大象传媒

Writer and Musician, Jahnavi Harrison:

Walking here this morning from the station I was just thinking - 'I love walking"!

I can't remember when my thing for walks began - maybe cause my parents used to take us out a lot on little forest expeditions or just down the canal path in the local park. As I got older it started to become something I took shelter of as a real medicine. Through my Uni days with my head buried in books on language and communication, I'd yank myself out on a wander through the woods on campus and find myself clearer and calmer after even just ten minutes. I found that there was much delight in paying attention to the details.

There was wisteria winding around the railings at the entrance of the building - I used to take stock of it every week, watching for every sign of the growing purple buds. In the woods I saw mandarin ducks for the first time - completely mystified at how these exotic looking birds, like something out of Alice in Wonderland - I thought, happened to be swimming around in a woodland pond in North London. And on my drives to and from campus - the very beginning of my relationship with the M25 - I learned its many faces - the hedgerow daffodils and fields of wheat that followed.

When I lived in Manhattan, worlds away from the Hertfordshire countryside, I paid attention to the sparrows and the taxi-yellow tulips and the all-seasons lifespan of the 'police do not cross' tape that had blown into the tree outside my window.

In the details I've found that there's always something to appreciate - some small beauty or thing to learn. One of my favourite quotes from the Bhagavad Gita is when Krishna says 'Know that all beautiful, glorious, and mighty creations spring from but a spark of My splendour'. Paying attention helps me to appreciate the divinity in everything, and ride out the sad or lost feeling moments by anchoring my mind in the present.

This morning the very 'Mary Poppins London' view from the staircase here at the back of Wogan House caught my eye - it's all quiet rooftops and symmetrical sets of zig-zag staircases. Take a look when you're on your way down.