Portsmouth to Santander ...

Skipping the party, a peaceful night is passed in cosy cabin without views of the sea to distract and an early walk up, down and around decks remind organism what it's here for, which is to walk ... amongst other things ... the phrase "I'm here to walk" has stuck somewhere in the memory store, wherever that is located ...  the quote from the 40+ km per day woman who resisted the meandering pace preferred by others ... the name lurks in the recesses, though the blog knows if you care to scroll back to a day in the Bierzo region, heading towards O Cebreiro ...

Biscay quite calm, though a brisk breeze brings a swell ... Pont Aven apparently has superior stabilising equipment ... anyway Sun rises in a clear sky and forecast is fine for a few days ... after that, who knows? The pack is light, but sufficient layers are available, including waterproofing, hopefully not needed quite as much as last year's Spring and Autumn outings ...

Early musing processes insights gleaned from the very special Emma ... modelling a human of the future, free from fear and unencumbered with easy access to reading and writing ... not to trivialize the potential for problems with a diagnosis of severe dyslexia, just to note that sometimes a divergent skill set may be a gift disguised ... in an amusing riff on normality, she observes that at her art school eccentricity is highly valued ... prompting recall of K's remark that it is no sign of sanity to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society ... though, of course, cultivating a crazier than thou persona is like cultivating a holier than thou one ... better to feel into one's deepest self and relax ... play the parts that resonate, drop those that don't. .. and in each life we may play many parts, to paraphrase Shakespeare ...

At lunch a conversation with Devonian Michael, on a Pont Aven round trip ... coach to Portsmouth, cruise to Santander, a few hours ashore, return to Plymouth ... it seems the Brittany based crew do three trips from Roscoff before having some days off ... as for the excursion, it seems a fine trip if Biscay behaves ... anyway, it's another way to pass retirement ...

At disembarkment a pilgrim turns up for a conversation in the queue ... a disenchanted social worker from Fordingbridge, taking a break from work and busing it to Irun in the morning to start the Norte from the French border ... no names exchanged or photos ...

At the Hostel Liebanego, near the ferry terminal, bus and rail stations, a rather morose chap finds a room at a slightly higher price than suggested by research, reduced after a friendly haggle ... at Tourist Info a map of the Ways in Cantabria and at the Cathedral a very helpful security guard locates someone to issue a pilgrim passport ... a snack of tortilla and churros with chocolate is enough nourishment after a sedentary day and substantial lunch and an early night calls, ready for a dawn start and a possible 40km tomorrow ... as cities go Santander is amenable, but it will be good to get out and on the road ... Buenos Noches dear readers!

Towards Santander, slowly ...

Finding flying rather fast and finding train travel often convivial, the Camino is set to start in Santander ... some forward planning ensures economical tickets to Portsmouth Harbour via London ...  two buses lead to Durham and then a fast enough train where the gods of ticketing kindly connect with a premature pilgrim - the delightful Emma, who walked to Santiago from Lisbon with her father last summer ... and found it inspiring and rather hot ... a student at Glasgow School of Art, she is returning to see her family in Penge  and open to a three hour conversation about what's going on beyond the mundane world ... a generous hour and twenty minutes to reach Waterloo is swiftly walked in less than half that time, stretching the legs and testing the weight of the pack, which seems fine, even with food prepared for today on the train and tonight and tomorrow on the boat ... not so much from parsimony, more a wish to use up food stocks, waste being something to avoid where possible ... the London skyline from Waterloo Bridge radically changed since the bus driving years, poor old St Paul's dwarfed by weird shaped office towers thrusting to the skies, symbols of Mammon ... Portsmouth train offers a contrast with few passengers and no apparent pilgrims ... and for future reference Portsmouth Harbour is rather large and its train station is not close to the continental ferry port ... still check-in is timely enough and a rather over rigorous security check has a confused octogenarian beltless and confused, not to mention a peaceful pilgrim having a Swiss army knife scrutinised for terror potential ... after which, with queue building and departure time approaching, passengers were waved through ... compact cabin located, entertainment ensues, food and drink abounds and it's party time all the way to Spain. .. and a calm sea for the Bay of Biscay, hopefully ... anyway the connections all worked, Santander tomorrow evening, maybe Santillana del Mar for day one of the walk ... let's see!

Spring 19

After joining the rest of Nature in a winter retreat, Spring inspires a train and ship trip to Santander and the previously imagined Camino Primitivo, along the coast for a few days, down to Oviedo, over the mountains to Santiago and on to Finisterre ... maybe three weeks, then see what's next ... return tickets avoided in order to keep the options open and the mind free to wander ... home base in Stanhope still only tenuously held and disposing of it and the car always in the possibility field ... Stanhope itself continues to nurture and friends encourage the regular excursions ...

Defining Spring is not simple, of course ... by calendar it's the 1st of March, by the vernal solstice, the 20th ... a week of warm weather mid-February seemed like Spring as did the perceptible return of the light, enabling early morning walks to greet the Sun. ..

Today's wet day looks like the end of a stormy period and a chance to resume writing after the winter rest ... plenty of reading though, topping up before the book-free walking time ... Charles Eisenstein's "The Ascent of Humanity" offering support for current world view, especially on the major error of humans in thinking ourselves as separate from Nature ...

Meanwhile, another contemporary guru, Mooji, stands accused of abusing his position of power ... allegations of sexual misconduct and beef eating amongst the allegations ... the kissing of feet and according the guru the status of a god are indications of gullible disciples, themselves complicit in the inflated ego almost inevitable in such cases ... and having no personal experience of the guru, who was away from the Monte Sahaja ashram each time I passed through nearby Sao Teotonio, no opinion is offered ... only observation that K's teaching about avoiding gurus is followed here and the question of energy trading examined again ....

Volunteering opportunity at the Brockwood Park 50th anniversary reunion means three weeks in August with the K tribe ... before that some local volunteering at the Land of Joy next week to complement occasional minibus driving with Weardale Wheels to Meals ensures some balance for the seductive solitude ... and Andrew Harvey, on You Tube, a guru with lots to teach, though not apparently gathering disciples, was elected a Fellow of All Souls, Oxford, many years ago and horrified to find himself surrounded by men running the country exhibiting signs of being psychopaths. .. perhaps a book or two to be ordered for the library, still mostly stored away as alcove awaits competent carpenter ... Sacred Activism is his current thing, prompting introspection on how to be an activist for good without falling into the trap of political polarity ... Thay's example during the Vietnam War was to promote peace without supporting either side, which did not endear him to the winners who made him unwelcome in his own land until his recent return to his root monastery as he prepares to die ... Harvey meanwhile contributed to the seminal work "The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying", which maintains that fundamentally there is no dying ... as experienced floating off the coast of Portugal ... Sogyal Rinpoche, main author of the book, himself in disgrace after sexual misconduct allegations ... this ancient drive so often the downfall of the powerful, even when money love is transcended ...

Rain eases as river spills over and rushes towards Sunderland and the sea ... a brief visit to feel the power and take a photo for you, dear neglected reader(s) ... ten days until Spain again and the long winter evenings have yet again not been spent improving language skills ... strangely unmotivated even though a working knowledge of Spanish would be helpful in the coming adventure .... perhaps Maria at the Land of Joy next week will help improve the Portuguese instead ...

The Cosmic Hologram

Harari is replaced by Jude Currivan, discovered on You Tube, her latest book The Cosmic Hologram arrives via Hive, your ethical alternative to the tax avoiding, bookshop destroying, worker exploiting Amazon ... not just bookshops but most of the High Street under threat if we allow it ... Hive promotes local independent bookshops and donates cash on every sale to support them practically ...

Before leaving Harari, who claims to meditate for two hours every day, an observation on his residual conditioning, which allows the dismantling of Syria as part of the ongoing U.S. plan to rearrange the oil fields to their advantage, to be referred to as the Syrian Civil War ... lazy language, though perhaps not different from calling the 1936 military insurrection, supported by the Catholic Church, to destroy the democratically elected government, the Spanish Civil War. Harari also, though identifying as a liberal secular Jew, finds it acceptable to characterise the rogue state of Israel, which has ignored dozens of warnings fron the UN over its violation of human rights, as a civilised nation. Still, his book is worth a look, along with his previous Sapiens and Homo Deus ...

Currivan's cv is compelling, with a combination of scientific training, including an Oxford Masters in Physics, focusing on quantum and cosmology, and a sense of the numinous starting at the age of five and miraculously surviving through the rigours of an academic system geared to suppress ways of seeing not currently in the mainstream ...

The book is hard going for one not used to scientific concepts ... and swiftly disposes of the Many Worlds Interpretation, a story faintly integrated into the W&D worldview. .. an infinite and eternal universe also is disposed of ... the problem of what lies beyond dealt with by positing our universe as only the latest in an infinite cosmic plenum ... let's see how the rest goes, though she is quite persuasive ...

Meanwhile, morning walks turn bracing as snow arrives beautifully on the hills ... a snowy owl flies close by magically. .. feet think they are resting with two or three hours walking daily, legs happy to move and whole organism fires up for its own sake each day and in preparation for longer stages with full pack in Spring ... March or April maybe ... as for looming EU exit it's unclear why a crisis is called for ... what exactly will change except for different queues at passport control ... delays on freight ins and outs as tariffs are sorted and maybe a new smuggling opportunity all round, especially on the proposed new EU land border in Ireland, though an all Ireland solution might look attractive to some if not the DUP ... all the more reason to encourage a referendum on the question ... after all they manage to play rugby under one banner without any noticeable problems ...

What with reading, walking, visiting and occasional minibus driving time passes gently and spaciously ... this retirement idea a liberation indeed ...

Stories

A rest from K story means contemporary philosopher Yuval Noah Harari's "21 Lessons for the 21st Century" has a turn and sets off the mind on a tangent with his story of the 3 competing macro stories of the 20th Century - Communism, Fascism and Liberalism ... suggesting that whilst the first two were archived, the survivor is currently struggling, with no clear successor in sight ... sceptics will note reworking of the first two as reactions to the obvious failures of the third ... whilst Charles Eisenstein and friends are writing a New Story with "The Beautiful New World Our Hearts Know is Possible" ....

The worlds as stories is not a new idea of course ... Shakespeare, said to have covered all available stories in their essence, gave us "All the world's a stage ..." to ponder ... the insight from the fuller quote is to remind us not to take ourselves too seriously, whilst choosing and playing our roles authentically, as if they were real ... beyond the roles, as previously observed, no substantial individual self is to be found ... whether this realisation is experienced as liberation or not is apparently dependent on our preparation for such disturbing news ... ongoing acceptance dependent on resisting the trap of the Gurus, who, having seen it, fail to notice the persistent, pesky little ego returning to bask in new found fame ...

Using the frame of nestled hierarchies, we might imagine stories within stories within stories at all levels ... the macro stories mentioned above as micro stories at cosmic scale suggesting the insignificance of our little dramas ... maybe a misreading of the nature of Infinity and Eternity and the potential for each of us to create our own stories, therefore realities, therefore worlds. ..

Meanwhile, in Stanhope, the weather turns cold and clear, ideal for early walks through the woods and over the fells ... later walks a little marred by the custom of heather burning as part of the management of the land for rearing grouse so wealthy killers may satisfy their blood lust by blasting semi-tame birds for sport ... the Buddhist story might point out the Karmic perils in such activity, though reincarnation is by no means fully embraced in contemporary Western stories, nor anything much beyond a life of slavery and a final exit ... the last chapter, The End ...

A visit to a friend nearing the end continues the question of ongoing consciousness, though as a convert to the once true faith his focus seems on the binary choice of heaven or hell and some doubt about what any of it means ... still, he seems reconciled to departing soon as the system slowly shuts down ... the vital spark flutters persistently,  as often seen, raising the question of conscious dying ...

Energy and its transmuted form, Power, and how the need for it drives the stories is next up ... Sun is still shining and outdoors calls ...

More K

The story of Krishnamurti continues to hold the attention, between longish walks and the routine of cooking ... a satisfying creative process with no pressure of disappointing fellow diners since they are rare, especially as the downstairs room continues its slow transformation ...

Mary Lutyens' biography fills out Mary Zimbalist's, whilst a surreptitious peek at the autobiography of Radha Sloss, nee Rajagophal, "Lives in the Shadow of Krishnamurti", offers the suggestion of an answer to the question of her parents' rift with K ... the book itself yet to be sourced, the revelation quite compelling, its suppression by K supporters understandable, if misguided ... truth will always emerge ... if indeed K's oft hinted at sexual experience was with Rosalind ... other devoted female admirers, of which there were many, seem to have been content with platonic love ...

The biographies offer a fascinating perspective on the amazing story, big news worldwide throughout the middle part of the last century, with politicians and celebrities keen to meet K, yet nowadays information is confined to smaller groups, the messenger, despite insisting that it was the message that was important and not the messenger, has left a space yet to be filled ... his insistence on resisting any attempts to form new religions in his name after his death so far observed ... his legacy of schools and Centres in India, England and California still alive ... the question, raised by himself, as to whether any individual has radically transformed as a result of attending the places or studying the teachings is still open .... though it seems that Freedom From the Known played a big part in Wear and Dao, the journey ... enlightenment, however, is not claimed ... though life does become more and more interesting by the day, and Brockwood Park continues to offer a spiritual home ....

2019

A belated New Year post after the wifi and alcohol free retreat at Brockwood Park ... wonderful connections, new perspectives, fresh information ...  and the simple, clean, warm Centre a welcome respite from house half finished, albeit habitable for one with low standards ... however, a small room upstairs provides a sanctuary for study between morning and afternoon walks ... Mary Zimbalist's "In the Presence of Krishnamurti" providing fascinating glimpses of the prophet and his teachings ... a detective story in itself, appropriate since K and Mary enjoyed reading novels in that genre, as the life they led, travelling between  California, Switzerland, India and England, giving talks to thousands of devotees ... the following that K explicitly warned against consistently ever since quitting the Theosophical Society in 1929 ... having been discovered by Charles Leadbeater and Annie Besant on a beach in India, recognised as the long awaited World Teacher, surrounded by wealthy aristocrats, educated and groomed for his destiny ... naturally many TS folks were not amused, though some stuck with K and others hedged their bets ... hardly surprising if your whole social circle revolves around that esoteric life ...

Mary Z was a relative latecomer, without TS conditioning, and attracted to K's teachings in California before becoming married to Sam Zimbalist, the film director and producer ... a few years after his death she became closer to K and spent the last 17 years of his life dedicated to taking care of him, as companion, administrator, housekeeper and friend ... herself from a wealthy family, she was able to take up the mission without worrying about money, which was just as well, since K's years with Annie Besant, Emily Lutyens and others left him with expensive tastes in clothes, cars and fine food, albeit vegetarian ... none of which infers ego, since he was just about universally recognised as being without one ... simplicity has various levels ...

Much of the book details the long legal battle with renegade TS folks who had control of K's early writings ... Rajagopal and his estranged wife Rosalind, both living in California ... the virulence of these two towards K is only partly explained by the financial aspects of case - copyright issues and lack of transparency in accounting for charitable funds ... what is not mentioned by Mary is the love affair between K and Rosalind, a startling omission and perhaps an attempt to conceal such carnal matters for the sake of K's reputation ... though he never proclaimed celibacy or promoted it as a necessary element in the spiritual life ...

Anyway, the tale continues, Mary Lutyen's three volume biography of K arrives, internet searches reveal other aspects and the detective story unfolds ... not leading to any particular conclusion, least of all about Rosalind, but fascinating to follow the journey of one sometimes referred to as the reincarnated Buddha ...