Sunrise from a volcano on Bali, taken after a long climb in the dark.
This is the said volcano, taken much later in the day. During our ascent we had passed steaming vents. Here you can see a dark area, the result, if I remember correctly, of the most recent eruption.
Click here for more Skywatch photos.
One cannot divine nor forecast the conditions
that will make happiness;
one only stumbles upon them by chance,
in a lucky hour, at the world’s end somewhere,
and holds fast to the days….
Willa Cather
For various reasons haven’t managed to get out for much of a walk since the weekend. Whilst looking for something else entirely, I came across the pot-bellied chap above. I took his photo many years ago, pre-digital camera, but when I had the film processed I bought a CD of the pictures. I can’t remember his exact location or significance, but he’s from Indonesia where statuary is everywhere. Angela and I took a two week holiday there, before children made long flights prohibitively expensive and inconvenient.
He doesn’t really belong in a blog about Silverdale and its environs, but maybe the nature of my blog is evolving.
Maybe blogging is having an impact on me too. I found the Willa Cather quote in a book called ‘The Art of Pilgrimage’, a book that I would never have thought of picking up just a few months ago. I found this book by accident too, in the religious section of the library. I was looking for a book by a Vietnamese Buddhist poet, because of a thought-provoking extract that I read on a blog. I didn’t find it, but was drawn to ‘The Art of Pilgrimage’ because of a blog about the Camino to Santiago de Compestella that I enjoyed.
Indonesia has many sites of pilgrimage, with temples…
..even sited in the crater of an active volcano:
One temple mentioned in ‘The Art of Pilgrimage’ is the amazing Borobudur.
Lower parts of the structure are decorated with carvings which tell the story of Buddha’s life.
Higher up the temple is encrusted with these curious ‘bells’:
Each of which has a statue of Buddha inside. Sometimes he’s peeking out.
And it’s said to be lucky to touch his thumb.
Who knows, maybe it worked and created the ‘conditions that make happiness’.
Beating The Bounds 