You, phosphorescent In a sea of blue twilight Now of spring blossoms Walking home, I was saying to myself the mantra of abundance – Om sri maha lakshimya namah. In the last few days, I have started to repeat this to myself as I rest and meditate in the evenings before I go to bed. Would I have noticed the blossom? Would the words to describe it come to me if I hadn’t been repeating the mantra? If I had been lost in my own thinking, thinking instead? On the way home, I was reading ‘Shambhala, The Sacred Path of the Warrior’ by Chogyam Trungpa. It is the year of the warrior after all. He describes how synchronising mind and body is developed by looking and seeing. “When you feel that you can afford to relax and perceive the world directly, then your vision can expand. You can see on the spot with wakefulness. Your eyes begin to open, wider and wider, and you see that the world is colorful and fresh and so precise; every sharp angle is fantastic.” Abundance.
A campaign is currently inviting people to send a love letter to the earth - http://www.lovelettertotheearth.com/ Here is mine: Dear Earth This past week, I saw part of a TV programme about the Power of Plants. I didn’t mean to watch it, but once I started, I couldn’t stop. The programme was one in a series of how plants have helped to shape you, the Earth. I am aware as I am writing of this an immediate contradiction – plants helping to shape the Earth, but we humans would say that plants are part of Earth. Perhaps that is the first thing that I want to say, dear Earth – in writing a letter to you, I am also writing a letter to myself, and to each human on this Earth, as well as to each plant, each tree, each animal, each insect, each bird. When you think of it in these terms, the destruction that we as humans are wreaking upon the Earth, is so incredibly selfish. What right have we to destroy that which has taken billions of years to evolve? And at the same time as being selfish, we are destroying ourselves. I digress, dear Earth. I couldn’t stop watching the programme as it described the intricate way in which the earth had evolved. I like to photograph flowers. I like to photograph insects – bees, butterflies – as they visit flowers. I hadn’t really stopped to consider before how flowers themselves have played a part in evolution, and how insects have evolved to play their part in pollination. The next key point was how fragile you are, dear Earth. A 10km wide asteroid came hurtling out of space and hit you. The impact was equivalent to billions of Hiroshimas. Tonnes of rock was thrown into the air, creating a thick cloud above you. Dinosaurs became extinct. And plants were killed as a result of the acid rain that results from the explosion. Dear Earth, you were devastated. But, dear Earth, you can also regenerate yourself. Plants may have been killed, but there were seeds tucked away underneath your surface, and these germinated. Of course I have seen it before, but somehow the time lapse photography of a plant germinating and growing really moved me. Truly each plant which grows is a miracle of you, dear Earth. If each plant is a miracle, then we too, also products of you, are miracles too. It is not just plants and us which are miracles, it is all the animals. And I mean all the animals – the sheer diversity of them is overwhelming. The programme was emphasising how everything is interconnected. The presenter tied a plastic bag around a banana leaf on a tree, and left it there for a couple of hours to show a plant transpires, how it gives back water to you, Earth. This is just one example of how and why the rainforests are so important to the wellbeing of our global ecosystem. I came across a quote this week from Aldo Leopold – “A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise”. This sums up for me what needs to be our attitude to you, dear Earth. These are three inherent qualities of you which it is paramount for us to recognise. The integrity – the whole, the interconnectedness. The stability – the balance, the equilibrium, the looking after. The beauty. I was glad that the author mentioned beauty. There is a Navajo saying ‘Walk in beauty’. It is a blessing. If we walk in beauty, we will be respecting the integrity and stability of the earth, we will be respecting each other. Dear Earth, I know that you will walk in beauty, you always do. I wish that the human beings who are part of you will walk in beauty too. With love, Olivia Aldo Leopold quote from - http://www.philosophynow.org/issues/88/Three_Challenges_For_Environmental_Philosophy Walk in Beauty, the prayer - http://talking-feather.com/2009/12/24/walking-in-beauty-a-navajo-prayer/
“The dancer’s discipline, his daily rite, can be looked at in this way: to make it possible for the spirit to move through his limbs and to extend its manifestations into space, with all its freedom and necessity. I am no more philosophical than my legs, but from them I sense this fact: that they are infused with energy that can be released in movement (to appear to be motionless is its own kind of intoxicating movement) - that the shape the movement takes is beyond the fathoming of my mind’s analysis but clear to my eyes and rich to my imagination... In other words, a man is a two-legged creature – more basically and more intimately – than he is anything else. And his legs speak more than they “know”. Merce Cunningham, quoted in “Merce Cunningham & the Impossible” by Alma Guillermoprieto in the New York Review of Books. I love this idea, that our legs are infused with energy that can be released in movement. This may be in dancing, this may be in walking, this may be in yoga. Only move. And that this is the dancer’s daily discipline - ‘to make it possible for the spirit to move through his limbs and to extend its manifestations into space, with all its freedom and necessity. Today, in our meditation class, the teacher told us that the Tibetan word to meditate means ‘becoming familiar with’. Through meditation, we are becoming familiar with ourselves. And he gave the example of a dancer. The dancer needs to understand their essence in order to dance – otherwise they are just muscle. Without spirit, without knowing ourselves, there is no dance. And if we don’t dance, the spirit can’t move through us.
Hackney Wick At Hackney Wick station, a young woman was sitting on a bench on the platform. You couldn’t help overhearing her conversation as she talked into her mobile. “You told Holly that you loved her, and wanted to be with her, so why would I believe you… We spent yesterday together, and when we get up this morning, I find out that you’d been texting her all day… well, I don’t want to hear anything of it, that’s it.” She stopped talking, and I hoped that she had hung up, the guy was obviously a loser, but then a few seconds later, she would start talking and the cycle would start all over again. I decided that I would be better off waiting for my friend having a look round. Walking out of Hackney Wick station, the immediate landmark is Station Kebab. Turning to the left, you very soon see the red steel structure of the Orbit twisting up from the Olympic park, competing for airspace with the cranes. So at least I knew I was heading in the right direction. The immediate area is a mix of scrap heaps, builders’ yards and old warehouses converted into artists studios. One of the builders’ yards had a notice tied to the gate, offering accommodation to Olympic contractors for £90 a week, a television in every bedroom. The scrap yard had a bright Union Jack painted on its gates, with the St George cross on the fence next to it. Car doors rise in a neat stack beyond the gate. It could be a sculpture by one of the local artists. In front of one of the artists studios, there is an A-board for advertising events. But there are no notices on it, just pages of the Guardian layered and weathered – ‘Britons choose whether to stay or go’ is one headline. Another article is a review of a dance performance at the Royal Opera House. On the other side of the road, a rectangle of land is a carelessly composed installation of rubbish. There is an upended bath, black bags of rubbish, with aerosol cans and cheap wigs poking out, a car tyre with weeds growing through it. Planks of white chipboard cover a large part of the area. A black cat sits on the planks, its tail snaking. It turns its green eyes towards me, then turns away again. I walk back towards the station. Next to Station Kebab are more artists studios. There is a sign on the gate, ‘Hackney Wicked’. I walk towards the ‘Hackney Wick’ sign on a building, in big white raised letters, Hollywood style. Tucked away off the road is the Hackney Pearl café-bar, full of people enjoying Sunday brunch (http://thehackneypearl.com). Stickers on its door advertise its recommendation by Time Out (looking it up later I see that it was named best new café in 2010). Next door is an art gallery, showing works to do with the conflict in Palestine. My phone rings. My friend has arrived.
By the canal We set off on the path, following the signs with green arrows, fixed to lampposts. We reach the canal and the diversion due to the Olympics. By the side of the canal, are little sculptures of little people, lying down, basking in imagined warmth. We cross the bridge over the side canal and speculate that it must go to Victoria Park. It is only by walking that you get to know the geography. The Counter Café is set in the Stour Space art gallery and studios (http://thecountercafe.co.uk/). The £4.50 smoked salmon bagels at rustic wooden tables with canal-side seats and a view of the Olympic stadium, presumably help to subsidise the studios. The artwork on display is latex-moulded limbs – I think. A girl with a trailer on the back of her bike cycles off with 4 large bottles of milk in the back – I’m not sure whether she is delivering or collecting. Next door is the Forman smokehouse, smoking salmon – and also with a café/restaurant and art gallery (http://www.formanandfield.com/). I think that I must come back here another weekend. Graffiti wraps around the L-Shape of the wall opposite. ‘Don’t you just hate it when something goes on and on and on and on and on and on’. Round the next corner, an avenue of bare, pollarded trees with desert camouflage trunks lead to a brick building with bricked-up windows. The gate declares ‘The Ironworks’ and the estate agents ‘to let’ and ‘for sale’ boards cluster like butterflies, competing for attention. The actual flats are behind this wall of a building. We cross over the canal at the lock. In one half of the lock there is an old rusting barge, filling up with rubbish, and surrounded by algae and more rubbish. We express the hope that this is cleaned up before the Olympics. On the other side of Old Ford Lock is the house that was used as the ‘Big Breakfast’ studio, Channel 4’s breakfast TV programme which I used to watch as a student. The camera used to sweep in over the canal to the house in the opening credits. I wonder why they chose this location. A small inlet from the canal leads up to the back of the Olympic stadium. A bright orange tub of a boat patrols, with two fluorescent-jacketed men marked ‘Security’ on board. There is a sign for a ‘Water Bus’, and a man and his son are fishing next to it, maggots squirming in an ice-cream tub. We walk a little further and then have to re-trace our steps back over the bridge as the access to the Greenway path is closed. We pick up the path round the back of the Ironworks.
Olympic park We are now getting to the Olympic park. There are security fences on either side of the path. We cross the point where athletes will come from the warm-up area to the stadium, along a curving red track. I take a picture through a square of the fence. Further on, you can see glimpses of the white seats in the stadium. There is the red twist of the Orbit, curling upwards. A lone shopping trolley stands by the fence. The Viewtube café offers cups of teas and views (http://theviewtube.co.uk/). But we continue on, turning to the right towards Pudding Mill Lane DLR, held at the crossings by security men, before walking down a blue tunnel. And then keep walking straight on. A stream of people with cameras around their necks keep coming towards us. I turn around, and see orange-jacketed workmen on the DLR bridge pulling up a blue cable.
Along the Greenway We turn on to Stratford High Road, and miss the turning back on to the Greenway, perhaps distracted by the ugly new apartment buildings, which are hoping to hide their ugliness through coloured panels on the facades. If they are ugly now, we wonder how ugly they will be in 10 years time. Once back on to the Greenway, we can get into a stride, walking in a straight line. The old Abbey Mills pumping station is a beautiful sand-coloured brick building, but trapped behind two security fences and curls of barbed wire. The smell of sewage rises every now and then – I am reminded that I read somewhere that this path follows the main sewerage system route in London. On the left hand side are terraces, on the right hand side, there is more open space, including a cemetery and rugby fields. There are views of the Dome and Canary Wharf. Signs remind us that the Greenway was opened in the Queen’s Jubilee Year. A shiny Hummer is parked outside a typical suburban home. As we approach Beckton, we turn off, to head towards Beckton District Park. Final memory of the walk is the eclectic trees in the park, including eucalyptus. Outside the park, we wonder how to get home. But there is a bus stop, and a bus which takes us straight to Stratford. Part 1 of the Capital Ring completed. It will be an illuminating walk around London.
‘One step at a time’ is the refrain of myself and a friend. Not co-incidentally, we hit upon this when walking. We use it not only when out walking, but when needing to remind ourselves not to rush ahead of ourselves, to keep moving but let things unfold. My main theme of the year is ‘year of being a warrior’. For me, in short, this is about being true to who I am, and discipline. My sub-theme is ‘year of walking’. Last year my theme and sub-theme respectively were ‘year of abundance’ and ‘year of seeing’. The practice of seeing was something that I could put into action every day, aided by my commitment to taking a picture every day. It was through learning to see that I could discover abundance all around me (and inside me). The sub-theme of ‘year of seeing’ developed out of my picture-a-day project. ‘Year of walking’ arose out of quiet time and daily walks in Finland over Christmas. I wasn’t sure what it would mean, and how much it would feature. It was this morning, whilst preparing to go for a walk with my ‘one step at a time’ friend, that I had the impulse to buy the ‘yearofwalking’ domain name. This could only mean one thing – that I was committing to writing about walking and, necessarily, walking. So my plan, such as it is, is to write a post a week, loosely on the theme of walking. This will include accounts of walks I take, reflections on walking and, no doubt, more loose, metaphorical interpretations. I will take my camera, so the seeing will continue. At the time of writing, I am thinking that I will continue with a picture a day to keep myself in training, but will post pictures to a Flickr group. I have picked up Rebecca Solnit’s book ‘Wanderlust’ again. I have two books on order – coincidentally both in French – Marcher, une philosophie, and L’art de se promener. So when I am not walking, when I am sitting on the tube, I can at least be reading about walking – and writing about walking. Walk of the day: Section 14 of the Capital Ring walk around London – Hackney Wick to Beckton., 5 miles (8km) plus diversions due to the Olympic building site. Pictures and account to follow.
Photo: 10:17 Emilia, 8 years old, rated the presentation of her fruit 9.5 out of 10. I said that it is good to always have room for improvement. The joy of the everyday.
Photo: 14:48, at the end of the Postmodernism exhibition, Victoria & Albert Museum The traditional sign at the end of an exhibition. Shop – a noun. Shop – verb, imperative. An exhibition of a Year of Seeing. I hope so. Things to buy – who knows. Thank you to everyone who has dropped in on online, and left their encouragement. How it will continue – who knows. Or maybe I do. Here’s to seeing.
Photo: 19:50 After 14 hours of travelling back to London, I unpack the Karjalanpiirakka and boil some eggs. The ultimate comfort food. (Karjalanpiirakka are Finnish rice tarts – rye pastry, with rice pudding in the middle. Traditionally served with warm with egg butter, boiled chopped egg mashed up with butter. If you are in London, they can be found at the Nordic Bakery in Golden Square. )
