Hello O multi-tongued one.
What language do you speak?
My O my what a lot you have to say.
Your trilling, warbling, chipping, chopping song.
And again.
Trilling, warbling, chipping and chopping.
And again!
There! I see you up in the bare Field Maple.
Who are you?

I see you are kind of tan in colour with speckles and, if I may say so, really quite plump. Could you be the noble Thrush, the Thrush of Throssel Hole Farm? Well, if you are your descendants have been serenading monks here since 1970.

Sing on please. Bring us spring.

As I was biking to work the other day, I got to thinking about how I take the same route all the time, and how sometimes the ride is interesting and sometimes boring, and it occurred to me there’s an analogy to be drawn between biking and sitting meditation.

The Logogryph has just past the one year mark. Congratulations!

Looking towards Galloway and Gretna Green, South West Scotland famous for ‘anvil weddings’ . Today, Gretna Green remains one of the most popular wedding venues in the world, and thousands of couples still come from all over the world to be married ‘over the anvil’ at Gretna Green.

West with the mountains of the Lake District on the horizon.

An angry sky pointing towards the north with traffic reaching the summit from Melmerby. There is a sign reminding drivers of the recent 70 fatalities on this hairpin bend infested crossing of the backbone of England. Cumbria Police have a great description of this part of the road.

Note the web cam mounted on a pole. Too bad the camera is still out of order however the map gives some orientation as to where Hartside Summit is.

Enrico Ferni, the famous atomic physicist, was once giving a lecture on the principles of quantum physics to a lay audience. At the end, he was keen to know how his lecture had gone and whether it had been simple enough to be understood. He collared a student as he was leaving, and asked him.

The student, slightly embarrassed, is said to have replied, ‘Professor Ferni, to be honest, after our lecture, I’m confused. But I’m confused at a higher level’!

Many thanks to Paul who sent me this story on a card some years ago.

What remains after the chairs have been put away, the cups washed, lights switched off and the door locked? Do the words linger on? I’ve been pondering, as I do quite often, both the words offered during a talk on Buddhist practice and what the listeners carry away with them afterwards. Knowing for myself that I rarely remember strings of words spoken during a Dharma talk I imagine that must be the same for others.

Last afternoon as we were preparing to leave the Friends Meeting House in Lancaster after our mini retreat somebody came to me to say thank you and good by. He indicated good-naturedly that he would probably not remember the details of what I talked about, and I understood completely. Later a woman came to thank me for my sense of humour. Is that what she will remember I wonder? Yet another person said maybe what I said was a bit too ‘advanced’ for some since I seemed to be suggesting people take a leap from the known to the unknown. Perhaps she will remember that for herself, and leap!

All I can say now that it was good to go, and good to be back.