Another lovely sky & travels

Jul 30, 2023

WE HAD SOME sun yesterday and then as evening began to arrive inky clouds started to gather, painting the view from my window with charcoal and blue-grey. The tree out front silhouetted against the setting sun and blue sky.

In the afternoon a rich Mediterranean blue had been the backdrop to this gorgeous tree, which had been pollarded last autumn, yet has grown back so quickly. It has a hole in the middle of the branches that lets me see inside. I watch as lots of little birds with high pitched tweats fly in and out. The magpie hasn’t returned for a while, but the wood pigeons have. This morning there was just one tiny bird on a telegraph wire next to the tree, it danced its little heart out then flew inside.

The dark area in the middle of this photo is leafless and branchless. I can see into the tree, I feel as though I could reach out and climb inside because it is so close to my window, not quite a treehouse, but almost.

Upcoming travel

Tomorrow I go to France for my annual Buddhist teaching retreat. I’ll be gone for three weeks and so will only be posting once a week. When I get back I will pick up the three posts each week, and start moving my ideas forward as we move into and through the autumn.

Ideas

I’ve been thinking that the best way forward when I return is to keep putting out a post each week with warm words and a recipe, then on the other two days I will be creating material for my paying subscribers (this option will appear in the autumn but you can pledge beforehand if you would like to).

On these days I’m going to move ahead with recording the ‘fall asleep’ stories, the Ayurvedic podcast, the Peaceful Belly podcast and I’ll be making recordings of warm words to soothe tired minds. I’ll also serialise two new books that I’m going to write, so that my paid subscribers get to read them first – one will be a recipe book with some Ayurvedic food advice, the other will be a workbook for coming back into balance using Ayurveda, and healing digestion (digestion is often effected when we are living out of balance).

These things won’t come all at once, because I have another job and my health clinic, but each month this material will start to build and by this time next year, there will be a wealth of nourishment to draw upon.

Changlochen

This is the retreat centre where we will receive some of our teachings. I am a Tibetan Buddhist and this year have the good fortune of receiving teachings from Lama Jampa Thaye, 41st Sakya Trizen and Karmapa Thaye Dorje. So it is a big year of teachings, but I think there may be some time for swimming in the river too, and eating out under the stars. I’ll pop up some photos of this beautiful area of France where our retreat centre is.

Joy dots

Red roof tiles spilling raindrops

Birds birds and more birds

Butterfly on my window

Parsley gushing over my window box

Playing for Change Gauantanamera

Red fox along the road

Owls terwit terwooing

Night sky

Music

human kindness

Learning the guitar

Raindrops dropping

Beginnings

I’ve started to write another fall asleep story, this one is about a boat.

When the boat came home tonight the sun was setting. It had been one of those, ever so lovely, sunny blue-sky days, with a bright orange sun that glowed as the night started to paint itself alive. The lower the sun came, the more golden it shone, painting the darkening sky with pinks and orange. The mountains below and shoreline mirrored the pinky, blue, orange sky, looking almost lavender. The sun, that great golden being of light, shone a pathway across the sea and the little boat, it sailed into that and followed the pathway of gold into the shore. People were waiting, there was cheer and warm laughter. And voices could be heard cooing into the night, as birds snuggled in the treetops, and mountain creatures rested on lavender mountainsides, warmed by the fading sun…

Photo by Caleb Fisher – unsplash

Warmest wishes, till next week,

Lucy x