On Walking

The best thing I ever did for my practice was going for a weekly walk in the local woods.

Paganism, as taught in books, can so easily become book-bound: we learn the magical uses of the rowan, without being able to identify one. The weekly walk was time: aimless time, boundless time, experiential time. I cannot say, exactly, what I learnt there; but that too was a lesson. For it is easy to import our achievement-focused, progress-seeking mindset into Paganism - am I advancing? Am I succeeding? Am I acquiring? Rather than another way of experiencing the world: am I being, am I existing?

So the first of the Three Practices is: go for a lovely walk.

How To Walk

Spend a little time outside every day. Go for a walk once a week. Every few months, make plans to go on a longer adventure somewhere.

The walk can be a way of building up a relationship with a particular place:

• Go at different times of day
• Focus on the birds, then on the beasts, then the trees, then the plants, and learn to identify them
• Go at different times of year
• Bring a plastic bag and litterpick
• Bring a camera or art materials to make images or poems
• Bring a notebook for reflections, or to record what you see
• Learn about the history, and see what marks you can find there
• Go in different weathers

A walk can be to a natural place, or an urban one. A walk can be to different places every time, or in the same location over the span of a year. It can be mapped or unmapped. It could use a set of challenges, like the Microadventures. It could be an aimless ramble.

It could be centered around a deity or concept: for example, instead of a weekly walk, you could do a weekly sunset watch, or stargaze. It could include devotional words - but don't overcomplicate it.

How Not To Walk

Try not to let the walk become too goal-oriented.

Taking photographs can help you focus and experience; uploading them online does not. When the internet is present - you are not. Setting a goal, journaling, or keeping a map with pins, can help motivate action: but don't let yourself become distracted by it.

And don't worry if you don't slip into the otherworld straight away, or ever, because one can get distracted by Pagan goals too. Remember that the forest is a forest - it experiences itself as a forest. Do not be so eager to encounter a tall, horned man that you ignore how the forest is actually manifesting itself before you.

Don't judge your walk.

You're not supposed to walk the furthest, or know the most interesting things about the land beneath your feet; and sometimes, you'll be stressed or preoccupied and mindfulness will not come easy. Be pleased with whatever you can achieve, for Walking is about the simple pleasures.

Accessibility

It's important to state here that being able to walk is not an essential part of Walking.

An hour spent sat in nature, looking out of a bus window, or even sat indoors beside the window, are acceptable Walking practices. The essential thing is to experience nature directly, and to experience it for its own sake - not as a metaphor, and without clear structure or goal.

An important facet of the walk is that it is aimless. I find formal ritual extremely difficult to find the executive function for. So the rite of Walking was devised as an extremely simple way to reverence and experience the divine: no candles, no robes, no words, because the effort of getting out and about is enough to exhaust me.

Like other Solar practices, Walking has a minimal barrier to entry: it's not skilled or complex, it's more about presence and drawing your mind to experience the world and the senses more fully. Pre-planning, knowing when you will have energy, being able to get a clear working space, being able to shower or bathe or prepare particular foods or tools: Solar practices reject these standard Pagan requirements. If for you, walking IS an insurmountable barrier, then find an alternative.

It's OK if being present or being in your body is difficult. Go at your own speed, and challenge yourself only to the extent that you are comfortable.

Alternative Walks

We can understand Walking as a kind of unstructured mindfulness - entering into the flow of life and being present within it.

Sitting in the sun with a cup of tea is an excellent low-impact Walk. So is sitting on the top of a bus or on a train, and watching the view.

You can also replace literal walking with other Solar-type practices such as:

• Physical activities: sports, dancing, singing, gardening
• Community: a picnic, a Sunday meal, board game, a group project
• Food: baking, especially for a group; helping with foodbanks or agriculture
• Saying yes to life: be spontaneous; do something outside of your rut or routine; take a chance.
• Doing something out-of-doors: painting, busking, working out, carpentry, jogging, idling

What these practices have in common with walking is simplicity - they are parts of everyday life. But when approached as spiritual activities, they reveal their secrets. The spirituality of the ancients was indivisible from the lives they led - and we can recapture that.

Walking and the Solar

In the next article we will explore the concept of the Solar in more detail, and how Walking reveals it.