January Daily Walking Challenge

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“Life is prolonged when you walk…Walking expands time rather than collapses it. . . . Walking is a slow undertaking. It is among the most radical things you can do.”

—Erling Kagge, Walking: One Step at a Time

Winter might seem like an odd time to begin an outdoor walking challenge, but that’s what I’m calling myself (and you) to in this season. There’s something about the crisp air that invigorates and awakens the senses—calling us back to our body and offering a sense of grounding and clarity that builds over time.

Walking is a type of natural medicine that acts as a regulator for our internal weather. A simple walk can offer clarity and perspective, and help you feel rooted in the body.

I find the start of the year requires a bit of circling, an easing into, until I find that sense of grounding I seem to crave in winter. The days between holidays bleed into one another, we lose track of time and our typical rhythms.

Some counteract this with declarative resolutions and rigid annual planning, yet I find I often need a little more time for the year to reveal its shape.

But I do crave space and quiet right now, a way to mark the transition of the season. I often partake in some type of daily ritual or creative challenge in January (sharing some in the post below). This year, I want to feel present in my body, and so, the Wake & Walk challenge.

As we explore the idea of space to create this season, first we must create that space. I think we can find it through simple movement like a daily walk, though we’ll know better in a few weeks.

What Walking Offers Us

As we embark on this challenge together, I’ve gathered up some wisdom from other artists, writers, and thinkers who have gone before us to consider what walking daily might offer us.

In her book Living the Artist’s Way, Julia Cameron states, “Twenty minutes [of walking] twice a week is enough to alter your consciousness.” She goes on to suggest, “You may wish to walk out with a question and see if you return with an answer.”

Kierkegaard famously said:

Above all, do not lose your desire to walk. Everyday, I walk myself into a state of well-being & walk away from every illness. I have walked myself into my best thoughts, and I know of no thought so burdensome that one cannot walk away from it. But by sitting still, & the more one sits still, the closer one comes to feeling ill. Thus if one just keeps on walking, everything will be all right.

Georgia O’Keeffe was known to take an early-morning walk each day, stating, “The morning is the best time, there are no people around. My pleasant disposition likes the world with nobody in it” (quoted in Daily Rituals: How Artists Work by Mason Currey).

But perhaps mornings are not the time for you. And like writer Amina Cain, you’ll claim the evenings for your walks (because wake and walk is a suggestion only):

My walks are almost always at dusk, up and down the hills of my neighborhood, and though I like them at other times of day too, for me those other walks are not as pleasurable. As the light in the sky dims, lights come on in the houses, and the lives of the people inside the houses seem more interesting then, heightened, as though each house is a stage…My life feels heightened too, and I appreciate the gentleness of the coming evening.

—Amina Cain, A Horse at Night

You don’t have to enter into a walking practice with any sort of goal in mind—but likely a purpose or benefit will find you.

Author Haruki Murakami is well known for running daily for most of his life. Though he talks about running here, this particular benefit seems to be shared by walking as well:

When I’m running I don’t have to talk to anybody. I don’t have to listen to anybody. All I need to do is gaze at the scenery passing by. This is a part of my day I can’t do without. I’m often asked what I think about as I run. . . .But really, as I run I don’t think much of anything worth mentioning. I just run. I run in a void. Or maybe I should put it the other way. I run in order to acquire a void…The thoughts that occur to me when I’m running are like clouds in the sky. Clouds of all different sizes. They come and they go while the sky remains the same sky as always. The clouds are mere guests in the sky that pass away and vanish, leaving behind the sky…And we merely accept that vast expanse and drink it in.

—Haruki Murakami, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

In the fiction book I was reading this week (Practice by Rosalind Brown), the main character sets out on a long walk amidst a daily rigid routine. She walks not to think about something or find clarity, but to settle herself: “Her strong walking legs have a strong walking mind attached to them which has to settle again.”

My mind is quite the active place, and I like this idea of settling, and the meditative approach Murakami takes to the thoughts that arise for him.

I look forward to what our walks will offer up to us over the next several weeks. Some of it we will share together—to see if there’s anything universal to discover—though some things will be solely our own.

The January Wake & Walk Challenge