Platonists take the plunge

don't you love the way it shimmers

Imagine 60 lovers of Plato going to Delphi for a fortnight of ...philosophy fun and plunging into the sea.  Imagine too that many of us are Grannies and Grandpas looking for inspiration from something much much older than us.  It is riveting stuff and we break up into groups of 10 looking at the difference between pleasures and knowledge.
Then we break to go to the sea  and here is one of the Platonists waiting to take the plunge showing that age is no bar either to Plato or to plunging.  The day though starts with meditation and an encouragement to approach the subject with no preconceptions.   So without preconceptions were we that Paddy, the philsopher below didn't realise that the beach would be shingle and his feet would need to be shod.

Granny at the airport reads about Rev Alice Goodman, clearly a Good Woman

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2386791/What-The-F--Would-Jesus-Do--Vicar-causes-stir-car-sticker.html
Here I am at the airport en route for Delphi and the oracle who may still be there.  This means many hours at Heathrow Terminal 5 which is a giant shopping opportunity where you are trapped remembering all the things you don't need but maybe ought to get.  I am thinking to myself what would a wise man, Socrates or Plato  think and do here? and then I read about Rev Alice Goodman who has WTFWJD as a sticker on her car.  This seems to me to be eminently sensible and maybe we should stick this on all our foreheads and contemplate the dottiness of our gullibility.  I wonder if we are just waiting for someone else to do the things that He would do or say them.  He would probably see Heathrow Airport as a good analogy for life, in we come through security having handed over our baggage and immediately through we start adding things to our tiny little hand baggage.  We are attracted by Swarowski sparkle, by beauty products, by books, by that hot egg and bacon croissant and cappuccino, we feel a bit sleepy and wait for our flight out.  It is mostly all hope and desire and you have to pull yourself together and remember you have been here before and you need to travel as lightly as possible and with as little expectation as possible.

F for feet !

The reason the Rev Alice got into the news was because she used the F word to draw attention to the message and if that's what it takes to get the message of sanity out there, FFFFF! for fabulous and for feet.
So it's not so much WTFWJD but put on your own best mind and think carefully before you
board your particular flight, you need to keep safe.

Over 65 Drinkers in Health Alert. That's us Grannies!

Watch out, they are after us and our drinking.  Of course, now we are over 65 we should be cutting down on drinking alcohol and going into a gentler mode but it is a curious thing that when the governments of all countries are desperately looking for ways of looking after the over 65's because our children won't be able to apparently, that the clarion call about things bad leading to death makes it sound as if old people dying is bad.
This blogger maintains that death is totally natural, but how you do it and how you get there do matter a lot and certainly drinking yourself into the grave isn't a good idea.  Meditating on the part which doesn't die is good and of course can help cut down the rush to the bottle of Chardonnay or Cabernet Sauvignon and this is a well know fact.  Doing death well is worth having as a goal and this blogger recommends meditation as a way of coming to a peace beyond the peace which worldly things might give.  Kindness and making the inside of you conform to the goodness of the Good itself is a real goal.
And while I am about it today, the idea of punishing stay at home mothers as if they were sitting about drinking chardonnay and painting their nails is rubbish.  Staying at home with your children is the best way of learning about patience and kindness and not minding your life being upended and covered in jam.  And when you have your children at home with you in the very short time before school, you get to pass on to them the really important things.
So, I am hoping to meditate well, drink less and hoping that if I am reborn that my mother gets the chance to stay at home with me as long as she wants and that she will be a really really good sort.

Grannies rising above a tide of summer sickness

You can be sure that every holiday with a whole lot of children, sun, sea and sandwiches will also produce summer sickness as well.  This is where Grannies come in handy, they have seen it all before and they know that August is the month which is different to all other months.
This is a Granny doing the ironing on the beach! I love it.

grannies meditating shouldn't need to worry

It is a fact that Grannies worry about their grandchildren! But we Grannies need to be careful not to let the worry creep into meditation because once in there, worries escalate and breed more worries.   So keep your worries light and talk to other Grannies and you will realise that lots of Grannies think like you.
They worry about the names you are giving the children, one Granny I know has just had a new grandson called Phoenix!  Grannies worry that the grandchildren are disappearing into cyberspace through the i pad and that they don't know what is happening to them there.  Gone is the security of danger being a wasp on a blackcurrant jam sandwich or tar on the beach and we worry now about the content of books and newspapers and text messages.  Grannies are coming round to realising that grandchildren living with boyfriends is a fact they can't control and it may not be all bad.  If Grannies stay married to the original Grandpa and provide the link to blackcurrant jam sandwiches, cold water swimming and bracing walks and make the link in the grandchildren's minds that this is the stuff of security and life, that, along with Kate and William as the ideal family model, may keep the things that Grannies value alive.
The best thing that meditating Grannies can do is to maintain the link to the peace of meditation which we should be able, through our own love of it, to pass on to our children and grandchildren, even if we have to wait for them to need it.  Grannies lecturing on the things they think are best are a real turn off but if they are really nice, they will win the hearts of their grandchildren no problem.

Meditation, a cure for selfishness!

If anything, meditation gives you a bigger view, it takes you out of the small circle of individual consideration where your love for your own family leads to a larger circle and helps everything become part of your life.  You really feel most happy when others are happy.
The whole idea of selflessness isn't a route to a miserable martyrdom and holiness, it gives  you a million ways to be happy because you aren't just reliant on being happy because your own life looks good.
You might not see any connection between meditation and selflessness.  You might think that because for a time each day you are removing yourself from others when you meditate, you are cutting yourself off  but it isn't like this, what happens is that you give yourself a chance to rethink things, you give yourself a space to see that your own life is a tiny spark in a huge universe and that joining it is much more fun than staying separate.
You gain bliss if you aim for it and then you want to share it.

Prayer is what I've learned to do.

Sitting on the front step with Richard's cousin in the early morning, we get round to talking about blogs and life, its shortness and how we should make sure to have no remnants or regrets.  And we discover that lots of her friends are interested in meditation but she says that Prayer is what she practices, prayer is what she has always done.  We move from meditation to dogs! so from blogs to dogs via meditation. This is really a picture of my life, meditation, blogging towards Just this Day on November 20th, and trying to straighten out any wrinkles in the fabric of relationships.