Meditating Grandpa takes to the zip wire

Grandpa about to take off

All the Grannies I know are worried about them not going out enough, spending too much time on their i pads or watching tv and not doing all the things we used to do in our childhoods.  I am among these worried Grannies and have had to resort to new methods of persuasion to entice one of them out of a virtual world and into nature.  

Ah ha you are thinking that I am talking about today's children isn't that right?  But I am talking about the Grandpas who can now live in their own virtual world where they might stay if it wasn't for some outside attraction.  Now emptying the bins isn't going to really do the business, nor feeding the hens.  Sometimes mowing the lawn does the trick and of course going out and meeting friends is good too but now there is the recently arrived zip wire!!! Once it was up and he had seen his grandsons going whizzing along, he put his hand out, grabbed it, sat on the round seat and whizzed over the hedge 60 metres to the end and then ricocheted back to the middle.  This will do the trick, this will keep him away from too much i pad time or am I fooling myself!

No CARBS in this house he says

Grandpa says that he isn't having any carbs this week.  I wonder if he knows what carbs are because he has asked particularly for potatoes tonight and wondered if there might be a starter and a pudding! He offers me a martini and puts out the red wine glasses, I should remind him that we are babysitting for the now 6 month old baby

What sort of no carb diet is this say I?  There are others in this household who know a carb for what it is and they stick to the no carb menu with amazing results.  

Grandpa says he hasn't lost any weight despite being on this no carb diet for 2 days but I have seen him having toast with his no carb boiled egg so I am not surprised.  I can't be fished with changing my eating habits; I just keep trying and hoping and hoping and trying but age has delivered me some curious shapes to my legs, sort of bobbly.  I read in the newspaper that in a few years time we grandparents may be living until we are 125 years old.  Well I can tell you that is not in my plan.  The idea of years and years in this life is based on thinking that there is only this life.  I think this is just one of many and I would rather have a new and perfect body in that new life than struggle against the carbs and the blobby legs.  

However in his defence I have to say that Grandpa is a good meditator; he times our meditation to the end of 30 minutes when I am tempted to disappear out into the garden and dead head a few roses or water the tubs just a few minutes early.  He is a good Grandpa really, a bit shouty from time to time but I put that down to genetics!  His old Dad was a bit of a shouter too.  And he has allowed me to put in a zipwire for our grandchildren.  It is nearly in and perhaps he, Grandpa, fresh from meditation and carb free? will be the first to climb up the tree and grab the seat and whizz down the wire (60 metres) to the end.  I will post the news here..... It will be a post which says meditating Grandpa takes to the air!  

Do it and say it while you still can!

Beach monster

We haven't done well this week with meditation but it stands us in good stead when we have to say goodbye to people we love.

They live abroad and so we only see them when they come back or we go there.  We love seeing them and we and they pack in every customary summer event.  They see old friends and we do too, we swim in the sea no matter what the weather or the state of the tide, they catch crabs at Ramsholt, take the ferry to Felixstowe from Bawdsey and buy dover sole and lobsters!  We down pints at the pub, pick samphire on the muddy flats, play 7 up 7 down, go to bed pooped, early up with a grandchild perhaps snuggled in beside us.  The newest baby, though small, smiles and bashes her toy, the older children love her and then rush outside to the swing or the next thing.  Almost the best toy is the box which the new strimmer arrives in; long and strangely coffin shaped, it makes a perfect boat until the three of them try to get in together and then internal conflict breaks out.

Two beach monsters

We have done these things for years with our children, with their classmates when they were at school, with their friends and our friends and it is heartening when they want to come back and do the same things with their children.  Of course, in their memories, the sun is shining, the sea is warm and everyone is happy.  We know that there was rain and boredom and bickering as well but we all want to remember the good things.  We want to remind ourselves of the good things and pass them on to those we love.

I love this washing line

Alongside all this we see that old friends have left the village, gone to live in residential care homes, some have made it to the Church yard, some are still going strong, some are not.  We realise our energy has diminished, we are sooooo glad to get into our comfortable bed and not to quick to get out of it.  I relish the order of our grandparental life, relish the folded up towels, delight in the way the wind blows the clothes and linen into foldable dry clothes.  We realise our individual limitations but at the same time, love the fact that the great big universe is continuing to provide bliss for every new person.  Because we see how limited this little life is, it seems ever more important to make sure that we don't miss a chance to tell people we love that we do love them.   

Boys together doing and eating what boys love to do

Meditation in time of trouble

Years and years of meditation... 40 years or more; sometimes a meditation is peaceful and sometimes meditation is a continuous effort to come out of the thoughts revolving in my mind.  Then, just one morning, for no reason at all, along comes a totally different experience.  Unlooked for and surprising, it leaves a certainty that there is more to life than breakfast, lunch and tea.   Out of the blue my whole being is filled with bliss, every part; my body feels it, my mind delights and my heart is lifted to somewhere both new and totally familiar.  And this on a day when the news is bad, when there is grief and turmoil and stories of unrelenting aggression.  This on a week where each person I meet has a new ache or pain, has a sad story of loss, when telephone calls often elicit bad news and where it is clear that there is a realm of suffering which can't be denied.  And yet... one dip into this realm of untroubled joy tells a different story; it welcomes and invites discovery, it shows an unmoving benevolence which is there for everybody and where there is no fear or pain or loss or gain.  This is why people meditate, they meditate for their own self but I believe that each good-hearted meditator adds to the capital of goodness and creates a space in the otherwise seemingly impenetrable mist of everyday existence.  This gives hope that no terrorist, no bomber, no death can divide us from the realm of unconditional love which has the feel of encompassing the whole universe.

Sellotape and Meditate, Meditate and Sellotape!

Have you ever felt your equanimity slip!  Or are you so well balanced and detached that when you find the roll of sellotape has no findable end you realise that it is just a test of patience, rise to the challenge and just keep searching with your finger nails until you find something which gives.  Or, do you look at it with its round smugness, all curled round itself and giving nothing away and curse it. Today the demon of sellotape crossed my path.  It is now in the bin, never mind that it still has metres to go.  And you would think that a regular meditator would feel more patient wouldn't you?  Well I am patient about lots of things but sellotape isn't one of them YET!

The enemy

who arrives and who departs and when

Who lives in here?

life support

I have enjoyed watching that baby.  First, there was this teeny tiny red baby which needed every sort of life supporting care.  If she wasn't kept at a constant temperature, her body temperature might go down.  If she wasn't watched and monitored, she might just cease to breathe.  There wasn't much sign of a person in there although of course, we knew that there was starting to be someone there.  Now, there is a real being moving her arms and legs at will, smiling, connecting with her eyes and it is clear that although she needs care, she is there and she is participating.

 Coming into life

This Thursday morning I say goodbye to her and her mother in the kitchen and make my way from the quiet country village we live in to the great big city with honking horns and traffic lights and traffic jams.  I make my way across the great whizzing metropolis where by some extraordinary grace no-one bumps into another, where the stops and starts are governed by lights and everyone just obeys them; I make my way to see my 96 year old friend who is struggling to leave her now wasted and painful body behind and return to the place which is waiting for her.  I think that this is the same place that the baby came from, it is where we all came from.  Some people call it heaven, some call it their eternal home and some call it nirvana.  I don't know quite what to call it and nor do I know at the moment what it is like but I do sense that it exists and that it is probably more familiar than the home I call home at the moment.

Tonight I hear that the dear and old friend has been able to leave the tired and wasted frame she has called ME for 96 years.  I feel that she is now free and full of the delight which I can see crossing the ever changing face of the baby who has come to live with us.

Kitchen 

Granny gets a chance to pass on something she values

The teeny tiny baby is big enough to come and stay with us.

The parents settle her in, they bath her (in the same bath of her great grandmother as well as the present day grandparents), they do baby massage, they feed her, they sing to her and they read her a story and THEN they give Granny the monitor and the now respectable sized baby goes to sleep in the room used by those other children and grandchildren who were here before her and which has been made ready for her first night 

The doting parents go out for a well-deserved treat to the local pub.  Granny has the monitor and here is her chance to see if a little meditation practiced in the room where she can hear her beloved grandchild will deliver the goods it promises.  A good sleep, a contented child and an appreciation of the stillness which lies behind everything and every being in the world.  30 minutes and counting...... no disturbance, no crying, no need to even move from the meditation seat; we enjoy deep peace together, she asleep, me meditating.  

Why is this so important to me and important to other meditating Grandmothers?  

It is important because we have seen the troubles which come and go in everybody's lives, we have seen success turn to failure just as failure may turn to success.  We have seen health and happiness disappear with age and illness and we want to give all those we love a way of dealing with all that life stuff in a peaceful way.  We hope that if the beloved grandchildren can find a peaceful way to meet whatever they have to meet, to meet gain and loss, to meet success and failure, to meet friend and foe with a degree of steadiness in themselves, it will make their passage along the way much easier.  And it will probably make them into very useful citizens as well.

So, give your Granny a chance to pass on whatever tried and tested methods for dealing with life in a way which she has found helpful.  She clearly only wants the best for you all.