West London

You don't have to travel the world to see or meet the world's population. A sunny afternoon in Holland Park, London and everyone you walk past is speaking a different language, wearing some strange outfit, looking at home in a country that is clearly not their original homeland. No one appears to think about this; there is total acceptance of one another. Really it's quite amazing when more than half the world is at war because people aren't the same. Here no one is the same, and yet there is total peace and harmony - effortlessly.

Coming to this part of London is another eye-opening experience. Such a kaleidoscope. Great wealth alongside hidden poverty; traditional establishment alongside funky, whacky fashion culture. I'm staying right beside Portobello Road, now apparently an "international institution", famous for its market stalls.

Yesterday I spent the morning wandering through Kensington Gardens, the public grounds really of Kensington Palace, home of Princess Diana. I was very struck when I visited the palace by a strong sense of the person she was and the life she lived, and why her death had such an impact. She represented a very unusual fusion of beauty and innocence, power and fragility, status and ordinariness; she brought a natural compassion and concern to many suffering people and touched many, many lives - she lived a life of enormous privilege and yet suffered herself and never forgot the humanity in people around her. She may have worn her heart on her sleeve to a degree that wasn't helpful, her hurt and anger spilling out in public attacks of the Royal Family; and she may have been looking too desperately for love and affection to have maintained stability and dignity within her private life, but she was I think a great light in the darkness of many people's lives.

I was struck too by the protection that royal status gives. Through palaces, status, position, title, material abundance, members of such a family are elevated to a degree where ordinary concerns are not the focus of their lives and they are free - if they choose - to be of tremendous service in the world. Whether they are or not must depend on motivation rather than opportunity. Handling such enormous privilege without becoming spoilt, degraded or indifferent to others takes a level of training and education that is easily overlooked by those who simply envy the material aspect of this life. Carrying the projections of so many people and being expected to turn up and preside over so many events.... not an easy job.

So - I am in another world again. Continuing to focus on Tara and in particular Tara protecting from Sickness and inner disturbance. As the practice has deepened with this one, so it is emerging that her main activity relates to the kinds of sickness caused by environmental problems. Cholera, typhoid, malaria, dysentry, plague: diseases that aren't a big problem in the west on the whole, but are responsible for high mortality and epidemics in other parts of the world. It no longer seems appropriate to take this Tara to France, but I remain open-minded and will see what arises as the journey with this Tara continues....