Rugged Interdependency - Amaravati Buddhist Monastery

Golden Highways Revisited: 1998proud charges, thrust themselves through the layers of benevolent sea. We headsouth.Strangely reminiscent of the Esan, North-east Thailand in the monsoon, waterfilledfields, lush trees, deep ditches abound on all sides. The clouds gather and thehumidity gets thicker but the glare is as bright as ever.Myakka has just opened again following major winter floods – the water lapsthe roadway all through the park. Herons and snowy egrets, plus other birdsgalore, are thick on the ground as they step their gently merciless way throughthe waters. Palmetta covers the ground that’s visible, along with marsh grass andspeckles of wild iris. The river has spread wider than Jim has ever seen, submerginghundreds of acres in the generosity of its blanket. No ’gators are around to beseen but we meet some feral pigs – remnants of the 400 bought by some adventurersof old who aimed to walk from Tampa Bay to the Mississippi… the humansdidn’t make it but the hogs are still doing fine.Rich, thick greens, great oaks resplendent with moss and lichens, snakes, frogsand turtles a-plenty, and an old lady, bristling with keen determination, gatheringwildflower seeds from among the grasses.Heading back to Bodhi Tree we took the streets through the poorest Blackneighborhood – last year riots broke out when the cops shot a Black youth in a car– smoky windows, thought he had a gun, opened fire, oops. For three nights theyrampaged and fired on police, their cars and helicopters. The place looked verycareworn and reminded me of the face of a boxer who had just gone 15 roundswith Joe Frazier. It will take a while to get it to look human again. Ironically thechief Episcopalian cemetery lies right in the epicenter of the ’hood. As the Africansmoved in the Anglos moved out, and even dismantled the church and took it withthem. “Those poor folk they left there in their graves,” was heard in all seriousness– as if the dead were the ones who had to suffer there.Pulling out of St. Petersburg on the way to Tampa – Emily Dickinson on billboardsand brown bunnies by the roadside, selling raunch and ice cream, what ajob… Farewells at the airport – Middle America heading north, then “Welcome toParadise: Newark, New Jersey.”Georgette and Maxwell are there to greet in a heat more representative ofJune than March – 85 ° at 5.30 in the afternoon – blossom is out all round and theshock is obvious. In a rosy brazen glow of sunset we pull into a condo complex inMorristown, to meet the local Vipassanā group for tea. An expectant circle – somenew, some familiar – and a good talk on matters monastic and attendant themes.The IMS Monastery idea gets an airing, a formal suggestion of a forest Monasterybeing founded near to IMS having recently been made by Jack Kornfield to theirBoard – ears prick, which is no surprise. Dr. Robert Elswit is mine host.We pulled into Go-onji West – Georgette and Maxwell’s farmhouse in theSussex countryside – at around 8:45. It is now late; G. & M. have long retired andthe night is utterly silent – all but for the rolling of the ballpoint on paper and theroaring of nada in my ears. Long day – many miles – enough already.27