I am not sure if this is news or not but it feels pretty important to me so I thought I would share it here.
I have travelled to Amida Mandala in Damian's little sports car all by myself and have left him (daddy-Damo) with our two small children. Se
When I moved here I was very small, but now that I'm getting a bit bigger I can do all sorts of things that were impossible before. My big project recently has been climbing. There are lots of things to climb on here and today I made a great step for
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After you have gone for a long walk all around the property, climbed to the top of the beech tree, investigated the inside and outside of the cold frame, found a way of getting to a new window sill, inspected the excavations and the stones dug up by
Well, I said it was going to get warmer and wetter. Right now it is blowing a gale here at La Ville au Roi and as this house is on a small hill we are getting the full force of it. During the day it has been grey yet strangely warm. I sat out in a de
Read more…Recently, I have been having troubles with my laptop. Almost no internet at all for a couple of weeks, but now I am back. After the retreat with the Amida Sangha and after the deparuret of Jnanamati and his two Dutch friends I had to adapt a bit and
Read more…Here is a picture of one of our little projects. The path is made mostly from slabs of limestone dug up on the site and maneuvered into place. This is work in progress. We still have quite a way to go. The doctor says that I need to stay active and g
Read more…This week my practical tasks have mostly been set aside in order to clear the decks for writing. I have got some work done on the manuscript of a potential book based on my "Questions in the Sand" series. I've also heard that my Dogen book is now und
Those of you who have been worried about my health will be pleased to hear that during January and February I have had a series of tests and check ups, it being a year since my emergency, and it is all good news. I am now off medication completely. M
Read more…Last night we had our first frost. The water in the bowl on our oputside washing up table was frozen and it was fun lifting the sheet of ice off. There will probably be another frost tonight. Consequently, I spent this afternoon transferring geranium
Read more…Good Medical News
I have recently had some medical tests and today saw my own doctor to review the results. She is pleased with my progress. The best news is that the deep vein thrombosis in my legs which was one of the major elements of the conditio
Read more…Finally the weather broke. Last night we had a big storm with torrents of rain. The outside world is suddenly refreshed. The earth had become hard and dry, the grass all yellow. The rain fell and was soaked in by he ground like a great dry sponge. Th
Read more…We are in the middle of a cold spell here. The temperature has hardly risen above zero all day. As we were driving to Oasis this morning the car thermometer was indicating the outside temperature as below minus three degree centigrade and at night it
Read more…I have not written a Daily for several days. This is principally because life here goes along in a fairly uniform way at the moment so that one feels that there is nothing to report.
Personally I feel myself to be in a kind of interim. I have more or
Read more…It now seems definitely to be autumn. Misty mornings. Cool weather that feels cold by comparison with what went before. Interesting how one forgets what winter felt like. There is little to write about in terms of activity here. All goes on as usual.
Read more…This is the season for remembering the enlightenment of Buddha. Traditionally, in the far east, Bodhi Day is December 8th. Yesterday, the 8th, we did some chanting and today, 9th, we did continuous prostrations at Oasis and talked about the path of f
Read more…The moon rises further east each evening and gows in size. Three quarters now.
The days are hot and today the wind was particularly dry. Perhaps it is the sirocco. The winds from Africa rarely get this far north, but today the air had a quality altog
Read more…The half moon is orange in the clear evening sky in the south. The crickets are chirping and the summer heat persists.
Elja has a regular industry of jam and syrup making going on in the kitchen and fruits continue to ripen.
Inside we work on editing
Read more…The storm is approaching from the East. It’s taking a long time to reach us and we all send our prayers out for rain to enliven the dusty landscape. It is a magnificent mélange of a dark angry wall and swirling, multi-layered white, lightning both ho
Read more…Well, almost a week has gone by since the last Daily. Life goes on in its wonderful wandering way.
Storm
This past week has seen a marked change in the weather. The early part of the week was hot, then it became overcast though still warm and then, l
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