Scolt Head

Thank you all for your kind comments and thoughts on my blip birthday yesterday. I find it hard to think of all the time that has passed since starting out here and I look back on my blips with some sense of dissociation and disbelief but am very grateful for the continuity of blip and everyone’s kindness.

Today I felt as though I’ve only just begun to arrive here and the week has passed by already. After having supper with the neighbours (they gave the marmalade the thumbs up!) I slept for a four hour continuous stretch last night ... roll out the barrels. More wine needed, obviously. I decided I’d done enough sorting this week and had some course work to do before next week so I cracked on with that this morning and then got my waders on and headed out to Scolt Head. I walked almost as far as the Breakthrough and then suddenly realised the light was fading so headed back across the marsh. Home to more scrummy local mussels for supper.

Please Call Me By My True Names - Thich Nhat Hanh

Do not say that I'll depart tomorrow
because even today I still arrive.

Look deeply: I arrive in every second
to be a bud on a spring branch,
to be a tiny bird, with wings still fragile,
learning to sing in my new nest,
to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower,
to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.

I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry,
in order to fear and to hope.
The rhythm of my heart is the birth and
death of all that are alive.

I am the mayfly metamorphosing on the surface of the river,
and I am the bird which, when spring comes, arrives in time
to eat the mayfly.

I am the frog swimming happily in the clear pond,
and I am also the grass-snake who, approaching in silence,
feeds itself on the frog.

I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones,
my legs as thin as bamboo sticks,
and I am the arms merchant, selling deadly weapons to
Uganda.

I am the twelve-year-old girl, refugee on a small boat,
who throws herself into the ocean after being raped by a sea
pirate,
and I am the pirate, my heart not yet capable of seeing and
loving.

I am a member of the politburo, with plenty of power in my
hands,
and I am the man who has to pay his "debt of blood" to, my
people,
dying slowly in a forced labor camp.

My joy is like spring, so warm it makes flowers bloom in all
walks of life.
My pain if like a river of tears, so full it fills the four oceans.

Please call me by my true names,
so I can hear all my cries and laughs at once,
so I can see that my joy and pain are one.

Please call me by my true names,
so I can wake up,
and so the door of my heart can be left open,
the door of compassion.