Sudden and absolute, and though tempted to make a halt, keep it that way, pure and unencumbered, pure as a breaking wave...
Ken White, Travels in the Drifting Dawn
Cycling along the canal towpath from Dalmuir to Kilpatrick, the familiar sight of the Kilpatrick Braes makes itself known. It's a formidable sight, this massive bank of earth lording it over the river and the riverside towns of Clydebank, Dalmuir, Kilpatrick, Bowling and Dumbarton. I like to think of it as a breaking wave that is in a state of breaking. There is an energy to these braes that a breaking wave also has. Yet, few of us can perceive this breaking wave because we have been too speeded up. But it is there, to feel as well as to see, and it is only one of the many reasons of why I am drawn into these hills.
At any rate, the bank of earth is the bench, the word bench deriving from the proto-Germanic word "bankiz" referring to a 'man-made earthwork' or a 'bank of earth'. Thus, when I came along the canal this morning I saw this massive bench and I thought to myself: This is your 'benchpress', this is your 'gym', this is where you build that eco-existential muscle that then reinforces all other muscles. This is where you benchpress your Self, where the 'mirrors' in this gym are Nature's nakedness itself. This is where you get fit and healthy, health being intimately connected with 'existential nakedness' as a lack of add-ons and decorations thus allowing the cosmic flow and suction to draw you out without you necessarily having to act. This is where you don't do in other words but be. Bench begins with 'be' after all.
Levitating... is that not what hill-walking really is?
The Erskine Bridge and Old Kilpatrick below.
Looking over OK Bowling Club from the train station.
No comments:
Post a Comment