Tour of the old town. Walking and walking. Looking up at the amazing buildings while looking down so as not to fall over. Something to learn here, about taking care not to lose ones ‘footing’ in the scramble of daily life. While ‘looking up’.
Flying West to
Eastern Europe
A culture
Shift – a shock.
Looking at normal
So called – but whose?
Normal questioned
Humbling – humbled.
Blocks of grey flats
Soot blackened walls
Sadness for eye
Heart – break.
Cathedral turret
Gleaming bronzed.
An Eastern confection
Renovation – restoration.
From West to
East with refreshed
Eyes and mind
Disturbed.
Good to be disturbed, to have ones cultural norms thrown into sharp relief. Jigger – jagger! Moving around can loosen ones foundations. There is no permanent ‘place’ to lay ones mind. The Soviet past is like a particular perfume mixed in with a swipe of eye watering cleaner. Mixed in with pre Soviet grandeur. This is all a challenge to the mind that, has views. Not to be held on to. Acknowledged here? Yes.
We have a full schedule of activities organised for the next few days. Our host is a Latvian born American monk here establishing herself to teach the Dharma. I’m impressed already.
As we passed this car last Saturday my companion commented, as much to himself as to me, ‘That’s your worst nightmare right there’! Take my ‘wheels’ off and render me immobile? How would I be? Just fine I am sure. When I broke my leg in late 1999 I ended up enjoying enforced immobility. Although I have to confess to being ‘difficult’ at a certain point in my recovery.
Now I’d better find out where exactly Latvia IS! Before flying there tomorrow. A very heavy world atlas is calling to me.
Mobile – Immobility
Moving – Stillness
Walk on – sit up
Lay down
Sleep.
Wake Up!
How fortunate we are to be born a human being, to have found a path and to keep walking on. No matter what.
Walking on sometimes means not moving though.
Years ago a friend who contracted polio as a young child, and was confined to a wheelchair until he was six or so, described how it was to walk for the first time, barefoot on grass. He luxuriated in the memory and I shared in it.
There is something about the contact with the ground which we all know about but lose touch with as we graduate from sensible sandels to fashionable foot torture!
So. Please join me in my joy and enthusiasm for my shoes bought in London today. Barefoot shoes, Vivobarefoot shoes. Yes the shop window says it all, Beautiful Feet…..are happy feet. Which makes for a happy memory of a chap from long ago. Imagine remembering in detail ones first steps!
This post is for all those who walked on the ground for the first time, and lived long enough and had the words to describe it. Viva Vivo!
This is how the bookshelves were on Saturday, in the house I was ‘sitting’ since Iain Robinson’s death in 2011. Iain well remembered.
Yes, the house felt empty on Saturday when I opened the front door to pick up my remaining belongings. Empty yet oddly….full! Not of any persons, or memory, or sadness, regret, happiness. All potentially there however the utter sense of stillness eclipsed anything and everything. I’d wondered how it would be to come back after 15 months to a house I’d lived in. I’d shared with visitors, helped fill with Iain’s possessions in 2009 and then gradually helped empty it of them. Of books and SO much more of those things he treasured. His wife hardly had the opportunity to accumulate before the sudden death. Heart breaking for her.
People said after he died we, Iain and I, were close and I’d say, Well not particularly. Yes, he was always there via email to advise on matters to do with written English and sundry other things especially to do with the house or his car, which I had the use of. And he consulted me, or talked through, personal and spiritual matters on the telephone or in person when he was back from Japan. I was his religious mentor, a student/teacher arrangement. Close but not close close. The teaching relationship between us prevailed. Though I’d be hard-pressed to describe it. Ones humanity is not excluded.
I knew it and from time to time it was obvious and on entering the house and walking about collecting things confirmed it. Anything personal which one would describe as ‘being close’ was eclipsed by…..stillness. One could call that emptiness or better, a full-emptiness. What I know of is the gift we give to our fellows, which most often gets lost in the wash! Lost sight of that is, in the cut and thrust of daily living with it’s warmer and cooler moments. But pausing for a moment, as I did on Saturday, the truth of the gift is confirmed. But nothing to get excited about though. No sadness at losing something nor joy either. Full-emptiness does the job, an expression my teacher frequently used.
Then I walked up to the Nine Standard Rigg, and on the way down the sun picked up Cross Fell. Although my monastic friend might tell me otherwise….! Put me right Reverend.
This post is for all those who are or who have lived through the pain and suffering that comes with loss. It fades.