“The woods are lovely, dark and deep,

But I have promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep….”

Robert Frost

With about 10,000 miles already run since we first left New York City on April 16, we have only about 400 miles to go before we finish. But we have slept every night, although some of us sleep less than others to get these stories and photos up on the website.

We passed through Albany, the capital of New York State, this morning, stopping at the Unitarian Universalist Church near the center of town. We met with about 18 members of the church and others who get together on Sundays to have informal meetings to inspire faith and optimism in the community. This week, Carolyn Stetson was in charge of the meeting with the theme of optimism. They were thrilled when we brought our message of harmony to share with them in a climate of optimistic hope for the future.

It was not the typical ceremony with excited children like we have been with in the past months. They offer their own beauty and energy to our ceremonies. But these adults were very friendly and open to our way of optimistic thinking and hoping for a better world starting right in the heart of each individual. We thank Carolyn and Dave and all the others who came to share with us their meaningful and sincere sentiments.

We were also joined by Salil, our Executive Director, and Ananda-Lahari from Slovakia, a runner who has just completed the longest official race in the world, a 3,100 mile footrace. They drove up from N.Y.C. to join us for a couple of days. With twelve members now, our largest team since the very beginning, we had a wonderful time with the members of the church who greeted us with refreshments and kind words.

Two locals who had read about our arrival in Albany in the newspaper, John and Thula, came to join us as well. John ran out with our runner through the center of Albany, making sure we made all the right turns. The problem is that we did make right turns, even when we were supposed to turn left.

Leaving Albany, we ran through Troy, up a very long hill until we met with Tom and Ryan from the Troy-Record newspaper. They followed us a ways through town and spent a good amount of time getting photos and stories. It is always inspiring to us that journalists would spend so much time and energy to share our story.

Our other two teams went up to Loudonville to visit a Hindu Temple that invited us to share some of our sentiments with them. Francesco tells us: “At first we had to wait for a Puja ceremony to end. We did not know if they were prepared for us to be there. There were two priests, Banalat and Prasad, who welcomed us and offered us some blessings and prasad, or blessed food. The Temple, which is now 30 years old, was quite beautiful with skylights for natural light which accented the divinity of the statues and religious symbols.”

After running our last few miles in beautiful New York State we found ourselves in the green and hilly state of Vermont. Entering the historic town of Bennington, we were greeted by our friend and Vermont resident, Akankha, who met us at the historic Old First Church. This year was the two hundredth anniversary of this building which replaced the first church from the eighteenth century.

The old graveyard in the back of the church has the gravesite of Robert Frost, the eminent American poet who lived here. The words from his famous poem that were used to start this story have been quoted for decades and now seem to be apropos to our journey here. As we enter the lovely, dark and deep woods and countryside of New England, including Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Massachussetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut, we still have ‘promises to keep’ by running through all these states before we ‘sleep’, or finish our trip.

We still have many people to meet as well. Each time we meet friends and even strangers, we have renewed energy and hope for the future. Akankha led us to the Olympia Sports store in Bennington where we were treated to some refreshments by some of the employees. Even though there was not formal ceremony, we did get to mix with some of the locals here who expressed much interest in what we are doing.

Also joining us at this shopping center were our good friends Arun and Julie and their children Benjamin and Matthew. They led us to their country farm home and then hosted us to a great home cooked meal by Julie with help from some of our guys. We also did some swimming with the two boys in their pool that overlooked the rolling green pastures and wooded back yard of this idyllic spot in the hills of Vermont.

‘Chef’ Arun added the finishing touches to the meal with his special ‘rhubarb-strawberry’ delight made with fresh hand picked strawberries and rhubarb from their garden. Spending time with Arun and Julie and the children at this peaceful setting away from the hustle and bustle of city life, we gained a deep sense of harmony with nature and with the goodwill of kind and generous friends.

USA Team Harmony

---

Harmonemail:
You can send a message to the runners or read the messages.

< USA 5 August

USA 7 August >