Meditation, then a Martini,

It was a busy day finishing with walking two dogs round an old Roman Fort and completing all sorts of bits of communication, not all easy.  The blogger's husband, let's call him Grandpa, was very cross about the length of time it was taking the blogger to extricate herself from blogging etc: and so when walking those lucky dogs, he was asked what he felt had been the main bonus for the blogger of being married to him.  Well, he said, never stuck for the  bon mot, it gives you a chance to learn something everyday!  Quick as anything, the blogger replied, of course, patience!
So, back home and there is a weekend away approaching and we start to pack all the things we need before meditating.  Then he, the blogger's husband, says, "try this Martini", so the blogger does and then we have supper, watch the news and collapse into bed. 
One day, martini will be a thing of the past, but from time to time, after a busy day, a martini, carefully prepared with little bits of lemon zest in the bottom, provides a very good relaxing additon to meditation!

Grannies meditate and look what else they can do!

Who wouldn't want a Granny who could do this! Well a vegetarian grandchild might think twice but this Granny will cook vegetables in a highly satisfactory way plus she meditates.  Despite pouring rain and incoming guests, this Granny trudges out to the summer house with the Buddha sitting tight and meditates with her regular meditating relative! 

The guests came to discuss the East Anglian Air Ambulance charity, an ace charity which airlifts people speedily from accidents in the area and saves lives which would otherwise be in jeopardy owing to traffic jams on the A14, speed bumps in all sorts of places and little windy roads in East Anglia.  The striking thing is the good will which brings these amazing charities into being, sustains them and develops them.  There is this fund of goodwill to others which means people connect with the need to alleviate suffering and save life.  The goodwill has always been there, it passes from one generation to another seamlessly, the Grannies and Grandpas saving up for their grandchildren, making sacrifices in terms of time and cash too probably, trying to keep the better things to pass on and above all being interested in the evolution of the good.  Meditation should help develop this goodwill  muscle because it allows the wretched ego to subside and a consideration of what people suffer to take place and a gratitude for all the good things.  This blogger is very grateful to Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall for the recipe for game terrine because she was in despair when faced with 4 old birds which had been lovingly plucked and drawn by her husband who you will know by now if you read this blog.

Its the rain! perhaps!

In this house, the autumn has seeped into our grandparental veins, or is that just an excuse.  It is cold and damp and my newspaper says that almost three quarters of those of suffering from stiff joints say it's the weather and four in ten of us say we consider leaving the country because of it.  A poll has been conducted to find this out but maybe it didn't take into account yesterday's reported research into the way to feel young, diet exercise and meditation remember!
So, creaking out of bed to the ancient electric fire and then creeping back until the fire warms the room up, this grannyblogger thinks that getting up in the cold wet weather is a creaky old business but that getting going is a great thing and making sure you meditate even if you would rather sit over a cup of tea with the newspaper makes having the tea and reading the newspaper afterwards even more attractive.
The more serious autumn thought is realising that there is an end to every experience, waking up beside the Grandpa every morning for 45 years fools you into thinking its for ever, but as sure as it had a beginning, it will have an end and realising that makes a difference to feeling irritated by small and insignificant things and rather more aware of how many things he does to make the blogger's life easy.

Daily Express homes in on meditation to keep you young.

On the front page of the Daily Express you will see this headline. SECRET OF HOW TO LIVE LONGER.  Experts have found that the key to a longer life is to switch to a low-fat vegetarian diet, take regular exercise and even do some meditation.  The simple lifestyle changes, they found, can help to reverse the ageing process.
It is, says the Professor from the University of California all down to work on our telomeres, such a new word to me and to the computer that it keeps wanting to change the word to telomeres.  Anyway, a telerome us a microscopic cap in our DNA which prevents cells from becoming damaged.  These newly named caps, the telecoms, shorten as we age and this leaves us open to disease, dementia and age related conditions.  However, if we change our life style, our telomeres will lengthen and become protectors again.  So, get going on telomere lengthening straightaway if you haven't already started.  And of course, the younger you start the better.  As women are having babies later and having to go out to work and often leave these babies with the Grannies, it will be very important for Grannies to have good telomeres so they can keep going.
This blogger can now say with confidence that meditation helps Grannies grow younger, which will help everybody else and that if you aren't a Granny yet, you will find meditation keeps you younger, and if you are a grandchild, get that Granny meditating because you will need her to be able to run after you down to the sea, or climb up the climbing frame to get you when you are stuck or just be there to give a helping hand if you fall asleep in Singapore!

So sorry Simon! and other Facebook persons

When I met Simon last night, he said that he kept getting Facebook messages about the blog.  This blogger humbly apologises for what might seem overkill but hopes to persuade you and yours, your friends, family and anyone else who might be interested that hearing about and learning to meditate is a good thing.  Good for you, good for them and good for anyone who isn't faint hearted about keeping going.  The blog has an aim! which is to take an honest look at meditation, demystify some of it, put it up to the light of experience and invite people to join in wherever they are on November 20th!  And of course to come in droves to St Martin-in-the-Fields to hear 4 marvellous speakers and to bask in the remarkable space that the Discantvs Choir and Nikki Slade will create with music. And then to join a meditation led by Father Laurence Freeman of the World Community for Christian Meditation.  In addition, there will be Sylvia Leiserach who is one of this blogger's best and oldest friends and happens to be a meditator of many years, there will be Donald Lambie, one of the most disciplined men ever, and Richard Burnett, co founder of Mindfulness in Schools who uses meditation as an aid to mindfulness.  This is a great line up and isn't just for Grannies although they and the Grandpas are always welcome, this is for people of all ages who might enjoy hearing and experiencing stillness through meditation midweek and mid city.  Come along do and bring your friends. You never know, it might change someone's life for the better, it certainly can't change it for the worse!

Grannies go to the Apple Store

The staff in the Apple Store don't speak the same language as people my age.  There was a older woman with an i pad marching up the Apple store in Cambridge this morning shaking the i pad at the staff and this blogger knew why.  This little Mac Book which is what the blog happens on and where all the photographs are was stored is sick.  The staff at the Apple Store probably see lots of us older people who don't know how to back up or do anything much more than send an e mail to a grandchild.  We are those who get photographs and documents and just keep on saving them and saving them until the memory is stuffed full of bytes of some sort of other.  Those boys who speak so fast and know just how your computer works see us coming and just what we are going to be sold.  This blogger went away with a rather beautiful looking hard drive which will, once I have learnt how to drag those photographs from the mac book to the hard drive, mean that the indigestion suffered by the poor thing will get better.
You need to meditate to clear your mind sufficiently to get round a gigabyte but I  bet those boys at the Apple Store who are so clever need to meditate too, because as far as I know, you can't get that through technology.  You can only learn about it.
Apologies to any Grandparents who are better at computer science than this blogger suggests, the one that I live with is right in the camp of shouting at his poor little innocent i pad as if it could hear.

Can you tell a Meditator?

When reviewing the photograph of blogger, husband and dogs, it occurred to this blogger that maybe to the untrained eye, we don't look as if we meditate!  But then, the eye doesn't really see beyond the form and it takes a determined mind to see behind the apparent.  Maybe that is why so many religious communities and denominations wear particular colours and clothes, so that the untrained eye can transmit likeness to the mind which stores away the information.
So, what can we say we do actually see when we see a person, a person in tweed, or in orange robes, or in black clothes and dog collar, or glorious purple Bishop's robes, reddish ochre Buddhist robes, Sikh Turbans, saris and spots in the middle of the forehead, or the wonderful BK's in white.  We see a person in the above mentioned outfits and we deduce something extra about them.  This blogger thinks that it might be good to go back to the basic fact that each person is just one person and that it that oneness which is the one certain fact about them which can't be argued with, the eye sees one and the mind sees one.  It should perhaps stay like that.
This blogger thinks that meditating on the one would make the difference especially if you begin to think that maybe that person striding along with dogs is as one as you! And so is the dog one.

One Dog