Walking as a Way of Knowing
how to change your consciousness, one step at a time
This weekend, while browsing in a local bookstore, I came across a small pamphlet containing “The Fellow That Goes Alone: An Essay on Walking” by Kenneth Grahame. As a fan of both long walks and Grahame’s classic children’s book, The Wind in the Willows, I immediately snatched it up and brought it with me to a coffee shop to read.
As a lifelong ambler as well as a writer, I resonated with Grahame’s appreciation for long, solitary walks, especially in nature. But most of all, in his 1913 essay, Grahame focuses on walking’s effect on consciousness:
“For Nature’s particular gift to the walker, through the semi-mechanical act of walking—a gift no other form of exercise seems to transmit in the same high degree—is to set the mind jogging, to make it garrulous, exalted, a little mad maybe—certainly creative and super-sensitive, until at last it really seems to be outside of you and as it were talking to you, while you are talking back to it. Then everything gradually seems to join in, sun and the wind, the white road and the dusty hedges, the spirit of the season, whichever that may be, the friendly old Earth that is pushing forth life of every sort under your very feet or spellbound in deathlike winter trance, till you walk in the midst of a blessed company, immersed in a dream-talk far transcending any possible human conversation.”
The transcendent, almost mystical experience that Grahame describes shows how the humble act of walking can transform our consciousness and elevate our thinking and creativity. But it also argues for how our consciousness is never isolated, but in fact part of a larger conversation with our environment.
Walking as Epistemology
“Sometimes the truth depends on a walk around the lake.”
—Wallace Stevens
Epistemology is the branch of philosophy that attempts to answer the question, “how do we know what we know?”
According to the French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty, our perception and knowledge are always situated within a human body, and our embodied experience of the tangible sense-world around us. Most of us never really question the source of our knowledge, but we all rely on our five senses, our nervous systems, and our environments to know anything at all.
Our experience of reality will change depending how much sleep we’ve had, the food we’ve eaten, our changing hormones, our physical movements, and the people and things around us in the world. Likewise, the thoughts we can have, and the things we can know, will be different depending on whether we’re sitting in an office cubicle, chatting in a crowded coffee shop, or walking alone in nature.
Walking and the Brain
The simple act of walking increases the flow of blood, oxygen, and nutrients to the brain. And scientific studies have shown that walking improves cognitive functions like attention, memory, and creative thinking, as well as reducing stress.
Walking tends to stimulate the brain’s default mode network. The DMN sometimes gets a bad rap in mindfulness circles because it’s associated with mind-wandering, daydreaming, thoughts about the self, and depression. (The more we think about ourselves, the less happy we tend to be.) But mindfulness advocates often leave out the fact that the DMN is also associated with creativity and problem-solving!
Many great writers, artists, scientists, and entrepreneurs have credited some of their most important insights to walking. And so, while quieting the DMN with meditation is a worthwhile goal, I believe we also benefit from making room for wandering, both physical and mental.
Walking as a Contemplative Practice
In formal walking meditation, we usually focus on the physical sensations of each step.
While on a 10-day vipassana retreat in Nepal, I learned to note “lifting, moving, and placing” for each step. This kind of practice attempts to shut down mind-wandering, keeping us in the present moment and the brain’s task-positive network. Although it can be a powerful practice, I have to admit I found it painfully boring at times. By the end of my retreat, my brain was absolutely screaming to engage in some good old-fashioned thinking!
While formal walking meditation is valuable, I believe informal walking can also be a contemplative practice. Walking—especially in the absence of our devices and their constant notifications, the continual drip of information and influence we’re all subject to—allows us to think and ponder, to reflect on our experiences, our emotions, our relationships, our dreams, our sense of purpose, our desires, our problems, our creative projects.
When we walk, we’re thinking not only alone in our heads, but thinking with the moving body, with the nature or city-scape surrounding us, the larger ecosystem we’re a part of. New insights could be triggered by a sudden flight of crows at dusk, the gnarled roots of an ancient oak tree, or a cat walking across a dilapidated fence. We become part of a larger conversation—one in which our consciousness mingles with the more-than-human world around us. We become available for insights we would never have had otherwise, thoughts we would never be able to think alone in our offices, or in front of our computers.
Try This
If you’re feeling stuck in any area of your life—whether it be a creative project, a work task, or a relationship issue—try taking a long walk, alone, and in nature if at all possible. Pay attention to the world around you, but let your mind wander. You may be surprised by how the simple act of moving through a natural environment can shift the thoughts that are available to you. And over time, if you make walking a regular practice, it can shift your relationship with yourself, your life, and the world around you.
Essay I’m Reading
“The Fellow That Goes Alone” by Kenneth Grahame, in a lovely print edition from Fiddler’s Green (no affiliate).
Podcast I’m Listening To
Dr. James Hollis: How To Find Your True Purpose and Create Your Best Life on Huberman Lab. James Hollis is a well-known Jungian analyst, who I had the privilege of meeting once when he came to speak at San Diego Friends of Jung. He rarely does podcasts, so this interview is a great introduction to his work.
Quote of the Week
“Few people know how to take a walk. The qualifications are endurance, plain clothes, old shoes, an eye for nature, good humor, vast curiosity, good speech, good silence and nothing too much.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
That’s all for this week! As always, I appreciate your feedback on Mindful Mondays. What was your favorite thing I shared this week? What would you like to learn more about? Let me know by replying to this email or leaving a comment below.
Thanks for reading,
Chris Cordry, LMFT
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"Few people know how to take a walk," : ) or to say things with the elegance and economy of Emerson.