14 January: ABC Wednesday - Z

Zen Buddhism - as Rev. Master Jiyu-Kennett said, a religion for adults. You take responsibility for your own training, though there are teachers to guide and help. You do it yourself, meditation and keeping the Precepts; and you get the karmic consequences of your actions. (The law of karma states that every action has a consequence, or an equal and opposite reaction - or was that something else?)

Four Noble Truths, the Eightfold Path, Three Refuges, Ten Great Precepts - lots of numbers. Most of them are different aspects of the same thing. It's not easy, but you try to learn from mistakes, and do better.

As I understand it, and I could be wrong, Soto Zen differs from Rinzai Zen in that there is less emphasis on koans; as the Rules for Meditation tell us "the koan appears naturally in daily life". Zen Buddhism differs from other Buddhist paths in its emphasis on formal seated meditation.

There are probably more varieties of Buddhism than of Christianity. Google will help if you want to know more.

Zen and karma are words that have been taken from their original meanings and applied in a fuzzy way to all sorts of stuff, and Buddha figures have been used as household and garden ornaments - it amuses me to think of people using Jesus in the same way, but at least it gives Buddhists a chance to bow to Buddha more often.

"going, going, going on beyond, and always going on beyond - always becoming Buddha"

Homage to the Buddha,
Homage to the Dharma,
Homage to the Sangha.

4 May: Greed, hate and delusion

At last night's meeting of our Guild of Sinners, Divas, and Winos (some members liked the new version of the title), it was agreed by a group of us that the sort of people who stand for elections are exactly the sort of people we don't want to represent us.

In fact it was suggested that expressing willingness to be nominated should disqualify a person from being elected.

That does, of course, leave a bit of a problem as to how any government is chosen. A pin in a list of names and addresses couldn't do a worse job.

Also mentioned - recent willingness of powerful people to lie, apparently totally pointlessly, in a court. Presumably there was something to be gained; like having a holiday at somebody else's expense when you are perfectly well able to pay for your holiday yourself, and not then be in any way indebted to anyone.

What happened to integrity and honesty?

Oh, yes, I remember, a certain female person of great power told us that you can have whatever you want as long as you can pay for it, not necessarily now or in the immediate future; and instantly naked greed became the guiding principle - also adopted enthusiastically by the party formerly known as The Opposition. No longer any need to hide your real motives behind a semblance of public spirit. No longer the best thing for the country as a whole, but what brings the biggest short-term windfall to those in power (and their friends and relatives, of course. The Old Boys' network - another face of power-sharing). And the Devil take the hindmost.

And the media's influence is far, far greater than that of most politicians. If the press and broadcasters keep on about an issue long enough, the government does whatever the media are nagging on about. Who, exactly, decides which issues are "publicly debated"?

But it's true, you pay for what you have - if not straight away, then eventually. It's called the karmic consequence. You most definitely reap what you sow.

Better now, thank you.

(This post has been written in total ignorance of whatever went on in yesterday's local elections.)

19 April: Bluebells! - oh, and socks.

Yesterday I went to the bluebell woods.


No stitchwort or red campion to be seen yet, though there were carpets of celandines and wood anemones as well as the bluebells. And further on -


There is a "Discovery Trail" through here. A large notice tells the visitor that only a small part of the wood, which was given to the University in 1836 by the Bishop, has ever been in private ownership since the 12th century; and goes on to say how remarkable it is to have such an asset within a mile of the City centre.

It was a glorious morning. It was good to be alive and among these friends.

I even found some wool-bearing friends, Jacob sheep that belong to a Guild member. This ewe has twins.


And let's not forget the socks. Terribly un-subversive ones, these, but just the ticket for the nippy wind today. And yes, although knitted from the same ball of wool, they seem to be slightly different colours, but not quite as markedly as in the picture.

(Fancied a bit of a change in the Bag's appearance. Everything changes, remember.)

11 April: The aforementioned socks

The Toast socks are finished -


And here they are, modelled by my feet, although they are for DH and rather big for me -


You will note that they are Subversive Socks, in that when worn with ordinary shoes and trousers, they will appear to be dull old charcoal socks, whereas Really they are Toast and Marmalade Socks!

(DH doesn't wear open-toad sandals with socks, so we don't need to even think about that.)

And here is the first of the 'new design' socks in progress; just past the heel shaping and now galloping up the leg -


This yarn was dyed with purple and orange, and where the two dyes have merged, there are some wonderful intermediate colours, lilac-chocolate, pink-tan, steel-mauve. I love those subtle and unexpected colours that come when you're not trying for them.


I like the way hand-dyed yarn is not the same colour all over - the marmalade goes from yellow through several shades to strong orange, and the charcoal varies too. It makes the colour much more alive, in the same way that flowers are not the same colour all over.

Happiness is a ball of hand-dyed wool. Definitely.

14 March: Pride goes before

Well, that serves me right!

After boasting yesterday about being able to deal with heavy bags of sand, I've gone and strained a muscle in my arm. It wasn't the sand, though - it was dragging out a raspberry root that had gone under the fence into the next door garden.

And the current knitting has been 2 steps forward and one back. Since I am making it up as I go along, it isn't really surprising that it doesn't always go well, and it's no great hardship to pull out a few rows out and re-do it. They do say that the best way to learn how to do something right is to get it wrong first. Or did I just make that up, too?

It'll soon be at the stage of auditioning buttons, preparatory to knitting the front band. Then tidying the loose ends, and blocking. Bet you can't wait for the photo.