Year of Walking and Wayfinding

I use an app when I walk outside. After each walk logged you can take a photo which becomes part of your training record. 

Instead of New Year's resolutions, I have themes which I sometimes call projects. These themes/projects aren't aspirational e.g. New Year, New You! but more reflective, giving me a way to think about my my life.  I can't really say how I pick these themes. It's an intuitive process of listening to my subconsious through reading my recent journals, casting an objective eye on what's going on in the world, and thinking about my core values. There's usually some Baader-Meinhoff phenomenon involved too. All I know is that when the theme/project appears it feels right. There has to be a certain satisfying click about it, as if it fits into my life the way the right puzzle piece fits in a large, complicated jigsaw.

This year's theme or project, I'm not sure which, is Walking and Wayfinding. In reviewing my blog entries from the past 6 months, I can see that theme emerging. This project of walking and wayfinding is part literal, part metaphorical. I recognize the cringe risk since walking and wayfinding are overused literary metaphors but I will strive to avoid being overwrought. Walking is brisk and bracing and hopefully so am I.

Like so many others I have been doing more walking since the pandemic began, all of us aspiring to Elizabeth Bennet levels of walking* (Caroline Bingly asked: "what could she mean by it").  I am walking The During Time and power walking and nature walking. I am also trash walking. I signed up for a half marathon walk in June. And I have set a goal to walk some or maybe all of the El Camino by December 31, 2024. All of this pertains to the literal side of walking. But what about the metaphorical? That is a much harder topic to discuss in a non overwrought way. Suffice it to say metaphorical walking has to do with being human, pilgramages and journeys.  I will leave you to fill in your own details.

Rather, I will move right on to wayfinding because whether you are walking literally or metaphorically wayfinding tells you first where you are and then how to get where you want to go. I am a beginner in this area, both literal and metaphorical. I know how to use a compass, I love sun-dials and can find the North star but that's about it. To build my skill set I am slowly working my way through The Lost Art of Finding Our Way by John Huth which treats the literal parts of way finding and navigation with chapters entitled Dead Reckoning and The Sun and the Moon. Very readable and highly inspirational. If nothing else, I highly recommend his talk available on You Tube that I watched, fittingly enough, while walking on the treadmill.

As far as metaphorical wayfinding goes, the only advice I have comes from literal wayfinding. Align the near and the far and then constantly recalibrate, finding new interim waymarks to align with the far destination as you move forward. In this way, you avoid circles. I strongly urge you do not follow me because I could lead you astray. Rather, let's consider each other fellow travellers and share our stories about how we are making our way forward. If our paths diverge they will intersect again if we are headed in the same direction. Someday, we will get there.

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*I got this description from a blog I read. No citation, sadly. I wish I'd bookmarked it.

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