News from the Unscripted Self
Try to bring back the God in yourself to the God in the All, Plotinus.
Estepa Gate, Antequera
There is a peace that does not go.
It does not want to go and it does not want to stay.
It has no place to go. It Is.
It has no appointments to be somewhere else.
Allow yourself to fall away from the shape of your mind.
Fall inside the shapeless.
But don’t ask how.
Mooji
Beautiful Andalucia
Just back from Spain and had an amazing time.
Bookended by the Estepa and Grenada gates Antequera is very welcoming, very Spanish, and unspoiled (as yet) by tourism, it is a healthy and healthful place to stay in.
The city has many fine buildings and monuments, and in the city museum you’ll find one of the best preserved Ephebe (Greek youth), statues in Europe, as well as a very empathic Pedro de Mena carving of the life-size statue of St. Francis. The Alcazaba (Moorish castle) is well preserved and well worth the climb.
Antequera has many peripheral attractions, such as the calcareous El Torcal park and the dolmens of Menga, Viera, and Romeral. Also there is Lobos Park, the home to some rare white wolves. You are brought around by the keeper as the wolves live freely (as they should) there, but they are not dangerous at all. There’s also a restaurant where you can book night dinners on the full moon and listen to the wolves baying as you eat. Amazing!
And not forgetting La Pena de los Enamorados, a large rock visible from the town. The story goes that when the Moors ruled Antequera Tagzona, the daughter of the king, fell in love with a Christian prisoner named Tello. One night she stole to the prison, orchestrated his release and the two planned their elopement. However, spotted by the guards as they fled they made their way to the rock. Here the lovers climbed in hope of safety but then found the soldiers had surrounded the rock and there was no escape. But rather than face life apart young Tallo and Tagzona decided to leap to their death from la Pena, thus immortalising the rock and their own sad lives. Kind of a Romeo and Juliet feel.
While based in Antequera I did a tour of the region, visiting Seville, the city of Figaro and Carmen, and Don Juan, steeped in deep romance, including its beautiful cathedral and Maria Louisa Park. Also Granada and beautiful Cordoba. Went south as far as Ronda, with intimations of Hemmingway and Orson Wells. The scenes are breathtaking with a gorge running through the town, with its Puente Nuevo (New Bridge), the symbol of Ronda, and its beautiful white houses perched perilously on the cliff edge.
Tell you more about these next time.
Once a Zen student boasted to another,
My master is the best. Do you know he can go whole days without eating.
Another rebuffed:
That’s nothing, mine can go for weeks without any sleep.
A third who was silent, then replied, ‘my master is only so wise that when’s he’s hungry he eats, and when he’s tired he sleeps’.
Seville: city of Carmen
This Month’s Reading
Is Evil A Reality?
Looks at the thorny question of evil in the world.
World Shut Your Mouth!
Vociferous title bringing the Nondual series to an end. So far feedback positive on it. Keep your comments coming in.
Ronda
Distant Healing
Please please send love and healing to Syria, to all sides. Only love will heal this conflict. Thank you.
MEDITATION is the journey from movement to stillness, from sound to silence. The need is present in you to meditate because it is your natural tendency to look for undiminished joy and love that doesn’t distort or turn negative." -- Zuli Masih.
Need to catch up on a lot of that after all my travels!
Talk to you soon.
