Teaching and walking; sunshine, woodland, and anemones

The spring weather has been so glorious that we decided we had to get out into the countryside for a walk over the weekend, even though we were busy. On the Saturday we taught at Aro Ling Cardiff. This went well and we also had a few for the morning practice session on Sunday. Then the rest of the day was free.

Sunday was also ’ö-Dzin’s birthday. The sun was shining, the birds singing, and our hearts were joyful. We did not want to spend hours in a car, so we explored the area east of Caerphilly, not far from home. We had hoped to find a Ridgeway walk, but didn’t quite succeed in this. Next time.

We had lunch at the Hollybush in Draethen – a lovely meal. Then we drove back to Llwyn Hir woodland and walked for a couple of hours. It was delightful to be warm enough without a coat. The woodland anemones were shining in the undergrowth, blooming boldly before the trees are in leaf. It took a while to find a high enough and open enough space to sit and practice sem-dzin, but eventually we did. We were surprised to be able to see the Severn Bridge in the far distance.

We are going on pilgrimage to Bhutan in October and will need to be fit for walking, so this was useful exercise in preparation. It is good to find inspiring walks near to home.

Shock, amazement retreat – Vienna

We have just been away for a long weekend on retreat in Vienna. It has been quite a while since we attended an open teaching retreat with our Lama, Ngak’chang Rinpoche. The topic was the four naljors of Dzogchen sem-dé. It was a wonderfully inspiring event attended by about sixty people.

A snowy landscape at Forchtenstein, about 50 miles from Vienna,
where we stayed.

Skaters in the park by the Rathaus in Vienna.

Dinner at Café Central with Rinpoche and fellow retreatants.

The beautiful vaulted ceiling at Café Central.

Sunday outing – eating, walking, misty vistas

The water looks cold.

We had a nice day out on Sunday. We met Daniel at the Farmer’s Market on the embankment opposite the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff. We indulged in fantastic onion bhajis from Kimi Catering and burgers from another stall. Before buying the burgers, we walked back up to the other end of the market to buy delicious rosemary rolls to put the burgers into. I don’t quite understand why anyone selling organic, farm-reared meat would put their burgers in pappy white shop rolls. It was so much nore enjoyable in a decent roll. End of rant.

Wall of water opposite the Millennium Centre.

The day was not promising in terms of the weather but we decided to walk along the riverbank for a while. This turned into walking to the bay. We had refreshments at the Millennium Centre and then caught the river bus, Princess Katherine, back to Taff Embankment where we had left the car. The misty view across to Penarth Head was delightful.

Waiting for the water bus

The Princess Katherine emerging from the mist.

We ended the outing by taking Dan back to Pontypridd. He had had a little mishap with a heater—as his central heating is broken at the moment—and I was able to cut out the piece of scorched carpet and glue in a piece of matching spare carpet, so that it hardly shows. He had a close call there.

In the evening, I made what I think are the final corrections to the next book: Illusory Advice. It will be out in the spring. More on that soon.

Vajra Romance in Vienna

The Open Teaching Retreat in Vienna, on the subject of Vajra Romance, went very well. We taught Friday evening, Saturday, and Sunday morning, but did not leave for home till Tuesday. Sunday afternoon.and Tuesday we explored Vienna, and on the Monday we explored Forchtenstein, south of Vienna, where we stayed Sunday and Monday nights.

Here are a few photographs. Vienna is beautiful; a peaceful and delightful city. We took many photos and this is just a sample.

Sad-looking horses outside St Stephens's Cathedral

Refreshments Vienna-style, Sunday afternoon

Burg Forchtenstein

A fountain in Vienna - an example of the many fine sculptures on and around buildings.

Morning exercise at the Spanish Riding School (we found out after this that photography was not allowed).

Inside St Stephen's Cathedral with dramatic lighting

At the retreat

Palace and statue of Franz Joseph

Fabulous and delicious cakes at Central Café

Dinner at the strangely decorated 'North Pole' after teachings on Saturday

Perfect Sunday

It has been a beautiful day - sunny, with hardly a cloud in the sky. We took advantage of a weekend day free of rain (it poured yesterday) to walk in Coed y Wenallt.  Most of our experience of Coed y Wenallt is on horseback, and today we finally laid the ghost of feeling ‘we should really be riding’.  We visited a wonderfully knobbly tree that has always fascinated us, but is just before a stretch the horses always canter, and so not in a good spot to ask for a patient pause!  On foot you can touch the tree, walk all round it and view it from different angles, and of course take photographs.  Riding a horse through such a landscape is also an enjoyable experience, but Dee is too difficult and unpredictable to be confident of an enjoyable ride. Perhaps I may ride again somewhere, sometime, but I think my days of riding Dee are done.

With all the rain we have been having there were many rivulets running through the wood with delightful little waterfalls.  I took my camera off ‘auto’ for a lot of shots and am pleased with the results. The light was particularly interesting today with long shadows and shiny highlights.  Shoots in the undergrowth suggested signs of spring, but I am sure it is too early for that.

I had prepared a flask of warmed orange juice with a bag of mulling spice in it, and we enjoyed this with a bar of chocolate in the meadow near the car park.  Then home for a chicken dinner which had been cooking all day in the slow cooker.  A perfect Sunday.

Sunday walk in Parc Cefn Onn

Many berries – sign of a hard winter?

 ’ö-Dzin was not very well last week and took Thursday and Friday off work. As he intended to return to work on Monday, we decided to go for a walk on Sunday to see how he felt.  We walked around Parc Cefn Onn.

I had not been to this park for many years – not since the boys were little.  I was delighted to see that it is better maintained than I remembered from years ago, and the paths have been extended.  It is a delightful time of year to be walking among woodland, and the park did not disappoint us in revealing its autumn display.  One tree was raining leaves as we stood and watched, but it was not possible to catch the magic of this in my photograph.

A lovely mixture of greens

’ö-Dzin had an acorn fall onto his hat with a loud report.  We were not able to tell whether this was simply the wind, or a squirrel with a sense of humour.  Good job he was wearing a leather hat!

Another aspect of the park which seems much improved since my last visit, is all the little waterways running through the site.  They are clear and free-flowing, and I enjoyed the many little waterfalls.  It may be that the improvements to the park are due to Friends of Parc Cefn Onn which was formed in 2010.  More power to their efforts.

Autumn colours

Two things would make the park even more enjoyable: baffling of the motorway to reduce the noise; and a tearoom by the car park – though you may find an icecream van there in the summer months.

Waterfalls

One thing I was sad to see was how many of the park users were ignoring the request to keep their dogs on a lead to help control the spread of Sudden Oak death (Phytophthora infection) which is a problem there at the moment.  It seems a simple thing to ask to keep the beauty of this park available for us all to enjoy.

Fond memories of holidays

Saturday 15th saw us packed up and driving home.  Our sons and Richard’s girlfriend spent the week with us again.  Every year for the last few years, ’ö-Dzin and I have wondered whether it will be the last holiday with our sons.  Perhaps this one was it.  Hopefully they have fond memories of their summer holidays in Tenby.

In the afternoon of the day we returned home, we visited Tafwyl, a Welsh language festival held in the grounds of Cardiff Castle.  I enjoyed a talk by Ioan Talfryn in the Learners Tent about his method of teaching Welsh, and after that a performance of Cowbois Rhos Botwnnog.  We finished the afternoon walking home through the park.

On the Monday after our return, one of our cats, Spots, had to have an operation. She had skin cancer on her ears and they had to be removed.  I’m not posting any pictures of her because she looks a bit grim at the moment, with a shaved head and no ears.  I will post some when her fur has grown back and she is fully recovered.  She is doing well.  She hates the protective cone that prevents her from scratching her healing ear stumps, but was much more relaxed about it by Thursday.  She has to keep this protective cone collar on until next Wednesday. 

Bank holiday expedition

From the first half of the Pony Trail

 I love camping.  I am not quite sure why I like it so much as it can be quite hard work.  You sleep in a less comfortable bed than usual; meals are more difficult to prepare; the seats for relaxing in the evening are not so comfortable as being at home; if the weather is inclement you can be too cold, too hot, uncomfortably wet, or unable to sleep because of the noise of the wind.  And yet . . . there is the freedom of no email to answer; being so close to the elements is exhilarating and enriching even when it is inconvenient; and our tent is about as comfortable as a tent can be.  Nevertheless the sum of the parts does not add up to a reason for why I love camping.  It is just as it is and there is no purpose in trying to rationalise it.

We so want to be able to rationalise everything: this is like that; I like this because of that; I don’t like that because of this; and so on.  We try to live our lives through the rational thinking of conceptual mind and this limits the infinite potential of our being.  Direct experience does not need to be rationalised. 
I love camping!

Llyn Cau

This expedition was to climb Cadair Idris.  We have climbed as far as Llyn Cau several times on the Minffordd Path, and to the peak once via the other two lakes, Llyn Gafr and Llyn y Gadair, on the Foxes Path.  This time we tried the Pony Trail.  We did not make it to the peak because bad weather rolled in and visibility was reduced to almost zero, so we decided to head back down.

I didn’t like the Pony Trail.  We thought it would be an easier path.  While it is true that it is does not have the difficult steep steps of the Minffordd Path, or the near-vertical scree of the Foxes Path, it is a longer continuous slog.  There are a lot of steps in the first half and I found the continuous steps more wearing than the strenuous, short, sharp section of steps on the Minffordd Path.  The second half of the trail is mostly loose scree underfoot.  It is not steep and sheer like the scree on the Foxes Path, but I found it hard work to walk on for such a long time.  I missed seeing the lakes and the view was not so interesting from the scree section of the walk - though this may not be entirely accurate as there was a lot of low cloud when we were walking that obscured any view.

If we attempt the climb again I will go back to the Minffordd Path and risk my knees on the steps.  At least there will be the beautiful and extraordinary Llyn Cau to look forward to after the rigours of the climb.

Refreshments

On Saturday we had a lot of chores to complete – mostly fall out from the small fire we had in February.  The chaos created by having to gut a room completely seems to have rippled out and effected the whole house in one way or another.  The smoke-damaged room is now finished and so we are gradually straightening out the rest of the rooms where things have been stored in the meantime.

At four o’clock we were ready for a cup of tea and decided to go out to Jaspers in Llandaff for tea and scones.  It is a lovely tea room serving excellent cakes and light meals.  After enjoying material refreshment we went for a walk in Llandaff cemetery, by the cathedral.  This may sound like a strange place to go for a walk, but it is one of my favourite places.  The cemetery is very old and has an extraordinarily hushed atmosphere.  I have written about it before when we first discovered it.  This is the first time we have visited the cemetery in the spring and I greatly appreciated the beauty of the abundance of primroses and bushes in blossom.

Busy Buddhists

November has been an extremely busy month for us!  In a period of five weeks we have had three retreats.  The first, at the beginning of November, was an open teaching event in Paris.  The second was a four day retreat with our students in our home in Cardiff.  The last one starts in two days and is a weekend retreat with our Lamas.  I also started my new Welsh class this month – having missed the first day in September.  Two full days of Welsh was pretty intense.  I had no idea what was going on a lot of the time!

lunch break in a restaurant near the teaching venue

In Paris we taught on the emotions as the path of transformation in the colour and element system of tantric psychology.  The retreat took place in a pleasant basement yoga studio in north Paris, near the Gare du Nord.  We were a group of about a dozen people which was a good number – small enough for a sense of intimacy, and big enough to generate questions.  Our teachings were translated by our student Ngakpa Zhal’mèd.  There were many good questions and people seemed to find the teaching helpful.  At the end of the event one lady came and told us how she had used what we had taught to help her with a difficult encounter with her teenage son that morning.  Fantastic.

We were pleased this visit to also have time for a day and a half of sightseeing.  Last time we taught in Paris we had to dash straight home after the last session.  On the Sunday afternoon we had a pleasant boat trip down the river Seine.  Apart from being extremely cold on the upper deck, this trip was about as perfect as was possible.  We began in daylight so we were able to enjoy the beauty of the buildings.  As the sun began to set the golden statues on some of the bridges shone magnificently.

twinkling Eiffel tower

It was starting to get dark as the boat turned.  By the time we had travelled back down to the Eiffel tower, the sky was a dramatic deep purple with flashes of sunset colours.  This created a fantastic backdrop to the Eiffel tower as the city lights started to be lit.  Zhal’mèd had just said “I hope we get to see it twinkle” when indeed the thousands of small lights on the Eiffel tower began flashing – a most spectacular sight.  I had not really appreciated before how elegant a structure the tower is.

Notre Dame

The following day we took the metro and explored the area around the Louvre and Notre Dame.  I liked that they asked for silence inside Notre Dame so that it retained a feeling of being a place of worship.

Sunday in the park

On Sunday we cycled to Roath Park for brunch.  The Terra Nova café—recently refurbished—offers a tasty feta and bacon salad with crispy bread.  After eating we walked around the lake.  The lake is not huge but delightful, with many wonderful trees.  A great number and variety of wildfowl live at the lake including many swans.

We noticed that crazy golf is a new addition to the family facilities in the play area.  If they let old fogies play we may have to have a go on our next visit.

’ö-Dzin has become quite a skilled photographer and recently I have caught the bug and signed up to Instagram (see links at the left of the page).  I am not intending to become so engrossed in photography as he has, but it is interesting how awareness of a potential photograph can intensify one’s connection with the sense fields.  The details and interesting features he has used in his blip foto images has made me more aware of my environment. 

I don’t know the name of these flowers – they look rather like crocuses but it is the wrong time of year.  They looked luminous and were quite startling to suddenly come across on a grassy bank.

I love trees like this.  What is it like inside this hole?  Who lives in there?  How far does it extend?  I wonder if I heard and read Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland a few too many times when I was young, as holes in trees or secret places in undergrowth always make me wish I could become very small and explore them.  I also love exploring caves and tunnels.  Sometimes I take the long route to Penarth just so that I can drive through the tunnel!