There is a task at hand.  It requires concentration, narrowing the broad world to a point to get the job done.  Fair enough.  These moments are a big part of my day.

And they tire me out.

One such precision happens to me most Wednesday mornings.  I go for breakfast in The Cobbler, an exquisite space in Gent’s Post Hotel.  The dining room is reached by a circular staircase of fifty steps.  Although there’s an elevator, it’s not as much fun as climbing.

I need to concentrate on each curving riser so my feet find their proper home.  My goal is to reach the top without touching a handrail, and usually I’m successful – plus tired.

However …

I realized this morning that I’m missing something, that I’m denying myself an expanse of beauty.  Halfway down the stairs, I stopped.  I looked up.  And let it all in:

Silly me

Consider the albatross.  With a wingspan of three metres.  Able to travel nine hundred kilometres in a day.

And now the poem The Albatross …

Often, to amuse themselves, the men of a crew
Catch albatrosses, those vast sea birds
That indolently follow a ship
As it glides over the deep, briny sea

Scarcely have they placed them on the deck
Than these kings of the sky, clumsy, ashamed
Pathetically let their great white wings
Drag beside them like oars
That winged voyager, how weak and gauche he is
So beautiful before, now comic and ugly

One man worries his beak with a stubby clay pipe
Another limps, mimics the cripple who once flew

The poet resembles this prince of cloud and sky
Who frequents the tempest and laughs at the bowman
When exiled on the earth, the butt of hoots and jeers
His giant wings prevent him from walking

Charles Baudelaire shows us another side, far from the majesty of the great bird.

How we bring each other down to earth, not feeling the heights, mocking the weirdness of those who see beyond.

Settle down

Don’t be great beyond measure

Just fit in

Or not

It’s a marble sculpture of Jesus and his mother Mary after he died on the cross.  Michelangelo created this masterpiece at the age of 24.  It resides in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome.

Fifty years ago, I took a Philosophy of Education course where the only assignment was to submit something in writing each week about teaching.  I spent part of one afternoon in the University of Lethbridge Library, gazing at a photo of La Pietà ([The Lady of] Pity) … and writing.

Fifty years later, I’m doing it again …

***

What a wonder in the downturned eyes and the soft fingers of the left hand.  Mary’s grief flows to her son, and out into the world.  To outlive your child.  To see him rejected and spat upon.  Knowing that the man you gave birth to was speaking something brand new: Love your neighbour.  And that so few heard.

The body in your lap is still warm.  It still shines with Divinity.  And yet the lips will open no more.  At least the pain of nails in the hands and feet is gone … but the pain of humanity remains.

My son spoke of “something else”

Who will have ears to hear?

The moments can be so quiet, and yet so full.  Seeing mother and son can reawaken us to the bigness of life, the grandness of true human connection.

The sculpture shows an aura of goodness, inviting us to give in to the majesty of life and death.  We are brought to silence when in the presence of love.

1499 … 2026.  All the same.

***

May St. Peter’s Basilica grace my path before I die

I have an old friend to see

It’s almost as though we live two lives at once, the first of these the life spent in conventional ways, playing our roles and following the script.  But each of us also has a counterlife, the one we live in those moments when we see through the fabric of conventionality to that unbroken sky of enlightened mind.  Until we’re buddhas, we will always live both lives, but sometimes we see through so unforgettably that we can’t fall completely back.

So said Kurt Spellmeyer.

I’ve never enjoyed the word “enlightenment”.  It speaks to me of striving towards a goal, with determination.  A furrowed brow.  More of a closed fist than an open hand.  I prefer “awakening” … to something brand new, beyond the expected, beyond history, beyond the known.

Also, I don’t care about becoming a buddha.  It’s a nice spiritual label of attainment, but so what?  Having a cool name tag doesn’t enhance goodness in the world.

I think of my heart.  I want it to be open.  I want to be available to everyone I meet.  I want to give, even in the moments when there doesn’t appear to be any receiving.

I want to go towards other hearts, rather than backing away.  I want to look into a person’s eyes, not past their ear.  I want to linger with them, rather than rushing away to “the next”.

I don’t want a noun attached to me, or an adjective to augment Bruce.  May I instead live in verbs …

Joining

Smiling

Loving

There I was, a young man working on a farm.  My boss was an old, grey-haired guy.  (Hmm … sounds familiar).  He was wearing dirty coveralls.  Probably I was too.

The farmer asked me to get into a big truck and back it up to the door of the barn.  The trouble was, I didn’t know how to work a manual stick shift.  I was a city kid.  Dad’s car had an automatic transmission.

I got in, gazed in wonder at the gear lever … and acted.  I pushed it way to the left, and then forward.  No idea what I was doing.  But as I let out the clutch (What’s a clutch?) the truck started backing up!

A big curving later, the tailgate of the truck was directly in front of the open barn door.  I did it.

My farmer boss wanted me to park the truck there, in gear.  “Engage the first and seventh gear so the truck doesn’t roll down the ramp.”

How the heck do you do that?  And this Toronto boy was trying to figure out how to engage two gears at the same time.

And then my dream shifted …

The vehicle was no longer a truck.  It was a red Massey tractor.  I’d been aware as a boy of Massey-Ferguson tractors, even though I’d probably never seen one in real life.  It brought images of Canadian wheatfields.

What I was seeing was a “Massey” tractor, not “Massey-Ferguson”.  The newer name was created in 1953 after a merger – four years after I was born.  The company Massey-Harris began in 1891.

It feels like I was transported last night to a time before my birth, and into a farming life far from what I’ve known.

***

Yay for the nighttime!

I had a financial jolt yesterday … unexpected by my casual mind, but predictable if I’d been more focused.  I made a mistake, and it’s costing me.

I will find my way through this.  The challenge is actually good for me.

My mind has an opinion …

You wouldn’t be suffering if you’d been smarter

The Buddha also had an opinion …

He called suffering the First Noble Truth.  We all have it … often.  It might be finances, health, relationship, self-esteem.  It’s part of the deal called being alive.  We can be smart, kind, rich, famous, pretty or handsome.  None of that will prevent bad stuff happening.

Thich Nhat Hanh, a spiritual master, also wanted to join the conversation, as recalled by Pamela Gayle White:

Thich Nhat Hanh reflected that only when a toothache has come and gone can we fully appreciate the immense well-being associated with not having a toothache.

Well said.  A few weeks ago I had days of pain after an extraction.  And now … no pain in the mouth.  Actually, no pain anywhere!

So on I go, welcoming each sunrise and bidding adieu at each sunset

I was in a Zoom meeting of the Evolutionary Collective yesterday.  My laptop will show up to 49 people on the screen, tucked away in their little rectangles …

I was doing a 1-1 practice with a fellow, and it was my turn to talk.  Suddenly I was no longer talking to him, although the words kept coming.  I was talking to a square … and it was replying!  I’d never talked to a square before.

I’m tired of all these straight lines, and these 90° angles.  I don’t want to do this anymore.

The quivering shape before me was starting to let go of the straight and narrow.  It wanted to flow, to curve in a most grand way.  To be part of a natural family …

Cozy together, feeling the smoothness, the dance.

***

And so I have a new friend

The oval

A song by Harry Belafonte …

There′s a hole in the bucket, dear Liza, dear Liza
There’s a hole in the bucket, dear Liza, a hole
Then fix it, dear Henry, dear Henry, dear Henry
Then fix it, dear Henry, dear Henry, fix it

That’s naturally what comes to mind – a hole in a container is a problem.  The contents will leak out.  Whatever goodness was inside will disappear.  We will lose something.

But what if the leaving is a blessing?  That what goes may be “extra” … not needed anymore.  Instead of being full to the brim, with no room to add more, there is emptiness. 

The dance can happen, with no worry of an flourishing arm hitting the wall.  The breathing is long and deep.  The melody springs forth unimpeded.

What is left after the flowing away?  Perhaps it’s easier to glimpse what has exited – solid stuff, straight lines, the compression of opinion, of needing to be right.

Delightfully unfocused

Open to the universe

At home

Here’s the fourth member of our group.  I love him.

He’s sitting in Falstaff, an Art Nouveau restaurant in honour of a character in one of Shakespeare’s plays.  Apparently he was fat and lazy, and loved drinking spirits.  You can see him in the stained glass from yesterday’s photo (the guy in the red):

All the glass in such wondrous shapes …

***

Luc’s car has a sunroof.  All I had to do is look up to see the wonders.

I left my friends for awhile to visit a church.  It was a sacred space.  I shall return.

This was a music museum, sadly now closed.  On the exterior were murals of the musical lines and spaces, full of notes.

What is under the surface of walls … of you … of me?

And in Ronse, on my Monday journey homeward.  Some things stand out.

First of all, I’ve never written a post with three colons in the title.  No time like the present!

Yesterday four compadres took the high road to Brussels.  Here are three of them:

Marie-paule (mom), Lydia (daughter) and Luc (boyfriend of Lydia)

The Art Nouveau restaurant you see is called “Falstaff”, and it’s a story in itself … mañana.

Right now, I’ll tell you about our first stop in Brussels: a huge farmers’ market – food, clothing, endless gadgets.  And … people from around the world – with their languages, garments, skin colours, ages and voices.  Marvelous.  Here are a few of the folks:

You see the word for meat in Belgium’s two main languages – “vlees” (Dutch) and “viande” (French).

How about a symbol of the infinite variety of children in the world?  Voilà:

The sun came out, and animated the fruit and veggies.  How could you resist colours like these?

Some huge fish, one with a gaping mouth.  A bittersweet mixture of hunger and sadness.

There are certain things I know in life.  And then there are the names and tastes of the fruit displayed in this stall:

What photos don’t convey is the noise of a Saturday morning market.  A symphony of passionate expressions in lots of languages.  This man kept yelling “Stop!  Stop!  Stop!”  (As in “Come over here and buy stuff from me.”)   I loved his explosions.

***

Slices of life

So many flavours

All delicious