Yes, that’s right. Who’s in a hurry? And if so why? If rocks can smile….
Many thanks for your well wishes.
This morning I will soon be on my way to London. Leaving from Kirkby Stephen on the Settle-Carlisle railway line to Leeds. Then switching trains and onwards (and upwards) to London, Kings Cross Station.
The 72 mile route from Settle to Carlisle takes you on a journey through the magnificent Yorkshire Dales, over the 24 arches of the Ribblehead Viaduct before plunging in to the longest tunnel on the line at Blea Moor. Emerging onto the side of Dentdale, the line leaves the Dales at Garsdale and makes it way through the gentle, lush rolling hills of the Eden Valley, with rural villages and market towns before arriving at the great border city of Carlisle.
Reason for traveling? Well not the train trip to Leeds although I know it is going to be a cracking good ride. No, I’m going to the American Embassy for my visa interview, Thursday morning, 8.30 am, standing outside in a long line. Hopefully it will not raining. I’m prepared. I-am-SO-prepared. A time, me thinks, for Dying Meticulously.
Here is part of a post from Undeceivable – Moonraker Zen. Our man in a van is still sitting. He also talks about the book Into The Wild. A mans dream that went terribly wrong.
It is the Devon Mountain that’s caught my eye.
…..often sit a little during the day with my incense and Hakuin’s Song of Meditation. The line that usually sticks in my mind the most is “Sit sincerely in meditation just once…” Even though I’ve been sitting a while, every time I do I feel it’s a battle to stay on the cushion and just enjoy being there. But during most sittings, after I’ve been drifting in and then out of daydreams for a few minutes, my mind will inevitably clear and I’m there sitting like a Devon mountain.
Links to Hakuin’s Song Of Meditation, can be found in the comments to post above. Hum, maybe I’ll take at look. Tomorrow.
It is almost two weeks since these photographs were taken. The falls called me back a week later and I expect I’ll go again before the end. It is known that a Stone Age community lived in this awesome valley. The imposing rock is near where evidence of the settlement was found.
Way back when, a path ran from the settlement to the the base of the falls – and stopped there. It was a road going nowhere, or so it would seem. I like to think those ancient people honoured and respected this magnificent place, the falls and the embracing valley. Far from going nowhere the road went in the direction of depth. Or so it seems to me. Yes, I’ll go back when perhaps it will be possible to clamber up beside the falls.
The thaw has come and with it the guttering, laden down with ice, is being yanked off the roofs. One valiant monk has been hanging off a ladder chipping away at the ice, with what looks like a climbers ice axe. All in an effort to save the guttering still in place. Still the thaw is on, it is now over a month since we saw grass. However this weather ‘event’ has not come even close to matching The Worst Winter of The (last) Century. That was January and February 1963. I remember seeing swans frozen into the river as I walked to school. A terrible sight and nobody could reach them either.
What are we to make of all this? Extreme weather is newsworthy. Plight, others plight, news of others plight is our chance to express empathy for those less fortunate. To ‘have a thought’ as I often term what I would understand as offering spiritual merit into situations. The appropriate response to news of plight is to ‘have a thought’, to purposefully stop and literally allow empathy, compassion and love flow. Sadly plight, the news, can become, does become, entertainment….