Last year Zuleika Books published Older, a day by day journal of my 91st year. The reason for mentioning it is that often people say to me, ‘I am old!’ and I reply, ‘No: you are older.’ The word ‘old’ with its final ‘d’ is like a heavy door slamming, whereas the word ‘older’ more accurately reminds us that life is a journey of continual learning. As T.S. Eliot wrote (and had he been writing in prose he would also have added ‘women’) ‘Old men should be explorers still.’
Month: September 2020
The world around us
The practice of meditation should not make us complacent but, rather, deepen our awareness of others and enable us to listen in depth to what is often a sub-text: they are talking about one thing but we sense there is something else they are wanting to say and if we listen, we shall eventually hear it.
This is why in the summer I sometimes invite our meditation group, which meets once a month, to sit in a circle outside in the garden, and, rather than try to shut out all the sounds, to be aware of them. We hear an aeroplane, an ambulance going by, children playing, birds singing, and we slowly become aware of the sap rising in plants and trees. We don’t try and shut all this out, but rest in a deep inner silence.