Another walk. 3.5 miles taking in the Monarch’s Way, East Dean, Charlton, Singleton and Glorious Goodwood. Despite being a warm Sunday, we didn’t see any other people. However, we saw a lot of wildlife – many butterflies, deer, grouse and buzzards. I noted that we often begin walks by entering through some dark and overgrown tunnel – a liminal threshold. The walks are generally circular so we are usually disgorged out of the same tunnel, transformed by the rhythmical nature of the walk, by the time spent in nature, by time spent lost in thoughts, by the deep noticing that occurs on a long walk. I’ve decided I really loathe walking on roads, especially in the heat. Yet again we got lost and were impeded by fences and barbed wire – must read more about how the land has been transformed so that you can no longer wayfare where you wish. It was only the lines made in the grassy, plant strewn ground, that helped us back on course; the traces left by other walkers. Naturally another walk meant more gathering – feathers (a symbol of freedom), notes and, of course, soil. I’ve started processing the earth collected already and have begun to notice the different colours, scents and make up of the various earth collected from different locations. It is interesting.
I kept thinking of the quote ‘What is above is like what is below, and what is below is like that which is above’ (Trismegistus, 2013, p. 10). My thoughts keep circling around the notion of the macrocosm/microcosm as part of the journey that I am on. The more I walk, the more I believe the patterns of the universe are mirrored in our individual lives; our inner and outer realities are interconnected. Could this be why I see, or at least am open to seeing, patterns? Like the scallop shell and feathers? On these walks, after I ease into the repetitive rhythm, I get lost in thought. I start to notice things differently (the smell of woodsmoke, the light catching the trees, the cracks in the earth). I feel as though my body becomes a conduit; a bridge between ideas/imagination and the grounded reality of my landscape.
“In the mundane, nothing is sacred. In sacredness, nothing is mundane.” This quote from the Buddhist philosopher Dogen Zenji resonates (THE SACRED AND THE MUNDANE – Rabbi Pini Dunner Accessed: 11/08/25). Each step of my journey is sacred, the sacred is in the mundane and the stars are in the soil.
By walking ritually, my walk becomes a symbolic stitching of the spiritual and material. Each action echoes the Hermetic truth: what is above is reflected below. And the extension of that ‘as within, so without.’ It is about the interconnectedness. My practice is the exploration of this interconnectedness and what I produce is a means of capturing that experience.
I want to continue to explore this in my practice, beyond this module of the MA (which is due to finish this week). I want to think about how I can tie my walking to some idea of spirals, of the calendrical year, the seasons. I want to make better use of my observations and thoughts as I walk.
Trismegistus, H. (2013) The Emerald Tablet of Hermes. Milton Keynes: Merchant Books.