A path makes decisions for us. Walking off path forces us to us make decisions (strengthening our decision-making powers).
Freewalk: to walk off path, without (feeling anxiety about) getting lost or hurt, or being disrupted.
Freewalkers use whole terrains as paths, creating the path most interesting and delightful, without being destructive (by crushing delicate lives) or getting exhausted.
(Freewalking allows us to experience the earth and our bodies the way our ancestors did, hunting and gathering, roaming in seasonal migrations. It awakens the “animal” senses: acuity in hearing, vision, touch. We walk off path, find the paths of other creatures and learn to read them. We become knowers of many paths and prescient.)
A freewalker tunes to the world as it presents itself. Walks in the present and senses the presence of the bios, the large shared life of the place (that is the subject of ecology). Notes the world as it is re-presented (via signs, stories, roads, trails), and returns focus to walk in, with and as the place. A wonderful Roman concept suggests the ultimate freewalker: genius loci.
We can’t always freewalk. Yet we must.
