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There’s been a foot of snow on the ground for the last few days which makes my morning walk on the cross country course seem more like trudging. \u00a0It’s hard to get a meditative rhythm going when every few\u00a0steps my weight breaks through the snow and I lurch forward like a bad tennis player\u2014my Leki walking stick helps. \u00a0It’s easier\u00a0to find a trail of footsteps that have already been made and then carefully place each of my feet one after another into those prints; sometimes they are my own from the previous day, and sometimes they belong to the guy whose boots make tracks like bare feet who I’ve never actually met.<\/p>\n
Now I know we’ve been told by spiritual leaders and self help gurus that we should always make our own paths, always\u00a0take the roads less traveled (to borrow from Scott Peck), and to never follow another’s road just because it is easier and well known. \u00a0I feel really bad about this as I am picking my way each morning through the snow, but after much inner wrestling and visual investigation, I discover that\u00a0the wildlife, for whom I have the utmost respect, are doing the same damn thing! \u00a0Hell, I love animals so altruistically and believe so enthusiastically in the goodness of their instincts that I’d probably eat the bark off a tree if I actually saw them doing it, so why should I feel guilty?<\/p>\n
So here is what I witness\u2014deer prints placed very carefully inside each\u00a0heel print of the human track as if they have been stamped there with a stencil and rendered\u00a0identical every time! \u00a0At first I am a bit disappointed by\u00a0the\u00a0sheepishness <\/em>of the deer\u00a0and their shortcuts\u00a0but now I have learned to\u00a0cut them some slack. \u00a0Everything<\/em> is awfully hard in winter and there is absolutely nowhere to hide; the branches are bare, there is no foliage, and one’s tracks can lead the big bad wolf directly to one’s door. \u00a0So why not take a shortcut when it presents itself, just for now, just until it gets a little easier to find food, shelter, and a fire in the heart?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" There’s been a foot of snow on the ground for the last few days which makes my morning walk on the cross country course seem more like trudging. \u00a0It’s hard to get a meditative rhythm going when every few\u00a0steps my weight breaks through the snow and I lurch forward like a bad tennis player\u2014my […]<\/p>\n Read More...<\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":436,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-435","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-image-and-word"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/laurajosephart.com\/laurajosephartWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/laurajosephart.com\/laurajosephartWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/laurajosephart.com\/laurajosephartWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/laurajosephart.com\/laurajosephartWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/laurajosephart.com\/laurajosephartWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=435"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/laurajosephart.com\/laurajosephartWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":440,"href":"http:\/\/laurajosephart.com\/laurajosephartWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435\/revisions\/440"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/laurajosephart.com\/laurajosephartWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/436"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/laurajosephart.com\/laurajosephartWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/laurajosephart.com\/laurajosephartWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/laurajosephart.com\/laurajosephartWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}