Eidolon

The final poem of Levertov's I'll cite is, once again, evocative of Rilke. 

Variation on a Theme by Rilke

(The Book of Hours, Book I, #15)

With chips and shards, rubble of being,
we construct
                    not You but our hope of You.
We say - we dustmotes in the cosmos -
'You dome, arching above us!':
as if You were the sanctuary
by which we seek to define You.

Our cities pulverize, proud technologies
spawn catastrophe. The jaws of our inventions
snap down and lock.
                                Their purpose will be forgotten;
Time is aeons
and we live in minutes,
flies on a windowpane.

Who can conceive the span of You,
great vault, ribbed cauldron slung beneath the abyss,
cage of eternity?

Metaphors shatter, mirrors of poverty.

But something in us, while the millenia
monotonously pass
                              and pass,
hungers to offer up
our specks of life as fragile tesserae
towards the vast mosaic - temple, eidolon;

to be, ourselves, imbedded in its fabric,
as if, once, it was from that we were broken off.

Levertov tries to use language to capture some small inkling of the Divine (not You but our hope of You - even the hope of the Divine is almost impossible to construct with our inadequate language and imagination, let alone the Divine itself). This process is difficult, but Levertov carries on nevertheless. She admits metaphors shatter when faced with the span of You, yet she continues with her poem, with her metaphors, as these are all she has: great vault, ribbed cauldron slung beneath the abyss, / cage of eternity?

She notes in apocalyptic fashion the insubstantiality of human empires and the destructive power of some modern technologies (Levertov was a passionate anti-war and anti-nuclear campaigner), and is acutely aware of how small and feeble we are in the context of Time and the Universe.

Yet those wonderful last two stanzas reinforce the human hunger and hope we all have, the leitmotif which runs through all of Levertov and Rilke: even if our specks of life are mere fragile tesserae, we long for wholeness and to be a part (again?) of the vast mosaic.

Through a transforming imagination we can find a path (unclear as it may be) to spirit; poetry (and prayer) can provide a link - weak as it may be - to the inexpressible mystery.   

Small Stones

According to Fiona Robyn 'small stones' are bite-sized truffles of poetry celebrating the extraordinary in the everyday and the ordinary... Or, as she puts it another way, a 'small stone' is a polished moment of paying proper attention. I thought I'd have a go at writing some.

--------------------

a smeared knife
an empty shell
one single soldier left -

delicious
that boiled egg

--------------------

toaster still warm
bread crumbs on the floor
coffee cup rings
half-open door -
missing you already

--------------------

fenugreek
is more fragrant
though saffron
sounds fragranter

--------------------

serried ranks of trees:
today's green army
tomorrow's dream kitchen

--------------------

Rilke's bell

Strike me alive
Clap me round the ears:
I am, I am, I am

--------------------

A new 'small stone' from blog-poets around the world appears every day in the Handful of Stones widget on my sidebar.

Supermarket Shrine

Up and down the aisles
we search for God
among the apples and the pomegranates.

 Approaching the checkout,
altar of our desires,
we present our offerings:

one cut-price candle,
two loaves of bread
long past their sell-by date,
a case of New World wine.

(Thanks to Trevor Woodford at Aura Of Past Shadows for the photo, which shows a new branch of Tesco housed in the old Methodist church, Westbourne, Bournemouth.)

I Am, I Can

Ring them bells so the world will know / That God is one BOB DYLAN Ring Them Bells

Part Two, Sonnet XXIX

Quiet friend who has come so far,
feel how your breathing makes more space around you.
Let this darkness be a bell tower
and you the bell. As you ring,

what batters you becomes your strength.
Move back and forth into the change.
What is it like, such intensity of pain?
If the drink is bitter, turn yourself to wine.

In this uncontainable night,
be the mystery at the crossroads of your senses,
the meaning discovered there.

And if the world has ceased to hear you,
say to the silent Earth: I flow.
To the rushing water, speak: I am.  

RILKE The Sonnets To Orpheus (translated by Joanna Macy)

Variation on a Theme by Rilke

(The Book Of Hours, Book I, Poem 1, Stanza 1)

A certain day became a presence to me;
there it was, confronting me - a sky, air, light:
a being. And before it started to descend
from the height of noon, it leaned over
and struck my shoulder as if with
the flat of a sword, granting me
honor and a task. The day's blow
rang out, metallic - or it was I, a bell awakened,
and what I heard was my whole self
saying and singing what it knew: I can.

DENISE LEVERTOV Breathing The Water

Denise Levertov wrote several poems with the title Variation On A Theme By Rilke, and I thought it might be interesting to pair one of them with a Rilke poem (not the one from The Book Of Hours which directly influenced this Variation, but the last sonnet from The Sonnets To Orpheus.) As you can see, there are some striking correspondences.

The image of the bell is central to both poems, and each poem ends with a declarative I am or I can. Rilke's poem is set at night, Levertov's by day - which is rather neat, as the symbolic resonance of the bell itself unifies all polarities: the bell summons us to both contemplative prayer and interrogative reflection, to both mourning and celebration; and is therefore an audible marker of both joy and sorrow, life and death, day and night.

Rilke's sonnet contains the idea that suffering is an inevitable, indeed necessary part of life. We are all bells rocking this way and that, buffeted by life. And the bruising clapper of the bell strikes us painfully but resoundingly awake. There's also the idea that this transformative experience is not some random event we have to await passively, but that we can influence events ourselves by moving back and forth, by turning ourselves to wine, by saying to the silent earth: I flow. The wonderful, self-willed assertion of I am at the end of the poem affirms the meaning, importance and ultimate wholeness of our individual existence - despite the enigmatic silence of nature and the indifference of the rest of the world.

Levertov's own poem contains a similar idea - though her transformation of self seems to be more an awakening to a whole self that was already there: less self-willed, and more the result of the action of an outside agency, granted as if with / the flat of a sword.    

God And The Imagination

I make no apology for posting again on my blog this wonderful concluding paragraph from one of Denise Levertov's essays...

This acknowledgement, and celebration, of mystery probably constitutes the most consistent theme of my poetry from its very beginnings. Because it is a matter of which I am conscious, it is possible, however imprecisely, to call it an intellectual position; but it is one which emphasizes the incapacity of reason alone (much though I delight in elegant logic) to comprehend experience, and considers Imagination the chief of human faculties. It must therefore be by the exercise of that faculty that one moves toward faith, and possibly by its failure that one rejects it as delusion. Poems present their testimony as circumstantial evidences, not as closing argument. Where Wallace Stevens says, 'God and the imagination are one', I would say that the imagination, which synergizes intellect, emotion and instinct, is the perceptive organ through which it is possible, though not inevitable, to experience God.

DENISE LEVERTOV A Poet's View

The following poems I've also posted before, and I love them. They mean so much to me. No call for analysis or interpretation: I feel it would diminish the magic of their brief but eternal beauty, their clarity, their mystery, their truth, their numinous presence. For me, poetry doesn't get much better than this.

Of Being

I know this happiness
is provisional:

           the looming presences -
           great suffering, great fear -

           withdraw only
           into peripheral vision:

but ineluctable this shimmering
of wind in the blue leaves;

this flood of stillness
widening the lake of sky:

this need to dance,
this need to kneel:
                          this mystery:

DENISE LEVERTOV Oblique Prayers


Living

The fire in leaf and grass
so green it seems
each summer the last summer.

The wind blowing, the leaves
shivering in the sun,
each day the last day.

A red salamander
so cold and so
easy to catch, dreamily

moves his delicate feet
and long tail. I hold
my hand open for him to go.

Each minute the last minute.

DENISE LEVERTOV The Sorrow Dance

Dragonfly Blue

Poetry is the silent voice that is heard everywhere inside of us. UNKNOWN

To Rilke

Once, in a dream,
                               the boat
pushed off from the shore.
You at the prow were the man -
all voice, though silent - who bound
rowers and voyagers to the needful journey,
the veiled distance, imperative mystery.

All the crouched effort,
          creak of oarlocks, odor of sweat,
          sound of waters
          running against us
was transcended: your gaze
held as we crossed. Its dragonfly blue
restored to us
                         a shimmering destination.

I had not read of your Nile journey,
the enabling voice
drawing that boat upstream in your parable.
Strange that I knew
your silence was just such a song.

DENISE LEVERTOV A Door In The Hive

To Rilke is the very first poem in Denise Levertov's 1989 collection, A Door In The Hive. Just a few thoughts that occur to me...

Rilke was a keen traveller, visiting France, Switzerland, Austria, Italy, Spain, Russia, Scandanavia and North Africa. He actually did make a trip up the Nile - in a felucca with sixteen oarsmen. During this time he immersed himself in Egypt's culture and mythology, and his fascination with the Egyptian cult of the dead became a major influence behind his great work, Duino Elegies.

In traditional Nile boats the man in the prow would 'sing' from time to time - it was a kind of unearthly, wordless vocalisation - and this 'song' was supposed to assist the boat upstream in its battle against the current. Hence the enabling voice. But Levertov, in her poem, makes a connection between the Nile 'singer' and Rilke in the prow of her dream-boat. Just like the prow-singer's voice, Rilke's voice - his poetic voice - is also enabling. This poetic voice can counter prevailing currents, can help us  see more clearly. This is the voice of the seer and the Romantic poet, the poet of Shelley's assertion that Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.

However, there is one important difference. Unlike the prow-singer's voice, the Rilkean voice of Levertov's dream is silent. And Rilke's gaze seems even more eloquent than his silence: ... your gaze / held as we crossed. Its dragonfly blue / restored to us / a shimmering destination. (By the way, how wonderful that dragonfly blue: the one transforming streak of colour - and how necessary and uplifting that splash of colour - in this misty, mysterious, toiling dream-world.)

Perhaps Rilke's voice is silent because poetry is the silent voice that is heard everywhere inside of us? Perhaps his silent voice speaks of his creative, interior transformation of the world - it's his inner voice? Perhaps this is the still, silent voice of God? (Or of Orpheus having left his lyre at home that day?) Whatever our interpretation - of course, his voice is not silent. It sings.

I cannot read this poem without thinking of the mythical Charon ferrying souls across the river Styx from the Earth to the Underworld. Or of Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha working with the ferryman Vasudeva and gaining enlightenment from the river.

And that mystical blue keeps flashing before my eyes... Blue, the colour of German Romanticism, symbol of love and desire, the infinite and the unreachable...

Through A Glass, Darkly

Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the angelic
orders? And even if one of them pressed me
suddenly to his heart: I'd be consumed
in his stronger existence. For beauty is nothing
but the beginning of terror, which we can just barely endure,
and we stand in awe of it as it coolly disdains
to destroy us. Every angel is terrifying.

RILKE The First Elegy from Duino Elegies (translated by EDWARD SNOW)

Where Is The Angel?

Where is the angel for me to wrestle?
No driving snow in the glass bubble,
but mild September.

Outside, the stark shadows
menace, and fling their huge arms about
unheard. I breathe

a tepid air, the blur
of asters, of brown fern and gold-dust
seems to murmur,

and that's what I hear, only that.
Such clear walls of curved glass:
I see the violent gesticulations

and feel - no, not nothing. But in this
gentle haze, nothing commensurate.
It is pleasant in here. History

mouths, volume turned off. A band of iron,
like they put round a split tree,
circles my heart. In here

it is pleasant, but when I open
my mouth to speak, I too
am soundless. Where is the angel

to wrestle with me and wound
not my thigh but my throat,
so curses and blessings flow storming out
and the glass shatters and the iron sunders?

DENISE LEVERTOV A Door In The Hive

Inspired by the current readings in A Year With Rilke, I thought it might be illuminating to explore a little the relationship between Rilke and Denise Levertov - in my view one of the finest, profoundest, most spiritually questing American poets of the last century. She's on record as considering Rilke her mentor, and many of her poems bear direct or indirect testament to this.

The angel in the poem above is recognisably Rilke's angel. (The title of the 1989 poetry collection from which it comes, A Door In The Hive, is undoubtedly an allusion to Rilke's notion of 'The Bees of the Invisible': We are the bees of the invisible. We ceaselessly gather the honey of the visible to store it in the great golden hive of the Invisible. RILKE)

Far be it from me to give - or even to be able to give - an in-depth analysis of this poem, but here are some freewheeling thoughts and impressions written quickly and 'on the hoof'.

Where is Levertov here? It seems she could be in her car, stuck in the driving snow. But perhaps this glass bubble could also be a house - or even her body, or any 'safe' constructed world? (I'm reminded at once of Paul Simon's song, The Boy In The Bubble.)

There's no doubt that the world outside this bubble is uneasily threatening, violent even. Inside the bubble it's tepid, safe, but, to a great extent, cut off from feeling and a harsher yet more splendid reality. Inside it's a more pallid, altogether different order of existence (nothing commensurate). The whole world of history is out there, but its cries are muted (volume turned off).

In a further analogy of alienation, imprisonment and non-participation, Levertov likens herself to a split tree with a band of iron around it. This suggests perhaps the division of the human psyche, the mind/body duality of Descartes, the divorcing of reason and emotion, the mind and the spirit, the mundane/temporal and the eternal/divine.

Within this bubble world she is speechless. She wants to speak, but no sound is uttered. She wants to speak, but, in her present position, no angel comes to wrestle with her, to free her voice. And if that angel came, she says, it would be a wounding, physical, visceral encounter - but an encounter so momentous, so all-encompassing, so full of both curses and blessings (the two polarities absolutely essential to the whole of experience, the joy and the despair, the heaven and hell) that it would shatter the glass, break the iron bond, and release her into the whole, into reality, into creativity, into - ecstasy?

I would be really interested in anyone else's response to this extraordinary poem. 

The Road Forward



Camino, Spain



A night full of talking that hurts, / my worst held-back secrets. Everything / has to do with loving and not loving. / This night will pass. / Then we have work to do. RUMI

I have a dose of blogger's block. But I'm not worried. Like an attack of mild depression, I know it will pass. I've been blogging regularly and intensively for several months. Now something's telling me to stand back a little and reflect on 'Life, the Universe and Everything.'  Besides, there's not a lot of point in blogging unless one has something to say and is eager to communicate it. Blogging is not a duty or an obligation. From my own point of view, blogging is an act of love and joy, a release of the self and from the self, a reciprocal process of giving and receiving, a freedom of expression, a glorious anarchy, a mysterious alchemy. A blog is not art, nor is it a journal or a column or a letter or a commonplace book; it's not a prose poem, nor a stream of consciousness, nor a means of therapy  - though it can contain elements of all these. But it can't be any of these things successfully if it's not done enthusiastically and fairly spontaneously. Blogs which are forced, or have ulterior motives, or want to sell you something, or don't tell the truth, or don't come from the heart, stick out a mile as not genuine, and no one wants to read them. 

Truth to tell, after several difficult and turbulent years - which saw the death of both my parents - this is a watershed year for my wife and I. Changes are happening and we want to embrace them. It's a year when we're making decisions rather than postponing them, when we're putting down roots rather than being blown about in the wind. After endless debates about whether to move house or not, and whether to go and live in France or Spain, we've decided to stay where we are. It's good here in the village. We're lucky to have a nice house and garden with the mortgage paid off. So why move? I think you have to have a compelling reason to do so. It can also be very expensive and stressful. So now we've plans to do stuff to our existing house and garden - to create a bigger and better vegetable plot for one thing, and to try and be more self-sufficient. I've embarked on a new career too. I'm starting a proofreading and copy-editing course soon, which will hopefully lead to plenty of freelance work. I've also got a new Roland keyboard, so I'm playing again. And, of course, all the great pleasures in my life - reading, writing, walking, blogging, eating Marmite - will continue. 

Looks like my blogger's block has been broken, doesn't it? Seems like I just can't keep quiet for long..!

Walking, Art And Nature (10)



Camino, Spain


I think that I cannot preserve my health and spirits, unless I spend four hours a day at least - and it is commonly more than that - sauntering through the woods and over the hills and fields, absolutely free from all worldly engagements. THOREAU Walking

The political philosopher and educationalist Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) believed that human beings were inherently good, and that they were only corrupted by the evils of society. He gradually lived an ever simpler life, becoming closer and closer to nature, studying botany, and enjoying the solitary walks he recounted in his ten, classic meditations Reveries Of The Solitary Walker.

Walking, art and nature - these three things are so bound up in Rousseau, and, since his time, have been inextricably linked.  



Camino, Spain

Walking, art and nature. We think of Thoreau's ecstasies in Walden and in his Journals; the mystical outpourings of Richard Jefferies in The Story Of My Heart; William Wordsworth's 'emotion recollected in tranquillity'; the labourer-poet John Clare's walks among the dispossessed pastures of English agricultural history; Gary Syder's Beat and Buddhist mountain treks; Richard Mabey's gentle, literary eco-strolls through the Chilterns and Norfolk; Robert Macfarlane's explorations on foot of Britain's wild places; John Constable walking and painting in Dedham Vale; JMW Turner walking and painting in Europe.    



Camino, Spain

As well as walking in nature being an inspiration for art and literature, walking itself can be an art form in its own right. Richard Long, whom I've written about before, gives walking a totemic resonance through natural artworks created on the walk, or even through the signature of the actual walk itself: its mark, footprint and track across the landscape.

 

Camino, Spain

Sadly (for me at least!) I've reached the end of my ten-part journey through walking country. I hope some of it has been inspirational, or at least informative. Most of all I hope that's it's motivated you to go walking, or, if you're walkers already (which I know many of you are), to go walking even more. It's a land without class, without prejudice, without materialism, without competition, without complication, without compromise, without celebrity culture, without bonds. Rousseau famously wrote at the beginning of The Social Contract: Man is born free, but everywhere he is in chains. Why don't you throw off those chains, and start walking?



Caparra, Via de la Plata, Spain



Here's the Roman arch at Caparra in the Spanish region of Extremadura. I walked under it nearly a year ago on my pilgrimage along the Via de la Plata. Why don't you join me as I step beneath it again, right now? Let's walk together towards those distant hills, that blue horizon. You never know what we might find... 

Caparra, Via de la Plata, Spain

Walking Pilgrimages (9)

Santiago Cathedral

The idea of pilgrimage is much older than Christianity, but always it has been an expression of the same two main concepts: that of making a pilgrimage by travelling to a specific geographical site, and that of being on a perpetual pilgrimage; the journey that is life itself. Both are the pursuit of a greater good than mere existence, and both involve discomfort and hardship, if not a much overworked word, peril. To view life as a pilgrimage is, in part, a description of life as a result of living it... MARGARET PAWLEY Prayers For Pilgrims



Camino,Spain

I'm just the latest in a very long tradition of pilgrims, to Rome and many other places, for any of a dozen reasons. My own reason for pilgrimage was gratitude for a favour granted. Those who went before me have all had reasons of their own. We've taken to the road with causes, and results, as varied as our routes. DENNIS LARKIN A Walk To Rome



Camino,Spain



Pilgrimage, the journey to a distant sacred goal, is found in all the great religions of the world. It is a journey both outwards, to new, strange, dangerous places, and inwards, to spiritual improvement, whether through increased self-knowledge or through the braving of physical dangers. RICHARD BARBER Pilgrimages

Camino, Spain

In Richard Barber's book Pilgrimages he describes many different pilgrimage traditions throughout the world: Jewish, Christian and Moslem pilgrimages to Jerusalem; the Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca; Christian routes to Canterbury and Rome, to Santiago de Compostela in north-west Spain, to Fatima in Portugal, to Lourdes in France, and to many other European shrines; the Hindu pilgrimage to Benares in India; and Buddhist pilgrimages to shrines and stupas in India, China and Tibet. (The Buddha's ashes are distributed among eight different stupas, or dome-shaped cairns, in India.)

Camino, Spain



I myself have trekked three pilgrimage routes: one from Le Puy in France to Santiago in Spain; one from Arles in France to Puente la Reina in Spain; and one from Seville along the Via de la Plata to La Gudina, just short of Santiago. That's a total distance of more than 2000 miles. (Links to these walks are in my sidebar.)

Camino, Spain



Walking As A Cultural And Aesthetic Act (8)

Camino, Spain

Nowadays we take it for granted that walking is a laudable pastime and recreational activity. We tend to give a positive nod to the walkers we see: they are taking exercise, they are getting out in the fresh air, they are enjoying being part of nature. All Good Things. It was not always thus.

Up until the late eighteenth century no one walked unless they could help it, unless they were poor and could not afford horse, carriage or coach. And, for the ubiquitous poor, walking was not always a pleasurable pursuit. It was a means to an end, not an end in itself - the practical, indeed the only way to drive cattle and pigs to market, to reach crops grown on feudal agricultural strips, to visit friends and family. Beyond the village, routes were uncertain, if not dangerous. Highwaymen and footpads roamed the highways and byways, and folk in other settlements could be suspicious of, or downright hostile to, strangers. Even as late as 1782 the German minister Carl Moritz, walking across England, found himself abused by innkeepers, and ejected from hostelries where he wished to spend the night. His crime? He was on foot! He wrote: A traveller on foot in this country seems to be considered as a sort of wild man, or an out-of-the-way being, who is stared at, pitied, suspected, and shunned by everybody that meets him.

But, by the early nineteenth century, all of this had changed. Influenced by the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who originated the idea of the 'noble savage' living free and uncorrupted in the wild, poets and writers like William Wordsworth and Henry David Thoreau wholeheartedly embraced the cultural, aesthetic and moral value of nature. And, to get close to nature, you had to walk through it. Thoreau's two-year sojourn in a hut by Walden Pond in Concord, Massachusetts, is well known. He wrote: When we walk, we naturally go to the fields and the woods: what would become of us, if we walked only in a garden or a mall?

And Wordsworth - often accompanied by his sister, Dorothy, or fellow Romantics like Coleridge or De Quincey - must have walked tens of thousands of miles during his lifetime. He would regularly cover fifteen or twenty miles a day, and, even when at home in his Lakeland cottage, would stride endlessly up and down the garden in a creative reverie. Walking in nature gave him solace and inspiration, and he would commonly compose his poems while walking, rather than at his desk. To return to Thoreau, Thoreau also wrote: When a traveler asked Wordsworth's servant to show him her master's study, she answered, 'Here is his library, but his study is out of doors.' Wordsworth's masterpiece of a poem, The Prelude, is really just a long walk in words. 

Throughout the nineteenth century, this walking lark really caught on. Tourism was invented - helped by the boom of the railways - and people travelled further, and walked further, to admire and be awestruck at picturesque views, raging cataracts and terrifying mountain scenery. Hikers and climbers started to explore the European Alps and other mountain chains. Souvenirs were manufactured, and cameras began to record it all. The activity of walking also began to appear in the literature of the day. If you read Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice or Thomas Hardy's Tess of the d'Urbervilles, you'll find they are full of people walking.

The Zen Of Walking (7)



Camino, Spain



Emptiness is the track on which the centred person moves. TSONG KHAPA

The self may not be something, but neither is it nothing. STEPHEN BATCHELOR Buddhism Without Beliefs

Now forget the schema of yesterday's post, forget the framework and the grand design, forget the concept of the path as riddle, metaphor, labyrinth, truth. Forget the arguments, the reasoning, the justifications, the mental constructs of personality, belief, philosophy. Forget it all. For these are mind-illusions, every one.

It's early morning on the Spanish Camino. There's a smell of fresh coffee wafting from the albergue's kitchen and the sound of pilgrims stirring. There's a CD gently playing - opera, I think, Verdi or Puccini - and the trickle of showers and the murmuration of a dozen different languages being spoken. Bring your body, bring your mind fresh to the table, a tabula rasa, fresh from sleep, cleansed of plaguing negative thoughts and emotions. Accept what is, embrace the here and now: the flies buzzing, the hungover hospitalero, the friendly Dutch girl, the serious German, the shy Norwegian, the voluble Italian, the awful coffee, the cheap biscuits. This is it. This is all there ever is. The here and now.

Forget the journey. And the destination. Forget yourself. (What is yourself, anyway?) Forget all those crippling, uncontrollable thoughts and emotions which arise, unbidden, and flood your mind for most of the time. Actually - don't forget them. But watch them come and go, observe them rise into your consciousness,  then subside. Study them with a certain casualness, detachment, even humour. Are they really so important after all? All those regrets, longings, disappointments, loves and hates, feelings of anger and resentment, ambitions, perceptions of failure, grand designs? They come and they go, like dandelion seed in the wind, like driftwood on the river.

The fact is that our real, our most profound journey of discovery - of the world and of the self - is not a real journey at all, as we normally understand the term, involving movement and direction. It's a journey into immediacy and nearness, into the here and now. To make this journey is not actually so difficult, but we need to realise three things, as Steve Hagen says in his book Buddhism Plain And Simple: First, you must truly realize that life is fleeting. Next you must understand that you are already complete, worthy, whole. Finally, you must see that you are your own refuge, your own sanctuary, your own salvation.

The journey starts and ends in us. We may not yet know it, but we have already arrived at our destination. We are already enlightened, if we could only unblock our vision. Santiago, Rome, Jerusalem, Chimayo, Mecca, Uluru. These are just pegs upon which to hang our walk, our pilgrimage; to give us some intellectual and emotional satisfaction, some idea of achievement, some physical, tangible goal, some credence for our mythical walking stories. The real destination is the here and now. Now, now and now. Always now. Right here. And right now.

The Spiritual Nature Of Walking (6)

Camino, Spain



The dictionary defines 'spiritual' (which comes from the Latin 'spiritus', meaning 'breath') as relating to, consisting of or having the nature of spirit; not tangible or material; concerned with or affecting the soul; of, from or relating to God; of or belonging to a church or religion; sacred; supernatural.

I think some of us may be slightly hestitant in using with confidence the words 'spiritual' and 'sacred' these days, loaded as they are with theological, specifically Judaeo-Christian meanings. But I say it's time to liberate these words. Indeed, this process of liberation and democratisation has been happening for quite a while. As more and more new-age cults and philosophies take hold, as we rediscover ancient beliefs and practices such as druidism or paganism, as we broaden our interest in and understanding of many different world religions, the idea of what is spiritual and sacred has widened and become more universal.

For instance, the belief in the sacred, spiritual aspects of nature - with the implication that nature should therefore be respected and protected - is widespread (think of Native American culture, wilderness writing, TV wildlife documentaries, political eco-warriors). Unfortunately, though these ideas are now more mainstream, there's still an enormous, seemingly impossible mountain to climb when faced with the power and vested interests of multi-national companies, corrupt governments, greedy, uncontrolled capitalism, and all the rest. But I digress.

For me the greatest rewards of walking are its spiritual ones. Sure, walking can tone and toughen the body, soothe the mind, calm our neuroses, reduce our stress levels, provoke our sense of curiosity and wonder. But without a greater framework - you can call it a symbolic, metaphorical, metaphysical, artistic, imaginative, religious or spiritual one, I don't think it matters - a long walk may simply be just that: a long walk. It seems to be a human need and necessity to impart some kind of personal myth or 'guiding fiction' to our lives (read Loren Webster's excellent post on this here), and a long walk is an ideal method of doing this.

We can layer our walk with a myriad of meanings and significances. When recounting our walk-story to others we may raise it to the level of a myth or a fable. Funny how we exaggerate some bits but leave out other bits, isn't it? (It's interesting to ponder on what parts we include, what parts we discount, what parts we embellish, and why we do this.) Perhaps we interpret our walk as a quest, a pilgrimage, a labyrinth, a metaphorical path bristling with symbols, a trip through Dante's 'dark wood', soul-wanderings, or Stations of the Cross. Whatever our interpretations, it's a fact that both our inner and outer journeys tend to become entwined, and feed into and enrich one other.

I'm afraid I just can't contemplate a long walk, which may take up a great deal of my time and energy, as simply a way of getting from A to Z during the course of which I might admire some views, suffer muscle fatigue, chat with a few people and drink rather too much wine. Oh no, it has to be some grand design for me! I'm made that way. My mind won't accept it's no more than a long, dusty trail. It flies off continually at all kinds of imaginative tangents, making all sorts of crazy and fantastic connections.

For walking will not allow us to be mere walkers; the vital breath (the 'spiritus', or the Sanskrit 'pranha', or the Chinese 'qi') of nature, the land and the landscape  - invisible, intangible, life-giving, all-important - fills our lungs and our hearts, and in doing so restores our inner being, which is also our spiritual being and our sacred ground.

Walking: Curiosity And Discovery (5)

Camino, Spain

The most soulful places are almost always reached only on foot. THE SOLITARY WALKER

I've written about the health benefits of walking, both physical and mental; about walking as an escape hatch from the demands of society and a fast-paced world; about the therapeutic value of walking; about walking as an aid to meditation; about how the simplicity of walking strips everything down to life's bare and necessary essentials. But what actually is the basic, primal driving force behind our desire to put one foot in front of the other, endlessly?

I believe it's curiosity. As human beings we are naturally curious. I know I am. I always want to know what's around the next bend, what's at the top of the hill, what lies beyond the horizon. Or even just what's at the end of the garden. Without any excited sense of expectancy, of insatiable curiosity, walking would be in danger of becoming a mere treadmill. Curiosity keeps our minds sharp, our senses finely tuned; keeps us alive.

It's limitless what is waiting to be discovered, explored and learnt through walking. And walking - in its immediacy and simplicity, its freedom and flexibility - is, I'm convinced, the best way to grasp the world. Not only can walking take you to places most other methods of transport can't reach, but it gives you an inimitably physical, visceral, hands-on experience of the journey. Whenever I'm on a long walk, my senses gradually become more alert as each day goes by. As I slowly lose the built-up fumes of contemporary industrialised, mechanised, homogenised 'civilisation', my mind begins to see more clearly, I can breathe more easily, I rediscover senses - smell, taste, touch - which have been long muted, I rejoice in the freedom of what I'm doing, I melt into the unique presence of each moment, I'm glad to be alive. As Whitman wrote: I celebrate myself and I sing the body electric. And as Thoreau said: Talk of mysteries! — Think of our life in nature, — daily to be shown matter, to come in contact with it, — rocks, trees, wind on our cheeks! The solid earth! the actual world! the common sense! Contact! Contact!

Walking day after day in a new country is a wonderful way to appreciate it, to get to grips with it, to comprehend it in a profound way. I know from my own experience that I feel I 'know' England and France and Spain in a wholly different way by walking across them, by feeling their earth under my feet and their dirt under my fingernails, than by cruising through them in car, coach or train. In walking you go at Nature's pace, slow and deep. You encounter Nature one-to-one.The barriers between you and Nature, between you and other people, are down. Your feet are planted right there, in the puddles and the mud, on the piney forest floor, on the springy downland turf, in the sand at the edge of the sea. It's instinctive, it's primitive, and it somehow feels just right.

The Simplicity Of Walking (4)

Camino, Spain

Many years ago, a friend made me a begging bowl like the ones used by the Buddhist monks. I keep it on my desk, where it can be seen daily, because it reminds me of several principles that I want to guide my life. First, it reminds me of Lao Tzu's paradoxical advice that we must be empty if we wish to be full. Second, it reminds me that my needs, versus my desires, are no greater than what can be placed in a small bowl each day — a little food and a little water. Finally, and most importantly, it reminds me of the need to anchor my life in simplicity — simplicity of purpose, simplicity of thought, simplicity of action. From GEORGE's blog Transit Notes

Our life is frittered away by detail ... Simplify, simplify. THOREAU

Simplicity of purpose, simplicity of thought, simplicity of action. Where better to find this guiding trinity exemplified than in the simple act of walking, especially long distance walking? Here are a few thoughts on walking's pared-down simplicities.

Simplicity of locomotion: What means of transport is simpler, more economical, more eco-friendly and more liberating than one's own two feet? Even both horse and bicycle - my next preferred modes of travel - are more restrictive, and have maintainance costs involved. But if you walk you are totally free. You can go more or less where you want. If you look after your feet, they'll take you 80,000 miles over 80 years with a little luck. They don't need feeding, oiling, refuelling, waxing and polishing every Sunday, or heaps of hard-earned cash poured into them. Just a little basic care and consideration, and the right footwear (girls, beware those high heels!), and they should give you a lifetime's service - each step a sensual pleasure. Try going barefoot too - the ultimate in freedom.

Simplicity of clothing: Sure, you can spend a fortune on walking gear - technical trousers, wicking underwear, state-of-the-art backpacks and all the rest. Equally, with a little astuteness and imagination, you can spend relatively little. Good quality hiking kit can last a very long time. I've had some of mine for years and years. The secret is to narrow down what you really need and will really use from the outset. I know from experience it's temptingly easy to waste money buying the wrong kind of stuff. Comfort's the prime consideration here: expensive pairs of all-singing-all-dancing walking boots are just scrap if they're not serviceable and comfortable. And the same goes for all other items of apparel, to a greater or lesser extent. But you don't have to sacrifice stylishness: gear these days looks good and is fashionable too. Two golden rules: firstly, footwear's the most important item for the long distance walker. If your feet are unhappy, then you are unhappy. Invest in walking boots carefully and wisely. Secondly, wear relatively thin, technical multi-layers of clothing. This is comfortable and practical. You can strip layers off and put them on according to the weather and the temperature. (Clothing that's too thick and bulky is uncomfortable over a long period of time and impedes flexibility - as well as adding unnecessary weight to your pack.) My own personal favourite items of clothing? Body-hugging Merino wool base layers (long-sleeved top, long pants). I wouldn't be without them in cold weather. In fact I'm wearing them now! And, top tip: you can wear them for days without even a trace of body odour!

Simplicity of food: Food and drink are the very soul of a long hike or pilgrimage. Anyone who tells you differently is lying. Without the pleasure and sustenance of food and drink, all the other untold benefits of walking - opportunities for exercise, reflection, meditation, therapy, spiritual growth - would wither on the vine. When walking long distances day after day you get very hungry and very thirsty. But what's great is that, however much you eat (within reason), you lose weight rather than gain weight, as you're burning calories like mad because of the physical exertion. Also, you lose weight because there are far fewer temptations and opportunities to eat. You're often in the middle of nowhere, miles from shops, towns, even villages. So your packed lunch becomes incredibly important - what you've packed, when and where to eat it, and so on. I must honestly say that some of the best, tastiest and most satisfying meals of my life have been simple al fresco lunches - perhaps of bread, cheese and olives - eaten on a flat rock in a stunning mountain landscape, or on a wild headland jutting out into a blue sea, or in a grassy hollow surrounded by woods full of barking deer.

Simplicity of shelter: On long treks and Camino pilgrimages accommodation is often simple and spartan - but it's cheap, and it usually offers hot showers, a bunk bed and a warm reception. What more could you want or need? Sharing food and stories and experiences with fellow walkers and pilgrims is physical and spiritual sustenance enough at the end of the day. Of course, like anyone I like my posh hotels from time to time. But they can be so, so lonely...

Simplicity of friendship: While walking alone and for long distances through countries and amazing landscapes, fleeting friendships are often struck and abandoned. Or they may be continued. I like to call these micro-friendships. But often there is nothing micro about them. They may be enormously significant and profound, despite the short period of time. We all know the importance of brief but deep conversational rapports we've had, say, with strangers on a train. Barriers come down, the usual polite, camouflaging niceties dissolve, and we make contact with the real, raw, uninhibited person and fellow traveller.

Simplicity of thought: Yes, I've had profound, spiritual epiphanies on my long walks. I've written poems. I've felt an almost mystical identification with Nature from time to time. But in fact, most of the time, one's thoughts are stripped down to bare essentials. How long till I can eat? How many hours of daylight are left? Have I read the map correctly? Does that black cloud mean the weather's about to turn? These primal, primitive, essentially life-preserving instincts cleanse and simplify the anxiety-driven mind. What use the metaphysical torments of the ravaged soul, the restless spirit or the ever-demanding intellect if we are lost, cold or hungry? Such simplification of thought is - actually - a purging experience, and clears the mind of its crippling, life-long baggage in a quite wonderful way.

Aftertaste

Christmas has now been and gone, so perhaps it's a good time to review the festivities? Here's a poem I once wrote about the feasting. Hope you enjoy!

Plain Turkey

Was your turkey a nice one this Christmas?
Or was it on the bland side of delish?
Did you pep up its flavour with chestnuts
And some cranberry sauce in a dish?


Did the stuffing enhance its aroma?
Did the gravy disguise its dry meat?
Did the bread sauce improve its coarse texture?
Or were the roast parsnips all you could eat?


Whether carnivore, veggie or vegan
I'm sure everyone would consent
That without all these lipsmacking trimmings
It would not seem like money well spent.


So next time just break the convention
And let all those turkeys run free,
Just pluck up the guts to make cutlets of nuts
With a jus of red wine and strong brie.


Even lawyers like turkey-shaped soya,
And accountants coo over cous-cous,
Lords, ladies and louts like marsala-soaked sprouts,
Music teachers love cauliflower mousse.


All classes of people like cabbage
Fried up with some crisco not lard,
And if you're a goer, try spiced-up quinoa,
To cook it ain't really that hard.


(Extra verse for carnivores only)


Was your turkey a nice one this Christmas?
If it wasn't try roast ox next year,
Or a belly of hog or a spit-roasted dog
Or the rump of a well-fattened steer.

With an affectionate nod to music teacher Dominic over at ...made out of words ...

My latest poems are now on view at walking in words.

New Year

New Year

Poised between past and future
Between alpha and omega
Between failure and fear of failure

I rub the almond that we’d picked,
Unripe, in Agrigento, Sicily. Once plucked
It could not ripen. Hard in my hand

It lodges: a furred, green pebble
Now blemished black. The nutcracker
Had skidded off its hull.

My mind goes back
To that low ridge of broken temples,
Tumbled blocks of stone,

Lintels at crazy angles,
Weeds creviced in the rock,
Wine-dark caverns, olive groves.

At one cave wall we whispered and,
Incredibly, the echo boomed like thunder.
Were the gods displeased?

Or had the gods fled long ago
The lemon gardens of Agrigento,
Lizards flicking the hot stones?

We are not strangers, yet we were
Half-strangers to each other then,
Lovers lost in a stricken city

Of split columns, cracked entablatures.
Just like empires, we decline and fall.
Our glories fade like jasmine flowers,

Our dreams die with the gods,
Our empty promises
Useless as unripe amandolas.

Walking As Meditation (3)

Camino, Spain

To meditate does not mean to fight with a problem.
To meditate means to observe.
Your smile proves it.
It proves that you are being gentle with yourself,
that the sun of awareness is shining in you,
that you have control of your situation.
You are yourself,
and you have acquired some peace.

THICH NHAT HAHN

This is a vast, fascinating and important subject, and I fear I'll only have space for a few hints and glimpses in this post. But if these brief thoughts and jottings encourage anyone to read and explore further, I will be happy.

There's a rich history of walking as an aid to reflection, meditation and spiritual self-discovery. Those great walker-writers of the English Romantic movement who found in Nature such a source of creative inspiration - Wordsworth, Coleridge, Hazlitt, De Quincey et al. - I'll consider in another post. Here I want to concentrate on the religious and ritual aspects of walking.

Two main religions come to mind when we think of walking as meditation: Western Christianity, and Eastern Buddhism (though Buddhism is not, strictly speaking, a religion - rather a set of ethics or a philosophy of life.) Christianity has a long tradition of pilgrimage walking - to Canterbury, to Rome, to Jerusalem, to Santiago de Compostela, to a host of other sacred sites. Such peregrinations are undertaken for a number of reasons: to perform a penance, to give thanks to God, to petition for a cure, to fulfill a vow, to meditate on and reaffirm faith. A pilgrim route also has a symbolic significance as it represents the journey of the soul through the vicissitudes of mortal life to heaven. The popularity of pilgrimage has waxed and waned over the centuries. At the moment its appeal is growing, as more and more people seek  an alternative, spiritual, non-materialistic mode of life.

The blog Pilgrimpace expressed a personal view of pilgrimage, and the relationship between walking and prayer, in a post of just over a year ago called The Walking Becomes The Praying:

'A pilgrimage gets to the holy place at last but what gives it its part in prayer is the slamming down of ones feet to complete the journey praying the while for all its features.'  ALAN ECCLESTONE

A book that I come back to again and again is A Staircase for Silence by Alan Ecclestone. Ecclestone, a Communist Anglo-Catholic, was for many years Vicar of Darnall in Sheffield and is, for me, one of the most important figures of the twentieth century. A Staircase for Silence is a study of Charles Peguy, the French poet and visionary.

While I walked through Spain I tried to pray. I also reflected and reflect now on the deep connection between prayer and walking. The praying took many forms. Sometimes I prayed formal intercessions for people or situations. Sometimes I sang. Sometimes a breathing prayer such as the Jesus Prayer. But most of all the walking became the praying. The slamming down of the feet, the being at one with myself, landscape and God, tiredness, the mind shutting up and stilling. Walking, pilgrimage itself, became prayer. It felt very real, linking deeply into the rest of my life in all its aspects, and into the Office and Holy Communion. Ecclestone describes Peguy 'treading out in the countryside with the joyfulness of a lover, the delight of an artist, the ecstasy of one who worships.' The Camino was all those for me, but it was also hard and penitential (bloodily so – literally on one occasion, when I witnessed an ill-prepared Spanish peregrino remove his boots outside the bar at Albergueria).

Although Buddhism does not use the idea of prayer as part of its own meditative process, there are affinities, I believe, between Christian walking prayer and Buddhist walking meditation. Both address our inner spiritual needs, our mental and soul conflicts, our human struggle with this world of transience and illusion, in the pursuit of peace, understanding and enlightenment. Whether we're addressing a God or some unnameable not-self doesn't really matter, it seems to me. There may be different points of entry, but they all lead to the same 'interior castle'.

Walking meditation is widely practised in Zen Buddhism (it's known as kinhin, as opposed to zazen, which is sitting meditation). The mindfulness and meditation teacher Jon Kabat-Zinn has written much about this, and I myself mentioned one particular technique here.) The Buddhist monk, poet and peace activist Thich Nhat Hanh wrote this poem, offering some of the mental images he uses for walking meditation:

Breathing in, I know I am breathing in.
Breathing out, I know I am breathing out.
In/Out.

Breathing in, I see myself as a flower.
Breathing out I feel fresh.
Flower/Fresh.

Breathing in, I see myself as a mountain.
Breathing out, I feel solid.
Mountain/Solid.

Breathing in, I see myself as still water.
Breathing out, I reflect things as they are.
Water/Reflecting.

Breathing in, I see myself as space.
Breathing out, I feel free.
Space/Free.

There's a tradition of itinerant mendicant monks all over the Far East. Shramanas were wandering monks in ancient India who renounced the world and lived ascetic lives of austerity in order to attain spiritual development and liberation. Komuso were Japanese mendicant monastics who wore straw baskets over their heads - to demonstrate the absence of ego - and who played bamboo flutes for alms in a practice aimed at gaining enlightenment and healing. And of course Gautama Buddha himself walked far and wide thoughout his life, first as a seeker, then as a teacher.

I've found Buddhist mindfulness and meditation techniques incredibly beneficial on my own pilgrimage treks across France and Spain. They really do work in calming the mind, making you more alert to each passing second, giving you a super-consciousness of the landscape you're passing through, and renewing your energy for the miles ahead.