I walk, therefore I am.
Elly
You walk the path one step at a time.
What do these words mean?
Each one of us is a path, a narrow path amidst a mist. We are the one who walks the path and also the path being walked. By creating the path – we follow the path.
One step at a time.
Thay says ‘walk as if you are kissing the Earth with your feet’. But what do these words mean?
A path is a dead thing – a trace of something living, true, an echo of a word spoken – but no more. What lives is the word between two lips, the kiss between feet and Earth.
Life is not a path; life is the lovemaking of path and traveller, seeking and finding, setting off and arriving. Life is walking.
One step at a time.
Lao Tzu says ‘a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step’. But what about the second step, and the third, and the ones after that? Does a new journey begin with each? And once you pass the thousandth mile, where will your journey be if not within your next step?
Is not each journey a step – and each step a journey?
What is time anyway?
You walk the path one step at a time.
But what is time? Is it measured in steps or is it one whole path? And does this path return to itself like a circle? A clock’s circle, perhaps, whose two arrows are our feet, measuring time… or creating it?
Step by step.
Kiss by kiss.
Is time a love game between now and eternity? And are we the offspring? Why then does time consume us? For it measures us no less than we measure it. What it gives with one hand, it reclaims with the other.
You walk the path…
But where do you come from and where are you going?
The path is a conversation. A dialogue between setting off and arriving. The path is always seeking its goal, but it is the goal that leads to the path. Yes, in the beginning was the word, but the beginning itself is meaning. Meaning speaks the word. The goal leads to the path.
So, where do I come from and where am I going?
We think back and imagine a womb. We think forward and imagine a tomb. We imagine ourselves as children of a beginning, destined for an end.
But when we look, both forward and back, we see only a mist shrouding the path. When we look both outside and within, we find only mist. We think up names for the mist. We call it ‘womb’, ‘tomb’, ‘self’, ‘other’ – we call it ‘God’… We call it ‘mist’. We get it wrong always and always we try again. Our lips stumble towards the unspeakable and we keep walking.
… one step at a time.
But what about missteps? What about getting lost?
Razumikhin says ‘to go wrong in one’s own way is better than to go right in someone else’s.’ And Campbell says ‘if you can see your path laid out… it’s not your path.’
We need the mist, mistress of all seekers. By shrouding the path, she leads us to it.
Your path and my path, our path and their path, the crooked path and the straight, the ascent and the descent, the common path and the one less travelled… Are we not all steps on one and the same path? Are we not kisses exchanged by the same lovers? Are we not words seeking the same meaning?
But what do these words mean? What are these steps seeking? Who is lover and who the beloved?
Traveller, You walk the path one step at a time. And for a time – an instant – I am Your step upon the Earth. I am the Word between Your lips. I am Your breath as it chases the mist.
Blessed be the lips and blessed be the feet. Step by step we arrive. Kiss by kiss we succumb. Word and Meaning rejoin.
You walk the path one step at a time. A path shrouded in mystery. From seeker to seeker You walk and what You seek is seeking You.
Thank for this essay
I’m glad you enjoyed it!