Cold Mountain is a famous Chinese poet who was a hermit. Let me share with you one of his poems....

Aah! poverty and sickness,
And me with no friends or relations.
There's never any rice left in the pot,
dust often collects in the kettle.
A thatched roof that won't keep out the rain,
a broken-down bed I can hardly squeeze into,
no wonder I've gotten so thin -
this many worries would wear out any man!

(tr. by Burton Watson.)

We don't know Cold Mountain's real name. He took his name from the mountain he lived on - Han Shan, which means "cold mountain" in Chinese.

By choice, he lived the life of a hermit on Han Shan. We only know about his poems because he wrote them on trees and rocks and the walls of the houses and offices of the nearby village.

His poems were collected from those places after he died.

I started talking about Cold Mountain, because most of us are NOT hermits.

We live in society.

We get from society, and to be balanced, we give to society too.

That's one thing I've seen of our little community here at Sowpub. It's become a balanced place. Not only about getting, but about giving too.

Thanks to everyone for making this such a wonderful and balanced place to be. :) It is about WE - because none of us are hermits, we are here for each other.

Warmly,

Dien Rice