Seasons

After the storms, the sky is clear. The sun increasingly lower at its zenith. Gradually, sublimely, we drift into the autumn season. The season of change, of colour. The season of pressing the grapes for this year’s wine, which may not be as good as usual in this region, for various reasons.

Soon walking old Cayden in the morning, we’ll surprise proudly newly feathered, beautifully coloured pheasants squawking as they noisily flap off. We may vaguely see deer and wild boar through the morning haze. The temperatures will be chilly, but the air exhilarating. 

The seasons, each one assured by the gradual, increasing, then decreasing tilt of the Earth as it revolves around the sun.
A universal phenomenon naturally beyond humanity’s control. The creator of Earth’s seasons so necessary for the cycle of life, of vegetation, forestry, and of everything vital
The magical season that reassures, and always evokes nostalgia. The season I love the most.

                                           Text and image © Mirino. September, 2024
 

Convenient Myths

During the Barbarossa invasion beginning in 1941, the armoured vehicles and tanks of the third Reich are only 200 kms from Moscow. There seems to be little chance of stopping them. The only hope for the High Command of the Red Army is to send 3,500 officer students from the military school of Podolsk to defend the Ilyinsky line. This at all costs, until reinforcements arrive. The cadets have small, moveable field artillery to counter the German tanks. They are accurate but not always powerful enough. One has to aim at the tank turrets to put the tanks out of action. 

The film (on Prime Video) is based on historic facts authenticated by the Russian ministry of Culture. The cadets are ordered to hold the front line for an estimated four day period to prevent the German and Axis troops from breaking through to Moscow. They held out for 12 days before the Red Army reinforcements and tanks finally arrived. 

The only language available for this Russian film banally called ‘Ligne de feu’ (Line of Fire) is French. I refer to this film simply because one notes that there is very little difference between the characters, their emotions, fear, courage, loyalty to their brothers in arms, the realistic scenes, often atrocious but how it then was, and the more serious American WWII films produced by good film directors. In other words the film showed that the cadets spoke and joked just as American soldiers would under the same circumstances. Naturally there were no stupid, Western, caricatures of Russian underdogs brutally ordered to commit suicide by callous, oldschool, Commanding Officers. Obviously the officers in the film had to obey High Command orders, but they cared for their men and did their best to protect them. 

There’s a scene where a soldier volunteers to mend a broken fuse cable to blow up a bridge. He gets shot but finishes the job and sacrifices his life when the bridge is successfully destroyed. These are the same scenes, the same acts of personal sacrifice and courage that one sees in serious, Anglo-Saxon, WWII films. The film highlights the reality of what took place, the considerable initial success of the advance of German and Axis troops at the start of the invasion. 

 It’s not a film of propaganda. It wasn’t made to portray an indomitable hero like ‘Rocky’, who won the war single-handedly, or other Western war film heroes played by Audie Murphy or Robert Mitchum, etc., those one sometimes admired in the 60’s and 70’s US war films. 

The film ends with the survivors, the young heroes, many of whom are wounded, stoically marching by the large convoy of reinforcements which has at last arrived. The reinforcements are well armed and have brand new tanks, etc. The soldiers and officers salute the cadets with great respect and admiration. Once more one is reminded of similar Western film scenes of such honour, respect, duty and sacrifice. 

This was the USSR, the West’s precious ally, as from 1941, remember? The nation without which there could never have been a Normandy invasion. The Russian Federation, no longer communist, now treated like dirt by stupid, ignorant Western leaders. But that’s another tragic story. 

The history referred to above, a moving story of human courage, is not only factual history; it clearly, discreetly and inadvertently shows that there’s no essential difference of character between Russians and Anglo-Saxons, of normal humanity trying to make the best of things in nightmarish situations. 

No nation has the monopoly of ‘goodness', of ‘exemplary righteousness'. Similarly, no fake religion, or dogma, can claim to have the monopoly of God, certainly without being blasphemous. Evil exists, but one must be able to recognise it, rather than try to project it where it doesn’t exist, for the sake of absurd, impossible ideology, or irresponsible and dangerous illusions. 

                    Text © Mirino. (Photo from film title page, with thanks) August, 2024

 

Stones

I have always been fascinated by stones. I had beautiful stones I picked up from Essex, UK, from the banks of Loch Lomond, from Arisaig, the Isle of Eigg, Scotland, from Zandvoort, and other beaches of Holland, from Yosemite, from the Grande Canyon, from Savannah, Georgia, USA.

Everywhere I go, I look at the stones. They have their own identity and reflect their environment. Often they are formed by intense pressure through eons of time from different minerals. Or they are sometimes embellished with mica, or imprinted with fossils.

They reassure by their existence, a history which covers perhaps several millions of years. They may have been cast aside or partly formed from earthquakes, or indented, even patiently ‘drilled’ through, by many hundreds of years of dripping water, or spat out from the bowels of the earth by volcanoes. Their age makes our own life-span seem so insignificant.

They have endured all the tribulations of thousands, if not millions of years of natural phenomena, of climate evolution, of the elements, to be finally formed, sculpted, moulded as they are when discovered. This is why they are fascinating, and why one sees them and picks them up. 

Nothing more than stones. 

© Mirino, Text and image. September, 2023

 

 

Soviet Nemesis

Below are two pages from Winston Churchill’s memoirs. They consist of Churchill’s speech broadcast by the BBC at 21h on June 22nd, 1941. It was made after his being informed that Operation Barbarossa had begun.
It's interesting because everything negative about Stalin and the past criminal activities of Soviet communism were shelved, for obviously there was a much greater priority.
Today Soviet communism no longer exists. Despite feverish, Western efforts to tarnish the Russian Federation, and now support Ukraine, whatever the cost, instead of making the minimum effort to understand the necessity of negotiations in order to prevent a needless war, the West is allowing history to repeat itself on another, much more dangerous level.
The West has failed to learn from history, what Nazi Germany failed to appreciate. WWII was won by the allies because of this fatal lack of appreciation.

To the West’s discredit, and to the discredit of Turkey and Azerbaijan, as soon as the Soviet Union was dissolved and its former republics regained their independence, it seems to have become a free for all. Turkey and Azerbaijan are trying to swallow up Armenia (Armenia and Azerbaijan were former Soviet republics) and the West is trying to swallow up Ukraine, by trying to expand East militarily, economically, socially and ideologically. This obviously to the detriment of the Russian Federation who is understandably preoccupied, not only regarding its own security, but by that of the Southeastern Ukrainians who naturally, culturally identify with Russia, and have been treated as rebels and ‘separatists’ since 2014. This even to the extent of Donbas, Donetsk and other Southeastern regions of Ukraine being continually bombarded by the Ukrainian military causing thousands of deaths of their own civilians, whom apparently Zelensky considers as ‘expendable’.

The most massive invasion in the history of civilisation, and its defeat by Russia at the cost of many millions of lives, Russian POWs, military and civilians, was the most important military accomplishment of WWII. There is no doubt about this, yet on V.E. Day there were no Russian flags. There were no notable praise and acknowledgments from Western allies of the Russian achievement which broke the spine of the Third Reich, and freed Europe. What’s more, from 1945 onwards mutual East/West distrust reigned.

What’s interesting about Churchill’s speech, is that he was perfectly honest about his total disapproval of Soviet communism. He mentions that this was the case for the preceding twenty-five years. But understandably he also greatly valued the Soviet Union as an ally as from 1941, because he was perfectly aware that without Russia, the UK could never withstand such a massive onslaught that he knew Russia was going to be subjected to.

Today the idea that Ukraine can defeat the Russian Federation in a conventional war is absurd. This no matter how much it is armed and financed by the West. Had the Western powers revised history, they would have reached the conclusion that the crucially necessary negotiations should have been given absolute priority in order that Ukraine preserve its territorial integrity.

 🔥

Above text © Mirino, Below, two pages from Churchill's Memoirs. March, 2023

October 22

 

Every year in October one has the privilege of seeing this, in the valley below the house, in the Alpes Maritimes. And this for 21 years… Old friends.

It’s reassuring, and like ripe beef-heart tomatoes and fresh trumpet zucchini, a good harvest of wine grapes, (and this year’s wine in Italy and France -in certain regions- should be excellent) it all seems to make a mockery of the climate change fanatics.
They cultivate nothing but their own faithless, ideological obsession.

Our summer this year was certainly long and hot, but in the hills inland of Imperia, Italy, I have never seen so much fruit blest by the sun.
The magic of seasons, and autumn is the most fabulous. The colours are always spectacular here, but they are never quite the same.

The beautiful crescendo of colour is so ephemeral, which makes it all the more precious to see. It’s a lovely annual gift that gives one so much pleasure. A warm and gracious display beautifully symbolising life’s miraculous circle.

Text and images © Mirino, November, 2022

Geomiracles

 

Everything is geometrical (and more) from snowflakes to spiders’ webs, fruit, flowers, leaves, all forms of life, their anatomy, balance and movement. The solar system, the ellipsis of the Earth turning on its axis around the sun determining the seasons, the power of the sun and the moon causing sea tides and encouraging growth. 

The admirable way that certain insects imitate twigs and flowers, and certain spiders change colour to match exactly that of the flower they wait motionless on for their prey.  

The intelligence of sea mammals, the secret, age-old intelligence of elephants. The love that such animals show. The beauty and diversity of tropical fish, butterflies and birds so absolutely incredible in form and colour. They defy all seemingly reasonable theories like those of Darwin, and they persuade us that there has to be something else still far beyond our reach. 

The universe itself and its intricate, geometrical (and more) miraculous workings. The further we are able to peer out into space, the more there is that we are still unable to perceive or imagine. 

And here we are in the midst of this paradise, pretentious enough to claim that humanity, who somehow arrived or evolved only 200,000 years ago, an instant in terms of the age of planet Earth (4.543 billion years) and even less in terms of universal time or chronology, is guilty of ‘climate change’.  If humanity is guilty of anything, it’s mainly a recurrence of regressivity, barbarity (travesty, perversion, wokism, cancel-culture, infanticide, etc.) all amounting to imbecility. Provoking rather than preventing war for the dated illusion of personal or national gain is a perfect example. It totally cancels out all other claimed preoccupations, pandemics, and professed ‘man-made climate change’.  Only humanity is capable of destroying what should be regarded as a paradise. If ever this height of human folly became a reality, only humanity would primarily suffer, simply because the powers that be, the divine, universal laws would naturally adapt. Life would go on, like masses of poppies gayly waving where bombs had once ripped up the bowels of the earth. Life would survive and continue to evolve, but the age of humanity would be over, and in such an atrocious, tragic case, perhaps it would be just as well. 

Therefore if ever such a futile, contemptible destiny awaited humanity, according to ‘universal law’ it would naturally be in the order of things.. However, in spite of humanity’s strengths and weaknesses, I believe that our destiny is unimaginably unlimited, provided we don’t derail ourselves beyond all hope, in the ‘meantime’.. 

🌋

Text and image © Mirino, May, 2022