Aug 2 || 6:30p || Body Habitat Walking Project | PWNW || Linda Austin Dance

Aug 2 || 6:30p || Body Habitat Walking Project | PWNW || Linda Austin Dance A reminder from Lily & Lisa to meet up with us in Pdx on Day 9, Aug 2, 6:30p @ performance works nw Your RSVP appreciated but not necessary. We will be walking in right off Foster street to be with you. We will sit together and show and tell and listen and question. You'll do that great thing you do every time we see you. Address location & all the skinny at: http://pwnw.wordpress.com/2010/07/31/aug-2-body-habitat-walking-project or go to facebook and search for body habitat (we're a group page on fb) we hope we see you there we hope, lily & lisa are bodyhabitat and so are you.

My feet & trading my car for scooter

As of today, Body Habitat walking project is one walking, one scootering.

After slow slow slow drive behind or ahead of Lisa along the beautiful, bird & animal rich side roads taking us to Aurora for the day, I had an idea.

Could I get out of my car & onto a Scooter?







So I told Lisa of my plan as I tiny hobble-walked next to her to an endpoint, where the side roads we had been on ended at a railroad bridge. Together we plunged onto the dirt path before us as I got more excited about the idea of riding a nice, slow moving scooter.







Just to keep you up to date, let me say that I was wearing my black fuzzy back-less clogs and walking on my own two feet again. Goofy but good. This body is remarkable. And the improvising mind a friend.



The dirt path turned into a tiny foot-size dirt ledge that we walked. Carefully. Spread out below us was bright green algae packed wetlands, fed by a tributary of the mollala river...geese, long leafed water plants, willowy trees. Full, ripe, watery existence under our feet.

Back in Canby, I called Columbia Scooter in Pdx (closest rental) & found out they'd hold a 49cc scooter for me until 6pm. (fyi: 49cc is highest cc's you can ride without motorcycle license). When I arrived about 3:30, they got me a helmet, had me test drive around the parking lot & block and said I looked good to go. Andy's only admonishment was to keep my eyes looking up & forward. He said I kept looking down and from side to side (ah ha, started using my animal eyes as I got out into the moving-air again!).

Scootering back to Canby at 30mph was exhilarating. Somewhere between driving and walking, another layer of liminal space. I was in the open air & could see, hear, & smell what appeared alongside the road. Again.

I'm back as I can be into one-whole-native-body falling deep into whole-world-as-habitat walking experience. With rapidly healing feet, on the seat of a 49cc scooter.

Tomorrow we are on to L.O. (Lake Oswego)

until then, sleep & dream like you walked 10 miles today, Lily

lily & lisa are bodyhabitat and so are you

Day 6, you take the high road & I'll take the low road

The Shalom retreat center in Mt. Angel is quiet. Many people are in silent retreat, and small signs on doorways remind us to pay attention to sound levels: this is a quiet room. We each have our own small bedroom. Lisa is in Martha's room, Lily is in Hildegard's. The sheets on the bed are cotton, softened by years of washing. The nuns seem to understand body habitat walking project without having to say much on our part. They offer us many blessings on our journey. We are touched.

We look different walking today. A long striding walk, making great time and passing into the landscape with camera in hand at the ready for recording what the animal eye sees. (Lisa) And an hour with swollen feet in a car going one way to Portland, then back again, to Barlow Rd, to meet up and take body habitat tiny hobbling walks (bhTHW's) here and there. (Lily) We meet again across the Molalla River Bridge in Canby.



Today we also found words for two deep experience we are having as we walk:

We drop into that "...other world that is here right beneath this one" when the body and all its senses open, weave together and take in the world as one whole habitat. More and more our bodies feel this is the human animal in its native state. We often think this is a special state of being, holy & exclusive, a meditative state, a drug-induced state, a state we must earn; working at something taught to us by someone who is not us. What if the truth is that this way of being on the planet is as natural to our existence as breathing? Walking on our feet on the side of road, we create & exist in a liminal space that we experience as a sharing with all the birds, insects, trees, reptiles, poppies, & other mammals. Walking in liminal space we meet these others alive and dead, noisy and silent. We are all in our native habitat. All in one. Reality.


Cars seem hungry predators, without thought or scheme, killing wherever they go. Walking brings into body- consciousness how all the pathways have been claimed by cars. As the cars drive by, even at legal speed limits, we experience feelings of being assaulted, attacked, prey. It becomes surprising to realize there are no human remains on view alongside the other carrion littering the highway and ditches nearby. We feel anger and we feel sorrow.



from Lily and Lisa. we are body habitat and so are you.

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.



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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.


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Location:Hazelgreen Rd NE,Salem,United States

From Salem

The day in images.























With love from lisa body habitating in Salem travel lodge

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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.

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