Sunday, October 26, 2014

Sacer Simplicitas: Walking



"When my neighbor walks the dogs, he performs a ritual act of sacer simplicitas, to use the church Latin: "sacred simplicity."  Walking the dog is in truth a ritual of renewal and revival on an intimate scale - a small rebirth of well-being on a daily basis."
-   Robert Fulghum, From Beginning to End
 
"The soil is the great connector of our lives, the source and destination of all."
-   Wendell Berry

"Our philosophies must be rewritten to remove them from the domain of words and "ideas," and to plant their roots firmly in the earth."
-   William Vogt

 
"My eyes already touch the sunny hill.
going far ahead of the road I have begun.
So we are grasped by what we cannot grasp;
it has inner light, even from a distance
―

and charges us, even if we do not reach it,
into something else, which, hardly sensing it,
we already are; a gesture waves us on
answering our own wave...
but what we feel is the wind in our faces."
-  The Walk by Rainer Marie Rilke, Translated by Robert Bly



"Afoot and light-hearted, I take to the open road,
Healthy, free, the world before me,
The long brown path before me, leading wherever I choose.
Henceforth I ask not good-fortune— I myself am good fortune;
Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing,
Strong and content, I travel the open road. 

The earth—that is sufficient; 
I do not want the constellations any nearer;
I know they are very well where they are; 
I know they suffice for those who belong to them.  

(Still here I carry my old delicious burdens; 
I carry them, men and women—I carry them with me wherever I go; 
I swear it is impossible for me to get rid of them; 
I am fill’d with them, and I will fill them in return.) 
 
You road I enter upon and look around!
I believe you are not all that is here; 
I believe that much unseen is also here."
-   Walt Whitman, "Song of the Open Road," Leaves of Grass, 1890.  









1 comment:

  1. Philosophy practiced is the goal of learning. - Thoreau

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