Notes from the Hermit's Cave

Musings on one Hermit's life & world

Mind Your Own Business and Save the World

Posted on April 11, 2022 by Notes from the Hermit's Cave

Namaste friends

Welcome to another post. Just a little note before we get into it: This one picks up where the last one left off. Kind of. No need to read that one first, unless you want to.

And that’s the whole thing in one sentence, or at least in part of a sentence: unless you want to: none of it is any of my business. What do I mean when I say ‘none of it’? Just that. None of it. Or we can say it in another way: the only thing that is your business is you.

But, all of us are bound to ask, how can I simply mind my own business in a world torn by endless war? How can I ignore the environment I live in and that it’s dying before my eyes? How can I turn away from the evils of racism, injustice, greed, and cruelty?

Well, the simple answer is we can’t and we shouldn’t. Of course, in order to reconcile this apparent contradiction, it would be helpful to clarify exactly what we mean by minding our own business.

In essence my business (or yours or anyone’s) is anything that has to do with me: what I do; how I behave; what I think, feel, and believe; my behaviour and attitudes towards others; and—and this is the key—how I interact with and respond to the world as I experience it as I go about living my life.

So, it isn’t completely accurate to say that the wars, racism, injustice, and the killing of the environment (and everything else) is none of my business; my business is limited to my interaction with and response to all of it. And that has to be determined by a range of factors like my nature, my abilities, my circumstances, and so on.

Above all, and as Susan Sontag, American writer, philosopher, and political activist, said in a speech in 2004:

To be a moral human being is to pay, be obliged to pay, certain kinds of attention.

While the theme of that speech had to do with the writer’s responsibility to truth, I think her assertion applies here and may provide a solution to the seeming contradiction between minding our own business while at the same time stating that our business can, should, and does indeed include what goes on outside of ourselves (actually as we shall see, in reality there is no outside or inside)

How we utilise our own personal resources is in the end for each of us to decide. In the sense of our engagement with the world, the most precious of these resources are arguably time and attention.

Each of us possesses these things in our own unique quantities, just as we all have our own unique qualities, so each of us has the opportunity to decide how we use our time, and what we pay attention to.

It is so very easy to be overwhelmed by the constant torrent of information detailing the horrors threatening to consume and destroy our poor Earth and the life she supports. It is so very tempting to throw up our hands in defeat, and shrug our shoulders as we turn away exclaiming ‘It’s none of my business’.

While none of us would blame anyone for retreating in this way, a great many of us realise that for us this is not an option. Well, as the Buddha taught, there is a middle way. A way that allows us to avoid this kind of ‘none of my business’ denial, at the same time as protecting us from being overwhelmed and beaten down by the scale of it all.

The first step involves surrender. Surrender to the idea that there is no ‘me’; there is no ‘you’. There is no ‘them’, no ‘us’. There is only ‘I’. Surrender to the notion that not only is all life ‘connected’ or linked, but to the thought that all life—human, other animals, plant, mineral — everything — is one. There is no separation.

Easy eh? Hardly. But this is where the paying attention thing comes in. Rather than being swamped by the never-ending tsunami, choose where to put your attention. Ask yourself, where am I able to place my attention? How can I—how am I able to—use my time so that I avoid drowning yet still contribute to the well-being of the whole of which I am a part?

Obviously, as I hinted at above, the answers will be different for each and every one of us. For some, the kind of attention they pay will involve being on the literal front lines, working in the political field, or with activist groups working for social justice.

Then there will be those whose nature compels them to choose to put their attention on a life of prayer, meditation, and contemplation.

For these people this requires the quiet and solitude of monastery, ashram, or cave (whether it be in forest, mountain, or suburban home). And along the huge spectrum in between, there is a a unique spot for every one of us.

Each of us is a part of the whole. Everything we do affects the whole. Remember that saying that goes something like: A butterfly flutters it’s wings in the forest and the sun rises? Okay, maybe I’m pushing it a bit, but you know what I mean.

Never underestimate what (you perceive of as the little) you’re able to do; no one can say what impact it will have. All that is required of you is that you mind your own business.

Methinks There’s a Whole Lot of Overthinking Going On

Posted on April 10, 2022 by Notes from the Hermit's Cave

So much anxiety taking me over. Overwhelming all possibility of rational thought. I guess that doesn’t have to be such a bad thing in itself, but along with that often redundant supposedly rational thought, has gone equilibrium, peace of mind, calmness, and silence.

No silence. But a little breakthrough: I’ve told myself (my Self?) I won’t wallow. In this way I am opposing, resisting, the anxiety with discipline, with bravery, and, well, more discipline. So I turned in another direction: I worked on a couple of photographs.

Fantasies both for sure. But that’s Art responding as Art ought isn’t it? Fantasy. Anyway, it works better than anxiety, which of course is also fantasy isn’t it?

So, anyway, I’m resisting. I refuse to give in and allow the anxiety to take over and dictate my behaviour, tell me how to and what to speak, and exhaust me.

Yes, it is exhausting. I always say that resistance is never ever futile, but it sure is tiring. And there are other ways: Just chant. That’s the thing I tell myself a lot, just keep focus on the mantra, and all will be well.

Mind you at the moment I am having an atrocious period of trouble with my devotional practice. Forgetting the Divine seems to be the norm these last days – even as I sit preparing for daily practice.

It’s kind of a catch 22 thing I think sometimes: If I can chant more then I can help myself achieve a little more equilibrium, relieve the anxieties a little. But because I overthink those anxieties and all the intricacies of every thought, I forget to chant.

So, it does indeed look like discipline and self-control are the keys here. There’s a phrase, a kind of motto I like: One thing, God alone. Call it right living, or peace, or calm, or mindfulness, the Divine; it’s all the same thing. That’s where my focus has to be above all else.

Actually, not wanting to risk overthinking here, but when you do think about it, focusing my life on what is good and right; what is calm and peaceful; what it true, well, that’s the whole of it isn’t it? I mean that takes care of all the mundane stuff almost in an automatic way.

It seems that in just about every one of my posts I end up talking about presence. In this case, I think presence might have to at least sometimes be worked on. I mean to say that the discipline and self-control I was talking about, needs to centre around being present.

In other words, as my anxious mind wanders off on its fiendish ways, I am to just pay attention, turn away a little, put the focus back on the good, on God, and remember.

I really do feel (actually let’s be honest, let’s say it how it is), I think that I am always simply overthinking. Or thinking way too much, too often, anyway.

And along with my mind, my typing fingers can run away with themselves if I let them. So, I’ll just say see you next time!

Put Me in My Place. Please

Posted on April 9, 2022 by Notes from the Hermit's Cave

Reverence the place and learn from what you see

Coming across this note last night, I was stumped. I coudln’t think where it had come from, where I’d seen it; nothing at all came to mind. And an online search just now failed to turn up anything either. I mean I must have read it somewhere. Or is it possible it came from me?

Of course it’s all the same: there is only one source. At any rate, it’s an injunction one can relate to anywhere, any place. It’s surely about presence?

And about learning from all that is to be seen (heard, felt, intuited, known) in whatever place one is in now. I mean, the place I’m in now. I am here and it is now.

I’m reminded of the faith affirmation (is it a prayer?) that seems to have been written for this particular hermit pilgrim:

As a a hermit, I am a pilgrim dependent on a pure faith that I am exactly where God wold have me be now.

Sometimes I think that too much thinking about and angst over places other than the one I’m actually in right now, is a sure and certain way to resist and reject any reverencing of the place I’m in, not to mention what’s to be learned or gifted from the experience of being here.

And of course that angst, worry, wishful thinking, or whatever, comes with its own issues of distraction, and of a taking away of one’s Self from the present, the notion that here and now is the only time and place that exists.

A poem of mine I came across the other day while looking for something else says it all quite nicely. This poem is called Transcendental Injunctions, and it’s a rap on presence, about being here, and being now.

The central action describes how my senses can take me away from that here and now: I describe my habit of smelling my Bhagavad Gita (yes, as in putting my nose into the pages of the little book and inhaling the aroma of those pages) and how that takes me back to the shores of the River Ganges; another place, another time.

Anyway, allow me to share the final verse, which speaks of one such occasion:

Then, there is a voice:
I hear it with the ear of my heart:
There is no place to go.
What you seek is within.
There’s nothing to find:
God’s kingdom is within.

I suppose there is nothing left to say. I am here, and it is now

Peace to you from me

Walk In The Waters of Life

Posted on April 2, 2022 by Notes from the Hermit's Cave

Since I launched this blog (a whole month and a bit ago already), I’ve had an idea for a post. A short, spontaneous, chatty but informative little piece on my favourite name and form of the Divine Feminine (often referred to as the Goddess): Saraswati.

Well, as the keenly observant among you will have noticed, no such post has appeared. Procrastination in overdrive you might say. Or perhaps it was that the Goddess just wasn’t keen on me doing the post about her?

You see, I did some research, made a ton of notes, and discovered all kinds of fascinating things and I just felt I wanted to share what I’d learned. Somehow, though, the idea didn’t go any further. I’ve thought about it from time to time, but still, nothing has come. Then, a couple of days ago, I came across my notes and reread what I’d discovered.

Now, here’s a key moment: as I reread those notes, I thought (paraphrasing here), ‘I really must post this. It’s all so fascinating and would interest a lot of people and even be helpful.’ Something like that anyway. Yet, still, it is not written.

So, despite my notes seemingly begging for my attention, I guess that maybe it’s not the time. Now my notes are safely tucked into a few nice little folders within a larger folder somewhere in the depths of my harddrive.

All that struggle; all that thinking and fretting over what was supposed to be a short, spontaneous couple of hundred words on a subject I love. Still, the episode has got me thinking about intuition and how it can disguise itself – with our help – as procrastination. And vice versa.

Yes, I know, obvious question: how can we ever know the difference? When are we inventing all kinds of reasons for putting something off, and when is it really intuition trying to guide us?

Well, it’s complicated. As creatures able to reason, we are always ready to come up with arguments for and against, to think endlessly and agonize over the smallest and most trivial details while ignoring the big stuff. Really, in my case that’s all there is to it: I just think too much.

Sticking to the Saraswati blog post episode (a catchy title don’t you think? Watch out for a post headed up ‘The Saraswati Blog Post Episode‘), I don’t recall why I didn’t just get right to writing it. It might have been any number of things: a perceived lack of time; a promise to self to ‘give it some more thought’; a resistance to the actual ‘labour’ required. Who knows?

Or, was it more that, while the idea was a good one, I just wasn’t feeling it? Maybe the timing just wasn’t right? The problem is that sometimes an intuition comes in a flash of knowing – with a capital K – that you can’t possibly miss.

Then, other times, it creeps up so slowly and quietly that it gets drowned out and ignored as our monkey mind takes over with its endless arguments for and against, pros and cons, advantages and disadvantages,

The lesson I was given here was this: What is going to get done, will get done; what is not going to get done, won’t. Sounds simple really, but so often we make it more complicated with our overthinking, our coming up with excuses. We procrastinate.

Then, at other times, we just dive in the deep end, flowing with the intuition. It may be right or it may be wrong, but it’s done. Actually, I am trying to realise that there is no right or wrong about a decision made: it just is as it is. Easy to type, hard to do.

Flowing. That’s a good word actually. Saraswati, along with many other characteristics, embodies flow. As in the flow of the river of life. She’s the Goddess of all things creative as well as any activity that helps one to discover the essence of self.

So, flash or gradual realisation; right or wrong; left or right, be the river: flow with what happens or doesn’t happen. Don’t fret about the twists and turns, the ebb and flow of tides, the rocks in the stream that force us to flow around or over, or to change direction completely. In 1946 the poet Jorge Luis Borges wrote an essay about time. In that essay, among other things he says:

Time is the substance I am made of. Time is a river which sweeps me along, but I am the river (emphasis is mine)
Jean Luis Borges A New Refutation of Time 1946

Reading that quote reminded me of a song that I’ve been humming on and off for a very very long time (hint: I saw the movie when it first came out).

The river flows, it flows to the sea.
Wherever that river goes, that’s where I want to be.
Flow river flow.

Peace from me to you.

PS: Thanks to my memory for giving me these lyrics from The Ballad of Easy Rider. Or was it actually Saraswati whispering in my ear?

Truth Is

Posted on March 31, 2022 by Notes from the Hermit's Cave

Namaste friends. Welcome.

Fake news, propaganda, misinformation, disinformation, manipulative advertising. Such a tsunami of information threatening to swamp us, all of it claiming to be ‘facts’ or ‘true’, mean we are almost continually asking, what is true? Who can tell anymore? When we look at the world we live in today it is a rare thing when we are able to tell if something or someone is real or true.

For me there is only one solution: stop looking to the world as the source of any kind of answers to anything, and particularly when it comes to trying to sort out what is true and what isn’t.

The only place you will find the answer to the question ‘what is the truth of …?’ and know for certain that it is true, is within yourself. You are the only one who can decide what is true and what isn’t, what is right and what is wrong.

It doesn’t mean you ignore all information from external sources; it only means that you appeal to that inner part of yourself, the intellect and beyond, to help you reach your own truth sifted from all that information.

It’s a well trod path in philosophical circles: the debate around absolute versus relative truth(s) has been going on for a few thousand years already, and it’s unlikely to reach any kind of resolution anytime soon.

I’m not saying that a thing might be true for you and not true for someone else. At the same time I’m not saying that there is some kind of externally arbitrated single, absolute truth that is always true regardless of whether one agrees or not.

What I am saying is that, if you come to the truth of a thing, situation, person, whatever, from within yourself and it is accompanied by that inner ‘I just know this is right’ feeling one gets sometime, then putting it simply, it is truth. Period; fullstop; that’s all there is to it. End of story.

If someone tells me there is a tiger in the centre of town, how can I really know if there actually is a tiger in the centre of town? And if three (or three hundred) people tell me there is a tiger in the centre of town? Well even then, how can I really know for sure if there is a tiger? There might be, or there might not be.

Okay then, how do I find out? Putting it like that the answer seems obvious doesn’t it? I go and look for myself.

But you know even then, do my eyes deceive me? Do I know what a tiger looks like? You see, even if my physical eyes see what I’ve been led to believe is a tiger, I still need to use my intellect, or even my intuition, to assess its real identity, to figure out the truth for myself. I mean, for my Self.

Afterword:

The tiger example is from a Chinese fable from the Taoist tradition. I’ll put my slightly elaborated version in my next post, and once it’s there you can find it here.

Buddhism’s Three Refuges: They’re for Everyone

Posted on March 30, 2022 by Notes from the Hermit's Cave

Greetings and Welcome

To become a Buddhist, , there are a number of things a person must commit to. One of these consists of a kind of three in one resolution that’s welcomed by any aspirant. In fact, some say that in order to be a Buddhist, one has to repeat The Triratna or The Three Jewels. Three refuges is the other name used.

I take refuge in the Buddha
I take refuge in the Dharma
I take refuge in the Sangha

The exact words used may vary, but The Three Jewels is common throughout the Buddhist world. And of course there will be many meanings ascribed to ‘take refuge’, but the one I like is the one that any of us might use in, say, a heavy downfall of rain. What do we usually do in when the rain starts falling? We look for shelter, we take refuge.

I don’t mean to suggest that becoming a Buddhist automatically means that one is seeking a safe dry cosy place out of the storm. Though, now I’ve said that, it does make sense. I know myself that (though I am not a Buddhist) sometimes the only way forward, the only means to seek the truth, and to find peace, is to take refuge somewhere or in someone or something.

Not being a Buddhist as I said, I’m not qualified to speak about Buddhism in any real detail. What I have in mind is I would like to borrow the Three Refuges and reflect on how we could all use what me might call a ‘secular’ interpretation as a way of putting into words our own commitment to finding a refuge, a safe haven as we tackle what is for all of us born into a physical body, a life of trials, tribulations, ups and downs, storms and lulls, happy times and sad times, and all the rest of the package that’s called living a life.

Let’s take a look at each of the Three Jewels (also known as the Three Treasures which I like a lot), and think about how we can apply it to our own life, to our own seeking of refuge.

I take refuge in the Buddha.

For a Buddhist, the Buddha is the Guru, the teacher, the one who holds the Truth and shows the way. Many people would say right now, well that counts me out. I don’t follow a religion. I don’t have a teacher or guru. I’m just another regular person trying to make my way through life.

While it may be true that you don’t have a teacher or priest or guru, or anyone else in the role of guide, there is one person who is always there with and for you, one person who is always thinking about you, who is making decisions for you on which way to go, what to do and all the rest: you.

Yes, you. Your Self. When it comes down to it, who knows you better than you do? Take refuge in you, in the Self. Need to make a hard choice? Look within. Feeling tired, or ill or fed up? Look within you for the answers to what can be done. Follow your intuition. You, plus intuition, plus you taking refuge in you, equals teacher, guide. You are your own guru.

I take refuge in the Dharma.

Once again there’s a myriad of ways to define dharma. And once again, I have a favourite: Dharma (often represented by a wheel) according to the religious tradition we know as Hinduism is cosmic or universal law that underpins right behaviour. It is the eternal and inherent nature of reality. In other words it is Truth.

We can all say, regardless of our beliefs say, I take refuge in the truth and in what is right. It’s a commitment to always acting in the best interests of everyone – including ourselves (maybe even especially ourselves). It is taking shelter or refuge in what is right. Living such a life in our messed up world is never going to be easy, so it is best to think in terms of doing the best one can. But having it as your ongoing guide will ease the path.

I take refuge in the Sangha.

A Sangha is an association or a community. Often used to describe monastic communities of monks or nuns, it may also include lay people. If we step outside of the religious framework, then a Sangha is a community that shares common bonds, beliefs, commitments, interests, and so on. Family, tribe, workmates, recreational and sports clubs. You name it: all sorts of groups might be sanghas or communities.

Of course, and perhaps very obviously, not all groups will be communities, And equally we may not think we are a part of any community; we may think of ourselves as being quite outside any group. However there are no rules that say a community has to have a set number of members. Besides, being in community is a condition and has nothing to do with group size or composition.

So, if you find yourself in a community of one – or two or however many – take refuge there. Make a commitment there. As with any other real community, this one begins with you and your truth.

The Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha. The Teacher, the Truth, and the Community. Making commitments to the Three Refuges can create a solid foundation as we continue our journey through the world and our lives. The refuges – the safe havens we can call them – we have sought and found will support us through good and bad times.

Actually, I just thought: if we are genuinely able to take true refuge in these three treasures then we will conditioning our Selves to be more present, more in the here and now of who we are, what we’re doing, and what’s happening to us.

Peace to you from me

Be Present in the Presence

Posted on March 29, 2022 by Notes from the Hermit's Cave

Greetings and welcome

I write quite a lot about presence. I think a lot about presence, about being present, and all kinds of related ‘being in the moment’ kinds of musings.

Of course words like presence and present can have multiple meanings can’t they? About this time last year I read s book called Consider the Ravens. It’s about the history as well as the recent revival of interest in hermits and ways of living the hermit life.

If you are even remotely interested in living more in solitude, or living a simpler and more sustainable, life, or being more spiritually focused, then I can’t recommend this book highly enough.

There’s a paragraph from that book I’d like to share with you. It both describes some characteristics found in hermits and their way of life, as well as introducing us to a lovely phrase concerning the concept of presence.

Are hermits escapist? Yes. Is running away a bad thing? Like most choices it’s value is determined by its purpose. There are men and women who are selfishly seeking a sanctuary untouched by human pain. But there are others who deliberately choose to be powerless [in the eyes of the world], to live simply, and to use no more than their fare share of the world’s resources. They elect to be unknown, hidden, forgotten. And the goal? To become transparent to the Divine, or as [one hermit] succinctly phrased it: ‘to be always present to the Presence’.
Paul & Karen Fredette Consider the Ravens

I like that phrase; it’s what I’m aiming at. Actually, no. That’s not right: you can’t aim at being present, you can’t have presence as a goal to be attained in the future. I think that’s called an oxymoron. Anyway, all you can do is be; be present in the presence.

And it doesn’t matter what you call it: Presence; Truth; Reality; God; the Universe; the Cosmic Reality. They’re only names for that unnameable essence that we’d all agree can be called the Love that is in reality everything.

It’s that essence beyond all names – and forms. It’s what we sense is behind, above, and within all that exists in the world.

And, like a lot of people, I want to withdraw from that world of materialism. From the greed, the corruption, the cruelty and wilful ignorance, the … well, you get the point. My sense, and it is echoed in the quoted paragraph, is that presence is to be found in silence, and in solitude.

Of course it’s not necessary to be a hermit to be present – or in order to be present in the Presence. After all, few people believe they can go find a cave somewhere and withdraw totally from the world. (maybe it’s the belief that’s the problem?)

So, what to do? A wise person once gave a brilliant answer to that question and I have it on a card to remind me:

Yes. Be present and the direction will present itself.

Peace to you.

Mother Mary Come to Me

Posted on March 28, 2022 by Notes from the Hermit's Cave

Namaste friends

During the early days of the pandemic, I lived in a small town out on the edge of the Outback. But after a few months, the time felt right to head for the coast. Slowly. With that in mind and headed in the right direction, I spent six weeks in another small town in that semiarid zone, staying in a motel.

I liked it there, at the Maria Motel in Moree. Described as a low-key 1960s era motel, the Maria is right across the street from the Artesian Hot Pools, which are Moree’s claim to fame. For me (for us), it was another temporary hermitage and safe haven on the side of the road in which to take shelter for a while.

My favourite among the list of things I like about the Maria Motel is the statue of Mary out front in the courtyard. The Virgin Mary that is, Our Lady, the mother of Jesus. You know who I mean. And it isn’t only my Catholic upbringing and education that accounts for my fondness of Mary. It is more about what she symbolizes, what she stands for.

For me Mary represents what I might call the feminine aspect of God. Some would call her the Earth Goddess. Mary is the mother, as in Mother Earth, Mother Nature. She is the feminine principle of the Universe. Respect and care for the mother is obviously the key to our survival.

This land from which this town was carved, has been inhabited since long before we began to mark time; since the beginning some say.

Those hot pools have been sacred for a very very long time. While nobody asked permission of the people who already lived here to build a town, at least when some of the invaders came they chose to honour the sacredness of the land they had appropriated by placing this statue representing the sacred feminine in sight of those ancient holy waters, and naming that temporary hermitage of mine, the Maria Motel.

Awen: Bring On the Creative Spirit

Posted on March 28, 2022 by Notes from the Hermit's Cave

Hello friends

My last post spoke a little about my study of the Bhagavad Gita, and it prompted me to share a little more with you about the actual book itself. Well, not the book as such; more like some of the words I’ve written on the title page:

I stand always on sacred ground and beneath sacred skies.
Awen Awen Awen
You are always with [a] devotee: Your Self

Every time I open that little book I see and read those three lines. They are all sacred to me with great personal meaning. Four distinct ideas, from four sources. In a sense reading them is a kind of preparation for my actual reading of the Gita.

While all those words are special to me, today what seemed to call out to be heard, was Awen. Or I should say, the three repetitions of the word.

Awen has been special to me ever since a friend told me about it many years ago. It’s a Welsh word, basically defined as poetic – or creative – inspiration. It is sometimes personified as the Muses that inspires artists generally.

Wikipedia says, Awen comes from Indo-European root uel, meaning ‘to blow’. Awel the Welsh word for breeze shares this root. Awen is also ‘flowing spirit’, as in the flow of energy that is the essence of life. Reading this made me think of Bob Dylan:

The answer my friend
is blowing in the wind
Bob Dylan Blowing in the Wind

The symbol for Awen is beautiful. Three rays of light that emanate from three points of light. There are many interpretations for the three rays and the three points, but the ones I like have them symbolizing Earth, Sea, and Air; body, mind, and spirit; love, wisdom, and truth.

I like the idea that the three points are the actual foundation of Awen itself: the understanding of truth, the love of truth, and the maintaining of truth.

Enough with the explanations and definitions. The repetition of Awen three times is a kind of chant or prayer. As such, it’s an invocation of Awen, the divine creative energy – or the muse.

So there you have it: a little more about my special little book. Don’t worry, I’ll try not to make a habit of this. I guess it’s what happens when something is in your consciousness, and you just never know when Awen will reach out and bless you.

Thank you

Peace

Just Passing Through … or Seeking Noble Truths: A Poetical Sharing

Posted on March 25, 2022 by Notes from the Hermit's Cave

Greetings friends

In my last post I mentioned I would share a poem with you in this one. And here it is!

Just Passing Through … or Seeking Noble Truths, is, like the previous post, concerned with passing through, how as I go through life, I am always in some sort of passing through place. Before we get to the poem, just let me fill you in on a bit of the back story.

First, I wrote the poem as I walked home to our hermitage at the time in a town called Moama on the Murray River in Australia. Now, the Murray is the biggest river in the country and the then little town of Moama sits across the river from its bigger city sized sibling: Echuca, the biggest inland port in Australia.

Anyway, I’d just crossed the river bridge and the words just started coming to me. Not exactly as you read it here, but close. I am very lucky that I had only a few minutes walk left to get home, otherwise the whole lot could have been lost to memory.

The longer back back story? Well, as the poem suggests, I’d spent a lot of time hitchhiking, in Australia and a few other places too. It’s true what it says in the first lines: I’d done a lot of trudging through a rather large number of towns unknown to me then, and only some of which are better known to me now in much later years.

Okay, that’s enough back story to last a while, so let’s just present the star of the show. I share this, as I do all my efforts, with heart.

JUST PASSING THROUGH … OR SEEKING NOBLE TRUTHS

Many have been the nights
I’ve trudged (and less often, strode)
past illuminated windows framing.
families sharing sit down meals.
Or huddled worshipfully before
flickering and silent (to my passing by ears)
picture boxes in corners of cosy family rooms.

I am just one more invisible (to most), anonymous
drifter. Just passing through
the empty nighttime streets of one more
anonymous town.
Longing to enter the illumined frame.
Longing to share one of those sit down meals.
Longing to worship at the alter of the flickering picture box.
Longing is loss.

The edge of town roadside summons
this lonesome bodhisattva begging rides.

It’s just one more quiet and cold
semi desert night. A high moon in a clear sky
casts ghostly shadows through Eucalypts:
my only company as the waiting game begins.
Waiting to see headlights coming and going my way.
Waiting to be rescued from this lonely edge of town roadside.
Waiting for another ride, to another anonymous town.
Waiting is wasteful

Better to be here, now, on this
edge of town roadside. A place as good
as any. Illumined by the moon,
the ghostly gums create the frame
in which this bodhisattva rests.
And worships.

Thank you for allowing me to share these words with you. The road, as many of you will know, can be a teacher, a guru. I don’t hitch-hike anymore, but the road is still teaching me. And I am grateful.