A Short History of this Green Dharma Treasury Site
During the 1990s I would write two or three essays a year and share them with friends, students and interested people. These were sent via an internet mailing list, in the form PDF attachments. At that time it was suggested that I might create a website but with little experience with websites, and not having a means for accessing broadband, I didn’t appreciate the value in doing this. More to the point, I was very busy with travel and teaching and was unwilling to put the time in for it. The urgings from others became more and more insistent, eventually culminating in January 2009, with friends Terry Walton and Clare Murphy of SpeakOutLoud.net offering to design, host, operate and pay for a website. This was a most generous offer that I couldn’t and didn’t refuse.
Greendharmatreasury.org first appeared in the early days of clunky technology and the unknowning that was my own lack of internet experience. At the time Mary and I had access to a ‘dial-up connection’ which was so frustratingly slow that it could take an hour or more to post a simple article! Over the years, with Terry and Clare’s patient support along with a newly available broadband connection where we lived, I came to really appreciate the site as an opportunity to share with others some of my enthusiasm for integrating Buddhist teaching and practice, with what I was increasingly seeing as a way of contemplative science.
In October, 2011, Alan Dodds came on board with an offer to rebuild the site (it had been hacked) thus supporting us with his immense experience in IT. Alan also provided invaluable advice that assisted the publication of some of my books, under the auspices of ‘Wangapeka Books’.
Today, Green Dharma Treasury has had a radical redesign and a shift in underlying architecture as we move to a wordpress.com format. Mira Riddiford of Caesura Design has worked many long hours and has done a wonderful job in designing and birthing the new spacious look, particularly in adding to its current luminous quality in the form of copious images.
Finally, words cannot express the consistent support, both personal and public, from my partner Mary Jenkins, whose contribution to GDT is now expanding beyond her careful proof reading and editorial suggestions and is blossoming onto the site through the inclusion of many of her photographs made in the course of our journeying. Most of the photos on the site were taken by her. A few were clicked by me. A number were taken by others. Unfortunately we haven’t recorded who these others are but if you see an image that you took, please know that our thanks are flowing to you for so enhancing the beauty and thus usefulness of this site.
To Clare and Terry and Alan and Mira and Mary and unnamed others, my heartfelt thanks and appreciation go to you all.
May this creativity continue to flower in the lives of all it touches.
with good wishes
Tarchin
Out of historical curiosity, here is the first post I wrote for Green Dharma Treasury, on Sept. 18th, 2009. Welcome to Green Dharma Treasury
Green Dharma Treasury 