How do we know when our belief in something has become true? By its nature, a belief can exist outside the realm of physical reality. Sometimes, belief outweighs facts to an extent beyond comprehension, while its presence and strength remains undeniable. Belief doesn’t need the validation of becoming true, to flourish. But when evidence on the ground appears to offer overwhelming support for the truth of a belief it’s worth paying attention to.

My first recollection of Mission Farm was from traveling Vermont Route 4 with my father, Leslie. In the 1960’s he was chairman of the Vermont Forests and Parks board and I sometimes rode along when he drove to meetings around the state. Once, across the Ottauquechee River just north of Bridgewater, I spied a flash of white deep in the green valley. As quickly as it appeared it was gone, but the memory of seeing the solitary stone church fixed in my teenage mind. Fast-forward sixty years and once again I was gazing at the edifice that is The Church of Our Saviour, having been invited there by Lisa Ransom, the Executive Director and Vicar at Mission Farm. 

For those who gathered at Mission Farm in recent years, the conversation had centered around having more spaces to connect, share stories and listen to music. By identifying common spaces and celebrating them, the group hoped to end isolation in their community and nurture a new relationship to the land that they steward. 

The task I was assigned by the community members was to craft an assemblage of stones into a space that would concentrate the earth's energy into a light-capturing atmosphere. 

They believed in my work. I just had to believe that my design would be an artistic expression that physically represented the spirit they wished to create. Two belief systems would have to intersect and amplify one another to bring the project to a successful completion. 

I found an interesting reference to Greek performance spaces suggesting that a smaller version of an amphitheater, one used mainly for singing competitions, was called an Odeon. Naming an idea can breathe life into it, and that's how Mission Farm’s “Odeon” was born. All that was left for me to do was to imagine it and believe that I could physically accomplish my vision.

A seating arrangement of granite slabs, their surfaces speckled with iridescent mica like the church’s facade, would be set atop retaining walls built in a matrix style that emulates that of the church’s faceted, stained-glass windows. But all of that was subject to methods of work I hadn’t attempted before. I hadn’t ordered custom-sawn stones and laid them in a leap-frog fashion. I hadn’t sorted through tons of crusher-stone to find pieces suitable for crafting a sturdy retaining wall. Over the years, experience taught me that not all my ideas work, but that the most risky ones, when they did, turned out to be the most rewarding. If I wanted the Odeon to be something special, I had to have faith.

I didn’t have to wait long for my belief to become true. Two weeks after the Odeon’s completion, and three days after community volunteers rolled out fresh sod between the terraced seating, the 2023 Mountain and Meadows Festival took place. There was food and music, conversation and reflection. People joined together to make the place come alive. On that sunny, August afternoon I witnessed the mingling of our beliefs into a single truth; that space and energy can be one.

Bringing the Odeon to the light of day was only possible with the help of many dedicated individuals. Thanks go out to wallers, Whitney and Jared, to earth movers and shapers, Archie and Scott, to landscape architect Jack, to Champlain Quarries and ABC Stone, and to Lisa, Kim, Mitch and all of the Mission Farm community.