This autumn

I've not been writing of late. It's not that there's been nothing to process, the koan is constantly unfolding, but there's been no urge to draw it out 'on paper'.

We've had some wonderful weather through later summer and autumn and now with the days shortening the leaves are just starting to turn. I often feel uneasy at this time of year. I feel the milder, lighter days slipping away, the low sun, longer nights, colder air... some instinctive or ancestral fear seems to get triggered... And as DC will say 'we live in a suburban, double glazed centrally heated house and both have good jobs!' But that nagging voice in me will always say 'yes, but what's around the corner...? What doom?' And it's the oncoming November gloom which somehow seems to trigger this feeling of doom; right on cue in September / October! I'm almost afraid to even acknowledge it in case it somehow makes it real. There's magical thinking for you! Of course this fear is there in varying degrees all year round but I find it modulated by the seasons and it's fear and associated anger which is at the root of much of the koan - probably for most of us. And how clear is that to see in 'Brexit'.

There's no enlightenment outside of everyday life and living with a long term partner and going to work is without doubt ample training ground along the path yet there is also a need for time and space for reflection and spiritual renewal. Each day's formal meditation is not enough to support the required level of meditation off the cushion. DC and I will take a holiday the first week in November in the lake district. This is something we used to do regularly but in recent years with time spent living away from 'home' and changing work arrangements it ceased. This year conditions are such as to make it possible and needed once more. I intend to use the time to draw inward and tune in to where I need to put my energies. I feel dissipated at present. I think that's perhaps part of the reason for not posting here of late.

Sometimes there are shards of pain so burning hot yet cold and icy revealing aspects of the space of the emotional and physical body. They pass. Anxieties and old wounds or habits shifting shape in response to present conditions. And joyous connections with life too. Thoughts and feelings, sustaining, changing, passing. There's a feeling of a loss of spiritual focus, but that may have its positives too; letting go to know more deeply given time. Perhaps it's good that the seasons have turned and come round to autumn. Whilst spring and summer are times of obvious rebirth there's a creative aspect to autumn. A balm of mists and mellow fruitfulness? In part. But more the inward turning afforded by winter. Like breathing; in and out, in, out, in, out...

I have so many books I want to read or re-read. And I'm drawn to spend more time in formal meditation and in nature and in bodywork. I know there's much that might be unfolded to reveal my experience of life's desire to be in contrast with the ego's desire to have. Yet there's a very deep tiredness and some frustration. But isn't that the case for many of us in these times? Dukkha will always manifest somehow.

Heart

I've been rather busy of late, which is good, and although I've been visited a few times by the blog writing muse I've been too tired to sit down and pull a post together. However, last night DC and I went with two friends to see the movie Demolition and I was so moved I felt I must write a short post. I found this a really moving tale of love and the search for authentic connection in life. What really came across for me is the shear enormity of the human heart and its capacity to expand in the face of the vastness of life's challenge. And what is beautifully portrayed in this movie is the way our connections and loves like life are so complex and yet so simple, the way there's a real warmth in the acceptance of what is and letting go our fantasies of a 'perfect' self, a perfect life. However painful, life is its own perfection whether we like it or not. This is the message that comes out of this at times bizarre tale.

Beloved

Last weekend we had some friends round for dinner. A great night was had by all. They brought with them a Christmas present - we've not had the chance to meet up since before the festive period. The present is a framed photo of DC and me and I was quite moved by it. It's a photo from about maybe ten years ago and we're in the kitchen of our friends' house, DC is behind and slightly to the side of me with his arms around me. His face is just beautiful and to me says along with his whole body language just how much he loves me. I'm moved by the way he holds me in love without clinging or possessing; he's just so pleased that we are we. When I saw this photo I felt immediately blessed that we are still together after almost 24 years, and that he remains a brilliant light in my life.

New Year Celebration

DC and I spent new year in Wales with Loving Men. The group was about 90 gay men in number and the warmth and connection just lovely! We both had a wonderful time; a mixture of meeting and connecting, care and consideration, fun and laughter and exercise for body and spirit (I kept my mind reasonably quiet!) all in a great location with lovely vegetarian food. I found the time thoroughly nourishing and a great way to enter 2016! There were moving moments and the wonderful energy of connection and sharing in the depth of human experience both difficult and joyous.

Friday night

On Friday evening I went out to the cinema and saw Alan Bennett's The Lady in the Van. I'd read the book years ago and was looking forward to the movie. I was not disappointed. Like many in the audience I was, at times, moved to tears. As ever, what moves is the depth of humanity, our care of and compassion towards each other; true love. Bennett found the homeless woman who lived in a van on his drive for fifteen years a troubling and difficult woman. He was not captivated with the joy of a delightful encounter. Yet there is obviously recognition of and care for another human being. Caring for those that are far from easy to be with because that is what the situation requires, because our basic humanity, our heart mind, knows that this is the only way to peace, (peace of the heart irrespective of the mind) this springs from the enlightenment that gives life meaning. The story starts in 1974 and something of the times comes across. But it is not nostalgia that moves us, although it is hard to see it unfolding in the same way, if at all in this day and age. What we are touched by I think, is the knowledge that at the root of life is a sadness. It more than dukkha it's that some part of us also knows that we long to love, to transcend our all too human failings and reside in the unconditional love that holds all experience. We sit between heaven and earth, samsara and nirvana two sides of the same One.

I returned home from the cinema to the news of events in Paris. Hundreds killed or injured by terrorists. People who like me had just gone out to enjoy their Friday evening. The number of people who's life is now filled with pain and suffering as a result of this even higher; those who love those killed or injured have also be injured. We are not separate. I'm filled with sadness.

As I write live news headlines are of 'massive attacks on Isis'. I'm torn. I feel anger at the hideous acts by Isis and I want them stopped. I see that there is no negotiating with what seem like madmen. Isis seems fueled by layer upon layer of delusion. There is no rationalising with that. We have to do something. And I'm concerned that actions springing from anger don't have clear intentions. Something needs to be done. It needs to be motivated by the heart. It is difficult. When we forget that we are all connected, when we disappear into our own experience of pain and seek salvation in the suffering of what we think of as other we lose our humanity. Yet we can't reside solely in a space of unity. We are both interconnected and separate, both One and many. We must act with care.

The merit of this post is offered up for all those affected by the events in Paris on Friday night.

Life & Death

I've just been in the garden cutting the grass and tidying up. It's still looking green and quite lush even though the flowers have now all but gone. Adjacent our garden is a communal plot and some time ago a tree was removed. Putting the clippings in the compost bin I see that the roots seem to be food for this crop of mushrooms! You can see the tree stump (flat to the grass) just left of centre in the picture.

Mushrooms are the fruiting body of a fungus. Fungus forms an important part of the decay process, helping to breakdown wood and recycle the material. This picture shows part of the death of the tree root and the life of the fungus. But whenever I see fungus I can't help but focus on the decay side more than life side of this process. For me, fungus is a process of death. I think this is something to do with the fact that we are so connected with sunlight. Growth for us is connected with light. Plants are green to assist with photosynthesis. Fungus uses the work of the plant it is consuming to get its energy.

Waiting

A few weeks ago DC and I visited his dad and stepmother. DC's dad has dementia and is thus somewhat confused and appears to confabulate. Yet I wonder just what the relationship between his experience and 'reality' might be. It's quite a question if one stops to consider it. As he has no real purpose there is a sense of waiting about him. Waiting for the next thing to happen, be it say a meal or time for bed. The comings and goings of people seem to exercise him greatly. Most of these people appear to be in his imagination. Again our passing through space and time both in the physical world and in our imagination is perhaps more of a question than we might realise. All this seems to point to our construction of self and its dispersion in dementia. Yet what is it that remains? Our Buddha nature, life energy, ongoing relationship with others? I would say a resounding yes! In a way I can see DC's dad slipping away and yet in another only the form has changed, there is no 'slipping away'. The visit made clear to me just how 'married' DC and I are and how his dad and I are without doubt bonded through that. As we left, DC's dad kissed me goodbye (he's not done that before) and I was moved to tears. I think (before 'enlightenment') we are all waiting in one way or another. And what we are waiting for is the acceptance found in unconditional love. Visible to me in our departure was the connection between the four of us, a connection which at root is this love. Like views up the mountain this love can be seen with degrees of clarity (and sameness). I once directly experienced it as God's love (though it is perhaps better not to try to speak of such things). And I'm quite convinced that our everyday experience of the bonds of a family are of the same love if a different view. I've experienced my own self being somewhat shattered by stress and ill health and yet the glass is not wet by the water, the mirror reflecting experience is not shattered though it does reveal the shattering. Will I wonder, 'I' ever experience that love and the mirror together as my True Self? Not one glimpsed in the other but the unbounded. Paper does not refuse ink, it accepts all, like the mirror, like unconditional love. My experience still contains this duality of loved and lover yet it feels cut through with one. Yet not (yet) One.