Dark Clouds and modern life

Yesterday, as I walked my bike up from B&Q (having spent more time and money than advisable) I noticed the most beautiful and dramatic sky. It was full of rushing large dark blue clouds behind the last light of the day. It was dramatic and energising.

In any other scenery, by woodland, the sea or a mountain, it would have been a fantastic picture. But in the middle of suburban Oxford, it didn’t come to it’s full potency though.

I find that living in a city, even if Oxford doesn’t really have any high-rise buildings, is in one sense like living in an aquarium (as confined to a small space). The buildings become like walls that impede my vision of the horizon; and without that connection to the horizon, I somehow loose my connection to nature and to the greater reality, beyond the city street.

I cycled home in the rain and the wind, trying to keep myself and my bike straight in the gusts. I quite enjoyed it though. There’s nothing like feeling the force of nature for a few minutes, as long as I can crawl back into a heated room by the end of it…

It's finished

I'm back in Sweden, and the other night I heard on the news that 'it's finished - after 20 years'.

A police station had ordered toilet paper in 1986, as part of its routines, except that this time it took them 4 hours to unload. But the paper is now finally finished. After 20 years. And it made it to the news. And here. So now you know.

Bhagavad-gita

“…when doubts haunt me, when disappointments stare me in the face, and when I see not one ray of light on the horizon I turn to the Bhagavad Gita, and find a verse to comfort me; and immediately begin to smile in the midst of overwhelming sorrow. My life has been full of external tragedies and if they have not left any visible and indelible effect on me, I owe it to the teachings of the Bhagavad Gita."

Speech at Meeting of Missionaries, 28 July 1925. CW XXVII p.435.