ON BAREFOOT FOREST WALKING
I’ve been walking mostly barefoot for many years now, all Summer long, on my daily wanders in the forest. And it’s not on soft dirt trails that I tread, but rather I go pathless, bushwhacking through the thick duff and detritus of the forest floor in the undisturbed wild.
Through deep dense layerings of twigs and needles, sticks and cones. The litter of fallen leaves, lichens and bark. After a rain all is deliciously moistened and softened. Now and then I pad lovely soft beds of luxurious moss. I clamber over fallen logs and protruding roots, meet the cool hard surfaces of scattered rocks; and in other places find my footing hidden under thick courses of herbaceous growing greenery. Here and there finding old bones or feathers at my feet. There are treasures to be found. Even an antler, or the odd clump of fur—or other droppings from my fellow forest denizens.
I do my best to avoid disturbing mushrooms and woodland flowers, or thistles and insect nests—for very different reasons. On the hottest days of Summer I follow the creek bottom for the relief the fresh flowing cold wet provides.
Once I almost stepped on a Nuthatch nest full of tiny eggs and was so sorry to startle mama so!
Of necessity I go slow. It is an elevated level of mindfulness that is needed. I pay attention.
I walk with two walking sticks, as my balance is not the best, and I’m sure this helps keep me safe, but I am surprised at how rarely my feet get hurt, or even scratched. I’ve learnt I can trust my reflexes, my instincts. A measure of surrender is called for.
I am also surprised at how the soles of my feet have remained quite soft—toughened up a bit surely, but not hardened. They do get covered in tree sap, which smells heavenly when I clean it off.
The feeling of being barefoot is a wonder. The bottoms of my feet seem to sing with an energy all Summer long, a tingling excited feeling difficult to describe—an aliveness of Earth connection I imagine. The electrical being that I am is grounded, ‘earthing’ my over-active nervous system.
And just this summer, after all these many years, I’ve been giving this practice of mine more thought. I’ve begun to think more about the connecting I am doing, and developing a deeper consciousness of just what it is I am treading upon and interacting so intimately with:
- all these tree bits that spent their lives reaching for the sky, now feeding their descendants to do the same
- these rocks that somehow made it here, thrust up to the surface and tossed down from the mountaintops, after being forged in the depths of the planet
- all the green growing lives offering up their beauty and their medicine and sustenance
- and the vast intricate twining and intertwining mycelial networks just below the surface that interconnect the whole of it, spanning the globe.
And here’s me, just another forest creature, finding my own place within it all.
If you are lucky enough to have feet that don’t need external support, I would highly recommend giving it a go.
~Barbara Brown
