August is a time of transition for me this year. First, we are moving offices. When I say "we" I mean about two thirds of the faculty at my college. It is a massive undertaking: two new office buildings and a new library. The offices are just about ready and the faculty in Humanities and Social Sciences are packing up and shipping out. Thus, today I sit in my old office, no books on the shelves, no pictures on the walls, everything stuffed into the boxes stacked next to me. It will be a good move.� My current office is like a bat cave, long and low and dark. The new office will be high and open and light. From yin to yang, you might say. I've been here for about 18 years; perhaps I'll be that long in the new place.

I am also packing for a different sort of move: a family vacation to England. We'll spend a couple of nights in London and then head to Oxford for a week. My college has a program there for our students, with some dormitory-like buildings and an apartment, or flat, that faculty can rent for short term stays. That's what we'll do. I look forward to it. I haven't been to London since 1989; and I have never traveled in England outside of London (save for a bus trip to Wales). We'll be there for only a week but we have tickets for Shakespeare in Stratford-upon-Avon, and we'll take trips to Bath and, if the crowds aren't too great, Stonehenge. The Cotswolds are close, also.

Whenever I go on a trip, the Tao Te Ching comes to mind, and how I disagree with it. It's the old passage 47 problem again:

You can know all beneath heaven
though you never step out the door,
and you can see the Way of heaven
though you never look out the window.

The further you explore, the less you know.

I do believe that you can know Way without traveling, but I also believe that you can encounter Way while traveling. And that's what we'll do, watch as Way unfolds around us in England.

Posting will therefore be intermittent over the next ten days or so.