Our morning meditation poem on Thursday was Summer Farm by Norman MacCaig. I'll definitely be buying this volume of Selected Poems. It's wonderful!
In our sessions we've re-instituted 'the listening chair' we used to have for Manjusvara - and I snapped some occupants (interesting body language!) We were exploring themes from Ananda's talk the other night about William Stafford, especially around the relationship with the Muse and receptivity.
There was a spirited discussion about the pros and cons of 'trusting the universe' - how we understand that and whether we do! Varasahaya chaired this very effectively - and I forgot to get her pic! To get a flavour of this matter of one's relationship with the Muse, you could also check out a great short TED talk (c 18 mins) by Elizabeth Gilbert, who wrote 'Eat, Pray, Love'. We've used this sometimes in Wolf At The Door workshops, and I used it in a writing workshop with Mitra convenors, where we felt it offered an interesting perspective a kind of 'supra-personal force'.
And in the evening Abhaya gave a talk on Orpheus (coming soon!).