Sentimental Lady

that I am, was thinking about the English countryside, ususally known for its lusciously rolling green hills, but now full of bare trees.

When meaning falls in splinters from your life

why not go and visit an English Heritage site like, Penrith Castle (20 miles from Carlisle or 74 miles from Middlesbrough)

^{Tom Jansky took this photo of what’s left of Penrith Castle, in Sept, 2018.}

The History

One day Ralph Neville, the Warden of West Marsh (the Anglo-Scottish border in Cumbria) woke up and decided to build a castle, right on the foundation of an old Roman fort, not bothering to go up to higher ground – where new defenses would have had to have been constructed. After his son lived in it, King Richard III acquired it, during the years 1471 to 1483, when he was sheriff of Cumberland (before he was King). During his kingship he lost interest in the place and the property fell into ruin.

^{Lee Ambrose took this photo of the remains of Mayburgh henge in August 2019.}

The Journey

While you are up there consider other Roman Forts to visit in Cumbria: Ravenglass, Birdoswald, Milecastle, and Pike Hill Signal Tower. Or check out Brougham, or Brough Castle. Don’t forget to walk around Mayburgh Henge, at Eamont Bridge to strengthen your connect with the constellations that favour you best.
Discover what’s on and where to stay on www.visitcumbria.com.

To Sit or To Travel?

Osel Ling Buddhist Centre

A question many a youth will have pondered should they have had the luck to take a gap year. Where does one "find oneself" best? One only has a year, if that, so should the time one (ever) has not weigh into one's decision? Then a zen monastery in the Alpujarras might serve the dual purpose of sit and travelling.

Life is short; with odds in favour of it being cut shorter than it already is all the time. Functionality and planning efficiently seems not half a bad idea; But ought one even think in terms of figuring out how to arrive anywhere by the "quickest" route? If to take any step is already to defy gravity and its black-hole death-force and to feel the weft of Cosmic Harmony, which is only ever suspended between what is and what will be (the next step) then the only thing worth doing is stepping on it to step up to the challenge to take the necessary steps to go through it. This is to be gentle and kind and very much alive.

^{This tractor does 135mph. The trick to speed is having some clever bits and tricky bobs ("It doesn’t go anything like a tractor”)}

What is it, to live an earth life?

We know very little, and probably are supposed to accept what we know floats upon an immense cloud of Unknowing for our own good.

Existence is what it is, for the rock, the plant, the cat and the ant and us; alive or dead, in a body or as a spirit; reborn into our reality of the Higher World we composed by the relations and proportions we learned from life; or reinicarnated as I am that I am; what is this life then as a sum total before I begin to live it and after I leave it? Is it a sum that changes with me in it? Can I, another single integer of all you number by your acknowledgement (your vote, your voice in testimony to my being) do anything but make a difference?

Let us know it and make it known!

We must decide what we are and why we live or we will have been dumbstruck worse than any stone can be; resounding rather the machine: reproducing and repeating with clunckety-clank and hippity-hop. We can only hope to escape the softer whirr of the near heart-dead with a hiss or a roar or imitate the hawk at the end of our training lead and squawk. Barely bound by the beauty or any gentle one.

If you still are not decided about where to travel to or whether to travel at all, follow the advice by Paul Gallico, in "Jennie"