On an island

Waking at 5am, the first order of the day was to slip on my black 'Schuh' slippers and creak down to the toilet (for obvious reasons).

Next up was to open the bedroom window wide, and settle into the rattan chair with the chinoiserie cushions. I sat easing my breath for the morning meditation (about 20 minutes give or take) and listening to my own thoughts, moving past them to experience the day.

As has become usual, birds, at various interludes, praised the day as I sat listening in the morning's cool. It is, mostly, peaceful here, in this part of the ancient island with its myths and legends. The daily cussing, loud 'rap' music and thunder of motorcycles is left far behind me. So too are the scents of marijuana and rotting rubbish in the no-man's land which had been that accomodation's backyard.

That ten month endurance is only nine miles away, but seems like a far distant time and place. Almost as far as the East which still holds my heart, but is divorced from me.

I have come to this red squirrel and demur deer island for respite, for sanctuary, as a semi-monastic 'retreat' and to be able to rediscover the delights of rurality, of an island's balm and comforting pastoral bliss.

7am and, after a Peruvian coffee latte, work calls. I continue to create the next issue (54) of The Blue Lotus magazine (which practically seems to create itself from interconnecting milieux. I only have to provide the equipment and physicality of movement).