Tuesday, April 21, 2020

This past week, we’ve seen Doug traveling back and forth and up and down the road with an attached trailer. What’s he doing? You wouldn’t know it by Doug’s usual enthusiasm and show of energy, but inside that trailer is a heavy load of gravel that he’s depositing around the greenhouse up in the garden. The greenhouse is getting a firm foundation, thanks to Doug!

This past Sunday, tireless Doug also served us all a dish of mixed greens from the garden: broccoli greens, radish greens, kale and chives and and since there’s abundance of miner’s lettuce this time of year, we enjoyed that too. We’re surrounded by green these days and purple blooms; iris, rosemary and lavender. Many trees have new young leaves, the apple tree’s in full bloom and further up on the ridge there’s a whole host of colorful wildflowers.

Guest room number two is getting a paint over, thanks to Jen.

We’re all extremely thankful for a package that arrived yesterday with three wool hats and two loaves of bread from our friend Pamela, for the warm fire, our Winter practice, for each other and staying connected.

We remain closed and continue to “Shelter in place” and may feel isolated or alienated at times, but as Buddhists we can return to silence, where we know everything exists together. We know too that things change and we know we have our tools or virtues (or six paramitas) to help. For instance, if I start with self compassion, add a little generosity, some tolerance, a dash of energy with right intention, and some prajna or understanding, then being here now becomes just that, or this, this formless field. A field of joy and emptiness.

In Gassho and with deep hope for all sentient beings,

Emmy,
Yujo