Meditative Walking

Meditation takes many forms. Writing, in fact, can be a form of meditation. So is walking, if we pay attention to the process. Many writers (including me) walk. You may be familiar with Stephen King’s habit of daily walking (which was rudely interrupted, one day a few years ago, when he was run down by a van; later, King used a version of his experience in the final book of the Gunslinger series).

During the course I will ask that each of us do a small bit of meditative walking. Take as little as ten minutes for this. Walk slowly. Turn down your thoughts. Be aware of your body, your movements, the images in your mind, the emotions in your body. Walk without a destination. Just walk.

When you are finished walking, write something. Anything. Post it to the forum. Do not write in Word, then copy the text to the forum! Either write in the forum directly, or write in your text editor (then copy). Get out of the lazy habit of using a word processor.

You may be interested, as part of this process, in taking a look at a few meditative walking resources on the web:

• Mindfulness and Walking
• Feldenkrais Walking
• Buddhist walking
• More Buddhist walking
• Even more Buddhist walking (No, your instructor is not a Buddhist; but Buddhism does have great walking meditations.)
• A huge page of walking resources.