Walking to scout and lead a club walk two days at Brisbane Ranges National Park before surgery it felt strange at first not telling people what my next week may entail. More important was to walk, to enjoy the walk, for everyone to enjoy the walk. Like any participant, it was a delight to not have to think of my week ahead or my week just gone. To leave both past and future aside is surely one of the greatest pleasures of walking, especially while listening to others. As the last of twenty-two women, their safety was forefront of mind as I tried to keep us all together. Down a steep gravel path, some slipped but didn’t fall. A few were cautiously slow, unintentionally sliding as rocks detached from the track and tumbled downhill. We stopped chatting to enable concentration. Silence or words didn’t seem to convey encouragement so, feeling their anxiety, I chanted a hymn to Lakshmi softly in Sanskrit. It was calming, a walker offered thanks. When the last verse finished, we were safely at the bottom of the hill, rejoined with our group in the serenity of the bush.
