I started out from the Ashram in Kenosha, Wisconsin, on the shore of Lake Michigan. I'd spent the previous day fixing computers here and then just beiong with the community. Always a blessing. It was a lovely, crisp morning, about 5 degrees F and clear as a bell. The light was gathering over the lake, preparing for its return. The community was gathering in the chapel, preparing for meditation. I eased into the car and began my driving meditation so that the day would find me travelling.
Having never been to the Mound at Sinsinawa, I decided to stop. This is a Dominican Motherhouse, and it was quite a site. The chapel was spectacular, circular with a row of windows such as these around the upper middle. The seats were set choir style, with half of the congregation facing the other half. It was the middle of mass, with it seemed 100 sisters in the congregation. I was going to stop and talk, but the highway was bekonning still, and I got back on the road without anyone knowing I was even there. Strange how the urge to move gets a hold of me...
Not much of picture, I know, but significant to me. One of the things I treasure about travelling in the West is the wide open spaces and the little patches of water. This was next to the Loup River in Nebraska, where I stopped to wash up for the day. The sun was shinning, it was well above freezing, and the ducks and I had a great time of it. The picture is taken from the railroad tracks that I sat on for a while playing my toy guitar (thanks Brian and Sara) and singing songs about travelling. If you look closely, you can see the guitar up against the car.
Those are cottonwood trees behind the car, like the ones used in the sundance.
This was the moonrise on the night of the lunar eclipse, rising as the sun was setting over a classic Wisconsin scene. It seemd as if every farm had multiple silos and freshly painted barns.
The sunset the following evening in Iowa. The barns here have a distinctive architecture with the shape of the roof and the cupola that sits sideways. They are also generally painted white and so glow in the the steep-slanting light of sunrises and sunsets.