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Photos of Oxford in May

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Oxford in May is beautiful. After a long grey British winter, in late April and May there is a real transformation as trees come into leaf and blossom covers many of the streets. The city’s architecture is complemented by nature’s beauty. There is also a great feeling of newness because of the tremendous greenness, which is very vivid. I particularly notice it after coming back from New York in April. There are few countries, which see such an intense green – in UK, we like to complain about the weather but the rain does help the colour and freshness.

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I love these daises which grow in wildflower verges by the side of many roads.cutteslowe-park-1-may

May is also the month when we hold Sri Chinmoy Races at Cutteslowe Park, north Oxford. It is a great time to be in the park, which has quite a few areas of natural wildlife flowers.apple-blossom

Late flowering Apple Blossom on Marston road.cycling-to-exams
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Non-violence and the problem of slugs and snails

I have a dilemma. This year I’ve taken more interest in gardening, and have bought a few plants. The problem is that there has been an explosion in the population of slugs and snails. The garden is being decimated by these small creatures.

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You wake up in the morning and new plants and old daffodils are mere shreds of their former selves, slugs greedily leaving a trail of their feasting.

It presents me with a dilemma – what to do about the slugs? (more…)

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Trinity College Gardens May

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I was postering for some upcoming meditation classes in Oxford. Visiting Trinity College on the High Street I poked my head around the garden and there was a wonderful wildflower meadow – carefully managed to give a wonderful naturalistic style of planting.buttercups

When it is good in Oxford in May, it is very good. This felt like a scene from the Elysian fields.buttercups2

Buttercups and daisies, with dark velvet tulips in the background. It was around 11am, so the light wasn’t ideal – a bit strong.
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Photos Yorkshire Dales

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I was cycling in the Yorkshire Dales. Sometimes you would go around a corner or over a hill and a new vista like this would open up. This is just south of Dentdale, coming north from Ingleton.

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Fleet Moss. The road was closed to cars so I had it all to myself. Looking towards Hawes. (more…)

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The Dance of Life by Sri Chinmoy

When I joined Sri Chinmoy’s path (back in 1999), I read poetry series like the Dance of Life and didn’t always appreciate them. I preferred reading question and answers, and talks like ‘Everest Aspiration‘. Many years later, I dipped back into the poetry series Dance of Life and, at this point of time, the poems seemed to hold much greater understanding and resonance. Sri Chinmoy said he never wrote an autobiography, but in many of these early poems, I feel he wrote autobiographical incidents about his life. These autobiographical incidents were also visionary – in that many seemed to occur and develop after he wrote them in 1973.

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A good doping story – Mustafa Mohamed

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Two undercover journalists offered an Olympic hopeful athlete access to an elite training camp, where 15-20% of the camp profit would go to the company and that a doctor would be arranged to provide doping products. (1)

Mustafa_Mohamed The athlete, Mustafa Mohamed immediately said he was not interested, that he had never doped, and would never get involved in anything of that nature. He declined their offer to sleep on it. He told them he ran “for passion, not for money or fame”.

Mustafa Mohamed is a Somali-Swedish long-distance runner who mainly competes in the 3000 meter steeplechase.

If journalists can help bring real dopers to justice they are doing a favour to the sport. Journalists like David Walsh from the Sunday Times, did a good job in constant questioning of people like Lance Armstrong and trying to uncover the truth.

However, one thing about doping in the media is that it is nearly always the dopers who make the headlines. The people most quoted on the subject of doping are usually the doctors / athletes involved; and they can have a vested interest in trying to allege doping is widespread and ‘everyone is at’ – A form of justification for their own doping. (more…)

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Overcoming religious intolerance

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My father works in a book charity shop. He came across this old book “The Justice of the Peace” – MDCCLVII (That is 1757 if my Latin is up to scratch). This was a very different period. A time in history pre-French and American Revolutions, a time before any meaningful industrial revolution.

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It was interesting to see and feel a book 259 years old – still in quite good condition. There is always a thrill to books, but especially hard-backed books that are quite old.

It is a book about the laws and customs of the time – a guide for justices of the peace who dispensed local justice. I was a little surprised about the content. The first page I opened was a big chapter on “Popery”. In those days, there were strict anti-Catholic laws. To say or hear Catholic Mass could lead to one years imprisonment. (more…)

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