Day 7. Walking with Silent Rain

 smell of countryside
the evening is falling soon
longing to stay here

I used to walk with Basho, the Japanese haiku master. When I walked through Belgium a year ago as a walking librarian in the Sideways festival, I carried his book "Narrow road to the deep north" on difficult days. A lot of people borrowed the book during the walk. I couldn't bring it on my walk to the south, but I did bring a small book titled "Steps to NoWhere". A walking guide made especially for me by a friend from Denmark I have never met and didn't know about until I started this project. He uses haiku poems as a walking guide through life and in the book he introduces his version of haiku poetry, inviting me to make my own form on this day. In the book he writes:

"What fascinates me being your Walking Friend is our inner dialogue .... not knowing each others answers or questions. Even not knowing each other at all! Maybe the personal connection and the meaning of the words is not important. Maybe the only thing, that really matters, is the feeling contact between two walking friends."

I started walking late. It was a lovely day and I felt so comfortable in the wood behind the campsite where I was all alone. A warm day, I sat under the trees, embroidering, thinking, looking at the pine needles on the ground. When I finally left the afternoon was almost over, I said goodbye to my lovely hosts Koos and Marlies and walked through fields, along sandy roads, eating berries for diner. The sun set, the moon appeared, a full moon, a clear sky. And this blue ........

I walked and walked in the dark, feeling almost invisible and thought about the other words my unknown friend had send me the day before. He had written me that a Nova was discovered a week earlier, now a 6.Mag star shining in Delphinus. A seldom occurrence. He wrote "Enjoy this extra traveller fellow. You can't see it with your naked eyes – just like you can't see me. But you can look at the spot knowing it is there following you."

I looked up in the sky. I thought I could see it. And I could. It was in my head, in my memory. And my head became the sky.

You can see it here: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap130816.html