Winter

We have had our first freezing temperatures this year at Diamond Mountain. I think that all the care takers who were around at the beginning of retreat (in other words, all of us still here) have been thinking back to the record breaking freeze we had back then. I think the retreatants will all be taking new measures to keep their lines from freezing. We insulated everything we could think of so we should be fine. A few of the cabins are heated with wood stoves so we have delivered a lot of firewood recently. Most cabins heat with propane. Several cabins were designed to catch and hold heat and I am curious how they preform in an "average" year out here.
By Spring I plan to be living somewhere other than here. As my time as a care taker winds up I see that this blog will be less about the people in retreat and more about the lives of the group of people caring for them. And then I think that there is less and less to say about them that doesn't sound like gossip. Even without vows against it, gossip is no good for anyone. It is so important for everyone to have a good feeling in their heart as they serve the retreat. Really, it is the same for every activity in our lives.
It has almost been a year that I have lived alone in my little house deep in the desert. Personally, I have gone through a lot of new emotional issues. As the year comes to a close I feel, to my own surprise, that I am on the other side of a couple of the more negative places that I was stuck in. I now am starting to think more of other people during my waking hours, which is still not very much. Reflecting, I think some of my anger was from parts of my ego that were no longer given the spot light. They were pissed off because they were dying. Labels I had consciously or unconsciously given myself were falling away in the unrelenting quiet of solitude. I think that if a person can really get into it, the study of ones own mind is the most beneficial and fascinating thing to do with ones life. Second only to spending your life in the service of others. And that, really, could look like any occupation. What matters is the motivation you have while you do it and the intensity with which you remember why you are doing it.