Boxing Day dawns brighter after yesterday's rather drizzly weather and a long walk over the fells inspires a festive edition of Wear and Dao for any readers still hoping for inspiration or entertainment after a patchy period ... it is the pilgrimages that provide the juiciest material and it is the next pilgrimage that is a current focus ... the Via de la Plata calling ...
As for the Christmas season, it is passed pleasantly enough with a combination of visits with daughters and friends, and trips with the elders, including a Nativity performed by the local junior school children, 9 Lessons and Carols at the cathedral in Durham, assisted shopping and several Christmas lunches, including the rather special one on Christmas Day in the church hall yesterday, inspired by a local teenager who wondered what folks wanting company were doing ... Ruth and her family are still organising the event three years on ...
Special thanks to Jennie for a wonderful linguistic addition with "vague 'un" to describe folks aspiring to a plant based diet though without taking it too seriously ... sounds familiar, though mammal flesh has been avoided for nearly thirty years without noticeable negative effects ... dairy products currently reduced due to the interesting discovery that official regulations specify how much blood and pus is permitted ... ethical concerns on animal welfare add weight, though maybe as a secondary layer to be truthful ... the initial impulse to avoid corpse eating was due to the routine use of antibiotics in animal husbandry ...
Reading material, possibly perversely, is the Autobiography of a Yogi by Yogananda and the weightier Introduction to Buddhism by Peter Harvey, sometime Reader in Buddhist Studies at the University of Sunderland ... the more familiar Christian story no longer resonating, though Yogananda, having decamped to California in 1920, includes many biblical references in his work ... neither Hinduism nor Buddhism calling strongly, though both offer interesting insights ... current thinking maintains the formless path or non-path, the very attempt to organise systems around religious insight identified as problematical ...
The conclusion to recent musings on the purpose of the newly acquired cottage on the edge of Stanhope seems to be to try to transcend the perils of property by offering it as a Retreat through the "A Place to Be" network and see what transpires ... the more sensible AirBnB option remains, and of course family and friends are always welcome ...
No comments:
Post a Comment