Dassini

Soul Cakes

2009-10-31T05:32:00.001-07:00

Hallowe'en seems like the one day of the year when everything comes right. I'm not bothered about the consumer exploitation of All Hallows Eve; I simply feel like I've joined the consensus reality around me when the shops are full of plastic spiders, cobweb-themed outfits and fake blood. Or maybe the consensus reality has joined in with me.

But it bothers me that I keep hearing complaints that the UK is experiencing the Americanisation of Hallowe'en through the trick or treat phenomenon. The practice of children dressing up and going door to door is traditional in Scotland and Ireland, and some parts of the north of England too. In Scotland it was traditional for children to go guising, which means wearing a disguise and calling on your neighbours, doing a simple turn such a reciting a poem or performing a card trick or some small entertainment. In my day this had slightly degenerated, in some cases, into telling a joke - well at least it's a form of entertainment. These guisers were then rewarded with apples, nuts, a few sweets or a few coins. This tradition was completely unknown in most parts of England and Wales.

Now I understand that the objection to trick or treaters comes from good people questioning whether they should be held-up by small pirates on their own door steps, demanding "candy". Well, I recognise the individual right to a curmudgeonly "Humbug!" so I'll say nothing. How would it be instead if impoverished children appeared at your door saying prayers for the souls of your dead relatives? And in response you could give them a soul cake, the eating of which freed your loved-one's soul from purgatory, as was traditional in parts of Britain from Medieval times. No transatlantic invasion there.

For myself I'm happy to see kids dress as zombies and go round the neighbourhood in a state of sugar-fuelled intoxication. It's imaginative, it's outdoors and it's better than Nintendo Wii.

Pictured above is the maginficent Myrna Loy.

The Questing Vole

2009-01-02T14:19:00.000-08:00

Am currently looking into the world of voles. I had a very timid encounter with a mousey type creatue in a shamanic journey the other evening, the evening of the 31st of December, in fact. A quick spot of nosing around the next day revealed that the mousey creature is one of the reddish-coloured voles. Having fun finding out more.... There's about 70 odd species of vole, apparently. What larks!

Venus Ascending

2008-12-22T15:16:00.001-08:00

Another December death, this time the divine Bettie Page. She was aged 85 and passed away on the 11th December. Rave on, dark lady, dark star.

Thank you, Oliver and Peter

2008-12-13T13:56:00.000-08:00

Sad days. Smallfilms is such a creative and humane body of work. It's much cherished by three generations of my family and holds an intimate place in our lives and in the imagination of so many people I admire and respect. See Dharma Rascal's lovely tribute here:

http://www.facebook.com/not.php?note_id=50913789907

Here's some images of him and the beautiful work he made with Peter Firmin.

Oliver Postgate, born 12 April 1925, died 8 December 2008

Fly Me To The Moon

2008-12-13T06:38:00.000-08:00

I love Tony Bennett. He's one of my Italiano sweethearts; further proof that I was a mobster in a past life. And his renderings of Fly Me are among my faves. But this post is not about T the B, or the mob or antipasti. It's about long haul flights and tree planting.

www.facebook.com/topic.php?topic=6708&uid=47596017802

I'm going from Glasgow to Delhi (via Dubai) in early February, making the same trip in reverse a month later. How come?

Well, I was on pilgrimage in India two years ago when my very good friend Padmolka had a serious spinal injury in Vaisali. We'd only been in India for seven days. Some of us from the group abandoned the pilgrimage itinerary to look after her, and (eventually) get her to hospital. After that there was a week in Delhi trying to get her flown back to Glasgow. Tarasiddhi and I were lucky enough to rejoin the pilgrimage two or three days before coming home. So two years on I'm going to attempt to visit Nalanda, Vulture's Peak, Varanasi and Sarnath. These four are the sites that I resolved to come back for when Tarasiddhi and I (happily) decided to stay with Padmolka. So I'm combining this resolve with attending the Western Buddhist Order's International Convention in Bodhgaya.

So for those reasons I'm choosing to fly again, quite a looooooong way. And of course, if it's a long way there it's a long way back too.

So as I mentioned in the above linked page, I'm wanting to plant some trees in Scotland to address the impact of this trip. I suppose I could plant them to the soundtrack of T the B singing Fly Me, and then go for a plate of gnocchi and pesto with a nice glass of chianti, just to complete the circle.

I wonder what Tony would do?

A Case of Fraud - case closed.

2008-12-01T15:19:00.000-08:00

Gentle Readers, after eight weeks of diligently scrutinizing the classified advertisements, taking shoe print impressions in plaster of Paris, signaling across the Grimpen Mire with a candle stub and taking discreet carriage rides in the freezing fog, Dr Watson is proud to proclaim the success of his colleague and affirm The Case of Fraud to be finally closed. And with much relief he is pleased to forego the necessity of mentioning the usage of rare and poisonous spiders, snakes, pygmy blow pipes or fatalities adjacent to impressive natural features in the landscape. (See below a communique from Saturday 20 September.)

Dr Watson was initially troubled by the protracted length of the affair. He had felt certain that the effects of such a minor, though highly inconvenient larceny, would be mitigated and soon remedied entirely. Therefore he was much dismayed to witness the relentless caravan of foolery and inattentiveness that streamed unbroken from the institutions of finance.

No matter, dauntless and untiring his colleague proceeded in a gentlemanly pace, examining each mystery or obstacle as it appeared, employing a cunning and sensitive mind to the unravelling of the case. Let it not be glossed over that in addition to the disappearance of the sum of £1,490 the bank was pleased to levy charges of £170 which in themselves were deep and mysterious to fathom. Happily these excesses were voided by the gallant Mr John, who's good service at the local branch of the banking institution was a lamp of clarity and cheer at a time of obscuration.

In conclusion to the lengthy affair Dr Watson reflects upon and cautions the usage of credit arrangements that involve the relinquishing of personal credit tokens within emporia, coffee houses or hostelries, whereby the credit token in question is temporarily relinquished from ones' side, however briefly, for the legitimate purposes of the scanning, lest illegitimate functions such as data copying are performed unnoticed.

Mr Holmes' client has no recall of this happening to her person, but since the obtaining of the relevant details could logically have been performed at any time within the last year and one half, she cannot, in all honesty be secure in her denial of this possibility. For a fuller exposition of this Case of Fraud, be pleased to read Dr Watson's chilling, enlightening and, as ever, faithful narrative.

Just had to share this....

2008-11-30T14:35:00.001-08:00

...incredible image, which is on my desktop just now. I never tire of it.

Hallowe'en

2008-10-29T11:17:00.000-07:00

Here's a little Hallowe'en number, courtesy of Vintage Photographs, to inspire you towards a spot of scary dressing up action.

Dunabrattin

2008-10-28T07:31:00.000-07:00

And more pictures from the coast.

Dunabrattin

2008-10-28T06:18:00.000-07:00

Here are some pictures of where my mum and dad live in the south of Ireland.

Brambles

2008-09-28T05:11:00.000-07:00

This post is a little behind the times, but never mind. Here are some pictures (taken at the end of September) of bramble picking in the south of Ireland, starring David, Bob and me, taken by Suriyavamsa. The brambles later starred in an apple and bramble pie. Translation note, bramble = blackberry.

Red, Blue, Yellow

2008-09-22T08:38:00.000-07:00

This is 'Asia Style', a chinese restaurant in Glasgow.

Les Petit Pierrots

2008-09-20T10:35:00.000-07:00

The children of the night, how sweet they sing. Another chilling offering from Vintage Photo.

A Case of Fraud

2008-09-20T09:17:00.000-07:00

So yesterday I tried to buy a small amount of groceries with my debit card but the sale was declined. Strange. I checked the balance on my account and knowing that my wages had gone in but my rent hadn't gone out I expected to have £700 or so. I had -£300. So I phoned my bank and asked them to read me out the latest transactions on my account. Apparently £1,490 was spent in Harrogate on something I'd never heard of. Not £14.90, I reiterate, but One Thousand Four Hundred and Ninety Pounds. Ouch!

And apparently the day before, someone had tried to pay for a car spray paint job with my account details, to the tune of £2,400, in Doune of all places, which is a wee village in the Trossachs.

And since my debit card wasn't stolen, and since I haven't bought anything over the phone recently, I assume my details have been purloined from the internet. Charming.

Rick Wright

2008-09-20T08:47:00.000-07:00

How sad I am, along with many others, that the quiet, dignified, lovely Rick Wright has died. He was a subtle character. Think of the echo-effect on Us and Them; it was a gentle touch but it defined the song and gave it its completeness.

When I was about 12 my brother bought a book of Pink Floyd sheet music that I poured over for hours. The piano parts were delicate, beautifully constructed and had a sensuality about them, as if the chords had to be sensitively handled. Just the shapes they took your hands into were focusing, concentrating, in themselves.

Goodbye Rick and thanks for everything. You were a lovely guy.

Puttin' on the Ritz

2008-09-09T04:01:00.000-07:00

This cute wee graffito lives just round the corner from my house. It has survived undamaged for a long time, maybe a year. Genius.

The Night Watch

2008-09-06T14:08:00.000-07:00

I recently finished reading Sarah Waters' "The Night Watch" which I enjoyed very much. It starts in London in 1947 and then goes back to 1944 and finishes in 1941. So rather than discover the outcome of certain events, the reader retraces the various pathways of the characters to uncover why people or events became the way they are. A very simple devise and very engaging.

The book is set around London after and during WW2 and is largely concerned with the bombing raids, which form a backdrop for the characters.

I saw Sarah Waters give a reading from this book before it was published and then forgot all about it until the other week when I was looking for something to read on the train. Glad I came across it.

Champagne for my Real Friends

2008-09-06T10:39:00.000-07:00

Strolling through genteel and picturesque St Andrews last week, I saw these two carcasses is a butcher's window. So ever the Francis Bacon devotee I took a couple of pictures, one of which shows me caught in the act. You can't quite see from these pictures but I was amazed at how long the carcasses were, maybe seven feet long? Big beasties. If you don't understand the title of this post, e-mail me and I'll explain. If you do understand, we must be Real Friends, in which case, chin chin!

feed://community.livejournal.com/vintagephoto/data/atom

2008-09-06T10:15:00.000-07:00

I found this atomspheric photo today on the above address. I paticularly like the hidden mother ("Paging Dr Freud...). The vintage photo site is always worth a look and is added to daily.

Evening Light

2008-09-05T03:10:00.000-07:00

Here's a photo I took on the way home yesterday. I was walking west along Sauchiehall Street and the sun was doing it's swan song, pouring silver light all over the street.

Robes and Rice

2008-09-04T06:57:00.001-07:00

One of the Glasgow Buddhist Centre's mitras, Ann, lives in Bodhgaya. Recently she's been back in Scotland for a visit and brought back with her a set of robes from the Maha Bodhi Temple in Bodhgaya as an offering for Venerable Rewatha, a Sri Lankan monk and friend of the Glasgow Buddist Centre. The robes in question had been offered to the Maha Bodhi Temple on the date of the Buddha's birthday, and the large Buddha statue in the temple was dressed in the robes to confer blessings onto them. So Ann brought them back to Glasgow with some other offerings and we headed up to the Maryhill Vihara to give the robes to Venerable Rewatha and lunch with him.

We performed puja before and after lunch and had a thread blessing ceremony with a Sri Lankan family who had provided the food. Venerable Rewatha is pictured here in his new and highly auspicious robes.

Twin Peaks

2008-08-27T04:55:00.001-07:00

I'm currently watching the labyrinthine second series of Twin Peaks on dvd. Suriyavamsa and I are working our way through it each evening, sometimes watching two episodes in one sitting. This is how tv should be.

Writing Retreat, Taraloka

2008-08-16T11:58:00.000-07:00

Following the Lojong Retreat I continued on my "buddhist holidays" with a week long writing retreat led by Dhammagita and Srivati. This was quite spacious and easy-going and it was good to just do some new writing and have lots of space. Nothing very remarkable happened but it was a pleasure to be there. Here's a haiku:

yellow marigold

like the clown in the garden

laughing at the rose.

Thanks Dhammagita and Srivati for a rich and satisfying time.

Lojong Retreat at Taraloka in Shropshire, UK

2008-08-16T11:37:00.000-07:00

Just back from this retreat led by Dhammadinna and Parami on the Seven Point Mind Training. 38 of us, all women, spent a week going through the mind training, looking at verses ascribed to Atisha and the Mind Training Slogans of Chekawa. Dhammadinna gave an excellent talk every morning (posted on the London Buddhist Centre website, I believe) and then Parami led us through meditation reflections on the Mind Training and also led the Tonglen practice. Mostly we were in silence and mostly it was gorgeous weather. A little flavour of the material:

"By the gracious Lama's blessings, may I purify the untruth of duality into the space of Voidness, and practice the profound exchange of my own and others' happiness and suffering, meditating continually on the two aspects of Bodhicitta." From the Atisha verses.