Monday, March 29, 2010

Hirakata City Streets (街道): Kyoto to Osaka (19)

At Hirakata Park, Kari decided to go home. We had been discussing crazy walks and crazy walkers. There are people who walk for 48 hours straight for an obscure charity. They train for a long time and I guess they feel good when they walk for 48 hours. Although it might be fun to occasionally engage in team masochism, we felt that this walk from Kyoto to Osaka was primarily not about pushing ourselves too far passed our limits. Just by walking, We learned our limits and here Kari learned hers.

However, the walk was about more important things that physical limits. If we had aimed to simply push our bodies, then we could have walked the whole way on Route 1, or even done the whole trip on a treadmill. Rather, with each step we were taking part in a human project to awaken an ancient trail through the unification of the mind, body, and spirit: the mind- by taking an interesting and stimulating journey- the body - by eating local foods and creating safer roads for all kinds of people - and perhaps the spirit - through encounter. In the human form, by walking, we aimed to bring all of those ideas into one meeting. It follows then that the human body and mind have certain needs that need to be respected. In fact, ideally, this walk would be one that is not difficult or out of the ordinary at all. It should be ultra-ordinary and ultra-everyday. It should be healing. To walk, we dare to go where many have gone before.

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