All photos are mine unless otherwise noted.
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I have begun to meet with a group of people who gather in the farm house of an Episcopal priest who lives in a small town by the name of Freedom, here in Maine, about thirty miles from where we have our home. These are intentional people and I will join them every week, God willing. Rick, who returned here to be with his mother and family in the house he grew up in is semi-retired and has opened his house to this group - a major blessing to be sure.
The town of Freedom is tiny with a 2112 census population of only 716 which says one ought not to blink when passing through town center. New England has been grown to a great degree with small towns and people who would not live anywhere else having found the right place to spend their lives in. Some may travel and work elsewhere for awhile, many years perhaps, but some return to Maine and find home here, while others are ex-patriots of another part of the country as we are. I have heard this story of return quite a few times and I understand after ten years why they come back, and why I will never leave. There is no other part of the East Coast that has the same appeal for me. Space to breathe and grow without the stress of a big city, good people who are not the stereotyped distant New Englanders of common lore, viable community, and for the most part non-existent traffic issues.
All the photos below were taken in the township of Freedom a few days ago.
Homeward bound
Every
where I go I leave tracks,
Footprints,
words, resentments, joys, all echoing endlessly.
My
scent is left behind in lingering distant memories –
Some
for the compost pile hoping to nourish others,
Some
are only rubbish, residues of the ego.
"Be
useful." the Buddhist Nun said.
Adding,
"That is all your beginnings. Be useful."
Understanding
the directives I set out on the path,
Seeking
the place of the Present Moment;
Learning
to be useful to myself so I may be useful to others.
Finding
the gales of the Spirit's Wind in the Present Moment,
Past
glories and failures are blown to the horizon behind –
The
future has become inaccessible to the demanding self.
Keeping
these feet on Holy Ground while in Love's Raging Storm,
This
moment, so hard to find, becomes the Gift of Sanctuary.
The rain does not practice falling,
Nor does it rehearse its journey after the fall;
To the stream, and the rivers and ocean to come –
Rain surrenders, and goes with the flow.
The currents of life are caught only in this
Present Moment,
Not in what has already happened, not in what may
happen.
Stand on the cliffs of what has past, and what
will pass,
Then, be a raindrop falling into surrender, to all
that is God.
Once we find the first small stream after
yielding to Gravity,
The Sacred Now will be Our Companion always –
What is behind is gone, what is ahead,
Is where we will be when we arrive.
Practice nothing !
Dive in !
Become one,
with The Living Water s.
Red sky in morn,
travelers on the seas of Winter
be warned,
snow is always on the way.
Some Humor: (Big city and small town.)
Peace until next post,
Bill Lagerstrom
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