The Bee of my Mind.

Today I changed the name of my blog. 'Alone and Palely Loitering' was it's original name, taken from the poem La Belle Dame Sans Merci:

I.O WHAT can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
Alone and palely loitering?
The sedge has wither’d from the lake,
And no birds sing.


II.O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms! 5
So haggard and so woe-begone?

It seemed to entirely capture how I felt when struck with ME/CFS. I had felt like a 'knight-at-arms" a soldier in Lord Caitanya's sankirtana movement -(knights appealed to my sense of the Romantic) fighting the maya within and without, armed with the mighty weapon of the holy name. Then it was all taken away; everything lovely in my life had gone and I felt utterly 'haggard and woe-begone'.

Well it's hard to describe the collapse of confidence in everything - myself, life - everything. And the bewilderment at not being able to practise any kind of spiritual life - to chant or to read. Huh! people used to say how nice, now you can spend lots of time reading - huh!

Anyway, let's leave that in the past now, I want to move on to a more hopeful prospect.

So, I've chosen this verse, which someone sent me recently:

'May the bee of my mind become ever more firmly attached to the lotus feet of that person, whose name is Krsna Caitanya, who appeared to manifest His own yoga of devotion, which was lost because of Time.'

I wondered, today, if the poet thought of the mind as something that's always droning, or buzzing on in the background - or if he just meant that the mind is always looking for pleasure - and dragging us along in it's relentless pursuit - a sip at this flower, then - look over there - a more beautiful flower promising sweeter nectar and away it goes, on and on. But the culmination of all searches for pleasure is to be found at the lotus feet of Krishna.

Anyway, I like it and it's the new title of my blog.