Turning In Turning Out

November 14, 2015 Mugo 2 Comments

Looking out - over Milnthorpe Sands — Looking out – over Milnthorpe Sands

This morning I bumped into the news of what happened in Paris last night and found myself deeply shocked. I felt oddly disoriented but knew that reading more about the event, keeping up with the breaking news is not the way to go. So I did all those things that are second nature; offer a candle, incense, recite a scripture and sit and meditate.

The disorientation remained although in a moment of clarity I realized that the spotlight of truth was shining on impermanence, one of the three signs of existence. And when that happens nothing escapes this truth, not one atom. No wonder there is disorientation, ‘what can one rely on’? So eventually, feeling in reflective mood, I went for a walk. I’ve a brown waterproof jacket and a bright terracotta one. I had read the following in an email yesterday and I deliberately chose the brown one over the more cheery one. In a way I simply wanted to remain inward looking for a time. To reflect and be still as I walked out into the drizzle. And just sometimes one can be indulgent of oneself, which ever way one goes – bright or dark.

My correspondent (who is responding here to the post titled A Delicate Transformation), has a good point and I am glad to be able to share it with you.

I was very interested in your blog post on attention to dressing. Many years ago I noticed that the way I was dressing was conditioned by my mood swings. The ‘highs’ resulted in extravagant behaviour and dress, the ‘ego explosion’ in the quote. The ‘lows’ brought depressed behaviour and a loss of interest in all things, including appearance.
I started to pay more attention to this and decided that, no matter the feelings whether high or low, I should take care with my appearance. Even when my day starts in a landscape of bleak greyness, I can bring light in with a well-ironed, colourful shirt and well-fitting trousers. My mood lightens, I feel better about myself. The last attention to appearance is to put on a smile. I can leave home wearing nice clothes and a smile. People respond to a smile from a well dressed person and I benefit from their response to me.

What I am doing is turning outward from the inner pain, opening myself up to life and life always responds.

What ever the colour, what ever the weather, what ever the human tragedy, what ever it is the Great Earth (everything) rises up to greet us. Our job is to respond appropriately and with depth to our hearts. Much merit flowing into the world this evening.

Curiosities, Out and About, This and That

A Delicate Transformation

November 8, 2015 Mugo 5 Comments

The marvelous envelops
and saturates us
like the atmosphere;
but we fail to see it.

Baudelaire

The following quote is from the Parisian Gentleman a site I stumbled upon when searching on-line for instructions on how to do invisible mending. Their Journal post yesterday titled The Theory of How to Wear a Suit caught my attention. At first it was the writing style dry wit, and fastidious attention to detail, that had me transfixed. And somewhat bemused at entering into a totally alien realm of smart clothing, for men. Rev. Master Jiyu encouraged natural pride (in one’s appearance) and I do believe she would have given thumbs up to what is written here.

When we give the art of dressing well the attention it deserves, we move into the midst of an inner transformation, and this inner shift is a delicate transformation to manage.

It’s great to find a way to present ourselves well with clothing and finally (sartorially speaking) experience the feeling of self-approval. Yet, achieving self-approval poses a risk, as too much self-approval can convert into an ego explosion which annihilates the goal of ‘looking good’ as haughty and proud behavior can turn a person into a human atrocity.

Perhaps it’s better to say that understanding the art of dressing well opens the door to a more profound emotion created by beauty itself, and when we dress and leave our homes and feel surrounded within the vapor of beauty (created from somewhere within ourselves), we get a fleeting glimpse of the eternal.

As Baudelaire said, “all forms of beauty, like all possible phenomena, have something eternal and something transitory — an absolute and a particular element”. But perhaps even more striking is Baudelaire’s epiphany, “The marvelous envelops and saturates us like the atmosphere; but we fail to see it.”

And with all this time to recover from the cold I caught in Latvia I’ve been able to mend my treasured monastic, 100% wool coat, which had been attacked by a moth while my back was turned. Always good to be turned out sans moth holes! Thank you Rev. Master for your teaching.

Daily Life, Overcome Difficulties, Teachings

On a Deeper Level…..

November 7, 2015 Mugo 5 Comments

This image speaks of beauty and vulnerability. Something I’ve been thinking about these past days, not so much in terms of appearance though. More to do with those who are alone in their home, sick or diminished in some way. Many of whom do not have anybody to reach out to. (Your might say they are deserted’) Or have anybody, a friend or family member, to check in on them to ask simply, Are you alright? Can I get you anything? People die in their homes and not found until days, weeks or even months. I heard recently. Imagine? It is too easy to recoil in horror and shame, to turn away. Perhaps inwardly complain about a society that lets this sort of thing happen. or point at families who let this sort of thing happen.

However from a deeper perspective, and from a less emotive one, could it not be that our living and our dying, our flowering, fading, shrinking, falling over, decaying flow together with impeccable timing. Even the circumstances we travel in and lay our heads down in. And births too. impeccable timing. But on the surface of things, quite often, it doesn’t look that way. We see the suffering and we know the pain and share in it. As is right and good. We are familial creatures designed to take care of our own. And still it is good to know the deeper rest.

Being born a human being, in the great scheme of things, is a flowering most rare. And most precious. We have the opportunity, as conscious beings, to rise up out of our prickly abode – and that’s as far as I am going this night. Enough to say that I do all I can to reach out to those I know who are alone in a prickle patch. Yes, keep an ear out for those vulnerable, who know you. The winter months are hard.

Thanks to those who have sent texts, emails and made phone calls to make sure I am still alive. I am. However the cold I brought back from Latvia was a doozie!

(thanks to Mark for sending in the photograph – this cactus blooms ‘once in a blue moon’! Rarely in other words. And a long time family member!)

Curiosities, Out and About, photograph

Storklet’s – Really!

November 3, 2015 Mugo 3 Comments

See my comment attached to this post for further details.

Daily Life, Out and About, Overcome Difficulties, Photo/Poem Series

Sleds and Storks – and the rest

November 2, 2015 Mugo Leave a comment

We had heard tell that it was the custom in days gone by to have a coffin (empty) stored in the rafters of rural dwellings. And sure enough there in an ancient house in an Open Air Rural museum outside of Riga was a coffin – in the rafters of a simple home. While there at the museum, we caught a few moments of a Lutheran service in a wooden church with painted ceiling, scratched around, inside and out, of wooden buildings used by farmers and fisherman and crafts people, buildings housing carts and sledges and memorably – a horse-drawn funeral carriage.

But as we toured the countryside taking in sea and sand dunes, a reconstruction of a medieval castle (circular tower and lots of steps) and a Sacred Oak the large bundles of sticks purched on top of telegraph poles caught my curiosity. Storks nests! The Latvians seem to hold the Storks, now in Africa, in high regard. Never removing nests when poles no longer carry wires and our guides for the day had much to say about the birds in general. Touching actually.

And the rest? After the history and the culture and the national pride, and not forgetting the fancy (many crumbling especially the wooden ones) old city buildings, what remains to mention? A shop where the clothing was sold by weight! The old women begging for money outside of the Russian Orthodox church. Inside the Orthodox church just sitting for a few moments of peace. The way people waited at cross walks for the little green man to light up before crossing. Civic discipline?

And the modern, fresh face, English-speaking young men who will go far. Contrasted with bent over, looking at the ground, old faces carrying heavy history. Theirs and of a nation.

Basically I fly away tomorrow thinking about nationhood. Grateful to have stability in my lifetime, and to live forward with hope.

My thoughts Latvians. Hope on.