Light returning ...

After a very wet February with some snow to brighten the fells, March arrives with warm Sun and longer days, leading to decisive action for a Spring adventure ... Easter ferry to Brittany, a few days with younger sister, then a wander south and west ...

All that necessary planning, not including any restricting return date, leaves a month to visit younger daughter yesterday ... a very busy sunny Sunday at the coast, virus panic notwithstanding ... Geordies possibly playing up to their stereotypical insousiance ... eateries thronging with people and space finally found at the Buddha Lounge for good food and ambience, though it turns out the Buddha images are only for style and without any overt spiritual message ... maybe conversion by stealth, since the various forms generally invoke peace ... indeed this once Christian country almost certainly exhibits more images of the enlightened one than his suffering counterpart ... though since the core messages are the same it may be a sign that folks prefer peace over pain, at least in their gardens or on their mantelpieces ... other religions eschew such imagery as blasphemous ... organised religion mostly tailing off in wealthier nations as mammon mostly meets material needs ... existential angst lingers, of course, and this secular state has many wild and wonderful forms with which to shape spiritual exploration, often with costumes and stories ready made, plus a fellowship to confirm our common views ... and gurus ...

A short road trip to visit absconding elder daughter and dear friend, both recently relocated to different parts of the Scottish Borders, some days woodland working at Land of Joy, and a couple more minibus trips with any local elders willing to step outside and risk the new flu ... a worldwide event apparently about to trigger the overdue economic recession and minds being prepared to accept behaviour changes otherwise unthinkable ... in Lombardy several million residents are put in quarantine, though wandering tourists are not ... and they, presumably, will require all the services of the tourist economy ... some bizarre contradictions arise as authorities struggle to contain the epidemic ... meanwhile, friends with pre-existing medical conditions or elderly are not reassured that folks with robust immune systems will be fine ... neighbours having recently returned from Malaysia advised to self-isolate by their employers, less through concern for employees than fear of litigation in case of culpable infection of customers ... cashless economy promoted in the name of contaminated coins and notes with a huge benefit to governments wishing to clean up the black economy and increase the tax take ... cynics might suggest governments at international scale are conditioning folks to follow orders in the name of public safety ... conspiracy theorists go further, bio-terrorism, state sponsored or otherwise, suggested ... and of course conspiracy theories are not false by definition ...

In the woods wild garlic provides the first forage food of the year, just as the last of Autumn's blackberries are eaten ... wonderful Sun on the fells and briefly a rainbow before return to the street for some conversation ... whilst a message of encouragement arrives for the book of the blog ... whether the inspiration appears in the month left for such an endeavour. .. let's see!

February Fear ...

Six day dialogue retreat at Brockwood Park, without facilitator or topic draws 16 fellow seekers, many with vast experience of group dialogue with form and specifically input from Krishnamurti, in person for many of them and on record for them and others ... a style inevitably leading to demonstrations of scholarship and memory ... a huge irony given that K's message was to work it out for ourselves and not rely on any authority, including himself ... echoing the historical Buddha, 4th incarnation in some systems ... and some seriously propose K as the 5th, a question he declined to go into, though may not have denied ....

17 human beings seeking together to explore the Nature of Reality, without form beyond the times ... 9.15 to 12.45, 16.30 to 18.45, plus optional silent meeting 7.50 to 8 and evening session 20.15 to 21.30 ... felt liberating ... personal routine added early silence in the Quiet Room, walk to the Grove and round the wet fields for Sunrise and skipped evening session since it was well past bedtime and brain already overheating processing all the information ... meal breaks became opportunities for more mundane matters with group members and other retreatants, often moving on to meatier topics ...

All of which had the mind keenly aware, since listening is highly prized, and talking or thinking what we might say when the others pause really gets in the way of listening fully ... the temptation to stay silent all the time and be thought stupid instead of speaking and removing any doubt about it also a trap for those doubting the value of their input ... balance being the art ...

Fear a feature throughout the week ... fear of this and that. .. storms with names, flu with dangerous variants, as if normal winter flu doesn't finish off enough of us already, with or without vaccines ... almost leading to conspiracy theory thinking that it's promoted to keep us enslaved ... philosophically speaking fear keeps us from diving into the void, emptiness, despite all the evidence that realisation of the fundamental non-existence of a separate self gives rise to liberation from fear itself ... which is not to deny the relative reality of our human beingness, with all the roles and memories projecting out to the world of us and the others, a very persuasive phenomenon and a little complex when the idea of 7 billion humans uniquely processing worlds through our own centre comes into play ... a mind-blowing revelation from some years ago during one of those long solitary wanders over the fells near Stanhope ... simultaneously the centre of the universe and nothing at all a huge paradox to be played with ...

A writer on retreat shares a draft of her short story ... full length story in the works, alongside a job and being a mother as well as writer leads this lazy pseudo-writer to question motivation and today's visit from the editor hardly clarifies things ... ah well, blog at least is back in action and maybe that's enough ...

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!