About Walking Roots

Walking roots was a term that slipped from my lips when talking to a friend over a decade ago. My friend was feeling ungrounded with the continual shifting of living, both in locality and in relationship, and i suggested that sometimes we just need to find our walking roots for a sense of ‘belonging’. It was not a preconceived notion, and the varied nuance of that utterance has danced with me since that time.

To get at the root, of both words, radical and radicle. To be seeking the radical, far reaching actions affecting the fundamental nature of oneself and society/ And to be nurturing the radicle, the first root that reaches downward into the soil.

Both are essential to growth, or necessary to begin. Neither one is sedentary, but rather dynamic and sensual, responding in relationship to the world around them.

To become completely complacent, controlled or domesticated in growth is to be cut off from the roots. So this is the walk: to be fostering resilient roots so that the journey may continue..

Walking with plants, began to reveal long standing patterns of collaboration between humans and the plant people. Layers of separation between humans and their wild landscapes began to dissolve. We really are all in this together, humans and everyone else, no matter the current cultural conventions.

Cicada reflecting on old skin…