The last post ended with an excerpt from the current draft of BODY OF LAND: “Monuments were built for the revolution and the metal may now be melted down as scrap. Books will be written about the heroes, but eventually the books will be lost.” This restates the Buddhist principle of impermanence which I used to laugh at. How do you make a religious principle out of something so obvious; you might as well declare gravity as a religious principle. Now I think, yeah, impermanence and gravity. Things change, and if you drop an object it will fall. People, ancient buildings, everything will fall and fall apart, so the principles of gravity and impermanence are linked. And these are spiritual truths. We need to remember.
Spiritual truths link to spiritual practice, the spiritual practice here being that of surrender, letting go. It is not at all the same as giving up. It’s a practice. I need to practice.
Here in this opening of the novel I suspect that it is the deep connection between Mrs. Williams and Vera that had existed during the revolution and now is what sustains them in their love and support of each other… but I’m talking about the novel when I need to write the novel. I’ll get on with that… tomorrow… Today is all about lessons in impermanence for me, and I need practice.