Hit the Road, Jack

After some nice summer days it's back on the road. My mom and I will take a small trip to attend another meditation course-- this time she'll be serving and I'll be sitting.

We had an early frost this year, meaning that the garden gave notice to stop producing. But there was some good news in all this... it meant that the tomatoes weren't going to get any riper. Not only is this fortunate for those of us who don't like ripe tomatoes, but it also meant that we had scores of green totatoes we didn't know what to do with. So my mom spent a day pickling them, and if you've never had homemade pickled green tomatoes, you're missing out! It was a day long process but made more than a dozen jars. We also had some fried green tomatoes, but I think the recipe used might need a little refining...

I am about fully prepared now for my SIT Teacher Training course in Chicago in October, and I'm happy as well to check out the Illinois Vipassana Center before and after. I had wanted to do my second course in Bangkok, but I just found out that it won't start until March. So I might try an earlier one in Northampton or Costa Rica... on verra.

A powerful read

Looking for a good read in a boat, on a train, in a car, or in a plane? I recommend this one, whether you are a gent or a dame! Seriously, this is a powerful (and scary!) read about where the world has gone in the last four years, that is, W.'s aim...

(From New York Times Magazine, 9/11/05)

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/11/magazine/11OSAMA.html

Also, these are two very interesting magazines that had come out recently...

The Believer and n+1

At the cabin

A few years back we built a cabin up in the Rocky Mountains, near the center of the state of Colorado. It's in a place that's barely even on the map. It's not really in a town, and there aren't really any road to go up to it... four wheel drive in the summer, snowmobiles in the winter, and in between, you're kind of out of luck. The nearest "town" is a ghost town named Bonanza, where quite some time ago there were many mines all around. Their remnants are still around, near the base where you start to head up the mountain... old mining facilities covered with sediment, broken down houses, old gravestones, and other signs.

The cabin is a beautifully built one room abode, with the fire in the cookstove providing both warmth and food, and the essential pot of tea. There's not much to do, and of course that's the point (even though some people like to rig radios and TV/VCRs to work, though I can't imagine why). The meditation sittings especially, you can feel the difference, feel where you are and the less distractions. Distractions like writting silly blog entries and photos :)

As for the time when nature calls, here are the facilities (toilets for you non-American), though with recent raids by packrats. So many kinds of wildlife up here-- and as you can see I got into trying to get some close-ups of insects. I like this because it allows you see how much detail nature provides even in the smallest and subtlest of features (or small and subtle to our big human eyes).

So the time was spent doing some reading-- doing LOTS of reading, and for me, doing a bit of work to get prepared for my Teacher Training course in Chicago. Writing longhand and then to work at the computer later, which actually I have been working solidly at this week as my family is away in Kansas City for more WWII Bombing Group reunions (similar why we went to Czech). Whew! So much computer in the last few days, especially compared to the week before at the cabin!

Some weeks in Colorado just as the weather is changing, and fall brings in a breathtaking array of colors all around. Then I might be in California for a short while before my (incredibly busy) TESOL course in downtown Chicago. Hopefully some sitting at both those places!!!