Thoughts from a nobody

Alert!

2011-09-09T19:37:00.002+01:00

The clouds are lying low in the sky: full cloud cover with bumpy cloud base. Monday next has an amber alert for the strength of the wind. They have alert everything these days. It's as if they are worried that if they don't give us a warning and something goes wrong, they will blame us for it. Probably nothing will happen. But we won't remember that they gave us an alert, nothing happened. We only remember when they don't give us one and it all goes terribly wrong.

2011-06-26T14:18:00.002+01:00

Watching teenagers out and about, image in front of their friends is sooo important to them. When you understand that, it explains a multitude of things and makes forgiving a lot of things easier.

2011-06-23T23:25:00.002+01:00

@ hj. take a break, my friend, you sound exhausted.. he will have to look after himself for a little while

2011-06-20T21:37:00.001+01:00

@oc: Sometimes - most times - we have to make decisions on imperfect information. Sounds like this will be one of them:)

2011-06-18T15:09:00.001+01:00

The Truthful Ones ultimately need no respect or validation from outside. You know who you are.

2011-06-10T22:54:00.001+01:00

@hc: As you are asking, no I don't believe in hell or a god who will punish you now or when you die. I do think you might be punishing yourself for things that you have done.

2011-06-10T22:04:00.001+01:00

@nj: That sounds so intense, like you could do with slowing down somewhat. Even if it is true love, may be if you were to spend just a little less time together it would allow you to see each other a little more clearly and not the living embodiment of your current battle?

2011-06-10T21:54:00.002+01:00

‎@hj: A string of angry thoughts does not mean you are evil. It just means you are angry. Don't add layers that aren't there. It just complicates things unnecessarily and makes you feel worse.

2011-05-29T20:01:00.001+01:00

@'diana' if you have found love with her, it is love.. it doesn't matter what people say about it...

Teenage parents

2011-05-29T09:17:00.000+01:00

Sometimes I see teenage couples out with their child who are so breaking the mould of the stereotype prevalent here (UK), i.e. degenerate teenagers falling into accidental pregnancy. Sure, there is plenty truth in the stereotype, but it's wonderful to see a couple of ninteen year olds who look like their toddler will receive every bit of care, discipline and common sense, no-frills parenting a child could ever need.

2011-05-22T11:30:00.001+01:00

@ds: Imperfection, ugliness and heartache is strangely part of Perfection.

2011-05-22T11:22:00.001+01:00

@kk, ppl say it doesn't matter, just choose one you like and stick to it. That seems quite sensible to me.

2011-05-22T11:17:00.001+01:00

@pl, no not darshan either, because I don't know what is it!

2011-05-22T10:59:00.001+01:00

@ot: did we make the wind blow or the seed pod fall or the ground hard so that it bounces? Find where these came from, then you will know...

2011-05-22T10:56:00.001+01:00

Let's start with@pl: No seriously, I don't so satsang. Who is there to do satsang for whom? May be I should ask you for satsang... :)

2011-05-20T19:48:00.001+01:00

Jack and Jill went up the hill to get a pail of water. At least that's what they told their parents.

2011-05-20T19:41:00.001+01:00

Latest news: chocolate is good for you!! Oh, am I supposed to get the evidence first? :-s

2011-05-20T19:36:00.001+01:00

@iy: It doesn't matter if you don't get a single reader for a year, just keep writing.

2011-05-20T19:33:00.001+01:00

‎@kp: Your goal is a noble on: just hold fast to it and trust that the way will show itself.

2011-05-20T19:30:00.001+01:00

@hj: Zen has nothing to do with archery, painting or the tea ceremony. But these all have everything to do with zen!

2011-05-15T19:58:00.001+01:00

@dela: no matter about your own gender; when you go deep within, you may fund gender just stops

2011-05-15T11:20:00.001+01:00

@pd: shooting and rockets are bad but adding my voice to the cacophany to say one is worse than the other? Solves nothing.

2011-05-15T11:09:00.001+01:00

@ju: yes I believe people see gods in visions. But that tells you nothing as to where these gods appear from.

2011-05-15T11:07:00.001+01:00

@ls: I can't condemn open relationships on religious grounds because i follow no religion. but they do seem potentially fraught sometimes

2011-05-15T11:05:00.001+01:00

test facebook

2011-05-15T10:58:00.001+01:00

(sorry, repeating) - yes it is ok to try n solve personal problems. Just see them for what they are. In tome, they may seem to lose their power.

2011-05-15T10:54:00.001+01:00

@yb, yes, fine to try n resolve personal problems. I do. But see them for what they are. At some point they may lose some of their power.

2011-05-15T10:52:00.001+01:00

@yb: no one can save the world alone, if indeed we could all agree what that would mean ;)

2011-05-15T10:49:00.003+01:00

@ls: *namaste*

2011-05-15T10:49:00.001+01:00

@ usually when the questions stop coming :)

2011-05-15T10:44:00.001+01:00

@dc: We cannot see the wind but we still feel its effects.

2011-05-15T10:41:00.001+01:00

USA - who am I to say? Yes it is wealthy, but only in parts. And look how many conflicts it is in, openly or covertly. Is that a blessing?

2011-05-15T10:39:00.001+01:00

India (repeat) - yes it does seem to be somehow fortunate / blessed that way but I have never been there

2011-05-15T10:38:00.001+01:00

lol, facebook needs a little break to catch up

2011-05-15T10:31:00.001+01:00

@kk: Yes, sorry, Sunday morning is my work morning but i can't get on line at work so switched this to morning today. Nothing much is fixed here :)

2011-05-15T10:28:00.001+01:00

@gm: Yes, e.g. Dogen (Soto zen) and Sri Ramana - different on the surface only. Underneath the same :)

2011-05-15T10:24:00.001+01:00

@rw: Yes, feel free to draw on many traditions. Take from them only what you *know* to the Truth. You'll find them to be all the same :)

2011-05-15T10:20:00.001+01:00

@rw: yes, personally i hear more in the running stream than I used to do in most churches, sad to say.

2011-05-15T10:17:00.001+01:00

@ many: Sri Anandamayi Ma - yes she is beautiful. And peaceful it seems to me.

2011-05-15T10:15:00.001+01:00

@gm: Ramana or Nisargadatta? It doesn't matter. Start with whichever speaks to you.

2011-05-15T10:14:00.001+01:00

@gm: That is Suzanne Foxton (look at my fb page). No I haven't read her book, but she knows more than I do :))

2011-05-15T10:11:00.001+01:00

@rt: I cannot condemn people who use animal skins. I sometimes eat meat.

2011-05-15T10:09:00.001+01:00

@john: I am sorry if this violates your idea of the Sabbath. Perhaps it is just 'being'?

2011-05-15T10:05:00.001+01:00

@quite a few: Be still and know that I am God. Ignore your brain seeking a definition of God. That's its job. Just *feel* God in you.

2011-05-15T10:02:00.001+01:00

@yd: Yes think of Jesus saying, look at the birds and flowers, they don't worry about tomorrow. The same applies here.

2011-05-15T09:59:00.001+01:00

@ju: I think it was Shen Hsiu before Hui-Neng and that he was called Jinshuu in Japan. Again I am sure this will be googleable :)

2011-05-15T09:57:00.001+01:00

@kk: No I don't think there is definitive right and wrong. But some solutions are more peaceful than others. Peaceful solutions derive from a peaceful heart.

2011-05-15T09:55:00.001+01:00

@tl: Vasanas: let them play out. Fighting them only prolongs their life and seems to create more.

2011-05-15T09:53:00.001+01:00

@ju: I think Guan-Yin, Kuan-Yin and Kannon (Japanese name) are the same, but I am sure you could check that on the 'net.

2011-05-15T09:51:00.001+01:00

@tl: Satsang is given by spiritual teachers of various sorts. I am not one of them :)

2011-05-15T09:50:00.001+01:00

@pp: My daughter says the ones that are cool are the ones that are not trying to be. Being attractive is the same?

2011-05-15T09:48:00.001+01:00

@dk: Read, study, google, follow all you like. In the end you have to bring it all together in one place and make up your own mind.

Dream

2011-05-10T19:28:00.001+01:00

I dreamt last night that someone called Linda Mxxxx was calling me but didn’t know who she was. But when I woke up, I realised she might have been at my primary school when I was about 6 or 7, but a year or two older than me. My Mum says, yes,she was and she later married someone on my Dad's side of the family - I never knew that! - and is now a grandmother :)

Morning walk

2011-05-07T09:39:00.001+01:00

A short walk in the rain this morning. The rain was pretending to be busy after its no-show in march and april but it's fooling no one. Wood pigeons dominated the Dawn chorus. Muntjacks braying. A grandmother clock chimed six as I walked up the old street to the church. The churchyard still has it's wedding bunting.

2011-05-01T10:53:00.001+01:00

Whether or not the new Bolivia law works, we have the IDEA, now, that a new way of living can be embedded in our legal / political systems.

The decline of the US

2011-04-29T10:15:00.003+01:00

Symptoms:

China owns so much of the US's debt

Talk of US$ dollar no longer being the oil currency or the global reserve

Huge US debt: hidden risk that US might default if economy starts to unravel.

Losing control of vassal Arab states to their people

China's economy to overtake US's sooner than thought: 2016? But declining relative share an indicator of decline? Yes, probably.

2011-04-08T20:04:00.001+01:00

Can we do tomorrow's Grand National on the AV system instead of first-past-the-post?

2011-04-08T09:33:00.001+01:00

Let's never think there is not another layer of physics to be uncovered. We are barely at the level of describing the universe, never mind explaining why it is like it is. http://ping.fm/OG4Jq

2011-03-12T10:58:00.001Z

Young woman on next table is reading The Bell Jar and not OK Magazine. Thank god somebody is.

2011-03-11T21:09:00.001Z

There is no path to Awakening.

2011-03-11T20:55:00.001Z

As a beginning to stopping worrying, stop worrying about anything that sees to matter now but won't matter after you are dead.

Zen: nice intro to zen...

2011-02-26T12:30:00.001Z

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XK_4Z5DZcNM

(3 mins long)

Vanishing Japanese woman

2011-02-24T21:32:00.002Z

1995 or thereabouts. I was crossing a big, spacious, white, well-lit ticket hall in a Japanese train station. Some small city or town somewhere. The names were quite hard to remember even then, but I can’t remember at all now. It was one of those halls where you have to go up the stairs to the platforms. I had just bought my ticket.

As I hurried through, a young Japanese woman sitting over to my left was looking at me. Blue duffle coat, red ribbon in her hair on the right side as I looked, so on her left side. May be a woman, may be a girl, depending, I would say 17 years old if I was forced to guess, something like a sixth former in England. Something still young looking, not quite adult about her.

As I moved her eyes followed. When I looked at her, her eyes lit up in a huge smile. It was as if she was trying to make sure I noticed. It was uncanny, Not like a moment of connection or a flirt but something of importance. Nothing to be done: I was on the late side for my train, hadn’t found it yet and couldn’t stop to chat. In fact, it didn’t cross my mind to do so.

I found the train and got on board. I found my seat which was on the right side of the aisle as I sat facing the front of the train. There were two seats on either side of the aisle and the window seat next to me was empty. As the train started pulling away, a woman’s voice said excuse me in quite a young voice and squeezed past me to the window seat and sat down. I paid no attention. Japanese women I found then were quite generally dignified and demure; and Japanese people generally very hospitable but nonetheless wary of gaijin (foreigners), especially away from the larger cities. So I consciously paid her no attention at all. Except that on her hair – right next to my face – was a red ribbon . And she was wearing a blue duffle coat. I instinctively looked at her face. The same woman as the ticket hall! She looked at me very briefly and nodded in a very definite and affirmative way as if to say “Yes, you are not mistaken!”. And then just as quickly she disengaged, pulled out a book, like an exercise book to write in and it was clear that there was not going to be any communication of any sort. There wasn’t any.

How had she managed to find me? And how come the seat next to me happened to be empty when the rest of the train was pretty much full? And how come she was sitting in it, given that we all had allocated seat numbers? She had been sitting off to one side of the hall when I saw her just after buying my ticket. I guess she might have been behind me in the ticket queue and deliberately bought the seat next to me and found some way to get extremely quickly to that seat in the hall and look like she just happened to be sitting there? Unlikely though, surely, if not impossible? Coincidence, then.

***

Being in rural Japan there was no English translation of any signs and I don’t read kanji. So as back up to recognising the kanji on the station signs I was counting the stops. It wasn’t far. Seven or eight may be. I stood up to get off the train. I could already see the sea, so I was reasonably happy that I was in the right area. As I left my seat, I looked down at the young woman with the red ribbon in her hair. No sign she would say anything, Fair enough. I got off. And I was clearly the only one who got off the train.

It was all a bit remote looking with long, featureless sand dunes. I was alone on the platform. It only took me only a few seconds to orientate myself, because unmistakably across the road was the long breakwater I could see on my map, running out to sea. I crossed the road from the station and started walking along the breakwater fairly quickly, heading out to sea. Quickly because I always walk quickly when I am on my own; and also because it was breezy and not that warm , being March. It was probably the longest breakwater I had ever seen, but then I am from a small island.

A 100 metres down the breakwater, still heading out to sea, I saw a figure up ahead, walking in the same direction as me. I was walking much faster than ‘it’ was. As I approached from behind, I could see it was probably a woman, shorter than me, wearing blue all over. Except that as I got closer, I could see she had a red ribbon in her hair. The closer I got, the more I was convinced it was the woman from the ticket hall. Who had also sat next to me on the train. Another weird coincidence! Except that no one had got off that train with me, I was sure of that. And even if she had, I was walking so much more quickly than her, she would have to have got into a car or something to get so far down that breakwater so quickly. But that was nonsense. There were no cars. Not even a bike. No people. No nothing. The whole place was totally deserted. Except for her and I.

What should I do as I passed her, as I was surely going to? Ignore her, taking my cue from her silence on the train? Say hello? I was already thinking I might be scaring her by walking up the breakwater behind her with no one else around. I walked on the opposite side to her so that I wasn’t looking like I was trying to creep up behind her. I was somehow trying to alert her to my being there, so that I wouldn’t make her jump as she realised. With the wind it was harder to make a sound to alert her.

Soon I was passing alongside her, may be 2-3 metres apart. It was so clearly the same woman from the station and the train. Without stopping we both did a comical sort of quarter-bow which was little more than a nod in my case because I am no expert at bowing especially on the move. No big smile this time, but the feeling of it was both polite and light-hearted at the same time. Still no indication that she wanted to communicate. Again fair enough. We had acknowledged each other politely: that was enough I felt. At the same instant I was aware we would both reach the end of the breakwater sooner or later and meet there; or else I would meet her on my way back from the end. It made me think “ How will I handle that?” It’s like corridor syndrome as you approach someone in a long corridor and know there will be that awkward moment. Thinking about this, I instinctively glanced back almost straight away, may be a second or two after I had passed her . No one there. She was gone.

It was a long straight breakwater, she couldn’t have gone ahead or turned back. It was may be 20 feet (six or seven metres high) with the sea either side at that point. Could she, in a instant, have vaulted fully clothed in a duffle coat over the rail into the sea? I am convinced that in that one or two seconds, being still so close to her, I would have heard or felt or sensed that big a movement. Any anyway why would she? And if she had, there was no sign of her in the sea and there were no nooks or crannies to hide in.

This young woman who had smiled broadly at me in the train station; who had taken the unoccupied seat next to me on the train without saying a word; who had mysteriously managed to find her way at lightning speed along way ahead of me on the breakwater – had vanished. Just vanished.

For some reason, I have resisted writing this down for about 15 years. As I do, it sends shivers all through me.

Africa / Middle East democracies

2011-02-24T18:47:00.002Z

How will it look for yours truly if new democracies spring up along North Africa and the Middle East while the two gloomiest prospects are Iraq and Afghanistan?

Africa / Middle East democracies

2011-02-24T18:41:00.002Z

From here, it looks like Wisconsin workers are braving up on the back of Arabs standing up to their dictators. Is the Arab world in the process of exporting some democracy to the US?

Zen and goals

2011-02-22T14:44:00.001Z

Julian Mauger 22 February at 14:43

I certainly don't think it is necessarily incompatible with zen practice to have goals, simply because as you rest more in that Silence (which may be holding a maelstrom at that point), concepts such as good and bad and goals start to lose their grip, their meaning, anyway. Goals start to seem less relevant. The Diamond Sutra (in a good translation) gets you there. Adyashanti and Gangaji (YouTube!) are both pretty good on this sort of subject if you prefer video to reading. Adya started with intense zen practice for years and you can see in him some of the patterns of Chinese / Japanese and modern day zen stories.

Zen practice

2011-02-22T14:33:00.003Z

Julian Mauger 22 February at 14:10

On the last point, there seems to be an underlying Silence (call it what you will) that holds everything including all activity, all phenomena, all mind and thoughts and feeling and what we usually call silence (which is just gaps in noise or thoughts). So meditation allows 'you' to remember that by sinking down into it. Disengaging from the world and / or meditation sessions like zen seem to work for some to allow that remembering of the Self, the Silence. But the Silence is always there unchanging. My 'practice' has gone from sitting meditation (zazen) and TM in the 1980s to something that has no structure which is a continuous remembering of that Silence or being in that Silence, regardless of what is going on around me. People labelled as enlightened tend to talk about a realisation that the Silence IS you and that everything else happens in that Silence, including the person that you currently call 'L' - which is a long way of telling you how my pratice has played out. :))

Julian Mauger 22 February at 14:15

From practice, I have learnt that practice is something that may or may not result in 'enlightenment'; that enlightenment comes to some without practice; that practice is something some of us do and some of us don't; that there is no single best way; and that the way that you practise is the way that you practise. Also that there is no escaping the 'return to the market place' as (a) it happens to you sooner or later anyway; and (b) anything that you want to call spiritual attainment isn't unless it is sustained in any and every situation from a silent cave to the midst of an earthquake.

Human evolution

2011-02-18T10:33:00.002Z

Can we push along the evolution of humans rather than leave it to chance? If we can, can we guarantee it will be positive?

False gods

2011-02-14T08:37:00.002Z

Better to live with no god than with a false god. If there is true god, It will not mind that you have not discovered It yet.

Yahoo Pipes

2011-01-29T13:36:00.002Z

Using Yahoo Pipes to build a newsfeed aggregator for school policy issues.

Life - undescribable

2011-01-16T16:32:00.003Z

The potential of life is here in a way that will not express itself in words.

The scrap metal man

2011-01-16T14:49:00.002Z

The scrap metal man is ringing his bell in the street outside my house. How the old and modern mix these days!

Bodhisattva

2011-01-16T12:22:00.002Z

If you aren't sure how to live, try being a bodhisattva, until you find a better way.

Teachers / gurus

2011-01-09T13:42:00.006Z

In swapping notes on zen etc, I have been asked on more than one occasion who my teachers or gurus or influences are. This is my off the cuff reply today, guess I probably missed one or two important ones...

On the teachers aspect, it helps to say first that I read around the subject for so long that some of the externals of zen, tibetan buddhism, advaita / non-duality, Taoism etc dropped away for me and then the essence of each became clear as one single essence. At heart they all point to the same thing and if that is not apparent then clearer sight is needed...

So the tradition of the teacher became much less relevant to me, as long as they were still with that essence and not departed from it. In that sense my teachers are Shakyamuni Buddha (not least Diamond Sutra, Heart Sutra); then in the zen / ch'an tradition for example Hui-neng (Alter / Platform Sutra); Dogen Zenji - Shoubougenzou-zuimonki and others, Yung Chia - Song of Enlightenment, Keizan Zenji - the Denko(u)-roku; Fayan, Foyan, etc etc and may be Xu Yun in the modern era but not so much. I was first attracted to Lin-chi (Rinzai)'s zen but later felt
Soto (Soutou) zen was closer to the essence of it all, though in truth they are just different ways of pointing at the same thing. And more in the Taoist line, Tao Te Ching, the Gateless Gate, Hsin Hsin Ming - the Book of Nothing, Chuang Tzu - the Empty Boat. My modern era teachers are mostly more advaita style such as Sri Ramana Maharshi, Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj. And of those living, Mooji and Adyashanti put me back closest to Ramana and Nisargadatta.

The last two I have seen only on video. So all in all, I've never had a teacher 'in person'. For some reason I also feel Sri Anandamayi Ma is special to me too (hence the profile pic). Though she doesn't leave such a coherent body of teachings as far as I know, she just embodies them. There are others of course, but these are the ones that come to mind today....

2011-01-09T12:09:00.002Z

Finished "We" by Yevgeny Zamyatin.

Chez Sirene

2011-01-09T11:46:00.002Z

I have somehow managed to post my status as "Chez Sirene" for a whole year without anyone asking me what it means :))

Living in the gender wasteland

2011-01-07T21:19:00.003Z

This link is interesting in being (as I see it) quite an early article on what it means not to fit into the assumed gender binary and in some cases not to have a gender at all. I am not sure ppl use the term 'intergendered' any more, but that's just a label. The article still makes sense and gives a feel for what it's like to be of now fixed gender (like me).

You might need to cut and paste the text onto another background or MS Word do because the lack of contract makes it very difficult to read!
http://cydathria.com/ms_donna/intergen.html#&springclipped

Nothing is ever definitive

2010-12-31T12:34:00.002Z

The worst sin of all is to not to voice a strong opinion or to contradict others, but to have an unshakable belief that you are RIGHT. In any case, nothing is ever definitive.

Control is an illusion.

2010-12-27T14:07:00.002Z

Sex on music videos

2010-12-27T13:44:00.002Z

Is the phenomenal amount of sex on music videos a sign of greater sexual expression or a result of entrenched sexual repression?

Causes

2010-12-27T13:23:00.002Z

So what are the causes of today? Nine men appear in a London court charged with trying to cause explosions. Tens or hundreds of thousands are out competing for bargains in the sales. Some Next stores opened 5am today with several hundreds shoppers already waiting. While some ride the waves of western capitalism, others seek to disrupt or destroy it.

It's tempting to find a cause to try and find a cause to give life more meaning, but people who do that often end up over-zealous and things get warped and go awry.

Smoke in a goldfish bowl

2010-12-22T17:14:00.001Z

The universe is smoke in a goldfish bowl, endlessly changing with no sense of aim or goal or morality; no sense at all in fact. Human history has no inherent meaning. Moreover, there is no end-point; only endless mutation of circumstances. Unless of course we mean the end-point of human history and experience which may of course come. There is no imminent second coming; no instantaneous transformation of consciousness in 2012; no blessed millenium on the way. Sorry.

But the goldfish bowl might be a single undivided wisdom in which everything appears...

The return of a matriarchal society?

2010-12-21T15:05:00.018Z

I keep seeing opinions that women are getting ahead and taking more power, even that a matriarchy should be one day established - or will be.

Even if we knew what that meant and how that might happen, it seems to me that some of the women taking power or getting ahead in the public eye are just doing so by replicating what men have done before them. And look where that has got us.

I find the idea of moving towards parity between men and women unconvincing because it's about parity between two seemingly still-separate groups of people. That’s not to say more progress won’t be made on that front. Rights are an important and rightly hallowed tool in enabling everyone to have fulfilment or the opportunity for fulfilment in life. But there is space too to rise above building equalities into every structure and to find - for women to find - other, possibly more organic structures that don't require the destruction of the old ones, but just leave them looking a bit yellowed with age and irrelevant.

Any system that has to enshrine behaviour in law to make it happen is there because we are not doing it naturally, out of our own values and beliefs. May be instead we pin our hopes less on a rights-based belief in equality and more on work to bring about a fundamental shift in the values under-pinning our societies towards what are called 'feminine values', though probably wrongly as these can and do reside in many men.

It is after all open to everyone to create and shape values in this world. It is open to every man to show respect for women.

One random post I read said that some things will always be done by men, including fighting the wars. Well, let’s not believe on some unachievable utopian ideal, but if wars are to be built in and assumed into some new matriarchy from the outset, then that's a total failure of imagination and surely makes the proposed, new society not worth pursuing.

Let's forget the idea of men somehow abdicating power or some sort of coup or power grab by women. That belongs to some fantasy realm and it ain't gonna happen under current conditions.

What can be the stimulus? Feminism alone doesn't look like doing it. It all seems very unlikely without some major upswell of the need for 'something to be done' to solve some major crisis or societal upheaval. This might do it if previous governments or power structures are seen to be at fault, and especially if the fault is associated with male values and by implication men, e.g. being too macho, too competitive, too prone to war.

So could the rise of many, small-scale parallel structures with entirely different (so-called) feminine values aggregate into a wider shift that allows that sort of major change to happen or even precipitate it? A gradual flow of power to much smaller communities, where values of co-operation and mutual self-interest might be seen to work and so prevail, being less likely here to be overturned by corporates and national governments? May be.

Where this is already seen to work, I get the impression that the women there seem strong enough to confidently accept it when men defer to them, without becoming 'patronising' or condescending; without wanting revenge for men's past aggression or misdemeanours; and without berating those who do not defer to them.

Conversely, since fulfilment is for all, women and men, only men lacking confidence in their own personal power need worry about the greater prominence of women in society.

That in itself would be a positive shift in values from what we have now and will be self-reinforcing in that both men and women will see the benefits and may look for more of it.

Coming out: an old, sad idea

2010-12-21T13:35:00.003Z

"The very concept of coming out is an old, sad idea. That normal is being straight? And everything else can be summed up in LGBT... TQQIIA... This is about how identities cannot be summed up in letters... I can be none of the above." For more, see:
http://ping.fm/XWuhb

The moon, not the moon.

2010-12-20T20:23:00.002Z

I saw the moon rising this afternoon as I walked home... full moon rising exactly straight ahead of me .. I realised in a deeper way that the moon doesn't know it is the moon; that the 'moon' is not even the moon - that is just the name we give it. It is not a separate thing. Our minds just see it that way. It is just is-ness being.

Surviving a gas leak.

2010-12-20T17:44:00.003Z

Facebook status, Sat 19 December 2010:
"This morning we woke up to the smell of gas. Got out of the house. Gas board arrived and said it was at 'explosive level' and we couldn't go back in. Eight hours later we have just got back into the house. We are now cooking dinner for friends who arrive in 90 minutes :))"

It turns out that the gas main had cracked right outside our house. Gas had leaked through the electricity duct into our garage. Then filled up the house with gas. And some of the next house too.

On the way out when we were evacutaing, my daughter asked "Daddy, are we going to die?"

Premonition?

2010-12-20T17:21:00.003Z

This morning went to the supermarket on the way home. Bought a few things and decided to get also some Lucozade for my daughter and three rolls of extra Christmas wrapping paper.

Got home had lunch. Was sitting at home at about 2pm, wondering whether to go out and meet my wife and daughter who (my nephew had told me) had walked to the local G. shopping centre. Had a feeling that my daughter was breathing painfully. 2.10 pm Decided to walk to the G centre too with her inhaler. She has an inhaler but I can't remember the last time she used it so it felt like the wrong thing to take. Also felt like I was walking the wrong direction. Never mind. Not much I could do.

Got to the G centre. Couldn't find them. Phoned home. They had already got home. They hadn't been to the G centre after all. My wife asked me to buy some Lucozade. Then she phoned back: asked me to get some wrapping paper. Of course, I didn't bother as both items were sitting in the boot of my car parked near my house. [I also bought a new phone charger from a market stall because my phone is out of action and I haven't been able to find the right charger in any shop.] Walked home.

Seems wife and daughter went to W instead of the G centre. My daughter didn't feel well, though. Apparently had a pain in her chest. I asked what time. About 2pm. Weird.

Wikileaks: nuclear material

2010-12-20T11:07:00.002Z

Once again wikileaks confirms what we guessed: that nuclear material isn't always well guarded, that personal greed is a factor; that it is smuggled across borders with worrying regularity (once is too often). Advice to my daughter? Live in the countryside; find your own water source and generator; collect seeds; learn to grow your own food.

Julian Assange: values

2010-12-19T15:54:00.002Z

History in the making. "Capable, generous men do not create victims, they nurture them". J Assange.
http://ping.fm/OpIwW

The Turner Prize 2010

2010-12-06T20:45:00.002Z

The Turner Prize: the Emperor's New Clothes. Without the Emperor.

Stirring (haiku)

2010-12-06T11:40:00.002Z

World hard-set in ice.
Crows take hurriedly to flight.
Something is stirring.

Nothing exceptional

2010-12-06T11:38:00.002Z

There is nothing exceptional about my loves, my fears, my anxieties, my moments of compassion, my excitement, my dullness. Except that they are all threads in the magic carpet of life...

Poland

2010-12-06T11:05:00.002Z

Just talking to someone about Poland... there are somethings about Oswieicm / Brzezinka that one cannot forget .... especially knowing the Polish POWs were marched down our streets and the Nazis could have sent my family to Dachau almost on a whim...

Life without war?

2010-12-06T10:59:00.002Z

Although I heard several IRA bombs in the 90s, I have been blessedly unaffected by war, at least not war in my lifetime. My Belfast friend believed no one could go through life without experiencing a war first hand. I WONDER...

Wikileaks

2010-12-06T10:56:00.002Z

Will wikileaks change the course of world history? For the better or worse?

The non-importance of my life

2010-12-04T21:37:00.002Z

For as long as I imagine that my life is in the slightest bit important, it will never become truly meaningful.

Cacaophony

2010-12-04T16:22:00.003Z

My newly invented word for today - CACAOPHONY: the loud hubbub in a coffee shop.

A meteor for me

2010-12-04T14:32:00.002Z

Years ago, I woke up in the night, looked out of the window to see the stars and saw a huge blue-green meteor go from behind, right over my head and nearly down to the horizon, Like Denise's thunderbolt, it was as if it was for my benefit. :))

Mentioning the Unmentionable

2010-11-27T15:36:00.002Z

I am am tempted to add to my facebook 'activities': Mentioning the Unmentionable

Favourite music (to be added to...)

2010-11-27T15:28:00.006Z

My desert island discs

Desafinado - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n81JA6xSbcs
Mari Boine Persen - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYevBLUtuLc
Bob Dylan
Leonard Cohen
Blondie - Parallel Lines
Fugees (version of) - Killing Me Softly
Mamas and the Papas - California Dreaming
Shostakovich - 2nd piano concerto
Vaughan Williams - 3rd Symphony; Greensleeves
Schubert - Ave Maria