2002. Cornwall, UK. The civic decorations in Cornwall are remarkable, drawing many people into the tip of the South West of England in December. I think this is the village of Mousehole, either that or Newlyn. Just a few commercial cards sent this year.

2003. Northern California, USA. I was staying high in the mountains at our Hermitage. We had a goodly snow fall and the steep dirt road was a challenge to negotiate for a couple leaving new years day. The picture was taken early one morning in the spring during some extensive ditch digging. It is a beautiful spot at any time of the year. Very few cards sent that year.

This time of year naturally lends itself to reflecting. I like the points the Unitarian Minister, referred to in this article, makes in his sermon. So, as we reflect on the year(s) behind us; beware the ‘distortion of retrospection’ and the ‘seduction of self-justification’! Now there’s something to reflect upon!

This first appeared on my personal web site, September 2003.

While out shopping this summer I found myself leafing through a rack of posters and my eyes alighted on one with the Robert Frost poem, ‘The Road Not Taken’. Apparently this is a well-known poem, however, it was new to me. When I returned from that shopping trip I got on-line and did a Google search on ‘Robert Frost’ and came up with some interesting results. One link sent me to a transcript of a sermon by a Unitarian Minister in New Hampshire where Robert Frost lived.

The Minister points out in his sermon that, ‘Far from being a hymn to rugged individualism, this poem is a gentle satire on indecisiveness, the distortion of retrospection, and the seduction of self-justification. That’s why the poem is titled not ‘The Road Less Traveled’, but ‘The Road Not Taken’ for there will always be a road not taken, and we will never know where, for worse or for better, it might have led.’

According to the above minister, in 1953 Robert Frost was reflecting upon ‘The Road Not Taken’, and said the following, ‘I wasn’t thinking about myself there, but about a friend who had gone off to war, a person who, whichever road he went, would be sorry he didn’t go the other. He was hard on himself that way.’

The Road Not Taken
By Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth

Then took the other as just as fair
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear
Though as for that, the passing there
Had worn them really about the same

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black
Oh, I kept the first for another day
Yet, knowing how way leads onto way
I doubted if I should ever come back

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence
Two roads diverged in a wood
And I took the one less traveled by
And that has made all the difference

When I discovered the poem I was thinking of a friend who was, at that time, hovering at a crossroad in her life. Now she has made her decision and, like Robert Frost’s friend, I hope she will not be too hard on herself with regards to the path she has chosen.

Postscript: To-day I was talking on the telephone to the woman referred to in the above article. She told me, with a mixture of mild amazement and her characteristic humility, “I’m content; I’ve never felt this good in my entire life”!

One of the senior monks of our Order in the UK, Rev. Master Saido of Telford Buddhist Priory, was recently interviewed on BBC Radio Shropshire. Through the ‘magic’ of the internet and Rev. Saido’s web masterly skills he has posted the talk on the priory web site. For those with a fast broadband connection there is an mp3 file to download and for dial up connections you can ‘stream’ the talk. OK, that means you will listen through your computer. I don’t pretend to understand much more than that.

I listened to most of the talk last evening. It comprises of Rev. Saido talking on Buddhist practice and what brought him to it and also a long section where the congregation talk about their understanding of practice. The whole program is accessible to non Buddhists and puts what we do into a context that people interested in trying us for size can relate to.

Time is running out. Too bad. I wanted to post a photo of the space where the priory ‘wheelie bin’ (garbage can) was before it got stolen early one morning. I was staying at the priory at the time of the theft and saw the bin disappearing up the road. They say there is a market for these bins in Ireland.

That’s right, it is the official start of winter to-day. Each year, on this day, my dad was keen to point this out and would announce: ‘We are now entering the black hole’! December 21st has the latest sunrise and the earliest sunset, it’s the shortest day. (Bright and sunny here in Edmonton with temperatures rising above 0 c. Hardly winter).

The days don’t start drawing out again for a few weeks. My father would announce; “We are out of the black hole. Thank goodness“! when the allotted day arrived. (When is that day, anybody know?) In the mean time in darkness there are lights and I am enjoying them sparkling from the trees on Whyte Avenue, tastefully done too. The city has ‘gone to town’ with lighting, especially around the legislative building. I saw them briefly the other evening on a trip through the city. Hopefully I’ll be escorted there one evening before they get switched off so I can appreciate their magic at a leisurely pace.

Here is an uplifting message for those who need one:

While the light of the world is diminishing may your heart and mind be steady and ever bright. And may you ‘go on beyond’ the ups and downs of daily life and know the, ever present, ‘serene luminescence’ now before your very eyes; unchanging, undying, uncreated. Permanent.

Note: In my book on plain English I read that it is OK to split infinitives. I think I just did that!

Keep up the meditation folks.