Take a Texture Walk

bark with mushroom.jpg

Prayer doesn’t have to be verbal.

I’ve found that in our western culture, both secular and sacred, we prioritize the cognitive and verbal over the creative and the kinesthetic. And this influences our prayer lives, often giving them a two-dimensional feel instead of leading us to true experience of God, an incarnational– enfleshed– experience.

Practices of embodiment can enrich our spiritual lives and get us in touch with the Sacred, waking us up to new understandings. A texture walk is one of those practices.

Texture Walk as a spiritual practice:

  • unplug completely. no phone, no music, no fitbit. bring a journal for reflection post-walk.

  • find a place out in nature that allows room to wander.

  • pause for prayer. open your heart to the Spirit with intention. ask for eyes to see, to be surprised, to be changed.

  • begin your walk. take each step mindfully, slowly.

  • reach out and touch things around you– anything: trees, rocks, moss, pavement on the trail, water. get to know each one. let your hands gather and remember what each things feels like.

  • when you have finished, journal your experiences.

Christine Hiester