Ancient Wisdom: #3 Engage Nature by Walking |
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Description: Nature is everywhere. I often find her in the smallest places, along busy roads, cracks in sidewalks, or hanging onto buildings. Nature is squeezing thru and is always ready when we need her. She is a great teacher. One of my favorite ways to engage nature is by walking. Walking gives me time to reflect and escape the madness of our high-tech world. The rapid growth of science and technology during the 18th century fueled the growth of civilization, giving people the false impression that they could conquer nature and outsmart her wisdom. As a reaction to this approach, philosophers, poets and artists had a renewed interest in nature. For example Lord Byron published a lengthy narrative poem (Childe Harold's Pilgrimage 1812-1818) that used nature as a distraction from the wars of the post-Revolutionary and Napolenic eras. The words resonate, as if they were written today. (Canto Four, Stanza 178) http://www.rc.umd.edu/editions/poets/texts/childeharold.html "There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, There is a rapture on the lonely shore, There is society, where none intrudes, By the deep sea, and music in its roar, I love not man the less, but Nature more, From these our interviews, in which I steal From all I may be, or have been before, To mingle with the Universe, and feel What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal." American writers such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau expanded on these thoughts. Thoreau even wrote an essay (1862) that championed the simple act of taking a stroll through nature. http://www.bartleby.com/28/15.html. Excerpts are quoted below: "I think that I cannot preserve my health and spirits, unless I spend four hours a day at least --and it is commonly more thant that -- sauntering through the woods and over the hills and fields, absolutely free from all wordily engagements. "But the walking of which I speak has nothing in it akin to taking exercise, as it is called, as the sick take medicine at stated hours - as the Swinging of dumb-bells or chairs; but is itself the enterprise and adventure of the day. If you would get exercise, go in search of the springs of life. Think of a man's swing dumbbells for his health, when those springs are bubbling up in far-off pastures unsought by him! "Moreover, you must walk like a camel, which is said to be the only beast which ruminates when walking. When a traveler asked Wordsorth's servant to who him her master's study, she answered, "Here is his library, but his study is out of doors." Thoreau was intersted in wild nature, not nature that has been tamed with man's improvements. The wilderness should be available to everyone and be public. His predictions are interesting about the evil days that may come, when the walker has little freedom: "But possibly the day will come it will be partitioned off into so-called pleasure grounds, in which a few will take a narrow and exclusive pleasure onlyl- when fences shall be multiplied, and man-traps and other engines invented to confine men to the PUBLIC road, and walking over the surface of God's earth shall be construed to mean trespassing on some gentleman's grounds. To enjoy a thing exclusively is commonly to exclude yourself from the true enjoyment of it. Let us improve our opportunities, then, before the evil days come." Later in his essay, Thoreau talked about his preferred direction to walk. And of course, he preferred going west, where in North America, there was less civilization and more grand open space with untamed wilderness. "The west of which I speak is but another name for the Wild; and what I have been preparing to say is, that in Wilderness is the preservation of the World. "Give me the ocean, the desert, or the wilderness! In the desert, pure air and solitude compensate for want of moisture and fertility. The traveler Burton say of it " Your MORALE improves; you become grand and cordial, hospitable and single-minded.... In the desert, spirituous liquos elite only disgust. There is a keen enjoyment in a mere animal existence." Rest assured, however, nature is always present, even in large cities. Her untamed wildlife move freely through the crevices of civilization. We often relax by listening to her bird songs. Less we not forget her lessons, nature occasionally reminds us of her awesome power with earthquakes, floods and fire. So remember to follow nature's lead. Until Next time, PEACE. Videography by Ken Kramm, USA, December 2013. "Dan Hefferan's Jig" Creative Commons ShareAlike 1.0 License http://heftone.com/orchestra/ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay/ Public domain readings from Childe Harold's Pilgrimage: Canto IV and Walking: https://librivox.org. Public domain pictures of Lord Byron and Henry David Thoreau. 
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