English Translation: Jonas Van Holanda
In my journey I have dedicated myself to thinking about the mysteries of the paths.
Perhaps because this is an essentially basic action in my family: walking.
There was a mysterious need that drove us to walk.
I moved many times to a different house, neighbourhood, city, state, and never studied for more than one year in a single school.
For a long time I felt lost and without direction.
I have always wondered where to go.
Always wanting to go somewhere, but not knowing where.
Until I could understand that it is not about the place, that there is no direction to go.
The point is to welcome one’s own body and begin the journey.
How to liberate the journey?
I invented ways to walk, but they are also ways to float and fly.
What if instead of walking I go swimming?
Then it is a kind of flight in water, it is doing the opposite of what the feet do.
In my arteries the roots from the inside are inscribed in the body: I project the roots outward, and thus I pour my humanity.
Invitation: Drawing a possible path
In a quiet place, standing or sitting, look at your feet and say:
“this is not a performance.”
Think.
Still staring at your feet ask them:
How many steps have you taken and how many more will you take?
Draw a path on your feet, inspired by the paths that animals make.
Enter the water.
Any water.
Pour your humanity.
Six pages from the book Co-Sensing with Radical Tenderness that inspired the creation of this ritual.
