Walking Meditation, The Circle

I click the leash onto Fate’s collar and head down the driveway to Route 22.

Fate is rarely on a leash.  Only when we walk on the busy road in front of the farm or when she goes to the Vet.  When she was younger, and I took her for the short walk along Route 22 (a very old road that goes from New York City to Canada)  from the farm to the dirt road, she would crouch every time a car or truck drove by.

Now, she walks confidently by my side as if I taught her to heel.

Early in the morning the cars are few.  The spray from their wheels is no more than the light rain. And although I tense when the milk truck goes by, Fate didn’t seem to notice.

We’re only on Route 22 for five minutes or so.  Then we turn onto the dirt road and I let Fate off the leash.

She runs ahead or hangs back sniffing at something I’ll never be able to smell.  She has walked this dirt road since  she was puppy, and knows it well.  When  a truck comes I call her to my side and she sits.  Both of us waiting for it to pass.

This time it’s our handyman Mike.   He waves from the big white truck as he slowly drives by.

We walk more than half way up the road to the path that goes through the woods.  It’s called the Ice Road, because it goes from the old McMillian Farm  to the lake, where they used to cut ice in the winter, bring it home and cover it with saw dust to keep it from melting.

One of the things  I like about this walk is that it’s a circle that begins and ends at the farm.  I don’t have to think about where I’m going, the only decision is about where I turn off the Ice Road into the woods that will take us home.

This morning I walk along the swamp that feeds into the stream, which flows into a wetland of tall grasses then again into the stream and little waterfall in the woods behind the farm.

Along the way I stop to look and wonder at the those things that catch my eye.  I take some pictures and keep the ones that convey what I felt when I saw them.

Fate crosses the Gulley Bridge long before I do, slipping under the gate into the back pasture.   Zip is hiding in the tall grasses around the pond waiting to catch a mouse or vole.  He looks at us then goes back to work.

I open the gate to the barn yard, the chains clank and I hear Constance baa before I close it behind me.

I walk up the hill and see the donkeys and sheep are already back from grazing, keeping company with KittyAnne and Mean Hen.

The circle it complete, we are home again.