Beautiful still evening
stars out
walking in the dark
Refreshing
In the Dark
Category Archives: photograph
Upcheerings of The Season
Crochet squares sewn together, artfully, and configured into a Christmas tree. Love the tippie star on top, also a crochet creation.
I do a bit of a dance around this time of year, the ‘holiday season’, with what to wish people when I send a card. This year I’ve been wishing people a ‘Peace Filled’ new year to come. I’m not shy about saying Happy Christmas or Xmas for that matter. Buddhamas? I don’t think so.
For me this time of year can do with as much ‘upcheering’ as we can all muster. Blasting light into the darkness for a short time is uplifting. Switch on the coloured lights, hang baubles on the bushes, and drape tinsel over window frames, pictures and mirrors. It doesn’t need to be artful, for me at least. That said, the room I live in sports only cards. Little room for anything else. Thank you to those who mailed a card.
If all the light and colour can reflect back into our own being and we can shine, all the better.
The ‘Black Hole’
Yes, it gets dark early and light later until Black Hole Day when the tide turns and the daylight gets longer, nights shorter. Slowly. My dad would mark the weeks when there was little change in the day lengths as The Black Hole. Not an easy time of year for any of us and many, me included, supplement with extra light. I have a SAD light shining into my eyes at this moment.
From my late father’s card, 1988.
Happy Christmas holiday and new year. Hope you don’t have to do too much cooking. (I was briefly cooking at Throssel in 1988).
Hope the Black Hole is not sitting on your back – anyway it is nearly black hole day – 21 Dec Winter Solstice which is far more important than Xmas to me.
Happy Buddhas Enlightenment
We celebrated the Festival of the Buddha’s Enlightenment on the 6th December which came at the end of a weekend retreat with many guests here. Always a real pleasure to see people and to catch up during lunch. Rev. Jishin, one of the senior monks resident at Throssel, gave a talk titled “True Heart”. I love to listen to her, hope you get a chance to do that too.
On a personal note: Thanks to those of you who have sent emails asking if I’m OK since I’ve been consistently absent from Jade for nearly eight months! There’s a multitude of good reasons for not writing however when I look at them honestly, they amount to, mostly, excuses! Sorry. I got out of the habit of writing however habits can be changed. This TV interview with James Clear is a helpful ‘how-to’.
Manifesting Buddha – Dharma Talk Audio
Happy Buddhas Birthday. On the Throssel Website you can find a talk I gave last Sunday following a ceremony to celebrate the start of a new Buddhist year.
I’m shocked to see it has been so long since I last did a post here. What happened? Life happened! Leaving me with little mind space for thinking about writing. Sorry folks.
Hat tip to the Reverend who took the photograph.