Rhythm. ..

A change of rhythm, the typing of which word reveals no vowels, which is quite unusual ... six days at Land of Joy enables access to philosophers of Buddhist bent, though open, as usual, to free dialogue ... and outdoor exercise clearing the land ready for tree planting in March ... so, mutual benefit, making use of free time to stay fit in mind, body and spirit at great local resource, still operating the generosity principle, which is quite rare to find ...

Breakfast generally taken in solitude, before the others are up, though lunch and supper more challenging with conversations going at quite a pace ... easiest to focus on the food and not seek something vaguely relevant to offer ... of course the normal status is solitude and established quite firmly ... and a spiritual practice in its own right ...

Relevant informants this time include a graduate in Tibetan Buddhist studies and a retired G.P., who suggested at least 20% of her patients were somatised, and many more if serious conditions developed as a result of toxic personal or career relationships were included ... proper researchers put the figure much lower, though the effect is very difficult to identify, especially for those with seriously scientific mindsets. .. anyway, the train of thought here is to promote local community action to keep the "worried well" out of doctor's surgeries and away from chemicals which themselves often compound the problem ... overworked GPs may see this as a good thing, as long as it's not so successful as to put them out of work ...

February arrives, Celtic Spring, though calendar Spring probably more accurate at this latitude by the Wear ... still, the days lengthen perceptibly and temperatures are mild enough ... thoughts move to Caminos again, though not before a full week of dialogue at the Krishnamurti Centre in a couple of weeks and maybe some work at Land of Joy helping erect the second meditation cabin at the start of March ... later March tree planting also an option. .. all of which forward planning takes the mind away from the present moment for a while ... balance between house based retreat and other activities fine at this stage and none of the future activities are compulsory in the relaxed regime of retirement ...

Today's plan is routine local walk, despite rainy forecast and an unusual addition of companion ... weather permitting ... let's see ...

Silence

Another week passes and media chatter moves along ... weekend news settles on F.T. after many years conditioning the mind with the Guardian ... always an uneasy mix of liberal values and expensive fashion, cars, holidays, houses ... F.T. is quite straightforward in being the paper of the folks with the real money even if the taste in calling the monthly colour supplement advertising even more expensive baubles "How to Spend It" is tacky ... last week's royal story entertained the masses with front page spreads plus more inside from most of them, while the F.T. had a paragraph on page 9 ... meanwhile the other royal story subsides somewhat as the pedo Prince Andrew possibly hopes for more royal tales to regale the great unwashed and keep the heat off him ... well his Dad can't last long, so a funeral should help fill the paper's and airwaves ...

Readers may notice the  change in content along with the frequency during these house based retreats ... the radio plays its part in inviting opinions on all sorts of trivia and is finally coming more under control after the excitement of the General Election, which managed to draw thousands of enthusiastic first-time young voters into the game ... it remains to be seen if they stick around for another try in four or five years ... meanwhile Jeremy's successor is being chosen, a long drawn out process for our further entertainment as the contenders offer the choice of unelectable leftist or Tory-lite rightist ... Lenin's observation that "the British Bourgeoisie lets go of power with one hand, only to catch it with the other" seems to have stood the test of time ... unlike the workers' paradise he tried to introduce ...

Reading matter shifts from science to philosophy with Bede Griffiths' "A New Vision of Reality" finding common cause with major religions and contemporary physics ... though the convolutions of all the old stories seem surplus to requirements when silence supplies the route to reality and each of us responsible for embodying what we discover when the noise stops ... alongside science and philosophy are Wilding, an account of returning an intensive farm to Nature, leading to The Secret Life of Trees ... of course proper silence, or noble silence, excludes reading and writing as well as speaking and listening ... though whether it requires formal sitting is a question ... up to now the insights have arrived whilst walking or swimming along with sitting without purpose ...

Engaging with other humans is still on the agenda too, continuing today with two engagements ... a walk and lunch with dear friend, then a community engagement local planning workshop, with echoes of a previous life ... or rather a previous stage in this life ...

Behave

Sapolsky's comprehensive, if not always comprehensible, tome is finally finished ... brain hopefully modified by the effort ... anyway, it has stretched the limits of current worldview, though a lingering concern about the source of so much knowledge about brains of sentient beings other than humans raises ethical objections ...

Meanwhile metaboils continue to erupt on the body politic, though whether the poisons are clearing societal systems is difficult to assess ... and maybe pushing the metaphor too far ... current narrative in BSA Iran conflict has BS Boil in Chief acknowledging Iran "proportionate response" as acceptable despite previous threats to target ancient cultural artefacts. .. international condemnation of such actions clearly seeing architecture as superior to human lives ... and some human lives more important than others ... how and when war itself will be seen as beyond the pale still unknown, though Sapolsky takes the question very seriously in his final chapter ... finding hope from the many exceptions to killing under orders, explicit and implicit. ..

In the village elders die, all too often in hospital, despite expressed wishes to pass at home ... preferably with someone there ... which is often tricky, given the numbers of people living alone and the uncertainty of time of dying ...

Media presents the latest drama in the Royal Family soap opera, with local social media expressing strong opinions on the state of the monarchy ... raising a question in the ongoing exploration of metaboils as to whether the fragrant, murdered, Princess of Hearts was that for all the wronged women who mourned her death ... though the boil image obviously inappropriate in her case ... anyway her second son and his American wife provide the entertainment as they plan their escape from their dysfunctional adopted family ... a contemporary Shakespearian feel to the story and an opportunity to take sides in a debate with zero real impact in the day to day lives of the international audience ... the question of what is real popping up along with musing on which poisons are being drawn into the boils represented by good Prince Hal ... and a glance at newspaper treatment of his fragrant wife, bringing her own American culture and mixed race heritage to a stage quite keen on genes from the Saxe-Coburg strain, not to mention Hal's Celtic tendency, a subject rarely discussed in polite society ... Canada seems a good choice for the maybe too modern branch of the Windsor Saxe-Coburgs ... or Hewitt Markles or whatever artificial names we might choose to define them ...

In other news, January weather continues mild, despite regular headlines from Express predicting massive snow events ... this rag and others regularly insert themselves unasked into social media newsfeeds. .. the billionaire owners determined to promote their agendas of fear to keep us indoors and passive ... though outdoors and active is the key to all-round health, of course!

Metaboilism

Reflection on increasingly polarised political pantomimes internationally leads to coining of a word not easily found in dictionaries ... or any so far ... the word popped up in the context of the tendency for human bodies to pull poisons from the blood into boils ... and since everything connects the leap to society and our politics may help explain the unlikely leaders pulling votes from disenchanted humans using poisonous rhetoric portraying humans from other countries, religions and other artificial separations as Them and not Us ... Boil in Chief of the Western World raises his game, possibly to distract his citizens from his new status as Impeached President ... close attention to Radio 4 notes the usual influence from our old ally and its agencies ... Defence or Defense is cited with no reference to the distance between the BSA and the Middle East, where they keep the oil ... meanwhile, in Iran, the political differences are subsumed in a burst of national fervour ... Russia and China, recently engaged in naval exercise in the Gulf with Iran keep their powder dry ... for now ... so much for Peace on Earth and all that Christmas guff ...

Stepping back from these games, with all their deadly consequences, enables return to peaceful life ... not to be complacent and hopefully fit and able to help lance local boils as they ripen ... anyway, local action increasingly required in the fields of social care and health ... let's see how the rather paternalistic agencies tasked with dealing with these operate in the brave new world of The Eton Mess, our very own boil, and his very radical and unelected adviser ...

Technology drives progress and peer to peer possibilities undermine hierarchies eventually of course ... information speeds up to a pace rather past the capability of older folks, so while a little wisdom may be welcomed, as noted before, our main task is to get out of the way ... and maybe share out some of the money we appear to have grabbed along the way ... before the whole money system is transformed to something simpler and fairer ...

West Meon ....

Season of peace on Earth and goodwill to all men continues to New Year, New Decade ... which seems rather excessive, not so much for all the peace and goodwill - though perhaps including all women and other genders might be a good idea ... anyway, all the excitement is a boost to retailers of stuff we don't need along with moneylenders providing the wherewithal to pump up the bubble of personal debt ...

Meanwhile in Stanhope the Community Christmas Day event goes well enough .... a New Year escape to Brockwood Park and the Krishnamurti Centre uncovers new philosophers as well as old ones, including Peter who claims to have finally written the equation for the unified field theory, though mathematical illiteracy prevents its presentation here ... and lack of academic credentials or access to the peer review network prevents proper publication ...

A Monday visit and lunch with a locally based love, along with a walk, leads to plans for an accompanied Camino, maybe from Porto, in May ... a first after five years of solo walking, though by no means the first Portuguese Camino ...

New Year's Eve includes a walk to West Meon and a visit to the very busy cafe, where three metal detectorists engage in deep conversation ... Lee, a roofer by trade, son Jack a carpenter, father Peter a bricklayer, explore matters esoteric for a while ... Peter volunteers an early association with the Kray twins, notorious for their method of disposing of their enemies in the supports of bridges along the M1 motorway, though without further details ... the encounter concludes with a viewing of a press cutting framed in the cafe showing some of the ancient treasures they have detected and dug up from the chalk fields nearby ... fascinating ...

Perfect timing for trip both ways with quiet traffic and no roadworks the whole 305 miles. .. New Year Radio 4 offers broader fare than political panto ... only one hitch-hiker, Ben, briefly after Winchester going from a friend's place to his parents at East Meon. .. recently graduated in P.P.E at York and currently volunteering in the Calais camp ...

A brand new decade and still curious, still fit and healthy ... Happy New Year dear readers and thanks for your attention and feedback ... maybe 2020 will finally see Wear&Dao the book!