WALKING AND DOGS

Several times a day I and one or more of my dogs will take a walk down the street to one of several parks that we have at our disposal. This is not a demanding routine but familiar nonetheless. People walking and dogs walking are two very different worlds. We humans will set off from the front door at a brisk pace, purposeful and directed. We have a route and a destination in mind. As we travel the route towards the destination we enjoy the sights and sounds, perhaps a few social opportunities, and the walk is more or less uneventful. For a dog, from the moment we set foot on the path away from the front door, the experience is first and foremost at ground level. What may be going on up above us or down the street is relatively unimportant. Of utmost importance are smells. As soon as we leave the front porch there are smells on the lawn, smells on the laneway, smells around the trees, smells at the edge of the road, smells on the tires of the cars. Theirs is a world of smells.

Where our walking is shaped by a destination and a route, a dog’s walk is shaped by territory, by history, and by the critical task of establishing one’s importance in the environment. There is no distinction between a tire, a blade of grass or the most archetypal of spaces, a fire hydrant. What matters is the identifying scent left behind.What matters is being the freshest and strongest of scents. The top dog.

As we walk these issues do not alter any importance. Designating territory right off the porch is every bit as important [or so it seems] as any bush or clump of grass anywhere along the route. It seems that my dogs can take a break from this territorial obsession for brief periods of time, apparently enjoying running around or circling around my feet as we walk. Nevertheless, such distractions are short-lived. Over and over again, they come back to that smell that calls them like a siren song, ever enticing, ever challenging, with no possibility of not responding.

We each have our needs as we walk around streets and parks of our neighbourhood. We each seek out the corners and vistas that satisfy our needs each time we walk. The challenge Is always to respect the needs and priorities of each other and find a pace and rhythm, so that the return to the front porch brings satisfaction, at least for the moment.

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

           

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

WALKERS AND OTHERS

I went out on the K and P trail this week with my boy, Josh, and more or less had the trail to myself. There were two occasions where I came across fellow travellers and it brought home to me the difference between walkers and other travellers. This is hardly a scientific analysis, but interesting nonetheless, to see the distinction so clearly.
The first to come along was a couple on what is known around here as “a side-by side”, meaning an ATV where the driver and the main passenger sit beside each other, as opposed to one in front of the other, as they might on a motorcycle. They crept up on me, a very respectful and reasonable pace, and passed me in the way that I appreciate, not inconveniencing Josh or I as we each went off in our separate directions. As I usually notice with riders, they chug along making considerable noise, breezing the copious amounts of gasoline fumes, and restricting their interaction with the trail and its periphery to what one can see through the hole in the helmet, cruising at 25 mph. There is scarcely any physical effort required for their trip, and I’ve been told by riders that such riding can have a negative effect on one’s body.
Shortly after that, the next traveller was a young man on a bicycle. He did not have any helmet, shame on him, and had is personal music device plugged into both ears. Unlike the ATV riders, he barely noticed me, and whisked by with barely an acknowledgement. I can only hope that the landscape made more of an impression on him then did my presence. I paused to speculate on what he might remember from his trip once he arrived home.
As others have written, walking is the most immediate means of crossing the landscape, be that urban or rural. The Walker can only have an immediate, intimate and fully physical relationship with what surrounds him/her. These different kinds of riders seem to reduce the landscape to background noise or incidental scenery, rather than the immediate setting of one’s travel.

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

           

EAGLE’S NEST

In the Calabogie area is a collection of trails and lookouts just west of Calabogie Peaks Ski Resort which is called  Manitou Mountain. There are about 6 lookouts and the highest profile is a spectacular promontory called Eagle’s Nest. It is a set of perches facing west which overlook the hills and valleys of our beautiful Valley.
Its tempting to just see it as a beautiful lookout, but its important in these times of sensitivity to aboriginal history to consider what has been written about this location :

The Eagle is sacred to all First Nations People upon Turtle Island (North America). Eagle soars in the sky and sees things clearly in all the sacred directions and colours; east, south, west, north, below, above and centre. Thus, the Eagle is a bird of Great wisdom and vision and when we visit its nest to be nourished and inspired by all the Eagle represents. When Eagle flies highest he transforms into Thunderbird, the Manitou or Spirit that flies closest to Kitchi Manitou – The Great Spirit. Where Eagle exists is considered sacred; a place of power and good medicines where people may come to see a “great view” or even to “vision quest” for spiritual guidance not only from Eagle, but from all Manitous and the Great Spirit.

 
There is a clear sense that one is standing on a special site when there. I felt a strong reverence for the place and, at the peak, there is a clarity and quiet which deserves respect.

For a map of the whole set of trails around Eagle’s Nest and Calabogie Peaks, visit:
http://www.calabogie.com/so-much-more-to-do/hiking-adventures/hiking-maps.html

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

URBAN POLES RECONSIDERED

A year or so ago I was certified as a poling instructor under the auspices of the company called Urban Poling. This is a Canadian company who specializes in a line of strapless poles with a unique handle-grip. They have targeted a wider market than the usual hiking and skiing crowd. They have positioned themselves more closely with the recreational walking community with a special emphasis on seniors and people with less comfort with poles than your usual hiker. Their designs seemed a bit clunky at first and they seem a bit pretentious suggesting they invented Nordic poling.

Back to the pole handles. For the most part Urban poles aren’t a whole lot different from any body else. They have stressed the alleged risks of straps and have put their eggs in the basket of a sculpted grip with a sort-of hour-glass shape which supports a hand-supported grip rather than the wrist-strap ones many of us are familiar with.

At first I really didn’t like them. However, after several months of intensive testing, I give them a definite “A”. I have come to enjoy the handle shape and, even with my arthritic wrists, I find they are more comfortable than my strapped ones. My only complaint is that they limit their length to what they call a “6 foot-2 inch” model. As someone with exactly those measurements, I still find the length a tad short. Iw ill be adding a tip extender so I can get just a bit more drive.
           
Urban poles has an assortment of models and are very easy to order and competitively priced.

They are at: http://urbanpoling.com/

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

TAIMA MANDARA

In my explorations of symbolic walking practices, I have been re-reading Japanese Mandalas: Representations of Sacred Geography by American scholar and friend of Tendai Buddhadharma, Elizabeth ten Grotenhuis. (Available for loan from our sangha library). My earlier study of this marvelous text originally emphasized her middle chapters which describe the twin esoteric mandalas called the Taizo-kai (Earth World) and the Kongo-kai (Diamond World). She explains that the term mandala refers to the symbolic images or maps which have been part of the Vajrayana tradition since its emergence in India early on in Buddhist evolution. She distinguishes this from “mandara”, a Japanese term which she relates to uniquely Japanese images. Lately, as I have been exploring numerous Pure Land sutras, and associated practices, I wanted to review her study of what are Pure Land images, especially the Taima mandara.

 
These are not taken as esoteric but as representations of the descriptions of Sukhavati, Amida’s Pure Land, as presented in sutras like the Visualization Sutra or the Sukhavati Sutras. These sutras are not doctrinal or philosophical, but primarily descriptive, providing great detail of what one would see in Amida’s Pure Land.
These images then and now provide the content for numerous visualization practices, part of the devotional practice “kit” of Tendai. Teachers since Chi-ih have structured devotional visualization practices as the four-fold samadhi - continuous sitting, continuous walking, walking and sitting and neither walking nor sitting (this is continuous practice within everyday life).

To view images and detailed descriptions of the three most important mandara:
                                               
http://www.euroshinshu.org/www12.canvas.ne.jp/horai/mandala-index.htm

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

       
                   
   

           

CAMINO BOOK ARRIVES

In preparation for my October Camino Portugues, I ordered what looks like the definitive guidebook written by a similarly geezerly walker who appears to live on the Camino. A Pilgrim’s Guide to the Camino Portugues, by John Brierly, is subtitled A Practical and Mystical Manual for the Modern day Pilgrim. The majority of the book, which was updated in 2015, its 6th update, is the usual full-colour maps and diagrams of each of the 23 daily stages of the walk from Lisbon, through Porto (where I’ll start) to the common end-point of all Caminos, Santiago. There are also sections on preparing with clothes and equipment, a brief history, some useful phrases and a short contemplation encouraging walkers to ask “Why am I doing this?”

 
Nearly 6 months away from my first steps, this seems like a good question to ask. For starters I am clear on one reason that I do not share with most Santiago walkers - I am not doing it for any Christian reasons. As a Buddhist priest I do feel slightly disingenuous in using a space which is sacred to another religious tradition. Truth be told, if it wasn’t so far, dangerous and expensive, I would prefer a Buddhist pilgrimage.
Nevertheless, its part of my understanding of pilgrimage walking that, apart from the Cathedral at the end-point, there is enormous spiritual value in engaging with the path itself. This is probably my main reason. I anticipate and welcome time to pare down my life to a few necessities and spend the days reflecting on those things that do matter to me. I welcome the time away from the demands of an emotionally-draining and deeply frustrating career.
Finally, but perhaps not least, like so many pilgrims worldwide I am undertaking this to re-position my own life as it draws to its natural conclusion. I am noticing how many of my near-and-dears are fading and dying and it causes me to examine the best use of my own remaining sunrises. Just walking for two weeks is such a fulfillment. And it offers me the time and spaciousness to consider what else matters most in this late stage of my life.

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