My favorite dog walk is also the one I Use for silent Buddhist meals in the forest.
Mostly only locals and mushroom pickers use this trail. Just above our farm on the slope of Mount Elphinstone As soon as I enter the forest a silence becomes almost complete. Only natural sounds of wind, ravens and squirrels with birds chirping enter my mind. There is great peacefulness in the forest.
The tall Douglas fir tower above us in way almost impossible to photograph or paint. Blocking out the sun and wind, converting rain to mist, they are the canopy the covers our mountain at this height.
When I get to the falls there is moss hanging in western red cedar 
almost as big as the firs above the ravine.
At the falls the added sound of water tumbling over rocks seems to gently erase the problems of the world from my mind. I love bring a plowman’s lunch to eat here in the silence. It is a go to place to experience and to share Buddhist silent practice.
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Soon it is time to go home. Back to the farm after having cleared my mind by a forest bath. Fiona likes the forest also but is ready for more adventure then sitting silently on a rock beside a creek.
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