Walking Meditation
Medicine for body, mind and spirit
There is a quiet light that shines in every heart. It draws no attention to itself, though it is always secretly there. It is what illuminates our minds to see beauty, our desire to seek possibility, and our hearts to love life.
—John O’Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us
It is 15 degrees F when I leave the house in the half-darkness before dawn; just 5 degrees with the wind chill, according to the weather app on my phone. The cold doesn’t really hit me though until I pass through the courtyard gate, and then I feel the bitter breeze out of the northwest. For a moment, my steps falter. I am going to freeze, I think.
But I am cocooned in winter layers and determined. My feet move on, carrying me down the bank and into the grassland of the draw. I pick my way in not-quite-enough light to see between the spiny skeletons of tree cholla cactus. I stumble over dried clumps of blue grama grass until I reach the trail, a shallow crease aiming down the draw, straight into the breeze.
I take a breath that chills my teeth and begin my morning walking meditation, greeting the plants I pass: “Good morning, blue grama!” to the grass clumps, their eyebrow-shaped seed heads not visible yet before sunrise has limned the eastern horizon. “Good morning Cylindopuntia!” to the cholla.
As I walk, my feet feeling the trail, I focus on recognizing familiar native plants in the dimness. I say good morning to the bushy clumps of one-seed juniper that dot the grasslands, good morning to the saltbush and the stiff forms of three-awn, another native grass.
My cheeks, exposed above the scarf that wraps the lower part of my face, are going numb. I pull my gloved hands out of the pockets of my duffle coat to snug my hat more firmly over my hears.
“Good morning, sand dropseed!” I say to the bunchgrass with the airy seedheads as I brush past them. My legs stride on as the darkness begins to ease; my brain suggests turning around and going back to the warm house. My legs win.
My mind toggles between greeting the community of native plants that weave this landscape and cataloguing my body’s response to the bitter cold. My eyes are tearing up, the tears freezing on my numb cheeks. My hands, balled up now in my gloves in my pockets, have begun to ache. My ears sting. Why don’t I just turn around?
Yet somehow my feet keep carrying me on—to the wide gravel trail along the paved road at the base of the draw, over the low ridge to the northwest, and then, turning up the next draw as light etches the eastern horizon, the wind is behind me, lessening the bitter cold just enough that I relax into the walking.
And the meditation, greeting my plant relatives: Kraschnikovia, Sabina, Ericamera, Atriplex. Blue grama, black grama, dropseed, galleta grass.
Walking in community with the land is my medicine, my way of releasing the stresses that accumulate in my body and spirit from moving through the human world each day: The pain in the world, the anger and hopelessness; the bombing and killing. The noise and rush and busyness. The striving and doing: Push-push-push. Go-go-gogogo!
I walk to let go of all of that and let my body heal. Walking in the nearby wild is the best medicine for my touchy immune system, the most effective way to keep my autoimmune conditions—Lupus, complicated by Raynaud’s and Sjogrens (dry mouth) syndromes—from sending my systems into a tailspin that has more than once threatened to kill me. Walking unknits the knots of every day, and reconnects me to light and joy and life.
I walk to nurture that quiet light John O’Donohue wrote about, the light in my heart that reminds me that loving this world is the only true path, the only way for me to live as me.
The only way, period.
I walk to shed the noise and busyness and pain and hopelessness. To immerse myself in gratitude for this living earth and all it offers us: Beauty, breath, life. Love.
I walk to save my own life, and my ability to add to the ocean of light and love that may save other lives as well. I walk to remind myself that love is what lasts. It is, in the end, all that matters. And so I walk and greet and love. Every dawn, to start my day in light and beauty. Despite the cold!
Thank you for subscribing to Practicing Terraphilia! Together, let’s explore how our daily lives and actions affect us, our communities, and the Earth we share.
Below is a look at how you can turn any walk into meditation and healing, a journey of gratitude for your own life and life in general.
Become a paid subscriber to get access to the deeper personal reflections in these Sunday essays, and thoughts on how to practice your terraphilia, along with occasional Thursday Thoughts on landscape, language, and how they shape us and our relationship to the world. Join the community of paid subscribers who comment and discuss what comes up as we practice our terraphilia.
How to Walk (or Sit) in Gratitude for the Living World
How can we make our walks healing, meditations that reconnect us to our gratitude for life and that light within our hearts that illuminates our spirits and nurtures each of us?
First, just walk. Don’t walk and talk on your phone. In fact, put your phone away (or leave it behind). Don’t walk and listen to a podcast or an audiobook or a movie. Just walk. (If walking isn’t possible, you can do this while sitting. Even inside, best near a window.)
As you walk, take some deep breaths. Exhale fully and slowly, beginning in your belly and pushing the air up and out of your body. Use your diaphragm to help empty your lungs. Let that breath out through your nostrils. Then pause before breathing in consciously and deeply, pulling the new breath in through your nostrils, filling your lungs and all the way down to your belly. Feel those breaths, out and in, in and out.
Let your muscles relax as you breathe, feeling tension leave your body. Feel your body in space; feel your spaciousness. Listen to the quiet voice of your inner self. Reassure yourself that you are safe and also loved.
Then begin to observe the world outside your skin boundary. If you’re walking in a crowded urban place, find something peaceful to observe. Maybe a flock of pigeons wheeling against the sky. Maybe a clump of moss on a stone building ledge. Or the graceful shape of a winter-bare tree.
Greet the more-than-human lives. If you know their names, recite them like a prayer to this living world. Chamisa, juniper, blue grama, rice grass, chichicoyota, prairie coneflower, wolf berry…. If you don’t know their names, greet them anyway: bush with the golden flowers, grass with the eyebrow seedheads, grass with the rice-grain seeds, vine that grows bitter gourds, flower shaped like a domed hat, bush with the thorns….
Pay attention to the community of nature. Notice the particulars of bird songs—hello, bluebird! hello, mountain chickadee! Look for tracks if you’re walking a dirt trail; watch for motion on the ground, in the water, in the air. Greet every life you notice: lichen, fly, grass, tree, lizard, grasshopper, hawk, heron….
Make your greeting a litany, a song, a prayer of recognition and honor, of appreciation and love for the many lives with whom we share this world.
Bluebird Bushtit Apache plume Sideoats grama Sacaton Flax Globemallow
Every time your mind wanders to what you need to do next, where you should be, your worries for the world, fears or other preoccupations, gently direct your attention back to the living world around you. Greet the next being you notice. Keep walking (or sitting), keep greeting, keep reconnecting yourself to that light in your heart and the world you know you love.
Beardtongue Saltbush Little bluestem Piñon pine Oh, hello, raven!
Give yourself ten minutes for your first walk/sit in meditation with this living world and your inner self. And be patient. Distraction is normal.
Remind yourself that this is an ongoing practice. Perfection is not the object. Connection and love is!
Give yourself the gift of making this walking (or sitting) meditation with Earth’s community of more-than-human lives a regular practice. Ten minutes a day; half an hour when you can. And notice your experience over time. Are you changing? How?
Hit the button below and comment.
Thank you for reading and supporting Practicing Terraphilia! May you find joy and healing in practicing a deeper connection with the community of the land around you.
Please feel free to share, stack, and re-stack or note this essay. Blessings!