Out and About

Magnified Sand

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Sand – magnified x250 times

Thanks go to Angie for sending in this amazing image of sand. We have had sand from the River Ganges, sand on Portobello beach and now sand quarried miles away from open sea.

As I drove away from visiting a friend in this most beautiful of areas hidden away from the bright city lights and tourist traps of Edinburgh and Glasgow the quarry loom before me. I thought to stop and photograph it but couldn’t bring myself to do that. It felt akin to photographing road kill and I’d not do that. There was no blood, just a massive scar in the landscape.

Anyway, I wish the people well who are trying to stop the further encroachment of the sand and gravel mining operations into this island of special beauty in the Scottish Border country. New Lanark and the Falls of Clyde.

On my way out of Scotland after visiting my friend – and her two beautiful native Highland ponies – I drove down through the Moffat Hills. Another hidden treasure in the Borders, sadly in mist and hammered by rain as I passed through.

Scotland is special. The people I met were each special, each in their own very particular ways. Like the sand under the microscope. But then everyone is particular. Unique. Too often the gem like qualities each of us have are hidden from even our own view, let alone understood or appreciated by others.

This post is for a chap in hospital, visited today in Darlington, County Durham. Much merit passes to you dear friend. You are a very particular gem.

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Out and About, photograph

Autumn In The Air

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An evening walk on the beach at Portobello, near Edinburgh.
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Earlier, swans…!

Six weeks-on-the-road. Three nights here, two there. A week and then move on, again. I am very fortunate indeed to be able to move around like I have these past weeks, meet so many interesting people, enjoy hospitality and sit and meditate together. It’s time to stop and settle in one place to greet Autumn and then Winter. I welcome the turning of the season.

New post on Field of Merit. Sands of the Ganges.

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Daily Life

Workplace Collective Meditation

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…there are signs that in some significant ways, General Mills has a distinctly unusual corporate culture. Open the right door on a Tuesday morning and you might find a few dozen team leaders and executives meditating silently together on cushions, steeling their minds for the work week ahead. Enter a conference room later that afternoon and witness more than 50 senior employees from across the organisation standing on one leg in the tree pose as they practise yoga. Note that in every building on the General Mills campus there is a meditation room, equipped with a few zafus – or cushions for sitting practice – and yoga mats where, day after day, employees duck in to grab a few minutes of equanimity in between their meetings. These are the most obvious signs that, as an organisation, General Mills has something resembling a collective spiritual life.

FT Magazine.

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Curiosities, Out and About

Grand-parentage

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Whisky Keg Mountains

Yesterday traveling south from Inverness to Aberdeen along country roads.
Turned a corner and come upon these mountains of kegs in a Cooper’s yard. Bound no doubt for one of the many whisky distilleries along the river Spay.

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Wendy Hut

Today visiting and walking and talking and eating with sangha members. Turned a corner in a garden and came upon this Wendy House. A dream children’s house. A Wendy Hut! Grandad planted geraniums and painted it red.

Drawing together these two images is a thread of skill and craftsmanship. There is almost a sense of romance around the ancient hand trades. Such as Cooperage, dry stone walling and the like. And in the painting of the Wendy House and the tended vegetable plot is demonstrated equally an ancient skill and craftsmanship. Though not recognized as a trade. Grand-parentage!

This is in gratitude for those I have spent time with these past two days. I bow to what you all have done, are doing and will no doubt continue to do. Getting on and caring. Sacrificing retirement years, health and more. No romance, lots of love and devotion. Satisfaction, little recognition.

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Out and About

Highland Zen

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Beside the River Ness, Inverness

The Highland Zen Group met this evening in a church owned by the National Health Service. Can that be true? The man with the key had a NHS logo on his work shirt and yes, indeed, he had come out of a hospital reception area. So it must have been true. In the photograph, above the top railing, are hospital buildings with the historic church tacked on the end. All nestled in behind trees.

It has been a wonderful few, refreshing, days in Inverness in the heart of the Scottish Highlands. Where everything is Ness. Lock Ness, Ness Islands, the Lock Ness Monster. River Ness. My hosts for these days own a Guest House, a short distance from the river, where I have enjoyed all that such accommodations provide. And more. I’ve particularly enjoyed strolling along with the lady of the house along Ladies Walk! The River Ness is hypnotic, wide and shallow, running fast. With fly fisherman up to their armpits, waters washing around them, still and content. I hear most fisherman return their catch to the waters too.

I see on the Meditation group’s website that, and I quote, hopefully we can persuade Rev. Mugo to give a Dharma talk to the group during the meeting. I did a talk and what a pleasant evening it was too ending with an escorted walk along the river enjoying fairy lights twinkling in the trees.

Thank you to all who came to the group this evening (especially the out-of-towners) and those who have generally supported the visit these past three days. With food and good company aplenty.

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