Something about reading prose and poetry is what you can glean from it, the zeitgeist of those times and sometimes it is better than reading history. I should read more about the past. Poets describe the changes in society. There is a great poem called ‘The Moon’ by Juan Ramon Jimenez and he perfectly describes the early 20th Century and the new cosmology brought about by the dazzling lights of the city where the Moon is hard to discern from the neon advertising that in truth drowns out the old cosmology. The way technology has this way of shutting off other worlds, replacing them with projected light that now shines directly into our faces. It first drowned out the stars and the animated neon of the early 20th Century cities became a new reality until in the 21st Century these dazzling lights have real-time feedback and take up a lot of our attention.

Cinema was such a big turning point and now the cinema is in our pocket, most of what goes on in the world is in our pockets and we seem to move faster and faster away from the original cultures that are in a constant state of assimilation. We all know our minds are colonised yet the array of distractions is too tempting but it isn’t that sitting in a dark room will help. We all know the joy of getting away from it all, even then we only get a temporary reprieve. Although I know friends who will opt into a first nations education session on bush tucker in their local lands. Any way to slow down and learn is welcome. Some of this original culture is captured in books, the symbolism wraps the remnants into something commercial. The book is the other fence, limited by its contents the book cover is the fence that you can open. That is if it is accessible, don’t forget the library, I always loved the library.

In some books, you have to jump the fence as they are expensive, so many fences to jump. Or see which library holds it or can get a hand on it.