Spectacle art

Sights: Dromedaries, dairy cows, Bethany store, dragonflies, california poppy fields, and field workers.






We spent another day on rural roads. No shoulders. Little room for our feet. Whizzing cars. Not much shade. We loved every minute of it. And just one more foot of pavement would made the journey so much more pleasant.


We continue to tell each other the stories of our lives. Stories that arise from physical reminders of the past: cemeteries, orchards, creeks, dogs barking or simple random smells. History and the present mingle well in the walking body. Lisa learned about lily's grandparents, yoga path, and happy memories she has of her ex-husband. Lily learned about lisa's grandmother, her meandering spiritual paths, and the depth of her love for her husband and son's.




We ate lunch at the bethany store with two self-employed construction workers. We were seeking salt and carbonation, they had 5 loaded hotdogs and a big bag of Doritos between them. We had dinner with the nuns at the Benedictine abbey: St Louis smoked spare ribs, bean salad and backed potatoes. Food tastes good.




The shalom retreat center is a welcome quiet end to the day after last nights generously given but noisy campsite at the hazel green/cordon road cross roads. We learned that farm trucks travel all night long and have very noisy brakes. We also learned that the E.Z. in E.Z. Orchard stands for Ed




From lily and Lisa, we are body habitat and so are you.

ps. hi, it's me lily. If you've been following us you saw yesterdays pictures of my ravaged feet. Ouch, big time. Tonight at shalom center when I took off my walking shoes, both Lisa & I gasped. Feet are worse. Went online to firstaid.com & had to surrender to fact that for now, my walking is curtailed. Lisa will walk alone tomorrow, but I'll be there too. I'll also be taking Tiny Hobbling Walks on my own in places along our route & then we'll meet up at our overnight destination. More will be revealed as to what it means to walk in this body on the planet.



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:S Main St,Mt Angel,United States

A little walk @ pace of our own choosing

Day 4 walking we sleep-in at Travel Lodge til 8, eat delicious breakfast at Word of Mouth neighborhood bistro. Go shopping for long skirts & tall socks to cover our weather-beaten legs & ankles.






Also spent time in conversation about our performative lecture & discussion last night at Project Space gallery. We liked doing it, a lot. They liked us just as much. Threads of evening: safety & stress on the road, how & why pedestrian-culture has disappeared, walking stories, sharing the sightings & sounds we enjoy at the pace of walking that are lost to us when we travel enclosed or faster. We shared our blistered & red rashed skin. We showed our found objects; 2 plastic sunflower heads, a dried-bat, a tree gaul. We discussed small details of travelling by foot, and the big wide issues of culture and body. What we thought we knew In our minds is now being experienced in our feet.







Today we walked from the urban into the rural and watched as first the pedestrians and then the sidewalks disappeared. But not the cars. We walked at an unhurried pace & wished the whole walk could be without deadlines or unconstrained by reservations or the awkward distances between hotels.





From Lily and Lisa. We are Body Habitat and so are you.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:Hazelgreen Rd NE,Salem,United States

From Salem

The day in images.























With love from lisa body habitating in Salem travel lodge

Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Walking day 2, calling a taxi to "carry" packs to next stop, Salem, OR

This is true. Tonight I was ready to call taxi company(s?) in
Monmouth, OR to inquire about how much it would cost to have our packs
driven to Salem tomorrow. Maybe drop them off at performance event
gallery, Project Space or we'll show up at PS pack-less, taxi
delivering packs to TravelLodge instead. I like that this thought came
to me and I was willing to do it. (turns out Jay, Lisas husband, who
is coming to our gig at PS tomorrow night will pick up lots of our
stuff we're packing in a huge bag we got from night manager at motel,
before he comes to show. Love to you Jay)

In our Body Habitat collaborative posts(2) we mention remembering that
this project is about walking, not about suffering. I mean, who would
want to walk the valley if the main ingredient was suffering. & yes,
I'm aware there are people who might want to suffer. (Let's put them
aside for now, ok?)

I look around me as I walk, at the birds, dogs, horses, goats--none of
the animals plan their day around suffering, making the day harder for
themselves. I want them to teach me their way.

I had a teacher of body movement who proposed we consider the practice
to "Endure nothing." So tonight, at the motel in Monmouth, with sore
feet and doubts about my body's ability to keep on walking further, I
remember the practice and thought of calling a that taxi.

Already I know that in many ways as a society we have made the planet
inhospitable to walk where we want to go as just another animal living
in it's habitat. Now I'm beginning to see how I too cooperate with
this belief; that Walking is not a possible way to move through the
world easily. My choices & plans were made by an unenlighted mind,
even if the ideas to walk was outside the norm. There is More to know
about my cooperation & it is still hidden from me.

I do see tonight, that I do not (did not) know how to make real
decisions about making this walk be "about walking as a human animal."
As a culturally influenced being, my planning for walk was/is still
deeply influenced by a cultural bias that if I choose to walk, when it
is easier, therefore preferable, to drive, run, bike, then maybe its
just my tough luck to suffer while walking this valley. I don't buy
it.

So I wish I could have known even the little more I know now this
short distance into the walking journey. But there was no way to learn
it except by doing it.

I know I'll learn more as we walk. This is good. I'm cracking open a
door I didn't even realize was shut. This too is good.

I promise I will continue to tell you all about it.

From Lily,
Here we are.

--
Lily

here we are.

Monmouth feels delicious

We are remembering that this is about walking, not suffering. We left a small cache of items we decided we didn't really need at our last camping spot. We are going to leave more here in Monmouth and have Jay bring them to us in Salem tomorrow night. Just the idea of a lighter pack makes us happy.



It is really stressful to walk on the highway. We were on highway 99 for about 3 miles today. Huge trucks and fast cars flying by. I almost lost my hat in the wind of a truck. Tense shoulders and busy mind, and eyes focused on the highway and cars rather than on the landscape. We had to stay hyper vigilant to stay safe. It was warzoneish.




we cut off onto hemlick road, the old highway 99. It was easier. We took a long break under an old oak tree. Someone's yard, but no one came out to chase us away. However later as we rested after lunch under an apple tree, the neighbor decided to mow his already very short lawn and blow a storm of dust and noise at us. We got the point and moved on. Further along someone offered us a place to camp and a young man we asked for directions wondered if we were missionaries. We laughed and said no, we were walking as an art project.


We stumbled into the hotel. The beds felt holy. The showers were wet and very welcome. Burgerville gets two thumbs up, for food, service, northwest ingredients and compostable containers.

Last night we fell asleep under the full moon. Tonight we might not make it that late.



From lily and Lisa, we are body habitat and so are you.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Here are some observations, quotes, experiences and epiphanies of day 1, 11.5 miles walking.

"everything in my pack smells like pepperoni"
"they'll find us by my pee rag." (hanging on a tree branch to dry)
"thank you god for giving us bodies that can lay down"
"excuse me but I talk to inanimate objects. If it bugs you let me know"
"I like shade."

We are walking an average of a mile and a half each hour. We take lots of breaks and a long lunch stop. We are going to eat the heavy stuff first. They should make dehydrated water.



And we love noticing the dragonflies, honeybees and the friendliness of horses. The horses left their grazing spot to come say hello. Shelley brought us fresh blueberries in the middle of our walk along hwy 99 - thanks! Jay fed us sodas and chips for lunch. The cashiers in small stores all wished us well and a safe journey.

Harder to see: dogs in small pens without shade, so little public space beyond the narrow strip of the highway, so many cars, and so few places to get a drink of water.






From lily and lisa, we are body habitat and so are you.



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:NW Grant Ave,Corvallis,United States

Here I can imagine everything

I remember looking out into the woods at Shotpouch Creek, decked out in Body Habitat attire, breathing softly, just ending a long dance with the singing trillium, the pine cone husks & the birds. I think--here it is, right here I can imagine everything I am.

After a year of making projects to put our bodies into the many landscapes, we drop into animal body and the dance with native land with ease. We return to animal body & attune each time we dance in the forests; both wilderness & urban. We fall deeper into our native place. How lucky are we?

But at Shotpouch Creek, we began to wonder: What is as true as our bodies can get moving through the landscape? What is as true as we can get in this human animal body in motion--migrating, grazing, nesting, re-seeding, laying down & locating ourselves in no place except underneath our heavy heads?

Tomorrow morning we begin a new body habitat practice. We walk. Today I left Portland realizing that I will see my home again when 10 days from now, I walk back into it. Over the Sellwood Bridge to Foster to Performance Works NW. I'm excited. I'm scared. I'm ready.

I will walk for every one of us. I will tell you all about it.

Lily

Chicago Walking the Outer Drive

Walking in Chicago is more beautiful than expected. The city is crazy with recycling bins, water saving barrels & prairie gardens. The Great Plains prairie foliage (forest) is everywhere, even in the more formal gardens around Grant Park. The city is going back to seed.
Spied red-winged blackbird, monarch butterflies of course of course! in bushes and grassy spread. And a cardinal in native trees. The sound is cicade-ified and crackly.
I walk and am happy here. Feel the natural landscape popping up through it all. Feel my human animal self popping up through it all.
Coming home to visit with my feet walking was good idea.

Lily