Bombs are falling, strongmen are flouncing their stuff and the Megamachine happily strafes another family. It looks as if everything is going wrong.

Not quite. These are the growing pains of the global community. We are learning how not to do it. And there's more going on underneath.

I wrote this piece in 2003 on the buildup to the Iraq War and it's pertinent to give it another spin as the Iran War unfolds. It's an extract from my 2003 book 'Healing the Hurts of Nations'.

That's what this is about. The pain, guilt and shadows in the psyches of nations, which cause them to act as they do. And what we need to do to deal with our divisiveness and wars.

With sound collected from the birds of Grumbla in Cornwall, on an early February morning in 2026.