How delightfully fitting (and admittedly a bit frustrating) that the longer I walked towards Chattanooga, the farther I seemed to have to go – that the closer I got towards finally finishing my Great Walk, the more life seemed to smile and say “Not just yet, my dear Friend – not just yet” …

“Why is it, we may ask, that the walker is so often attracted to the hill-top, and what is the reason for the emotion which he experiences in the far view, with its effect upon thought and feeling and imagination? Maybe it is because for those particular pilgrims – both the hill-walkers as well as the mountain climbers – the undulating track symbolizes the way of the Soul’s ascensions. For there is ever implanted deep within every human heart an effervescent desire to ascend … And so it must be the working in us of a great and benevolent Spirit that sends us to those higher places, there to experience this feeling of elation with all that it brings … And how often & odd it is that we travelers are almost always alone when we reach those varied summits. And yet it is not that we love to be alone that brings there in solitude, but rather that we have chosen to boldly soar. And when we do rise upward and above, the company we keep grows naturally thinner and thinner – until often there is none at all. … Let you remember that we are never lesser for aiming at the summits merely because the multitude choose not to ascend them. Indeed, it is far more often than not the opposite that is far more precisely true.” ~ inspired by Will Grant & Henry David Thoreau

Filed under: Peace Pilgrimage #02: Walking HOME (2019) by Scaughdt