I am reading The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot, by Robert Macfarlane. This is not one of those books you gobble up but one you savor. A bit like walking; page by page, footstep by footstep.
MacFarlane writes about walks in the British Isles--Old Ways-- that go back 5000 years to the Mesolithic era. Can you imagine walking and unearthing footprints that are 5000 years old? Time compresses, collapses, past and present together in footprints. Your footprint fresh next to an ancient one captured in the miracle of geologic preservation. Or how about walks, north of Thames Estuary, across land the size of Wales, now under water. At low tide if you avoid the dense fog and the vagaries of lethal tides you can make out the old ways with your bare feet under water.There is quiet mystery in walks that are invisible but knowable or walks that create time warps. There is knowledge in our feet, if we only listen.
