Signs and Sitting

If you are meditating and somewhere within earshot interesting things are going on, you will find your mind going there to check it out. No problem. If you do not resist the process, your attention will of its own accord return to your focus - your breath, or your own thoughts and sensations.

Lorin Roche
Meditation Made Easy, Page 123

I've been tagged by Neith with the Astroblogger meme. Variations of this have been floating around for a little while but this is a first for me. While I don't blog about astrology per se (not knowledgeable or orderly-minded enough) I am a keen amateur practitioner so, stealing Leslee's phrase, this blog has something of an astroflavour.

Here it is:

1. Pick up the nearest book (of at least 123 pages).
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people

It's been necessary to bend the rules. Never Let Me Go was definitely the nearest book to hand, but only has two short paragraphs at the end of a chapter on page 123 and too few sentences. At a second attempt I found three sentences on page 123 of a basic beginner's meditation guide. This book's great virtue is the emphasis on keeping things simple and enjoying the practice, and given the large dollop of inquisitive Gemini in my birthchart plus a mercurial Virgo ascendant the passage quoted is particularly helpful.

Unless I'm ill or travelling I sit pretty much every morning. Just for fifteen minutes or so but it's become an intrinsic part of my day, While I'm not a Buddhist - sometimes I wish I could sign up for something but that's a topic for another post - their meditation techniques work for me. So there I am in front of my altar, the thinking part galloping into the past and future, the meditative part noticing the fact then trying to bring the focus back to the breath. Where it stays for at least five seconds.

In the silence and space thoughts and feelings rise to the surface then fall away. Insights occur and truth asks to be faced. For this quarter of an hour I am physically quiet and still even if inwardly agitated and there is comfort and strength in that. It can be very peaceful sitting at the window with the faint background sounds of my neighbours starting their days. Very, very occasionally I do approach that place that lies beyond thought. Other days there is restlessness and frustration and the whole thing seems as rewarding and fulfilling as watching paint dry, yet I'd no more leave the house without brushing my teeth than skip this.

I'm groping for a final sentence to explain why I sit. Because I must. Just because.

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I'm not going to tag anyone but if you'd like to do the meme, with any slant or none, leave a note in the comments.

Perspectives

. Compared to the daunting size of some London art galleries the Welsh national collection is built on a human scale. The few rooms are relatively small so it is possible to do them all justice in a couple of hours and then, if you wish, to make a day of it and take in the museum part of the building. Just how museums and galleries ought to be. Having been duly beguiled by Renoir and rendered nostalgic by Sisley, I was jolted awake by a Welsh artist new to me, Kevin Sinnott. For a start, who could resist a painting with such a title? I love its size and energy, the crazy perspective and the unanswered questions, e.g. Why aren't they holding hands?

. After many months of almost no book reading, I've just finished Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go. Set in a dark version of the 1990s the story unfolds at a slow, painstaking pace and at the end left me uncomfortable but, goodness, it should be read. It won't be a hardship either as the book is beautifully written and from one perspective it is purely about human relationships and how we are each of us influenced and dominated by our pasts. That which isn't explained or which just filters through - to the reader as to the main protagonist and her fellow students - is the most chilling part of all.



. The visit to the Welsh national gallery allowed enough time to take in the Cardiff Bay development. The photo was taken at the Water Sculpture (yesterday without the water) and I wasn't the only photographer to be attracted by its hall-of-mirrors potential. It can make you visible yet invisible. A little like a blog.

More photos here.