Playing and praying

Leanne and I went for a walk which involved me crawling into the hedge on various occasions to spot badger setts so that the Badger Trust can update their records. This feels all the more important as the cull is extending to this area. I have written about the badger cull before - how it's not scientific or effective but does mean the deaths of hundreds of thousands of social animals. Not to mention their fear and suffering. Check out the post linked to at the end of this one to see what I said last March.

We found one very hidden sett - and also a badger skull, very old and intact with the lower jaw and many teeth still attached. That sett seems very active and I hope the estate don't know about it. Even the badgers at the nature reserve aren't safe as they put up cages on the perimeter, along the mammal tracks. What kind of people agree to do this?

Anyway, Leanne and I had fun being childish - especially me, I wondered if I were more trouble than her four-year old twins.

As for the praying, well, yesterday I included that brief meditation video, looking into the water, but my usual meditative space is under the back lilac. Watching or listening to Bobbit. We had some together time this morning, until he decided a blue tit was more interesting.

When I pan up, it's because we heard a squirrel approaching. That was not uncommon. On another occasion, I was standing there doing my peaceful breathing while two squirrels sat a few feet away, watching me and then eating for so long that I wanted desperately to move, but I didn't want to scare them.

This is my new meditative breathing exercise, done standing up:

1. Inhale for four, feeling the feet in contact with the ground, expanding the stomach and lower back as the breath comes in, and thinking, "Supported and nourished by Mother Earth."

2. Hold for four beats, while keeping the heart open, and thinking, "Heart holds all living beings, my brothers and sisters,"

3. Exhale for eight beats, dropping the shoulders, with the thought, "Consciousness flows out into everything"

4. Hold for four, contracting the stomach and feeling the top of the head pulled up as though by a string attached to the centre of the skull, and thinking "Reaching up towards Father Sky."

5. Repeat four times.

If you don't have robin song to soothe you, let me offer Son of Bob - though this is not long enough for the full exercise.