Pairing up

I saw the pair of jackdaws and a pair of pigeons settling in for the night.

I like the way the birds negotiate space. I like seeing the pairs.

On which subject, I have seen Tane and Tapdance together more often, albeit briefly. On one occasion, he fed her; on another he did his seduction dance in front of her. On both occasions they cheeped at each other.

Mating. To make oneself vulnerable to the other; to act communally in a process of creation; to risk all for the future. And all this happens not in the solitary skull-cage, but in the busy world. It is in the world, not in our minds, that we can alter reality.

The basic notion of ‘mindfulness’ as a personal and private experience of naked attentiveness is tremendously attractive in the modern spiritual marketplace, enabling a deeply solipsistic and self-oriented interface with the world. With it, the apex of spirituality is not the way that one engages with others, but rather the kinds of thoughts that one has in the intimate spaces of one’s own mind. It is a commodity, plain and simple, used for cultivating inner peace, not a method of transforming the way we engage with the world around us. - Erik Jampa Andersson