This morning, over breakfast, we had a discussion of relationships and community and the idea of recreating tribes, in general, and, more specifically, around Eleusis, a tribe being, essentially, a network of relationships that cross a certain thresh
Read more…Today's morning ritual started with my first lesson about 'The Summary of Faith and Practice'. The Summary is an essential text of the Amida Order. It was raining all day except during this lesson. The sun started to shine through the clouds the minu
Read more…We had a quiet day of reading, writing and chatting, in part due to the continuance of the wet weather. It seems as though it has not stopped raining this year. There are occasional small outbursts of sunshine but quite quickly it clouds in again and
Read more…My reorganisation of my quarters is progressing and it ia great joy to me personally to have the great majority of my books arranged where I can find and get at them. The downstairs room is now much more functional. There remains quite a bit to do up
Read more…I spent spent most of the day making this from an IKEA kit, assembling approx 450 items in a kind of three dimensional jigsaw. The picture instructions are pretty good explaining it all in about 50 steps and I only made one mistake along the way whic
Read more…A new ritual
A new ritual is developing here at Eleusis. Breakfast seems an excellent time of the day for a some lessons. Today's lesson was about the history of how Buddhism developed as a religion. My notes reflect a time line from 500 BC, the life
Read more…Notes between breakfast
This morning during breakfast suddenly I found my self in the middle of a history lesson about Honen Shonin. Even before I finished my breakfast I had to get my notebook so I could make notes from the story David told me about
Read more…A Reflective Season
Yesterday was my mother’s birthday. The day before was my birthday. The day before that was New Year’s Day. This is generally a rather emotional time of year for me and this year no exception. The middle of the cold part of the ye
Today we started to make some preparations for the coming Event in March, 'Love Life and Transformation'. We talked about the theme and the kind of personal workshops we will organise. After a while we started to talk about Buddhist psychology, a su
Read more…A special day. David’s 69th birthday. We celebrated David’s birthday with a nice lunch with our good friend Annette.It is always very nice talking with Annette. We discussed and talked about some of the topics on the Eleusis site. First Annette start
Read more…I've been cleaning out my room - a slow job in which it gets worse before it gets better. The trouble is that one finds interesting things and spends time browsing them rather than getting on with the job - but then, that is half the fun. Enjoy life.
Read more…One of Those Mornings
Today I decided to make mulch to put around the roses that were planted the other day in order to give them some frost protection. In the morning i shredded all the blackthorn and rose cuttings that had been lying in a heap in t
Today we went out to a pretty city, Bourges. In a couple of days it is David's birthday. One of the things i want to give him is new hat. I had already searched for one, but it seemed quite impossible to find one. Most of the men's hats are grey or b
Read more…I know you are not supposed to plant roses in December,
but this is no ordinary December. It feels more like September. Anyway, it was good to get out in the fresh air and exercise some muscles and get some more of the flower bed turned over. I had
A quiet day at home again. David had some writing to finish. He writes a lot about mindfulness these days. In these last days of this year my mind is full of ideas for the new year, specifically for the new retreats we want to organise at Eleusis. We
Read more…Today i had a quiet day writing as i have a couple of assignments that i need to get done before the end of the year. Elja was doing a variety of domestic tasks. Between times we had some nice conversations. An easy day. Namo Amida Bu.
Read more…When i came down to make breakfast this morning i checked my mail and a former lover messaged me on Facebook. It was lovely to hear from here. I felt all soft inside. She told me that when we had last met, a while back, her feelings for me had been r
Read more…We had a day mostly devoted to Aphrodite. We took our new statue to be blessed in the Buddha hall and chanted a lot of nembutsu...
After a snack we went out to Aphrodite's sacred field, enjoying the warm sunshine and did some clearing toward th
Read more…Outside it is like spring.
After visiting the ‘Buddha chapel’ in the woods, we did some outside jobs.
Cutting blackthorn without wearing a coat. Lay down in the grass enjoying the warmth and the sunlight. Is it really December?
Yes it is… Back in the
Read more…EMOTIONS
It has been quite a day. Not easy to convey. We had a discussion in the early hours of the morning - one of those where you are not entirely sure what you are talking about but you know it is important. The past few days there has been someth
