April 2005
Walking in America
A Brief History
by Stephen Altschuler
Each of us has a history of our own walking. We usually can’t remember our first steps, but the exhilaration we experienced at the time is still active in our cellular memory. Everyone relates to walking in a unique way, and walking styles can be almost as identifiable as a fingerprint. Walking was the main form of transportation for humans long before motorized methods took over, and so the act of walking goes deep into our spiritual, emotional and physical roots. Consequently, we are impressed by acts of courage or endurance or dedication on foot. I was awed by two American Buddhist monks of the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas in Ukiah, California who, in 1977, took a two-year-and-nine-month pilgrimage, for the sake of world peace, from Los Angeles to their home monastery, 800 miles in all, taking three steps then a full prostration the entire way. Walking, at its core, is a spiritual act — our feet, the first parts of our body to contact the earth each day.
Perhaps no one wrote of this spirit more effectively than Walt Whitman in “Song of the Open Road”:
Afoot and lighthearted,
I take to the open road
healthy, free, the world before me
The long brown path before me
leading wherever I choose
Good fortune, I myself and good fortune.”
And Henry David Thoreau, another icon of American walkers, philosophized and botanized alone at Walden Pond, and, with fellow transcendentalists, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Nathaniel Hawthorne, through Walden woods and by the Concord River. In his essay, “Walking,” he wrote, “They who never go to the Holy Land in their walks, as they pretend, are indeed mere idlers and vagabonds: but they who do go there, are saunterers in the good sense.”
We know, too, of the indefatigable John Muir who walked 1,000 miles from Kentucky to Georgia. Later he set out with only bread and tea in his pockets to sway and howl in storms from the tops of pine trees in Alaska and his beloved Sierra Nevada. And the great Indian sage Krishnamurti took a walk near his longtime home in Ojai, California everyday — an integral part of his spiritual life.
More recently, John Francis, the “Planetwalker” from West Marin, logged over 20,000 miles in the 22 years he walked across America and throughout Central and South America, spreading a message of environmental awareness and integrity. Francis, who earned a PhD in Land Resources along the way, had an epiphany after the collision of two oil tankers in San Francisco Bay and the subsequent spill, realizing that he was part of that catastrophe. His awakening resulted in a vow not to use motorized transportation of any kind. He spread his message on foot and eventually was designated as an official UN Goodwill Ambassador. When people thought he was crazy or accused him of trying to guilt-trip them for riding in cars, he took a vow of silence in 1973, which lasted for 17 years, breaking it finally at Earth Day in 1990. Dr. Francis, now married and the father of a 2-year-old son, continues his passionate walking, having led an 800-mile trek across Cuba in 2002 to better connect with this isolated country and study its organic farming methods.
Others are equally inspiring but perhaps lesser known.
The World’s Mightiest Pedestrian
On December 1, 1867, The New York Times published “The Pedestrian Mania.” A new sport had captured the public’s attention: not American football or basketball (which hadn’t yet been invented) or baseball (which was quite new) but long-distance walking.
The Times reported that the most popular and successful of these walkers was Edward Payson Weston, a young New Englander who first attracted the public’s attention in 1861 by walking 443 miles from Boston to Washington D.C. to attend the inauguration of Abraham Lincoln. He was 21 and covered the distance in 208 hours. Because of the excitement that walk generated, he decided on a career as a professional walker and, in the process, fathered a sport that became a late 19th-century craze. Called the greatest athlete of his day (the Times referred to him as “the most remarkable and successful pedestrian that the world has ever seen”), few could beat this walker who wowed spectators with unbelievable feats in a career that spanned 53 years.
In 1909, when he was 70 — yes, 70! — Weston trekked over 3,800 miles from New York to San Francisco in 105 days — a personal failure since he didn’t complete the journey in the 100 days he’d predicted. The following year, he walked back, this time covering 3,600 miles in 76 days. Some predicted it couldn’t be done; that a man of his age couldn’t walk that far in that time. Not only did the great pedestrian prove them wrong, but three years later, he walked 1,800 miles from New York to Minneapolis. He arrived ahead of schedule and in fine shape.
Weston “had an elastic, swinging stride,” said the Times, “and legs that never seemed to tire,” in covering his amazing 1909 trek, perhaps the most remarkable of his career. The Times called it “the most spectacular, as well as the most difficult, task ever attempted by a pedestrian.” And certainly no one of his age has ever matched it.
The Paths of Peace Pilgrim
But perhaps the most remarkable story of an American walker was that of Peace Pilgrim. From 1953 to 1981, a silver-haired woman calling herself only “Peace Pilgrim” walked more than 25,000 miles on a personal pilgrimage for peace. She vowed to “remain a wanderer until mankind has learned the way of peace, walking until given shelter and fasting until given food.” In the course of her pilgrimage, she touched the hearts and minds of thousands all across North America. Her message was both simple and profound. It continues to inspire people all over the world via free books and tapes distributed by her faithful followers: “This is the way of peace. Overcome evil with good, falsehood with truth, and hatred with love.” (www.peacepilgrim.org )
She was born Mildred Norman Ryder in 1908 in northern New Jersey, not far from Philadelphia, and her early life was happy but uneventful. In 1952 she became the first woman to hike the Appalachian Trail in one season, and it was on this trip that she had an epiphany: “The inspiration for the pilgrimage came at this time,” she recalled. “I sat high upon a hill overlooking rural New England. The day before, I had slipped out of harmony, and the evening before, I had thought to God, ‘It seems to me that if I could always remain in harmony I could be of greater usefulness — for every time I slip out of harmony it impairs my usefulness.’
“When I awoke at dawn, I was back on the spiritual mountaintop with a wonderful feeling. I knew that I would never need to descend again into the valley. I knew that for me, the struggle was over; that finally I had succeeded in giving my life or finding inner peace...
“I saw, in my mind’s eye, myself walking along and wearing the garb of my mission... I saw a map of the United States with the large cities marked... as though someone had taken a colored crayon and marked a zigzag line across, coast to coast and border to border, from Los Angeles to New York City. I knew what I was to do. And that was a vision of my first year’s pilgrimage route in 1953!”
Starting in Los Angeles at the head of the Rose Bowl Parade and handing out flyers with her message of peace, she continued to walk continuously for 28 years, in all seasons and weather, dressed only in slacks, sneakers, and a tunic that read “Peace Pilgrim” on the front; in its pocket, she carried only a toothbrush, notebook, and pen. She relied solely on her faith in God and the good will of people along the way for food and shelter. She never asked for anything, instead waiting until offered. Yet she survived and thrived every day of those 28 years. She claimed that she prayed ceaselessly and that this protected and nurtured her. She spoke to groups, the media, politicians, and anyone else along the way who would listen about attaining inner peace, and then translating that into world peace.
She stopped counting miles at 25,000 but went far beyond that, eventually accepting rides to speaking engagements as she aged. On one last ride in 1981, she died instantly in a head-on car crash.
Peace Pilgrim was a walking American saint, of sorts, never wavering in her simple ways and powerful message.
Peace Pilgrim used walking as a spiritual vehicle, knowing how such a simple act, when brought into the foreground of consciousness, can inspire and connect people to her message. The three Buddhist monks from Ukiah knew its power as well, as they slowed the pace to a literal crawl. Muir knew the power of walking in relation to his urgent message about environmental preservation. And Thoreau, with new train tracks near his Walden cabin, realized that his feet, taking their time so his eyes could see and understand, were just as powerful as his hand writing down his thoughts. As a “mindful hiker” myself, I have seen first-hand how walking can soothe rough emotions, provide a venue for creative thought and the kind of epiphanies recounted above, and help develop an intimacy with the environment.
Everything changed when primates descended from trees and began to walk on this Earth. Walking goes to the very essence of what is it to be a human being. But don’t take my word for it: Isn’t it time for a walk?
Stephen Altschuler is the author of The Mindful Hiker (DeVorss Publications). www.mindfulhiker.com
An American Walker’s Reading List
Walking. Henry David Thoreau (HarperSanFrancisco)
A Walk Across America. Peter Jenkins. (Perennial)
The Man Who Walked Through Time. Colin Fletcher (Vintage)
Peace Pilgrim’s Wisdom. (Blue Dove Press and Ocean Tree Books)
PlanetWalker. Dr. John Francis. (Elephant Mountain Press)
The Speeches of Doris ‘Granny D’ Haddock. (www.grannyd.com/speches.php )
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