Today I was thinking too much about too many things. I was clicking on links on the Internet and being assaulted by witty comments and interesting news. I decided to go for a walk outside and at first I couldn't take in my surroundings because of my internal monologue overrunning my conversation, telling me what I should write in my blog and on my Time essay and so forth. Finally after walking five or six blocks I stopped and forced myself to look around. I was on a mulched path in the middle of a stream. My ego tried to parse the scene and sat there grumbling. "Why do you need to do this?" it asked me. "Who cares about these trees? What do they mean? What is this all
for?!"
The Buddha smiled.
Five minutes later an old couple came walking down the path. They found me building a little lean-to out of twigs I had snapped off of a fallen branch. "What have you found?" they asked me.
"Nothing," I said. "I'm building a house for the tree spirits."
On the way back I was compelled to pick some flowers and then I found a box to put them in. The box was meant for a real estate agent's fliers. I clearly raised it to a higher purpose. Nobody really knows what they are doing here, but you can put things in a divine order if you think the right way.
I uploaded all my high-quality pictures from DC and I'll link them soon.
