Greetings. We offer these podcasts freely and your support really makes a difference.

To make a donation, please visit Tarabrock.com. Namst day. Welcome friends. About 25 years ago I was teaching with a friend at a rural retreat

center in the woods I think north of Toronto and during the lunch break we had a kind of lunch

and then a walking meditation period I took a walk in the woods with my co-teacher and friend and we got immersed in a wonderful conversation and then somewhere along the line we realized that, oh gosh we're going to be late we're

supposed to we're due back to lead the next meditation and then we realized oh no

we've gotten off the trail, we're lost.

And so it started getting anxious and walking faster trying to find our way and took a number of

turns, it was impossible to retrace our steps and at some point there was a kind of

a thinning in the woods and we walked out of the woods and found a highway and were able to flag down a police car and the police drove us back to the

retreat center and I'll never forget going up that driveway and seeing all of our students in front of the

meditation center standing there silently as our the police car drove up and then their two teachers got out of the police

car, you know, mamma stay. And I just would love to know what they were thinking in those moments.

There's a poem I wish that I had had with me

to share at that evening talk, and I want to share it with you now. It's by David Wagoner and it's called Lost.

Stand still. The trees ahead and the bushes beside you are not lost.

Wherever you are is called here and you must treat it as a powerful stranger.

Must ask permission to know it and be known.

The Farce Breathes.

Listen.

It answers. I have made this place around you. If you leave it, you may

come back again, saying here.

No two trees are the same to Raven.

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