Finally the snow pictures, well some of them anyway. Now the snow is gone, and a few days ago it was so ‘mild’ (that’s the word for it over here) that I was out on the bike in the morning without gloves and beanie. Positively basking in the warmth of 11 degrees above zero. That may not seem like much to you sunning yourselves down south but after a couple of days of below-zero it is almost tropical! So the snow is gone, and yesterday after two mild mornings it rained on me on the bike - all the way to Belmont. So much so that by the time I got to Rogers my jeans were soaked through.

At the beginning of the ride I was a bit upset – getting wet and annoyed that I hadn’t donned the waterproof overpants that would have keep me dry. And as I rode I started enjoying it. I started to let go of a sense of ‘badness’ about this rain – it is after all just weather. It changes. All the time. Snow, sunshine, rain, warmth, coldness, wetness, heat – it changes. That’s all. None of it is good or bad, it simply is the weather.

And what it happens to be when I am in it, is what it is. Like everything that seems outside of me, like everything that seems to surround me, and touch me, and effect me – all these things are just the way they are. And once I realise that I have a choice – that I either accept them, embrace them and enjoy them, or I struggle with them - then it is a choice I can make. Shall I fight against these conditions, seeing them as someway imposing themselves upon me. Almost as if they are happening against my will, or free of my will. Or shall I simply accept them, and accept that …

… the place where I am at any given time, and all that is happening to me in that place is of my choosing. Otherwise I would not be there/here, otherwise I could not be here/there. This is MY life. I control it. So I embraced the rain, enjoyed the ride. I got wet and  I rode in the rain, just like I got snowed on and rode in the snow. And I LOVED it!!

What a wonderful treat

x bhavatu sabbe mangalum x

Maybe I am what I am. Who I am.

I’ve let go, or perhaps I am in the process of letting go – of my want to spread the dharma.  Maybe I am simply what I am, and through being as fully that as I can, then that is all there is. That is all there is. That is heaven. And nirvana. And illusion. All of it.

And I am getting older. My hands are different now. Different to before. Different to yesterday. Different to the last time I looked. Always change. Always. Everywhere. Nothing stays the same. Noone stays the same.

We get old. That’s what we call it. That’s our name for this changing.

 getting old  ageing

Just a name for change. And change is neither good nor bad, good and bad, painful and joyful, happy and sad.  Change is happening, all the time.  Now. Always now. Never then nor before nor later, all of those. Change doesn’t stand still.

x bhavatu sabbe mangalum x

Hi all, you may have noticed (well I hope you have though no one’s said anything) that there have been a sight fewer post on here of late. If ever you want to hear more, read more about what’s going on for me, then just email me at onedharma@gmail.com and let me know and I will respond (in one way or another).

So it seems, the site has changed. The relationship between myself and the site has shifted. Now the site is much more part of the relationship between you and I. The number of posts and what they are about will be decided both of us. When you email me, I will interpret and translate your message into something to write about here. So (Kate in particular) be mindful when you email me (and I know some of you are thinking you’ll never email me again) because anything goes! Having said that, in all seriousness, email me, I am in need of the input!

Part of the reason for the shift is because I have once again begun gainful employment – that is employment that there is some gain in. To me. Something that I am choosing at this present time to do with this precious life of mine. Something I have chosen to engage in to enhance the wonder of all the moments I am given. In other words something through which I GAIN!

I am choosing to be a caregiver in the community visiting and caring for older men. Wicked!! Old men. I guess they are safer to look after than young men. Thinking about that – when do men become difficult to care for? When they’re babies they’re great. I think for me I have stuff about men aged between 21 and 35, somewhere in that rough age group. Must be that I am not that happy about myself during that time of my life? I used to dread the 13 – 20 year olds, but since raising my sons (and with much much help from Heather and Lauren and Daniel and Joseph and Clare), I no longer fear men that age. As I feared my sons becoming those men. Becoming me. I no longer see myself as anything other than wonderful in who I was and how I was during that time. I used to know myself as an angry, silent, bitter soul. Someone who hated his father, despite his father being the most gentle man. A gentleman, with a difficult path behind him, who himself had found some liberation, freedom from pain, and joy.

Anyway I digress, I am a community caregiver and so my time reality has also changed. I am out working in the morning and in the evening, with the middle of the day without structure. So that is now the best time for me to post -the middle of the day (no wait – that always was the best time for posting). It’s not about time. Its not just about time, it also about space. Hmmm I’m sounding just a little like some sort of scientist here. Einstein methinks, or perhaps more Bohm. Though all that maths – way too detailed and difficult for me.

Concepts I like. Concepts are easier than numbers for me. Concepts like Time and Space. Space as in my physical environment, that opens to, and opens up my senses. Now I am venturing forth much less, I am instead returning to familiar places. Going around in circles: Frank’s flat twice every day, at the same time, walking the same roads, or catching the same buses to get there and back every day. Malcom’s home three times a week. My space has changed to one which is repeated, in circles and cycles I am all too aware of.

Therefore the challenge for me is to be more mindful.  To see less of the cycle and more of the change. To see the difference as well as the sameness in each and every moment. I love it! Bring it on. What a great challenge – to raise my level of mindfulness so that I continue to be present in that which is familar.

The challenge for you is to remind me of this. Let’s see if you can do that? Perhaps by telling me what is changing in your life you will remind me to pay attention in mine! Whatever, it’s all good!

x bhavatu sabbe mangalum x

… now I can go for a walk [or play in the garden, or paint the hallway, or go to work]

To paraphrase one of my favourite sayings from Masahide

‘barn’s burnt down, now I can see the moon’

It is time to stop, or at least slow down. I am grateful to my poor worn-out laptop for making that abundantly clear. I have been in a wonderfully manic and intensely unstable place in the last few weeks. This has now settled, or is settling. It is time to be still once again and let my fingernails grow.

It is perhaps now time for less talking and more walking. Less commentary and more action. In the last 17 days I have written and published [note Marney, published] 27 posts.  It has been a period of quite intense activity. Of life full-on, and simultaneously commenting about life full on. I have loved it! It has been delicious in it’s ambiguity, invigorating in it’s intensity and enlivening in it’s instability.

And during this time I discovered (perhaps re-discovered?) that I am a writer. What a most wonderful realisation. And now it is time to reflect on the responsibilities of being a writer. I know this as I have started loosefiction. It is time to see, read and reflect on what I have written.

Loosefiction is dark. I was becoming aware of this, had spoken briefly to Cari about it, and then Marney affirmed it. It speaks of being surrounded by darkness, of violence. It is unstable, unpredictable. Points of view change almost randomly, and themes emerge and submerge without order.

Loosefiction is freeflowing and associative. I have no planned story, or even characters. It grows, moves, changes as I write it.  Marney told me that it reminded her of her dreamworld. It is like this, it develops as a dream does. Often tangential, or spiralling back on itself. 

It is a looking back, an excavation.  That is perhaps why there is so much darkness. I have spent some time in the darkness.  I have written about this earlier:

…as I have lived and changed the light has become more scary to me than the darkness. I grew to know the darkness so so well, I dwelt in it for many moments over a period of many years. The darkness was my retreat, my aloneness was my greatest weapon. It is the darkness, in the aloneness from which I forged my identity.

Now that I know the light, now that I feel the warmth that surrounds me, that is in me, I am not afraid or ashamed to return to the shadows. As I was when I dwelt there. Now I know that the two exist, light and dark, to illuminate each other. I am not afraid of the dark …

 … however that does not necessarily mean that it is right to simply venture there unthinkingly. Especially out in the open, in a way that anyone can follow. It is right that the time has come to slow down, to stop. I ponder where I am and where I am going.

So my friends, there will be a little less of me for a while. You know what to do.  Just let the love flow …

x bhavatu sabbe mangalum x

It’s Friday afternoon. I want to just stop for a moment and acknowledge the week that has been. It was a huge week for me. Now looking back I can see that I have been tireless this week.

The Glanville Trust is winding up. It will be no more in a few more days. It was set up some 6 years or so ago, so that mum could be cared for, so that she could die peacefully, in her own home, surrounded by people who loved her. She did. God bless her.

My financial situation is changing dramatically. As the Trust winds up it rewards me financially. Thank you mum. This is my inheritance. Thank you for all the gifts you bestowed upon me over those 88 wonderful years. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

My employment situation has changed. I now have an agent who organises and arranges any work for me. And I pick and choose as to when I want to work and what I want to do. I am a ‘free agent’ so to speak. This is a massive transformation.

The delicious ambiguity has receded. The mist has cleared for a time. I now know where I stand. I recognise and stand strong in my turangawaewae. Kia kaha, kia toa, kia manawanui. 

I have in the last week produced a huge amount of writing, on here, and in emails, on postcards. More than that I have realised a dream. My dream of being a writer. That is what I am. That is what I have become.

All this has happened this week. Today is October 31st. It is my father’s birthday. Today I also realise that dad has been absent from this site. He has been in the shadows. Behind the scenes, behind me. Always. Always there. He is, he always was, he always will be – a rock. My rock.

Dad died some 25 years ago. Dad, it is time for you to come to the front of the stage. Into the spotlight.

Dad, thanks so much for being so different.

Never before have I appreciated it so much.

I am my own man, a man like you

because of you

I love who I am

 I love who you were

x godbless x

x bhavatu sabbe mangalum x