Cornwall and King Arthurs Castle

It's been over a week since the Tagore Festival was over and I've been traveling in Cornwall, Dartmoor and Glastonbury.  I'll do a separate posting for Dartmoor and Glastonbury.

Besides attending the Tagore Festival I wanted to connect with some Quaker History and the ancient history and stone circles in this part of England.  I couldn't have been luckier because when I met June at the festival and found out she was from Cornwall I asked if I could get a ride in her direction because I wanted to attend the Come-to-Good Quaker Meeting in Cornwall.  As it turned out she is a Quaker and was happy to go with me to the Meeting.

Come-to-Good Quaker Meeting House built in 1720

After Meeting we spent the day visiting some of the Cornwall Coast and ended up in Penzance.  Some  Quaker Friends of June's she introduced me to at the Festival, Heather and Barrie Bray, lived in Marazion at the entry to St Michael's Mount and invited me to their home and to show me the Quaker Meeting House there.  

The Marazion Quaker Meeting House built in 1678

The view of St Michael's Mount from the Bray's living room

Both the Bray's are exceptional artists and Heather has become "a healer" since the tragic death of their daughter.  She introduced me to dowsing and the use of the pendulum and gave me a book she has written titled Key's to Wisdom.  Some amazing stories of healing.  My introduction to the occult which is everywhere in this part of the West Country

The whole week has been full of magic; some of which is the English train/bus system.  I headed of from the Bray's to the Penzance train station not knowing how I would get to Tintagel on the Cornish Coast where King Arthur was suppose to have been born and where Merlin's Cave is.  Well, a train headed in that direction with in 1/2 hour and with 2 seamless bus connections I was King Arthur's Catle in a matter of hours.  This happened time and time again as I ambled my way around the West Country.

A couple photos of the ruins of the Castle from the 6th Century

The Cornwall Coast at Tintagel.  Think Iceburg Point x 5

Tintagel Post Office built in the 1400's

Interesting to get in touch with the King Arthur legends in this part of the world between here and Glastonbury where I finished this adventure.   I headed off from here to erie Dartmoor, more photo's from there in the next posting.

The Gardens of Dartington

I mentioned earlier I would include some photos of the beautiful gardens at Dartington.  Enjoy!

Inscription at the entrance to the main courtyard.

The Azalea Dell

The view from the terrace walk over the tiltyard back to the Great Hall

Memorial sculpture by Henry Moore in the foreground

More Azaleas and the Swan Fountain by Willi Soukop

The view of The Glade where I went to meditate

  Love in the garden; they couldn't help themselves

The view from the window of my room

The majesty of ancient Oak trees

Look to this Day.

For it is Life, the very Life of Life

In it's brief course lie all the varities

And Realities of your Existence: 

The Bliss of Growth,

The Glory of Action,

The Spendour of Beauty.

For Yesterday is but a Dream,

And To-morrow is only a Vision;

But To-day well-lived makes every Yesterday

 a Dream of Happiness,

 And every To-morrow a Vision of Hope.

Look well to this day.

~ Rabndranath Tagore ~

Tagore Festival is Over

And what a week it has been.  Every day packed with interesting , informative and inspiring presentations, all with that wonderful Brit humor they all have.  Easy and fun to listen to without exception.  We ask each other what was our favorite part of the week and everyone has a different answer.  I have several contenders but have to go with Chloe Goodchild  who was part of Rumi/Tagore poetry-musical story telling presentation one evening.

and followed the next morning with a workshop "the Universe Singing inside You; Your Singing Soul".  The technique includes hand movements with different sounds for each chakra as you go up and down the chakras and end in silence.  Imagine a room with 50+ people singing loudly as the go up and down the chakras and ending in an deep/complete/gathered silence. A strongly felt presence of being. Chloe says the silence is the most important part.  She has a program called The Naked Voice which trains people in this practice and maybe we can get someone to come to Lopez to teach us.  I'll try.

Other contenders were;

     Rob Hopkins - The inspiration for a movement called Transition Towns which now has over 350 towns in 30 countries.  Rob's talk was titled Recipes for Resilience.  I bought the handbook.  Lopez is well along this path but maybe being part of a world movement would be good for them and for us.

    Big names like Deepak Chopra, Physical Healing and Emotional Wellbeing; Vandana Shiva, Nature as Teacher; Jane Goodall, Reason for Hope; etc were all exceptional as you would expect.

    Lot's of British Names I wasn't familiar with but all very smart  and very impressive.  The English seem to be a lot further along the path of cultural/spiritual change in their thinking on the environment, finance and politics:  Tim Smit, Ilan Pappe, Clare Short, John Moat, Jonathon Porrit, Mark Tully and others.

  All this good thinking but lots of dancing (mostly Indian), poetry and singing.  All relevant  and consistent with Tagore's philosophy to include art and poetry and music with the intellect.  

The festival was closed with a group named Seize the Day. One of their songs simply titled "America" ended with the words "take back your power or take the blame." I felt like they were talking directly to me.   

The over all attitude towards America was not positive at all.  No one made it personal but lots of comments both in the presentations as well as in conversation.

A nice touch to try an make the experience real was what they called The Prayer Tree.

The idea was to write on a ribbon a pledge of action you would do for One Year and a day and offering a day a month to a worthy cause.

I choose to pledge to continue for a full year with what I have been doing with hitch-hiking/walking and driving as little as possible (definitely increases my miles per gallon and decreases carbon emissions) and to structure my life to be more simple so I can help when I can.  I believe I already do more than a day a month for a worthy cause.

So that's it.  I recommend reading some Tagore.  He's definitely an inspiration for the times. Always has been.

I have become my own version of an optimist.

If I can't make it through one door, Ill go through another door -

or I'll make a door.

Something terrific will come no matter how dark the present.

Rabindranath Tagore                                                                        

Tagore Festival at Darting Hall

The Great Hall at Dartington

I had hoped to post more often but here it is Thursday already and I'm just finding time.  What a full and exciting time  from 10 in the morning to 10 at night.  Actually it has been exhausting to experience so many meaningful, inspiring, and enjoyable events one after another.

Surprise of surprises that when I arrived at the festival on Saturday the very 1st person I ran into was Arore Marens at the entry of Sharpham Hall.  Very few people from the US are here so it's even more remarkable.  Sharpham is another retreat center associated with Dartington with a magnificent Manor House.  One of the special things about the manor house is a 4 story spiral stone staircase to a domed celling with exceptional acoustics.  The Ishirini Choir from London that was part of the opening ceremony was also staying at Sharpham and a huge treat was that after breakfast they practiced singing in the spiral staircase.  The most beautiful musical experience I have ever had, makes me tear up just to remember it.

                                     A Tagore quote  you can partially see in the photo was 

 We live in the world when we love it.

One of the overall themes of the conference is we need to wake up and wake up KNOW to address all of the critical issues facing us.  The 1st program on Monday was with Tony Juniper, who wrote the book Harmony with the Prince of Wales, and dealt with the magnitude of the change needed and that the change needed is cultural, philosophical, political and economic as well as environmental.  We need a spiritual shift and a change in core values.

Next was a a very interesting program for me by two Schumacher Professors connecting Einstein and Tagore through Holistic Science and how our over-emphasis on mechanistic thinking is threatening the integrity of both Nature and culture.

Followed by a talk by Iain McGillchrist, an engaging Scottish psychiatrist, on right brain-left brain thinking and how right brain thinking has got us into the messes we are in and we need BOTH to survive.   How do I feed myself  and yet stay alive;  attending to narrow interests and global interests at the same time.

And to top it off to end the afternoon with Jane Goodall.  What a sweet and powerful lady who reminded us we are not borrowing resources from our children, we are stealing them and that everyone of us can make a difference every day in the way we live. To think about the consequences of small choices, that we have to become involved and to never give up.  An honor to be in the presence of su

All this mixed with music and dancing and Poetry.  Sounds exhausting, doesn't it?  but delightfully exhausting.  

We live in the world when we love it!