Walking. With Toko-pa.

Posted on by Live & Learn

283 days. Consecutive. Cove Island Park morning walk.

14° F, feels like 5° F temp. What fresh hell is this? (Dorothy Parker)

I’m near the end of my loop.  Boots swish through the crusty snow. I’m making my way to Cove Island Point.

And there it was.

It pierced through my tuk…

and through the hoodie pulled over my tuk…

and somehow she pierced through the noise cancelling earbuds that were pumping Taylor Swift’s Evermore… And I was catching my breath / Barefoot in the wildest winter.

I snap a picture, that one above. And pause to watch.

The rustling of this single, dry leaf, clinging to the branch by its ever-so-thin stem, and shivering. How delicate. How fragile. How barefoot in the wildest winter.

The north wind gusts, she shudders, and I shudder along with her.

Toko-pa Turner: What is wild in us are the ways in which we meet something freshly and not by habit. Wild is to be full-body alive in response to the conversation life is having with us; the caress of the wind which cools your skin after the sun has penetrated it with warmth. The shadow cast by a soaring bird above. The unmediated glance, surprised by beauty.

The unmediated glance surprised by beauty.

And for that moment…full-body alive.

Notes:

46 thoughts on “Walking. With Toko-pa.”

  3. Yes! Yes! Yes!
    Your exquisite photo and text made me feel like every cell in my body has awakened and is vibrating with the strings of life playing Bach’s Cello Suite No 1 in G Major on every nerve as I dance a song of joy in the morning light just before dawn.

        1. Laughing. So good.

          And for our friends new to “uitwaaien”

          noun
          the Dutch practice of jogging or walking into the wind, especially in the winter, for the purpose of feeling invigorated while relieving stress and boosting one’s general health:
          I halfheartedly gave uitwaaien a try, but now I long for windy days so I can get out there and breathe in a nice relaxing gust of good health!

  14. I am also often captivated by the last remaining leaf or two – there is something special about them. and it looks like some nice special effects in that photo…

  16. “The moment one gives close attention to any thing, even a blade of grass it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself.”
    Henry Miller

  17. Thank you–you are so brave–to share the experience coming from your full-body alive to one who may be hibernating! …been reading John O’Donohue’s Anam Cara (again) and he just described the “loving eye” this way!

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