Some days my mind is a deep dark hell where passion takes over, when the bleeding red and black hate holds sway. Then unwittingly I move to the next day ... to sunshine and yellow hues. Only to wake up again to a place  where memories of love, what was and what could have been sweeps in. Dissipate  in another day where magic of fairies, toadstools and sun dappled flowers seep in. So don't judge me or even pray for me, just walk with me and share my deep dark places, my shadows and my light....

 I pour green tea in my prettiest tea service. This is how I intend celebrating the last pages of 'The lady and the Monk' by Pico Iyer. Pico Iyer led me to the heart of Kyoto, one of the lovliest of old cities in Japan where he spent the four seasons, reading old poems, wandering round temples and just doing as he pleased...and I followed in his wake, lapping up line after line of beautiful prose, ideas and feelings...with him I tentatively probed the tip of the vast ocean that's Zen. "in order to find ourseves, we've got to learn to stop." How the Japanese secede from time in the genteel art of the Japanese tea ceremony. In "tea", (tea ceremony) said Etsuko softly, we can get a taste of eternity..."tea" gives us a concentration, and helps us empty ourselves out. By concentrating on the ritual, on all forms of details, we can clean our selves out" I read. Somewhere in those pages I learnt to pronounce the word ' piquant' as the English would and then the French...with Pico I went an extra step to find out that Monet's "Soleil Levant" was that haunting impressionist sunrise which I loved from for ever but never put a name on let alone pronounce. I learnt in quietness the art of wrapping a gift and actually went that extra mile to have a friends Birthday gift wrapped so beautifully in order to doubly honour the receiver. I read, " later back home, I peeled back layer after layer of the elegant cloth. Simply opening the temples treasure was an almost sensual experience". In these pages I found the romantic sound of Georges Moustaki,Chopin, Baroque music, Beatles music. Then impressionists, Somerset Maugham, Caucer and Madonna, laid out so temptingly for me to pick up and look deeper into. With Pico Iyre I tried out my first Haiku and bagged a new tattoo...

Thank you for this book...as the gentle Sachiko would say...thank you for giving me dream time....

I pour green tea in my prettiest tea service. This is how I intend celebrating the last pages of 'The lady and the Monk' by Pico Iyer. Pico Iyer led me to the heart of Kyoto, one of the lovliest of old cities in Japan where he spent the four seasons, reading old poems, wandering round temples and just doing as he pleased...and I followed in his wake, lapping up line after line of beautiful prose, ideas and feelings...with him I tentatively probed the tip of the vast ocean that's Zen. "in order to find ourseves, we've got to learn to stop." How the Japanese secede from time in the genteel art of the Japanese tea ceremony. In "tea", (tea ceremony) said Etsuko softly, we can get a taste of eternity..."tea" gives us a concentration, and helps us empty ourselves out. By concentrating on the ritual, on all forms of details, we can clean our selves out" I read. Somewhere in those pages I learnt to pronounce the word ' piquant' as the English would and then the French...with Pico I went an extra step to find out that Monet's "Soleil Levant" was that haunting impressionist sunrise which I loved from for ever but never put a name on let alone pronounce. I learnt in quietness the art of wrapping a gift and actually went that extra mile to have a friends Birthday gift wrapped so beautifully in order to doubly honour the receiver. I read, " later back home, I peeled back layer after layer of the elegant cloth. Simply opening the temples treasure was an almost sensual experience". In these pages I found the romantic sound of Georges Moustaki,Chopin, Baroque music, Beatles music. Then impressionists, Somerset Maugham, Caucer and Madonna, laid out so temptingly for me to pick up and look deeper into. With Pico Iyre I tried out my first Haiku and bagged a new tattoo...

Thank you for this book...as the gentle Sachiko would say...thank you for giving me dream time....

Looking my deepest fear in the face

The love I thought was mine

Turned cold and comfortable in another

Being irrelevant and passed over.

Looking at that stark reality

Without rationalising that the love was never mine

But a delusion

Like the flowing river the moments have passed never to be captured again.

Simply that it is over and me just a part of nature that ebb and flow in some form or other

Until I see byond the delusion and end this ever flowing cycle that is samsara.

My deepest fear has been realised and relieved me of the fear of waiting for it to happen.

Maybe this is freedom from fear. There being nothing more to fear.