Nine Stanes, Eslie the Greater and Eslie the Lessor

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I have had a longstanding interest in megalithic monuments since I was a teenager. In part sparked by my interest in astronomy as a teenager, since the megalithic monuments of Europe show that Neolithic humans had sophisticated astronomical skills. And in part, by my interest in deep ancestry (see previous post https://mountainsrivers.com/2014/03/11/maternal-ancestors-bronze-age-iron-age-roman-britain/). And also by their connection with the barrowdowns of Middle Earth. On my first extended trip to Britain, I visited various megalithic stone circles in England and explored the barrows around the Ridgeway near Oxford.

So on my trip to Eastern Scotland last Easter, I took a look on the internet to see whether there were any megalithic monuments within an easy drive from the area I was staying in near the villages of Mathers (https://mountainsrivers.com/2014/05/20/the-villages-of-mathers-easter-2014/). And discovered there were three stone circles about 45 km north-west of St Cyrus where I was staying. Continue reading →

Zen practice in Japan

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My main Zen teacher in the 1990s was Hogen Yamahata, known as Hogen-san to his students, who travelled regularly from Japan to conduct sesshin, and in the late 1990s started to spend more of his time in Australia. I was planning a visit to Japan in 1995 and hoped to visit Hogen-san at his temple, Chogen-ji, near Mt Fuji. Apart from the fact that I found out he was actually visiting Australia at the time I planned to go to Japan, his long-term student Peter Thompson advised me that Hogen-san’s temple was only a small family temple with one or two students at most. and that it would be better for me to visit Bukkokuji, where Hogen-san had trained with his main teacher, Harada Tangen Roshisama. So in 1995, I went to Bukkokuji and spent a week training with Roshisama.

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The entrance to Bukkokuji, a Zen monastery in Obama, Japan.

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Les Portes du Soleil in the French Alps

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Just spent a week skiing at Les Gets – Morzine with the boys. Les Gets and Morzine are two ski resorts in neighbouring valleys and the pistes connect. The whole area is part of the Portes du Soleil which also includes a couple of Swiss resorts on the other side of the main mountain ridge. Possible to ski over to Switzerland, but we did not go that far. It snowed quite heavily the week before we went, and the snow stopped just as we got there. Spectacular scenery of snow covered forest as a result.

 

The view from our chalet

The view from our chalet

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The night the universe sang to me

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I had tried kava some years ago when I was in Fiji at a holiday resort. There was a bowl of what looked like (and tasted like) muddy tea. I had a cup of it, and did not notice anything much. So when Irene told me that the Vanuatu kava was much stronger, and the locals said that the kava in Fiji was more like dishwater, I decided I should try the local stuff while I was on Tanna. Continue reading →

First ski trip of 2015

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After a unseasonally warm November and December, it got colder in January and the Juras finally got a good snowfall. We even got a light dusting of snow at our house in Geneva.  So the next day, the boys and I threw our skis in the car and headed up to Crozet, less than 30 minute drive.

On the chairlift heading up to the top

On the chairlift heading up to the top

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Zen practice in Australia

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I started practicing Zen with the Canberra Zen Group in 1992 following my separation from my first wife. I had become interested in Zen practice as part of my jujutsu training at black belt level. My jujutsu teacher had been exploring some of the inner (mind, spirit) aspects of budo with his yudansha students, and from around 1989 I had started to sit zazen fairly regularly at home.

The Canberra Zen Group met for zazen several times a week at a Vietnamese Buddhist temple in the north of Canberra, and were also affiliated with the Sydney Zen Group who have a zendo in Annandale, where I used to live, and also have a retreat centre at Gorricks Run, a remote valley in the Northern Blue Mountains.

In 1993 I attended my first sesshin (7 day silent retreat) at Gorricks Run where the teacher was John Tarrant Roshi, the first Australian to be authorized to teach Zen. Tarrant Roshi had been a long-time student of Robert Aitken Roshi, one of the most influential figures in the transmission of Zen to the West.

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Other worlds – the birth of a new solar system

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Update: November 2014. Astronomers have captured the best image ever of planet formation around an infant star, using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array’s (ALMA) new high-resolution capabilities. The image reveals in astonishing detail the planet-forming disk surrounding HL Tau, a Sun-like star located approximately 450 light-years from Earth in the constellation Taurus.

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Extending my limits: Arête des Cosmiques

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My second Alpine trip this summer was a short but intense day near the Aiguille du Midi in the Mont Blanc region. The cable car from Chamonix remains the highest vertical ascent cable car in the world, from 1,035 m to 3842 m, an altitude gain of over 2,800 m in 20 minutes. The Aiguille du Midi is the starting point for the ski trip down the Vallée Blanche which I did some years ago, 17 km and over 2,000 m descent. It is also the starting point for various climbs nearby and for access to the Cosmiques Hut, at the beginning of the Three Mont Blancs route to the summit of Mont Blanc.

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Exiting the top cable car station to descend the snow ridge leading off Aiguille du Midi.

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