Life Less Literary

After a break of a few weeks, I went to another lunchtime meditation at the Sheffield Buddhist Centre. I’d been to three previous sessions, Richard had taken the first one and then another guy (with adopted & un-rememberable buddhist name) took the next two sessions while Richard was on a retreat. I very nearly didn’t go today - after three sessions, it was beginning to seem much of a muchness, and although I knew I would get more out of it by repeated practice, I couldn’t really be arsed. So glad that I did - I don’t know whether it’s because Richard was ultra-refreshed after his retreat, or if the other guy just wasn’t much cop, but somehow the whole session just exuded energy.

We started with quite a long talk on ideas surrounding meditation - it was all stuff I knew already, but phrased in such a way as to prompt further introspection and discoveries from me. Richard talked about how meditation was about settling into yourself, just letting yourself exist, being content with what you found there, whether it be good, bad or indifferent. He mention a few days ago, when it had started raining after several days of glorious sunshine, and he’d thought to himself “this is England” - the same feeling as when, getting off an aeroplane, you smell the air and know that you’re home, for good or bad. I felt that so vividly (although to be honest I get a similar feeling when I step off a plane into a North African evening), there’s a song of Arthur’s “Where I Come From”, I dunno whether the lyrics really mean anything much (Arthur always denies that his songs have meaning, although they often feel to me very much like they do) but this particular song, there’s a certain kind of rainy/sunny inspirational wrapped-up mood I sometimes get into when this song just pumps through my head:

London loves us all
Feels warm against the cold for trying hard
Still no place like this, uh-huh
Speaks so honestly
Words imported cross the sea
Say nothing!
Still no place this this, uh-huh

Dries her tired eyes
With the flag of England, still she cries
Still no place this this, uh-huh
Singing Empire songs
That tune a verse too long for anyone
Still no place this this, uh-huh

A place where I can do no wrong
That’s how it is where I come from
Our smiles are short our winters long
That’s how it is where I come from

[and some more stuff like that…]

After the talk, we did some exercise - really gentle stretching stuff, after 20 minutes’ inspiring pep-talk it felt really good. And finally, we meditated for 25 minutes. Throughout the meditation Richard told us to focus on parts of our body, starting with the soles of our feet, working up to our scalps before returning to our hearts. In each part, we were to think about kindness and openness. By the end of it, my heart was bursting with kindness and openness, I felt full of love and good thoughts. I floated back home.

The blissed-out feeling seemed to tail off fairly soon, but I must’ve kept enough of it in me because the rest of the day was very peaceful and mindful of others. I picked up Rowan and Lola, made some dinner for Gill (with Lola assisting), and looked after the kids while Gill went to the gym, and I managed to find time to do painting with the kids, give Lola a bath (she was covered in paint head to toe), clean the bath out, mop the kitchen floor (also covered with paint)… and feel really good about it, especially after Gill praised me for being wonderful!

Dinner was gorgeous too, though very simple… perhaps because it was made with love and kindness. I made some polenta and then left it to solidify, made a tomato salad (the amazing Sicilian pumpkin-shaped tomatoes that I raved about this time last year are BACK in Beanies! They’re called Delizia and they are… delicious) - I halved the tomatoes, sprinkled them with salt and pepper, crumbled on some feta cheese (soaked for a while to de-salinate it) and covered the whole lot with olive oil and a bit of paprika. I also made a green salad - mixed baby leaves, watercress, cucumber and avocado with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. So… slices of polenta with the two salads (and a little more olive oil), and that was it. Oh, and gingery-almondy rhubarb crumble and custard for pudding. Mmmmm.

Downloaded a Chromo for my desktop - god knows whether this thing actually works (cure’s jet lag? Seasonally Affective Disorder? I dunno) but it certainly looks nice, is a much more fun way of telling the time, and seems to have a soothing effect on me - the blues last night were quite mellowing, and when I got up this morning and the bright yellow square matched the sun streaming onto my neck, it was splendiferous. Now it’s mellowed into orange, which also seems right for the time of day. Get one yourself and spread the word.

More photos, more Magna.

Mmm… gonna be checking this out regularly, get my munchies inspired by Google.

I’ve been lying in bed feverish for two days now, listening to the radio. Strange the distorted view of things that even BBC news gives you - I was under the impression that Iraq was… well, it was kind of on its way to “getting better” - some troublesome looting and rioting, teething troubles while the installation of the new regime begins. But this piece from the Guardian makes it clear that, if anything, the situation there is worse than at any time during the last few weeks (perhaps this is why it’s hard to get the truth):

Forty-eight hours after Baghdad was liberated - as President George Bush would call it - by American forces, the city yesterday was in the throes of chaos. Men with Kalashnikovs dragged drivers from their cars at gunpoint, babies were killed by cluster bombs, and hospitals that had carried on right through the bombing were transformed into visions of hell.

Floors were coated with stale blood, and wards stank of gangrene. The wounded lay on soiled sheets in hospital lobbies, screaming with pain, or begging for tranquillizers. Orderlies in blue surgical gowns shouldered Kalashnikovs to guard against marauders. Ambulance drivers staged counter-raids on looters to reclaim captured medicines and surgical supplies.

Amid such scenes of anarchy, it was not always clear who was responsible: US soldiers, unnerved by a spate of suicide bombings, who continued yesterday to open fire on civilian cars; the pockets of resistance by the die-hard supporters of the regime; the scores of armed Iraqis rampaging through Baghdad; or the unexploded ordnance strewn about the city. But Iraqis had a ready culprit: they blame America for toppling the regime of Saddam Hussein before it was prepared to deliver order to Baghdad.

<snip>

"It’s my country, and I hate Saddam," he said. "But why are they allowing robbing, why are they allowing people to set fire to buildings? Saddam was right to put those kinds of people in prison.

"I don’t like Saddam, I hate him; but when I see American soldiers I want to spit on them."

<snip>

Rawand’s father, Mohammed Suleiman, was inconsolable. "I am going to kill America - not today, after 10 years," he swore.

<snip>

Another doctor stepped out of the crowded ward, grabbing a cigarette from a passing ambulance driver.

"Where is freedom in Iraq?” he said. “Where?"

<sarcasm>Thank you, Mr Bush and Mr Blair, for making the world safer from terrorism.</sarcasm>

(BTW, The reason for my fever is that I’ve got gangrene too… well, that’s what it looks like. An exploded blister on my toe’s got infected, the infection’s spread to my glands, and I feel like a piece of shit. Much better than yesterday though, and the antibiotics are kicking in. Just glad I’m not in a hospital in Iraq. And glad I set up this WiFi network last week, so I can surf from my bed… though I wish typing were a little easier)