I wish to speak a word for Nature, for absolute freedom and wildness, as contrasted with a freedom and culture merely civil—to regard man as an inhabitant, or a part and parcel of Nature, rather than a member of society. I wish to make an extreme statement, if so I may make an emphatic one, for there are enough champions of civilization: the minister and the school committee and every one of you will take care of that.

I have met with but one or two persons in the course of my life who understood the art of Walking, that is, of taking walks—who had a genius, so to speak, for sauntering, which word is beautifully derived “from idle people who roved about the country, in the Middle Ages, and asked charity, under pretense of going a la SainteTerre,” to the Holy Land, till the children exclaimed, “There goes a Sainte-Terrer,” a Saunterer, a Holy-Lander. They who never go to the Holy Land in their walks, as they pretend, are indeed mere idlers and vagabonds; but they who do go there are saunterers in the good sense, such as I mean. Some, however, would derive the word from sans terrewithout land or a home, which, therefore, in the good sense, will mean, having no particular home, but equally at home everywhere. For this is the secret of successful sauntering. He who sits still in a house all the time may be the greatest vagrant of all; but the saunterer, in the good sense, is no more vagrant than the meandering river, which is all the while sedulously seeking the shortest course to the sea. But I prefer the first, which, indeed, is the most probable derivation. For every walk is a sort of crusade, preached by some Peter the Hermit in us, to go forth and reconquer this Holy Land from the hands of the Infidels.

It is true, we are but faint-hearted crusaders, even the walkers, nowadays, who undertake no persevering, never-ending enterprises. Our expeditions are but tours, and come round again at evening to the old hearthside from which we set out. Half the walk is but retracing our steps. We should go forth on the shortest walk, perchance, in the spirit of undying adventure, never to return, prepare​d to send back our embalmed hearts only as relics to our desolate kingdoms. If you are ready to leave father and mother, and brother and sister, and wife and child and friends, and never see them again—if you have paid your debts, and made your will, and settled all your affairs, and are a free man—then you are ready for a walk.

OK I know I said this was one of the​ clearest examples of his later thinking but you would not know that from this tongue​ in cheek opening. The whole “a la SainteTerre” it’s a fiction​, a joke. You know how they say you should open a speech with a joke.  This is is his really long “dad joke”. He loved his clever dry dad joke writing,  I do not. I feel it muddies his work.

But a thing I do like about this opening is his sense that every outing was an epic adventure. Your trip to the 7-11 that’s as epic as Frodo taking the ring to Mordor. There is something very Joseph Campbell about this trait of Thoreau. He believed early​ on that the ancient heroes​ and commons of the​ classics were every bit the same as us. That, despite some cultural differences, the human wants and desires​ of antiquity were the same as they were when he was writing or as they are now. There is nothing new under the sun — Aristotle.  Well then,  I have pretty much settled my affairs with this, am a free man and ready for a walk 😉

As a prelude to our sauntering through Walking, I feel the need to explain why I am choosing to serialize something Thoreau originally​ gave as a lecture and was later published​ by The Atlantic in its​ entirety​. I hope that serialization​ will give it the time and attention it deserves. You may​ very well have never heard of this essay. However, it has been said, by those who know more then me on these matters, that if Walden is Thoreau’s​ most important book than Walking is his most important essay. I personally find it to the clearest ​explanation​ of some of his later thinking. My desire​ to hasten slowly though Walking also comes from this bit of advice from Robert Pirsig:

“Thoreau’s Walden… which Chris has never heard and which can be read a hundred times without exhaustion. I try always to pick a book far over his head and read it as a basis for questions and answers, rather than without interruption. I read a sentence or two, wait for him to come up with his usual barrage of questions, answer them, then read another sentence or two. Classics read well this way. They must be written this way. Sometimes we have spent a whole evening reading and talking and discovered we have only covered two or three pages. It’s a form of reading done a century ago…when Chautauquas were popular. Unless you’ve tried it you can’t imagine how pleasant it is to do it this way.”

My hope is that by meandering slowly through this piece week by week it can serve as something of an extended meditation or content for thoughtful rumination. A touchstone to return to once a week. It also affords us the time and opportunity​ to notice what is special and delightful about it. So that’s the plan. Week by week, until we are done, I’ll be posting just a few paragraphs until we have finished​ sauntering through Walking.​