*Stonehenge, yesterday.

The Last Invocation

AT the last, tenderly,
From the walls of the powerful, fortress’d house,
From the clasp of the knitted locks from the keep of the well-closed doors,
Let me be wafted.

Let me glide noiselessly forth;
With the key of softness unlock the locks–with a whisper,
Set ope the doors, O Soul!

Tenderly–be not impatient!
(Strong is your hold, O mortal flesh!
Strong is your hold, O love.)

Walt Whitman (1819-1892)

A young Buddhist of my acquaintance in Montana sang The Last Invocation at a small family memorial for her grandmother. It was breath taking to hear her sing and I can still hear it in my minds ear.

Stonehenge has the best of grandmothers in its presence in the folds of Wiltshire, England. Always there to call upon, never dies, comforting in its enduring. If you pass by this ancient site do pause for a moment.

*The photograph was taken by one of the monks of our Order. With Nine Bows, thank you.

You might want to read this news item about the world tour of some relics of the Buddha.

When I was in Taiwan in May a world tour of Buddha’s relics had recently been there. They had been successively enshrined in a number of temples during the celebrations called Wesak. (This marks the start of the Buddhist new year during which the Buddha’s Birth is celebrated). By all accounts this was a huge event with thousands of people walking past and paying their respects.

In July, back in the UK, I was taken to see some Relics in a temple in Birmingham. In a posting on July 15th I ponder on the issue of authenticity of such relics. Like the ones in the news item these were quite low key in their public presence yet non the less ‘present’ in an intangible sense.

Whoops! The link address referred to in the last article dropped out. Here it is. A fast line is needed.SVS Animation 10005 – Arctic Vortex

Time for a weather report. A number of far away people have a picture of Edmonton cold, white and beautiful and I’d just like to put the record straight. It’s mild and very brown, and beautiful too in a certain way.

This winter has been the mildest since 1930 something, with hardly any snow and hardly any seriously cold temperatures. But that is all about to change, for one day! The drop in temperature is due to the Arctic Vortex which is pushing cold air at Alberta. Tonight’s TV weather forecast shows an impressive mass of cold air spinning down from the top right of the screen bulging down to bottom left. We could have a high of -19 c on Thursday and then on Friday -2 c and Saturday -1 c. You can watch an animation of the Artic Vortex here.

Just because I wanted to end the day with something other than a spinning mass of air I offer this from the Denkoroku.

ITS solitary light, wondrously vast,
is never darkened
For the wish-fulfilling MANI-JEWEL
shines forth illumining everywhere.

This poem appears at the end of the chapter on Nagyaarajyuna, the fourteenth ancestor after Shakyamuni Buddha.

When I go to the dentist for a filling I asked to be numbed, no hesitation and no doubt about it, ‘Novocaine, please‘. The pain of dental work or more accurately the fear of the pain has dogged me since childhood. Somebody from the congregation has booked himself and his wife in for dental work tomorrow; that’s Valentines Day. “Have you any advice on dealing with the fear and the pain”. My fleeting thought was to suggest they go out for a meal instead! And then we talked, all I had to offer was empathy.

Our conversation stimulated memories of dentists past. A Buddhist dentist whose assistant, also a Buddhist, tried to convince me not to have Novocaine. “It’s only pain, it will pass”! Teaching I was not ready to hear right then. And the Irish dentist, with a jewel set into his front tooth. In his care, while deep in the horror of a wisdom tooth extraction I heard, “everybody’s got to hurt, some times” coming from the sound system. It was such corny good timing, I had to restrain from laughing out loud. One can’t plan for those moments.

It’s natural enough to want to avoid pain, to be put out of ones misery. After that extraction I suffered the worst pain of my life. I remember thinking a deliberate blow to the head could not come too soon. It was that bad and pain killers had already failed me. Years latter I was told that “strong men” faint from having a ‘dry socket’ which is what I, unknowingly, was suffering from.

Physical extremity can be a great teacher simply because there is no getting away from it. Dental pain, so close to ones brain, seems to crush all reasoning power too. I eventually took stock, canceled a trip to the monastery and spent a week at our Hermitage in Wales. I had decided I’d just have to ‘sit it out’ and soon after that decision the pain started to subside; or was it the fear that subsided?