come from so she almost feels like kin=) The international saint proves to be even more so this year, since the Lucia of the year comes from a remote part of Northern Lapland, where Lucia never has been known as anything else than the Christian martyr from Southern Italy. The Lucia of 2011 is furthermore of Iranian/Swedish ancestry.
Aida Lindquist from my neighbouring town in Lapland, the Lucia of Sweden 2011
The Lucia of the year goes to Syracuse each year to participate in the very different processions in commemoration of St. Lucia held there .They also run their own show so the baffled Sicilians get a hint of how we remember their teenage saint in the far north. Thus the circle is completed and a tradition that started in the early middle ages as a cult of the martyr girl who then became a pagan troll in the dark woods of Sweden ended when St. Lucia was re-introduced to the Church and became her real cosmopolitan self again in the early 20th century.
Dorothea is extremely proud of this beautiful Swedish tradition!
Swedish Public Service TV always has their own official Lucia procession, you can watch this years procession here. The special Luica-song is an Italian song from Naples. The Swedish lyrics talks about the girl who brings light and a hint of what Christmas will be like, she is seen as prophesizing Christmas and the return of the sun in this song.
Here one of hundreds of songs from the mediaeval St. Stephen celebrations which now appear in Lucia processions:
In the Nordic countries Advent is still much celebrated . Although the reformation tried to rid Swedes of all Catholic habits, many of them remain, like celebrating Advent. It's not celebrated with much fasting, unfortunately for the public health. People tend to eat "Christmas Tables", ( i.e. the special Christmas dishes which resemble in much the food starving vikings longed for duríng the Advent lent-fat, lard, sugar, cream and salt are the main ingredients) for more than a month before Christmas, instead.
However, there are more to Advent in Sweden than eating an excess of calories in mediaeval food. One of the most popular is the Advent calendar on Swedish TV, a serial in 24 episodes guiding families to Christmas eve with some "Chritsmassy" story. Normally people love to hate, and find faults with it, but this year an unanimous praise is raised to the Advent calendar. Dorothea doesn't beg to differ. It is lovely in every respect.
The petty thief Kurre goes straight and gets hired as a Department Store Santa the weeks before Christmas
The story is set in early 20th C Sweden and the main characters are thieves in the "Klappsnappar-gang"(Christmas presents nickers). The petty thief Kurre is found by his daughter Charlie, a girl resembling Anne of Green Gables, Oliver Twist and the female Astrid Lindgren characters including Brenda helping Grandmother, Pippi Longstocking and Lotta on Troublemaker's Street.
Charlie is straight forward and helps her father to live a straight life. She has already saved the small town from the gangster queen, the evil and tight fisted Madame Bofvén, and I bet she also will conquer the greedy department store owner, simply called "Direktörskan" (the Managing Directoress). A woman cut out from the same mold as Cruella Deville and Miranda Priestley from "The Devil Wears Prada".
The Policemen Jönsson and Jansson on either side of the Chief Inspector Lönnroth. Jönsson and Jansson are comical twin characters of Laurel and Hardy and makes life rather easy for the thieves in the small town
Apart from Charlie and the two horrible main villains in the story, there are several other strong female characters in the story; Madame Shadow-one of the thieves and Miss Gerda, the neighbour who has a cruch on Kurre, and Kurre has the same for her, at the same time Charlie has chosen her as her mother, since her first mother "is an angel".
The characters are Dickensian, the snow and cold is real and the story is heart warming. Most of my readers doesn't live in Sweden, and you probably don't know much Swedish, but you can get a hint of this Advent tradition and lovely story here.
La Princesse de Clèves; un exemple d’intégralité et d’intégrité elle peut fonctionner comme inspiration, bien rare aujourd’hui, pour les jeunes femmes de la génération Facebook
La Princesse de Cléves raconte un récit des trois personnes qui se rencontrent à la cour du Roi Henri II, mais les avaient pu se rencontrer aussi à l’époque de Mme de Lafayette et la cour de Louis XIV. Le cadre historique fait l’histoire plus intéressante et plus vraisemblable, et à la fois, plus facile d’écrire pour Mme de Lafayette en critiquant les mœurs de la cour ; sa politesse vide, son moral sexuel corrompu plein de commères et commers2 méchants.
Tout le monde à la cour, et dans le roman, vit les vies totalement inutiles dans un luxe honteux. Leurs existences sont seulement symboliques comme la vie des célébrités de nos jours. Cette fonction symbolique est marquée en particulière dans la scène du mariage à la fin de la troisième partie du roman où Mme de Lafayette se transforme d’un rapporteur de la passerelle : « Les reines et les princesses avaient toutes leurs filles magnifiquement habillées des mêmes couleurs qu’elles étaient vêtues : en sorte que l’on connaissait à qui étaient les filles par la couleur de leurs habits. » p.193 f. Ensuite, la cour mange : « Le roi, les reines les princes et princesses mangèrent sur la table de marbre dans la grande salle du palais […]. » p.194 Dans cette partie du roman Mme de Lafayette, aussi discrète que prudente, critique la vie luxueuse de la cour, une chose lamentable selon des jansénistes.
Pendant que la cour en totale symbolise la corruption des mœurs, la Princesse de Clèves symbolise la pureté, parmi des couleurs éclatantes elle est blonde, presque blanche « La magnificence et la galanterie n’ont jamais paru en France avec tant d’éclat que dans les derniers années du règne de Henri second. »p.37 « […] il fut surpris de la grande beauté de Mlle de Chartres, et il en fut surpris avec raison. La blancheur de son teint et ses cheveux blonds lui donnaient un éclat que l’on n’a jamais vu qu’à elle; tous ses traits étaient réguliers, et son visage et sa personne étaient pleins de grâce et de charmes. » p. 48
Madame de Lafayette écrivait ce roman dans une Europe où la reforme chrétienne avait répandu à l’église catholique. Un groupe autour l’évêque d’Ypres, Cornelius Jansen, les jansénistes avait son essor à l’époque quand Mme de Lafayette écrivait ce roman. Elle était janséniste, mais lesquels qu’on nomme ”jansénistes” ne veulent pas se protester comme rien que des membres de l’église Catholique. Ce mouvement s’intéresse d'abord à « une réflexion théologique centrée sur le problème de la grâce divine, avant de devenir une force politique qui se manifeste sous des formes variées, touchant à la fois à la théologie morale, à l'organisation de l'Église catholique, aux relations entre foi et vie chrétienne, à la place du clergé dans la société et aux problèmes politiques de son temps. »3
En outre Mme de Lafayette, pendant sa jeunesse, fait partie des salons dont lesquels les femmes de l’aristocratie se rencontrent pour discuter la situation de la femme, lire des romans nouveaux et écouter des lectures des romans précieux. Ces femmes et leurs romans, en étants les premiers féministes en France, étaient dénigrées et le roman précieux fut un nom péjoratif. Aujourd’hui les salons et les romans précieux sont réévalués; leurs œuvres sont appréciés pour sa langue pionnière et les discussions sur l’amour contre la liberté inspirent toujours des féministes. Selon les précieuses une femme libre pouvait nier ses émotions sexuelles, comme Mme de Clèves; « Elle ne sentait que le plaisir de voir M. de Nemours, elle en avait une joie pure et sans mélange qu’elle n’avait jamais sentie : cette joie lui donnait une liberté et un enjoument dans l’esprit que M. de Nemours ne lui avait jamais vus et qui redoublaient son amour. » p.158
Selon la définition des précieuses Mme de Clèves est une femme libre, alors elle est un exemple d’une femme pleine d’intégralité et d’intégrité. Mme de Clèves s’ouvre seulement aux autres personnes, elle garde soi-même et conserve la serrure de son cœur soigneusement, la serrure dont laquelle elle-même a les seules clés. Comme un exemple d’intégralité et d’intégrité elle peut fonctionner comme inspiration, bien rare aujourd’hui, pour les jeunes femmes de la génération Facebook.
