3. Time for some mindful dawdling
Slow Journeys in the Same Direction blog post written by Associate Chaplain, Geoffrey Baines.
Ever been told not to dawdle and to hurry up?
Now we need someone to tell us not to hurry and to slow down.
Doodling derives from the word dawdling, connecting slow images and slow walking.
There are many forms of slow walking. In his book The Lost Art of Walking, Geoff Nicholson introduces his readers to many ways for making a journey by foot or wheelchair: you may have strolled or pottered, and sometimes tottered. Sometimes shuffled, mooched, sauntered and, when you have had more time, meandered. There is also rambling, gambolling, and perhaps even shambling. You may have been told to take a hike and of you’ve trudged, tramped, or slogged away. And, of course, we’ve been trying out wandering.
By slowing down we notice more, present to who we are with and where we are. Through Mindfulness we slow down to be present to our bodies, to our surroundings, towards a gentler and kinder relationship with these. We avoid being captured and carried away by a thought from our grounded aware presence. In mindful dawdling, though, following a thought or an idea wherever it will take us is exactly what we want to do.
Philosopher on randomness Nassim Taleb introduced me to the term flaneur (female: flaneuse) for those who idle and wander, observing the deeper world around them.
A few years ago I had the opportunity of doing exactly this at the end of a work trip to Washington D.C. For two days, I simply wandered, observing what was for me a new place to experience. I found myself thinking about how flanering can be about much more than simply noticing: it can become a way to see more, feel more, ad these toward doing more.
Slow Journeys in the Same Direction is intended as a means of flanering with purpose: your purpose.
We’re always thinking, taking in information from the world around us, processing and then storing it. Sometimes we catch ourselves thinking, which is the practice we refer to as thinking, and we notice what we’re noticing, wondering what this is saying to us.
SOMETHING TO DO: It’s time for a wander. Perhaps to a place you’ve visited many time before, but this time, exploring it slowly, noticing many things you’d not brought your attention to before.
You may like to furnish yourself with a notebook with plain pages to take with you, and when you notice a thought you want to capture, jot it down, including illustrations as well as words – a way for journaling your slow journey and turning them into doodles there and then or later.
There’s also the doodle to download and colour in for relaxing. It’s made up of many of the shapes I came upon in Washington DC.
RESOURCES YOU MAY ENJOY:
The Naked Now by Richard Rohr
Paris Review article: Radical Flânueserie