At the entrance to the temple, the Way is illumined
Sacred Glass in God’s House
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Category Archives: pilgrimage
A Small Gift
From the Hermit’s Cave to You, wherever you are
NETI NETI
On the going down and the coming up
silvered and golded stairs
to and from the Underworld.
It’s all just a giant mirror
In which we see who we are not.
Hommage aux Ailés
Creatures of the Air,
the Winged ones.
Same like you and me:
Bound to material nature.
When Trees Speak
Vibing on the mystic trees,
their upside is downside, their downside is upside
selves telling me:
You’ve got to cut through the attachments.
Then, not a new, but old made new again, insight
confirms, clarifies, brings details to,
shines a light on the specifics:
Stop desiring what you already have.
By the River’s Light
By the River’s Light
I’ll Live My Life
out of sight of Babylon
A Note From Me: I can’t tell you who wrote these words. Maybe I did; maybe it’s a song lyric; or maybe it’s a quote from someone famous. Whatever the case, a half hour internet search failed to come up with anything even close. So, The best I can do is thank whoever did bring these beautiful words into the world. I hope you are pleased with how I’ve made use of them.
God is in the Ink
My eyes follow the line her pen inscribes
across the page, its whiteness coming alive.
In such moments, I know that it is true :
I know that God is truly in the ink.
A Seaside Musing
Yellow-Golden sands
carpet the floors
of tidal rockpools,
home to crustations and seagrasses.
And the coffee tasted like medicine.
On the Road Again and a New Photo Blog announcement
Namaste friends
Welcome again to my blog. It’s always a good feeling when I sit at the keyboard to begin a new post to you.
And for this post,I have some news: this hermit is back on the road again. But, I hear you asking: aren’t you as a pilgrim always on the road, on the move? Yes all true; a pilgrimage like mine (life) is never-ending, permanent. Just a state of being you could say.
So, after a few months in the desert hermitage, we felt lead to move to Sydney, to another cave; another safe haven by the side of road.
This move has felt right and gone smoothly from the first thought, the initial feeling, to the actual trip here, right down to the comfort and contentment we feel in this new hermitage (in reality a small apartment beneath a house with a lovely garden, in a quiet street).
My second piece of news is that I have made another blog, one just for my pictures. Of course my posts here are always illustrated with my photos, but after deleting all my social media accounts (another bit of news I suppose) I felt the need for an alternate place to share my art. It’s on a different platform and it would be terrific if you could follow me there.
The blog is called Pictures from the Heart of a Pilgrim, and you are invited to visit, to follow, to comment. to connect. Just click on the link here.
There are only a handful of pictures on that site so far, but I’m working on expanding it, so please make sure you visit more than once. Better still, subscribe so you can be notified whenever I post.
I think that’s it. Maybe I will post about deleting social media accounts. But, somehow I don’t think I will: they’ve gone and I’m happy about that. I’m not alone I know in making that decision.
So, till next post, thank you for your support.
Love and Peace
Paul
What’s Wrong with a Little Repetition?
Strangely for one who lives a life that at least aspires to be outside the mainstream of our culture and society, I have a lot of rules to follow.
What I mean to say, is that, while for the most part I disdain the ‘rules and customs’, and the ‘demands and obligations’ of the dominent culture and our materialistic society, I seem to be quite capable of making up all kinds of rules for myself. I’m then more than able to put the exact same pressures on myself to obey, to comply and to conform.
One of those ‘rules’ is to try not to repeat topics of posts. Obviously there are posts that fall through the cracks of such strictness, but on the whole I like to keep coming up with new things to share with you.
But it’s been occuring to me lately that musings and contemplations don’t work that way. The mind, the heart, know no such rules as ‘no repittion’. (Actually, now I think about it, there are some things the mind likes to repeat all the time that I could do very well without thank you very much)
Sometime, not too long ago I think, I wrote about the beautiful George Harrison song, Just for today. I wrote about how I have a slightly paraphrased few lines from that song written in my Bhagavat Gita, and I read those lines every day:
I know I am not alone in my desire to not be constantly trying to sort out all life’s problems; I know many of us would just like a little peace, a little pause in the ongoing rush of life. Just for today, or even just for a minute.
What George is making a plea for here has resonated with me since I first heard this song so many years ago I can’t remember.
Anyway, this was supposed to lead up to the real topic of today’s post which was going to be about my decision last night to spend the next few days in a kind of retreat. Instead it’s turned into a bit of a rave about breaking self-imposed rules.
Actually though, one of the primary motivations for my decision was the very notion of presence, of being still for ‘this day only’. You know the idea: leave all life’s worries and issues, and worldly concerns out of mind, just for a bit.
In other words, in this case I don’t think I mind repeating myself, breaking my own (really rather silly if you ask me) rule. The retreat is timely, and it’s a good thing to be reminded that it really is about presence.
I’ve been getting too caught up in ‘what’s next?’ kind of questions. As well as the usual and very tedious existential angst over life, the universe, and everything past, present, and still yet to be!
So, at the risk of creating a classic oxymoron, it’s now the time to head off to find a little presence, and a little stillness.
Just for today.
Notes from the Hermit's Cave 