The Environmental Center is a very special place. To me it's sacred ground. It's a space that connects my inner geography with my outer sense of home and to people who over the years have helped shape who I am. The photowalk project we did last week was an invitation for you to take note of small details. It was also a way for me to be in the place I love most on campus. Here's a notebook entry from a couple of months ago that I reread last week before this last visit. I offer it as a way of better understanding each other and the visit.
Sitting under the chickee, remembering Mac and the last dialogue session we did here. This place has so much history. Recalling the semester with the leadership class I taught in 2005. Noticing how the quiet of the place and the sounds all around settle into a certain kind of rhythm. And that there is a peace that comes over a group as we dive into writing. And how that focus becomes easily disrupted by the woman walking to the nursery area. And how the rhythm is reestablished and we continue writing. I want to tell you what this places means to me, what it means and yet my words can't do it justice as I know this place is much more than the sound of my words. I'd like for you to know what it means to feel the happiness of being here, of loving the jagged limestone, the dying and living slash pines, of knowing about wild coffee, of wanting to hear the humming birds rather than human voices, of relaxing, deeply relaxing and knowing this is home, even with its ghost like existence.I'd like you to know and yet find myself tongue tied, inept to really transmit what is inside and I sit back and somehow enjoy the lack of skill and the mismatched attempt. And so maybe what I want for you to know is that to walk in this place is prayer and life and love. The despair inside finds a pause.
Here are some of the images being posted on Instagram via #stillsmallvoicewalk. Take time to visit at least four and post a comment.
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