Walking with the Elements
With Sandra Cowan and Annie Martin
This walk was developed as part of the International Walking Arts Encounters “Walking Home/Walking in Transition,” Prespa, Greece, June 30 - July 6, 2025
In person in Lethbridge, date tbd: RSVP [email protected]
In person in Prespa, Greece, July 1, 2025.
Introduction
This walk can be done in any order, including any or all of the elements. Choose a place to walk, preferably with water nearby. To begin, sit or stand comfortably and turn your senses inward, closing your eyes and listening to the interior of your body. Breathe and relax, preparing to walk with your senses open. Begin to walk, pausing after awhile to reflect on each of the following contemplations, then walk with that contemplation until you pause for the next one.
Walking with Earth
Sit or stand on the earth – feel how solid it is under you, the way it supports you. Touch the earth, resting your hands on it. Feel the soil if you like, take a close look at it, smell it, feel its texture. All the plants you can see around you are nourished and sustained by the earth, and so are you and other animals. We get most of our nourishment from the earth, through eating plants that were rooted and grew from the soil. The quality of earth is solid, supportive. As you walk, notice how the earth is there to meet each footstep. Feel supported by the earth.
Walking with Air
As you walk, pay attention to the air touching your body. Wind is air moving – do you feel a breeze? Can you see leaves moving in the breeze or clouds pushed by the wind? What scents is the air carrying? Can you sense moisture in it? Feel the air.
Pay attention to the air entering your nose, your mouth, your lungs. Feel the air nourishing you with oxygen and how, as you breathe out, you are returning air from your bodies to the outside world. Notice the air moving through you as you walk.
Walking with Water
Look for a source of moisture – a lake, a river, a puddle, an underground waterway. Get close to the body of water at hand, and observe it, open your senses to it: how does it sound, look, feel, smell? Humans are also bodies of water. Your blood vessels are not so different than water systems, branching streams of fluid that keep you alive. Turn your attention to the fluid in your body. Can you sense your pulse as your heart moves blood through your blood vessels? Feel sweat on your skin? Saliva in your mouth? Your mind and emotions are also fluid - notice how your thoughts come and go like waves, or like an ever-changing flow of a river. Pay attention to water in any form as you walk.
Walking with Fire
Now stand with your face toward the sun. Feel its heat warming your face. The energy of this ball of fire nourishes our lives and allows us to generate heat and energy. Feel the heat of your own skin, your breath. Where is the source of your inner fire – where do you feel the sun internally? As you walk, feel the sun touching you, warming, and providing energy to everything around you.
Walking with the Elements
The elements are always available to connect with, simply by drawing your attention to them. Whether you are at home or far from home, you can connect with the air, water, earth and fire in your immediate environment and feel connected, feel at home in your heart and body.
Walk with awareness of all of the elements surrounding and supporting you. The earth rising to meet and support your feet, the air as you swim through it and breath it in and out of your lungs, the water as it flows and moves nearby and within, the warmth of the sun. All of the elements support your life and the make life possible for plants, animals, and the Earth itself. Walk with awareness the gifts of the elements. This is where we live.
With Sandra Cowan and Annie Martin
This walk was developed as part of the International Walking Arts Encounters “Walking Home/Walking in Transition,” Prespa, Greece, June 30 - July 6, 2025
In person in Lethbridge, date tbd: RSVP [email protected]
In person in Prespa, Greece, July 1, 2025.
Introduction
This walk can be done in any order, including any or all of the elements. Choose a place to walk, preferably with water nearby. To begin, sit or stand comfortably and turn your senses inward, closing your eyes and listening to the interior of your body. Breathe and relax, preparing to walk with your senses open. Begin to walk, pausing after awhile to reflect on each of the following contemplations, then walk with that contemplation until you pause for the next one.
Walking with Earth
Sit or stand on the earth – feel how solid it is under you, the way it supports you. Touch the earth, resting your hands on it. Feel the soil if you like, take a close look at it, smell it, feel its texture. All the plants you can see around you are nourished and sustained by the earth, and so are you and other animals. We get most of our nourishment from the earth, through eating plants that were rooted and grew from the soil. The quality of earth is solid, supportive. As you walk, notice how the earth is there to meet each footstep. Feel supported by the earth.
Walking with Air
As you walk, pay attention to the air touching your body. Wind is air moving – do you feel a breeze? Can you see leaves moving in the breeze or clouds pushed by the wind? What scents is the air carrying? Can you sense moisture in it? Feel the air.
Pay attention to the air entering your nose, your mouth, your lungs. Feel the air nourishing you with oxygen and how, as you breathe out, you are returning air from your bodies to the outside world. Notice the air moving through you as you walk.
Walking with Water
Look for a source of moisture – a lake, a river, a puddle, an underground waterway. Get close to the body of water at hand, and observe it, open your senses to it: how does it sound, look, feel, smell? Humans are also bodies of water. Your blood vessels are not so different than water systems, branching streams of fluid that keep you alive. Turn your attention to the fluid in your body. Can you sense your pulse as your heart moves blood through your blood vessels? Feel sweat on your skin? Saliva in your mouth? Your mind and emotions are also fluid - notice how your thoughts come and go like waves, or like an ever-changing flow of a river. Pay attention to water in any form as you walk.
Walking with Fire
Now stand with your face toward the sun. Feel its heat warming your face. The energy of this ball of fire nourishes our lives and allows us to generate heat and energy. Feel the heat of your own skin, your breath. Where is the source of your inner fire – where do you feel the sun internally? As you walk, feel the sun touching you, warming, and providing energy to everything around you.
Walking with the Elements
The elements are always available to connect with, simply by drawing your attention to them. Whether you are at home or far from home, you can connect with the air, water, earth and fire in your immediate environment and feel connected, feel at home in your heart and body.
Walk with awareness of all of the elements surrounding and supporting you. The earth rising to meet and support your feet, the air as you swim through it and breath it in and out of your lungs, the water as it flows and moves nearby and within, the warmth of the sun. All of the elements support your life and the make life possible for plants, animals, and the Earth itself. Walk with awareness the gifts of the elements. This is where we live.
"We are creatures of the air, for when we stand, all but the soles of our feet are in and of the air. We move through the air to dance, to walk, to explore, and while gravity pins part of us to something solid--the earth itself, a chair, a bed, a ladder--all the rest of us is up there in the very bottom of the atmosphere, the air all around us. We travel across the bottom of the sky the way a crab moves across the bottom of the sea. Breath by breath from our first to the last we take this atmosphere, this sky into where our lungs separate out the oxygen and our hearts send it coursing through our bodies and we exhale the rest, the nitrogen and the carbon dioxide. We think we are solids, but we are two thirds liquid, and survive through taking these sips of sky into our lungs."
Rebecca Solnit, 2025
https://www.meditationsinanemergency.com/we-are-firefighters-a-talk-about-the-climate-and-the-trees/
