This excerpt is from a book that has greatly influenced the way I look at life. I cannot recommend it highly enough.


"Exercise could be more soulfully performed by emphasizing fantasy and imagination. Usually we are told how much time to spend at a certain exercise, what heart rate to aim for, and which muscle to focus on for toning. Five hundred years ago Ficino gave somewhat different advice for daily exercise. "You should walk as often as possible among plants that have a wonderful aroma, spending a considerable amount of time every day amongst such things." His emphasis is on the world and the senses. In a former time, exercise was inseperable from experiencing the world, walking through it, smelling it and feeling it sensually, even as the heart got its massage from the exertion of the walk. Emerson, a great New England walker, wrote in his essay "Nature": "The greatest delight which the fields and woods minister is the suggestion of an occult relation between man and the vegetable. I am not alone and unacknowledged. They nod to me, and I to them."

If we could loosen the grip we have on the mechanical view of our own bodies and the body of the world, many other possiblities might come to light. We could exercise the nose, the ear, and the skin, not only the muscles. We might listen to the music of wind in the trees, church bells, distant locomotives, crickets and nature's teeming musical silence. We could train our eyes to look with compassion and appreciation."


From "Care of the Soul" by Thomas Moore

(Thomas Moore lived as a monk for twelve years
and has degrees in theology, musicology and
philosophy.)

Just a brief note to add:

I have learned to take my digital camera with me on my walks. This "forces" me to "stop and smell the roses" so to speak. I come home with some wonderful pictures that I later print to use on homemade greeting cards (or put in Journal pages)! :o)