gratuitous aesthetic moment, that rediscovery of the lightness of being, the sweetness of a soul freely reconciled to itself and to the world.

When I have to perform a difficult action, I start again, I persist, and then eventually the action works. After that I accomplish it easily, with increasing agility. Everything goes well and quickly. It’s the same when training has overcome initial stiffness: the body lightens up, it responds. Joy is not the satisfied contemplation of an

wanderer, communed with the Essence. Walking was a ceremony of mystic union, the walker being co-present with the Presence, curled up in the pure bosom of a maternal Nature. In both Rousseau and Wordsworth we find walking celebrated as testimony to presence and mystical fusion.

The climbing body demands effort; it is under continuous tension. It is an aid to thought in the pursuit of examination: pushing on a little further, a little higher. It’s important not to weaken, but to mobilize energy to advance, to place the foot firmly and hoist the body slowly, then restore balance. So with thought: an idea to rise to

To marvel at the beauty of the day, the brightness of the sun, the grandeur of the trees, the blue of the sky: to do that takes no experience, no ability.

Serenity is the immense sweetness of no longer expecting anything, just walking, just moving on.

what is it that resists in me, what in me is the exact contemporary of the gravity of the trees, the uneasy brother of these beasts whose rustlings I perceive? What can I find in myself that is natural, what can I discover that isn’t in books but that I can only find by walking in solitude?

Sit as little as possible; do not believe any idea that was not born in the open air and of free movement – in which the muscles do not also revel. All prejudices emanate from the bowels. – Sitting still (I said it once already) – is the real sin against the Holy Ghost.

thigh, as one pats the withers of a horse. During those long moments of effort, when the body strains, I am there to support it: come on, keep it up, of course you can. When I walk, I soon become two. My body and me: a couple, an old story. Truly the soul is the body’s witness.