Doing Dharma

For the last two days I have been sweeping the concrete driveway which runs down the side of my house to my neighbours garage. The carport of my house is halfway down the steep incline requiring a right turn to enter and a hill start to exit. The weather has been beautiful and the drive is edged with fruit and nut trees. There are some ornamentals including a white lilac and an oak which fruits perfect little acorns. They have a covering which when the acorn is taken out becomes a cap for gum nut babies just as the iconic May Gibb`s illustrations`, depicted them.

Currently it is quince season and the tree is laden, it branches hanging low with this yellow, hairy, awkward fruit. The fruit are covered in a grey fuzz which takes some pressure to remove, are a nightmare to peel and have to be cooked for hours to achieve the ruby red colouring of edible. I love them , particularly in a crumble, but for many, quince is an acquired taste.

But I digress ( almost to a recipe ). It was not my intention to talk about the garden although as I rested between my sweepings, it struck me that there is an irony in the glorious days we have been having and the natural beauty of the world and the fact that a I am sitting , appreciating them, because of a virus that that same nature has unleashed on the world, which can kill me. As we have seemed heedless in the face of the harm we have been vesting on our planet , I did wonder at times, what nature would do. I guess I have one answer.

And still I digress ! What I was thinking about as I swept my driveway was the spiritual value of repetition and routine. I realise how often I distract myself with one or another of a variety of almost endless choices. I race through ( or don`t do ) the mundane tasks because I can do something else. In an article in spiritualityandpractice.com, Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat make the point that "variety is not the spice of spiritual life : it flourishes when we do the same things over and over."

In their article they also make the point that routine plays a central role in monasticism. "The daily schedule consists of the same prayers and chores repeated over and over again until we see god`s presence in the ordinary and are grateful " I could dismiss this by giving voice to my views on both god and benedictine monks to whom this was referring, but I think the point made is valuable. However I define my spiritual being, I do want it to be present in my ordinary and I do want to be grateful.

I am remembering an evening in Rabanal, a Spanish town high in the mountains which I reached after an exhausting walk on the Camino de Santiago. It was dusk when I walked into the private hostel run by an elderly lady who proceeded to wash my swollen and aching feet. She did this for all pilgrims who came to her refuge and she had being doing it for more than 30 years. I felt very blessed by her actions. She also ran a fabulous bar, another blessing! Later that night I went to a tiny Franciscan monastery built on the highest point of the small township and listened to the glorious A Capella choir of monks who did this every night as a ritual practice. It was their ordinary and it was glorious. When I have moments of wanting to run away, I often think of that monastery. They ran retreats and as I walked out of town the next day, I saw a monk in the hessian robe of the Franciscans in discussion with a girl I had walked with several days before. The sun was shining in the carefully tended gardens and they were seated on a wooden plinth. I was stuck by an overwhelming image of peace and it has stayed with me.

But I have digressed again. Ah monkey mind ! Hopefully the routine of this circumscribed life , will bring spirituality and gratefulness to my ordinary.

The drive by the way, looked spectacular when I had completed removing all the mulched leaf litter and leaves. This morning when I went to admire my handiwork, the birds, delighted by the turned earth, had furiously scratched it back across the concrete. My previous days labours were hardly visible. OK, so no easy spiritual lesson then !