Lessons from Moving Fast

Thank you.

For me, the slower I go the more connected to nature I experience. I feel the lower the metabolic rate the more you are into a silent state of the mind that allows this connection to occur. In deep meditation the breath rate slows right down. Being goal orientated and going fast like lot of walkers I see on the trail, you miss so much of nature. Each to their own though .I know a lot of runners get high from running.

Thanks, you nicely captured the experience. I used to scoff / look down of people who were fast packing, or running on truly beautiful paths. I would think to myself, “Why are you in so much of a hurry?  Savor the views”.  A decade or so ago I was in Yosemite on a family trip and my marathon training program called for an ~12 mile run. I did a loop around the valley floor. What different experience than walking slowly. The faster pace made it easier to build that mental map and I really enjoyed the experience. These days I mix slow and fast trips. Both have their place.

Gary Snyder used to purportedly crawl…literally crawl…through landscapes in order to understand.

I regularly practice sitting meditation. I often go backpacking to often further this end, doing solo “retreats” so I may sit for longer with fewer distractions. I may or may not do some miles getting in and out, I may go fast or slow or bikepack in…but once I’m there, I’m there. I am looking forward to a retreat in the Sierra this coming season; there is a particular place I look forward to sitting alone for ~a week without really leaving a fairly small area.

I find stopping is important, which can be forgotten at any speed.

Some rhythms are so subtle that even walking seems obnoxiously fast.

Oh man, I had a downright transcendent experience in the Los Padres backcountry alone last winter…I caught a particularly dark, moonless night by chance and was on my back staring through binoculars at Andromeda and the surrounding sky for hours…