A couple of months ago when I talked with Doug on Face Time, he was working on a fund-raising website for a project here at PV called Happy Farm. It was begun by Stuart from Scotland who has been living here for four years or so. Its purpose is to provide organic food for PV.and do some experiments in Permaculture, which I understand to be agriculture that keeps being sustainable and learn about Mindfulness living at the same time. There is a four week retreat on it and Daisy (remember my Vietnamese friend from BCN?) came for this last week. So I walked down the hill to see it close up. Just as it started raining, of course! Daisy and the others have been camping (I have a luxury bunk bed!) and it's been quite chilly.
Anyway I had met Stuart out walking when Doug and I had gone cherry-picking the night before. So now he came over when I was taking photos and offered to give me a tour of the highlights of what they were doing. Then he gave me a ride back UP the hill to Upper Hamlet and then gave me this lovely t-shirt with Thay's calligraphy that says "Happy Farmers change the world." I want one that says "Happy teachers change the world" but haven't been able to find one yet. If you go to plumvillage.org and do a search for happy farm, you can see the website Doug helped build and the video that has Doug in it explaining what they are doing.The site was very helpful in raising funds to support the project. Very cool!
So I got to spend the evening with Doug in the office and we called Judy and George as their birthdays are back to back on the 19th and 20th. We talked to Uncle George in the office first and couldn't get over that Doug was calling from France! He's doing well and only has six more weeks of treatments. He told us Judy was at home with some cabinets that didn't get installed properly so we then chatted with her. She didn't recognize the number but answered when she heard Doug's voice leaving a message.
She told us the fun they had had with Kerry, Jay and the kids meeting in Mystic, Ct, for lunch at an Indian restaurant. She said Kerry and Jay are looking fantastic and the kids were delightful! The waitress brought out some bells for Sarah to put on her waist for belly-dancing! At first she was resistant until the waitress went away and then shimmy-ed away! I told her I had bought a red and black flamenco dress and flower for her hair. They both love to dress up!! So everything seemed good with them and they were delighted we had remembered and called!
Doug also showed me a video of a skit a few of the monastics put together for New Year's Eve! It was hilarious! Star Wars with a Mindfulness slant! Phap Linh was Darth Vader, Sr. True Dedication. Made a LOVELY Princess Lea with long plaits, as she called them, wound around her ears! Phap Lai, also from the UK, was a hilarious blond-wigged Luke Skywalker! Michael, used to be Phap Son, played some other evil guy (I never saw the movie so it was tough!) and Phap Yung was Yoda! The costumes were terrific, light sabers (they kind of got bent!) and of course had a happy ending!! The crowd loved it!
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