I am an adventurer when it comes to meditation.  It’s not that I’ll try anything and everything — but I do like to play.

Walking meditation is the most basic kind for me.  When I need to come home again, walking meditation is how I get there.

Often I’ll synchronize my breath and my steps.  So you can imagine my ‘hello!’ when I saw a book called Breathwalk at Half Price Books.

A lot of it was old-shoe familiar.  But there was one new thing… he incorporated a mantra in the rhythm of the walking and breathing.

You, dear reader, (having read the title of this post, after all) can probably see this coming… but I didn’t.  I tried his 4-note mantra in rhythm with my steps.  I tried it, in fact, for several weeks—not all the time, but just enough.

This morning I decided I wanted just the freshness of the morning and my empty mind.  I took a step.  The mantra stepped out with me.  I pushed it away.  It wouldn’t go.

I decided to just walk, no meditation.  The mantra paid no attention.  It was stuck in my mind like a song, entrained to my steps.  What to do?

Finally, I did what any self-respecting person would do when they’ve got a song stuck in their head–I thought of another one:

“I stuck my head in a little skunk’s hole,
and the little skunk said, ‘why bless my soul,
take it out, take it out, remove it!’

I stuck my head in a little skunk’s hole,
and the little skunk said, ‘why bless my soul,
take it out, take it out, remove it!’

I removed it… too late!”

That removed it.