tomorrow I start walking

"We learn a place and how to visualize spatial relations as children, on foot and with imagination.  Place and the scale of space must be measured against our bodies and their capabilities.  A 'mile' was originally a roman measure of one thousand paces.  Automobile and airplane travel teaches us little that we can easily translate into a pereption of space.  To know that it takes six months to walk across Turtle Island/North America walking steadily but comfortably all day every day is to get some grasp of the distance.  The Chinese spoke of the 'four dignities'—Standing, Lying, Sitting, and Walking.  They are 'dignities' in that they are ways of being fully ourselves, at home in our bodies, in their fundamental modes.  I think many of us would consider it quite marvelous if we could set out on foot again, with a little in or a clean camp available every ten or so miles and no threat from traffic, to travel across a large landscape—all of China, all of Europe.  That's the way to see the world: in our own bodies."

- G.S., "Blue Mountains Constantly Walking"