The Great Green Sea

Dear Diary,

Just before I left for my weekend retreat at the abbey, I ordered a gardening book to inspire my new meditation garden. In the book the author talks about landscape archetypes. One of them is the sea.

Now, it can be literal, like the great expanse of blue ocean surrounding Star Island or it can be allegorical, like the great green sea surrounding the abbey. As I said yesterday, the abbey sits on over 2,000 acres of rolling farm land and the monks sited the monastic buildings in the center on top of the highest point. The drive in is more than a mile.

From this location your eye takes in hundreds of open acres of green and the feeling was really quite like being on an island surrounded by the ocean. It was amazingly peaceful.

One feels small in comparison to the vastness around you, the "oceanic effect" it is called. That was how I felt at the abbey this weekend. Sheltered in the wonderful stone buildings, I got the distinct impression of being on an island of peace and serenity which is really quite appropriate. My calendar says that today is the International Day of Peace.

Sometimes violence cannot be stopped no matter what we do. But the more peaceful we are, the better chance we have of bringing out the peace in those around us.

― Judith Orloff, Second Sight