Archive for September, 2011

Literary Mileage
Sauntering through Italy

Tuesday, September 20th, 2011

Olive grove near Lake Bolsena

Next week I will fly to Italy to join 30 adventurous souls from my church, All Souls Unitarian, on a food and art pilgrimage. We are converging in Spoleto, from which we will walk to Montefalco and then on to Assisi, in time for the feast of St. Francis. Since we are Unitarian Universalists, we have diverse individual motivations and hopes for this experience. I plan to post a blog or two while I’m hiking, but I’m not making any rash promises.

The ‘homework’ for our final preparation meeting is to read Thoreau’s essay on Walking, in which he speaks of his love of “Nature, for absolute freedom and wildness.” Early on, he speaks in praise of sauntering, from sans terre, meaning to have no particular home, but equally at home everywhere, which he describes as the secret of successful sauntering. Thoreau preferred (and was apparently able) to spend at least four hours a day sauntering through the woods and over the hills and fields near his home, absolutely free from all worldly engagements.

Sauntering over a creek

I can tell you from my previous hiking experience, he’s got a point. His essay bemoans too much civilization, too much structure and ambition, saying, “How near to good is what is wild! Life consists with wildness. The most alive is the wildest. Man and his affairs, even politics, the most alarming of them all—I am pleased to see how little space they occupy in the landscape.”
I can hardly wait for that!

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