Thank God for our volunteers and their intuition, for on April 21, 2013, within days of the Boston Marathon bombing and related “shoot out”, our Traveler set foot at Walden Pond in Concord MA, just miles from the events we all saw on TV.  Walden Pond, written about by the writer/transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau, is known for its beauty and as a great source of peace. One of our local volunteers, Lisa Boone, somehow had the foresight to know the Traveler, and all of us, would need to be of service at this time.

The quote below, from Thoreau’s book “Walden” or “Life in the Woods” exemplifies the spirit of the walk:

“THIS is a delicious evening, when the whole body is one sense, and imbibes delight through every pore. I go and come with a strange liberty in Nature, a part of herself. As I walk along the stony shore of the pond in my shirt-sleeves, though it is cool as well as cloudy and windy, and I see nothing special to attract me, all the elements are unusually congenial to me. The bullfrogs trump to usher in the night, and the note of the whip-poor-will is borne on the rippling wind from over the water. Sympathy with the fluttering alder and poplar leaves almost takes away my breath; yet, like the lake, my serenity is rippled but not ruffled.”

It was a special experience to walk the same path that Thoreau did, with a similar focus of finding peace in the simplicity and glory of nature.  The pond is about 1.75 miles in circumference, and the large group of us hiked it’s shores, hooked up via headsets to the spoken word of the Traveler.  The trail was challenging enough to seem like a true nature walk but gentle enough to leave us ‘rippled but not ruffled’.

On the beginning of the walk, John pointed out that some people use nature to connect to Spirit. At the site of Thoreau’s cabin, a simple 10×15 structure, John spent some time sharing with us, touching on the importance of planting Light, with exact location not mattering.  We were planting Light at a place of peace, with the intention of the highest good of all concerned – and that this will spread out to wherever it needs to go. So if you were not able to join us on the walk, not able to personally plant Light columns in Boston, the Light you did send apparently has made it’s way.

The afternoon ended with most of us peeling off sweaters and smiling.  John took a few photos to remember the event, and then a small group of us headed out to a tour of Louis May Alcott’s house.