Happy New Year and name the Cockerel

Think of a name for this smart boy

Dubai Skyline

 A lot changes in a year! See that great cockerel strutting around the garden with his string of women!  He was a home-hatched chick in the summer, one of a clutch which the grey hen behind him brooded over and of which two hatched.  We thought he was a hen until about 6 weeks ago when suddenly his feathering changed and he developed a long neck, spurs on his legs and now has a clutch of his own admirers, one of whom is his surrogate mother.  So this is him today, New Year's Eve and judging by his progress, he has an active romantic year ahead and he needs a name.  Can you think of a good one?  something topical for this year maybe?
And what of your year, what changes will you make? what changes will I make? what changes will happen whether we want to make them or not?  In the photos above and below you can see the Dubai skyline, not much of that was there 10 years ago, that tallest building in the photo above, the Burjkhalifa wasn't there until a smart ambitious Emirati decided to build the tallest building in the world and hey presto, up it went.  One job I wouldn't want in the New Year would be a window cleaner in Dubai!
What do you think was there at the beginning of time? Along with the sun, the sky and the earth, water and fire? What impulse set the whole lot dancing until we have all that we can see, hear, touch, smell and feel?  If you become very very still and listen and watch carefully, if you take time to go beyond all this wonderful world, you might have a  glimpse, a feel for a conscious being which can't be known through our ordinary looking.  If the wise who practice being still are to be believed, it is well worth the effort.  So, Happy New Year to all of us and good luck with whatever we undertake to change.

Dubai? Sinai? Home?

An amazing shop! 

Bird life

Well Your Majesty to comment further on your Christmas message,  I have to admit that here in Dubai, meditation doesn't seem easy but it is really the perfect place to reflect on life. And here is a quick round up of the fruits of that reflection!  People say they either love or loathe Dubai but I am wondering what there is to love or loathe? I am of a mind that it is wondering that we should be doing! And there is plenty to wonder at: the shops are definitely a wonder of a kind and the buildings and the roads are a wonder made by man.  But the fact of life thriving here is a wonder; the birds are a wonder, little partridges run across the sand, sparrows find restaurants a source of joy! there are finches and mynah birds and cats and rats! so Dubai is a place for all sorts of bird and animal life!  Then there are swimming pools and bicycle parks and places to learn to sail and this opens up swimming and sailing to little boys and girls who might otherwise not hear about them.  I think choosing Dubai as a place to live a life is no more or less than choosing a holiday spot, it is a chance to experience a few things that you might otherwise not.  However in Dubai, meditation is elusive, I nod off and it seems difficult to find any depth, maybe my lack of effort but meditating is like the sand itself, it doesn't have much hold.  When you walk around wondering at all this phenomenal stuff, it feels fleeting, as if a wind could blow it away and meditation is like that.  So, for a life or a holiday which has all the aspects of a dream, choose Dubai but make sure that you enjoy it, that is it's function.  For meditation, I am told Sinai is the place to go but that is another trip for another day and for today I am just putting my dream clothes into a suitcase and going back home where the Buddha from the bric-a-brac store will be waiting for us in the summer house in the garden and the dog will be lying on the sofa!

H M The Queen says it! Meditation she says

In her Christmas message, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-25492508 the Queen said the word!!! Meditation she said, right at the end alongside the words pause for reflection, contemplation and prayer.  Meditation isn't just the new cool, it is recognised by none other than our own HM, The Queen of England; she of the crown, the jubilee helicopter jump, the racehorses, the Christmas message and Buckingham Palace.  Her Majesty, grandmother of a few and great grandmother of about 3 (including Prince George the newest arrival into the Royal family), she said taking time to be quiet was good.  So yippee for royalty and yippee for Grannies and Great Grannies and yippee for meditation.  And Happy Christmas Your Majesty from several subjects in Dubai! You can see how many people have picked up this story, click http://www.webpronews.com/queens-speech-2013-meditation-and-baby-george-2013-12 And as well as this check out Gabriella's Christmas Carol.

Dubai Christmas, is it real?

boys in Church on Xmas Day

Grandpas wash up 

boys in the country outside Dubai

And then go to sleep

The best thing about Dubai is that it has sprung out of the sand and become a place of business, a place to live, a place to realise dreams and a place to visit your family if they live there.  Dubai city is so new and so outrageous in its ability to achieve the almost impossible that a cynic might find it phoney.  However, it just shows how dreamlike all the things we think are real are.  Once upon a time Westminster Abbey was new, once the huge stones at Stonehenge weren't there and you can bet that when those huge stones were rolled across the plain and when Westminster Abbey was built, someone was there saying the whole Stonehenge idea was impractical and the Abbey a bit over the top!  So, Dubai, thanks for showing just how a dream becomes a reality and for hosting a jolly nice Christmas which was probably much nearer to the weather and the feel of the original Nativity.  There was something very moving about attending Church on Christmas morning here, the story really came to life.   The idea that a complete and total realisation of God could become a human being and make the words grace, truth and love a way of life to aspire to seemed totally possible.

Was this what it looked like all those years ago? just between Oman and Dubai.

NELSON MANDELA ON MEDITATION

From a letter written by Nelson Mandela to Winnie Mandela whilst he was in Kroonstad Prison, dated 1^st February 1975

.  .   . the cell is an ideal place to learn to know yourself, to search realistically and regularly the process of your own mind and feelings.  In judging our progress as individuals we tend to concentrate on external factors such as one’s social position , influence and popularity, wealth and standard of education.  These are, of course, important in measuring one’s success  in material matters and it is perfectly understandable if many people exert themselves mainly to achieve all these.  But internal factors may be even more crucial in assessing one’s development as a human being.  Honesty, sincerity, simplicity, humility,  pure generosity,  absence of vanity,  readiness to serve others – qualities that are within easy reach  of every soul – are the foundation  of one’s spiritual life.  Development in matters of this nature is inconceivable without serious introspection, without knowing yourself, your weaknesses and mistakes.  At least, if for nothing else, the cell gives you the opportunity to look daily into your entire conduct , to overcome the bad and develop whatever is good in you.  Regular meditation , say about 15 minutes a day before you turn in, can be very fruitful in this regard.  You may find it difficult at first to pinpoint the negative features in your life, but the 10^th attempt may yield rich rewards.  Never forget that a saint is a sinner who keeps on trying.

Maybe Grannies have something to learn?

It is very easy for a Granny to think she has a bit of wisdom just because she has been around for what must seem like a long time. But wisdom is only wisdom when it has become a part of you and you don't even know you have it.  I have read and heard many wise things and they are helpful but perhaps the only real wisdom is realising what great big holes there are in your wisdom package.  For instance, today my life partner, aka Richard, picked up and read this passage from the twelfth chapter of the Gita, verse 13-14:

He who hates no single being, who is friendly and compassionate to all, who is free from attachment and egoism, to whom pain and pleasure are equal, who is enduring, ever content and balanced in mind, self-controlled, and possessed of firm conviction, whose thought and reason are directed to Me, he who is (thus) devoted to Me is dear to Me.

So, here is the Christmas task and the New Year resolution and a lifetime work because I can see great big holes in the wisdom fabric of my heart and mind.  Meditation must help this lifetime task of unpicking every conviction I have.  So good luck to all of us, him and me and Happy Christmas from us both.

Why Grannies meditate!

You might ask why would a Granny meditate? So just in case you might want to know here goes! 

Two Grannies plus a daughter

All Grannies and Grandpas have been children and teenagers, have fallen in love, have had families, careers and had a lot of birthdays.  Our passion now is more likely to be directed at gardening or card games or crosswords and when we write our Christmas cards, there are more and more gaps in our address book where friends and relatives have died.

Top dog

Your arm isn't your arm

There aren't many Grannies with their own parents around, we are the top dogs now but we know our turn to drop out of someone's address book will come.  If you meditate, this isn't such a gloomy option  even if you think you aren't much good at it, even if you think the rest of your life is a bit of a mess. When you meditate, however well or badly, you get a bit of distance between you and your so called life and you begin to see that you are the life that fills the body, that enlivens the mind, that directs the thinking.  You know that your arm is your arm but you aren't it!  Your mind is your mind but you aren't it!  All the things which seem so close up and real and belong to some part of your identity aren't you, they belong to you.

family group

So, what are you?  Meditation helps to see that the you that you really are is steady, it doesn't age, doesn't go in for success and failure, for highs and lows and has watched peacefully as you have whizzed through childhood, teenagerdom, adulthood, motherhood, grandmotherhood and every other hood you have become.  It is the other side of you but more quietly real and when you give up the childish part, the teenage part, the lover, the wife, the mother, the aunt, and then the granny, it just calls you back home.

If you are going on holiday, you prepare, you don't go and buy extra food and stock up your fridge, there is something rather satisfactory about the clean and empty shelves.  You prepare because you know that during the time you are away, you won't need things and you want to leave a clean space.  You get clever about not packing every piece of clothing and you buy a suitcase which wheels along behind you and isn't too big.  You think about what you can pass on to your children and grandchildren which might be useful to them, material things that you don't need, a bit of cash, some furniture, a picture or two and you hope that easing into your own freedom will help them to know that your life and theirs are the same life which comes to be lived and receives you and then them back and never ever comes to an end.

Meditation helps to realise this, it doesn't need to make you a holy Joe, it is really just common sense plus a bit of determination when you have twigged that there is one part of you which is real and another which is just your belongings.

Old and New inhabitants, Meditation and Houses

I live in an old house which is a bit like looking after an old person with particular needs! It used to belong to my parents-in-law and although I have lived here for over 20 years, changed various bits and pieces, it has a life of its own.  It warms to attention, responds to touch and duster, to hoover and polish and to people.   It dictates the pace, not too much change but enough to keep it welcoming and available to children, grandchildren and people who live nearby.
Meditation has a much longer history;  it goes back to the beginning of time and as I am told, must be the grandmother and grandfather of what we have now.  For many years, many centuries, it was the property of the ascetic, of the religious (or some of them!)  It was taken up by some, deplored by others, made exclusive by a few and more recently made popular via celebrities like the Beatles.   As with an old house, it has to be inhabited with respect by the new generation.  And every Granny wishes the best for her children and grandchildren and this one says that meditation is worth the effort it requires and could be said to be even more worthwhile than a house!

What you keep company with and Gabriella's song

In the Coke blog, there wasn't time or space to say that you need to be careful what company you keep.  So try this fail-safe test.  Take whatever you are going to do or eat or smoke or buy and ask  your self "how many people will this benefit?"  In the case of socks, you need them to keep warm and the sock manufacturer needs the money to keep paying his workers and to keep making socks.  Win-win!  In the case of most things you buy, they should benefit you and someone else.  And even the Christmas extras, the things you may not need to have but hey, its Christmas and that thing will cheer someone up and you too.  In the case of cocaine, as it stands at the moment, the benefit is only for the one person, the user,  and even that is questionable.  You might say it would benefit the dealer, he speeds off in his BMW and presumably if he has a family, he feeds them (and probably not coke!).  But, behind that world, there is a world of corruption and degradation which the dealer is probably involved with.  (If there are any honest dealers out there, I apologise).  That world has a reputation for dealing in people, in trafficking young girls and selling them for sex, young girls just the age of those the coke user may have just tucked up in bed.
You could say that the girls being brought from a terrible country were benefitting, coming to another country where there might be an opportunity to get things you couldn't dream of at home but I say this is a long shot.
If you keep company with people who are thoughtful and kindly and maybe even meditate, you are likely to have enough fun and enough food and you will protect your children from people who do bad stuff.
To cheer you all up after two blogs of unremitting concern and not much cheeriness, here is Gabriella, the magic person you read about in November singing a Christmas carol.  Now, keep company with Gabriella and you are really really lucky. http://www.reverbnation.com/gabriellaandtheplanets/song/19349487-the-angel-gabriel

Coke is not for drinking now! a WARNING

The newspapers aren't my only source of information but quite often they confirm something that has started to give concern.  Yesterday there was an article, a brave article by Lucy Cavendish about the trend amongst well heeled 40 year olds to not only use cocaine but do it openly, a sort of acknowledged sharing.  What struck me most was that the young women interviewed who said that it relieved her of the boredom of being "just a wife and mother".

There seem to be lots of them don't there.

So, thinking on…. In the little summer house where I meditate, there is a big box full of matches to light a candle in the darker afternoons.  I notice that when there are masses of matches, I don't mind how many I use, I might be a bit careless with one, not striking it properly and wasting it.  Some might fall out and I just scoop them back, not particularly looking for the few which might have fallen on the floor.  But, when there are only a few left and you haven't got any in the house, you are more careful.  This Swan Vestas observation points out how many things I don't value because I don't have to, I certainly don't think that matches everywhere might suddenly be in short supply and that I will be without the warmth and light they insure that I take for granted.  

When a 40 year old, bored perhaps of the ordinariness of life, snorts a line of cocaine, clearly they aren't thinking that the money they have spent on it is going to run out or even that their own health is likely to suffer.  Doctors say that the stress of snorting cocaine, your first line or your 1000th, puts a potentially lethal strain on your heart and that in the A and E department of St Mary's Paddington, so close to Notting Hill and the smart part of London,  as many as one in ten of the patients complaining of chest pain over a three year period, tested positive for cocaine.

So, Grannies everywhere, remind your 40 year old that their life is precious, that the money they earn is for bread for families, both their own and perhaps families in deprived areas.   Tell them about the time that Coke came in cans and its only danger was that it could rot your teeth and tell them too that however boring and hard the looking after children seems to be, they have the most important job, far more important than working in the city as a lawyer or a trader, their example will be the most important influence on their children.  Meditating might be a bridge too far if coke is your bag, but meditating even on the goodness of every day, might help kick some of the awful habits we have allowed to take root.