HƎ LƎT GO AND
WAS MOMENTARILY HELD IN
Time,
REALISING ITs DEPTH; ITs
VASTNESS AND ITs UTTER
EMPTINESS.
Conscious of his own enormous
smallness, he looked down,
saw nothing,
Infinite emptiness
=
HIMSƎLF
Urban Dandy
RBKC Scrutiny #1 Grenfell United in Parliament
There have been plenty of significant developments in North Kensington as Kensington and Chelsea council (RBKC) and the local population deal with the fallout from the entirely preventable June 2017 Grenfell Tower fire, where 72 people died. The mainstream media might be busy elsewhere, but there is still a lot going on. With justice and change still not forthcoming, it is important to maintain a factual record and keep up the scrutiny…
Grenfell United
Our updates start in parliament with the survivors and bereaved group Grenfell United (GU) bearing witness to the Housing, Communities and Local Government Select Committee on the situation regarding housing conditions nationwide and developments with RBKC. Although GU’s latest testimony to lawmakers had little or no media pickup, it was of the utmost significance to those wanting to understand what has been happening in Kensington and possible future developments. Continue reading
The Truth of the Urban Dandy
My name is Truth
I have stood since time’s beginning
Outside the hearts of man
Waiting for the invitation
a few will let me in
I am searched for by the flawed, the weak, written about by the poor
For only in humility
Can I enter through your door
Yet I can free you from delusions, false hope and empty dreams
From the world’s chicanery
All its crazy schemes
I am the small voice in the wilderness
A whisper in the breeze
be still, quiet, listen
For with me comes liberty…
© Mark Bolton
#7
©Urban Dandy Ltd
@tomhcharles
#6
©Urban Dandy Ltd
@tomhcharles
2017 #5
©Urban Dandy Ltd
@tomhcharles
,
©Urban Dandy Ltd
@tomhcharles
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©Urban Dandy Ltd
@tomhcharles
2017 untitled #1
©Urban Dandy Ltd
@tomhcharles
Urban Dandy Meditation #2
Urban Dandy Meditation #2 was on 29th March 2018 in Notting Hill. You should have come.
A new venture, aimed at people from North Kensington and further afield to engage in the practice of transcendental meditation and to stimulate discussion and creativity.
The theme for the second Urban Dandy meditation event was ‘What is freedom?’
Within this broad theme, the class considered the question ‘What kind of freedom is experienced in transcendental meditation?’
The group discussed the tightrope of being in the world, grappling with a plethora of pressures and seeking truth, whilst simultaneously not being fully of this world, and the resulting question – ‘If I’m not of this world, what am I of?’
“I”
All participants reported that meditation facilitated a letting go, including of conventional understandings of the concept “I.”
This concept “I” can represent habitual roles, identity via nationality, religion, social class, political affiliation/non-affiliation, a strong identification with physical appearance, opinions, resentments, or taking a view of oneself as superior/inferior to others…
A human tendency is to spend energy looking for recognition and affirmation by playing any number of roles based on these identities, both consciously and subconsciously. We can deploy our energies fending off threats to these identities…
However, if these roles are seen for what they really are – habitual thought patterns – this energy is released and can be directed to benefit the whole person.
Patterns
In meditation, socially constructed identifications become more noticeably insufficient and, over time, distance is established between them and the observer – the identifications start to be viewed as patterns created by the mind rather than absolute truths.
Underneath the choppy waves of these thoughts and beliefs is a deep ocean of stillness. In meditation, this ocean is accessed and experienced directly by letting go of expectations and letting go of reliance on thought as a way of knowing oneself.
This is what transcendental meditation offers access to…it is experiential, not intellectual, making it subtle, powerful and effective.
An experience of freedom in Notting Hill…but it didn’t stay in the building, a drop of it traveled with each participant into the night…
By Tom Charles
@tomhcharles
Thanks to AC
Art by Angel Lewis
