“…the Transcendent Rewards of Walking…”

I was skimming the website Brain Pickings for my literature class and the most recent article entitled, “Trailblazing Scottish Mountaineer and Poet Nan Shepherd on the Transcendent Rewards of Walking and What Makes for an Ideal Walking Companion” reminded me of the Dogen, “Mountains and Rivers Sutra’” that we read for class! (I know it’s not a Buddhist text but the similarities are pretty cool.)

The article is about the Scottish poet, Nan Sheperd, her book, The Living Mountain: A Celebration of the Cairngorm Mountains of Scotland, and the importance of human interconnectedness with nature. Sheperd makes an inquiry into why the relationship between human and nature has disintegrated, thus endangering wildlife. In her book, Sheperd writes on the importance of walking to connect with nature. 

Here’s a quote from the book included in the article!

“… Walking thus, hour after hour, the senses keyed, one walks the flesh transparent. But no metaphor, transparent, or light as air, is adequate. The body is not made negligible, but paramount. Flesh is not annihilated but fulfilled. One is not bodiless, but essential body. It is therefore when the body is keyed to its highest potential and controlled to a profound harmony deepening into something that resembles trance, that I discover most nearly what it is to be. I have walked out of the body and into the mountain. I am a manifestation of its total life, as is the starry saxifrage or the white-winged ptarmigan.”