Treading Purposefully

I took myself off for a long walk 'up-country' on Friday last week, with the intention of putting some kilometres under my boots without worrying about who else was around or was likely to cause me any concerns (see last week's blog). 

I was able to walk from home up into the South Downs National Park and National Trust land, and westward from there into the flatlands beyond the village of Angmering.

For four and a half hours, I walked into the wind and away from the day-to-day niggling concerns and worries which seem to predominate my thinking nowadays.

And the way I was able to do that was to follow pathways hitherto unexplored by me, but helpfully - and literally - mapped out for me in the Ordnance Survey map in my hand.

Much of the walk towards and into Angmering, I knew already. From there on, I relied on the map to take me further.

And I still went wrong almost immediately. The pathway wasn't as clear on the ground (up a side street) as it appeared to be on the map. 

But I was reminded that "a map is not the territory" (mathematician Alfred Korzybski, 1931). So I back-tracked, without giving myself a hard time about it, and essentially 'got back on track', mindful of something @CraigTaylor74 said on a map-reading and navigation exploration day a couple of years ago, "The landscape is never wrong".

Further on, back in the open countryside, I got to a point where I could turn left or right to start the farthest North/South leg of my walk before turning back East again. I had a choice to make - right (North) or left (South). Consulting the map, I went North, following the more interesting track indicated, around and between ponds and forest, until I found myself back in Angmering, where, once again, I got slightly lost in a housing estate.

But my sense of direction is good and I completed the circular part of my walk and had a wee break again in Angmering, before setting off for the final leg back home over known and previously-walked paths, with renewed intent and, despite tired legs, at a decent pace.

When I got home, I was invigorated and pleased to realise that both during my walk, and afterwards, my mind had quietened; that the volume of the  'noise' which usually accompanies me on shorter, local walks, had been turned down and I felt more at peace with myself.

The difference between walking just to get out of the house (Covid wandering) and walking with intent, albeit without a geographical destination in mind other than coming back home, and supported by a map and compass by which to navigate, was considerably more significant that I had realised.

My internal, noisy map had been taking over my wanderings. By navigating with intent and appropriate tools, I was able to focus on the landscape, looking up (there it is again!) and enjoying the physical and mental benefits of being in nature in those moments.

To steal from someone else again, "When map and terrain differ, follow the terrain".*

* fs blog