Moving into other Realms

 Hello Sam, 

I am so delighted that you will be part of the Sanskrit journey too. It will be challenging but rewarding and so I look forward to some different conversations with you.

In the meantime, Friday was such a great session. Touching on just about everything we enjoy doing and chatting about. 

Books: The Searching for Sarah book could be an interesting read. I always admired Langehoven at school and of course Die Stem, the 'old' national anthem which is now incorporated into the 'new' one has powerful words which still rouse the greatest noise in the singing of the anthem. Writing tunes and words for anthems must be a special art. Words to stimulate national pride and unify. Although I know the words of our anthem I don't often sing it. So perhaps like many others I don't feel the unity or the pride anymore.

A piece I resuscitated from 1994

The other book that intrigued was the Chinese author's Fengxian Chu's story Song of Praise looks as though there is a good story waiting in the pages. 

I started reading the first 'Seven Sisters' Story, but am not gripped by it. It seems as though there is no 'oomph' in the writing. Just a series of sentences comma'd together. A great pity as I am intrigued by the myths around the Pleiades. My father always took us to 'star-gaze' and told the legends about the constellations in the night skies.

Sanskrit: Gillian is really keen for you to contact her so she can spend a little time 'catching you up' on this first session. 

These stones we found on the edge of a road driving to Hemis Gompa (Monastery) in Leh Kashmir.

This is my third session with Gillian (fourth if you count the 2 lessons I did many years back). The interesting thing is that I pick up Hebrew letters quicker than I pick up Sanskrit letters. Not that I will pick up Hebrew easily, but it 'speaks to me' more than Sanskrit does, but the sounds in Sanskrit are more familiar especially if you've done yoga. But an interesting journey. Once you've set up your Pinterest account I will give you access to my Sanskrit page. Perhaps as I've suggested before, we should do 15 minutes of Sanskrit each time we meet? It can only assist our learning. 

I often feel I should make a pact like Dorian Grey, because I have too much lined up before I 'pop my clogs' as Alexandra Fuller's father was heard to utter. Funnily my dad used to say it too, but they were of an era where you sat under trees, sipped gins, dodged snakes and hoped that all would be well.

I hope we will be able to sustain the writing group in our many interests. I'm sure that Ekta will hold it together and maybe even Anne-Marie R. But it seems almost to run itself and I'm sure will supply us with many writing prompts and encourage us to hours of solid writing. Well here's hoping anyway. 

Henry is calling me.

Here is a picture painted by Thomas Baines after Henry, surrounded by Matebele, shot an elephant which landed on a gold outcrop. You can see his horse Witbooi behind the elephant. So I suppose I need to continue our journey. Have a great weekend.