"I would simply like to reclaim an old and, alas, quite unfashionable private formula: Moderate enjoyment is double enjoyment. And: Do not overlook the little joys!"

Above words by Hermann Hesse (July 2, 1877–August 9, 1962) from a 1905 essay titled “On Little Joys,” found in My Belief: Essays on Life and Art – now out of print.

Yes, the sight of Blackberries in the hedges. The Buzzard’s cry. The smell of a second hand bookshop! Little enjoyments. Indeed.

For me a rare cupa in the afternoon. My one coffee of the week is on Mondays when we have a more substantial breakfast, calling for coffee. Good to ring the changes. From time to time.

I am away from Throssel for a week ‘visiting’ and I am appreciating the change of air, change of pace, change of activities, change of daily routine.

Appearances
Change
yet nothing
changed.

The scenes
vibrate
yet nothing
moved.

Fundamentally….

It will soon be ‘home time’. Primary school was marked by playtime(s) and HOME TIME, (not always marked by a bell). The end of the school day was the very best. Eventually, we went to the crate, picked up our third-of-a-pint of milk, and (paper) straw. Pushing in the straw through the cardboard top, perforated into a perfect circle,  we drank our health (not that we knew that personally at the time).

Interesting isn’t it, how one remembers with sharp clarity, those moments of transition marked by ‘ceremony’. After the bottles went back in the crate we returned to our ‘place’, put our chairs on the tables ready for the cleaner – (I asked) and then a moment of silence, perhaps a short prayer (it was a C of E School after all). I don’t remember a bell, just the teacher saying ‘home time’ (as good as a bell).

At the end of kitchen clean-up here at the monastery, a ceremony (of sorts). “Rack coming down.” somebody calls (a physical safety warning – needed). We stand quietly together hanging the wet tea towels on the drying rack. Hometime? (As a body, we depart the kitchen – with an apple or orange, sometimes a leftover). No bell just a doing-it-together routine marking a transition from gathered activity to…the next thing. A walk, tea. A post-lunch snack! A short nap?

Transitions, marked or unmarked. Marked by choice. Always we live in the presence of constant choice. Another of my remembered quotes from my handwritten notes in my Book of Wisdom. Gleaned in my teens.

Now time
is home time
no bell needed
exercising choice
is….required

A moments pause
the ceremony
of stopping
and we are
HOME.

Hovering as we are between summer and autumn, especially times hovering between dawn and day and evening and night, I’m noticing diffuse ‘edges’. That’s diffuse ‘edges’ in the landscape, in feelings, in thoughts, and above all, in that ‘without edges’ we know when sitting quietly. (A call to move inwards.) And yet, last evening while out walking, the sun low showing up the undulations of the valley – there were defined edges, and yet not. Coming autumn is in the air.

And yet…the road over the hill? I would imagine my road will lead me close to Baldersdale come next Tuesday. There is always that road that snakes across the landscape of our lives. Always moving, winter into spring, sitting to standing to walking to running. To driving….

Do you see the eye in the grass? Before we can blink an eye, it will be winter. And before we know it, come the end of the year, days will be getting longer and that hovering between seasons, winter to spring, will be with us again. Impermanence is our friend. We are alive, be glad!

Thank you once again to Mark Rowan for sending photographs. For some reason, they nearly always inspire me to write.

Entering
step, step
the signal gong
ting, ting
leading the celebrant
Solemnity tears.

The hall
where guests
gathered
daily for
eighteen months.
In empty space.

Processing in
upwelling tears
invisible guests
made manifest
Unnameable tears.

Yes, emotions this morning as we open our doors for guests to come and stay here at the monastery. It is indeed a solemn occasion. Unnameable tears – too sacred to be uttered