Thanks to Prajnamati – and his estoeric knowledge of how to work a ‘hex’! – Satyalila’s ‘Scrapbook in the Sky’ has been able to morph into ‘Views from the Garret Hermitage’ – with accompanying new image.  I’ve always referred to where I live as ‘the Garret’ and for many years as ‘The Garret Hermitage’.

My love of garrets dates back to when I was about eight, and my sister Mary gave me  Frances Hodgson Burnett’s book ‘The Little Princess’.  My favourite bit was when SaraCrewe ends up all poor and is banished to the garret as a servant.  In the book, her imagination is the truly magical thing and she makes the whole experience of losing everything and ending up in an attic seem very appealing.

The’Hermitage’ part of it owes a lot to Bhante Sangharakshita’s Teacher Yogi Chen who lived in a room, or a couple of rooms, right by the bazaar in Kalimpong and this was his ‘hermitage’ where he lived for many, many years – apparently never going out.  There’s a lovely description of Bhante going to visit him there with Khanitpalo on Yogi Chen’s website.  Just scroll down the page of this link to read about his hermitage.

The ‘myth’ of being in the heart of the city, yet also up in the clouds (almost literally and certainly metaphorically speaking) has held a lot of appeal for a long time.  My first garret was as a student when I lived a few minutes from where I live now .  That garret was on the end of Berkeley Crescent and I had a wonderful view of the Wills Memorial Building tower out of my little window.

When we were taking the pictures for the header, the sun suddenly went it - and the conrrast with the pic we finally got was huge. I was reminded of Vajradarshini saying "Seeing beauty has a lot to do with how light falls – so perhaps that’s a metaphor – we’re trying to shine a light in such a way the beauty is revealed."