Sitting in my car on the ferry as it left the Mukilteo dock, I reflected on the brief overnight visit I was about to have at the Whidbey Institute. I have been involved in this nonprofit for more than 20 years, and I was headed back there to join their 50th year anniversary celebration. It had been a long and busy week for me with too much time at the computer, too many Zoom meetings. I was hopingfor some deep rest.

By 3 pm, I had unpacked my one bag and was eying the bed in my simple room which had all of the amenities of a cozy monk’s cell. The idea of a nap was enticing. But I don’t get to this exceptional place very often, and I also felt the pull of the land itself, inviting me to get out among the trees and walk the trails. Perhaps if I had a short enough walk I could still get in a nap before the festivities started.

The Whidbey Institute sits on about 100 acres of what has been designated Legacy Forest land. Through this program, federal grant funds pay for conservation easements that remove the development rights from forestland. This keeps such easements in traditional forest uses and protects water quality, fish and wildlife habitat, cultural resources, and recreation opportunities.

It’s a compact forest of mostly second growth, crisscrossed with trails that wind up and down gentle hills. It was the site of a farm founded by Finnish immigrants who built the first permanent building on the land, farmed here, and then abandoned the farm. The building and land was bought for $7,000 by Fritz and Vivienne Hull in the mid 1960s. Fritz was the minister for college-age kids at University Presbyterian Church. He left that job to establish the Chinook Learning Community, which eventually became the Whidbey Institute.

I set out at an unhurried pace on the trail that left from the meadow just below my cabin. I have wandered these trails many afternoons in the past years, usually just letting my feet go where they wanted to. The plants and shrubs showed the marks of early autumn, no longer clothed in the verdant green of early summer. When I stopped and stood still, birdsong filled my ears.

My steps went gradually downhill until I reached the low point on the land where a stream still ran in early September. Here, sword ferns and deer ferns covered the forest floor and crowded the stream. As I walked, I felt the anxiety I had been carrying gradually start to drop away. I let the colors and sounds of the forest fill my senses as the swirling thoughts in my mind settled. The calming energy of the forest seemed to enter through my feet and fill me.

I walked along the stream for a while, with its soft murmur keeping me company. Eventually the path started uphill again, and I came to a junction.

How could I not follow the Sacred Ridge trail? I walked gradually uphill passing mushrooms, lichens and low berry bushes, then along the promised ridgeline, gradually heading back toward the Institute buildings. The sense of the present moment was profound. What I had needed was not to be less aware through a nap, but instead to be precisely and intentionally more aware. It felt like every branch, every stone, every needle of hemlock, spruce or fir was exactly where it needed to be.

And it was right about then that I spotted the sand dollar. What?! There it was, nestled at the base of a tree, looking comfortable enough, but not quite fitting in. The faint pattern on top could have been a cluster of leaves, but I was pretty sure it was, indeed, what usually marked a sand dollar, generally more at home on the beach.

As I picked it up, I wondered about the human who had placed it there. I wondered what they had been thinking. Regardless, I felt the urge to remove it from that spot, and to find a more logical place for it (other than my pocket).

The trail brought me out just above the labyrinth that graces this property. This was the first labyrinth I ever walked as a spiritual practice, and I nearly always feel nourished by it when I come here. It is a classic “Chartres Labyrinth,” so named because it follows the design of the original labyrinth in the nave floor of the cathedral of Notre Dame de Chartres, outside of Paris, France. Built in 1201, it is a masterwork of medieval craftsmanship in limestone and dark marble, constructed according to the principles of sacred ancient geometry. The Whidbey Institute labyrinth was hand built with local rocks and bark, but is no less beautiful.

I quieted my mind as best I could and entered. I focused on the path in front of me bordered by stones placed carefully by someone who treasured this place as I do. I thought about several conundrums in my life, but then let go of them as I walked. Eventually I was at the center. I looked over the small pile of things left behind as offerings, or as symbols of an old practice being abandoned, a page being turned. There were stones and branches, pieces of moss and one wilting black-eyed Susan. Pine cones and sea shells. It seems like a good place for my wandering sand dollar, so I took a deep breath and set it down.

Once I completed my short journey through the labyrinth, I felt a sense of lightness and clarity. My cabin was nearby, and I managed a half hour nap before I headed to the celebration.

Looking back, the celebration was lovely—old friends and new ones celebrating the promise of this living refuge for curiosity, learning and spiritual adventure. But remembering the weekend as a whole, it’s the time on the trails that I treasure the most. It is the opportunity to simply be present within an “ordinary” swath of nature that I most appreciate.