Newness

A new year, and a fresh start. Resolutions? The usual - eat better, get more exercise, work harder, blah blah blah....

Mostly I want to work on being mindful (Spud!) and concentrate on peace and honesty. True to myself, taking pleasure in small things, taking small steps forward on my spiritual journey.

A new year poem from Matsuo Basho (1644-1694)

The years first day
thoughts and loneliness;
the autumn dusk is here.

Here's to a year of simplicity, solitude and contemplation. All while living a real life in the real world!

Poetry

You know, I really don't like poetry. It's sort of flowery and useless and if you want to get an emotion across, just damn well say what you mean! So, it's not a word I like to use, or indeed something I tend to read. Unless it's funny, like Banjo Paterson's Mulga Bill's Bicycle.

I recently found a card in my letter box inviting (nay, inciting!) me to join a simple living group. It sounded good, the website is www.simplicitycollective.com, but then the group itself is called (wait for it) "The Life Poets' Simplicity Collective: a poetic alternative to consumer culture".

Why do I have to be a Life Poet? Couldn't it have been Life Builder? Or Life Definer? Or even cut the flowery junk and just call it the Simplicity Collective? Eek.

It makes me think of dear old simplicity forefather Henry David Thoreau. Even the oft-quoted Walden is, I find, a bit flowery and poetic - well, Thoreau was a poet, too. Walden also illustrates for me the poetic - or shall we say impractical - side of simplicity and simple living.