Our Community
Our Mission
The Open Road nurtures inner transformation through education, dialogue, meditation & mindfulness, and the arts, in order to promote peace, love, happiness and understanding.
We welcome everyone, regardless of income, age, or cultural background.
Our Programs
The Open Road supports and encourages lifelong learning for everyone through classes, talks, dialogue groups, study groups, performances, workshops, seminars and retreats.
Jerry Smith
April 12, 1933 – July 8, 2025
Jerry Smith changed many people’s lives–
including mine. Without Jerry Smith
there would be no Open Road. The
Jerry and Donna Smith Family
Foundation has been the primary
financial supporter of The Open Road,
from the beginning up till the present.
J and the Metaphors: Open Road Benefit Concert 7/26/26
Dear Friends of The Open Road
J and the Metaphors play songs of mortality and love in a Benefit Concert for The Open Road on Sunday, July 26th, at 2 pm, in Muir Hall at Taborspace, 5441 SE Belmont, in Portland. Suggested donation $10. Tickets at the door.
Check out the Open Road Summer Schedule 2026.
Open Road Recommends: Film screening online of the 45-minute film An Artist Responds to War featuring Peter Schumann and the Bread & Puppet Theater available between June 20th & 28th.
The June issue of peace, love, happiness & understanding features the Constitution of Užupis, The Right to Dream, The Celestial Emporium of Benevolent Knowledge & Ode to Things. There is a peace, love, happiness & understanding Archive.
Open Road Recommends: A Midsummer Night’s Dream, produced by Rotten in Denmark Productions at the Siren Theater, June 18-28.
Open Road Recommends: FREE ART IN THE PARK (ORR). LARRY YES is the ebullient host for artists of all descriptions. Everyone is an artist!!! Tuesdays & Thursdays in June and July, from 11:30 to 1:30. Pioneer Square, in Portland.
Open Road Recommends: Will Hornyak’s performances. Will draws on a number of stories, songs and poems at Hotel Zags in Portland, on Friday evenings, from June 26th through July 24th.
Open Road Recommends: Monica Faricy plays and sings from the heart!–in June, July & August. (Click on her name to get the full schedule.)
Open Road Recommends: Portland Actors Ensemble presents Shakespeare’s As You Like It in Portland parks, June 26th-July 19th, for FREE! HOORAY!
Open Road Recommends: LARRY YES astonishes with Music and Good Vibes at Portland’s legendary Waterfront Blues Festival on July 2nd, on the River Rhythms Stage at 1:15 p.m. NOT TO BE MISSED.
Jerry Smith passed away on Tuesday, July 8th, 2025. He changed my life. Without Jerry Smith there would be no Open Road. The Jerry and Donna Smith Family Foundation has been the primary financial supporter of The Open Road, from the beginning up till the present.
Get your copy of My Jedi Memoir: A Double Life by James Kahn today!
THANK YOU!!! to donors, teachers, performers, friends–everyone who makes The Open Road thrive!
YOGA with Elizabeth. Elizabeth Domike teaches yoga five mornings a week online. Gentle joint activation movement, with a poem at the end of each practice. Join people from all over the world. To register, contact her at: smallhouse@aol.com.
Check out the Open Road Archive of Classes, Workshops, Performances, et cetera and Past Events.
The Open Road published a monthly Meditation & Mindfulness Dialogue from September of 2020 through June of 2024. It was mailed to men in prison and emailed to people “on the outside.” There is a complete archive of this journal at: Meditation & Mindfulness Dialogue Archive. Also, check out Johnny’s version of the first Zen text: the Hsin Hsin Ming of Seng Ts’an.
The Open Road has a Walt Whitman Archive: Friends of Walt.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream in Prison is a documentary by Bushra Azzouz. The film premiered on August 7, 2022 at Cinema 21, in Portland, Oregon. The Open Road was fiscal sponsor of the the film from April of 2020 to June of 2024. To make arrangements to see the film or to organize a public screening, email Josh Underhill: josh@openheartsopenminds.org.
Open Road Press is a new project of the Open Road, starting in early 2024. Our first publication is The Nonstop Love-In: poems, stories, essays & other writings by Johnny Stallings. Click on the title to learn more about how you can buy a copy or get it from the Multnomah County Library. Makes a great gift!
We had a lively weekly, then bi-weekly, then monthly book group from June of 2020 till August of 2025–¡Bibliophiles Unanimous!
The Open Road is fiscal sponsor of the Mom Foundation Nepal. Click on Mom Foundation to go to the web page and learn more.
The Village Zendo has online group meditations every day.
You can see and hear Hamilton Cheifetz and Janet Guggenheim play Song of the Birds by Pablo Casals.
May all people be happy.
May we live in peace & love.
–Johnny
