And so here is another installment in the saga of my internet addiction! I am really trying to not just browse mindlessly, unaware of time passing by, but to search out subjects that I think will expand my mind and get my thoughts racing and jumping about, making new connections and helping me grow.
DharmaLife magazine was published and archived by the FWBO, and online has a selection of articles from each edition. Sadly it has stopped being published, which I am upset by as yesterday afternoon I devoured many of the articles they had online, and want to read more! Favourites include Sangharakshita talking about his current life and his legacy, I find it fascinating to think that I am part of a movement that is still in its early stages and that the guy who started it all is still alive! We can ask him questions and talk to him! It just makes it all seem so much more open and relevant, less intimidating and less rigid. I think I would quite like to meet Sangharakshita, but I have no idea what I would say or ask, I think maybe I want to meet him so that I know he's real? I dont know. Anyway, my other favourite article is Lalitaraja's piece on the links between dance and meditation - I love dance meditation with all my heart, it is a really good way into meditation for me, it really gets me going in a way no other meditation has done so...yet! I did Jewels Wingfield's Ecstatic Dance at Buddhafield 2009 and then went to both of the ones she did at Buddhafield 2010, and more recently, the newly ordained Diajyoti held a dance meditation session at the Buddhafield Team Retreat at Easterbrook which was amazing! Hopfully she will be doing more of these!
Sewing as meditation. This site is a scrapbook/notebook/record of one woman's creation of cloth, by hand from other scraps. She calls it 'slowcloth', where the process of making it is just as important as the finnished piece. Each cloth tells a story, has a story sewn into it, and this site beautifully tracks the process. I was taught to sew at an early age, and though I never really connected with it when I was younger, in the past year or so I have become closer to it, and find it very peaceful and meditative. This woman inspires me - I hope one day I will have a little studio in the woods just like her!
I love poetry. This woman writes a poem a day, and they are all so beautiful. They are full of space, and I find that after I read one I need to take a few minutes to be in the poem, to understand it, and take it in. A really meditative experience.
Here modern photos and archived photos of the Second World War are combined to, in the words of the creator, 'show the horrors of war to people so that it can help prevent wars again'. These photos are fascinating and at the same time haunting and horrifying, showing, for example, the combination of laughing tourists taking photos of the Eiffel Tower, while a sepia tinted Adolf Hitler and officers pose malevelently in the background. It sends a shudder down my spine, but also brings me back to the idea that we need to be aware of what is happening, and not happening, in the world so that we can try to make sure nothing like that ever happens again.
Everything passes away, even art. This links to pictures of street art in Paris, taped to walls around the city these cardboard pieces are free to whoever wants to take them, be it the wind, rain or people. It's a good lesson in letting go I think.
Hope there's something there to interest you :-)
Any recommendations?
Love Ruth
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