For as long as I can remember I have been fascinated with roads, dirt trails, alleys, paths across fields, secret shortcuts, animal tracks in the hills, sidewalks, side streets, fire roads, and basically any way for a human to travel slowly and take in the mysteries of the landscape.

When I was a little kid, living on the outskirts of a small town, I remember my first sensation as being a wonder at what those blue hills in the distance meant, and how one might get there. And then, what was beyond them? I lent so many strange imaginings to that far off place; would sometimes have dreams that I walked in a straight line, through what seemed to my small body a massive distance, across the orchards and rolling foothills to the high cliffs studded in a blue green mirage. When I got my first ten-speed at the age of fourteen I began taking rides up into those hills, going further each time, bringing back a trophy, a curious rock or spent bullet casing, to mark the journey. Finally, at twenty-three, I packed my mountain bike into a box, put it on a plane, and flew to Italy, my sole idea to ride down the length of the country to the deep south, to find the stone house where my dad was born. All I knew was that I would get there only by riding bicycle, by following every inch of terrain using my own volition, taking in as much of it as I could. The first few nights, I slept in random places, and had bizarre dreams in which I was riding over cartoon hills with a beam of energy leading out from my third eye, pulling me along straight as an arrow to my destination...

Even here in my little neighborhood I am quite superstitious about what path I take when I walk somewhere. I believe certain routes to have powers to relax and soothe the mind and body. I can't help but to try to visually inhale every object I pass on these paths. The subtle changes when returning day after day, unnoticed, I imagine, by most people, to me are a source of fascination and endless entertainment. This urban world seems so tame and 'normal' on the outside, but at different levels of vision (and indeed at different levels of visual adjustment), begins to take on an air of hugeness and mystery...

I was going to try to tie in my ideas about what the labyrinth signifies in relation to all the pathways and roads we take in our lives, all the actual steps we walk and the directions we go, but I think this article about Songlines might better explain what I am trying to get at:

[link]

I wonder if it makes sense to you...

Wonderful clubs where I reside:


Epic photos of flora and fauna:


"...the labyrinth of invisible pathways which meander all over Australia...are known to Europeans as 'Dreaming-tracks' or 'Songlines'; [and] to the Aboriginals as the 'Footprints of the Ancestors' or the 'Way of the Law'.

--Bruce Chatwin