Contemplative Walk with Salal + Cedar

Every month members of Salal + Cedar (the other church where I am pastor) gather for a shared spiritual practice of contemplative walking. In natural outdoor spaces we take time to simply notice the Sacred in the more-than-human world. Last week we were joined by Alison Watt for a walk around Rice Lake. It was the day after Ash Wednesday and before we set out walking, we shared a brief prayer, marked one another with the sign of ashes and read from a poem by Celine Chuang:

From stardust you came, and to stardust you will return:

Blessed be the Divine Dark that resides within you.
Blessed be the miraculous particles that comprise you:

Each migrating molecule, each vibrating string, each holy encounter that defines you.

When we returned we talked about the differences we felt between being marked by ashes that are part of our local ecosystem -in this case a Western Red Cedar nurse log- and ashes that came from last year’s dusty palm crosses.
We hope you will join us on one of our walks.

Rev. Laurel