Found sprouting in the coal bunker at Throssel last spring. Planted. Nurtured. Transported to Leicester in the East Midlands. Where it is now. Nurtured. And appreciated.
As with the Oak so too with the new temple Turning Wheel Buddhist Temple . Planted. Nurtured and growing….
Many thanks to Rev. Aiden and the congregation for hosting the visit. May this brave tree grow into a Mighty Oak! Watered by faith and devotion.
At last I have established the ability to post from my phone. The following was intended to be posted three days ago…..
Allotments are an institution much beloved by all who revel in the wonders of vegetable and fruit growing. In close proximity to like minded others. It’s the best of everything community while being lady and lord of your own ‘patch’. All be it a very small patch. And there is always a shed.
Best of all is the real sense of having thoroughly renewed after just a short saunter between the unruly overgrown rows. Grazing!
Thus it was on Sunday afternoon. Heavenly times amidst the allotment tangle. In good company. Thank you to all in Norwich (Norwich Zen Buddhist Priory) who have been so open handed.
Here is a photograph from the monastery archive. For those who know this place you will see just what an impact the planting of the thousands upon thousands of trees has had on the general landscape. Back in 1976 this is what the land looked like from the road. There wasn’t a lane running up through the bottom field to the side of the main buildings, as now. Brr, it looks bleak. However with the trees now all grown up into a mature woodland the main buildings are hidden from view and the open land above the farm-house is now wooded.
The Throssel website was relaunched a couple of days ago and is working well. If you go to the Galleries section there are a number of collections of photographs, a number of them taken just about a week ago, which will give you an idea of how things look now. The above photograph is in the gallery titled As it Was in the 1970/’s. Uh! But that I could get that forward slash out of the title but try as I may it isn’t ready to shift.
My part in the relaunch has been confined to photographs and I’m keenly aware that more photographs of How It is Now, especially how it is for retreat guests, are needed.
When I ask visitors who have been coming here since the 1970’s what is the biggest change they invariably say, the trees. And the thousands upon thousands of Rabbits! Anybody have a photograph of them on mass on the lawn?
Bows to those who did the behind the scenes technical work which has made this re-launch go so smoothly and seamlessly.
Here’s a picture of a bumble bee
looks nowt like you and nowt like me
only difference is – he is free
from ever looking inwardlysniffs the flowers and
then is gone,
never troubled by right or wrong
sun is out and the
sky is blue
has no thought of me or you
More verses to be found on Herbwormwood’s blog
This poem took me right back to my teens when I wrote some words reflecting on a bee I’d observed as I lazily lay on a lawn. Bee and me we are one, labouring onwards and upwards.…dah de dah dee dah! I like the care free bee of this poem which is free from ever looking inwardly!
What IS it about peeling paint? Decay? A moment caught in the flow of time. There is the Wabi-sabi Japanese esthetic which, I’ve discovered, has a basic Buddhist teaching at it’s roots. Namely the Three Signs of Existence: impermanence (anicca), suffering (dukkha), and non-self (anattā). (Sometimes referred to as the Three marks of existence.) However that’s all very well and good, and one can get caught up in thinking about and analyzing why peeling paint and the like is so…..’beautiful’, but why the attraction? Why, for example, is the wrinkled face of an elderly person so ‘can’t keep my eyes off’ alluring?
This is the The Garden Station, Langley where last Sunday we had tea and scones: that’s after a walk along the old railway line, a sandwich in the lee of a stone wall (the wind was almost gale force), and a pleasant return along a wide and sheltered path through the woods. The station cafe is a delight, the conversation was stimulating and the scones home-made.
My Sunday walking companions. What a pleasure to move across the earth, together.
The conversation that emerged while we had our tea and scone (and jam) has had me contemplating this question of peeling paint! Or rather the underlying question of consciousness and Being – of self nature. Could it possibly be I’ve a blogging theme lurking here to explore? I certain hope so. For, when day after day I am simply not moved to write here, I find myself bereft. Ah! Perhaps it (the lurking theme) is the sweet-sadness of the passage of time, layer upon layer, showing the flow of….what is that? Being?