TITLE: A Participator in the Panorama of Nature
AUTHOR: Eugene Wallingford
DATE: May 03, 2013  3:37 PM
DESC: 
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BODY:
John Burroughs, in "The Exhilarations of the Road" (1895):

<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
   [The walker] is not isolated, but one with things, with the
   farms and industries on either hand.  The vital, universal
   currents play through him.  He knows the ground is alive; he
   feels the pulses of the wind, and reads the mute language of
   things.  His sympathies are all aroused; his senses are
   continually reporting messages to his mind.  Wind, frost,
   ruin, heat, cold, are something to him.  He is not merely a
   spectator of the panorama of nature, but a participator in
   it.  He experiences the country he passes through--tastes
   it, feels it, absorbs it; the traveller in his fine carriage
   sees it merely. 
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>

Knee surgery ended my avocation as a runner.  I used to walk
a lot, too, but these days I walk even more than I used to.
For more than a year, I have walked to and from work almost
every day, even through the Iowa winter.  As both runner and
walker, I recognize the exhilaration Burroughs describes.  I
find that I appreciate the elements rather than curse them.
Wind and frost, rain and snow, heat and cold all matter.  Why
complain about a driving rain?  The world is alive around me.

(I found Burroughs's passage in
<A HREF="http://www.artofmanliness.com/2013/04/22/solvitur-ambulando-it-is-solved-by-walking/">
   Solvitur Ambulando</A>,
a discourse on the virtues of walking in the spirit of Thoreau.
I love the title as well as the essay.)
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