“Part of what makes roads, trails and paths so unique is that they cannot be perceived as a whole by any sedentary onlooker. Instead, they unfold in time as one travels along them, just as a story does as one listens or reads. And on these journeys, hairpin turns are like plot twists, steep ascents […]
Ah, would that we could advance far enough as a species that there need be no more remembrances of our past evils & injustices – no more mention of bigotry or violence amongst individuals; no more mention of war between nations or cruelty between species … “When I visit the cemetery, I walk past hundreds, […]
After enjoying several miles of a wide-shouldered Highway 15, I made it to the town of Point of Rocks and then crossed the Potomac River into the state of Virginia – meaning that 9 of the 11 countries & U.S. states* my pilgrimage needed to cross to get to Chattanooga had been successfully traversed! *The […]
I think it is almost fair to say that one can tell the worth of any particular religion by the most prevalent behaviors exuded by its adherents. And to whatever degree that is the case, I can now freely state that of all the different sects and faiths encountered along my life’s many pilgrimages, the […]
NOTE to any & all future eastern U.S. Peace Pilgrims: Even well after rush hour, Highway 15 from Point of Rocks to Leesburg is ridiculously dangerous, with just two lanes of traffic, mostly moving at high speed, and no semblance of shoulders upon which to safely walk … And another NOTE to those same travelers: […]
I then made it – very slowly and not at all surely – into the near outskirts of the town of Lucketts as the Sun starts to descend and the still-busy roadway descends as well into shadow. I frankly wasn’t sure whether walking onward at this point was wise at all, and was considering simply […]
I walked onward late into the evening, wondering often who all these people were driving so rapidly and so late on a Labor Day Friday evening. And yet I finally rolled into Rockland and the traffic had all but subsided when I came to a divergence in the road – a choice that I had […]
“Most days I live awed by the world we have still, rather than mourning the worlds we have already lost. The bandit mask of a cedar waxwing on a bare branch a few feet away; the clear bright sun of a crisp summer morning; the rise of Orion in the evening sky every night; the […]
“Community, then, is an indispensable term in any discussion of the connection between people and the land and all its nonhuman residents. Indeed, a sincerely healthy community is a form that includes all the local things that are connected by the larger, ultimately mysterious form of the Creation. In speaking of Community, then, we are […]
I continued on along the still-dicey ultra-thin shoulders of Highway 15, thankful that it was a Saturday morning and that the traffic wasn’t as oppressive as it well could have been. It didn’t take too long for me to amble alongside The Church of our Savior – a Reformed Episcopal place of worship* on the […]
Soon thereafter I find myself a bit overcome by physical fatigue, and pull in gratefully to the entrance drive of the Oatlands Historic House & Gardens, where I lay down in surprising comfort on the smooth shaded asphalt there and enjoy a short-yet-peaceful nap … “Be with the flow, take the flow with you, align […]
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