Category Archives: relationships

Amazing podcast: Tea with Dave Bonta

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Dave Bonta, poet and blogger extraordinaire, best known for his via negtiva blog, and for the literary journal he runs with Beth Adams, Qarrtsiluni, also audio blogs the interesting conversations he has with the people he bumps into. He calls these recordings his Woodrat Podcast.

Back at the beginning of May, Fiona and I had the pleasure of (deliberately) bumping into Dave when he came to Wales for the launch of The Book of Ystwyth. 


We sat down over a couple of pots of tea in one of my favorite coffee shops in Aberystwyth, the Orange Grove, and recorded a fascinating conversation, covering writing, religion and the river of stones, as well as some personal sharing (and singing!). The result is Woodrat Podcast 42: Tea with Fiona Robyn and Kaspalita. Listen online now.

That was our second attempt at recording a conversation. That day the very kind couple that were hosting Dave had invited us for lunch, and in the hour before that we had our first wonderful conversation. Dave mentioned his time in Japan living with a Pureland Buddhist family, Fiona and I talked about how we found our way to that religion, about writing small stones, and all sorts…

…it was at this point Dave noticed that the pause button was still pressed, and we hadn’t recorded a thing!

We had an amazing lunch, and then went to the opening of the Clive Hicks-Jenkins retrospective, and eventually found or way down to the Orange Grove where we had a similar but completely different conversation. That’s the one you can hear on Dave’s blog.

Fiona and I stayed up late last night to listen to it – it’s amazing to hear yourself describing your own life and work – a completely different perspective to how one hears oneself from inside one’s own head.

Anyway – go listen - I think the bit about our courtship is in the middle somewhere…..

We are not sheep – just ordinary human beings

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“The conception of two people living together for twenty-five years without having having a cross word suggests a lack of spirit only to be admired in sheep.” A.P Herbert.

Kaspa writes:  A couple of weeks ago I saw a sheep chasing a pheasant out of its field, so perhaps they are not really as docile as Herbert thinks. But when it comes to marriage we are both are on the same page.

A couple of Sundays ago Fiona and I were driving through heavy rain, heading south towards Tewksbury on the motorway, (we’d been directed there by an unromantic sat-nav, and determined to ‘avoid motorways’ on the journey home) when she asked me what I thought marriage meant.  Along with as all the soft-focused, cliched, images that floated into my mind, I remembered what I had thought when I asked her to marry me last year.

“Marriage is a commitment to keep coming back to the other person, to keep coming back to the relationship.”

Like Herbert I don’t expect that we’ll never have a cross word with each other (we’ve been living together for long enough that I know that won’t be true) but I do expect that even if we get scared, or angry and upset, we’ll come back to the other person, and be honest, and try and make things work.

On Saturday Fiona and I will, amongst other things, plight our troths to each other. This a promise of truthfulness, and truthfulness is often not easy. Not easy to say, and not easy to hear. We are not sheep, but human, and sometimes we upset one another.
Sometimes hearing a truth can be upsetting but I believe, like Carl Rogers, that “the facts are friendly”, and that a joint commitment to uncovering what is really going on is essential in any partnership. From the most prosaic facts (Fiona likes her earl-grey tea without milk, and with less than a teaspoon of sugar, for example) to the more profound workings of our minds (why do I still get so upset when…?)
We’re getting married, one human being to another. Neither of us are perfect, but we think that life will be better together than apart. When I look back over the past year I can see that each of us has changed, hopefully for the better, by our commitment to each other, and our commitment to the truth, and our commitment to keeping on coming back, even when words get cross.
We’re going away for a week after the wedding, and will be pretty much offline. I hope you all have weekends that are as wonderful as I hope mine is going to be and we’ll catch up with all of you lovely people when we get back. 

More relationships, and Mr.Woodpecker

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I just spent too long flicking through photos of Great Spotted Woodpeckers. I wanted to show you the full glory of our woodpecker, who has returned to the nut feeder after a winter off.

I couldn’t find a photo that came close to the real thing, but maybe that’s the nature of photos of Great Spotted Woodpeckers, or anything else really. Let me just say – he is GLORIOUS.

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A little more wisdom from Ezra Bayda, this time speaking about ‘what we want from others’.

The fact that relationships often bring the most painful and unhealed aspects of our life out of the shadows makes them a powerful teacher. Yet who really wants such a teacher? In truth, what we want from relationships is… what we want! The beauty of relationships as spiritual practice is that the disappointment of not getting what we want eventually motivates us to awaken.

Finally, here’s ‘the spiritual practice of relationships’, which I also need to listen to.

The spiritual practice of relationships is about working on ourselves only, freeing ourselves from the constricting grip of our own unhappiness. It is not the other person’s job to take our unhappiness away; our discomfort is our own responsibility. Attending to our own spiritual tasks – seeing our judgements, opinions, beliefs, demands, and staying present with the fears out of which they all arise – frees others to move towards us. Then, when they no longer feel the need to defend, they become more willing to take care of their job. Thus joy in relationships becomes possible.

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Robyn commented on the last post that Marie Howe’s What The Living Do is one of her favourite poems. Read it on Jessica’s blog and see what you think for yourself. The word that comes to my mind again is glorious.

Here’s to more joy. And more glory. And being patient with ourselves as we wade through the stuff we need to wade through to get there. This life isn’t as easy as you’d think.

Me and Robbie Williams, and what to do when someone pushes your buttons

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Last night I dreamt I was going out with Robbie Williams. My friend Jo was going out with his brother. I must admit I quite enjoyed the fame, and Robbie was lovely. We had a particularly memorable time in a swimming pool. I wonder if Robbie ever Googles himself? (oo-er) If so, then hello Robbie ; )

I’ve finished At Home in the Muddy Water by Ezra Bayda, although I’m certain I’ll be reading it again. I particularly like this section at the moment, about being in relationships.

Ordinarily, we assume it’s the other person’s job to take our discomfort away. From a practice point of view, nothing could be further from the truth. Our discomfort is our job. For example, when we experience the fearful quality of jealousy, it’s our job to tend to it, not someone else’s job to take it away by changing their behaviour. When we experience the fear of insecurity around money issues, it’s our job to rest there, not another’s job to make our fears go away. What’s so interesting about human dynamics is that once we attend to our job – seeing our beliefs and experiencing the fears from which they arise – it usually frees the other to move towards us. When the other no longer feels the need to defend, they become more willing to attend to their job.

Bayda isn’t saying that we shouldn’t have boundaries for ourselves, that ‘anything goes’. But his message is pretty challenging. It means an end to being able to blame anyone for anything, in theory at least. If they are pushing our buttons, then all we can do is attend to our buttons. Telling them to never push them again doesn’t work – someone else will come along and push them instead.

This concept has been very helpful to me over the past year or so. My experience is that once I get to the bottom of why someone is making me so angry, or disappointed, and feel the feeling, then suddenly I don’t feel angry or disappointed with the other person any more. It’s all about my stuff. OK, I get there SOME of the time. Well, every so often. Once or twice at least ; )

Finally (I always seem to have one of those) I’ve just spotted a lovely review of The Letters by Laura Wilkinson at the wonderful Hags, Harlots and Heroines – and an interview with me talking about my writing process etc. Go see if you fancy it.

Are you a teensy bit controlling like me?

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If so then here is some advice from Suzuki Shunryu (author of Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind and a bit of a hero of mine).

“Even though you try and put people under some control, it is impossible. You cannot do it. The best way to control people is to encourage them to be mischievous. Then they will be in control in its wider sense. To give your sheep or cow a large, spacious meadow is the best way to control him. So it is with people: first let them do what they want, and watch them. This is the best policy. To ignore them is not good; that is the worst policy. The second worst is trying to control them. The best is to watch them, just to watch them, without trying to control them.”

I must tattoo the first sentence of this onto my wrists.

I love this advice – it brings to mind a mother watching her toddler get into some kind of trouble without leaping in and snatching whatever it is away, and then being there in a non-judgemental way when they hurt themselves and look round for their mum (or don’t). Much harder to watch people hurt themselves, isn’t it? But rescuing leaves both the rescuer and and rescued poorer. I know this, but I don’t always practice it.

PS I had a lovely conversation with Beth from Cassandra Pages here as a part of my blog tour for the small stones book which included talking about ZMBM. I’m not sure I’d recommend it if you’ve never read a book about Zen before – his autobiography Crooked Cucumber is also pretty special and might be a more accesible place to start.