bluster

Exhilarating early wander thanks to a mix of sunshine and showers ... which yesterday produced a rainbow ... a drop in temperature meant snow, drier and prettier than rain ... beautiful settling on the hills ... check Weardale Noticeboard on FB for pics ... and reflections on yesterday's conversation with fellow philosopher and inner space explorer ... and a gift for the library - the dvd "What the Bleep" which makes a good attempt to explain what's going on ... or at least clearly shows that all is not as it first appears ... that the quantum world is one of possibilities, maybe infinite ... that "reality" is contingent on the observer ... everything connects to everything else ...and lots of other weird stuff which has to be experienced to be comprehended ... none more so than the source of it all, which is not to be named or described .... from which we are not separate ...

The good news is that we humans are capable of so much more than we normally believe .... but only as long as we believe bigger ... and that the gift of the dvd itself adds energy to the Retreat House and its library ... big ideas generally not lacking here, more the patience as they unfold ...

As for the philosophy, these things have been said before, since the dawn of consciousness, or language, which may not be the same thing ... religions arise from the revelations, forget first that "the Tao which can be described is not the immortal Tao", then, having begun the naming and describing, that all is part of the whole and the whole is present in all [if all is divine and the divine is in all, why are we humans thinking so small?] ... and having separated, the original sin, the deluded human minds create suffering ... along with all the other wonderful and not so wonderful things which are part of human doing ...

Speculation on the evolution of homo sapiens continues with another book for the library, soon to arrive via Hive, the ethical alternative to that which need not be named ... after all, what's the point of free choice if we keep buying from the very corporate entities we criticise?

Speculation on whether or not we have free choice continues also ... since experimental evidence shows a time lapse between an action and its ideation, the action coming prior to the thought ... though thoughts themselves have never actually been identified, only areas of the brain associated with the action to be tested ... perhaps the impulse or intuition precedes the action and the brain activity creates, post hoc, the rationale? Leading to the next leap ... is the mind in the brain anyway?

Looking forward to some feedback from a qualified cognitive psychologist ... what's the chances of one of those reading this blog?

... or synchronicity

 Yesterday's post allowing the possibility of memories being random and given shape by an organising mind in search of meaning is quickly slapped down by Brainpickings which arrives early next morning ... this bit is not accidental, since it arrives every week on a Sunday via email and is always worth a browse ... however the very compelling tale of synchronicity with erudite references to the founders of the word (though not the phenomenon, presumably), physicist Pauli and psychologist Jung, suggests otherwise .... or maybe not ... anyway synchronicity is a welcome version of coincidence here ....a cynical friend observes that we don't remark on all those times when there was not a coincidence to be noted as a synchronicity ,,, also true, though less amusing ....

Today's other reading - Bede Griffith's very detailed attempt to unify the insights of the major religions with quantum physics, is heavy going for a simple mind, which wanders off to ask whether all that helps get to the truth, or Truth ... since the key insight is that we find ourselves in a participatory universe and going over all the old ground with its layers of superstition and mythology ... and whilst study may be a valid way to participate in creation, creating seems valider ... which appears to be a new word, always a joy for a pretentious writer ...

Which brings us to the creative process itself ... what is to be done in the world in which we find ourself? Apart from shifting to another part of the world, of course .... and a combination of Spring weather, John Brierley's book and an internet forum for the Caminos to Santiago are tempting ... maybe later this year or early next ...the two major projects continue to take shape, though both lack the injection of energy of co-creators on full power ... let's see what turns up at the meeting with the powers that be on Thursday over the Residential Home for Elders in the Dale ... the Retreat Centre awaits funds, arriving later this year, to spark activity, though who knows what else may happen to help along a resource with such potential to relieve suffering in our small corner of England ... maybe time to draft a business plan!

From the archives ...

An early walk over the hills stimulates memories from the dawning of the Age of Aquarius ... there was a song about that, which is how it's recalled ... astrology not being in the skill set ... folks for whom it is reckon that Aquarius is full on now, the early dawning having dimmed through the dark age of the 80s,  90s,  maybe noughties too ...

The arrival of a friend, recently retired from a career in clinical psychology, prompts recall of R.D. Laing, champion of anti-psychiatry .... the inspiration for Ken Loach's film, Family Life, which examines the devastating consequences of a perfectly "normal" upbringing ... the trap of accepting the world we experience, with its injustice, greed, violence and wage-slavery as normal and anyone resisting it diagnosed as abnormal ... the conflict at a personal level leading to cognitive dissonance, existential angst, mental suffering to be treated with medication to relieve the pain, dull the senses and comply with the culture in which we live ...

Following the thread from Laing to another heretic from psychology of that time, Wilhelm Reich, whose work was so disturbing for the authorities in his adopted home, the land of the free, that the FBI burnt his books ...whether it was his analysis of the Nazis in "The Mass Psychology of Fascism", or his promotion of sexual freedom in "The Function of the Orgasm" ... Reich died in a US prison ... though if you thought it couldn't happen here, your blogger was involved in rescuing some boxes of a banned book from the publisher in London ... this was the very dangerous "Little Red Schoolbook", translated from the Danish and promoting revolution in schools .... or rather, open discussion of sex, drugs and society ... the Schools Action Union was busy promoting its ideas and found a platform at the rather staid College of Education where some of the deconditioning of the writer occurred ... heady days! Needless to say a long and respectable career in teaching did not ensue ....

The glimmer of freedom in the 60s and 70s offered liberation and, once free, it is difficult to accept slavery again .... hence the fly by wire life of following the heart, with periods of stability ... 

All of which nostalgic reflection passes the time in retirement and may eventually fit into a cohesive narrative ... or perhaps that's just the organising mind wanting to create meaning from a random set of barely related events ...

more art of living ...

A stern rebuke arrives from the editor ... advising against diversions into technobabble and rather to return to the A Place to Be theme .... followed by an interesting diversion into .... technobabble:

"which is just Millenials attempting to do something useful and making a Bollox of it. Computing has become horribly complex - not what we were promised or indeed had many years ago when stuff did what it said on the tin and worked. V asked me the other day why we should be bothered about cyber terrorism which would only affect people with remote connection kettles. It shouldn't but those suckers who have their lives run by their phones or tablets should panic big style as the Russians /Chinese /Americans will be trying to get them to run up big utility bills buying the stuff that they can hack and put them in hock for ever.

Ho Ho Ho and all just to be cool,and trendy!"

And, "The art of living is dying young, but as late as possible. There. It's been said. So that one has been put to bed." 

Pithy and with a rhyme, which often helps the prose to flow, though there is much more to explore about this topic. And how pleasing to have other contributors to the blog ... 

Before that, a brief post from 2014 is revisited as the story of the hermit in the woods of Maine gets more detail ... interesting corroboration for the no-self theme of recent posts ...

Recent finds, following the trip to Durham's Oxfam Bookshop, offer rich seams to excavate ... Marcus Arelius' Meditations, often quoted for inspiration, though not so much meditations as guidelines for living a good life .... and deeper and harder to get at, Bede Griffiths' A New Vision of Reality ... rewarding and addressing many of the questions running through these pages ...

One of the Arts of Living is to follow intuition and stay grounded ... Marcus' ethics offering a framework, Griffiths and other mystics pointing to deeper truths ... but a deeper truth doesn't make the less deep one untrue and it is possible to lose the ground by going too deep too soon ... new insights need embodying before moving on ... David Bowie offers some wise advice about working just beyond the comfort zone ...

On FB this morning information about a course at Findhorn Foundation College "Diploma in Practical Spirituality and Wellness" tutored by William Bloom and accredited by Ofqual ... raising a raft of questions about authenticity in teaching the immeasurable within the reductionist paradigm of measuring ... a practical question for A Place to Be and its Retreat Centre ... and embracing paradoxical thinking to accept that some assurance of competence is helpful in any subject, whilst recognising that many highly qualified teachers have turned out to be frauds, incompetent or downright dangerous. Perhaps published customer feedback may help, as in Trip Advisor etc, though open to manipulation ... one to explore, like all the best paradoxes ... and in the psycho-therapeutic and spiritual domains the personal relationship the key ...

death

After yesterday's putative programme title, The Art of Living, regular reader James of Scotland, one of the few to have mastered the surprisingly tricky comment function on Blogger, offers information from work with the elders in Newcastle upon Tyne in North-East England ... though without hyperlink, a function your technophobic blogger has discovered here ... good old google search unearths many references to "The Art of Living", the most resonant being from Epictetus, since current reading mentions him and current collaborator, Andreas, proposes bringing Ancient Greek philosophy into focus ... though why it is not filosophy into phocus is a semantic mystery ...

While you ponder this, dear reader, a diversion into the murky world of google, windows and yahoo ... another mystery here ... google ("do no evil"), having become a verb, offers a "free" platform for this would be writer .. who, seeking a publisher, is already publishing ... readership varying, though not insignificant (if the stats are right) ... yet, google declines to make the comment function on blogger user-friendly ... perhaps they have a wiki function to sell? Windows, the Microsoft programme running on the newly acquired laptop (due to your blogger's ineptitude on operating open source alternatives) allows yahoo (another search engine) to arrive uninvited and unsupervised by Macafee or whatever was recommended to keep this laptop safe from cyber-attack and inveigle its way into the daily life of a simple blogger and browser, hoping, naively, for an experience designed to be easy for the end user ... windows, meanwhile, has a hair trigger design, which manages to offer ads you didn't ask for .. genius! Please be aware, that free lunches are rare ... so we pay in the end ...

Meanwhile, back to the Filosophy .... and The Art of Living must encompass the Art of Dying ... a part of Life often feared ... the vague boundary between the two unrecognised as health technicians carry on as if immortality is possible in this 3D world ... intervening to prolong the dying period as if longevity was desirable at all costs ... and since it is a target against which performance may be measured, what else can we expect?

As noted before in these pages, a rehearsal is always helpful to allay fear ... and everyone's dying is unique ... for this blogger the brief flirtation with it was wonderful, though unsought ... and suggested that dying well was just as important as living well ... and in the end there is no separation one from the other ...

More practically, end of life research reports that regrets are mostly for things not tried and not things tried which did not work out ... no problem there then ...

Retreating ...

So, what does a retreat look like in 21st century Stanhope?

What are the issues of likely visitors, residential and daily?

What are the aspirations of the organisers?

This is where the blog really needs collaborative writing, because the Retreat Centre has to be a collaboration ... and whilst such places may take many forms, this one will reflect the founders and their philosophies ... not easy to define, but compassion is key and flowing from that a desire to relieve suffering ... an understanding that the root of suffering is thinking ... and that along with mindfulness training and practice, an integrated programme may include care of the body, through understanding the poisonous potential of processed food, the practical lessons of preparing simple dishes from pure ingredients, sourced locally, some grown in the garden ... and eating together at tables (a practice fast disappearing in many families) and speaking of "fast", why not a preliminary day without food, to reset the system ... some silent meals to embed the mindfulness ... guided walks in the beautiful local Nature ... yoga ...tai chi ... group discussions ...

Reports from the world of potential participants report increasing levels of stress, anxiety, depression.

All this while knowledge increases .... suggesting that more learning is not the answer .... maybe unlearning what no longer serves first ... rediscovering the simplicity in slowing down ...

How about "The Art of Living" ...

For the Facebook refuseniks (including the editor), here's this resonant report from Kelly Brogan ... hope you like it ...

Healers welcome at the Retreat House ... Charlie?

A Day in Durham ...

The weekend arrives, though the concept has less significance for a pensioner than a nine to fiver ... nevertheless, a trip out calls ... no buses on winter Sundays and Saturday has its own energy on public transport, conversations of fellow travellers entertaining to observe and small dramas enacted, touching the heart though not disrupting the equanimity ...

Durham is a small city, so called thanks to a very impressive cathedral ... its size suggests town status ... Bill Bryson, the writer, was a fan ... so much so he stopped awhile and became Chancellor of the ancient university ... it is two buses from Stanhope, with a change in Crook or Bishop Auckland ... and an aimless wander produces some bread from the market, three new books for the library from the Oxfam bookshop and an unplanned and very deep connection with Andreas from Ciao Ciao cafe ... giving energy to the Stanhope Retreat Centre and potential links with similar activity in Crete ... and a promise of some books for the library ... which is in its third iteration since 2011, when visitors to the circles at no. 7 were invited to bring books which inspired them and take books which attracted them ... there were maybe 150 on the shelves and a similar number circulating before the first dispersal in 2014 .... you may have come across one in a cafe or on a train, with an inscription inside from A Place to Be .... books, like money, only working when in circulation .... and the right book at the right time so often taking us up a step on our journeys ...

So, whilst the library was not explicitly explored in Ciao Ciao, other things were .... meditation, food, therapies, exercise .... and authenticity in all of it ...

Returning from a long, early wander over the fells this morning, another cafe .... the Everyday Cafe in Stanhope and another deep connection .... this time with Venita, the owner and previous owner of the local care company ... updating on progress with the Residential Home project ... another opportunity to practise patience, though word from the Council is positive ....

All that, a Friday evening visit from a returning goddess and this afternoon's Celtic Hearth gathering making a very fruitful Spring weekend ...