There are 159 articles in the fourth iteration of the Geneva Convention which was signed on 12 August 1949. It’s worth having a perusal through the Convention, to see what the powers of the world agreed to with respect to protecting civilians in times of war. At times the document reads very coldly such as in article:

Art. 3. In the case of armed conflict not of an international character occurring in the territory of one of the High Contracting Parties, each Party to the conflict shall be bound to apply, as a minimum, the following
provisions:

(1) Persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including members of armed forces who have laid down their arms and those placed hors de combat by sickness, wounds, detention, or any other cause, shall in all circumstances be treated humanely, without any adverse distinction founded on race, colour, religion or faith, sex, birth or wealth, or any other similar criteria.

To this end the following acts are and shall remain prohibited at any time and in any place whatsoever with respect to the above-mentioned persons:
(a) violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture;
(b) taking of hostages;
(c) outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment;
(d) the passing of sentences and the carrying out of executions without previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court, affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples.

(2) The wounded and sick shall be collected and cared for.

An impartial humanitarian body, such as the International Committee of the Red Cross, may offer its services to the Parties to the conflict.

It is so matter of fact that I actually find myself asking questions like, can there actually be a time when the killing of other people is morally acceptable? If States agree that there are rules of engagement for war, in other words limits around when killing is okay and when it isn’t, what can compel a State to tighten those restrictions forever?

It’s trite of course, but war is insane. The fact that people can be killed in large numbers for whatever reason, and that this activity is actually sanctioned by having it take place within a context is just apalling to me these days.

At any rate, these times might require some deep reflection on what it means to wage wars against people. For that reflection I have gone back to one of the original treatises on international law and the conduct of war, Hugo Grotius’ De Jure Bellis ac Pacis published in 1625 just as the concept of natural rights were being developed in Europe. Grotius’ life was fascinating, as we wove in and out of the turbulent political world of 17th century Europe. A child prodigy, and university student at 11, he practiced law and rose to become Governer of Rotterdam in the early 1600s. He was exiled from Holland, after a Calvinist coup d’etat in 1618, and fled eventually to Paris where he worked as an Ambassador to France for Sweden and helped to negotiate the end of the Thirty Years War. He wrote his classics in exile and became known as the father of international law. He died as the result of exhaustion brought on by being shipwrecked on a trip back to Sweden.

His final words were “By understanding many things, I have accomplished nothing.”

My little project of collecting meditation practices is now compiled on one page. You can access it here, or at the sidebar on the right where it will stay linked for a while.

The project was to discover 10 different sources for meditation practices while sitting, standing, lying and walking. This was originally used to complement my practice working with the Four Fold Way, in which investigation of four basic archetypes are complimented by meditations using one of the four postures.

Enjoy the collection.

More detail on the recent Hubble photo of the galaxies

“Astronomers are already identifying some curious trends. For example, about 30 galaxies here seem to have redshifts greater than 5, meaning we see them as they were when the universe was less than 9 percent of its present age, or less than 1.1 billion years after the Big Bang. But only three are candidates for having a redshift around 6 (cosmic age 900 million years). “Why is there such a huge drop in galaxy numbers at z = 6?” asks Benitez. For now, the answer remains elusive. “

Lying meditation

• Buddhist lying meditation


• Lying meditation posture


• Lying meditation and prayer


• Sayadaw U. Jatila on the benefits of lying meditation


• Lying meditation andthe four fold way


• Yoga Savasana pose


• Lying meditation for teens


• More on Buddhist lying meditation


• Sri Chinmoy on lying meditation


• Kundalini Rainbow meditation

I am in Ottawa this weekend doing a little business. At the moment I am sitting in a cafe, drinking coffee and waiting for my friend to pick me up and take me to a place where we are going to play music.

I lived here between 1991 and 1994, during three incredibly rich years of learning. At the time I was working for a national Aboriginal organization, the National Association of Friendship Centres, but I was also doing a lot of reading and writing, and was a little active in the Ottawa literary scene as an associate editor of ARC magazine for a couple of issues.

That was a vibrant time in my life, as it occupied the years between leaving university and settling down to start a family. My journals from the time reflect a mind trying to come to grips with literary conventions, ideas for poems, chunks of text for an experimental novel I was writing and thoughts on organization, process and music.

One of the things I remember about Ottawa, and it was confirmed for me on this trip again, was the lively cafe and pub culture. There are pubs everywhere, little neighbourhood watering holes and places for people to gather and talk. And cafe talk is absoutely unique here, not simply because it is peppered with government jargon and Ottawa insider gossip. It is unique especially because it is largely bilingual. It is very common when eavesdropping on Ottawa conversation to hear people speaking French to one another until they come to a word that makes more sense in English, at which point the conversation switches seamlessly into English. If they come to a hplace where a French word is more a propos, alors ils reviennent au Fran�ais encore. Il m’a toujours stup�fi�…