What is so rare ...?

I knew all I needed was a day or two and the photos would load! Sometimes patience is as good as technical know-how .. not often, of course. I suspect usually there was some small thing I did wrong and the next time I do it right. Anyway this is the quilt unquilted, but the pictures shows the blue print backing and how perfect the color is -- it's all so perfect I almost want to add a bright red binding as a kicker. I did quilt the entire center and part of the border, but yesterday was just too beautiful to stay in. So I went out for a nice walk besides the Hudson. I sat for a while and watched until this four masted sloop was close enough for a photo -- I call it a sloop because I suspect, but do not know for sure, that it was the Clearwater which belongs to one of the environmental groups and does many summer sailing parties on the river, all up and down it. The Clearwater is always called a "sloop." It's a gorgeous thing to see out on the water.


After sitting in the sun and walking a total of two miles, I arrived back home sweaty so I had time for a nice refreshing shower and then went to the Thalia to see the European film, INTO GREAT SILENCE, made by a German filmmaker about the Carthusian monastery at Chartreuse in the French Alps -- nearly three hours of plotless, often entirely silent film in the monastery and sometimes scenic shots -- beautiful! very beautiful!, some chanting, bell ringing, very little speaking. Biblical verses and instructional manuals in French, German and English subtitles. Young men, old men, in the Medieval robes with hoods, goiing through a year of monastery life, speaking only for a short period on Sundays. Peaceful, repetitious. It had me comparing life in Tibetan monasteries, what I saw of it, with this Christian austerity. Something very cold about the silence, it did not seem like the quiet of Zen meditation, it seemed harsher. Lots to think about comparing Europe and Asia -- Western and Eastern approaches to holiness.