Shaking it up

Moving around the country is one way of shaking things up, changing environments, seeing things in new ways, meeting up with loved ones, old friends, young friends and of course walking everywhere.

I have clocked up a lot of miles this last week or two and its been good. Walking is something embraced by many,

“Go outside. Don’t tell anyone and don’t bring your phone. Start walking and keep walking until you no longer know the road like the palm of your hand, because we walk the same roads day in and day out, to the bus and back home and we cease to see. We walk in our sleep and teach our muscles to work without thinking and I dare you to walk where you have not yet walked and I dare you to notice. Don’t try to get anything out of it, because you won’t. Don’t try to make use of it, because you can’t. And that’s the point. Just walk, see, sit down if you like. And be. Just be, whatever you are with whatever you have, and realise that that is enough to be happy. There’s a whole world out there, right outside your window. You’d be a fool to miss it.” ? Charlotte Eriksson

I like Charlotte Eriksson, and her "whole world out there"...Eriksson is a young and wonderfully vibrant songwriter and author (http://www.charlotteeriksson.com/youre-doing-just-fine) who seems to be able to use language that connects directly to the heart.

Then of course there is one of my favourites, introduced to me by my young friend, Kieran Swann. Rebecca Solnit has written some marvellous things (http://rebeccasolnit.net), including this:

“... solitary walks express the independence that literally takes the heroine out of the social sphere of the houses and their inhabitants, into a larger, lonelier world where she is free to think: walking articulates both physical and mental freedom.”

And it is the experience of feeling free, free to think, that appeals to me so much each time I walk, freedom to think, freedom to feel all of me.

May today bring you freedom to think and freedom to move.

Ericsson challenges us:

"... dare you to walk where you have not yet walked and I dare you to notice".

Dare and dare.