Heavy skies over the beach at Carvalhal yesterday while we were out walking. That said it was warm when the sun broke through, and some people were I the water. The threatening clouds came to nothing.
Monday June 10, 2024 Newsletter letter
Sunday, June 9, 2024
Monday June 10, 2024 Dear Friends, I write this on Portugal Day, a national holiday, celebrated every 10th June. I did not know what Portugal Day actually celebrated and so I headed over to Wikipedia. According to the Free Encyclopedia’s entry for Portugal Day, It commemorates the death on 10 June 1580 of Luís de Camões, a poet and national literary icon. Wikipedia’s page for Luís de Camões states that,
Anger and The Nun - or don't judge the book by the cover
Saturday, June 8, 2024
This story share by Robert Rackley on his blog Canned Dragons reminded me of a story that I heard about a Tibetan Buddhist nun. A friend of mine, herself a Buddhist nun at the time, was studying at the Institute of Buddhist Dialectics in Dharamsala in Northern India. I’ll call my friend Ani-la, meaning nun in Tibetan. A friend came to visit Ani-la. Ani-la took her friend on a walk around the Institute and Dharamsala, showing her North Indian home.
“What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others. Monuments have lives woven into them.”
~ Pericles
Pine trees to distant rice fields.
Images of the Road
Saturday, June 8, 2024
I have long loved rail travel. Sitting in a carriage, watching life go by. Gratefully allowing others to take the strain of the transportation logistics. Perhaps striking up conversation with a fellow traveler, or more likely than not sitting quietly reading, writing, watching, sleeping. When I got older and threw a backpack on my back railway stations took on another significance for me. That of unknown adventure. Yes, I might have had a ticket in my hand stating an intended destination, but as I looked out at the train tracks disappearing into the distance from the station platform I had a sense of unknown adventure ahead.
A stork with nest on top of large concrete structure on the edge of Alcácer do Sal.
⛈️ Well the weather has finally broken this time. At long last. I just heard the longest roll of thunder that I have ever heard - a couple of minutes?
⛈️ Well the weather has finally broken this time. At long last. I just heard the longest roll of thunder that I have ever heard - a couple of minutes?
🌧️ The air was getting heavier and heavier. It was feeling thick to walk through. Above the clouds were building. Dark clouds. Finally, just now, the impasse broke and there was a brief shower. Short, but enough to lighten the air and to allow us to breathe again.
🌧️ The air was getting heavier and heavier. It was feeling thick to walk through. Above the clouds were building. Dark clouds. Finally, just now, the impasse broke and there was a brief shower. Short, but enough to lighten the air and to allow us to breathe again.
Shall I, shan’t I? …. I did.
I walked past this gentleman a handful of times as l was running errands in Lisbon. He appeared totally engrossed in reading his newspaper. Something I rarely see these days. Phones yes, I’m on mine now, newspapers no.
As unobtrusively as possible, I took the shot.
These two donkeys lived in the hotel grounds that we stayed in while down in the Algarve over the weekend. They were not always in their corral, but sometimes were wandering the grounds. On our return one afternoon, the older one greeted us with some loud braying as we got out of the car and walked towards him.
I finished reading: In Love with the World by Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche. This book felt like a gift that I am very grateful for. I took my time with it. An account of a young Buddhist monk setting off on a wandering retreat who then becomes severely ill and almost dies. What made this book special for me was the intimacy of his story. Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche, a Tibetan Master, shares his Buddhist approach to the struggles that setting off on the retreat brings to him. Then as illness strikes he offers rare insight, from my perspective, into the Tibetan view on mind, consciousness and dying. 📚
Fresh fruit. Young grapes on the vine growing above us, and providing shade from the sun.
🛣️ Portugal, the home of straight roads. Seriously, I have never seen so many straight roads, even out in the countryside. They are a joy to drive, because you just point the car in one direction and go. Maybe a few ups and downs, but few turns. At least that has been my experience so far, and my kilometers are building up.
🛣️ Portugal, the home of straight roads. Seriously, I have never seen so many straight roads, even out in the countryside. They are a joy to drive, because you just point the car in one direction and go. Maybe a few ups and downs, but few turns. At least that has been my experience so far, and my kilometers are building up.
Shadows in the night.
The ground was moving with these little crabs everywhere. By the Canal de Travia, Luz.
Ciao!
