You might be interested to follow this link to a chapter from Crossing the Unknown Sea by David Whyte. In this chapter he remembers a conversation with a Christian monk about the poem The Swan. It turned out to be a life changing meeting.

This is how to sign up for a Blogger Account so that you can post comments. I am no expert and if there is an easier way or refinements can be made to the instructions below, let me know please. I can be emailed via Jademountains web site.

Before you do anything make four choices about your future account:

user name – your name will do fine, what ever you will remember;
password – it has to be at least 6 characters long;
display name – the public will see this name,(an example could be Sarah in Jasper, or Ziggy so nobody knows who you are, except you);
email address – it will remain private, don’t worry.

TIP. Write down your choices exactly, especially your use of upper and lower case letters. Sorry to ‘hand-hold’ however it is SO easy to loose track of such information. For some of us this is a high stress project. So pause, take a few deep breaths to steady yourself.

Now Get Started

1. Scroll to the bottom of this posting and click on ‘Comments’. A window opens.

2. Click on the ‘Sign up here’, another window opens asking for your details – which you have on a piece of paper beside you.

3. Fill out the form, then click in the empty box to accept terms. (To read them, click on the blue lettering. Then click on the X at the top right corner of the page to return to the form.)

4. Click on the large orange arrow to CONTINUE.

5. Choose another use name if your first choice is rejected. Write it down first, then type it into the appropriate box.

6. Click continue. You are asked for information to set up your own blogger. If you want to write a Blog – continue, if not – close the window. You now have a User Name and can post comments.

I just set up a new user name and password for myself, you can see my comment under the November 15th posting. No wonder people are not leaving comments, it’s a lot of work! Have a go why not.

There is something rather primal present when the lights go out.

Yesterday morning started with my plugging in the Jewel Trees on the main altar and, after a brief flash, the ‘jewels’ went out! This time of year, with the days getting ever shorter, is when light takes on a significance greater and deeper than one might imagine. For one thing, with attention more inwardly directed, past actions can slide into the present and be learnt from, if Compassion is in the ascendancy. People who suffer from the Winter Blues also know about the significance of light and I suspect most people get a bit down as the sap descends, brown leaves remind of impermanence and the turning year asks us to move on.

It has always been the case that when electricity fails me, I am transported from the ‘lights of Wisdom’,(so to speak) to the ‘darkness of delusion’, in other words I feel helpless and hopeless. And that is how my day went yesterday, in darkness, as I pondering unhelpfully on past actions. The combination of needing to, in fact, cross the road and remembering the Swan poem took me right out of myself and the light went back on. Life is like that sometimes, it just springs up and teaches when you least expect it to.

Wednesday night is when people come to the Priory for a ceremony, meditation and a class. We talked about The Swan and little did I know this was written by a well favored poet. The conversation tended towards ‘taking the next step’ and how life is made up of little ones that can lead in directions one could not have predicted standing on the shore.

The impending new year brings up questions around future directions, renewed resolve, next steps in life. We tend to think that what is ahead is completely unknown and ultimately this is true. However, if one ‘looks’ in the way one uses ones eyes in dim light, through the ‘rods’ at the edges of ones vision and not the ‘cones’ in the centre, the sense of what is there to do will emerge. I’m not talking about anything other than simple meditation practice however perhaps the above will help take the ‘angst’ out of lowering your self into the waters of the year to come.

The Swan
Rainer Maria Rilke

This clumsy living that moves lumbering
as if in ropes through what is not done,
reminds us of the awkward way the swan walks.
And to die, which is the letting go
of the ground we stand on
and cling to every day,
is like the swan,
when he nervously lets himself down into the water,
which receives him gaily
and which flows joyfully under
and after him, wave after wave,
while the swan,
unmoving and marvelously calm,
is pleased to be carried,
each moment more fully grown,
more like a king, further and further on.

Translated by Robert Bly

As I stood waiting to cross Calgary Trail to-day I realised for myself, not for the first time, that it takes a special courage to “let ones self down into the water”. The word courage comes from an old French word ‘cuer’ which means heart. Ours is the Wholehearted Way, no half measures, no half lowering oneself into the waters that carry us with infinite compassion. Thinking about it, there is no room for half heartedly crossing Calgary Trail either!

It has been an interesting day. Hope you like the poem as much as I do.

Time to inject a photograph I have been wanting to offer for some time. Somehow this picture always makes me smile. I hope it does the same for you.

Cactus ready to shoot baskets in Arizona!

I took the picture in Tucson in 2001 while taking a night stop-over on the way to visit congregation members, a very long days drive, further East. I have always had a fascination with cactus, beside this array of ‘adults’ were vast green houses stocked full of ‘infant’ ones!

Infant cactus.