Many of the folk at Forest farm are determined to keep the sabbath.
And I was allowed to stay and enjoy a sabbath with them. The sabbath starts for them, as with the Jews who keep shabbat, at sunset on the normal Western callendar's Friday evening, and finishes at sunset Saturday evening. So it's not even as simple as identifying Sabbath with Saturday as most people conceive of it in our culture, with our present calendar that has our day changes at midnight.
It certainly brings you back more in touch with and aware of the world around you... sunsets anyway, but also the habbit of not working means one is kind of setting boundaries to our habits of work, against workaholism, and some encouragement for play, for games, and visits, & conversations with friends and family. Good things that happened a lot at Black Forest Farm. As well as Mike, who welcomed me at first, I met Peter and Kelly, and Isaiah, and Olivia, and Steve and Rick and Maryello (sorry about the spelling), and Tim.. and often we had extended and deep conversations you would rarely have in the life of the rat-race. Conversations that I hope haven't finished. In fact some of them, like me, mentioned that they hoped these could continue and that we'd be able to keep in touch. I hope so too. I hope some of them can visit me in Orange after this walk or in between stints...
So, on the Sabbath, I slept in. I wrote the blog past two down, thinking of what i appreciated about that deep creek crossing. Had some toast with Mike's marvellous marmalade on it (I finished one bottle of his marmalade). Then tried to get in that interview below, between friends popping in. We never got to capture the last ten minutes of his story, but you'll catch the gist of it.... anyway his wife got home with Mike and their pre-teen daughter. She was a quadreplegic, but they had 23years together, before she died in the last decade. It was very difficult, but Mike says he wished they could have had much more. He is grateful though, for that time after her death that they had together.
I am very blessed to have been so quickly welcomed into life with this extended family kin and kith.
What a privilege to be allowed to walk with creative love, and to be introduced to all these people known personally by creative love.
I become more and more convinced, as I share life with Creative Love, that this IS the only way to walk through life (where walking, pilgriming, becomes a metaphor for the whole of my life on this planet, from cradle to grave).
.......... .@. ..........
As well as full of joy, like a new birth,
these topics, more "responses", are quite grave.
And deeply can affect our life on Earth,
our whole approach to it, how we behave!
.......... .@. ..........
Well, Saturday evening, just before sunset, my son and his bride drove down from Bendigo and picked me up, for us all to spend a day together before their working week takes off again on Monday. A lovely meal, hearing some piano and cello, they taught me a few notes and let me play with both instruments, and a spledid game of Spledor.
No comments:
Post a Comment