Like most people who spend a large amount of time around computers, I have a series of websites that I visit. Some of these are nearly every day (or at least every time I get online). Some of them are only once or twice a year.
One such annual page is York Stories, a lovely page about wandering around York. It's part blog, part tourist guide, part guided walk list and basically a wonderful site. So I was very interested to see the authors thoughts on walking in winter.
Obviously with the return of the walk to work I've had a bit more freetime to just generally think about walking, and I think they've got it wrong. Yes, there are plenty of walks about the outside world. Walks where you see and do. But at this time of year the walk has to be less about the outside and more about the inside.
Because there's something about the rhythm of walking that makes it almost meditative. It switches off part of your brain, and you find yourself floating along, moving without thought or direction until the destination is reached.
There's a wonderful quote from the West Wing "At night we become poets". Okay, it's a wonderful quote in context then, but I think it's true of walking as well.
When we walk we become poets, and the entire vagaries of life are met and matched by our stride.
1 comment:
and thus you summarise the ancient wisdom of the labyrinth...
Like the maze thing at the top of the hill we went to.
Give your body a simple repetitive task - one foot in front of the other, follow the path - then it frees your mind for all sorts of wonderful things...
Post a Comment