FEATURE No 11 - Rick & Steve - Happy & Gay like you wouldn't believe

At first, David and I just couldn't believe anyone would want to be so tacky, but give it time guys 'n 'gals. Using Lego dolls and a style borrowed from children's animation as start, it drags these through the gutter into an altogether 'adult' direction. Stereotypes are simultaneously indulged in and then punctured. Sometimes dangerously mixing positive representation and scenarios guaranteed to offend every ones sensibilities - gay or straight - it takes some pretty big risks in its efforts to parody and amuse.



These are some of the best clips available just to give you a little taster. The best line comes in the second part of this episode - you can't miss it - its a sort of rallying cry for all lesbian kind! 'Rick and Steve - the happiest gay couple in all the world' is being broadcast on Channel 4 on Wednesday nights 10.30pm, if you are allowed to stay up and boogie that late. This is going to go down very big in the glamour boot camp and make Lego trendy.

DIARY 76 - Nostalgia for a Sense of Belonging

I spent the weekend in Sheringham with my good friend Saddharaja. The weather wasn't exactly what the forecast indicated, but, hey! there is no God, so to whom should I complain? Saturday started out deeply embedded in a fog bank. Just as the sun had burnt it off sufficiently to create a fine morning, another front of fog swept unnervingly down the coast, which it took almost the entire afternoon to clear. Sunday was largely grey with piddling rain, not brave enough to be torrential, nor weak enough to be ignored.



We stayed over night in the local YHA. Now its forty years or more since I've crossed the threshold of a YHA, so my first flush of youth is a long time passed. But,the majority of punters seemed to range from twenty somethings to middle aged ramblers. So youth, thankfully, seemed no longer to be a prerequisite. The facilities are necessarily basic, and I guess the YHA do what they say they will do, and provide budget price accommodation. The breakfast was more than adequate, and made up for my lack of sleep during the previous night. Even though I had my ear plugs in, I could still hear a group of guys loudly singing Oasis songs, and when they got really desperate - sea-shantys. I don't know whether it was better ear plugs, or a deeper rhythm of sleep, but Saddharaja seemed to miss the entire late night carousing. All were gone to bed by midnight, but by then the deed was done and I was spark-plug awake. But don't you go thinking it was a dire weekend, because it was not. Unpredictable weather and lack of sleep, didn't stop it from being a grand couple of days, full of walks to favorite places and good conversation, plus exploratory rambles across history and memory over cups of tea, jacket potatoes and buns, in many a Sheringham cafe.

My friend Saddharaja on the beach at Sheringham, minutes before the fog rolled in.

Whilst I was lying there awake to every creaking door, and chattering windy, I fell to reflecting on a question that has long perplexed me - why did I withdraw myself so much from the institutions of the Buddhist Order to which I still belong, and what exactly is my relationship to it now? The WBO has changed beyond all recognition, yet somehow remains familiar. I have to acknowledge I never felt the imperative for that change, that others did. I never experienced the levels of deep unhappiness with the way the Order was. The liberalising changes when they came, I regretted, and resisted internally adapting to them. For a while I think I managed to hold it all together by building a bubble around myself - so I didn't have to listen. Hearing the recollections of pain was unbearable. It is interesting to recollect that I was also going through an obsession with the whole idea of monasticism. I believe I was looking for a new structure, some new rule to live by, to build my life around, having lost the old one. At the time I was interested in sharing responsibility for being a Men's Mitra Convener, who looks after the spiritual welfare of those new to the movement. The process of assessment I found protracted and required patience from me, and quite a bit of consultation with the local Order for their opinions. One piece of feedback I received, I found particularly hard to stomach. this proved to be a decisive turning point in my relation to the Order. At this point, I realised at the weekend, I didn't just give up on the whole idea of becoming a convener, but I also, to some extent, gave up on wanting to actively engage with the life of the Order. An increasingly rapid process of withdrawal took place over the next year to eighteen months.


I still experience a lingering feeling of betrayal by the old style Order (this was, after all, the Order I'd willingly signed up for) and of being abandoned in a new orthodoxy, to sink or swim, and I guess I just sank for a while. I'm certainly coming out the other end of this process now. But, as I said earlier, I'm perplexed about what my relationship to it actually is. I explored this situation with Saddharaja, as we walked and talked, I remembered an image from 'Nostalgia' a Tarkovsky film. The movie is about rootlessness, and nostalgia for a no longer existent past, a sense of belonging, and a homeland. The final image is of a man, his dog, and a farmhouse with smoke swirling from its chimney, placed in the middle of the spectacular ruins of an Italian monastery, as snow falls gently. It's an image ripe with a sense of a raw beauty and of tragedy surrounded by a chilly mist of melancholy.





For me this has a deep resonance, it somehow encapsulates an aspect of my current state. I'm sitting in those ruins, experiencing nostalgic feelings of loss,regret and longing, but not able to fully let them go, nor experience my present lifestyle completely, with all the joy I can muster. Part of my psyche is looking back over my shoulder to something which has long passed. Having seen this so clearly, perhaps I can now begin letting go of the lingering fog of nostalgia. Perhaps I could even envisage something emerging out of the ruins of monasticism. Perhaps it has already, but, blinded by nostalgia, I've yet to notice it. Perhaps, indeed.

DIARY 75 - Five Gold Stars

It's been a week of challenging situations. It was the first week in Customer Services after the NEC Trade Show, and I was overseeing the processing of New Customers. Though this was my first time doing this, it was all within my current skills range and competency. If there were areas where I wasn't exactly clear how things were meant to go, it was nothing a question to one of my more experienced colleagues couldn't clarify. So I seemed to keep my head above water on this one. To myself & my team - A First Gold Star !




There have been a couple of communication gaffs and explosions recently in my team, some partly my fault, some not. During this week I had to engage with sorting out the consequences of these. One was a face to face meeting that Saddharaja facilitated. The ensuing discussion was open, exploratory and revealing, for both of us it increased our levels of understanding of each other tendencies and needs. I was quite apprehensive and uptight for most of the weekend before, so it was good once the day came. I've been feeling pressed up against so many things in the months since Richard's suicide, that by the beginning of September I'd pretty much lost touch with the end of my usually long tether, and I have to acknowledge I'd had enough and was angry. I was able to avoid being heavy handed or confrontational in my communication, with one regrettable lapse of self-control, that I had to unreservedly apologise for and resolve this week. To myself & my team - A Second Gold Star !!




All this, plus the final preparation for my Dogen Study Day this last Sunday. The day went extraordinarily well, and I feel quite chuffed about how it turned out. We had a good attendence, with twelve people. I think I'd thought things through sufficiently, and was prepared for the unexpected. I didn't know until the day exactly how many people would turn up. The trouble with a Buddhist Sangha, is no one wants to commit themselves til the last minute, in case something better comes up! I'd only been told by seven folk they were going to come, and one of those dropped out on the day. There were at least four other people who I knew would have liked to come, but were on retreat or holiday. So I need to be prepared, when I hold another day in the future, for a similar number, if not more. The next likely time for another Dogen Study Day is around the anniversary of his birth on the 19th January. It may be I left the study group a bit too open, to men, women, mitras and Order Members. I need to consider if I should set things up a little differently next time, or at least make sure I have a Co-Study Leader so I can sub-divide the group, at least for some of the time. Managing twelve proved to be OK, but I did have the substantial Dharma knowledge of some experienced Order Members present, as back-up, that did help me with this. Smaller groups would have enabled those people who weren't comfortable in such a large group to contribute. That said most of the folk present were lively and engaged with the discussion, which is all I ask of any study group. I had to do some occasional light steering, or clarification, but it largely stayed focused and constructive of its own accord. To myself - A well earned - Third Gold Star !!!



David came along to the day, helped prepare a shared lunch, and generally supported me exceedingly well. He's also been away for all last week, busy visiting a handful of our Evolution shops in the Birmingham area. Before he left, my Norton subscription was about to run out, and we'd got a replacement security programme included with our Broadband. So he spent three fruitless hours trying to un-install Norton from my computer, which prevented the broadband connection from working whilst Norton remained like a smug cat in the background. In the end he had to restore everything to how it was before he'd started. So we decided to just let the Norton expire of its own course, and see what it left. Finally David had to resort to using a special programme that literally wrenches Norton out, because it embeds itself like a particularly pernicious virus everywhere it can in your computer. The new security programme runs a lot smoother, is less aggressively intrusive, doesn't start doing things in the background without telling me,and generally doesn't bugger up the effectiveness and speed of my computer. Go back to Norton - No, Never Ever Again !!!! To David goes - A Fourth Gold Star !!!!!!



In myself I feel better, in a more stable and content state, less internally fractious, frustrated or torn. I know I'm very easily swung about by my emotional mood, it is in some ways very like Norton's Security programme, extremely pernicious and hard to wrench myself free from. The state of my emotional stability, is like an ocean that's so dependent on the external weather conditions. This current lull may signify a more settled period is arriving, or perhaps it is just the calm before yet another storm rips through. Regardless which it is - To myself - A Fifth Gold Star !!!!

.

FEATURE No 11 - David Foster Wallace

David Foster Wallace was a writer I've never heard of until his suicide last week at the comparatively young age of 46. This weekend there was a feature article in the Guardian's Review section. It was edited down from a public talk he gave in the US. I was struck by his powers of observation, self-awareness and kind hearted perceptiveness about the contemporary state of the human condition. I'm now really interested to read more by him. It's easy with hindsight to read something prescient into this talk, but there is a bagkground mood permeating its erudition, of a great amount of personal soul searching.

Here's two paragraphs from the article.




"If you're automatically sure that you know what reality is and who and what is really important - if you want to operate on your default setting (that we think of ourselves as at the centre of the universe) - then you, like me, will not consider possibilities that aren't pointless and annoying. But, if you've really learned how to think, how to pay attention, then you will know you have other options. It will be within your power to experience a crowded, loud, slow, consumer-hell-type situation as not only meaningful but sacred, on fire with the same force that lit the stars - compassion, love, the sub-surface unity of things. Not that that mystical stuffs necessarily true: the only thing that's capital-T-True is that you get to decide how you're going to see it. You get to consciously decide what has meaning and what doesn't. You get to decide what to worship.


Because here's something else that's true. in the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And an outstanding reason for choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship ... is that pretty much everything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things-then you will never have enough. Never feel you have enough. It's the truth. Worship your own body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly, and when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally plant you....Worship power-you will feel weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to keep the fear at bay. Worship your intellect, been seen as smart-you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out."

DAVID FOSTER WALLACE
from an article published in The Guardian 20/09/08

QUOTATION MARKS No 23

Only people

who are going beyond attainment of buddhahood

can use a broken key

to open a lock with no keyhole

DOGEN

FEATURE No 10 - The Gotan Project

Two rather fine videos to accompany two rather fine pieces of music from this rather fine combo.

FEATURE No 9 - Jesus is my friend - oh no he isn't !!!

This is just so wrong, in so many ways, I can't even begin to make a list. You have to laugh at the naivety and sheer gall of these squeaky clean-living people from the land of the free. The line about Jesus being like 'a Mountie who always gets his man, and he'll zap you anyway he can 'really cracks me up. Take a look at the line up, how many closet gays are there in this band? But then it's also quite worrying, they obviously don't live on the same planet as everyone else, where could this level of repression and well ironed ignorance lead? Discuss.

FILM REVIEW - There will be blood

I missed seeing this film on the big screen, which may explain why I found its scale on my computer, somewhat overblown. Paul Thomas Anderson's previous films, gave him a reputation for bold cinematography, odd characters and general quirky profundity, little of which is in evidence here. It's a rather conventional 'big picture', with 'big ambitions', and a 'big star', that unfortunately packs a very small and over attenuated punch. The only thing which remains vividly in your face is the musical soundtrack, which though obviously innovative, is distracting and often extremely irritating as a result. It frequently double underlines the tenseness and sense of foreboding in a scene, in a very clumsy and heavy handed way. This operates in the way scraping your nails across a blackboard would do, it puts you on edge. But when scene after scene fails to deliver on that tension, you realise that this soundtrack is meant to compensate for something which is not present in the film -the sense of an evolving and involving drama.



As a movie it drags you across the grand sketch of its narrative landscape, like a sack of old potatoes i.e. uncomfortable. The pace at which it unfolded its storyline had a rather unremitting plod and dreary predictabilty to it- the corrupting influence of avaricious capitalism upon its victims and perpetrator. It kept evoking comparisons with 'Citizen Kane', which only revealed how badly Anderson's over ambitious artistic agenda fell short. We are repeatedly left lingering 'significantly' on panoramic scenescapes to no real meaning or purpose. There was, paradoxically, a lack of dramatic confidence at its heart - 'telegraphing' its important scenes to us a good while beforehand, sometimes visually, but mostly audibly as I said earlier. It kept having to remind us to pay attention.


A below par script can be lifted to an altogether different level by superlative ensemble or individual acting. Certainly if you took Day Lewis's performance out of 'There will be blood' the remaining performances are eminently forgettable. Everything else paled in the extensive shadow of such BIG acting. Yet leaving him in centre stage, demanded a lot from Day Lewis in holding it all together. Only an actor with such a proven track record, could hold down being the core of a movie in quite this way. The superlatives have certainly been gushing concerning Daniel Day Lewis's performance, for which he won an Oscar. I couldn't see much to justify the effusive nature of this praise, I remained largely in a couldn't care less mood about his central character. His acting is undoubtedly full blooded and imaginatively alive, but it didn't rivet me to his every mood and gesture, nor feel in any way gripped, appalled, inspired or in awe. The character does run far too close to being a re-hash of his part in The Gangs of New York - the same moustache with a different suit and hat, but minus the Irish/American accent and power crazed menace. The reasons why this character Daniel Plainview was behaving like this were opaque. I really could not say I understood him any better by the final credits.


The same fate befell the character of Eli, the evangelical preacher, which was a hopelessly underwritten part, and miscast to boot. The young and obviously inexperienced actor gives it his best shot, but for all his manic screeching voice and flailing, his acting looked desperate and ineffective most of the time. It required a subtler, more intelligent and less of a broad brush stroke approach than this. Who was this young man Eli, and why would his flock be so willing to follow someone so young and clearly feeble? Any interesting connections or parallels to be drawn between the manipulative practices of evangelical Christianity and devout capitalism were hardly explored. The final scenes in Plainview's mansion seemed to want to explain and resolve such unspoken questions, but only suceeded in creating further gaps in the already unfullfilled expectations of its plot. In short, this was a bit of a sprawling mess - there will be blood, but you'll not find it in the arteries of this film.

DIARY 74 - Steer a new course or abandon ship?

The Customer Services Team is small, with only the four of us even a small change can have a greater impact than one expects. So, I guess how I am doing must have a knock on effect on the others. This week one member of staff departed on holiday, and another returned from a month long retreat. With these coming and goings the cohesion of the team re-fractures, and everyone re-adjusts there position. It feels like a bone repeatedly being broken and re-set. For myself, I feel like I'm constantly in the position of covering for someone whose not here, for one reason or another. Actual managerial time to plan or prepare is largely absent, I decided when talking this through with Personnel that I cannot carry on like this. So, I've informed the team this week I'm taking a regular 1-2 hrs every morning away from my desk and the standard C/S responsibilities. Lets see how this goes.



Within myself it's turmoil as usual, nothing has essentially shifted, bar the general level of irritability increasing. I'd had enough by Friday afternoon, walking away from my desk in a very angry fume to calm down. I went upstairs, not quite knowing what I was looking for. I entered the shrine room, pulled out a few meditation cushions and stared disconsolately at the Buddha for about forty minutes. What I was expecting? - inspiration? - insight? - or maybe a calming resolution - or just a simple decision. Unfortunately nothing of the kind was forthcoming. All I experienced was the repeated mental churning over of the milk of human unkindness. I realised I wasn't capable at that moment to rise above this state. So I left work early and came home.



The cutting edge of this state has softened over the weekend. However, the primary dilemma remains, how do I move forward? Do I steer a new course or abandon ship? After the emotional battering of each week, I have to acknowledge that, for the sake of my own welfare, handing in my notice and abandoning ship is becoming the one option still left standing. This choice, were I to take it, would have an unsettling consequence both for me and for David, particularly in the run up to his ordination course. This, and how my leaving would affect the morale of the team I'd leave behind, and what meagre employment options I have, are giving me pause for further thought. But for how much longer?

FEATURE No 8 - DV8 Physical Theatre

Until I read about it in The Observer I didn't know this was available on U Tube. I saw an early piece by DV8 at The Place, in London sometime in the mid-Eighties. All I remember now was how impressively raw and upfront it was, challenging confrontational stuff. DV8 were always Lloyd Newsons artistic baby, his performers were trained artists, dancers or actors, yet they brought a sense of freshness, of not being pre-primed about what or how they should perform. 'Dead dreams of monochrome men' shows physical theatre at its best, niether straight play nor dance piece, it nevertheless packs a powerful emotional punch.




I heard about but never saw ' Dead dreams of monochrome men' , it very loosely draws its inspiration from the life of the serial killer Dennis Neilsen. They bring out something in the story that is altogether more elegiac and tragic, rather than grotesque or gratuitous. Though there are many excellent sections in this piece, these two are among the highlights. Unfortunately its on U Tube in a number of short sections, but is incomplete, part 10 is missing ,sadly.

DIARY 73 - Feeling averse to the swing of things

Though Buddhism teaches the contrary, my current state of mind and body has all the outward appearance of permanence. Persistent and intransigent emotions are it's identifiable qualities. The outward conditioning on my temporal, corporal and spiritual self remains pretty much the same as of last week. I'm mentally in denial about something or other. I await the arrival of some blinding insight with an increasing lack of confidence. Resigned to patience, but not bearing with things out of a faith in things turning out nice in the end, but more from a lack of vision for anything better turning up. The purpose behind this forbearance has a very threadbare vision. Why I am putting myself through this mind warped hell, is now completely lost on me. Perhaps there is a misguided vague sense that 'something good spiritually will come of it', without quite knowing what. Or perhaps a weary despondency that borders on fatalism, that this is the best I can hope for in the years before retirement. Neither is a very inspiring vision for my future. When I examine my internal emotional state, it reveals itself as being riddled through and through with aversion. Each weekend I restore some semblance of balance and harmony, only for it to be slowly and unremittingly worn away by each successive disatisfying day. By Friday, I'm once more edging onto the thin territory of despair. On many many levels, this just will not do!


As Sangharakshita put it 'if all else fails distract yourself' but I doubt he meant all the time. I don't feel very happy about how I'm using my spare time. Too much watching of i-player, not much energy or interest in sustaining anything else. As the missing part of my Cutty Sark model has still failed to appear a month later, my enthusiasm for that specific project has rapidly dwindled. In fact the whole 'nautical' archetype has started to appear insubstantial, a little worn out and past its sell buy date. Ihave loads of study prep to do, but I had to recognise this week that I've not much actual time to do it in, let alone the unpredictable muse of inclination. I can see it all being crammed in at the last minute if I'm not careful, and this just will not do!


This weekend saw the return of The Pink Festival at Cherry Hinton Hall . Loads of stuff happening all over the site, stalls, info and performance stages of all varieties - bands, dance, cabaret and all things in between. It was good to have it back after 2007's 'gap' year. Though it has now strangely morphed into an 'all inclusive event,' where ordinary folk can come hang out with the LesbiGays, and experience its frothy pink,extravagant fun. Now, I'm all for inclusiveness, and a wider appreciation of diversity in our society, but it did blur the boundaries a little about what or who this event was actually for. There was a higher number of couples, kids,prams with infant paraphernalia in tow present. Sometimes, David and I both thought, they were in places where it was definitely not suitable or appropriate for kids. We were watching an entertaining' disco burlesque' troop called Adora, who do song and dance routines frequently involving sexually provocative poses using chairs, fans, feather boas, top hats and basques. Two songs in, the lead singer rips off her corset, releasing her two bare boobies to flap around like escaped ballons topped with silver nipple caps. The latter looked for all the world like a pair of Mr Kipling's small apple tarts had been placed there by aliens, as a joke!. Felicity Flapp followed, never one to mind his P's & Q's at the best of times, though luckily most of the references would probably be over the poor dears heads, but really -watching all of this were kids 3 or 4 years old!!! Call me old an fashioned queen, but gay smut is surely designed for the pleasure of gay ears only, not the pre - pubescent. But thankfully it did get beyond their bedtime. We didn't stay much above a few hours ourselves, just long enough to catch the exuberant drag/dance routines of The Fleurettes, who stole the show simply by virtue of their energy, verve and professionalism.


The whole point of 'Pink' is as a place where all forms of 'queerdom' can be together, to express themselves uninhibitedly and openly, in ways difficult to do in 'ordinary 'life because of fear of an adverse reaction. Being 'inclusive' doesn't mean the homophobe will just wander into the festival out of idle curiosity, to find out if they could have their prejudices transformed. Some folk, in spite of such well meaning public events, will continue to see gays as some sort of threat, or something to be mocked. Recently, I've heard quite a few derogatory comments passed behind our backs, whilst David and I have just been out shopping in Cambridge.


Inclusive is the type of language you use when you're filling in forms applying for funding from political bodies. As we entered, a questionnaire and a pen were thrust in our direction to fill in. This was printed double sided on pink paper, and though willing, we gave up on it four pages in, as we were hardly half way through it. It was full of the usual sort of questions which surveys ask when they're addressing 'an oppressed minority' - what they're really saying is - 'tell us what more can we do for you poor dears.' The increased level of well meaning enquiry that ticks all the right boxes, and more importantly ensures social and political accountability, probably explains why 'Pink' has changed its styling a bit this year, but at least it is back. For I am, my carping aside, grateful that such a thing as a 'Pink Festival' exists at all.

FEATURE - Catherine Tate

David and I are avid Catherine Tate fans, and can easily fall into a catch phrase at the mere mention of Zimbabwe on the news. After waiting some time for the price to come down we've bought the 3rd Series of The Catherine Tate Show. On the whole the sketches aren't quite as sharp or well written as previously, and tend to go for overdoing catch phrases and easy laughs. Her usual co-writer/performer wasn't involved in this series, and it shows. Often the only way character sketch shows develop is by making them even more outrageous and offensive - such as what happened on the 3rd Series of Little Britain. She does manage to keep on the right side of that particular precipice, mostly. I can understand then, why she might want to give the show a break and do Dr Who, and theatre acting. One wouldn't want her to over exploit the Golden Egg, till we're sick and tired of seeing her characters. Some new characters don't quite work, 'Ma Willow' for instance - perhaps the parody here is a bit too subtle. Whilst Geordie Georgie is a more than welcome fresh addition to her portfolio of slightly unhinged humanity, yet who are unnervingly all too familiar.

But,an episode of Catherine Tate is still miles better than most other TV sketch shows e.g. 'Touch me, I'm Karen Taylor' which is second rate in comparison, mainly because its not lifted by superb comic character acting - at the moment no-one can compete with Catherine Tate.

These extracts below are just some of my favorites from the third series - Geordie Georgie - Derek Faye - Our John's a Gay Man Now (includes scenes from her Christmas Special where John is played by a far less cute young man)

DIARY 72 - Like trapping my bollocks in a vice

The 'koan of unsatisfactoriness' dominated much of my experience this week, growing somewhat in intensity as the week progressed. At one extreme is the gut feeling of unsatisfactoriness itself, at the other extreme is my reaction too it. My experience slipped from one polarity to another, but mostly hovered uncomfortable around in the middle. Either extreme is a painful place to be. Emotionally I'm reacting all the time to the sense of discomfort. Passivity reveals itself as melancholy and despair, whilst aversion arises as the desire to take action, to sweep the cause of the dukkha away and find pleasure. When I'm not falling into a pit of despair, I'm angrily and impatiently wanting to be free of it - to fight it or fly from it. I guess this is what its like when one's stuck, every attempt to step forward causes you to fall into old habits and grooves. I've yet to find what the 'The Middle Way' is in this circumstance, the Dharma Door that liberates, rather than imprisons me.



On the good news front, David returned from his retreat with an invite to be on next years ordination course, grasped in his somewhat disbelieving hands. By this time next year we will have become a fully ordained household. We've obviously spent some time this weekend celebrating, going out Saturday night to have a superb flavoursome curry in the Maharajha Curry House on Castle Hill. This place just seems to just get better and better every time we go. Though there seems to be plenty of time - eight months - before he goes, it will pass all too quickly. In the next few weeks we need to establish a plan for what we want to do before he leaves for Spain. On the list is to move flat within the next two months- if we don't do it then we aren't realistically going to be able to do so until he returns. The rest is mainly sorting out practical things to do with the running of the house whilst he's away, and buying or borrowing things he will need for the course. Also, we need to plan in some breaks away together, and a holiday perhaps in Barcelona before he goes up into the mountains for four months, to return as someone else entirely.



All this can feel a bit daunting for both of us at the moment. For me, it obviously does remind me of my own ordination course and how profoundly enjoyable that was. I felt at my most spiritually integrated and contented whilst up there in the mountains of Spain. Since then, at least from my current perspective, it seems to have been a prolonged and unsettled period of re-examination, during which I think I've matured and know myself better. At the same time I do experience a sense of loss. My spiritual practice and confidence in my Going for Refuge to the Buddha, Dharma & Sangha, feels less robust these days. It's as though I've bought myself a new map but dont recognise where I am or how I effectively operate in this territory. My life, now outside some of the institutions of the order such as attending a Chapter, or living in a Community, can lead me to feel that my life, though enjoyable and satisfying in most of its constituent parts, has a less cohesive, coherent feel to it. The solution is not to just return to these institutions like a babe to the bottle. Without an overall pattern around which a solution is focused, nothing would work. Its as if there is a permanent hole opened up in holistic - through which confidence seeps out and doubt leaks in.

DIARY 71 - If I had ovaries they'd be screaming

I picked up an extended edition of the film Gladiator for six quid in Fopp. so I've been watching all three of the discs. The film is, as you no doubt already know, excellent, and yet another example, along with 'Master & Commander' of how Russell Crowe can elevate a strong masculine role, beyond a cliched brutal machismo, into a portrayal of a sensitive man with great hopes, moral dilemmas and principles that he's trying, but often failing to live up to.

Also, Russell Crowe, you are just sooooo HOT - if I had ovaries they'd be screaming - I want your babies!