From Gary Snyder’s “The Practice of the Wild,” the essay ‘Blue Mountains Constantly Walking.’ – “We learn a place and how to visualize spatial relationships, as children, on foot and with imagination….The Chinese spoke of the ‘four dignities’ – Standing, Lying, Sitting, and Walking. They are ‘dignities’ in that they are ways of being fully ourselves, in our bodies, in their fundamental modes….”
He continues, “I think many of us would consider it quite marvelous if we could set out on foot again, with a little inn or a clean camp available every ten or so miles and no threat of traffic, to travel across a large landscape – all of China, all of Europe. That’s the way to see the world. In our own bodies.”
Henry David Thoreau said, “I have traveled widely in Concord.” As do I, here, walking through Portland’s forested neighborhoods.
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