Cirrus@Austlit

'I am known to walk a lot by modern standards, on most days for seven or more miles. Fitness isn’t the point, at least not all of it. Walking spins ideas free; its rhythm puts me in touch with myself, and the distance I travel reminds me I am always loose on the planet. Setting a pace, sallying forth, reminds me, mind comprising as it does every part of the body, not least the heart, which tells me I am frightened or in love before I know to ask. The sensory organs—skin, eyes, ears—fire information constantly. Synthesised and brought to language in the brain, that information creates an ongoing sense of change that we call ‘mind’, which feels apart from the body but is of the body. Without the body, the brain is a dull grey blob, inert. Like it or lump it.' (Publication abstract)