My 'fairy story' is Little Red Riding Hood. There are others with the same twist but it's the fox representing himself as an old woman and thereby deceiving Red Riding Hood which makes it 'mine'. It's the old scary theme of something appearing to be one thing when in fact it is quite another. If there is anything in life that is going to disturb me, it's that.

Story is so closely related to our lives, how we respond to life, perhaps even how we shape our lives. Who knows? I grew up with a story teller pare excellence, my mother. She told tales of adventures; hers. Tales of stepping out of the Victorian box she was born into; living in a tent in Devon in the 1920's, driving a Double Decker bus and owning several motorbikes, showing movies without benefit of electricity cranked by hand! Growing up, all I needed to do was join her story line, which is what I basically have done! The twist at the end, becoming a religious, is perhaps the modern day ending to a life of external adventure. My mother was behind me although, in later life, she would have wished me to be behind her too, in a certain kind of a way. Very close to her death the story line was broken, her story dissolved and with that the tie between us. It came as an unanticipated twist at the end of our story together. How I know about that, is another story!

Tom of The Logogryph ponders on story, fact/fiction. And again here.

One part of the story of the historical Buddha that I love is the fact that he starts out as a handsome prince. That is, his life as it has been remembered and passed down begins as a storybook life. "Once there was a handsome prince who lived in a beautiful palace and had everything one could wish for ..."

Finally I managed to change my photograph to a more recent one. It was taken almost exactly a year ago at the end of the last retreat held at the Priory in Edmonton. Many thanks to Michael who skillfully managed to overcome my resistance to being photographed and then was able to put me at my ease. Thank you, and thank you Edmonton people I think of you all often.

It is almost one year since I ceased being the Priory in Edmonton. This is from a posting I did on June 17th, 2006 titled Moving Right Along.

We are moving on.
We are moving into new territory.
We are moving deeper than our fears of the future.
We are moving past what has gone.
We are MOVING and the day is a week from tomorrow.

We are moving apart.
...and that's a hard one, for me.