Daily Nourishment for May 16, 2024: Walking as Creative Fuel
Daily Nourishment Read Time: 45 seconds
Pause/Prompt/Practice Time: 15 minutes
“The high converse, the high adventures, will be in the country of the mind.” - Kenneth Grahame
Pause.
Do a few rounds of a breath prayer/meditation using a word that represents something you want to receive during the inhale (peace, rest, freedom, etc.) and a word that represents something you want to let go of during the exhale (anxiety, busyness, oppression, etc.).
Prompt.
Read the quote below.
“Nature’s particular gift to the walker, through the semi-mechanical act of walking — a gift no other form of exercise seems to transmit in the same high degree — is to set the mind jogging, to make it garrulous, exalted, a little mad maybe — certainly creative and suprasensitive, until at last it really seems to be outside of you and as if it were talking to you whilst you are talking back to it. Then everything gradually seems to join in, sun and the wind, the white road and the dusty hedges, the spirit of the season, whichever that may be, the friendly old earth that is pushing life firth of every sort under your feet or spell-bound in a death-like winter trance, till you walk in the midst of a blessed company, immersed in a dream-talk far transcending any possible human conversation. Time enough, later, for that…; here and now, the mind has shaken off its harness, is snorting and kicking up heels like a colt in a meadow.”
- Kenneth Grahame, via The Marginalian
Practice.
If you’re able, take a walk for 10 minutes. Then take notes for five minutes in response to the questions and statements below.
—Make a list of 10 things you thought about while you were walking.—Make a list of 10 things you didn’t think about while you were walking.
—How did the walk affect your mood?
—How did the walk affect your creative ideas?
—Describe the weather during your walk?
—What did you feel in your body during your walk?
If you like, use your notes to start a new poem, story, essay, or a letter to a friend.
*
Upcoming Workshops & Gatherings
—The May Co-Writing Schedule is live. Learn more here.
—This month’s Revision Stations Designed by Lauren Winner gathering will be on Saturday, May 25th from 10:15-noon CT.
If you have something that needs revision attention, you will not regret attending. Promise.
Today’s Daily Nourishment was provided by Charlotte Donlon.
*Please help us protect our intellectual property, our creative process, and the integrity of our work. Spiritual Direction for Writers® Daily Nourishment is covered under the Spiritual Direction for Writers® trademark. You are welcome to share this link with others, but any other use (written or spoken) is prohibited without written permission from Charlotte Donlon.