And I am reading "Walking" by Henry David Thoreau (much about him soon to come).
This little great book began as a lecture, first delivered in USA 1851 and later published in 1862 after his death.
It is a lyric, meandering essay celebrating what is wild and untamed in the world and encouraging the reader to truly understand the Art of Walking and become a real SAUNTERER.
He writes:
" I have met with but one or two persons in the course of my life who understood the art of Walking, that is, of taking walks -- who had a genius, so to speak, for SAUNTERING"
and:
"It is true, we are but faint-hearted crusaders, even the walkers, nowadays, who undertake no persevering, never-ending enterprises. Our expeditions are but tours, and come round again at evening to the old hearthside from which we set out. Half the walk is but retracing our steps. We should go forth on the shortest walk, perchance, in the spirit of undying adventure, never to return, prepared to send back our embalmed hearts only as relics to our desolate kingdoms".
And later in the book:
"No wealth can buy the requisite leisure, freedom, and independence which are the capital in this profession. It comes only by the grace of God. It requires a direct dispensation from Heaven to become a walker."
Thoreau himself preferred the impervious and quaking swamps to towns and cities with its cultivated lawns and fields.
In this spirit I shall enter 2008 with a walk into the unknown - and who knows - if I take a flight next year and look down at 2008 - my route might have turned out to be a STORK like in Isak Dinesens little story from "Out of Africa" - described here.
