A year ago, I wrote a philosophical page that seems to work well today....(despite the reference to the Olympics!) Here we go:

The Beijing Olympics are fast approaching, so let's apply some ancient Chinese philosophy to our vacant campus.

Approximately 25 centuries ago, a school of thought was born and attributed to a mystical character named Lao Tzu. If he did actually exist (and we can not know for certain,) he was arguably the most influential thinker in the history of humankind, for his writings--collectively known as the Tao-te ching--dramatically influenced Confusionism and Buddhism, accounting for billions of people. A key concept is this: for a piece of ceramic to be "a bowl," empty space (non-being) has to exist (you know--to fill the bowl.) Mountains and hills exist only because of valleys, like the Blackwater River Valley.

So, my point (and I may be stretching a little, here) is that for this place we know as Proctor to be a community, it needs--also--to be vacant. It's vacant today.

To the Western mind, the Lao Tzu's writing seems filled with counter-intuitive aphorisms, circular reasoning and conundra. But so, perhaps, is life. Here's our extensive organic garden, composted with kitchen wastes from the dining room.

Dichotomies, opposites and judgements are fabricated by the human mind.

When people know beauty as beauty,
There arise the recognition of ugliness....
Being and non-being produce each other....

On the east side of the Fowler Learning Center, Alice's Garden provides a contemplative escape.

Is a vacant, inoperative sugarhouse still a sugarhouse?

Valleys are manifestations of the yin. The ski lodge is deep in the Blackwater River Valley.