sore legs

Today I undertook a three and a half hour walk from Ely to Waterbeach, following first the river Great Ouse and then the river Cam. It was a good walk though I was knackered by the time I wearily sat down on Waterbeach station.

I then took the short train ride into Cambridge and checked out the second hand bookshops, finally coming away with Lama Anagarika Govinda’s ‘The Way of the White Cloud’, which look like an excellent mix of travel-adventure and mysticism.

music on a may afternoon

It’s taken me a long time to get to grips with classical music. At times I thought I’d never really ‘get it’, whatever that elusive ‘it’ was. But in the last 18 months or so I’ve amassed four classical CDs:

Cecilia Bartoli – Gluck Italian Arias
S.Rachmaninov – Vespers
Mozart – The Marriage of Figaro
Beethoven – Late String Quartets

I’m not sure if there’s a pattern emerging in my purchases, perhaps a classical buff could tell me. What the four have in common is an ability to touch something deep in my centre, my heart…my soul, if you like. I feel a response…something stirs. The only other music that does this to me is Jazz; Thelonious Monk, Miles Davis and Charlie Parker are my holy trio.

Punk rock also stirs me but the feeling comes from the lower section of my body, the groin, the abdomen, powerful, aggressive, different to (and no less valid than) classical and jazz.

Post punks and non-dual tigers

I was going to write something about Simon Reynold's 'Rip It Up and Start Again - Post Punk 1978-1984' but I'm feeling too sleepy so I'll leave it for another post.

Instead I'm going to quickly copy out this quote from 'I am That' by the great Nisargadatta Maharaj:

"Imagine a dense forest full of tigers and you in a strong steel cage. Knowing that you are well protected by the cage, you watch the tigers fearlessly. Next you find the tigers in the cage and yourself roaming about in the jungle. Last - the cage disappears and you ride the tigers!"

This is the theory and practice of meditation.

Flowers of Emptiness

Just finished ‘Flowers of Emptiness’ by Sally Belfrage. The book, written in the late 70s, is about the author’s two-month stay at the Poona ashram of the now deceased Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (Re-branded as Osho after various scandals). Belfrage went to Poona a hardline sceptic and returned to the UK with a changed mind but still critical of Bhagwan and his set-up. She was later involved at Greenham Common and died in 1994.

I’m something of a collector of books about people’s experiences with spirituality and am particularly fascinated with accounts ofgroups with cultish leanings, and this book covers both. The recently published ‘My Life in Orange’ by Tim Guest covers similar ground to Belfrage’s account, though over a longer time span.

The Bhagwan never convinced me, his writing always seemed a hodgepodge of various traditions, and I’ve never read anything original by him. From what Belfrage says, it was the man himself that had something, you had to see him live, in the flesh, to get ‘it’, whatever ‘it’ was.

Sleepy

Stayed up until 1am watching the Election. Not sure why, guess I'm still interested in politics, interested in the stories and the stats. But only to an extent, then I get bored. Jo and I went to vote in a funny little portakabin somewhere in the far flung outskirts of Ely. I was going to give the Greens a little boost but they didn't have any candidates on offer! So what's a boy to do? I end up giving the Libs my X, hope they enjoy it.

Last night I dreamt about Gavin Self, someone from my childhood. I've not dreamt about him before, at least not that I can remember.

I came across a new word yesterday in a book I was reading but I can't find the sentence now. The word is Bruit and I'm going to bruit it here!

Wine or Tea? Which shall I choose?

That dream again

Last night I had my recurring dream again. I call it the 'stuff in my mouth dream'.

In this dream I'm always out-and-about somewhere in public when I realise I've something chewy in my mouth. It feels like bubble gum or toffee oreven gravel. I ignore it for a short while and then, surreptiously, start to trying to get the gunk out without anyone seeing.

I want to do something with this dream but what? Shall I try and act on it in the dream itself or dialogue with it in the Gestalt style while awake? If the former, what should I do? Swallowing the gunk feels like I'm suppressing the message.

Perhaps (in the dream) I should just stand there and sick all the stuff out, in front of everyone...get it all out and fuck what they think! Hmmm that feels good but does require a level of lucidity in my dreaming...well, I've done it before (lucid dreaming that is) and could do so again, with a bit of work.