Peachtree Runners: Unite!

Planning the expedition . . . 

 Documenting the moment . . . gathering with friends . . .

Celebrating the runners . . .

A July 4th with all of the usual suspects--and a few visitors from afar.

Doorway to the Future

The children in Asia remind us of all we have in common with people across the world. Almost everyone under the age of 30 spoke English quite fluently. They also welcomed our presence in their midst. These young people provide the doorway to our shared future. 

Fellow Travelers

Group travel requires good will, patience, esprit de corps, and self understanding. Our group displayed all of these qualities and more. It was a pleasure to learn from my "Emory School" colleagues and from those we met along the way.

City Lights and Sights

Hong Kong is where east meets west.  A thriving multicultural city, our senses were stimulated by the vastness of the buildings, the variety of the cuisine, and the vibe in the air. Its universities are transitioning to a four-year curriculum, and their facilities are modern and innovative. We couldn't have asked for a more engaging time for a final stop on a whirlwind visit to Asia.

Food for Thought

Our visit to Asia was full of thought, action, and multi-course meals. Every place we visited brought forward local favorites and tasteful presentations. It was also a tea lovers delight!

Just a Few Random Photos

Cross-cultural friendship

DMZ

Climbing the Great Wall

Rickshaw ride

S. Korean classmate

Distinguished Korean alumni

Emory/Nanjing Orchestra debut

Seoul Notes

The Korean Wrapping Cloth is a multiple-colored rectanglular shape used traditionally to wrap vessels and household items. The iconic cloth has now become embedded in artistic renderings of Korean culture. This particular one is a wall hanging, but others find their way onto scarves and tablecloths and jewelry. It captures well the aesthetic vibrancy of Korean culture.

After a day spent at the DMZ, we leave for Hong Kong early tomorrow morning, sure to be another fascinating piece in the puzzle of this alluring part of the world.

Seoul Sights

This city is full of a rich array of sights and sounds--from skyscrapers to elegant birds. We visited both Yonsei and Ewah Universities today along with the Korean War Memorial. All are inspiring. The Koreans are especially grateful and gracious to Americans. Their technology systems are on full display in the subways, libraries, and street corners.

Black Sesame

Tonight we had dinner ar Black Sesame. We were joined by Evan Osnos, China correspondent for The New Yorker. Dinner, conversation, probing ideas into the local consciousness filled our minds as well as stomachs.

All this after a full day of climbing part of The Great Wall, visiting the Ming Dynasty tomb, stopping by the jade factory, and a photo opp at the Bird's Nest. The air quality was poor today until a refreshing rainfall this evening. Tomorrow we're off to S. Korea.

My New Friend

Beijing Warrior

China Times

I've now been in China for almost a week--from Shanghai to Nanjing to Beijing. All connections, arrangements, and meetings have gone extrmely well. The weather has been hot--Atlanta style! In both Shanghai and Nanjing there was quite a bit of smog, but we can see the blue skies in Beijing.

The cities are modern, friendly, and busy with excellent infrastructure. We've met up with many incoming Emory students and alumni. And had some great sightseeing tours. Today alone we covered the Confucius Institute, a rickshaw tour, and the Forbidden City. It is inspiring to see so much history mixed with all of the modern technology and transportation systems. The high speed train from Shanghai to Nanjing was especially efficient and comfortable. All in all, a fabulous (if somewhat exhausting) trip.

Beijing Opera Star

June rambles

A year ago this time I was just arriving in India for an enchanted voyage.  This year, in two days, I'll be heading to China--Shanghai, Beijing, Hong Kong--and then Seoul, South Korea.  I hope to find ways to keep my loyal followers posted on my Asian encounters in a new part of the world for me.

Treetop Travels

Drifting over the treetops of North Georgia one day in May.

Here and There

There have been many comings and goings for our family over the past few weeks.

Rebecca has returned from India, and after a short visit home she is residing (for a while, at least) in Ann Arbor, Michigan.  Ron accompanied her there on a road trip through the midwest. Ron and I met up with Doug and Heather in Hilton Head for a restful spring break. And Sean has departed for South America, first visiting Medillin, Colombia, where he is staying at the Black Sheep Hostel, and then he heads to Ecuador where he'll be working on an organic farm  (Selvachi).  Early reports are quite lively and full of anticipation.  At the same time, my sister Lynn and her husband are touring parts of South America.  No telling how much mileage we've covered with these various expeditions!

March Rambles

Beach of a Moonlit Night

On a moonlit night, a single button
lay fallen on the surf-tossed shore.

I picked it up,

not because I thought that I could use it,

but

I could not bring myself to toss it away;

I tucked it inside my sleeve.

On a moonlit night, a single button 

lay fallen on the surf-tossed shore.

I picked it up,

not because I thought that I could use it,

but

I neither cast it to the moon

nor did I cast it to the waves;

I tucked it inside my sleeve.

On a moonlit night, this button that I found

entered my hand, and entered deep into 

my heart.

This button I found on a moonlit night

how could I ever let it go?

                  
                          – Nakahara Chuya 

Commonplace Books

In her book How to Live: or A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer,  Sarah Bakewell draws the comparison between Montaigne's essays and commonplace books or collections of "thematically arranged quotations and stories."  He developed habits and skills as a young man, creating notebooks with snippets encountered in reading "setting them in creative juxtaposition."  She also, in a related entry on the Paris Review blog, connects his writings to that of modern day bloggers:

"In his Essais (“Attempts”) . . . he wrote as if he were chatting to his readers: just two friends, whiling away an afternoon in conversation. . . . 'I cannot keep my subject still,” he said. “It goes along befuddled and staggering, with a natural drunkenness.' His writing followed the same wayward path.

In reading Montaigne, many thinkers and writers feels a sense of recogntion. Ralph Waldo Emerson felt this shock of familiarity the first time he picked up Montaigne in his father’s library: 'It seemed to me as if I had myself written the book, in some former life, so sincerely it spoke my thought and experience.”'

For Bakewell "the Montaignean willingness to follow thoughts where they lead, and to look for communication and reflections between people . . . flourishes most of all online, where writers reflect on their experience with more brio and experimentalism than ever before. Bloggers might be surprised to hear that they are keeping alive a tradition created more than four centuries ago. Montaigne, in turn, might not have expected to be remembered so long, least of all in the English language—yet he always believed that 'this great world is the mirror in which we must look at ourselves to recognize ourselves from the proper angle.'"

The View from Lazy Point

From a review of this book in the New York Times by Dominique Browning.

"Safina asks us to reconsider the importance of that perennial question: 'What is the meaning of life?' Which, he believes, is the wrong question to be asking because 'it makes you look in the wrong places.' The right question is, 'Where is the meaning in life.' And the place to look is 'between.' In other words, we should look for the ways that all living creatures and all habitats are connected, look for what happens 'between' them. 'Relationships,' he insists, 'are the music life makes. Context creates meaning.

Safina returns again and again to this consideration of interconnectedness, and to the need for each person to cultivate a more considerate life: 'To advance compassion and yet survive in a world of appetites--that is our challenge.' He calls for reverence and caution . . . . 'Ecology, family, community, religion--these words all grope toward the same need: connection, belonging, purpose."

It Felt Love

How
Did the rose
Ever open its heart

And give this world
All its
Beauty?

It felt the encouragement of light
Against its
Being,

Otherwise,
We all remain

Too

Frightened.

--Hafiz from The Gift Poems by Hafiz by Daniel Ladinsky

Shoshin

For last year's words belong to last year's language

And next year's words await another voice.

And to make an end is to make a beginning.

--T.S. Eliot

There is a way of being and thinking in Zen Buddhism known as Shoshin or Beginner's Mind: A ready mind. Boundless. Always a beginner, that kind of mind not already made up, investigating, open to whatever occurs, curious. Seeking but not with expectation. Observing. Being ready for what arises in this moment.

It also suggests a kind of intimacy, an intimacy with oneself. According to Zen practice, each one of us has the nature of awakening. Beginner's Mind is about a kind of amazement, letting the fixed view go. To not know.

Of all of the suggested meanings for Shoshin, I am especially drawn to wholeheartedness. And boundless.

In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s mind there are few.

--Shunryu Suzuki

Shunryu Suzuki (1905-1971) was a direct spiritual descendant of the renowned 13th-century Zen master Dogen. His hugely influential Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind ranks with the great classics of Zen literature. Learn more about these ideas and practices by clicking on the title of book for a reading from it.

And now let us welcome the new year,
full of things that have never been.

--Rainer Maria Rilke

Presence of the Season

"I was after the presence of all time in one moment."

--Barry Hannah