Ever Onward

DIY Mailboxes

One of the fun things about walking, is seeing the creative ways people have found to personalize their space.  There are the houses painted in bright, fairytale colors; tree forts complete with glass windows; weather vanes ( I have such a weakness for weather vanes); statues made from found objects and of course the ubiquitous mailbox.  As long as the door stays shut and the flag is well attached, there's very little reason to think about these oddly shaped boxes, until someone makes them worth noticing. 

About a year ago I did a post about a walk I took in Lincoln, where I was surprised at the number of unique, home decorated mailboxes.  There was one mailbox that I debated whether or not to include in that post.  It was gray, with just the name Frost painted on it.  There was really no reason to give it a second glance except that it was the spitting image of the mailbox in front of Robert Frost's home in the White Mountains.  I decided this was more likely coincidence, than an homage of any sort and left the mailbox out of the post.  This spring, that gray mailbox went through a major transformation.  I decided to explore the neighborhood and see what (if any) other changes had occurred.

Formerly the Frost mailbox

I started out in the parking lot of the Lincoln Exchange, one of the few public places to park near Tower Road.  You can click on here to see my route.  The Exchange is home to one of the town's post offices, and I always feel like I'm stepping back in time when I walk through those doors to buy stamps or what not.  We'd had a week of summer weather (in April mind you), so it was a pleasure to walk under stone colored skies through the occasional shower.  It's the sort of weather I imagine when I think of the Pacific Northwest, great for a visit but I wouldn't want it everyday.

The lilacs are in that wonderful inbetween stage where the closed buds are one shade and the opened blossoms another.  If I were an impressionist painter, I would paint lilacs the way Monet painted water lilies, one after another, trying to capture each change in light and growth.

As I headed to the Frost mailbox (as I think of it) I realized I was just steps from a cute little tree lined road I pass all the time and have wondered about.  I didn't have a schedule to keep, and I figured if it didn't come out somewhere I recognize, I could always retrace my steps, so I took a left on Upland Road and immediately discovered more DIY decorated mailboxes!  Don't you love serendipity?

I like the easy, sketch-like look of the ladybug.  Whoever painted this was Ok with imperfection, and in that created something lovely.  I wonder what the inspiration was to create a house around the mailbox.  Maybe the house was originally the mailbox, but the post office decreed they needed a USPS approved receptacle?  Maybe they needed something to help the mailbox stand out so plow drivers wouldn't hit it?  I have seen one other similar to this in Lexington (next town over).  In that case the wooden exterior was intended to look like a house and garden.

The picture is a little dark, but can you see the painted window, complete with lacy white curtains on the front?

As I continued down Upland to Beaver Pond, I saw several boxes decorated by kids.  Think back to being a kid and just how few things you had complete control over.  Now imagine being given permanent paint, part of the family home and permission to do what you want.  What a heady opportunity!  And then that art work is on display for everyone to see: the mailman, people driving by, anyone coming to visit and of course their friends on the bus.  What a great idea.

Notice the difference in hand sizes?  It's like a much more personal version of those stickers people put on their minivans to show how many people are in their family.


These hand flowers make me smile.  Kids grow so quickly that artwork which makes those stages of growth a little more permanent are a wonderful idea.  When I was three or four I was at camp with my family.  There was an organized children's program so the parents could go off and do things on their own.  One day we were all given white t-shirts and the counselors traced our hands on them in permanent marker.  Mine was green.  I loved that shirt.  When I outgrew it I dressed my dolls with it.  Sometimes I'd place my hand over that earlier tracing and try to imagine I'd ever been that small. 

This garden mailbox was in front of an artist studio.  One side was clearly done by children, and then the other has a bit of an adult's touch.  I wonder if they crafted that roadrunner shape themselves.  The spirals and zigzags behind it make me think of a meteor shower.  Looking at that mailbox, the way it's been warped over time and has started to rust, I can imagine the painting as an effort to beautify it in its last days of use.  Then again, maybe it was new and shiny when those little hands drew rabbits, flowers, dogs and curly ques.  The kids may have kids of their own by now, but this reminder of their younger selves remains.

There was one mailbox that looked like a great steamer trunk, the sort George Bailey dreams of traveling with in It's a Wonderful Life.  Now it's just an unadorned mailbox, bought from a store, but imagine what it would look like with old-timey stickers from around the world and passport stamps painted on it.  

When I got to the end of Beaver Pond I realized it intersected with Tower Road, the place where I'd found so many unique mailboxes a year ago.  What prompts one area, in a rather traditional, historic New England town to create so many works of public art?  I believe residents gain inspiration by driving past each other's creations each day.  It's the same logic that drives people in economically depressed areas to clean up a corner or a vacant lot and by doing so inspire neighbors to take on their own beautification projects. 

As I walked Tower Road back to the exchange, it was nice to see a lot of my favorite mailboxes still standing.  There was the shocking tiger striped box, the Grandma Moses style red fox and more.  At the end of the street there was a new addition, a yong girl's dream mailbox, all purples and reds with fluffy white rabbits and a shiny moon.

What do you make of those little running figures?  They remind me of Crockett Johnson's character Harold, who with the help of his purple crayon sets out in his pajamas each night for all sorts of adventures. 

As I drove home I thought about all the personality and creativity that went into the mailboxes I'd seen, and I wanted a bit of that for myself.  For the first time in my life I live in a place where the mailbox is a box (not a wall of doors with tiny keys).  What could I create that says a little something about me?

Check back for the next post and you'll see.

A heavenly smile

If I think about it long enough, I'm sure I could reconstruct a long ago heard explanation of exactly how the earth, moon and sun must be positioned to create the various phases of the moon.  I suspect we saw it played out in the darkness of our high school's planetarium, or maybe acted it out using twirling students and a flashlight "sun" back in elementary school. 

I like that there's a why and a how and that it's all wonderfully logical, but when I looked up tonight, all I saw was a heavenly smile - a reminder that we are loved.

If you've never read Walt Whitman's poem "When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer" I recommend it.  It is short, reader friendly and a wonderful reminder that no matter how much we study and learn about the workings of the universe, the experiencing of it is where the magic lies. 

 

 

Moonscapes

Shorter days do have one magnificent advantage.

When else is your daily walk likely to include a light show like this one?

Do you see the traveler?

    




Gute nacht.

*************************

For the astronomically minded, the moon pictured is a waning gibbous, 99% of full.  I'd never heard the term "gibbous" until a month ago when a second grader explained it to me.  Does knowing the definition make it any more beautiful?  Of course not, but I've always gotten a thrill from being able to name things, especially in the natural world.  I think it might run in the family.

 

 

 

Colorful Jamaica Plain - Part 2

 

A quick walk down Centre Street in Jamaica Plain and it's clear that this is a town where "main street" is still valued.  There are a few big chains, mainly banks and New England's own Dunkin' Donuts, but the majority of storefronts are independents.  There are enough restaurants to keep you trying something new for quite a while, whether its spicy Indian cuisine, succulent sushi or sandwiches named after gangsters.  I passed a martial arts school, a yoga studio with an adorable monkey on the sign and Kitchenwitch, a kitchen supply store I'm itching to go back and wander through. 

It's always a bit depressing when a store can't come up with anything interesting to put in those huge storefront windows that face the street.  I've noticed hair and beauty businesses seem to find this especially difficult.  But Kitchenwitch caught my eye immediately with their wedding gifts display filled with matryoshka doll inspired wares, tea pots and did I mention the life-size mannequin wearing a wedding dress and witch's hat?  Anyone who can come up with a window like that must have a unique perspective to share inside.  I tried to capture it in a picture to share with you, but the glare from the sun on the glass worked against me. 

This idea of shifting where we spend our money so it supports the local economy and independent sellers/growers whenever possible, really appeals to me.  I heard Heather Ordover of Craftlit talking about the book Switch, in which an economically depressed town tried all sorts of expensive projects to keep from dieing.   And then a group of students realized that if each person in town just spent $40 a month there, in town, the economy would turn around, and it has.  It's something to think about.

A small sign for the Blue Frog Bakery drew me down a side street, where I couldn't miss the shop.

I'm always impressed when a food establishment is willing to give a glimpse behind the scenes at food preparation.  There's a dessert restaurant in Boston called Finale where they've placed a mirror on the ceiling above where they torch the creme brule so patrons can watch the caramelizing magic.  Blue Frog's action that afternoon wasn't so dramatic, but it certainly made me want to stop in and sample a bite, or two, or three the next time I'm in JP.

There must be something about JP and 3D animal signs.  The toy shop had whimsical, Jim Henson-esq aliens climbing its store front, and JP Licks, the ice cream shop which started in JP and spread across the greater Boston area,  has a larger than life cow emerging from its brick facade! 

The interior is a bit of an ice cream Disney world.  The tall ceilings make the space feel huge.  There are figures hanging from the ceiling and large paintings, not to mention a display case of pastries and the scent of freshly brewed coffee.  And of course the ice cream is rich, flavorful and original. 

Outside is a bit more relaxed.  There's a bubler with a bowl beneath it labelled "Homemade Dog Water".  I don't even own a dog, but I always think it speaks well of an establishment when they remember their customer's furry friends.  To the right is an area designated as Belle's Park.  Not so many years ago Belle sold her handmade jewelry from this spot.  In addition to being craftminded, she was also an avid backgammon player and belonged to the New England Backgammon Club.  When she passed away JP Licks set up this little memorial.

 

 

 

 

 

 

My favorite part of this spot, is the giant mural on the adjacent business's wall.  What could be an eyesore, an alley leading to trash cans, is turned into an attraction, a celebration of the space. 

These ladies are brand new.  They still had paper hanging beneath them to protect the wall from splatters. 

When I was here just two weeks before, there were different murals.  I don't remember what they were of, but they didn't look old or faded. I wonder if they change them out regularly to give more artists a chance to share their work.   The abundance of murals  was one of the main reasons I wanted to come back and take a closer look. 

On the side of the Purple Cactus restaurant

 

A mural created by the Jamaica Youth Mural Program in 2004

The moon in the window, and the running girl's untied shoe laces make me smile.

A mural of Jamaica Pond, including the boat house.

This elaborate mural overlooks garbage cans and a municipal parking lot.

And then there's my favorite.

It stands opposite to the sports mural, bookending the parking lot.  The scene looks like something out of a children's book, but it actually commemorates the annual lantern parade around Jamaica Pond.  People bring their own homemade lanterns or buy one on the spot, and join together to walk the 1.5 mile trail around the pond.  It looks like it happens in the fall, based on their dress.  I'll try to go to it this year and bring back photos to share.

 You can see the same boat house here that appears in the earlier mural. I like the variety of the people, the pregnant woman, the women with dreadlocks, the child with the giant hat who is clearly marching and having a great time.  And why not?  Being outside, at night, with a touch of fire is a recipe for magic.

Can you remember being small enough to ride on someone's shoulders?  I remember being on my dad's at the local air show.  I was two parts thrilled (I could actually see above the crowds), and one big part terrified, but I wasn't about to let on.  Then I'd have to get down and walk!

If you'd like to see more murals, some of which have been replaced by the ones I showed here, visit the JP Community Arts Advocates website.

There's just one more intallment to come of this trip through JP. Fittingly, it will continue from where we've left off, Jamaica Pond.

Colorful Jamaica Plain - part 1

There are benefits to walking the same places over and over, across the seasons.  I get to see the little changes and discover patterns (like the tree that Orioles nest in year after year).  But sometimes I just want to see something radically new, to explore the unknown, get lost and find my way out again. 

 A couple weeks ago I was in Jamaica Plain (JP) getting ice cream with friends, and I knew that I had to come back on my own to explore.  I admit some of that feeling was based on a desire to have another cone of Bailey's Cheese Cake ice cream at JP Licks, but it was also based on the quirky shops, murals on every corner and the chocolate box-like assortment of architectural styles.  I wanted to see it all.

For anyone reading who's not local, JP is a Boston neighborhood, about 5 miles south of the city.  I've heard it described as "eclectic", "shabby chic", "artsy" and "hip".  But I've had almost no first hand knowledge of the place - until this weekend.

There are a couple reasons why I haven't gotten to know JP sooner.  For one, it's on the south side of the city and I'm usually to the north.  Just as important, the few times I've been there have involved driving on the Jamaicaway (designed for carriages) or Route 9; both are way too skinny for the number of speeding cars on them.   Getting to JP requires advanced driving.

I arrived in JP for my walk with water, a camera, and my GPS in pedestrian mode in case I got thuroughly turned around.  My only plan was to explore until I couldn't resist the siren call of ice cream any longer.  

I'd come to walk, but this sign

and the steady stream of people going into a thrift store of all places, caused a small shopping related detour. The sign says:

"Booms has everything you need for your trial watching party. 

Even Whitey Bulger can't deny that Booms has the best deals in town. 

And he loves raising AIDS funds." 

You've got to admit, it's original. 

A purchase heavier and a few dollars lighter, I was back on track.  I took the first side road I saw and wondered if I might have made a mistake.  The yards I passed were overgrown with weeds up to my shoulder.   On the other side of the road a few twigs of men were arguing in front of an apartment building.  They shared the gaunt, leathery look that comes from hard living.  I was just starting to consider turning back and trying a different road, when I came around a corner and the scene changed dramatically. 

The gardens still grew tall, but now instead of wild grasses, they were full of sunflowers, black eyed susans and flowering bushes.  The houses appeared freshly painted in colors fit to challenge the radiance of their gardens. 

Even that Boston area mainstay, the 3-family/triple decker had gotten a facelift. 

I saw more than one that had beautiful gardens cascading off the upper balconies. 

And then of course there were the porches.  I love a porch that invites you to sit down and just watch the world go by.  It doesn't take anything elaborate, just a couple comfortable chairs,

a little table for your drink,

and a bit of something green.  No need for an extended family of gnomes, an orchestra of windchimes and so many other things that the space becomes pinched.  A porch is for taking a deep breath, letting your shoulders sink away from your ears and stretching your legs out long and cat-like.   

Walking through JP made me once again wish I knew more about architecture.  If anyone knows a good beginner's book to recognizing what eras different features came from, please be sure to leave a comment or send an email.  I saw:

a terrific cupola atop a grand old house,

a garage that looked like a cross between a barn and a church,

  a playhouse complete with windowboxes, 

and a blue house all but lost between tall apartments, which reminded me instantly of Virginia Lee Burton's book The Little House.  

On the corner of Green and Alfred Streets I came across a chain link fence decorated with fantastic sculptures made of wood and found objects.

Her dress is covered in the words "I am 8 years old" in all the languages of the neighborhood.

That's a scrub brush for his mane.



I would have loved to see this when the colors were fresh.  To me this one looks like people growing out of a tree.  Is it rebirth?  Showing our connection to the earth?   I tried to find out who was behind this project and what idea inspired the figures, but the only reference I found was an image on Google maps street view.  The next time I'm in JP I'll have to look around and see if there's a sign that I missed.  

The artsy nature of JP is not limited to vacant lots.  In part 2  I'll share some amazing murals and fantastic store decorations.   

I hope you're enjoying this glimpse of Jamaica Plain.

 

 

 

The Light'll Be On

Dusk, especially summer's dusk has always held magic for me.  Even our words for this time lost between day and night are beautiful: twilight, gloaming, owllight, le crepuscule (to the French). 

Fresh hay, baked all day by the sun perfumes the air.

The air wraps softly around me, and the bats put on an incredible aeronautics show for free.

Just sitting, watching the world shift from the white hot glare of noon, to cool darkness lit by a rising moon. Nothing to do but wait for firefly sightings.

Crickets celebrate, Mourning Doves coo and somewhere a baseball game plays on a radio.  The opening line of a Robert Frost poem comes to mind, " I have been one acquainted with the night".  I choose to take it literally. 

The outdoor light's turned on, a reminder that someone at home is thinking of me. 

When I was a kid I was ambivalent about that light and what it represented.  I knew the house would feel stuffy and mundane after the night air: the joy I'd known outside, would dim.  But it was nice to be welcomed home too. 

All these years later, I still pause before crossing the threshold - tired, often thirsty, but not wanting to break the spell. 

Dandelions are Dandy

Where have all the dandelions gone? During our oh-so-soggy spring, these little tufts of gold were everywhere, often the brightest spot on a very brown landscape, but now that summer is in full swing they've all but disappeared.  I realize that this is good news to many people and that there's a whole industry devoted to the eradication of these shaggy, golden orbs, but I miss them.

Dandelions are just as bright and cheerful as daffodils, that other golden sign of spring.   The dandelion is not as tall as the daffodil, in fact it's usually about the same height as the grass around it.  Could height be the reason why one is adored and the other hated?  If so, then why aren't buttercups reviled?  They, like dandelions, grow along roads and across lawns but I've never seen a commercial for a product promising to leave your lawn buttercup free. 

Maybe people's frustration with dandelions is that they are so uncontrollable.  I was surprised when I learned that dandelions were actually brought to North America by English settlers.  They wanted the flowers for their nutritional properties.  Of course, like energetic children, the flowers refused to just stay put.  Each flower becomes a ball of mini seed-gliders, perfectly designed for maximum spread, sometimes traveling several miles.

Of course, as anyone who has ever planted tulip or daffodil bulbs knows, these plants have a way of migrating as well.  It's not uncommon to see a single bloom in the woods, far from a tended garden, or in the middle of a yard.  I like to call these transplants "squirrel gardens".  

 

I think the common dislike of dandelions can be traced to the adage "a weed is a plant growing where you don't want it to".  I'd go so far as to say a weed is a plant you didn't have to buy.  We'll spend large amounts of time and money to plant swaths of flowers across our property, but a flower that can do this on its own is unappreciated. 

A most contrary daffodil

So aside from its incredible survival skills and gorgeous color, what's there to like about dandelions?  I read in Yankee magazine this spring that dandelions greens, especially those first tiny spikes are for many people a taste of spring.  I was all set to try them this year, and was scoping out locations where I'd be likely to find ones which hadn't been chemically treated, when I read in a recipe, "If you love bitter greens like arugula, you'll adore dandelions".  I do not love, I do not even like arugula.  Eating dandelions was clearly not for me.  Which leaves all the reasons I liked dandelions as a kid.

• Like daisies (which are much less common) they can easily be made into chains - bracelets, necklaces, and crowns.
• Did kids at anyone else's school pick dandelions and sing "Mama had a baby and its head popped off"?  Of course we used our thumbs to make the flower-head pop off.
• You can pick dandelions with your toes.  Yes, I spent a lot of time barefoot as a kid.
• They make a neat cross between a paintbrush and a stamp.
• No one ever tells you to stop picking the dandelions, so you can use them to decorate your bike, have water races, color your skin yellow, you name it.
• Birthday wishes only come once a year, but there are infinite dandelions to make a wish on and blow.

 

 

 

Spring Peepers

Tonight there's a slip of a moon,

so fine it could be mistaken for a curl of butter

on a great indigo plate. 

The air smells of sodden earth,

rich with life, both past and potential.

And there it is. 

A voice nearly forgotten, for being silent so long.

A chorus of frogs serenades the darkness, and winter is a memory.

***************************

I heard my first spring peepers of the season tonight.  The person I was with said that even if the weather gets warm, they won't come out until it has rained at night.  I haven't verified that, but it sounds plausible. 

If you'd like to hear the spring peppers, there are a lot of recordings on-line.  The Fairfax County school system in VA has a great Spring Peeper page complete with photos and recordings.

 

 

Collecting - Mailboxes

Growing up, my older brother was always collecting something.  He collected bottle caps (I can't remember why), coins, stamps, Star Wars action figures, and baseball cards (Topps, not Fleer).  I'd listen to him rattle off what made one item more valuable than another, how they should be handled, just how many he needed before he had a complete set, and I wanted to have a collection too.  I was fascinated by the planning: where to get the next one, how to organize the ones you have.  And I loved the guidebooks full of arcane minutiae set in endless tables. 

I love glass, so I started a collection of old bottles, the sort that can be found in the woods near deserted cellars.  I picked them up at flea markets and tramping through the woods, but I never wanted to look in any of the guidebooks I brought home from the library.  I liked the idea of all those facts and guidelines for collecting much more than the reality of studying them.  So I stopped collecting anything that anyone else might find valuable.  I had a collection of itty, bitty pencils (ones with working erasers were the top find), rocks that looked like animals (I still have my first, a hamster) and teardrop shaped glass sun catchers.  

Today my urge to collect manifests itself in the pictures I take.  There are certain images that I never tire of: weather vanes, hollows in trees, squirrels, animal tracks, shadows and most recently, mailboxes!  This latest collection started when I took a wrong turn and ended up on a road with some of the brightest owner-decorated mailboxes I've ever seen.   I say owner-decorated because there are all sorts of companies making unique mailboxes, but what caught my eye was the DIY nature of these mailboxes.  Let me show you what I mean.  

This tiger striped mailbox was the first one to catch my eye.  You just don't expect to see something like this in Lincoln, a historic, rural, New England town. 

Further down the road I spotted this cheetah mailbox.  Could their owners be friends?

This Canadian goose mailbox is a bit more traditional.  I liked how the goose on the front seems to be daring you to come any closer.

This one intrigues me.  I'd love to talk to the artist.  Both sides show fungi on a desolate landscape.  It felt sci-fi inspired to me. 

 

In addition to alien-world look of the painting, it has a lucky horseshoe underneath.  I don't know if it's intened to bring luck in the form of good tidings, or if the homeowner was just trying to preserve the mailbox from the snow plows.  All up and down the street I saw trees with gouges from plow blades, and mailboxes which had clearly been knocked down a time or two.   This winter the snowbanks were so high that on some streets all you could see of the mailboxes was the tiny mailbox-door sized holes their owners had made.

All of those plow mishaps have lead to some creative solutions. 

The base of this mailbox is surrounded by concrete blocks.

These brightly painted mailboxes have been secured to a stump in addition to having metal supports. 

 
And my favorite plow-war veteran would have to be this one.  The original support only goes so far as the first milkcrate at which point it ends in a splintery mess.  So the mailbox is actually being supported by two milk crates attached to a dolly with a web of bungy cords.  Now that's Yankee ingenuity (and thrift).

This old rusty ol' dinosaur has seen a crash or two.  Wouldn't it be great if they actually painted it like a dinosaur?  The door just needs a tongue and razor sharp teeth like a T-Rex.  A couple cold reptilian eyes on the side and it would be perfect!

This fanciful, red fox out for a moonlit run is my absolute favorite.  The simple lines and bright colors look like something out of a children's book.  I look at it and imagine the rest of the fox's adventure, and then I start to imagine what sort of story I could paint on my own mailbox. 

I think I'll collect some more mailboxes (for inspiration of course), before I take that leap. 

 

Is it Meditation or Flow?

I've been curious about meditation since I was in high school.  From time to time I've sought through books and video how-to's to learn how to do it.  I've focused on my breath, imagining it filling and then emptying from every part of me.  I've slowed my breath to the point of getting a little light headed, and wondered how this could possibly be relaxing.    I've made lists of potential mantras, have tried sitting, lying down, even lying down with my feet raised above my head and in the end concluded that it simply wasn't for me.  I could not meditate and that was OK.

In the last fewmonths,  I've been surprised several times to hear some of my favorite activities called "the new yoga" for their ability to induce meditation.  This came up again and again in Tom Ashbrook's On Point episode on the resurgence of knitting.   When knitters talk about losing track of time and feeling like their mind has been set free from their body, I know just what they mean.  The same thing has happened when I'm out on a walk.  Once I'm warmed up, my legs and arms find their rhythm and suddenly I realize I'm several miles from where I was the last time I took notice of my surroundings.  I've often thought this was an example of flow, but maybe I was wrong and it's actually meditation.   My previous attempts had convinced me that meditation was something that required an exhaustive struggle to tame the mind. If meditation can be achieved through fun activities, that's like finding out that dark chocolate is actually good for you (in moderation of course, but still, that's something). 

I tried to research the difference between flow and meditation and found myself more confused than ever.  One source said that one is a state of mind and the other is an activity.  I found flow described as something that happens during meditation and distinctions being made between flow and mindfulness.  I finally decided that correctly naming the experience wasn't relevant to my enjoyment of it, and stopped the search.

However, before I gave up, I stumbled on a review of a study on the calming effects of yoga (specifically in relation to anxiety and depression).  Susan Seligson of Bostonia Magazine (Spring 2011)  did a great job summarizing the study for the non-psychologists of the world, so I'd like to share her introduction here. 

"Even the most mainstream psychiatrists might agree that yoga is like chicken soup - it can't hurt.  But researcher Chris Streeter has gone a step further toward validating yoga's potential to help treat depression and anxiety.  In a recent study published in the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine...[Streeter and colleagues] scanned the brains of yoga practitioners and found that compared with that age-old stress reliever, walking, yoga brings a greater improvement in mood and decrease in anxiety" (Seligson 9).

Did you notice what activity the researchers chose for their control group?  Our good friend "that age-old stress reliever, walking" (Seligson 9).  The researchers had previously found that GABA levels  of yoga practitioners were higher than in a reading control group.  This is really interesting because low GABA levels are found in people with anxiety and mood disorders (including depression).  In this study they wanted to check if it was physical activity or yoga specifically that was responsible for the change in GABA levels (Streeter et al. 1146).  

One of the many things I found interesting about this, was that the researchers actually had the means to ensure that the activity both groups (yoga and walkers) experienced was equal.  They used a list of metabolic equivalents (METs) created by the American College of Sports Medicine to determine the physcail demands of each activity.  It makes sense that such a thing would exist, but it's so outside my realm of knowledge that I found its existence surprising.  Based on this system, they knew that one hour of the specified type of yoga was equal in to one hour of walking at 2.5 MPH on a flat plane (Streeter et al. 1146).  To ensure the equivalence, I assume the walkers were on treadmills, which instantly takes away the joy of walking in my opinion.   It is however, a sure way to know that the walkers' mood is purely related to the mechanics of walking and not what they're seeing and feeling along the way.      

Which brings me to how Chris Streeter addressed the question of whether or not their study was saying that yoga was better than walking.  Streeter replied "In this study, in this population, walking didn't prove to be as beneficial to mood as yoga.  It doesn't mean that yoga is better than walking, in other populations and other situations" (Seligson 9).  I'd be curious to know what the GABA levels of someone who has been out walking in the heady early days of spring would be.  How would those results compare with the treadmill walkers (and yoga practitioners)? Is it the action of bone, muscle and sinnew or the sights and sounds that make walking so enjoyable?  It wouldn't be a scientifically accurate comparison, but it would certainly be interesting. 

If you'd like to know more about flow, watch this entertaining and informative  talk given by the creater of the term. This video  comes from Ted.com, where you can find talks given by "the world's most fascinating thinkers and doers" (Ted.com)

Works Cited

Seligson, Susan. "Your Brain on Yoga: Calmer, More Content." Bostonia Winter-Spring 2011:Print

Streeter, Chris et al. "Effects of Yoga Versus Walking on Mood, Anxiety, and Brain GABA Levels: A Randomized Controlled MRS Study." Journal of Alternative & Complementary Medicine 16.11 (2010): 1145-1152. Academic Search Premier. Web. 3 Apr. 2011.