Friday, July 2, 2010

Life is a Mystery Walk

When I travel to a foreign city, I take mystery walks. I leave the guidebook and map in the hotel room, walk out the door, notice something that draws my attention such as a dome climbing skyward, a curving street lined with shops or a bridge spanning a waterway. I move toward what calls me and let the shapes, colors, textures and sounds flow into my senses. I notice how the design supports the activities of people going about their day. I scan the walls and roof eaves for carvings of human faces, animals, plants and geometric patterns. In the forms, I sense the hopes and fears of those who made them and connect with the consciousness of the past flowing through the present into the future.

I explore the first place that called me until I sense a doorway, stairway or some other feature of the city drawing my attention. I engage that place until the next place calls. Wandering from place to place, the city comes alive. It speaks to me directly without the filters of historic names and dates. I enter a personal relationship with the city, one that can’t be encountered through the screen of a guidebook or tour.

After a while, I sit at a cafĂ©, park bench or stone steps of an old building. I recall the places I’ve just passed through, noticing the images and forms that figure prominently in my awareness. It may be faces or the geometry of circles carved around doorways. I might be signs in shop windows or footsteps on cobblestones. I look for threads connecting these experiences. Weaving back and forth through my awareness, a theme appears. The connecting strand could be threshold crossing, the overlap of nature and architecture, labyrinth-like movement of the path… I see how this theme relates to the questions and concerns I’m currently facing and listen for the insights and guidance it is offering.

I scan at the city before me and perceive the living, speaking consciousness interacting with itself through the people, objects, streets and buildings. I see the walk I just took as a continuation of my journey through this world and appreciate it all as one long mystery walk.

3 comments:

  1. This would be a good practice at home, although a bit harder, because at home we have distractions. It could help us see our environment more clearly. Thanks for the thoughtful post. Janine

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  2. Lovely post. Makes me want to travel. Or look at my current surroundings with new eyes.

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  3. I do the same in any city I visit, foreign or U.S. I just go walking and see what I find and where I end up. I've been lost in Amsterdam, discovered a whole neighborhood of shops in Paris, found new architecture in Chicago, and the list goes on.

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