Dreaming is such fun.  Sometimes they float away, unknown.  Not last night.

Imagine an ice hockey arena … everybody on skates, and a big red net for scoring goals.  Okay, you don’t have to imagine:

In my version of things, the skates remain, but no hockey sticks and puck.  Just a boy standing alone about five metres in front of the net, holding a basketball.  No goalkeeper.

The opponents are nowhere to be seen, except for one player way off in the corner to the left – a girl.

The holder of the basketball is smiling.  It’ll be so easy to score a goal.

The girl way in the corner pumps her legs furiously, skating towards the net.  The ball is looping in a high arc.  She throws herself into the air and nudges the ball away with her fingertips!  Silence in the arena … and then an explosion of cheering.

After the game, I climb over the boards onto the ice.  A TV reporter is interviewing the hero girl.  I wait.

And now my turn.

How close did you come to the ball?

A silly dreaming question, since she had tapped the ball away from the goal.

The girl spoke hesitantly, with her father standing nearby.  I couldn’t hear what she said.

Please speak louder.  I have a hearing problem.  I’m 77.

She said a few more words and then her father put his hand on her shoulder and started leading her away.

He turned to me and mentioned a long scientific formula, and suggested I talk to someone at an address on ________ Street.  (I can’t remember the name)

***

And there you have it

Makes perfect sense to me

I’ve been to many retreats at the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts, USA.  One of my favourite teachers is Bhante Buddharakkhita, a Buddhist monk who founded the Uganda Buddhist Center.

Gentle, smiling, cheering me on.  We shared a few smiles over the weeks of retreat.

Here’s a gem from Bhante:

Recently I was leading a retreat, and one of my students said “I have a problem.  I’ve given many people things, but I never get anything back.  Is there something wrong with me?”  This person is a teacher in our primary school.  He said “Whenever I need help, I don’t get any help, but when I give, I give and I give.  I’m exhausted.  I don’t get anything back!”

So I said “Welcome to human life.  Next time, try something different.  Just give to others without expecting anything in return.  When you give to others, experience the joy of giving in that moment.  In that very moment, you are rewarded.” 

***

What a concept.  Expecting nothing … no praise, no nodding of the head “yes”, no hand reaching out to me.

Just giving

I wonder

This is my friend.  He is a kind person.  He also massages my ego by saying he reads my blog every day.

We had coffee just now.  I fell into my usual tendency: talking about my life.  On and on and on …  Michel listened politely.

Sometimes it takes me awhile to wake up, but eventually I did.

“Tell me about you”

Thank God I spoke up.  Michel told me this, that and the other thing about scientific projects he has been involved in.  For some of them, he still is.

My knowledge of such things is limited, to use a kind word.  And I’m fine with that.  I suspect I know less about certain topics than the average human being … and no, that’s not false modesty.

Let me give you some words that Michel gave me:

Mathematics

Telecommunications

Epilepsy

Exoskeleton

Robotics

I was particularly taken with a breakthrough in its infancy – having people with a disability wear an exoskeleton to allow them to move better.

I “got” Michel.  I got his commitment to the betterment of human beings.  His pride in being a member of teams that are doing groundbreaking work.  His smile, knowing that he has been an advisor to many Masters and probably PhD students.

But I pressed him on one thing:

Do you get that you have contributed to many people with your work?

That you’ve made a large difference?

Michel tried to rephrase the question towards “we” and “team”, which of course is a valuable part of making contributions to the world.

I kept pressing.  And eventually he acknowledged that he, Michel, does good work.

And so, for me …

Mission accomplished

***

There are a lot of cool folks in this world

I sat with one of them this morning

I wrote this post two days ago after the events of the night.  There were two other posts I wanted to publish first but I wanted the writing of this one to be fresh, rather than a days-later recollection.

***

I’ve had many good sleeps recently.  And then there was last night.  I awoke into fuzz at 03:00, 06:00 … Who knows when?

I dreamt …

I was writing a report about sleeping.  Or was it about dying?  Anyway, I was hurrying to catch a bus because somebody needed that report right away.

Within this story, there were jolts of other images:

Two muscular and sweaty men having sex

Something being stitched together lovingly

Falling down … into a bottomless blackness

Etcetera

For seemingly hours (minutes?) I didn’t know if I was asleep or awake.  I had no answer to where and when, and certainly not who.

Lost in a mist

Neither here nor there

And there was a beauty within that cloud.  A smile came amid the disorientation.

A later awakening to sunshine had me wondering:

What was that?

Is my mind slowly sinking in the west?

And somehow, somehow … could all still be well?

I’d say the answer is “Yes”

Stan is a barista at a coffee shop where I hang out.  He didn’t give me permission to take his photo so I found an image on the internet which will do nicely.

We’ve talked a lot over the months.  And mostly I can’t remember what we said.  I used to think that such forgetting was a problem … but it’s not.

I feel comfy with Stan when we talk.  And isn’t that a marvelous word?  Far sweeter than “comfortable”.

There’s a quietness and a slowness in his speaking, and a sense of life’s mystery.  Stan hasn’t figured everything out.

I guessed he was 30.  A few days ago he told me 25.  Old enough to be wise.

Sometimes I see Stan engaged in lively conversation with other folks – in Dutch.  So I have no idea what they’re talking about.  When it’s just him and me, our words matter.  It’s life stuff.  Not throwaway sentences about societal life, ones that often mean nothing.

Stan has a problem with his lungs, or thereabouts in his body.  Lots of doctor visits.  But he doesn’t let himself drown in despair or unfairness or being bitter.

I look forward to opening the coffee shop door and seeing Stan behind the counter.  If he’s super busy, we won’t have time to talk.

But then there are those other days

Almost every morning I stand on the Zuivelbrug (a bridge) and look for birds and faraway people.  It’s a ritual.

A huge weeping willow tree is part of the vista.  Sometimes birds sit near the top.

Last night a fierce storm passed through Gent.

Today I saw this …

(Sigh)

The end of a life, a glorious green one that no doubt has touched many people … such as me.  I’m sad.

Was it yesterday I wrote “All things must pass”?  Indeed.

***

I’m reminded of the song Bonny Portmore –  “a traditional Irish folk lament that mourns the destruction of Ireland’s ancient oak forests, specifically the loss of the Great Oak of Portmore (an enormous ornamental tree in County Antrim that fell during a windstorm in 1760)”. 

Beyond the wind was human commerce … and greed.  Many forests in Ireland were cut down to supply wood for shipbuilding.

Listen to the sorrow in the voice of Megan Walsh, who was then a member of Celtic Woman.

https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=k6vQZKNJ7Lw&si=BMrDxUQjsrSdQxtY

Two trees

Many trees

Lyra Belacqua is a character in Philip Pullman’s two trilogies His Dark Materials and The Book Of Dust.  Her journey with us starts when she’s a baby.  I’m reading book five in the series – The Secret Commonwealth.  Lyra is 20.

I love Lyra.  And I love what she gives to the world.  She speaks the roller coaster of life that all of us feel.

Gradually as Lyra watched she found her mood lifting.  She’d hardly been aware of feeling anxious, but that was because anxiety was everywhere, built into the very molecules of the world, or so it had seemed.  But now it was disappearing, like heavy grey clouds thinning and dispersing and finding their great banks of vapour drifting into wisps that wafted away into invisibility, leaving the sky clear and open.

The street below her was saturated in Dust.  Human lives were generating it, being sustained and enriched by it.  It made everything glow as if it was touched with gold.  She could almost see it.  It brought with it a mood that she hadn’t felt for so long that it was unfamiliar, and welcomed it almost apprehensively: it was a quiet conviction, underlying every circumstance, that all was well and that the world was her true home, as if there were great secret powers that would see her safe.

(It’s a word that still defies my brain: Dust.  According to powers beyond me, it’s “a cosmic, conscious matter that acts as a physical manifestation of human consciousness, self-awareness and knowledge”.)

***

Lyra’s moments often lead to entirely different moments.  Just like you and me.

All things must pass

Even well, home and safe

Every joy, every sorrow

Every up, every down

Every life

Okay … you’re allowed to laugh at me.

About two weeks ago, a big portion of my bedroom ceiling collapsed, waterlogged after a heavy rain.

Yesterday morning, after another diabolical rain, I spent four hours filling and emptying eighteen buckets of water that came from above.

Today a repair guy named Eli inspected the scene, looking for a leak on the terrace of my upstairs neighbour.  No doubt some defect in the structure of our building, I thought.

At the front of my neighbour’s terrace, there is a metal channel that was full of water.  Here’s a photo, looking straight down to my terrace.  The channel is empty in this pic.

Eli went downstairs to my place.  The end of the pipe leading from up to down was clogged with leaves, and the bottom tube of my sofa was wedged into the hole.  He moved the sofa and pried out the leaves.

Et voilà!  A torrent of water

So … no building defect

Just a tenant defect, in the name of Bruce

I’ve lived here for about four years

And I’ve never checked the pipe

***

This is where the laughing part is allowed.  Less joyfully, the responsibility and the cost of my ceiling repair is mine.  As it should be.

Mea culpa

In my apartment.  Also outside.

My neighbour’s terrace is above my main bedroom.  There’s a leak up there.  A repair guy is coming tomorrow.  But sadly tomorrow does not equal today.

I woke up in my guest bedroom at 08:00 to a pitter patter sound. Now, at 10:22, it’s changed its tone.  So far nine buckets full.

The ceiling seems to be loosening around the big hole that showed up two weeks ago.

I know where I’m sleeping tonight!  And every night until this saga ends.

Here’s a video, taken about 08:15.

Gosh … life is mysterious

10:40 … twelve buckets

Thich Nhat Hanh was a Vietnamese monk who inspired spiritual awakening in his students and a more loving world for the rest of us.  He died in 2022.

He was known to his devotees as Thầy (Vietnamese for “teacher”).  One of these people is Kaira Jewel Lingo.  Her words on the 100th anniversary of his birth have touched me.

Kaira is helping me see one way to make a difference in my local world, and in the global one.

Will it be wise words?

Will it be loving words?

Will it be giving financial support?

Will it be a hug?

Perhaps all of these.  But Kaira pointed elsewhere …

One morning we were traveling from one city to another, and I boarded the bus full of misery, utterly dejected.  Thầy was sitting in the front row, as he always did, to make sure the driver stayed awake and that we would all be safe.  As I reached the top step, I lifted my gaze and our eyes met.

Thầy was looking at me most intently, with a compassion and love so huge I felt it physically.  I had never seen that depth of kindness in someone’s eyes before, especially directed at me.  It was as if a great being were looking at me through a magnifying glass of unconditional love.  The look was so focused that it burned away my attachment to my story and the seductive hooks that kept me bound up in the small self.  It was a moment of grace, and it took my breath away.

I had to keep walking past him to my seat, but inside myself I had stopped completely.  I was changed.  His brief look opened up a moment of timelessness in the midst of the pressures of worldly time, a moment of well-being and wholeness right in the midst of suffering.

That look transmitted to me a deep desire to look at people in that way, with boundless compassion and love that, without any words, can relieve suffering and inspire great confidence and joy.

I desire that too