Kaspa used to blog about being a Buddhist monk, and was well read in Buddhist circles.

He’s just started blogging again, and I guess he’ll be talking about Buddhism some more, as well as his other loves – theatre, books, poetry, ministry, who knows what else… and me ; )

Here he is at Purple Clouds. Do follow.

(warning – his first post is seriously soppy.)

And here’s the whole poem Kaspa quoted at the top of his most recent post. Enjoy.

*

I won’t say any more for now, but it explains why everything is changing, and why it hurts to open, and why I’ve been feeling so damn grateful for what the world is offering me. Grateful, and ridiculously, blisteringly happy.

This morning I wrote the first thousand words of the first draft of my fifth novel. They weren’t very good words. But they were words. I will write more tomorrow. And the day after that. And the day after that. That’s how books are born.

This morning I had two emails this morning from people who had read my books. Complete strangers, who have spent time with my words – hours of their time – looking for a message, taking in my stories and my experiences and fashioning it into something of their own. They were grateful. That is why I do what I do.

Writing is a way of making love to the world. It is a way of offering thanks, of bowing down in acknowledgement and surrender. A way of working towards accepting the difficult, messy lessons, as well as the luminous, joyful ones.

I stand in my sunny office, bowing down to my red laptop, to the view from my window, to this steaming cup of earl grey. Bowing down to my love, hundreds of miles away as I type, who is bowing down to me.

*

Mary Oliver