Patriot Realm

In these dark days of misery, it is often pleasant to hear a story that has a happy ending. For me, such an event came to pass this morning.  No, I did not win the lottery. In fact, it would have been strange had I done so as I never take a ticket. No, my happy ending came because a lovely lady, very close to me and my family won a battle by following the wisdom of Sun Tzu. 

Sun Tzu was a Chinese military strategist, philosopher, and author of "The Art of War," an influential work on military strategy and tactics. Little is known about his life, and even the exact dates of his birth and death are uncertain, though he is believed to have lived during the Eastern Zhou period of ancient China, around the 6th century BC.

He wrote a book called " The Art of War. " 

Last night, I watched a film about an American service dog whose mate had died. It was a hard slog to watch. Too much pain and suffering in one film. 

On the 13th of March each year, we mark World K9 Day. The day that the world is supposed to celebrate the gift of loyalty and dedication that our four-legged friends have given to our Military men and women.  Our canine friends have fought beside us and stood beside us and comforted us in times of trouble and we are increasingly, as a species, forgetting their dedication and love and consigning them into the same bin that we place our unborn children. 

We are reading more and more stories of heartbroken and dispirited Veterans who are taking their own lives. 

It saddens me that this Worldwide day of tribute often passes without a mention on mainstream media. Let us ensure that does not happen this year.

As our world becomes more corrupt, complicated and seemingly hopeless, we need to use our minds to seek hope from those who have proven, beyond shadow of doubt, that good can triumph.

I saw an image today that struck me as being quite profound. I called it " white privilege. " Perhaps it should have been pioneer spirit and that, is something that new " migrants"  seem to lack these days. 

It made me wonder how our countries have travelled so far from reality that we are now expected to believe in this myth that we are thinking ourselves superior?  

The countries that gave us birth were apparently founded on so called "white privilege". Our ancestors arrived in our nations with wealth of knowledge. That is true. The knowledge of hard earned skills and generations of hard learned lessons. 

Heritage is something I care deeply about. A Manx flag flies proudly outside Redhead's home. My reluctance to spend money is seen everytime I open my purse and moths fly out. My Scottish gene is very strong, and my Manx gene is ever there, warning me about the moordie doo and the dangers of saying a word spelled R.A.T and knowing that such a thing would cause great discomfort in my genetic history. 

I have a New Zealand history, and I love the memories of a childhood spent wandering the hills and green paddocks of my beloved homeland. 

Yet I soak in the solitude of the Australian Outback and the heat and the rain and the sheer joy of being Australian. I enjoy the coast and the joy of being an Aussie. I have lived here for far longer than I loved in my country of birth. 

No, I am not Irish. Yet there is something in me that feels the beat of a heart that must come from my Manx heritage: that of an Irish jig or a lament well sung. 

In many of us, there is that seed of the Irish. That thing we cannot put our finger on. That wondrous joy of hearing a song and feeling unable to stop the tap of the foot and the song that springs suddenly into our hearts and our minds. 

It is like a tonic to the soul.