Fitness, Health & Spirit: Take Your Shoes Off

August-September 2000

This is an article from WaveLength Magazine, available in print in North America and globally on the web.

by Wes Gietz

I remember days of summer paddling, touching water lilies with casual hands, drifting close to sunning turtles, listening to the water lapping against the canoe. There is an intimacy close to the water, moving with your own strength, in harmony with wind, waves, and current.

Anyone who paddles knows and savours the moments of drifting, at one with the water and at one with all of Creation. Then there are the times when you know that you are motionless, that your paddle in the water is propelling the entire universe around you. The connection with the ocean or river is all there is.

Now bring this sense of feeling of oneness ashore. Or can you? Do you find that the feeling disappears when you scrape onto the sand or rock, or when you stretch stiff legs and learn again how to walk?

There are ways and skills of the land that help us keep that connection. Skills that need no technology, just an understanding of the gifts that are all around no matter where we are. Skills that have been with us for tens of thousands of years.

When we use plants for tools or medicine, build a shelter with only material from the ground, or make fire with bow and drill, we connect with nature, and eventually with ourselves, in a way that technology cannot provide.

Stalking Wolf, the Apache medicine man and scout who taught Tom Brown Jr., said '"Physical skills are the doorway to the world of nature."' If we want a real sense of belonging, of being welcomed, of knowing that all of our needs for living comfortably or in an emergency will be met from our surroundings, we need only learn to accept and use the gifts of the land.

This intimate connection with the circle of all existence is something that people who live close to the earth know and understand as part of every moment of life. First Nations people speak of being part of the land for longer than memory, of belonging to it in a way that is almost beyond understanding for us of the mainstream. I am grateful to those who have kept these ways and understandings, and to those who have been guided to teach them across gaps of ancestry and culture to all who are ready to hear, without regard to skin colour or bloodline. Although I do not have the connection of time with this land, I have a connection of experience, of communication and acceptance by the land itself.

Call these ways native, or ancestral, or primitive-they are part of the birthright of all of us. They have the power to change us deeply, to give us a sense of who we are and how we belong.

Next time you are in the bush, take your shoes and socks off.

The first thing that will happen is that you will slow down. You'll have to, because suddenly you will need to be watching where you put your foot at every step. Then you will become aware of how wet humus feels, and how rocks feel, and how sticks feel under your feet. You'll discover the warmth of sunny moss. The first thing that will happen is that you will slow down.

If you decide to go off the path, you'll discover how everything tends to lie flat, how few things there are that will actually hurt you if you move respectfully. If you get careless and unlucky, you'll discover how a banana slug feels to step on, and how quickly half the forest floor can become stuck to your foot with the help of a little slug slime.

You will begin to feel a connection between yourself and the earth. You will appreciate her many textures and temperatures, her welcomes and her warnings for your feet. You will come to know where the ground is soft and where it is hard, where it is wet and where it is dry. You will develop a sensual awareness that appeals to an animal inside you, an animal that has been suppressed by too much intellect, too many destinations and too much clothing.

Eventually, the way you move will change. You will move naturally into what the Apaches call the Fox Walk. You won't look at the ground directly, but with your peripheral vision, because your eyes are directed ahead while you take in all of your surroundings. You will place your feet not by aiming the heel of a boot at the next likely spot and throwing your weight toward that spot, but by feeling the ground with your foot, perfectly balanced while you test the ground and transfer your weight. You will move slowly and quietly; you will see birds and animals close to you, watching and sometimes even just being there with you rather than flying or running or sneaking away from you. You will live now, not then or someday.

You will change. You will become part of what is going on. You will feel like you belong. Finally.

Then, next time you go paddling, remember that you are connected not only with the water, but with everything around you. Remember that there are people who have lived here for thousands of years, and that there are ways of being here and living here that are thousands of years old. Remember that you too have a place here.

"Native is not just to be born native, it is to learn to be native of your place. It's a collection of knowledge and a way of thinking." -Jon Young, Tom Brown Jr.'s first student.

Wes Gietz, Outdoor Skills and Philosophy, Vancouver Island, BC. www.windwalker.bc.ca ©