Open Hearts, Open Minds #7: Walking November

So already, during the first two weeks of November, I worried, like so many others did, about who won the presidential election, and then about whether our current president would manage to overturn democratic process and steal the election. Even when it became clear who would lead America in January, I couldn't stop my incessant news-watching.

Frustrated one day, I turned off my television, looked out my window--and just had to take myself to task: Wait! This is November! You love this month. What are you doing sitting in here when you could be out there? Yes, there's plenty of scary, ugly craziness going on in the world, but there are a few beams of hope, too. You can watch the news when it's dark outside and monitor the craziness then. It will be there.

That's when I decided to walk November. Does walking open the heart and mind? I'm not sure. What I do know is that I've come to feel in so much harmony with my walking world. Which may or may not mean that my heart and mind are open when I walk. Frankly, I don't think about my heart and mind while I'm walking: I just feel that harmony.

I share with you a poem below that can't decide whether to be about November or my walking of it. For sure, my walking became about more than just turning off the news. Your impressions and suggestions are welcome. 

Here's "Walking November, 2020."

I set out to walk November,

Always having loved the way 

Her slant-lit, muted grays and golds 

Stretched across the length of day, 

Then bowed to sunset’s unloosed fire. 

Harvesting her unclaimed moments, 

Abundant in this strangest year, 

I vowed to watch her truth unfold.

Many days of drifting mildness

Cheered me as I walked my pledge. 

Though not quite sure what was at stake, 

My legs divined that my intent 

Was more than for my body’s sake, 

So chose for me peripheral paths, 

That lengthened shortened afternoons 

And showed me places close but new--

‘Til pressing sunset, brash and bold, 

Urged me ‘round the trail’s next bend 

To watch November as she blazed, 

Late year’s seering prophetess.

Fierce with fury, ripe with 

     life,

Unperturbed by moonlit 

     winter 

Mustering in the bare-

     branched trees, 

November blared her 

     burnished truth: 

That waning light burns 

     no less bright— 

And may in fact burn 

     brightest.

 

The month’s last day was wind and rain--

A day that bade me stay at home. 

So with my legs curled up in rest, 

My heart and mind began this poem.

I set out to walk November

As if my life depended on it— 

And it did.