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The Way, Facets in Motion & Updates 4/18/2009 9:56:33 AM
“A good traveler has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving.”
“Do the difficult things while they are easy and do the great things while they are small. A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.”
- Both quotes are from the "Tao-te Ching” – The Way and its power - by Lao Tzu
I don’t know if I’m a good or a bad traveler; all I know is that, so far, the journey has taught me not to plan it, and to take each step as the first one. I also know that I’ll arrive, but I don’t know when, so I have also learned not to focus on the end of the journey – but rather on the journey itself, step by step. And step by step – therefore in motion – I have been “doing the things” that I find and that find me, along the way.
They are, in turn, multifaceted, the steps of the way; or maybe they are fragments, flexible, mutating and indivisible of a whole. A whole that expands, contracts, ascends, descends, loses its contours to then take new ones, condenses and then disperses itself… or, quite simply, “breathes”, because it is LIFE.
With all this, or in all this, I’ve been “doing easy things before they become difficult” and “small things before they become great” – but also dealing with some that were easy but had already turned into difficult ones when I found them, as well as others that were small but had turned into great ones when they found me. So, my steps have been taking me to many places, lately… but seldom to AD. I’m happy and grateful, however, for each step that brings me here, where your own steps bring you – to this place where our steps meet, along the way!
At this meeting point, let me share some “steps” and “things being done” with you all:
My cooperation with a private dog rescue association called “Parque da Terra Nova” has been one of my priorities. Therefore, the constant updates on the association’s website, which are crucial to the diffusion of its mission and activities, have been taking most of my “online time” – along with the maintenance of a recently created page, specially designed to host and broadcast the touching stories of many of the dogs that have found a safe haven in this small corner of the Ave Valley, in Northern Portugal, along the years. Many of such stories, illustrated with beautiful photos of their main characters and narrated by my “sister”, Paula – the manager of “Parque da Terra Nova” – are already available on the website…
… and many more will follow, in the Portuguese language, for now – their translation into English being, however, a short term project. To publish the whole collection in the form of a book – possibly in two separate editions, one in Portuguese and the other in English – is also a project, in this case a medium term one, cherished and encouraged by all who, like myself and Joseph, are in awe of the extraordinary work being accomplished, in spite of the huge difficulties faced on a daily basis, at “Parque da Terra Nova”!
Another venture has been the creation of yet one more website, specifically designed to host the Portuguese version of my collection “Indissoluble Connections” – composed, for now, of the same six stories that I have shared here, in AD, between February of 2007 and August of 2008. Some necessary revisions were, however, introduced in the meantime – and the news is that the updated English versions of these stories, along with new ones that will follow in both languages, will also be available shortly at the new website, which will therefore become entirely bilingual! I have already posted the “Introduction” in English, there – and I’m afraid I took the liberty to reproduce your kind reviews in the new website; hope you guys don’t mind, and that you will allow me to do the same as I post the stories! Anyway, have a look, and tell me what you think!
And this will have to be all, for now. But this has been a wonderful “step of the way” – and, quoting the father of Taoism once more, “from wonder into wonder existence opens”.
