The Artist's Way

Returning to the notion of ourselves as spiritual radio sets,
we need enough energy to raise a strong signal. This is
where walking comes in. What we are after here is a moving
meditation. This means one where the act of motion puts us
into the now and helps us to stop spinning. Twenty minutes
a day is sufficient. The object is to stretch your mind more
than your body, so there doesn’t need to be an emphasis on
fitness, although eventual fitness is a likely result.
The goal is to connect to a world outside of us, to lose the
obsessive self-focus of self-exploration and, simply,
explore. One quickly notes that when the mind is focused
on other, the self often comes into a far more accurate focus.
It is 6:30 A.M. when the great blue heron stirs from its
resting place in the short grasses and rises above the river on
huge rhythmic wings. The bird sees Jenny down below.
Jenny, down below, sees the bird. The pumping of her legs
carries her in an effortless floating stride. Her spirit soars up
to the heron and chirps. “Hello, good morning, lovely, isn’t
it?” At this time, in this place, they are kindred spirits. Both
are wild and free and happy in their motion, in the
movement of the winds, the clouds, the trees.
It is 4:30 P.M. when Jenny’s boss looms in the doorway
to her office. The new account is being picky and wants still
more changes in her copy. Can she handle that? “Yes,”
Jenny says. She can because she is still soaring on the glad
energy of her morning’s run. That heron; the steely blue of
it flashing silver as it made that great banking turn ...