Sea Changes, She changes, do you see changes?

Grandpa strides into the sea

The sea which is always the same is always changing. That man striding into the sea is always the same but apparently changing too; from a young man on the brink of marriage taking his fiancée to see the North Sea to a Grandpa of some fine grandchildren, from newly employed to retired. And there is photographic evidence that once upon a time, that Grandpa was a small child and even a baby!  In Suffolk by the sea we visit a young woman who we have known since she was a child.  She has returned again and again to the shingle beach with her own children, naturally instilling in them a love of the great sea and sky, of an uncomplicated life.  She gives me tea while managing the children who range from 16 down to 6, all with different needs.  One needs her artwork looked at, one needs a film put on, one has to move for the film to be screened, one just wants a chocolate biscuit because her new friend next door has preferred her older brother as a playmate!  It was always thus and faint memories of being that mother return and I wonder how I ever managed juggling cups of tea and all the movement which children bring!  I am in awe of motherhood as it takes shape in a young woman with all the qualities needed to bring up a family, some instilled in her own childhood by her own mother, some new ones which we older ones either admire or worry about!  The eyes which are watching this change in their physical way are changing, they need the help of lenses to see the beauty out there, but the inner eye which is always watching, doesn't change in that way.  It simply sees and more and more how very beautiful everything in its proper place is.

It starts in the Heart

Ronnie attending funeral with friends!

We love our MUM, never mind
the rest of the people we didn't like!

It is the heart where it all starts; where all the feelings which bring about action and movement begin.  Everyone has a store of good heartedness and even a  criminal will probably love  their baby or their mother.  Think of the really bad  Kray twins, Reggie and Ronnie who, having killed, robbed and threatened more people than even they admitted to, adored their mother and used their hidden stash of cash to give her a  magnificent East End funeral  Their hearts were pretty over all black but even they had a little area in there reserved for their mother Violet.  That first love between child and mother, mother and child is a natural start point.  The mother loves the child unconditionally and as the child grows it can extend its area of love as far as it is able.  Some children may extend their natural love through loving friends and teachers, their pets, their dogs, cats and ponies and then they may start to see that there are people in the world in trouble and they may feel moved by this.   Love may, if it is looked after, extend from a particular friend or pet to lots of friends, and all animals.  The only trouble for the heart is when the love gets stopped, when the love for one thing means excluding others.  You can end up loving just the people like you, your own countrymen, your own family and your own friends and instead of love taking you out beyond the limit of the feeling, it closes right down and the heart can get hard patches which allow the one inside the heart to see things in a very partial light and to allow themselves to hate another person.  

love for a dear old dog

Love in old age

This is where you have to work on your heart  to make it cleaner. Just by seeing where and why it closes down and what in your being triggers off the negative reactions you get a chance to clean it up and make it as it was when you started off.  Sometimes it takes something painful to kick start feeling for others.  If you are ill or in pain, you begin to feel for others in pain.  If you lose someone you love, you start to realise what loss is for another person, if something goes wrong, you receive a blow to your own heart, you begin to know what another person might feel.  Thus, it is worth the pain if the end result means your love goes further than the Krays did.  It starts in the heart and ends there too

A magical waking up

Rembrandt painted this

She, my friend,  paints pictures which transport you to the place she painted them, pictures of sky and its changing colours, pictures of places, familiar and loved.  Portraits of people she has met and painted, a few children but mostly people who have caught her artist's eye.  On the wall, they catch our eye and we begin to see the world as she has seen it.  When we look at those pictures we don't feel apart from the painter or the place.  

I wonder to myself if painting and writing are selfish pleasures because in a way so much delight comes from capturing the essence of a thing or a feeling or a person. But selfish or otherwise, capturing a moment for oneself or for another is compelling and as I wake up for the last of our mornings in Amsterdam I feel as if I am in a picture and want to capture it and send it to whoever wants to catch it.

A plaque over a door which
reminded us of our dogs! 

Dawn is later here so when I wake up in our room at the top of the house which has been converted into an hotel, it is still dark.  We sleep with all the curtains open and the windows too because the days have been uncommonly warm for early autumn.  It is like waking up inside an advent calendar, lights in gabled houses across the canal come on here and there and the lights show up the shapes of the houses.  Looking across the very large room which has been a welcome retreat during our days here, the pieces of furniture, the lamps and books on the table and the flowers too are all shapes emerging slowly in the dawn light.  The curtain is going up on the new day's drama for each person waking up.  Some to go to work, some to simply stretch and turn over and dream a little more, some may be happy, some less so but all wake up to this new day.  Waking happens in the heart of each person, we wake up first clear and empty and then moving to the mind and memory and thoughts of who and where we are, we start to imagine what is likely to come next.  

The wise, we have heard, wake up each morning and say: May all be happy, May all be without disease, May all creatures enjoy well-being and none be in misery of any sort.  Wise or not, we join that prayer knowing that everywhere people are waking up and facing whatever lies ahead and there may not be many who have had the chance of 5 days and 4 nights away in a small hotel on the edge of a canal in the heart of old Amsterdam where everything seems magic.

Flowers are nature's painting but irresistible to the painter and this writer in all forms

Getting to grips with what mother means

A medieval Mary with her infant son

Van Gogh paints Mary giving us her son. 

Spending time in Amsterdam with Grandpa, walking round the streets and the galleries, we notice recurrent themes which  play out again and again  and which can be seen in so many paintings and in writings and of course in everyday life. The galleries are often laid out following  the history of a country which could be all countries and shows that there are some things which never change and  which
recur again and again.  Landscapes and seascapes show a constantly changing world. Warships and victories show the ambitions of  nations to have and to hold their position against others, to explore and collect riches from what would become an extension through empire.  Then there are marine paintings of fishermen and their catches, of farmers and their tools and of the rich merchant classes in their magnificent furs and jewels, often the product of the exploration and trade which they pursued. 

A very modern Mary becomes a mother

Faces from the past in their own costumes and settings tell us about their world but also about our own world where if you look carefully, you see the faces repeating only now the clothes may have changed from velvet into denim and wool!  There are mothers in domestic settings, some posing for portraits, some working with their hands in ancient interiors and many depictions of the Mother of God, Mary.  I have picked out two from different centuries because of something universal they share with each other and with all mothers.  It isn't exactly personal and yet it becomes personal when you become a mother.  It pre-exists your mothering in a way although you had a mother and it is the great universal mother love which gets each mother through each day of nursing babies, teaching toddlers, taming teenagers, watching each child become whatever it is going to become, good or bad and then never giving up on them.  It is the energy which compels the mother who goes to work to provide for her child, which compels the mother who has to stay behind when the child is ill, it is that which means that every mother wants the best for her child even if it takes that child miles away.  

Taking Grandpa and a Duck round Amsterdam

Duck seems to be on his head! Tabac shop

Duck on the Royal Barge, Maritime Museum

We, a pair of meditating Grandparents are in Amsterdam on a four day break from our daily life. We do just manage to meditate before we head off into this wonderful  city.   We have come on a British Airways deal to an hotel which we chose from a menu of hotels  Our hotel is called Hotel Seven One Seven and it is at No 717 Prinzengraaht, right on a canal.  This is in an old Amsterdam house and our room is on the top floor up 60 steps of stair (plus about 10 to get to the front door).  Our room is lovely with a great big brass bed, a bathroom with windows looking out over the rooftops and on a table beside the bath is a child's rubber duck. There is a message beside which says that we should take the duck with us, photograph it in different places and then, if our photos are deemed to be the BEST, we will win a prize of a weekend free back in the same hotel.  So, off we go!  I have the duck in my rucksack. 

The duck joins singing at the Noordemarkets

The duck makes it to the foot of King Neptune

Grandpa, who looks as if butter wouldn't melt in his mouth rises to the challenge and is complicit in placing the duck in places where he/she/the non-binary  duck can be photographed to best show off the skill of the photographer.  Here are some of the results!  

First off, the tabac shop where he is sat on a box of cigars and the man with a face so Dutch you could dress him in the 17th Century clothing and have him painted by Rembrandt and he would be hanging in the Rijksmuseum alongside other citizens.  Then, we go to the Maritime Museum and left alone in the splendid boathouse with the Royal Barge, Grandpa whizzes round the railings and places the duck on the golden ornamentation and then on King Neptune's foot.  Next stop the Noordemarket where the street singer above lets us put the rather surprised duck in front of him while he sings "let me go home".  

Next off, the market and he nestles amongst the branches of fruit looking rather surprised!  We are running out of charge on our cameras and out of energy in our feet so we decide to take the advice of Deuntje Teuntje and head for home or at least head back on the tram to our top floor room up the 60 or so stairs for a bath, a slightly slumberous meditation before heading out again.  We are so proud of ourselves for taking all this photographs and are sure we MUST WIN THE PRIZE however, when we read the conditions again, it says that duck has to be more than 717 kilometres from home for the photographs to qualify!  Never mind ducky, we'll take you back with us and you will find yourself in some most interesting places because we are so keen to come back here

One surprised duck among the fruits is perhaps disappointed not to be eligible for the prize!

Memories of good times

We start off slowly, a cup of tea and then the three of us meditate together.  This is a different part of our lives, he is a bit weaker and we, the two women, one wife, one friend are keeping company together with him in this new way of passing the days.  We move so much more slowly than we used to, our children are all grown up now and the demands on our time are different so we can afford this time together.  He reads to us, a really beautiful voice, word by word and read with interest.  As he was my son's teacher, I am reminded of what a powerful thing a beautiful voice telling out the old stories is.  We nod and think about what he has read and then up there in the bedroom with the weather going on outside and the beginning of builders and their lorries arriving next door, we have breakfast together, toast, marmite, marmalade and coffee and we remember the days when breakfast on holiday was a manoeuvre of weetabix and toast and then what would we all do each day of the holiday.

Peter Pan, Wendy, one lost boy and one determined batman.  Where is Captain Hook?

She says that they have been looking at old photographs of our time together and here are some of the family dressed up for a Suffolk village fete, dressed up as Peter Pan and Wendy and the lost boys.  You can see the last boy wasn't about to be dressed up but wanted to be batman and not wear striped pyjamas.  There is one boy missing, he was Captain Hook and we will look out for his photograph too.  The photographs take us back to our aspirations for family, our own youth and the fun we had together and we think we look really old fashioned in  the photographs of us in Laura Ashley floral prints and with children under our arms.  Oh! We didn't realise then that we would be a part of the movement which is growing up and evolving.  We thought this would be forever.  It isn't but it has such a sweetness about it that posting a photograph of it may bring a smile to others who were around at the same time as well as Peter Pan, Wendy, the lost boy, batman and the missing Captain Hook.

When the .... hits the fan!

He did it

He did it 

Sister Wendy Beckett does it

When the proverbial four letter substance hits the fan, you have to duck.  FAST!  When someone throws something which isn't meant to be friendly, you duck and then maybe run in case that person has something else to throw.  This is only common sense because nobody wants to get covered in rubbish or smacked around by an object hurtling in his or her direction.  When you are protecting yourself, you  are also protecting the thrower of both the four letter proverbial and of the missile, you are protecting them from the consequences of your injury.
That protection is what you have to practice in meditation;  only in meditation, the missile thrower and the fan are both in your own mind and it is that mind which you are protecting and the method is the same, you duck and you do it FAST.  If you aren't quick, and if you get knocked, it is much much harder to retrieve your good state of mind.  Meditation is a method to help make the mind clear and transparent so YOU can begin to sense that you are not the mind.   To do this you have to get that mind in check and you have to be determined from the beginning that you will get it under control.  From my experience, this isn't necessarily an immediate shift to nirvana, it can be more like dodging bullets fired by your own ignorance.  Here are a few tips to help which have been given by every wise person and every spiritual teacher.  You have to be well equipped emotionally.  The equipment you need are these four things which sound easy but let me tell you, they strike right at the centre of your own selfishness.  The four things are these..... first, Friendliness, second, compassion for those who are in need, third, happiness in the happiness of others and fourth, equanimity in the face of being hated.  Ah ha you think... I am friendly, I am a nice person.... but are you?  Are you friendly to everyone and to every creature?  Compassion, you think, you have in bucketfuls but are you compassionate towards people who seem to blindly fall into bad ways, people who you think should know better?  Go on, think about it, do you feel compassion for absolutely everyone in need? Then, happiness in the happiness of others sounds easy but if their happiness is taking something away from your bag of joy, then are you still going to be happy.  Are you going to be happy if your friend goes off with someone else?  Are you going to be happy when their good fortune seems unfair and seems to diminish yours?  Then the final one, equanimity when people hate you.  Equanimity means exactly that, you don't get moved by hatred and of course as well as equanimity, you are going to be wishing the person who hates you happiness and feeling compassion for their ignorance and keeping a friendly feeling for them!  See, these are quite tough preliminaries to getting your mind pure and transparent.  But the wise have told us that once the mind is pure, then the I of the mind which is you yourself, will see beauty in everything and never feel the lack of any outside thing.  It must be worth it mustn't it?

He is trying to tell us why we should do it

                                                                  

Back to work, mother and grandmother, what fun

first days

getting bigger

She, the baby's mother went back to work today after over a year of in and out of hospital, looking after an early baby in a spaceship incubator, weighing her, feeding her, weighing again, weaning, weighing, baby yoga, swimming, not so much weighing now, starting solid food and then trying out the right childcare to cover the three days a week back at work.  She is good at her work and I am pleased to help her back because one day I may need the sort of care she gives as a working person.  It takes over an hour for her to get to work and I get the baby for a couple of hours before formal childcare starts.  I realise that this Granny time is an opportunity not to miss.  Not only do I get to learn new tricks, to learn about Ella's kitchen and how to sterilise a bottle in the microwave, she, the baby is being exposed to my singing and chanting to her in the time we spend together.  The great thing is that she doesn't mind when I sing hymns on the dog walk, and chant a few little Eastern prayers which are carried away by the wind and whisper  a few secrets into her ear.  She doesn't look embarrassed when I am clearly way out of tune, she just smiles and waves her arms and legs.  I am allowed to imagine that these ancient influences will make some difference! They are amongst the real treasures which I would like to pass on to make life easier to negotiate as she makes her way along.  

Under the Grandparental eye!