We arrived at the Skowhegan Community Center around 4:00 pm today after a 13 mile walk. We left Bangor with 30 folks and walked 6.3 miles out of the city. Ten folks from Bangor then bid us goodbye and we shuttled 40 miles ahead on Hwy 2 heading west and had lunch along the road. Then we walked another six-plus miles into Skowhegan.
Yesterday when we were walking thru Orono a Native American man named Gkisedtanamoogk heard us drumming as he was washing dishes. He teaches peace studies and Native American history at the University of Maine-Orono. He came running after us and decided to walk the rest of the way with us into Bangor. Then this morning, as we gathered at the Peace & Justice Center in Bangor, Gkisedtanamoogk showed up and walked the entire day with us. When I asked him how he was going to get back home he said "I'm gonna walk". Then he laughed and said his daughter will come get him after our pot luck supper and program. During a break today he told me, "When we align ourselves with the energy of life we might just have a future....some people just don't know how to live."
Morgana Warner Evans (West Bath, Maine) also showed up this morning. She's been active with our local activist community for several years but went off to college last year. This coming week is her fall break from school and she decided to walk with us the rest of the way. She brought her guitar and beautiful voice which we immediately put to work by having her sing during a break this morning. She will sing in our program tonight.
We will also be sung to tonight by the Buddhist Monk Kineda-shonin and a young Japanese woman who is walking with us. They have both previously sung to us but they are so good we can't get enough of hearing them.
The Monk Gilberto Perez, who just last week was on Jeju Island, joined us last night and during our program tonight will share about his experience being in Gangjeong village in recent days. You might remember a photo of him I posted on the blog where he was sitting at the Navy base front gate holding a sign that read "Yankees Go Home."
Lisa Savage and Mark Roman are hosting the walk the next three nights - two nights here in the Skowhegan area and then in Waterville as well. In fact they've got the Mayor of Waterville to invite Mark to come to their city council meeting next Tuesday night and the city will issue a proclamation welcoming the walk.
Lisa and Mark have even lined up a massage therapist for this evening and she is got a long line of our folks waiting in great anticipation for their chance to lay on her table and get their aching body attended to. Life on the road so to speak.
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