NEW BLOG NAME

Sometimes, when a path grows with use and new side-trails open up, they earn the right to have a name of their own. We started this blog a couple of years ago as the blog associated with the Padakun initiative. Now its necessary to distinguish the blog, as a weekly commentary on walking topics, from the main Padakun website, which is more of a hub for what has grown into a few different Padakun-centred projects, like KAPPS.
As of this post we announce the new name for this blog as Footprints. In this space we will continue to post weekly reflections and information related to walking. The emphasis will remain on some of the more contemplative aspects of walking and related most specifically on my walking experience here on the trails and pathways of Renfrew County.
Padakun has spun off its first major projects in the form of Ray’s Walk Like A Mountain (WLM) book and the Kick and Push Pedestrian Society (KAPPS), and each of these have prospered in their own way. They will each continue to have their own blog-trails, and we encourage all our followers to check them out too.
Starting this Fall, 2015, we will expand into 2 more projects. The first will take the form of a more scholarly exploration of what we introduced in WLM as “contemplative walking”. We would like to reach across disciplines and determine what we can learn from relatively new sub-discipline known as eco-psychology or eco-therapy. Over the coming year we will examine the main works in this field and try to articulate a larger description for contemplative walking, as well as inviting shared study with others in this micro-field of study.
The second project is just taking shape and is much more practically-oriented. It has occurred to us that most walkers enjoy their walking in a sometimes messy and trash-spoiled environment. We would like to introduce Blue Box Walks as a project that combines our favourite activity, walking, with a little more responsible engagement with the places we walk. Over the next few months we will unfold this project and how you can participate and even introduce it to your neighbourhood.

Yours , on the journey,                           
Ray
Walk as if you are kissing the Earth with your feet
Thich Nhat Hahn