Mindful Walking Post 4: Serendipity

It has been a while since my last mindful walking post, but I assure you I’ve been trodding along at a steady pace. Most of the trodding has been at Spring Creek Trail which is about a five-minute drive from my house. This 2.5-mile trail which runs east from I-35 to Arcadia Lake’s Spring Creek Park has been open approximately two years. Why I didn’t discover it until this past spring, I can’t say. But what a glorious discovery it has proven to be.

Although my walking “bible,” Afoot and Lighthearted by Bonnie Smith Whitehouse, suggests walking be a time of technology detox, I take my phone with me on this trail because there is always a picture to snap be it of flora or fauna. All summer and into fall, I’ve seen white-tail deer,

On a single walk I saw seven deer!

 assorted butterflies and birds,

Can you see him? That little speck
of white in the middle? I need a
better camera!

colorful and interesting trees and vegetation.

???
Any suggestions?

I learned a bois d'arc and an
Osage orange are the same tree.
Just depends if you're in Louisiana
or Oklahoma.

Sumac--one of the foresters
told me he uses the dried berries
as a spice.

Roughleaf dogwood

These mushrooms--dozens of them!--popped up by
the entrance after a heavy rain.

I’ve observed the water level at Lake Arcadia go from dangerously high to could-use-a-little-more, but always the lake has provided photo ops of inspiring, tranquil scenes.

In past years, knowing the names of plants or trees or certain birds never interested me that much. But as I walked this trail and became more observant, I also became more curious about what I was seeing and photographing. (I know there are apps for that, but I wasn’t sure which one would work best, so I continued to walk in the figurative dark.) 

Last Saturday morning, after much deliberation, I decided to walk the trail rather than tackle all my weekend chores. When I pulled into the parking lot, I saw that Oklahoma Forestry Services had set up stations along the trail. There were signs and markers and also real live people to share their knowledge with curious walkers—like me. As I scrolled through all the photos I’d taken, the experts patiently answered my questions and gave me even more information about the forest I live in. (Yes, we Edmondites live smack dab in the middle of a forest.) It was one of my best walks ever! And to think I would’ve missed this serendipitous moment had I opted to do chores—which were still waiting on me when I got home. 

Put those chores on hold. Lace up your walking shoes and discover a new world right where you live!

    

Mindful Walking Post 3: A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

My neighborhood is small-ish (forty houses, two streets, two cul de sacs). I’ve lived in it for almost thirty years, plenty of time to become familiar with the houses and the terrain. Usually when I walk here, it is with the singular intent to exercise, to reach my goal of daily steps. I might occasionally stop to talk with a neighbor, but I seldom take the time to notice or appreciate the surroundings. However, one of the challenges Bonnie Smith Whitehouse presents in  Afoot and Lighthearted is to walk in your own neighborhood and see it as a tourist or newcomer might--to make discoveries in a place you thought you knew. Yesterday, with that thought in mind, I set out.

You might’ve seen the Facebook meme that suggests Oklahoma change its name to “Ark”lahoma. All spring and into summer Oklahomans have experienced torrential downpours of earth-altering, damn-breaching proportions. Since a creek winds behind my neighborhood and empties into a commons area, I figured much of what I’d "discover" yesterday would revolve around changes the recent rains have brought—erosion, uprooted trees, deposits of new dirt. But while there was some of that, there were also some very pleasant discoveries.

Okies are a tough, determined lot, and my neighbors are no exception. We don’t live in a gated community of McMansions or on manicured acreage. But we do take pride in our homes and in the small amount of ground we’ve been allotted. We work hard to make our space attractive for ourselves and for others. To my delight yesterday, I found that in between the recent deluges, my neighbors have continued to work in their yards and on their houses and have produced lush little gardens and photo-worthy vignettes. 

During my walk, I found ... 

 beds of brightly colored flowers and lush greenery ...

welcoming oases for birds (which abound) ...

and cheerful spots for humans to "sit a spell."

I’ve always thought we have a pretty neighborhood, but until I  took the time to notice, I never fully appreciated it. I think if I really were looking through the eyes of a newcomer, I would see it as a lovely and pleasant place to live.

"...explore the neighborhood, view the landscape...discover at least where it is that we have been so startlingly set down."
                                          -Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

My challenge is that you take Whitehouse's advice: Stroll through your neighborhood and see it for the first time! 

Mindful Walking Post 2: Poetry

In Afoot and Lighthearted, Bonnie Smith Whitehouse quotes Simon Armitrage: “…there’s a relationship between the poetic meter and the fall of your foot…. Often when I go for a walk I come back with a poem.”

I jumped right on this because I enjoy composing poetry, and I especially enjoy composing poetry with definite rhythm (meter) and rhyme. Free verse (no set pattern of rhythm or rhyme) is very popular these days. I’ve noticed that in many contests and literary publications, free verse is favored and rhyming, rhythmic poetry is considered rather old fashioned or trite. I don’t have a problem with free verse—actually enjoy a lot of it and have dabbled in writing some. But for me, when I determine to write a poem, rhythm and rhyme almost always take over. 

At the risk of being considered the ultimate nerd, I’ll confess to enjoying prosody (the science or study of poetic meters and versification) both as a student and as a former English teacher. I know, I know. I can hear the groans and grinding of teeth. There are many who contend that to analyze a poem’s form is to wrench the very life out of it. They feel—to borrow from E. B. White’s observation on humor—that analyzing a poem is like dissecting a frog. No one enjoys it, and the frog dies in the process. I’ve no desire to murder anyone’s poem, but prosody—like sentence diagramming—appeals to that strong left-brained side of me. 

I think rhythmic, rhyming poetry has fallen into disrepute lately because often it appears too forced, too artificial. But if done correctly,  rhythm and rhyme in poetry can be as natural as our heartbeats … or the fall of our footsteps. And after all, those are the elements that draw us us to poetry in the first place. I used to tell my English students that as far as I knew, no child ever listened to a Dr. Seuss poem and responded, “Wow, that message was deep.”

Sooo armed with these thoughts, 

I sat out on my morning walk in search of a poem.

I sat out on my mindful walk this morning in search of a poem … and maybe a few augers. As I walked, I noted the equally stressed thump-thump my feet made on the packed sand—a spondee! The augers eluded me, but amid the many sounds and sights on the beach, I managed to find this poem. (In case anyone is interested—the odds are, you’re not—it’s eight couplets of predominantly spondaic dimeter.)

                                          Beach Walk

                                       Breeze lags

Flag sags

Waves roll

Walkers stroll

Gulls shriek

Folks greet

Parents shout

Kids pout

Tide turns

Sand churns

Birds glide

Bouys guide

                                            Surf swells,

                                            deposits shells

                                            Sun blazes

                                            The sea amazes!

Try composing a poem on one (or more) of your mindful walks. It’s fun. Take inspiration from the sights and sounds around you and see if you detect a rhythmic pattern. Once you do, let it lead you to a poem! (And don’t worry—identifying the name of the meter isn’t necessary.) 

If you'd care to share the poem from your walk, I'd love to read it!

Mindful Walking: Day 1 - Analogies

The choice for my first day of mindful walking was a no-brainer. I’d thumbed through Afoot and Lighthearted and chosen “Analogies” as my first point to ponder on my stroll along the beach. According to a study by Stanford Researchers in 2014, walking can lead to an increase in “analogical creativity.” And who doesn’t enjoy a clever and enlightening analogy? I mean, a good analogy is like the perfect word … when the perfect word eludes or doesn’t exist. 

When asked to describe heaven, Christ responded, “The Kingdom of Heaven is like a mustard seed … a merchant seeking fine pearls … a treasure ….” He knew there was no human word that would adequately capture the divine concept of it, so he relied on analogies.

Whenever I read, I’m always on the lookout for the well-stated comparison that shows me what a character is seeing or feeling or experiencing. One of the best tools for helping me understand a complex problem is to begin with, “It’s like this …”

In her book, Whitehouse gives an excellent exercise to follow, which I might use at a later time. But for this walk, I followed only the first part of her instructions: Let your mind wander. For me, the quickest way to squelch creativity is to demand I come up with something: “On this walk, you WILL come up with an analogy.”  So I set out walking with the suggestion nestled comfortably in the back of my mind.

It didn’t take long to come upon two women carefully inspecting a pile of shells freshly washed ashore. Every so often, they’d pick up something and place it in their opposite palm for safekeeping. My curiosity was piqued because I could see absolutely nothing worth collecting in that pile of broken, garden-variety shells. 

But just in case I was missing out on something, I asked, “What are you looking for?”

“Augers,” one of the women said. She held out her hand to reveal the tiny tips of conical-shaped shells.

Augers!

I was delighted. The aptly named tips did indeed resemble little drill bits. What fun to search for them! How cute would these tiny treasures be displayed in a tiny bottle next to my sea glass collection! They had a fantasy quality to them … like tiny unicorn horns. (An analogy!)

And so I was on a roll. I noticed people all up and down the beach, involved in hunts of one kind or another. I started asking what they were searching for. Answers varied and they’d show you the results of their searches—colorful shells, bits of glass or sand dollars, parts of sea animals.  

And that’s when another analogy came to me. 

Perhaps life is a treasure hunt and we are all treasure seekers. We go through our days searching for the good, the delightful, the beautiful—something that brings us joy. The fortunate find it; others give up too easily or search for the wrong things in the wrong places. But I think as long as we are intent in the pursuit of what is good, we’ll be be happy in our search and eventually rewarded. And in our search for the ultimate Truth, Jeremiah 29:13 promises us this: “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” 

Do you have any favorite analogies? Any that are original to you? If not, lace up your shoes and start walking. And happy treasure hunting!