Holiness

The word holy has the same roots as the word whole. We forget that we are part of nature, part of the world around us, part of the whole, holy. We see ourselves as separate, as fractured, split off.

Our unhappiness stems from our inclination to divide the world up with labels. Our vocabulary and grammar keep us apart from the world around us. This is the sour fruit of the tree of knowledge, the story of the fall.

My daily walks are more about recovering a feeling of wholeness than they are about fitness. An attempt to reconnect with the world around me, to mend the splits in a fractured world.

This is why I love walking in the rain. It is harder to pretend that I am separate from the world , that there is a space between me and the apparent objects around me that my brain has made up and labelled. The rain clings to me and envelops me. It becomes part of me and me of it. We become whole.