Yesterday was a day of many activities. First a quick walk down to meet John for a coffee at 9:30am, which he had scheduled for 1:30pm! On the way down I took quite a few photos as the low morning sun was presenting me with interesting light plays.

The timbers must be getting dry.

In the aft I visited Sharen, who I had not seen for a fortnight and brought two macaroons to share. She was feeling pretty alert and when she could not recall the words to a melody that played in her head, she said: "The timbers must be getting dry." So, that old quirky sense of humour that we both enjoy, broke through again. Sharen mentioned that both Garda and Ada had been by to see her. These visits, with a little treat make up the high lights of her life at 100 years.

Later at home I printed a few photos of my mandala blank flower rosette and hand coloured it in, to test my new colouring choices for compatibility with the coloured-in sections around it. Not a decisive success. Next came some emails and web cruising for the restaurant ‘a la Mongolie’ and making my dinner.

This was followed by a trip to locate the ‘Xan’ Mongolian restaurant at the far North edge of the city and then I proceeded down again to Kensington Art Supply to get a second opinion on the rosette colour choices. I got there just before 8pm. Kindly the owner gave me a few extra minutes, but the colouring opinions remained inconclusive!

Next came the movie ‘Watermark’ that Shirley did not want to watch on Tuesday night. Now it had been pre-empted by an MR-student movie festival. I went to Pages where I’d planned to spend some time reading upstairs. However, that venue was pre-empted by a poetry reading! On the rebound of these two frustrations, I decided to pay for the book ‘Amsterdam’ that I had on hold at Pages.

Equipped with my solace, I tried to find a place to sit at ‘Higher Ground’, but - as expected - with no such luck. Then, as I decided to head home on my way back to the car, I spotted ‘Olong’ tea house, an old acquaintance of which Jennie had reminded me. It tried the Tai Latte there and made a start with my book in peace and quiet.

Once home, the dishes awaited me, as did the 10pm news and a message from Elisabeth. After some reading in the very well written ‘Amsterdam’ by Russell Shorto, I checked in at about midnight, closing my unplanned, eventful and satisfying day with a short candle lit contemplation.

I had one prominent thought regarding my upcoming talk ‘My Belief as Practice’ as I was driving up to locate the ‘Xan Mongolian Barbeque‘. It is this: "Practice is constructed" or a construction. This idea I recalled in my evening candle lit contemplation, wrote it down on a sticky note and stuck it to the cover of ‘Amsterdam’. There I found it again this morning as I did my morning coffee meditation, also candle lit.

This idea of construction or ‘is constructed’ is an overarching consequence of my earlier notion that I formed this practice of my belief over the years of my own life time. This was my first notion, but I saw is as a private one. Last night’s realisation points the way to a far reaching general principle that we human deploy with regard to our religion cum spiritual activities.

This is a principle of construting one’s belief practice I can apply to my talk, which development had been on hold since I wrote my Monday ‘Writings’ relating to that topic. Now I have a concept that got legs as the news people say, or has luminosity as Jung or Otto would call it.

It has energy in other words using a contemporary term, but also morph ability as I would add, we can shape this concept as it is adaptable to different belief frame works. And in relation to that, I can come up with several examples from the studies I have made over the years in preparation for my talks on the various world religions, as can be found on my website‘s Talks.

And with this satisfying observation I conclude for to day and this week. <10:15am.
P.S: Not to forget, lunch with Herman, Noon at Heritage station!
This as a variation on a the title of a well know Western movie!