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

The Politics Of Springtime: New Beginnings

Although I declared this blog an election-free zone a few weeks ago, I just have to break my pledge (very political, that!) and comment on the sudden, unforeseen rise to prominence of the Liberal Democrats. Thanks to a couple of live TV election debates between the leaders of all three main political parties (a first for British politics - though I should probably say English, as Scotland and Wales weren't represented at all), and thanks also to a confident and charmingly persuasive Nick Clegg whose face, even if it won't ever launch a thousand ships, is rather more than presentable (at least according to the women I've talked to), it appears that the Lib Dems now have a real chance of making their mark on this election and of holding the balance of power in a possible 'hung Parliament' scenario ('hung Parliament': a Parliament where no party holds the overall majority of seats). Despite some dodgy policies.

All this against a backdrop of one of the most glorious springtimes I can ever remember. The cottage gardens and the enfolding countryside look radiant. The blackthorn blossom has never looked whiter, the magnolia flowers never creamier, the tulips never redder, the new foliage never softer or greener. And yet, as one gets older, doesn't every springtime seem more glorious than the one before? I think it's a lot to do with age. As children we're barely conscious of time. We're absorbed in the serious play of our lives, naturally focused on each lived-in moment. The seasons seem almost stationary. My friends and I used to run through the woods and fields like heathens, cycling the country tracks and lanes, making dens and camps, having mock-serious fights and battles in the spirit of Bevis and Co in Richard Jefferies' immortal, eponymous book. We were glowing in 'the glory and the freshness of a dream'.

Gradually, because of the stress and pressure of adult life - jobs, families, motorways, deadlines - we stop living in the unconscious present and start living by our diaries. Suddenly we find our real lives, our important soul-lives, have drifted away, lost somewhere between out latest marriage and the Watford Gap Motorway Service Station. But, maybe around our late 40s or early 50s, we realise, if we're lucky, that it's not actually too late to recapture some of that early joy and spontaneity, that moment-by-moment freshness.

I think it's reflections like these, such recollections from a standpoint of maturity, which cause us to count our blessings, to be acutely aware that time is precious, and life even more so, and to appreciate the beauties of the spring, a spring that becomes more and more glorious each year.

Whither is fled the visionary gleam? / Where is it now, the glory and the dream? WILLIAM WORDSWORTH Ode