Born Under a Wandering Star

I am a hermit pilgrim who writes & make pictures. Art is Life and, for me, the divine expresses itself through art. My life, spiritual matters, and anything else that speaks to my heart, are the focus of my writing. In the same spirit, I make photographs of anything I encounter in my wanderings that speaks to my eyes, heart, and soul. And if my words or photos speak to you, then I would be very pleased. Welcome to my blog.

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Openness, Another Name for God

Openness is the least blasphemous name for God.             Rainer Maria Rilke (14 Dec 1875-29 Dec 1926) While watching a lecture the other day, the speaker flashed a written quote across the screen: Openness. A name – or more than a name – for God, for the Divine, for the universal consciousness, for love, Spirit, the Self. For the life force. The names are endless. Rilke in his studio…

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A Writer's Gotta Write

‘A writer’s gotta write.’ So says a character in a movie I watched a couple of nights ago. So, here I am, writing. Not that I’ve been writing much lately. Actually, I’ve written nothing for months! Certainly not in the literal sense of putting pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard). Of course writing isn’t only about that literal activity anyway is it? A writer must wait for the lightning bolt…

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Even a Leaf: Another Chapter

Namaste Friends A little note to begin with Last January I published a post inspired by a favourite verse from the Bhagavad Gita: If anyone with love and devotion offers me a leaf, a flower, a fruit, or water, I will accept it.                                                        Bhagavad Gita 9:26 If you like you can read the post here, but I will be including the poem that made up that…

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Pray & Work

One of the topics I like to explore on YouTube (my ‘break’ is over and I don’t think I’m scrolling quite do much as I was before I took that break) is the lives of hermits; the monastic life as lived by nuns, monks and priests of any and all religious traditions or none. That’s more than one topic isn’t it? Well, you get the drift. In any case, last night I rediscovered a nice documentary on a…

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A Nail Biter of a Post

I’ve been biting my nails lately. A lot. At least that’s the thought that occured to me just now as I sat hunched over chewing on my right thumbnail. Truth be told, there isn’t a time I remember when I didn’t chew my fingernails and pick at my toe nails. When I was a child my mother would coat my fingernails with an allegedly foul tasting liquid meant to curb my appetite for fingernail. Alas, I…

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A Post By Another Name - It's still a Post

No posts for a while. There isn’t one today either actually. I simply felt the need to reach out, connect, write. Blogging requires a continually refilling reservoir of ideas. And it is then necessary to reflect on those ideas (or at least one of them at a time) and then to commit them to paper – or  screen. And despite my, at times desperate longing to actually write a blog post and to share…

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Everything & Everywhere

Namaste friends In the High Holy Lands Where Magic Sometimes Happens For the last while (long while really. Actually many years), I have dreamed a few times a month, sometimes more, that I am in, about to arrive in, or just about to leave Rishikesh in India. Rishikesh is a small town straddling the Ganges River, and nestled in the foothills of the Himalayas. For millennia it has been…

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Do Good, Be Good: A How to Guide

Lately it’s been a bit hard to remember I’m actually a hermit. A lengthy hospital stay, doctors’ visits, sessions with physio and other therapists, moving to a new hermitage. There seems to be no end to the people and activities pulling me back out there into the world. Sometimes I would like to just stop, do nothing and simply be. But even a hermit isn’t exempt from performing actions  in the…

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Let G, Just Let Go, Just Let Go Now

Sometimes, when the ears can hear and the eyes can see, there are many signs and wonders to be witnessed; there are communications to be recieved from some seemingly other source than inside our little physical, material selves. Birds, they say, sing with the voice of God, their song being the song of the Universe, so that the rest of us may hear. Or if you like, their a bird’s song opens up…

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A Pause (or two) for Reflection

Physiotherapy, formal exercises as well as the myriad of day-to-day activities required to maintain a physical body, is prescribed as the way forward for people like me who have experienced a stroke. Quite right too. Exercises and activities to build and strengthen muscle to help recover mobility; to repair broken – and develop new – brain pathways to help recover dexterity and increase both…

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Cries of the Winged Ones

CRIES OF THE WINGED ONES Just let gocries the winged messengerperched in the fence-corner tree.Let go. Just surrender.Surrender to what?The river of life,its flow, its vibe Lord here I am,I cry in reply.Two beings, one Self. The winged messenger cries because she longs for us to listen

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The Word is the Word

OM IS THE WORDOmIn the beginning was the WordOmAnd the Word was with GodOmAnd the Word was GodOmAnd the Word is GodOm Om Om OmThe object is the WordOmThe subject is the WordOm OmThe observed is the WordOmThe observer is th WordOm OmThe Word is the WordOmThere is only the WordOmIt is as it is – the WordOm Om Om

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Listen: It's Already Silent

‘I must be back in the blog writing mode, I’m really hanging out for a new topic.’ I blurted out to my partner hermit just now. Actually, it was desperate. What I actually said was ‘I’m really desperate‘ for a new topic. I quickly modified it to anxious then again to keen, in an attempt to keep the sound of attachment out of my voice. Finally, in these notes, it’s morphed into ‘hanging out’…

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It Is What It Is

Right at the end of our last post, I mentioned – in an almost off-handed manner – that the hermitage has moved. Better to say the hermits were lead by the ever not so subtle universe to leave our refuge of a year for the safety and seclusion of another abode a few hundred metres away. Why? Why did the hermits have to move? Well here’s the thing, the owner of that space that had graced us with…

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Not Talking About Time

If my life was ruled by ‘clock’ time (which generally speaking it is in spite of my many protests and despite my continuing meditation and other practices designed to assist in developing a sense of being fully present thereby enabling one to truly live in the here and now), I would be telling you now that there’s been a long gap between posts and that this has occurred because two and A half…

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Note To Self: Keep Chanting

What I want to talk about today, what I’d like to share, isn’t new. By that I mean the ideas are well known in the world – and they’ve even occured to me from time to time. But, today, the thought seems new. Clearer and more obvious somehow. Perhaps when a little bit of knowledge finally ‘sinks in’, and is fully realised for what it is, then maybe that’s the beginnings of wisdom. Or an…

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You're Already There.

There are many blessings that come with the living of the hermit life. And I am especially blessed as I am not a ‘hermit alone’ – I share my life, the Hermitage, and my spiritual practice with another hermit. We are partner hermits. One component of that spiritual practice is our times spent together reading a few verses from the Bhagavad Gita. We pursue our own personal studies, but sometimes…

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