Walktober 2020

A little earthiness.  (This is one of the biggest mushrooms I’ve ever seen around here.  I though it was fake at first.  There were several more scattered throughout the woods.)

SOLVITUR AMBULANDO.

This ancient Latin phrase loosely translates as “It is solved by walking.”  A walk is a journey that requires very little — neither planning nor passport, neither ticket nor equipment.  Nearly always at our disposal, a walk provides so much more than just a change of scenery.  Walking has helped me decide what is wise and what is foolhardy, has made me fall in love with a place, has batted away my melancholy.  Walking has helped me loosen the grip technology has on my life, giving me space and permission to disconnect from my devices that beg for my attention and feed my anxiety.  Most of all, walking has nurtured my creativity as I struggle to give tangible form to abstract ideas.

~ Bonnie Smith Whitehouse, in the introduction to Afoot and Lighthearted: A Journal for Mindful Walking

Beach walk reflections with Frank

I have been trying to come up with a good way to introduce Frank.  Some of you might already by familiar with him from his blog, A Frank Angle.  Frank and I go back quite a ways in blog years although I can’t say exactly when we met in cyberspace and cybertime.  It was back in my Life in the Bogs days, that much I know for sure.  He has been a great blogging companion and has joined in on quite a few Walktobers (his first, I think, was in 2013).  Honestly, I think if you really want a hint of who Frank is, go read the comments in his last post at A Frank Angle, On the Finale: The Puzzle’s Last Piece.  Frank had a big impact on a lot of people, bringing a diverse group of us together for musicals (always great fun!), politics, satire, and more.  One of the comments describes Frank’s blog as a front porch and it’s true.  That is what it felt like when we gathered there for music or discussions.  Here is what I wrote as my final comment:

Frank, my friend, you have me in tears. Good tears, though, for a good man who created this wonderful place for people to meet. When you wrote about your visitors and how you connected with people, you left out how we visitors also connected with each other in various ways. You’ve created this amazing web, all by being yourself. Well done. Very well done.

Frank posted his final post at A Frank Angle, On the Finale: The Puzzle’s Last Piece, in February with hints of possibly more to come.  I am honored and pleased to bring you this guest post from Frank as a sampling of what his new blog, opening on October 20th, will be gifting to us.  Beach Wak Reflections is the name of Frank’s new blog.

Without further ado…

Embed from Getty Images

I like walking on the beach. It is good for the mind, body, and soul – and refreshing on my feet.

Ever think about seeds? They seem so simple at a glance – even on closer examination. We typically think of a hard, thin outer shell with a softer inside.

Rain and music

Morning dark and dreary.

When a group of people sing together, we make up a chorus. When birds do, it’s more like a whole symphony orchestra.

~ Laura Erickson, The Bird Watching Answer Book

There is nothing in which the birds differ more from man than the way in which they can build and yet leave a landscape as it was before.

~ Robert Lynd, The Blue Lion

How about a Wednesday Wander?

June moon. (June’s full moon is known as a Strawberry Moon but ours looked more like a Peach Moon in the indigo sky.)

Deep trust in life is not a feeling but a stance that you deliberately take.  It is the attitude we call courage.

~ Br. David Steindl-Rast

Our experiences of embodiment may not always correspond with idealized images of holiness, but these preconceptions derive from masculine standards of perfection. Such paradigms have caused great harm, and they are no longer valid. I invite you to abandon your efforts to fix yourself and instead reclaim your innate beauty and worth as a luminous cell in the body of Mother Earth.

~ Mirabai Starr

What’s new?

Beautiful lilies from a beautiful friend.

Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery it is. In the boredom and pain of it, no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it, because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace.

~ Frederick Buechner, Now and Then: A Memoir of Vocation

It is spring again. The earth is like a child that knows poems by heart.

~ Rainer Maria Rilke

A Monday meander: Away and back again

The brilliant reds on the foliage of a blueberry bush in the rain garden.

With an eye made quiet by the power
Of harmony, and the deep power of joy,
We see into the life of things.

~ William Wordsworth

Walktober 2018

Flipping the reflection. (Reflections on the pond at Pocomoke River State Park.)

The walks are the unobtrusive connecting thread of other memories, and yet each walk is a little drama in itself, with a definite plot with episodes and catastrophes … and it is naturally interwoven with all the thoughts, the friendships, and the interests that form the staple of ordinary life.

~ Leslie Stephen