Man it’s rainy in London today. I fought my way onto the tube this morning with my laptop in a bag. My job was pretty simple – to sit next to a friend when she ran an online training, and to be calm and unruffled. She’s been doing this sort of thing for ages but just felt she wanted an extra body in the room with her. I provided the extra body and changed my name on Zoom to “tech support”. I watched her being amazing for two hours, and helping a bunch of corporate people halfway across Europe. She never ran out of useful insight and material. She was at Guildhall with me but now she trains people and she’s worth every penny of her high price tag.
We went for Pho afterwards for lunch, and then I slogged back across rainy London and into my flat. Finishing earlier than usual, I was finally motivated to give the fish the great big old clean-up they have been needing for ages. They are now visible again. And it was while I was living in a world of slime and buckets that the doorbell rang and I remembered that I have a friend to stay.
It’s March 16th today. My friend is the person who switched my interest back into what I thought of as the weird chanting thing that my ex girlfriend used to make me do sometimes. It’s a simplified Buddhism. It fits my busy lifestyle very well. And March 16th is Kosen Rufu day. It’s when we all angle towards world peace. I mean, we are angling towards it constantly. But, you know … Today we do it more. She and I just sat and practiced together and it’s a powerful thing for any of us who have any sort of practice, to occasionally do it with somebody else. I’m feeling a bit more grounded and a bit more connected. Call it what you like, shared breathing, spiritual connection, it doesn’t matter. I’m pretty open today after having drowned myself in vino yesterday. And it was a really really good idea to have a moment’s chant together on a day like this. I’m in bed now listening to the rain outside and glad of my expensive heating and happy to think that we might be coming out of winter at last.
I’ve been burning things obsessively all day. Tons of frankincense. It’s like I’m trying to burn out the end of winter. “It smells like a ceremony in here,” my friend said when she walked in. It kinda has been like that. I’m banishing winter. It’ll work eventually…
AlBarclay 