Why walk?
09th October 2016
“The fleeting hour of life of those who love the hills is quickly spent, but the hills are eternal. Always there will be the lonely ridge, the dancing beck, the silent forest; always there will be the exhilaration of the summits. These are for the seeking, and those who seek and find while there is still time will be blessed both in mind and body.”
AW Wainwright
Why do I spend so much of my free time walking? I know many of my close friends are bemused with my seeming obsession with the outdoors and walking.
The answer is not obvious as it involves walking away whilst simultaneously attempting to walk towards something; escaping to relocate, or as Rebecca Solnit suggests:
“To lose yourself: a voluptuous surrender, lost in your arms, lost to the world, utterly immersed in what is present so that its surroundings fade away…….to be lost is to be fully present, and to be fully present is to be capable of being in uncertainty and mystery.”
I find walking through wild and beautiful landscapes both cathartic and emotionally stimulating. I walk up a mountain as a boy and come down a man! Well, maybe not quite, but each journey I am changed (be it only subtly, but there is a cumulative effect).
Through her poetry, American poet Mary Oliver, details the influence and power of travel. Her poetry identifies how passing through, whilst being immersed in the natural world, can have a profound effect on 'self'– a journey offers an experience that seems beyond the ordinary or common. It is transcendental.
Nothing new here, I hear you say. Many, from Henry Thoreau to John Lister-Kaye, have identified that it is the journey not the arrival that is important. It is the process and not the product.
As I head out into the landscape I walk towards a place of mental stillness . I leave behind the trappings of everyday life and filter out the noise and distractions of work, family and friends. I enter the ‘hills’, surrounded by crags, streams and serrated ridges, where there is only the sound of the wind and a space forms that is filled with just my thoughts.
The process of walking and the effect of the surroundings allow my thoughts to flow outside of me and towards other realities, possibilities and time. All the clutter that seems to make life complicated is metaphorically left, down in the car.
Like the size of the car, the significance of life’s difficulties become smaller with every step.
I have discovered, from the journeys I make into wild landscapes, that I begin to have an intellectual engagement with the landscape I pass through. I begin to develop an insight of‘it’ and myself, whilst more fully understanding my part in the overall pattern. The 'journey' has both a healing and intellectual dimension.
However, the power of this process seems overlooked as it is given so little weight in our cultural and societal narrative. Despite the artistic responses of writers and poets, the potential of personal journeys into the wild has not been collateralised into our cultural vocabulary. This is maybe why so many friends are mystified with my passion – it is an alien concept that seemingly has very little value beyond the physical effects.
Very much like traditional activities, such as popular sports, the narrative is always about the health benefits. It is rarely about the inherent beauty that is an integral character of the activity, or about the joy of movement that is experienced in the participation of a journey. The transcendental value and the expansive power to the mind is overlooked, as the focus is on the physical.
I believe the 'power' of expeditions (however modest) into the wild, beautiful and natural landscapes; where you are surrounded by the creations of nature (as opposed to Man), where the design is not that of the human mind, but that of the world - not only strengthens us mentally and physically, but also helps to develop a greater respect and sympathy of the world we share with others.
That's why I walk a lot ;-)
The Journey
One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice--
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do--
determined to save
the only life you could save.
Mary Oliver
AW Wainwright
Why do I spend so much of my free time walking? I know many of my close friends are bemused with my seeming obsession with the outdoors and walking.
The answer is not obvious as it involves walking away whilst simultaneously attempting to walk towards something; escaping to relocate, or as Rebecca Solnit suggests:
“To lose yourself: a voluptuous surrender, lost in your arms, lost to the world, utterly immersed in what is present so that its surroundings fade away…….to be lost is to be fully present, and to be fully present is to be capable of being in uncertainty and mystery.”
I find walking through wild and beautiful landscapes both cathartic and emotionally stimulating. I walk up a mountain as a boy and come down a man! Well, maybe not quite, but each journey I am changed (be it only subtly, but there is a cumulative effect).
Through her poetry, American poet Mary Oliver, details the influence and power of travel. Her poetry identifies how passing through, whilst being immersed in the natural world, can have a profound effect on 'self'– a journey offers an experience that seems beyond the ordinary or common. It is transcendental.
Nothing new here, I hear you say. Many, from Henry Thoreau to John Lister-Kaye, have identified that it is the journey not the arrival that is important. It is the process and not the product.
As I head out into the landscape I walk towards a place of mental stillness . I leave behind the trappings of everyday life and filter out the noise and distractions of work, family and friends. I enter the ‘hills’, surrounded by crags, streams and serrated ridges, where there is only the sound of the wind and a space forms that is filled with just my thoughts.
The process of walking and the effect of the surroundings allow my thoughts to flow outside of me and towards other realities, possibilities and time. All the clutter that seems to make life complicated is metaphorically left, down in the car.
Like the size of the car, the significance of life’s difficulties become smaller with every step.
I have discovered, from the journeys I make into wild landscapes, that I begin to have an intellectual engagement with the landscape I pass through. I begin to develop an insight of‘it’ and myself, whilst more fully understanding my part in the overall pattern. The 'journey' has both a healing and intellectual dimension.
However, the power of this process seems overlooked as it is given so little weight in our cultural and societal narrative. Despite the artistic responses of writers and poets, the potential of personal journeys into the wild has not been collateralised into our cultural vocabulary. This is maybe why so many friends are mystified with my passion – it is an alien concept that seemingly has very little value beyond the physical effects.
Very much like traditional activities, such as popular sports, the narrative is always about the health benefits. It is rarely about the inherent beauty that is an integral character of the activity, or about the joy of movement that is experienced in the participation of a journey. The transcendental value and the expansive power to the mind is overlooked, as the focus is on the physical.
I believe the 'power' of expeditions (however modest) into the wild, beautiful and natural landscapes; where you are surrounded by the creations of nature (as opposed to Man), where the design is not that of the human mind, but that of the world - not only strengthens us mentally and physically, but also helps to develop a greater respect and sympathy of the world we share with others.
That's why I walk a lot ;-)
The Journey
One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice--
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do--
determined to save
the only life you could save.
Mary Oliver