we arrive

We meet just about midway, between our two homes. One hour south from Portland, one hour north from Corvallis. Mt.Angel, Oregon, the beginning of the foothills of the Cascades, home of the St. Benedict Monastery, and the Shalom Center, a retreat center run by the Benedictine nuns. Our collaborating home for the next 5 days.

Sitting down to catch up, we also decide on a route for tomorrow, our first day of walking alongside the rural roads again, it's been almost 2 years since we walked 100miles from Corvallis to Portland. Our chosen route takes us out from Shalom along College Way to Miller cemetary. Somewhere between 10-12miles round trip, depending on how long the side-road is that will take us off College Way and up a small hill to the Abbey, home to priests and the main chapel. It feels right to make this small detour as we begin, still sensing our way into the landscape. By our return tomorrow night the conversation between the landscape and us will have begun and where to walk next will come from what beckons us.

After dinner in the dining hall where we are greeted and welcomed by all the nuns, we stroll around the grounds. Huge irises, roses bushes some already blooming, soon-to-be peonies, Oregon grape, a pond with wild blooming lotus flowers, and a two-seated swinging rocker, the kind where you sit facing each other, romantic in that way remembering scenes from childhood can be.

The silence tonight, both inside and outside, is embracing. We are essentially by ourselves in this section of the center where we are staying and yet we whisper, so not to disturb. By not disturbing the great silence, we hope to become part of it. The same way we will tomorrow walking on our own two feet into the rural landscape. Fall in...and if we're lucky, disappear.

If I could take a photo of this silence tonight, it is this picture I'd want to send to you along with this post.


Lily and Lisa are body habitat..........and so are you.