Walking in nature helps us gather our thoughts and regulate our nervous system. Maybe we’re messed up in our minds over a problem, perhaps stressed about making money or deadlines. Lock up the house and head out. It’s recommended to walk 10,000 steps a day, which takes slightly over 90 minutes, depending on how fast you walk.
When you get back from your walk, browse through the Igneus Press bookshop, there’s free poetry and ‘fo on poets. Check out Vincent Ferrini on what’s off the map in our mind. Wonderful for thinking in the woods.
Last week we talked about observation in Part 1 of The Importance of Walking in Poetry series. We ran into discussions of the exoteric and esoteric, as well as mental states such as Theta, a state of meditation and calmness. We learned that calm observation merges our pneuma, or qi, with that of our natural environs. Our situé shifts in a detourn through the history of our minds. We awaken at living corners to swaths of ivy and sunlight against a bare forrest.
Inspiration
The four main ways in which walking helps to read and write poetry are:
Observation
Inspiration
Rumination
Reading
Today’s topic is inspiration, both how nature inspires us, and how the spirit enters us as breath in the woods, by the sea, or through a cityscape. We’re going to talk about Classical Chinese schools of walking in nature for poetry.
There were at least two Chinese schools of walking. One was a popular form of behavior in the Jianshi period of the Cao Wei dynasty (220-266 CE), and one was a poetic convention in Song dynasty (960-1279 CE) poetics. The first involved ingesting a narcotic, wearing flowing robes, and walking around before sitting down to write or play music. It was common amongst literati both at Chinese court and away, common enough to appear in poetry from that time. The Confucian magico-moralist philosophy that arose from this walking is known today as xuanxue 玄学 , or Abstruse thought. Its scholars were rigorous, and turned to translating and commenting on Daoist and Buddhist texts, which they did through a Confucian lens. This intertextual and mutual influence between Confucianism and Abstruse texts 1Yijing 易经 [Book of Changes], the Zhuangzi 庄子 [Master Zhuang], and the Daodejing 老子 [The Classic of the Way and the Virtue] produced a New Confucianism in the Song Dynasty requiring nature for the simplicity of its poetry. Song literati esteemed poetry receiving jiangshan zhi zhu 江山之助 [inspiration for poetry from nature]. Poets were encouraged to go into nature and observe.
Our mind is quieted on a walk, our body relaxes, and our spirit dwells proudly within us. We may come to a decision or important moment of clarity. It’s good to carry a voice recorder on walks, even on your cellphone. Get in the habit of opening up the app, pressing record, and laying down a thought, image, or phrase. Then retrieve it, upload it to your computer, transcribe it. The poem begins, and the poem rephrases.
December Book Giveaway
Free Igneus collectible book with every order through December
Footnotes
- 1Yijing 易经 [Book of Changes], the Zhuangzi 庄子 [Master Zhuang], and the Daodejing 老子 [The Classic of the Way and the Virtue]
