My ‘fairy story’ is Little Red Riding Hood. There are others with the same twist but it’s the fox representing himself as an old woman and thereby deceiving Red Riding Hood which makes it ‘mine’. It’s the old scary theme of something appearing to be one thing when in fact it is quite another. If there is anything in life that is going to disturb me, it’s that.

Story is so closely related to our lives, how we respond to life, perhaps even how we shape our lives. Who knows? I grew up with a story teller pare excellence, my mother. She told tales of adventures; hers. Tales of stepping out of the Victorian box she was born into; living in a tent in Devon in the 1920’s, driving a Double Decker bus and owning several motorbikes, showing movies without benefit of electricity cranked by hand! Growing up, all I needed to do was join her story line, which is what I basically have done! The twist at the end, becoming a religious, is perhaps the modern day ending to a life of external adventure. My mother was behind me although, in later life, she would have wished me to be behind her too, in a certain kind of a way. Very close to her death the story line was broken, her story dissolved and with that the tie between us. It came as an unanticipated twist at the end of our story together. How I know about that, is another story!

Tom of The Logogryph ponders on story, fact/fiction. And again here.

One part of the story of the historical Buddha that I love is the fact that he starts out as a handsome prince. That is, his life as it has been remembered and passed down begins as a storybook life. “Once there was a handsome prince who lived in a beautiful palace and had everything one could wish for …”

Finally I managed to change my photograph to a more recent one. It was taken almost exactly a year ago at the end of the last retreat held at the Priory in Edmonton. Many thanks to Michael who skillfully managed to overcome my resistance to being photographed and then was able to put me at my ease. Thank you, and thank you Edmonton people I think of you all often.

It is almost one year since I ceased being the Priory in Edmonton. This is from a posting I did on June 17th, 2006 titled Moving Right Along.

We are moving on.
We are moving into new territory.
We are moving deeper than our fears of the future.
We are moving past what has gone.
We are MOVING and the day is a week from tomorrow.

We are moving apart.
…and that’s a hard one, for me.

I could have known better!
Do avoid the should word.

The results were…
Not bad, not good, not satisfactory

Do remind me next time,
Not to soak in biological.

My Tilley Hat!
Turned patchy yellow/orange.

No, don’t whiten your whites
By soaking over night.

When next morning comes…
You’ll be mighty disappointed.

You know you should-uv-not,
Could-uv-not done it.

It’s the story of my life! When will I ever learn to keep away from anything with, even a hint of, bleach in it? Other monks soak, they separate their whites from their colours, and their sheets and towels glisten on the line. My beloved Tilley Hat from Vancouver, a kind gift, now skulks damp and patchy on top of my walking boots to dry.

I’m always heartened when I hear of people working in institutions who have the courage to break or bend the rules in order to respond to a human, or in this case an animal need in a hospital Emergency Department.

While you are in Australia you might want to download the e-book How to be a Nurse, which Ed of impactEdnurse has put together from posts to his blog. Prepare to be edified and inspired, you don’t need to be a nurse either.

Thanks again Ed for your contribution of humour, wisdom and hands-on practical advice. Wonderful! We all benefit.

A Sunday supplement magazine, published in March this year, on Mental Health fell into my mail slot. As tired as I was on Sunday afternoon I read it cover to cover. It is through this magazine I learned about the ground breaking work and compassionate approach of Dr. Rufus May, a young Clinical Psychologist and former psychiatric patient. There are many articles written by him on the Internet, a number of interviews too. And within all of what he describes, he retains a sense of humour. This publicity stunt reflect that.

August 2006: As a teenager with schizophrenia he saw the mental health system brutalise patients. He became a doctor to change things from within. Now he is pushing a bed from London to Brighton.

Dr Rufus May and a group of fellow campaigners will tomorrow start pushing a bed from Brighton to London to raise awareness of the forced use of drugs and ECT in psychiatric hospitals. The bed, complete with a dummy patient, will be chased by a giant syringe. There will also be an ECT machine offering free “treatments” to the general public.