7/15 - Telling Tales

What I did:

I hung around the house for a while in the morning, then got ready to head into London. I would be visiting the Moot community again (go back two Sundays for the first time) for their meditation service. I purposely headed out pretty early to spend some more time in town. I decided to go check out the Victoria and Albert Museum.

I was not really in the mood to visit a museum, but that all changed when I got there and went through the first exhibit. It was a special temporary one called “Telling Tales: Fantasy and Fear in Contemporary Design.” The first part was fairy tale themed furniture and stuff and the second part was kind of an eerie, hell like mood. I thought it was all really interesting though. Then I checked out as much of the rest of the museum that I could in the next 2-3 hours. It is for some reason my favorite museum so far. I really liked the way things were laid out and what they had. I don’t know, maybe I just suddenly got in the mood for a museum.

I got into the center of London with enough time to grab some dinner and then head over to St. Mary Woolnoth church. I was just in time and greeted several of the people I met last time. I went in and sat down and we soon started the meditation. Ian was there (not necessarily the leader, but kind of the go to guy/enabler of the community) and he soon began by explaining what we would do. We had a good 25 minutes of meditation and some talking after about meditating. It was very good and peaceful (especially in contrast to the craziness of the city barely audible right outside the walls), but I also realized just how not used to it I am.

Afterwards, I got to talk to some of the members of the community some more and even got to tag along with some of them to a sort of small group type of thing they call mini moots. I even ran into a guy I met at the (mysterious) weekend thing I went to a while ago, which was fun. We sat and talked for a while, then eventually we went to the pub so Ian could get some food. We met another couple there and had a lot of really interesting discussion.

After that, I went back home and very easily and quickly fell asleep as I tried to record all my observations.

What I learned:

Parts of the Jubilee line of the tube are the newest and most recently worked on. I guess I had not ridden on any of this part until today, because they have these fancy doors right by the track that prevent anyone from purposely or accidentally jumping onto the tracks or even getting near the train until it has stopped and opened its doors. I guess it helps, but it seems kind of silly and unnecessary in my opinion.

Museums in London are all huge and impossible to get through in any short amount of time.

I need to hone my meditating skills.