The mark of a good action
is that is appears inevitable
in retrospect.
Robert Louis Stevenson
The photograph isn’t linked to the quote by the way.
I’ve long intended to see the Midland in the flesh and the other day circumstances conspired to have me and a friend walking around catching sight of people enjoying high tea. One day I’ll go in and have a cup of tea while gazing out over Morecambe Bay. Another day when conditions conspire to take me there again. Tea anybody!
Too late in the day to ponder on the above quote at any length. Enough to say there is no escape from the law of cause and effect. Our own hand shapes us as we wander through life. Not alone.
Nankipoo – he loved to lie on shoes
Yesterday I invented THREE new words! Those of you who subscribe to receive posts via email will have seen the first one – tangerable which I have since corrected to tangible. Apparently the word tangible is frequently associated with touch, Tangible: Perceptible by the senses especially the sense of touch.
Clearly Nankipoo, and all of our animal friends touch us, in tangible and non-tangible levels of awareness. I think that has to be the case with we humans too.
Thank you to the Reverend who pointed out my spelling mistake, so very kindly. And the other two invented words? Longthering and widering. Definitions: Getting longer and getting wider. Nankipoo was a looong cat, as cats are.
How human are we to want good things to last. Somewhere I remember reading that attachment and detachment flow together throughout our entire lives. I’m fine with that. Remembering Nankipoo a Shasta Abbey cat, 19 years old, who died yesterday. RIP.
This image mapping the fells was added after the original post. For those who like to know what they are looking at.
Ah!
Yesterday. Rounding the top, looking over the edge of Scouts Scar. Magic! A magic moment bringing awe and joy. Nearby a woman walking her dog said softly, It’s like velvet! The grass and everything combined to bring me, and her, up short. We paused and took the whole thing in. A shared moment and then we continued on our way.
Stopping to let oneself absorb what’s coming into the senses allowing ‘oneself’, the sense of being a separate entity, fade into the background of consciousness, can bring about those Ah! times. Lasting a moment or moment after moment. Nothing to seek for of course. Simply to be where one is and to notice. Simply notice. To remain awake.
Quiet: an absence or near absence of agitation, or activity. But does quiet mean the absence of activity? Is there quiet in the midst of activity? I’d say so.
At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;
Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,
But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,
Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards,
Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point,
There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.
T.S.Eliot, From The Four Quartets
Practice Within The Order of Buddhist Contemplatives
