Shasta Abbey is close to Yreka, which in turn is close to the California/Oregon border. I had occasion to go through there a few days ago on my way to the Scott Valley to pay a visit. Driving up the Scott Valley you really get the sense of an area full of history. It was here that gold was found and a rush to mine it happened, making Yreka a boom town. The land I visited had been hydraulically mined. I think that means water is diverted and the gold washed out with water under force. You could see some of how that worked by the small canyons cut by the water. You could also see that the local bears had been eating lots of berries too!

Stagecoach in front of Franco-American Hotel on West Miner Street- year unknown.

“Yreka was born when gold was discovered on the flats near a ravine called Black Gulch in March of 1851 by Abraham Thompson, a member of a mule train party enroute to Scott Valley from southern Oregon. Six weeks after the discovery 2,000 miners had arrived in “Thompson’s Dry Diggings” to test their luck. By May, the gold rush “boomtown” was composed of tents, shanties and a few rough cabins. Several name changes occurred until the little city was called Yreka, apparently a Shasta Indian word meaning “north mountain.” Incorporation proceedings were completed on April 21, 1857. “

Just as I stepped out of the car in Yreka there was a sound to send many heart a-flutter. A train horn blasting out very close by. The Blue Goose was getting ready to pull out with a cargo of tourists aboard. The site is worth a visit even if you are not keen on trains (shame on you!) as the animated train chugging across the screen is pleasing in itself.

When I’d phone and ask my mother how she was, how her health was, she’d say, “Oh, not as bad as Mr, So and So across the road”! Then she would go into great detail about his difficulties. “But how are YOU”? I’d ask. And gradually her story would come out and we would laugh together about her habit of defaulting to talking about the neighbours heart condition and not her own. “He is SO much worse off than me”!

When the water isn’t running so well in your bathroom think of Tim in the Balkans. Getting water at all in Kosovo, is a struggle.

Dear Rev Mugo

I have been following your almost daily blog lately and today listened to the recording you made on making transitions in life, this struck a few chords since making transitions in an ever changing life often seems like a full time occupation to me! The latest being of course the transition to fatherhood. For a long time I also used to have an ‘am I being a good Buddhist’ thing when I read the words about traveling to ‘other dusty countries’, especially as I have always had and urge to travel and adventure. It took me a long time to realise that the seat on which I sit and the wall at which I stare are always the same seat and same wall no matter where I am in the world. And in fact the only real journey we ever really make is an inward one. This was illustrated recently by some insightful emails from my 19 year old nephew, Jake, who is currently traveling around Asia before going to university. On his first day of travel and arrival in Bangkok he sent me an email in which he told of the shock of the day of his arrival in that strange and different city, of being lost and wanting to take the next flight home, of writing the whole venture off as a mistake. Now 6 months later he has returned to Bangkok and told he could not believe he was the same person who had arrived there, lost and scared, 6-months previously. Although he had been to many places and seen many things it seems his real journey had been within.

My own blog site about our mountain house has not been up dated in a long while, circumstances seemed to taken over once ‘E’ was pregnant and I don’t seem to have been able to get back to it. Also we have a bit of a problem with the house, or rather related to the house. We recently received a claim in the courts from a pre-socialism land owner that our house is without permission and that we don’t own the land. The so-called owner has filed papers at the court to have our house demolished! As serious as it sounds this is not unusual in this part of the world and is fairly routine here. It is the result of socialism, war and missing documents and a general lack of clarity in these things and persons, usually poor, with very spurious claims (as in this case – ‘we’ all the required papers for the house and land) do this kind of thing in the hope of getting ‘paid off’.

Anyway the whole affair has put a bit of a dampener on the house project. We still live there every possible weekend but somehow I couldn’t bring my self to do any significant work on the house or write an interesting blog. Hopefully this will all be settled in court soon, our solicitor here tells us it will be over in 5 minutes. But this is Kosovo, anything can happen, we shall wait and see.

Otherwise things here in Kosovo are fine, I’m still working with the water companies trying to make step by step some improvements, although often it is two steps forward then one back!

Finally I trust this message has found you well. All the best for your journey back to England and thank you for your continuing blog. It really is a good and valuable connection to the practice when one is literally in another dusty country! I’ll keep you up-dated on the baby’s development.

With all best wishes, in gassho
Tim

STARING CHESTER

Chester crossed the freeway, three lanes of heavy trafic running north and south beside the monastery property, and by good luck and fortune was spotted by one of the monks. The young dog was helped through the freeway fencing and the rest is history. That was nearly nine years ago. The monk and Chester have enjoyed each others company ever since.

Groomed to perfection.

Looks good against green.

I’ve been a fan of Chester since his arrival and I must say he’s still looking as good as the day he arrived. Now older of course, and much wiser too. His long coat reminds me of Dougal from Magic Roundabout. Past ‘Roundabout’ watchers may not agree.

Lake Siskiyou with Mt. Shasta in the distance.

This picture was taken while on an outing yesterday. During the day-in day-out life of the monastery one rarely pauses to reflect on the beautiful mountain scenery close by. I guess that’s because we are in the scenery!

To-day I had the rare opportunity to walk the Alms Round with several other monks from the Shasta Abbey Community.

“For 2500 years, since the time of the Buddha, Buddhist monks have walked the Alms Round. This practice is said to create a field of merit for all sentient beings, an opportunity to show the finer qualities of the heart.”
Shasta Abbey web site.

May the field of merit embrace Robert and all who know and love him.