Written by Charles Fleming, it lays out 42 walks around Los Angeles, up and down historic steps. The day after Christmas my mother and I did a walk that starts a half mile from my house. I take pride in knowing my 'hood, knowing the secret staircases, and knowing the local history. I did not know ANY of this. We did walk #35, Temple Hill, 45 minutes, two miles, 2.5 difficulty (out of five). The walk went right by our piano teacher's house, a street I drive every week, but most of what I saw was new. Or else I got a story I have been searching for, but never found.
The walk begins with this explanation:
This is a most spiritual walk, a hillside stroll without too many stairs through an area once dotted with temples, monasteries, retreats, and church buildings.
I won't give it all away, you have to buy the book and do the walk yourself, or come and do it with me. But what joy, to finally find out what all those houses with the onion domes were from (Theosophists!) or to walk into a tiny incense-filled chapel practically under the freeway (Vedanta!). Walking, rather than driving, these hills I could feel the spiritual energy. The power is as strong as Ojai, Sedona, Esalen, Big Sur, and other places in the West (you know them, if you live here, you have been). I drive it, I move through it, and most of the time I am blind/unmoved to/by it. But when I got out and walked, I felt it. I wondered if that is why I am drawn to this place, as to the others. I am not even conscious. But I feel the pull of the earth, and its power.
I am in a sacred place.
We can pave it, cover it with neon, but the power is still there.
This morning after my run I dropped by the Monastery of the Angels and bought some pumpkin bread, baked by Dominican nuns.
Not fresh. But I toasted it and nibbled while I drank my Illy coffee. Yum.
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