I have not written a Daily for several days. This is principally because life here goes along in a fairly uniform way at the moment so that one feels that there is nothing to report.
Personally I feel myself to be in a kind of interim. I have more or less completed writing my book. There is still the whole business of trying to find a publisher and after that there will be some editing and so on, but the job is basically done and this leaves a gap. So much of my energy has gone into wrestling with Dogen and his ideas. It has been hugely rewarding. Even if the book never got published, I have already got a lot out of the work of it. Writing tests one's ideas and, in this case, made me reconsider a number of perspectives. Today's Daily Teaching is an example. I do not think that writing the book has shaken my foundations, but it has made me realise that when you carry a principle through thoroughly it has implications that you had not thought about.
Then, the health issue is something that at my age and in my condition I can never totally escape from. Around the place here there is a lot of heavy work - sawing wood, breaking up concrete, repairing walls, various gardening tasks - all of which I have been involved in during the past few days. Mostly I feel OK but it is hard to know. This week, for instance, I think that I detect a slight improvement in my general wellbeing - is this just part of the normal fluctuation that we all experience or does it mean that something to do with my blood circulation problem has changed? I hope, but I don't know. Then, I've been waking up and writing poems, some of which are about death. What, if anything, does that mean?
One of the delights here is seeing Tara the kitten growing and developing. This week I accidentally medicated her with the wrong anti-flea treatment as a result of not having my glasses on and misreading the tube. Consequently we had to do her twice, poor thing. She seems to have survived the ordeal quite well. She is getting to be a great climber. There are plenty of things to climb around our garden and buildings. She is good at getting up, but it is not always so easy getting down again.
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