A week with Brendan on his farm

A wonderful week with Brendan.

Highlights

• Lots of very satisfying physical labour including installing a fireplace, clearing a canopy of fallen trees and clearing a fence.
• Being inspired by Brendan with DIY.  There's nothing you can't do with the right outlook.
• Getting to use a chainsaw for the first time. I loved it!
• The delicious creme brulee tarts and doughnuts at the local bakery - and the even more delicious woman who owned it.
• A lovely swim on the last day and leaping off the pier.
• Meeting Brendan's old neighbour at his restaurant and the amazing cheese platter we enjoyed with some lovely wine.

The house

Things we worked on: Clearing trees, installing a fireplace, clearing gutters, taking down a fence.

We cleared old trees to create lots of firewood.  I had my first experience of chainsawing!

Brendan at war with his nemeses.  Blackberry, weeds, thistles and bracken.

Bails of grass.

A swim at the beach nearby.

Hi there guys

At last some good Internet connection and a chance to say hi. 

I'm having a wonderful time on the farm. 

It's a paradise place with rolling, grassy hills and a forested gully running through it. And it's so amazingly quiet. Apart from the beautiful silence, nothing but bird songs and cricket chirrups to listen to. 

I've been doing loads of hard physical labour. Cleaning and installing gutters. Installing a huge fireplace in the farm cottage. Clearing fallen trees (I've become a chainsaw wielding fiend!).  And most fun of all, taking down fences to open up the farm. It feels like rural Feng Shui. Each night I go to bed at 8 pm and sleep like a baby. 

Brendan and I are having lots of fun exploring the local eateries and enjoying local wines. He's a wonderful guy with an amazing sense of humour. A great connection. 

I hope you're all well. I'll be sorry to miss Eckhart on Tuesday. I will be thinking of you all.

G

Ball's Head with Sharon

A beautiful relaxed day with Sharon and Mackie.  Look how comfortable he looks!  

Meeting up for breakfast with the hiking gang

Love this Jo !

Le Perouse with Srini

A lovely day out with Srini doing one of my favourite walks.

Matric dance

Here's a photo that Jane found and shared on Facebook.  What great memories!

Jane:  "Look what I found today, Graeme M. Oh my we look so young."

Graeme: "I love it !!! Look at all that luscious hair I had. Thanks for bringing back a beautiful memory."

Manly Scenic Walk

A lovely day re-uniting with old hiking friends who I haven't seen for ages and having some special encounters with lizards.

 I was inspired to learn a while ago that lizards have oxytocin in their bodies, the same "love hormone" that helps us to experience the beauty of love and connection.  We hot blooded beings don't have a monopoly on such things!  

Matthew in heaven

Waves

By being a tranquil space for the waves that flow into and out of our lives, we learn to ride them with a beautiful grace; even the mighty waves that seem unsurfable at first.

As the practice deepens, we merge more and more with the immense ocean currents that give rise to the very waves themselves.  And so we become instruments for the endless, loving power of the ocean to surge through us like a spring tide.

To recognise our oneness with the exquisite oceanic force, we don't need to search with exhausting kicks along its turbulent surface.  By Grace, we surrender and sink effortlessly into the serenity of its depths where we are embraced by a love vaster and deeper than even the ocean itself.

Written: 2016

Balls Head and Berry Island

Challenges (2016)

Challenges

• 4 story flat next door + development behind
• No hiking - housebound with house
• Strong fatigue with meds, life becoming little
• Scarcity - "new reality"
• Self conscious - no conversation. 
• Brain - bad memory / RAM
• Trump and Brexit
• Dani profile pic

Resentment

• Resentments - Sue
• Liza and the vet
• Resentment - Chris (taking over conversation at Eckhart)
• Resentment - J (not sharing)

Cape Town

• Reduced Zyprexa increased obsession?
• Knock nose at Silvermine
• Heart hiccups
• Money from trust. Resentment with mum for her silence.
• Sharmista leaving (and not paying rent)
• Srini leaving ?
• Chrisel boyfriend
• S longing
• Scarcity verse South Africans.  "Lost so much."
• Getting older: appearance, wrinkles under eyes, losing out sx
• Stomach fat

Experience from a Deck Chair

I was looking out into the sky from my deck chair on my balcony.  I had an immense sense of being the space (created by the eyes looking out from the head that  could not see itself) in which the clouds and other forms like birds flying by were arising and subsiding.  I got a sense too of any thoughts that arose as coming into the space from "out there", rather than emerging from within my head.  They just passed through without getting stuck.

What made it so much more powerful was the sense that I was pinned to the very edge of the universe looking down into the universe (my part of it, my world).  It was such a strong sense that it gave me a scary and yet delicious feeling of vertigo.  I felt my back (which I  also could not see, and never can, no matter where I am) merging with an infinite Space behind me. A Space far vaster than the universe itself (my field of experience).  It felt as if the universe, as immense as it is, was contained in a sphere and I was pinned to it's outer surface with my back merging with the infinite nothingness (formless Consciousness) outside it.

I felt the space in front of the eyes (the space in which all forms arise and subside) merging with the infinite Space behind.  The more I sensed the Space behind merging with the space in front, the deeper the sense of expansiveness I felt and the more I sensed that I was that Space.  I felt tapped into something vast that was immensely peaceful but also immensely intelligent.

I still have this sense now (not as strong) when I anchor myself in the body and look out of my head into the space that contains my computer screen.   A space of awareness in front, and a sense of  vast space behind.  The forms in the foreground (arising and subsiding) AND an infinite Space in the background, both merging with each other through the aliveness of the body.


Reflections From A Deck Chair 

I gaze into the sky below
stuck to the ceiling of the world
by an invisible force
that makes leaves fall in autumn,
breasts sag with age,
daredevils hurtle from planes,
water cascade into ravines,
chairs collapse under the fat,
snow avalanche from cliffs,
rain patter onto roofs,
and ostriches stay earthbound
as much as they might want to fly.

Written: 1997 (on a holiday in Turkey)