Walkabout

So, I was making a random slideshow of November pictures, mostly because I was bored, but even more mostly because I love the song, Walkabout by Atlas Sound w/Noah Lennox and wanted to share it. It's so awesome! and besides, it's called Walkabout, which is the term for the Aboriginal tradition of tracing their ancestors' songlines, a rite of passage in the wilderness, which I think is pretty freakin' cool. I started thinking about the morning Skype conversation I had with my sister about the possibility of her own sort of walkabout, which I think is pretty freakin' cool. And I realized as I was looking at these snapshots of my life in November, of what I had seen and done, of some of the people and things whose paths I had crossed, that I'm in the midst of my own sort of walkabout. I do a lot of walking about these days, drifting through this big, beautiful city, over the bridge, through the gardens, now back home through the alleyways, all the while soaking up my surroundings, wandering keen-eyed and small, watching the world, feeling a part of it all.

"Wandering re-establishes the original harmony which once existed between man and the universe." -Anatole France

When I wander, I don't feel lost at all, even when I realize I have no idea where I am. Somehow, my meanderings are leading me home. I think man tries so hard to make a place in this world, a concrete, tangible, safe place to shield ourselves from the unknown, and why wouldn't we? This universe is so big and mysterious and we are these tiny little ants. We want to be able to say with confidence and specificity, this is my place and my purpose, to nail down our existence: this is who I am, this is what I do, this is where I live, so as to make sense of it all. But the truth is you are as much of a mystery as this universe, small as you are, no matter who or what you say you are. To wander about someplace unknown, to wonder about something unknown then, is to admit your own smallness and to say to the universe, I want to discover you. And in discovering something beyond yourself, you end up realizing something within yourself, which I think is pretty freakin' cool. I'm not sure if any of that makes any sense, but, anyway, what I really want to say is, I'm thankful that I'm so small and clueless. I'm thankful that, if I'm lucky, there is still much wandering and wondering left for me to do.

Looking, Walking, Being

by Denise Levertov

"The world is not something to look at,

it is something to be in." -Mark Rudman

I look and look.

Looking's a way of being: one becomes,

sometimes, a pair of eyes walking.

Walking wherever looking takes one.

The eyes

dig and burrow into the world.

They touch

fanfare, howl, madrigal, clamor.

World and the past of it,

not only

visible present, solid and shadow

that looks at one looking.

And language? Rhythms

of echo and interruption?

That's

a way of breathing.

breathing to sustain

looking,

walking and looking,

through the world,

in it.

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