Don't just DO something, SIT there

Since my last blog, we watch as horror descends on the Ukrainian people.  Military aggression and massive displacement of people has been happening around the world for decades, but this time it's on Europe's borders.  How can we presume to talk about it, safe in our homes when others are fleeing or waiting for the next bomb blast? Now, 'don't just do something, just sit there' sounds very hollow.  It is, because the opposite is always true too.   Action is needed -action that is a response or necessity arising from a situation.  Action is different from random and unfocused activities that serve as distractions.  But in this situation, what can we 'do' apart from donating money or signing up as volunteers in a war zone? There's two things we can do - and they bring together the both/and, the paradox of doing and not-doing.  We look within at the same time as looking outwards at our world.  I quote from Marianne Williamson's book 'The Gift of...

Standing under a blue sky yesterday, watching two buzzards circle and dance above the woods, I couldn't believe the wind had stopped.  I don't remember being so battered by continuous winds, speeds up to 80 mph - storm Dudley, Eunice and now Franklin.  Where do they get these names from?   Yes, one day's respite from the wind with a river much faster and fuller, but luckily no trees down here.   In the 1980's we sang a song about wind in our Osho music celebrations.  One of the many devotional songs with dancing.  This one went: Let the wind blow / take it all easy /  Let the wind blow  /  we're still alive......... Now was a chance to really experience this in our exposed house on the edge of the Preseli hills.  I hate strong wind. It's the nights I can't stand, the howling sounds, wooden house creaking, body feeling bombarded.  I get edgy and this time sleepless and jangled.  Still, I haven't got kids to educate at ...

Love is really a 'many splendoured thing', appearing in so many different shades and flavours.  Falling in love with someone special, loving your child, honouring a parent or teacher, enjoying and hanging out with friends.  It's St. Valentine's Day tomorrow - where romantic love reigns supreme in the exchange of cards, gifts and cuddly red hearts. Romantic love many centuries ago was different.  Troubadours sang about courtly love,  the expression of love that would never be answered in the flesh; unrequited love.  Part of the motivation of this was that the knight, the one pursuing his never-to-be-owned lady, could then discover a divine love within.  Great tales and songs of these lovers still exist today - Tristan and Isolde - is one.  Something in us is touched by romantic love taken to such a height that it seems not of the earth.  A love longed for, sacrificed for, but never attained in marriage or even a one-night fling.  It seems craz...

The first of February is special - a herald of something new around the corner, even if I don't know what it is.  Back in 1989 I did a three-week therapy group in Pune, India called 'Fresh Beginnings'.  Ever since I've had hints that February is bringing fresh shoots, new opportunities.  That group - a week each of Primal, Tantra and meditation practice certainly catapulted me onto new paths. Brigit is the Celtic Irish goddess of fire, fertility, cattle and poetry.  Aspects of her personality passed to the Christian saint Brigit (St. Bride) who lived in fifth-century Ireland.  She was so generous she drove her father to despair, freely giving away the family property to the poor.  Brigit - Goddess and human - embodies new growth, celebrating spring, planting seeds.  Spring is a generous season, giving away her fresh goodies.   I spent a few months on the West Coast of Ireland in 2001 and visited St. Brigit's Well on the coast of County Clare....