A Long Journey of Discovery

 Today, I joked that the walk from Castle Frank Station along the DVP would be the longest hike in Toronto. I didn't realize that in fact, it truly is--or perhaps I had forgotten how long the journey would take. Nonetheless, the walk was beautiful and I was able to endure the pain in my legs and back to get to the "finish" of Taylor Creek park. Perhaps this will be the last time Toronto will have warm enough weather for walking, but I can imagine that with the proper clothing, this kind of walk can be quite enjoyable any time of the year.
  Long walks in Toronto might seem a bit absurd to some, particularly when people are programmed to be always interacting with some kind of screen, itinerary, or to do list. However, there is something inspiring about simply enduring in a natural surrounding without the thought of having to do something, and being able to savor some of those moments of not always being stimulated by the sense of connection. It is sad that "nature walks" are not included as formal pedagogy in schools, and the one or two times that I ever did have a nature walk in school was generally for the purpose of identifying plants or geographical features, rather than as an exercise in being present to the experience of walking outdoors. A course which teaches young people how to use contemplative inquiry in outdoor walking might to a ways in helping them enrich their experiences of the natural world, but also to know something about their relationship to body, time, meaning and purpose.
 Some "field" observations I would like to randomly jot in this regard, to be expanded upon later:
 
a) looking at trees seems to provide a natural release of stress, particularly seeing their swaying forms and being able to project that swaying, rhythmic and changing form onto my own embodied sense of being, makes the tension in my body seem less real, more fleeing

b) trails are places of induction into mystery and meaning. I am always poised between the uncertainty of not quite knowing where it's going to lead, for how long, and whether I can endure, yet there is a fascination in being on the path itself

c) trails offer new ways of looking at the "same old", and they have a way of disorienting and even defamiliarizing one's tried and true map of the city. I have had that experience today where, coming back to a familiar restaurant on Bloor and Yonge for dinner, I thought, "where exactly did I just come from? How come I cannot see it on my traditional map of the world?

d) nature trails are places where one can potentially contact liminal situations: the contact with a hungry squirrel, the sight of a curious bird, even the flight of a stationary helicopter. These experiences inject the everyday with something from a totally different world that is not saturated with "human" meaning--it has a spirit meaning of its very own.'

There is so much here to expand upon, but the point is that these random walks do have an educative value that might translate into the way people relate to things in the city. To be continued?