Hard to pin down the allure of Stanhope, the adopted home in the North Pennines of England, though many others, incomers and locals (often defined as having several generations of residents in the Dale), feel it. Perhaps an energy powerpoint ... beautiful views of course and whilst less spectacular than the Lake District over the top to the West, it has its own bleak simplicity ... zen maybe ... and the advantage over the Lakes of relatively few tourists, though that is changing ...
Being consciously positive in general, the few negatives are mostly ignored, though there are two centres of darkness here, to balance the light ... firstly (and recognising that a major employer is not to be sneezed at hereabouts, since the demise of the lead and fluorspar mining and reduction in quarrying) is a foundry apparently making weaponry (in the interests of disclosure and non-hypocrisy your blogger once worked at such a facility in the New Forest); the second is the Castle, an old hunting lodge for the Prince Bishops of Durham, then a home, approved for young men in need of chastisement and retraining ... more recently acquired by a retired gangster, sometime acquaintance of the Kray twins, having spent many years as a guest of Her Majesty, whose flag is flown as a gesture of appreciation and loyalty ...actually he really wants to be somewhere warmer, on the Costa del Sol, home to many other retired gangsters ... his problem is that he is only out on licence, never having confessed to the murder for which he was convicted ... indeed he is most affronted that he was framed for it all those years ago, when police forces around the country decided things needed tidying up and politicians mollified ... and police forces generally know who the bad guys are, sometimes from personal and corrupt relationships ... and when the heat is on and evidence hard to come by, then the crime may be found to fit the criminal, whether or not he or she actually did that crime. Anyway, he has written his book, if you like that sort of thing, and is now a fairly respectable pensioner, albeit not very happy with his lot ...
Friday, 10 March 2017
Thursday, 9 March 2017
maps and guides or freedom ...
The title is a tease, of course and K fans may spot an oblique reference to "Freedom from the Known" or maybe just the too literal take on it ... anyway the topic is prompted by the submission of the blog to preferred publisher, the Findhorn Press, who also publish the well known guide books to the Camino de Santiago by John Brierley .... a confession to never having read them or any other guide books ... the routes were left rather to chance and intuition, though of course the ubiquitous yellow arrows are a help .... as for hostels, they were never booked ahead ... anyway many of them do not allow it ... first come first served as long as there is the credential ... walkers get first crack, with horse riders next (though stabling is presumably a requirement), and cyclists last. Being a walker and loving the meditative pace of it, there is a sense that cycling is more recreational than spiritual .... and happy to be corrected by cycling pilgrims ... also there are plenty of walkers focused on the physical achievment ....
Another prompt is provided by a request to guide a friend along a nearby route so she can describe it, risk-assess it and log it with the Council as a permitted Walking for Health route. You can imagine the struggle to take such a concept seriously ... another example of the reductionism in daily life .... based on what could go wrong and folks with responsibility to implement measures determined to ensure their fingerprints are not at the scene if it does .... interestingly the friend is better adapted for such a world, holding the stupidity in awareness and complying in order to gain the benefits of fresh air, exercise and company for herself and others less confident in wandering about the countryside freely ....
Meanwhile back to the camino, the very uplifting trip to the retail experience yesterday, led to several warm exchanges with elders ... Wendy on her first trip out to the house for months after nearly passing on with the pneumonia in the winter, others talking about their life experiences ... and in the contemporary version of the department store, a dvd called The Way ... Hollywood's version of the Camino, with Martin Sheen, walking his son's ashes along the Way, gathering an assorted group from Holland, Canada and Ireland, managing some clumsy product placement for the outdoor gear, some superficial spiritual references, unlikely adventures and an inspiration for lots of Americans following the route ... if anyone wants to borrow it, let me know!
Having suggested asking John Brierley to write an introduction to Wear and Dao the book, it seemed appropriate to buy a copy .... also available for loan sometime soon (the library is growing again) ... as for Wear and Dao the film .... you'll have to wait for that .... or maybe skip it all and go for your own walk ....
Another prompt is provided by a request to guide a friend along a nearby route so she can describe it, risk-assess it and log it with the Council as a permitted Walking for Health route. You can imagine the struggle to take such a concept seriously ... another example of the reductionism in daily life .... based on what could go wrong and folks with responsibility to implement measures determined to ensure their fingerprints are not at the scene if it does .... interestingly the friend is better adapted for such a world, holding the stupidity in awareness and complying in order to gain the benefits of fresh air, exercise and company for herself and others less confident in wandering about the countryside freely ....
Meanwhile back to the camino, the very uplifting trip to the retail experience yesterday, led to several warm exchanges with elders ... Wendy on her first trip out to the house for months after nearly passing on with the pneumonia in the winter, others talking about their life experiences ... and in the contemporary version of the department store, a dvd called The Way ... Hollywood's version of the Camino, with Martin Sheen, walking his son's ashes along the Way, gathering an assorted group from Holland, Canada and Ireland, managing some clumsy product placement for the outdoor gear, some superficial spiritual references, unlikely adventures and an inspiration for lots of Americans following the route ... if anyone wants to borrow it, let me know!
Having suggested asking John Brierley to write an introduction to Wear and Dao the book, it seemed appropriate to buy a copy .... also available for loan sometime soon (the library is growing again) ... as for Wear and Dao the film .... you'll have to wait for that .... or maybe skip it all and go for your own walk ....
Monday, 6 March 2017
Personas, rivers, interbeing, ineffability ...
An early message arrives in response to the plea for help with no-self ... proposing the river metaphor, ever changing, yet flowing somewhere ... in its own time ... personas for others to relate with .... this new word standing for role and in contemporary usage a montage for advertisers to address ... the older usage a sign of the correspondent's background in psychology ... and it is comforting to have qualified psychologists casting an eye over the ramblings to check for symptoms of plot loss ... not to say that the profession is immune to losing it, of course! Anyway the river story develops nicely, with the need for a name on the map (Heraclitus notwithstanding) and for some water flowing: "not some dried up river bed" ... and of course, like all metaphors, it ends up in the sea ... or possibly a lake ... maybe another river ... or, to be clear, the words are never the thing described .... which brings us to another correspondent, this time via a Dutch FB friend, found via Noomap, posting about an interview with a local philosophy professor, from Durham University, which ranges over lots of famous thinkers, with a liking for the Daoists and Existentialists, and pointing to the need to acknowledge that beyond the knowable, however defined, lies the ineffable ....
Meanwhile, in projectland, interbeing is required and it is an art to weave one's "self", persona or whatever, with the others needed to bring visions into form ... between patience and reaching out ... experience shows that the right partners in the dance/drama/work of art lead to effortless action ... yet lassitude and wishful thinking don't help!
On a more practical note, a call arrives for a role required on Wednesday ... an assisted shopping trip, to some retail delight in Gateshead, is looking for .... shopping assistants ... whilst not a fully functional retail advisor or enthusiast, safely propelling a person in a wheelchair is within the skill set ... and provides a focus for that key ingredient of interbeing - being useful ....
The second diary date of the week is set for Friday, when a further round of no-self exploration is booked with Cameron ... whose own train of thought is asking whether being dead is better than the alternative, though not in a negative way ... hmmm ... could be an interesting afternoon ...
Sunday, 5 March 2017
Gardening
Finding the writing rhythm again ... early walk musing and storying, drafting, later editing, polishing, posting ... hoping for some help with the more difficult ideas and recognising the limits of the platform for feedback, creating a bespoke email address for readers to easily respond ... sday.weardao@gmail.com ... let me know if you want your thoughts posted on here ...
So, wandering the hills, with a mixture of sunshine and showers ... pondering the question of suffering and finding the gardening metaphor apt ... you dream of a beautiful garden in which to wander .... the one you have is full of weeds, brambles, stinging nettles and frankly a mess ... there is suffering and in this case the cause is clear: your dream is impossible because of the state of your garden ... before doing anything about the mess, you could simply change the dream and imagine instead a nature sanctuary ... harvest blackberries in autumn ... carefully collect nettles for soup, tea or for fertiliser ... enjoy the abundance of insect life ... listen to the birds singing, the bees humming .... to be honest, this is tempting for the writer, who is a lazy gardener ... but the neighbours are not impressed and you really dream of a space for flowers and vegetables, with spiral paths ... so an effort is required ... the weeds, nettles, brambles are removed ... the space is restored to bare earth ... a blank canvas on which to create your dream ... with more effort the space takes shape, as seasons permit, the flowers bloom, the fruit falls, the spuds are ready to dig ... and if left untended, of course, the weeds soon return along with the suffering of a lost dream ... this story has some basis in reality at no. 7, with some expert help from proper gardeners ... and indeed it has reverted to a mess, untended and now with the rubble from the fireplace awaiting collection ... the writer, however, is not suffering and not just because he is along the terrace at no.4, with its more developed structure of mature shrubs, deck and raised beds ...
Does the no-self story sit in this garden too? Well maybe, inasmuch as the somebody has opinions, concepts of a proper garden ... though nobody could easily enjoy the weedy mess or the blank canvas, a nobody who lacked compassion for gardening neighbours would be better wandering footloose without garden or any sustained companions to feed the somebody ...which is where the everybody, or a new somebody appears, with neighbours to consider ... and if you sense this topic is losing touch with reality, please do write .... Facebook World has quite a few Friends exhibiting symptoms of plot loss, having started off along similar routes, maybe drug assisted ... finding anguish instead of bliss, not anchoring .... skipping stages ... getting stuck in unhelpful dimensions ... not to mention some seeming inauthentic ... quoting insights of the sages endlessly, even teaching from the books they read .... not living it ...
Time to wrap up the rambling .... the sun is shining and a second walk calls ... maybe collect some new season wild garlic for supper ... even connect with "real" humans to earth the wilder flights of imagination ... and note to self and no-self that interbeing wants exploring ... indeed developing if the projects are to take form ... 
So, wandering the hills, with a mixture of sunshine and showers ... pondering the question of suffering and finding the gardening metaphor apt ... you dream of a beautiful garden in which to wander .... the one you have is full of weeds, brambles, stinging nettles and frankly a mess ... there is suffering and in this case the cause is clear: your dream is impossible because of the state of your garden ... before doing anything about the mess, you could simply change the dream and imagine instead a nature sanctuary ... harvest blackberries in autumn ... carefully collect nettles for soup, tea or for fertiliser ... enjoy the abundance of insect life ... listen to the birds singing, the bees humming .... to be honest, this is tempting for the writer, who is a lazy gardener ... but the neighbours are not impressed and you really dream of a space for flowers and vegetables, with spiral paths ... so an effort is required ... the weeds, nettles, brambles are removed ... the space is restored to bare earth ... a blank canvas on which to create your dream ... with more effort the space takes shape, as seasons permit, the flowers bloom, the fruit falls, the spuds are ready to dig ... and if left untended, of course, the weeds soon return along with the suffering of a lost dream ... this story has some basis in reality at no. 7, with some expert help from proper gardeners ... and indeed it has reverted to a mess, untended and now with the rubble from the fireplace awaiting collection ... the writer, however, is not suffering and not just because he is along the terrace at no.4, with its more developed structure of mature shrubs, deck and raised beds ...
Does the no-self story sit in this garden too? Well maybe, inasmuch as the somebody has opinions, concepts of a proper garden ... though nobody could easily enjoy the weedy mess or the blank canvas, a nobody who lacked compassion for gardening neighbours would be better wandering footloose without garden or any sustained companions to feed the somebody ...which is where the everybody, or a new somebody appears, with neighbours to consider ... and if you sense this topic is losing touch with reality, please do write .... Facebook World has quite a few Friends exhibiting symptoms of plot loss, having started off along similar routes, maybe drug assisted ... finding anguish instead of bliss, not anchoring .... skipping stages ... getting stuck in unhelpful dimensions ... not to mention some seeming inauthentic ... quoting insights of the sages endlessly, even teaching from the books they read .... not living it ...
Time to wrap up the rambling .... the sun is shining and a second walk calls ... maybe collect some new season wild garlic for supper ... even connect with "real" humans to earth the wilder flights of imagination ... and note to self and no-self that interbeing wants exploring ... indeed developing if the projects are to take form ...
Saturday, 4 March 2017
somebody, nobody, everybody ...
This no-self topic is cause for more reflection ...
Rupert Spira says: "Being somebody leads to suffering; being nobody leads to peace; being everybody leads to happiness."
Maybe so, though a lack of self-esteem is generally considered a psychological weakness ... as is an excess of it ... perhaps these stages can't be bypassed ... perhaps a healthy, balanced sense of self is necessary to face the prospect of being nothing ... for a while ... hmmm that peace is very seductive, especially if the self-being suffering has been extreme ... is it safe to rest in no-self for the duration? Is this the trap of the permanent retreatant? Certainly, solitude is an aid to no-being ... supporting the view that we only exist in relation with others ... the selfie craze illustrates this ... look carefully at the image of yourself or another, taken when alone ... check the eyes ... there is a often a vacancy ...
So, does shifting from nobody to everybody entail a return to somebody? What if the discovery of nobody was not so much the annihilation of self, as the recognition that the illusory self as the centre of the universe may be replaced by a lightly held and fluid self as a fragment of the whole .. the everybody or everything as the deeper reality ...
Buddha said: There is suffering; there are the causes of suffering; there is the cessation of suffering; there are the ways to end suffering.
Claire says suffering is necessary to lead us to the spiritual path ... on the road to Santiago de Compostela there were plenty of pilgrims embracing suffering with heavy packs, bleeding blisters ... maybe suffering is often the spark .... but is it necessary to seek it out? Flagellation as a practice? Once the causes of suffering are identified, isn't that the opportunity to find the ways to eliminate suffering? First from our own fragment of the whole and then from the world.. .. ?
This is getting interesting folks and it would be good to have some feedback ... if the comment function is too hard (and it could be easier google) maybe drop an email?
Thanks!
Rupert Spira says: "Being somebody leads to suffering; being nobody leads to peace; being everybody leads to happiness."
Maybe so, though a lack of self-esteem is generally considered a psychological weakness ... as is an excess of it ... perhaps these stages can't be bypassed ... perhaps a healthy, balanced sense of self is necessary to face the prospect of being nothing ... for a while ... hmmm that peace is very seductive, especially if the self-being suffering has been extreme ... is it safe to rest in no-self for the duration? Is this the trap of the permanent retreatant? Certainly, solitude is an aid to no-being ... supporting the view that we only exist in relation with others ... the selfie craze illustrates this ... look carefully at the image of yourself or another, taken when alone ... check the eyes ... there is a often a vacancy ...
So, does shifting from nobody to everybody entail a return to somebody? What if the discovery of nobody was not so much the annihilation of self, as the recognition that the illusory self as the centre of the universe may be replaced by a lightly held and fluid self as a fragment of the whole .. the everybody or everything as the deeper reality ...
Buddha said: There is suffering; there are the causes of suffering; there is the cessation of suffering; there are the ways to end suffering.
Claire says suffering is necessary to lead us to the spiritual path ... on the road to Santiago de Compostela there were plenty of pilgrims embracing suffering with heavy packs, bleeding blisters ... maybe suffering is often the spark .... but is it necessary to seek it out? Flagellation as a practice? Once the causes of suffering are identified, isn't that the opportunity to find the ways to eliminate suffering? First from our own fragment of the whole and then from the world.. .. ?
This is getting interesting folks and it would be good to have some feedback ... if the comment function is too hard (and it could be easier google) maybe drop an email?
Thanks!
Friday, 3 March 2017
More no-self ...
Claire arrives for philosophical discourse ... deep into her journey and resonating with the no-self story, from experience and the books she brings ... Ramana Maharshi and Nisargatta ... a walk with Jake, the very affectionate collie, lunch, more discussion ... the time flies, the book is no further forward, projects neither, except some energy generated from sharing the retreat centre plans ... which may fit into her developing journey sometime ... anyway, the combination of mystic and entrepreneur is intriguing and much as she wants to drop the business role and concentrate on the interior journey, she does know from experience how business works ... as does Gary ... still a mystery here, though not too late to learn perhaps ...
Thursday, 2 March 2017
becoming ...
First lambs spotted along the back road, sprinkling of snow still on the tops and a cool breeze in early sun encouraging washing on the line .... always a simple joy!
Reflecting on Cameron's dark, constricted version of no-self ... no fun, he says ... and how integrating the various illusory selves available to the writer, philosopher, social-entrepreneur, father, brother, friend ... finds vast space in which to play ... starting early each morning before Sun rises (trickier as He is getting up earlier each day) settling the mind, waking the body with coffee, porridge, walking ... exploring options and priorities ...
The Residential Home project awaits further discussion with local players ... a local directory "Eating Out About Weardale by Bus" ... an expansion of the Wheels to Meals scheme recognising the free bus pass still available to senior citizens .... like this one, who finds the conviviality of public transport energising .... and its availability sometimes restricting ... a car sharing arrangement maybe?
Diogo, last seen on these pages in Gibraltar, sends a heartwarming message from Coimbra .. having spent much of last year in Croatia with an Erasmus programme, has discovered self-love, which opened his heart to family reconciliation and a new appreciation of Portugal ...
Gary brings a copy of his book, which itself diverts the writer to reading role and competes with other exponents of the art of mindfulness for attention (and in the end it is not the reading but the practice itself which liberates) ... anyway, you can find it in good bookshops and at Hive ... the ethical version of Amazon ... so that's two free ads in one line and maybe a review to follow when it has been read and digested ... some fascinating conversation around the holographic universe, mindfulness in education as well as therapeutic intervention, retreat centres ... the shared dream of A Place to Be come back full circle ... the Law of Attraction, secrets of abundance ... and encouragement for this blog to become a book ... heard before and maybe time to pursue a publisher ... though the writer struggles to take the role seriously enough to imagine a large audience out there for these ramblings ...
Meanwhile, here is a peek at the beautiful Retreat Centre in Stanhope, home for residential and daily opportunities to recreate your life as if it were a work of art .... starting with the bundle of thoughts that constitute a self ... unlearning what no longer serves .... interbeing with others on the journey ... the first £150k is pledged, another £350k on the way to bring the 7 year vision to fruition ...
Reflecting on Cameron's dark, constricted version of no-self ... no fun, he says ... and how integrating the various illusory selves available to the writer, philosopher, social-entrepreneur, father, brother, friend ... finds vast space in which to play ... starting early each morning before Sun rises (trickier as He is getting up earlier each day) settling the mind, waking the body with coffee, porridge, walking ... exploring options and priorities ...
The Residential Home project awaits further discussion with local players ... a local directory "Eating Out About Weardale by Bus" ... an expansion of the Wheels to Meals scheme recognising the free bus pass still available to senior citizens .... like this one, who finds the conviviality of public transport energising .... and its availability sometimes restricting ... a car sharing arrangement maybe?
Diogo, last seen on these pages in Gibraltar, sends a heartwarming message from Coimbra .. having spent much of last year in Croatia with an Erasmus programme, has discovered self-love, which opened his heart to family reconciliation and a new appreciation of Portugal ...
Gary brings a copy of his book, which itself diverts the writer to reading role and competes with other exponents of the art of mindfulness for attention (and in the end it is not the reading but the practice itself which liberates) ... anyway, you can find it in good bookshops and at Hive ... the ethical version of Amazon ... so that's two free ads in one line and maybe a review to follow when it has been read and digested ... some fascinating conversation around the holographic universe, mindfulness in education as well as therapeutic intervention, retreat centres ... the shared dream of A Place to Be come back full circle ... the Law of Attraction, secrets of abundance ... and encouragement for this blog to become a book ... heard before and maybe time to pursue a publisher ... though the writer struggles to take the role seriously enough to imagine a large audience out there for these ramblings ...
Meanwhile, here is a peek at the beautiful Retreat Centre in Stanhope, home for residential and daily opportunities to recreate your life as if it were a work of art .... starting with the bundle of thoughts that constitute a self ... unlearning what no longer serves .... interbeing with others on the journey ... the first £150k is pledged, another £350k on the way to bring the 7 year vision to fruition ...
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