I am back in my wee room floating over the shrine room here at Suryavana, Thankfully the searing heat of earlier in August is over. Order members are arriving for our annual Order retreat and this year we have a good mix of friends old and new from near and far across the Iberian Peninsular.
I just got back from a daily beach holiday in Sardinia. The first beach holiday since I met my wife and we had Satya (more than 14 years ago). Both Jesu and I love being by the sea and genuinely get an experience of «doing nothing» lying under a parasol and dropping in to the cool Mediterranean waters from time to time. The experience was mixed as we travelled with two dogs (first time out of Suryavana for Kuki) and both kids! A large tent and all the regular camping gear, all packed into our not too small Fiat. There were lots of moments when all six of us wanted to do different things at the same time creating the inevitable tension of centrifugal forces following multi-directional vectors. The family did stick together and mostly we had a good time. Next time, would love to go back for month with Jesu and the dogs (minus the two kids). Both kids said they don’t like camping and only want to do hotels. I told them they were too posh for my liking! Sardinia has a rustic beauty and being Italy the food was amazing, though very wheat based! The beaches are fantastic, white crystal quartz on the West coast and there are lots of nooks and crannies to explore!
I finally got through «Crime and Punishment» (after 36 years), such a dark exploration of the human psyche and a beautiful message over all. I started it back at Leeds University in November 1990.
I was 20 years old, and back in those days I was in a disintegrative process of my own making. All of a sudden, on the back of a mild bronchial chest infection, I’d given up some «bad habits» I was lying in my bed with some interesting and not so pleasant psychotropic spin-offs. Dostoyevsky’s wonderful book was on the floor by my side. The autumn cold creeping in, I was wrestling with serious doubts about whether to keep studying Chemical Engineering. I had abandoned a bunch of First year buddies and was alone up in my room in a run down red-brick terrace house. The cold damp Leeds Winter was on its way.
I had just started out to meditate more seriously but was suffering a crisis of my own and had to stop reading, identifying as I was too much with Raskolnikov and his own mental breakdown .(just to be clear not because I’d axed an old lady!). Anyways, 36 years later I put the book into the shelf, now read through!
It has been really important to get away from «project Suryavana». I am so «in it» most of the year, even when I am on retreat here. Every detail from emails to booking forms and bank accounts down to the nuts and bolts of our aged diesel generator, water filter and solar system is somehow logged into some corner of my psyche. When it all works like clock work, that’s fine, but somehow my consciousness gets overly wrapped up in it all. A week away and I come back fresh and revitalized seeing the whole thing in clearer light. Less emotionally tied-up and anxious, more from a state of marveling at the wonderful matrix that is Suryavana.
By all accounts we have had a good summer. Lots of retreats back to back. Nothing broken or gone wrong at an inopportune moment. Many souls coming though, meditating, practicing puja and hearing the Dharma, the cooks happy! What more could we ask for our little retreat centre?
There is much to develop here; I want to develop the infrastructure, this autumn upgrade the remaining 10 solar panels (now 25 years old) – we put 10 new ones last year but didn’t have enough money to do the whole lot. That would make for an array of 20×440 W panels around 10kW production capacity. We are going to insulate the solitary cabin and put in a wood burner. We have a generous donor who wants to do winter solitaries, but such an improvement will be good for everyone.
There seems to be plenty of interest in renting the place this Winter and into next year.
I intend to start helping run a Mitra study group Online (Tuesday evening) after many years of not being involved in such activities. I was the Mitra Convener for men for several years in Valencia. Since moving out of the city and up here, doing study groups has not been so readily possible. I am looking forward to exploring the Satipatthana module with old and new friends. The group is probably too large and mixed, but given the recourses it’s the best solution to have some ongoing contact with friends and Mitras.
I wish you all well and until next month, adieu et au revoir, (farewell until we see each other again)