Looking back most things progressed well, we set up and settled into our new home with relative ease. After many years of living in Buddhist Communities this homemaking aspect has been, and remains still, a feeling of being liberated from a constraint we'd both grown quite tired of. Plus creating a home is actually a lot of fun. In Year Two there will be much less to actually do, once we finish off our plans for the garden, then refloor the lounge, then that's pretty much it. Finding work was pretty straightforward for both of us. What hasn't been easy is, for me ~ handling the physical demands and consequences of intensive cleaning, and for Jnanasalin ~ the strain of improving the functioning of a mildly dysfunctional charity shop chain. How this work would drain us of energy and initiative for the Cottonwood Cafe project, was something we'd not really foreseen. This is something we are challenged to change over the next year.
One of the residents in a care home I clean for is one of my secret delights in a job not otherwise known for being particularly fun filled. She's in her early sixties, but dresses and behaves like an big overgrown teenager. Talking very very loudly in a completely unfiltered way about anything and anyone. She's extremely observant, and knows, for instance, how often residents have been to the loo that day. So you have to be very careful what you tell her as it would soon be broadcast full blast to everyone. She actually has a sweet nature and seems innately kind, even if some of her thinking is a tad eccentric. At times it can feel like a character from Royston Vasey has stepped off the screen and into real life. Her conversations are, however, a joy to listen in on, such as the following one I couldn't help overhearing, she was 'talking at' the care home's manager about another resident and her 'big pill'. Imagine this in a loud high pitched Norfolk accent.
"She says`she aint gonna take tha big pill,
But she gottu aint she, tha big pill,
she gottu take it, aint she ?
You'll av tu meker take it on Sundi, wont ya?
she says she don lyke tekin it
cos it gives her a sexual feeling when she poos."
For any of you who are on Netflix I recommend a six part documentary series Wild Wild Country. Its about the Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (Osho) cult and their efforts to build a 'Buddhaland' in the outback of Oregon. The Rajneeeshis didn't expect the opposition they'd encounter from the local yokels in the small town of Antelope and eventually the entire Wasco County establishment. No one comes out of this battle of religious allegiances and wits with entirely clean hands.
The outstanding figure, whose dubious tactics the documentary focuses on a lot of the time, is the Bhagwan's PA ~ Ma Anand Sheela, who is not a woman to ever try corner or obstruct. There is nonetheless something about her fierce intelligence and indomitable way of not being cowed by brute male force, meeting any opposition head on, that I actually found deeply impressive and strangely admirable. The authorising of mass food poisoning and attempted assassinations, perhaps not so much. As an abuse of power over its followers, and those that opposed it, this puts Triratna's recent scandals into the category, relatively speaking, of small beer. Though it highlights the conditions for abuse to arise in that we did hold in common. A new religious group, encountering a wave of youthful naive idealism for it, that becomes quite self intoxicating, self deluding, followers being encouraged to live as if they exist outside the ordinary rules of law, thus is a fertile ground for abuse of trust laid out.
In Oregon what started as simply directing that enthusiasm into positive actions, does in the hands of extremely self confident charismatic individuals, slip into gross manipulation and abuse of less confident individuals. People surrendered the direction of their lives, and to some extent their autonomy, up to the Bhagwan or Sheela, and were pressured into take actions they'd not normally consider acceptable. Often these actions being presented as spiritually enabling people to be freed of self-limitations. The documentary is deeply unsettling at times to watch, but was nonetheless compelling.
Well, Easter is with us, as are this seasons first wave of tourists, quite often obese, encumbered with children, zimmer frames,walking sticks, umbrellas, perambulators and dogs. The good weather they've come for has, however, temporarily deserted us and we have returned to cold, rain and wind. Our back garden plans are nonetheless progressing, and the weekend before Easter we transformed the coal bunker alcove on our patio. That has turned out pretty much how we wanted. All we have to do now is wait for the weather to warm up, to see how well things flourish in an area that admittedly gets very little direct sunlight. I've been trying out some decking cleaner on the patio's flaking paintwork that is very effective at gently softening the paint layer. So hopefully this will cut down the amount of sanding needed before I repaint it. Everything is waiting on the arrival of those warmer dry days, which, as yet, we've not seen much of.
I've had two longer Shiatsu sessions during the last month, and I have to say I'm pretty impressed by the results. Though I've had ordinary massages before, they never had quite the same transformative effect on my psycho-physical being as Shiatsu. There is always a few days of adjustment after a Shaitsu session when energy and pain intensifies then moves around and dissipates itself through that movement. Its been interesting adjusting to things appearing to get much worse before improvements starts to show. I've experienced after a session my body trying to reassert tensions, as if somethings was not quite right with this more relaxed bodily experience. I've had to make more conscious effort to relax areas of tension, and habitual ways I hold my body. Shiatsu has also eased the discomfort from osteo-arthritis in my hands and stiff painful shoulders. Though with the sciatica it has been more limited, which appears to respond better to regular stretching and core strength building exercises
I'm still in the early stages of introducing Macrobiotics into my regular diet. It is a whole different way of cooking. Initially it does seem more time consuming, and certainly requires more advance planning than I'm used to. This is proving a bit of a challenge as deciding what I'll want to eat beyond the most immediate upcoming meal I do find hard to imagine. I've got a few basic recipes learnt, but it will be a while yet before I have a wider range to draw on. I notice when I am eating more wholly macrobiotic I do seem to have stabler energy levels. Once I introduce foods that are more highly processed, or are sugary or fatty, the energy levels begin to distinctly wobble more, and the bowels? well, they do take a turn towards the flatulent! Which is an excess of Yin I think,with all that watery blowing off !
Next week we set off on a holiday to Whitby, and boy are we ready for it.
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