journal of a writing man

I knew I ought to keep a reference of those pesky Latin numerals that seemed like a good idea at the time.

These are the pictures I used in the July 2005 journal entries:

Tuesday May 6, 2008

Making slow progress today, after a fitful night, I found this quote in my entry for June 18, 2005:

“But I’d better say: I have no religion. I don’t need any, don’t practice any, I don’t pray, don’t meditate, don’t confess and don’t atone, I am no sinner and no saint, no eremite and no philosopher. I just live, amidst this colourful world, again and again enjoying the experience of the immediate nearness and the deep community with every thing existing, and based on the insight that everything belongs to one all embracing totality which becomes manifest in me like in all other things, and so gives me the security to live in the present, to enjoy day by day whatever they may bring.”
 
Yun-Men

It set me back for a bit, did that. Made me wonder if I ought not to think about it. I decided against:

A remarkably few years ago
I would say that I am such and such
and that I do thus and so.
 
Then, losing certainty, I relented,
forgot my such and such,
and stopped my thus and so.
 
Now, happy at last,
I find it doesn’t matter
either way.
 
–John Bailey
  Somerset, May 2008

So, pottering in the garden with Dolly watching fondly from her favourite stepping stone in the sun, I picked up a few weeds, and sighed quietly over some slug-nibbled blossoms. And it doesn’t matter, really, either way.