When it comes to dancing, grace is not my gift, but I have rhythm. Robert Fulghum wrote about geek dancing, and if I am lucky I could be one because it is all about the rhythm. Not the rhythm of the music but the rhythm behind the music.
Ok, that’s a little esoteric, which is the word we use when it feels silly to say ‘woo woo.’ But honestly, rhythm is where it all happens. From string theory with its vibrating particles up to astrophysics and the speed of light, everything is moving.
In Sync
We are entering winter up here among the Great Lakes and that is a problem for me. Not only because three quarters of being cold is ‘old,’ but it keeps me from moving as easily. My 10k a day is more than a goal. It is when I reconnect the rhythm within and without, when I calibrate my mind to my body, and my body to the world. We sync up, as it were.
If you’ve ever used a treadmill, you probably did the thing where you jump off as it is moving, to get a drink or tie your shoe, and then had to rejoin the tread as it spun by. Pilgrim Life is doing that every day, which in my case is a physical as well as mental act.
The Motion of the Ocean
“In a 1927 letter to Sigmund Freud, Romain Rolland coined the phrase “oceanic feeling” to refer to “a sensation of ‘eternity'”, a feeling of “being one with the external world as a whole”, inspired by the example of Ramakrishna, among other mystics. According to Rolland, this feeling is the source of all the religious energy that permeates in various religious systems, and one may justifiably call oneself religious on the basis of this oceanic feeling alone, even if one renounces every belief and every illusion”
Oceans move, have tides, currents, waves, swells; they are constantly in motion. Part of that oceanic feeling is the motion of the ocean. But it can be found anywhere where there is some kind of rhythmic movement, which is to say everywhere if you think about it. Oceans are simply the most obvious.
That was Zen, This is Now
Yeah, it’s a cheesy line, but cheesy ideas about Zen Buddhism reduce it to stereotypes of bald folks sitting motionless. That does happen, but we tend then to think spirituality generally is about stillness. I say yes, and no. There are ways of the spirit that move, including many asian contemplative traditions. Yoga is a discipline of movement, as is Zen archery and Taoist tai chi chuan. All of them rely on rhythm, motion that is structured and directed, purposeful.
Get a Move On
When I head out for several days along a path or trail, it is to do a deep dive into the rhythm. Sure, I have my daily routine that goes beyond obvious physical activity. Mindful stuff counts as well, as part of a larger pattern of motion. Staying in touch with the ocean of reality, though, is hard every day.
Sometimes you need to go there: the actual ocean or some place where you can simply enter into the rhythm of days and nights instead of hours and appointment. You need to sink into the tides and waves of the world, not channel them for profit or outcome.
The Rhythm of the Feet
For me, obviously, that is on foot, and the act of walking for hours, measuring time and distance quite literally by the foot.
My second walking day along the Via Francigena was a great reminder. It was along the beach of France, from Calais to Wissant. For what humans call eight hours or 18 miles, it was actually the sound of waves, the sensation of feet on sand, the slow procession of the sun across the sky, the pulses that were here before we were and will remain when all our monuments have been ground to dust.
To sense that, and be at peace with that, if only while you walk, is worth the sunburn and the blisters.
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