WALK WITH ME

"And it was in this hour, so full of doubt and awe, that the one miracle was wrought, without which every human existence is a blank.  The bliss which makes all things true, beautiful and holy shone around this youth and maiden. They were conscious of nothing sad or old.  They transfigured the earth, and made it Eden again, and themselves the two first dwellers in it"--The House of the Seven Gables

I finally started spading the garden a couple of days ago.  Today I finished the first phase.  You have to admire those persistent dandelion weeds! (Our back yard is dotted yellow by them.)

Yesterday I was going to see an afternoon movie with Bev, but something came up and she couldn't make it.  I saw the movie anyway.  It was Walk With Me, a documentary about Buddhist priest Thich Nhat Hanh, a refugee from wartime 

Vietnam, and the Plum Village Zen monastery he founded in France.  Every fifteen minutes they ring a bell and everyone stops what he's doing and spends a few moments in meditation before resuming his work!  Some of them went to New York City and meditated in a public square, where a crazy Christian accosted them to say that Jesus was the only way to salvation.  I can see myself as a hermit, not so much as a monk.

Finished The House of the Seven Gables.  It ended with them leaving the house, making me wonder what happened to the house itself later on...

I've decided to resume translating short stories.  I'm now translating David Lewis Stein's "The Huntsman" into Portuguese!