JULIET'S MUSINGS

  Would you like a moment of stillness? Why not try meditation - a rather scary or posh word for relaxing your mind, emptying it of rubbish and coming home to yourself for a while...   It's not easy to stop the continual 'streaming' of thoughts and feelings, but the more you do it, the slightly easier it gets. Try this one, based on a verse from the psalms 'Be still and know I am God'. First sit or lie somewhere comfortable and quiet. Then after a few minutes, speak out loud these words.. Be still and know that I am God... After a minute or two say Be still and know that I am... After a few more minutes Be still and know... Then Be still... And finally Be It's quite hard to come home to yourself, but it's where you belong. You are not your thoughts - who you are is based somewhere far deeper than your mind, more like in your guts, or you could say your heart. And who you are is made in the image of God with the divine spark of life always within you.  It...

  A bit of a strange motif for a rubber, don't you think?! I bought it when visiting the Oude Kerk in Amsterdam when I was visiting my son last month.  He happens to live directly opposite this church which is the oldest building in the city.  It's clock chimes every quarter of an hour - delightful at first, but after a while...!  It interrupts Seb when he's doing anything in his apartment and he goes into a sort of trance for a few seconds whilst waiting for the cheerful sound of 'The Lord's my Shepherd' to finish, so he can carry on with the music he's making or the conversation he's having.  It's very amusing to witness ... 'Embrace don't erase' slides glibly off the tongue, but is quite hard to do in practice, neither the embracing nor the erasing.  Yet it is good advice if you've suffered emotionally, physically or mentally.  We know that nothing really gets erased but if we bury stuff and never process or look at it properly, it...