Walking Out of Time

Visit a park or trail with the intention of going on a walk of decent length. If possible, select a place that allows you a sense of solitude and visit at a time of day when you won’t feel rushed to return to your home or work. For the first few minutes of your journey, bring your attention to the rhythm in your body as you walk. Focus on the steady beat of your footsteps, the flex and release of your muscles, the inhale and exhale of your breath. See if you can feel the pulse of your heartbeat. From this growing sense of embodiment, allow thoughts and emotions to pass through you as you walk.

After some time, while directing part of your attention inward, slowly widen your awareness to include the rhythms pulsing in the landscape around you. Perhaps you notice the call and reply of songbirds, trees respiring with the breeze, or the hum of a nearby engine. Do these rhythms keep time with any that you feel in your own body? Are there some rhythms that feel continuous, ancient, eternal, like waves of heat rising from rock, the rise and fall of shadows, the quiet turning of the planet?

Further into the walk, notice as the borders between the rhythms of your body and those of your surroundings begin to soften. Attend to the way your feet are meeting the earth with each step. Present both within yourself and within the landscape, what expands, contracts, or falls away? What happens to the quality of each moment as you move through the world with this depth of attention — and as the world moves through you?

Illustrations by Aldo Jarillo