Whatever is going on when I am at Maes Gwyn, whatever visitors there are, Srimala and I follow a basic routine that is almost invariable. We meet every morning in her house at seven. My own house is just a hundred yards further but it involves crossing the yard past a gap between two buildings through which ferocious winds can blow and rain can be hurled horizontally. That can be a bit much at 6.30 in the morning! But I love the sense of living outside and the first glimpse of the day, at this time of year in the gloaming. We each follow our own Chi Kung routine for about 50 minutes but doing it together makes the discipline easier and build up something of a Chi environment. My eight years practice of Chi kung has made an enormous difference to my health and general state of mind. The delicate balance of deep relaxation with very specific poses held for quite long periods of time requires great sensitivity and non activity which has taught me a great deal. I increasingly feel the Chi flowing through my body, not just in Chi Kung sessions. This is both very vitalising and suggests more subtle dimensions of reality in a very concrete way. From Chi Kung we proceed to our shrine room, which is a portion of a stone built barn, very spacious and simple. The wall behind the shrine is beautifully made out of large granite blocks transported from the other side of our neighbouring mountain and put in place by wiry Welshman two hundred years ago or more. We sit for as long as we feel like it, usually for at least an hour. I leave the shrine room and walk up to the back garden where we have had placed five large stones which were formally in the walls of the house Srimala now lives in. There is one obelisk like a spike of granite, six feet high in the centre, and four great stones around in the cardinal points. Each morning I slowly circumambulate these stones reciting the seed symbol for the Jinna of that direction by each stone. All around me are the hills and the weather. Sometimes the rain is beating down, I have to wear a huge military cloak which completely envelopes me. But I never miss. For some reason this morning ritual has a powerful impact upon me and I feel that I am linked both to the landscape and to the ultimate ideals. When I have been round the circle three times I wander around and visit all the trees we’ve planted and look for the changes in the plants and the signs of small animals chasing through the undergrowth. There are of course many voles and other rodents: a hedgehog regularly turns up: and there’s even been an otter in the stream. For the rest of the morning I go off to my own house where I have breakfast and then get down to whatever the tasks of the day are. Srimala and I have lunch together at her house and then do an hour or so of work in the grounds or on the buildings. I love this period of direct physical activity working with Srimala to repair, alter, or develop some area of the property. Over the ten years we’ve been living there we’ve slowly created a landscape within the property. We couldn’t call it a garden because the conditions here are so rough that very little will grow comfortably. So we’ve mainly left it to itself and encouraged whatever comes: foxgloves do especially well as do forget-me-nots and buttercups, Herb-Robert grows everywhere and tiny white flowers that I call Welsh lotuses. Many other tiny wildflowers come and go nestling in the grass or cracks and corners, which it is my delight to seek out and rejoice in. After a work period we continue with our separate activities in our own houses coming again together for supper, often followed by some activity together like a film or meditation or just talking. We’ve been having a season of Kieślowski’s films from Dekalog onwards deeply appreciating his beautiful and sensitive depiction of the unspoken links between human beings, mysterious and inexplicable. We’ve hit upon a few other excellent films which it would be good to mention here at some point.
Posted on: Fri, 14 Nov 2014 17:34:27 +0000
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