Learning to Walk

“With each step, take refuge in Mother Earth.”

The first thing I notice is that I’m following my shadow. This has always been a shady chamber of tall white pines, but one of the grandfathers has fallen, and new and sunlit growth surrounds the path through Holt/Kinney Woods. In Kay Holt’s childhood, she knew this as a six-acre blueberry meadow. The pines checked in after the hurricane of 1938. Now there are more new tenants too. Who will move in after another decade? I spent nine years as steward here, but it’s been five more, and I have joyfully explored every other Joshua’s Trust property instead of this one.

I’m looking into the past today, both my own and this preserve’s ecological and human history, and I’m seeing its future in the process of becoming. It’s familiar yet different. I this place with fresh eyes, an unexpected gift. My purpose in today’s hike has been to learn “How to Walk”, the Buddhist meditation in Thich Nhat Hahn’s (Tick N’yat Hahn) book of that name, a present from Lisa Dahn. As he suggests, “The first thing to do is lift your foot. Breathe in. Put your foot down.” Beyond these simple words, of course, lies the implication that one is therefore not thinking about one’s worry, pain, shopping list, goals or joys. Not thinking. Just walking the earth.

The next thing I notice is that I’m noticing things around me like I always do, the events of today’s woodland. The sun on my back. Dried pine needle aroma. A Barred Owl feather. Does too much noticing negate awareness? Did my noticing the forest evolution from past to present negate the “present” (where I’m supposed to be)? Dunno. I’ll need to try harder. And trying, of course, won’t work either. My mind has been hurrying ahead of my feet. I try to let my shadow lead me.

It’s such a good thought I need to scribble it down, and the whole blog here forms in my mind. As I pull out my little notebook, I have to laugh at myself. Blew it again. Cicadas drone their own mantras and a deerfly lands on my neck. Writing these words later (now) – in the present tense – makes about as much sense as a Zen koan. Got that?

The forest is winding down now in a dry midsummer. It’s almost silent. Mushrooms procrastinate instead of erupting from the soil. The brook dawdles. I write, sitting at peace on the bridge inhaling water molecules. Hahn says: “wherever we are can be a holy sanctuary”. Mosquitoes convince me to move along. A sculpin darts away upstream as I stand. Maybe I’m walking with not just feet but eyes, nose, skin. And memory. I’ve hoofed it here 40-50 times, since its introduction by Tony Holt, in all seasons. Here’s the fork in the maple where somebody long ago wedged a deer hoof for some odd reason. Just before the bridge, where raised roots create a muddy mess, I had a UConn student crew swipe appropriate rocks off the old stone wall and fill in the gaps like a jigsaw puzzle. Here’s the place where a tree fell across the trail, and there was such an easy way around it that I left it there and made a horseshoe bend in the trail (see if you can find it, kids).

Kay’s Meadow is a lovely contrast in dazzling sun. I find myself greeting the original owners and stewards: “Hi again, Kay and Tony”. On the way back, I am hot and sweaty and so bushwhack my way in a straight line through waist-high ferns to save time and energy. It backfires. Upon arriving home, I discover that the page with all my notes on it…has disappeared.

I have little confidence in my cosmic abilities, but when I went back the following morning prepared to slog again through the tall wet undergrowth, the note lay in the parking area. Apparently, it’s still possible to be in harmony with the universe.

George Jacobi

Join me; let’s try this again. On September 20, Lisa Dahn and I will lead a hike at 9AM at Friedman Forest. We will try to follow Hahn’s quiet walking meditation, pausing a few times to read passages and discuss how it’s working out – what we feel and think, see and hear, in our interaction with the earth. No Buddhism necessary. Information on our website.