This is a video I made in 2012.  Watching it now, for the first time in years and years, it still holds much of the power it held for me at the time.

It is a film I made when I left Zendo to go on a ‘walk about’ or ‘tuo dong’ (cant spell that). A kind of pilgrimage without destination, months spent following intriguing paths through the undergrowth. It reminds me of that Robert frost poem ( I’ll add that below). It was certainly a forking of the path in my life, a few months after i left on my journey the teacher the teaching and the sanga disbanded. This topic is the one I’ve alluded to many times in this blog, no doubt more will come!

It was the first time in over 10 years i had been -on my own. With out my Sanga or teacher, reflecting now it was the start of a journey i am very much still on.

The Road Not Taken 

BY ROBERT FROST

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.