A Saturday or so ago I spent most of the day in St.

Tuesday, April 24, 2001

A Saturday or so ago I spent most of the day in St. Paul, on the warehouse side, down by the river at the Clouds in the Water Zen Center where Natalie Goldberg conducted a day walking and writing.

Natalie was late. She had a reason I will get to. We were to bring a small backpack, notebook, fast writing pens and good walking shoes. This would be slow walking to a place Natalie loves.

The instructions added: "Be prepared to write in a cafe." We spent the first 10 minutes sitting zazen (a dynamic system of meditation maintained and transmitted by Buddhas and ancestors for more than 2,500 years. Properly done, zazen is the sitting, standing, walking and lying down of everyday life.

I’m still trying to catch on.

"Pay attention to your breathing," Mike, Natalie’s assistant who filled in until she arrived, said.

As usual, my mind was busy running all over the place, peeking out the window, wondering about our walk, wondering whether I could get by until we reached the cafe. Being diabetic, that can be problem.

Natalie arrived with about two minutes left of our meditation. As an introduction, she invited us to go around, say our names and describe our "favorite walk."

Mine was a walk "to the gully" I used to take when I lived in Riverside, Calif., a 20-minute walk I used to take to be alone. During the day, you could see a pasture in the distance with a few cows roaming the pasture. It brought me back to Minnesota.

At night there was less light there and it was quiet. You could see more stars without the street lights and planes descending into Los Angeles. Sometimes a small plane would land at Flabob Airport in Rubbidoux. That was more apt to happen during the day.

There were 23 of us there. Most of us were from Minnesota but there were a few from Wisconsin, the Dakotas and Nebraska.

The woman from Nebraska has been writing three pages every day since going to her first Natalie Goldberg workshop. Natalie’s delay was due to this. She stopped by one of her favorite haunts where she goes to write – usually they serve good chocolate – and Natalie gave the Nebraskan a gift certificate.

At the cafe, I chatted with a person who said she had been at her four-day workshops in Taos. They’re held in an old mansion, she said. They are required to maintain silence much of the time there when they are not writing.

After sitting, we did two 10-minute writings. The first one we were to begin with: "There was a walk …" And then proceed for 10 minutes.

The second began with "My Angels …" and shared one.

Next we were given a healthy snack and headed out. Leaving the warehouse building we were to maintain silence until we reached the restaurant. We starting up the street and then walked down an empty road in the warehouse district and then moved closer to the river where litter seems to gather with an empty Mad Dog wine bottle and few empty pints.

Soon we were off the road drudging across the low land where the sunshine and breeze had dried the mud. Across the tracks we angled left and went up under a highway and quickly came upon a most unique tunnel, Swede’s Hollow with its very own babbling brook. Here the quiet matched our quiet. Now we were doing the slow walk. it was the walk my daughter said, "will make us look like a cult."

From the hollow, we climbed steps that reached a small park – the site of the former Hamms’ family home.

Then it was on to a nearby cafe, originally owned by the Stutzmans, for a late lunch. Here we did our last two 10-minute writings on "I’m thinking …" and "I’m not thinking."

I wasn’t thinking of the still point or the dance.

Bob Vilt’s column appears Tuesdays.