The Joy of Walking and Permaculture

Posted on | August 26, 2010 | No Comments

Isn’t it curious how a lizard climbs a wall or a harvestman scales a slick, human back or an ant traverses a ceiling as if walking on the floor? Should the ant fall it rights itself and moves on. Hey, where is the queen?

Walking. We humans build extensions with all kinds technical wizardry in order to mimic the lizard, the harvestman, the miniscule ant. We always seem to be building extensions, but to what end? For the thrill of it, momentarily, for the view? Well I’ll be damned, we do have these two legs, and I’ll be damned, if by the time we are a year old or so we can’t right ourselves upright. And we have the uncanny ability to stop and squat, kneel, still ourselves, pause.

I am watching Halima standing shoulder deep in Long Island Sound. She is moving slowly on her two skinny legs and walking assuredly with the tidal flow and soaking it all in: shells, horseshoe crabs, muscles, pebbles, seaweed (kelp for the garden?), and a wet shirt clinging to her seven year old skin and bones.

What about walking? What about observing this glorious existence at a snail’s pace?

Hey, I am making tracks in the sand. They are a record of my whereabouts, my waddling pace, my gait. I stop and examine where I’ve been, and when.

Everything walks. And creeps.

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