Today we’d like to introduce you to Jonathon Stalls.
Jonathon, can you walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today?
I can still feel the sweat of eastern Kansas in the heart of summer drenching my steps and my stench. I would fall under the never close enough small tree that provided a sliver of unreliable shade. These trees were magical islands. Nourishing my dog, Kanoa and I, as we pant, rest, breathe, drink, replenish, and nap. Back up again. Walking, walking, walking. New horizons. Rising and setting suns. We made it halfway across the USA. I’m feeling strong and capable. Do I have what it takes to walk over the Rocky Mountains and through the high deserts of Utah and Nevada? Who will I meet? What will I see? How will the stars feel?
Creating and imagining worlds between houses, schools, cars, stores, and identities consumed much of my upbringing. I always had stacks of sketchbooks, boxes of art supplies, and sheet/pillow/t-shirt constructed forts nearby. My parents split when I was six and I moved every two years growing up. I attended over 13 schools and was teased quite a bit as shy new kid. When I was with people, I did everything I could to please them, find acceptance, and fit in.
As I transitioned out of high school and into my early twenties, I started to rebel, avoid, and push against a growing ~ ache, void, black hole ~ living within me. I fought hard to bury my truths and my pain. I kept busy, followed (most) rules, played beach volleyball, and tried to stay positive, open, and loving. I put the needs of others and fitting it (harmony at all costs) at the forefront. From the outside, I was thriving ~ positive, confident, and full of energy. On the inside, I was dying ~ rage, loneliness, and grief.
I’ll never forget what it felt like to walk in the middle of Nevada’s high desert. Lonely Highway 50. Her uninterrupted sky and the wondrous horizon would draw me forward in all my steps. The bugling elks circling in the night. The wild horses greeting me in the morning. Sunrises and sunsets that left me laying flat on my back in the middle of an inspiring, haunting highway. Will I make it to the Pacific Ocean? Will I get past the Sierra Nevada’s before the first snow? How will I ever “go back” to life as it was before walking with the land in this way?
In my mid-twenties, the lies I clung to started to collapse. Heavy family circumstances mixed with a trembling journey to face my sexual orientation forced me to face everything I had stuffed deep down. It was freeing just as much as it was devastating. I had no tools for what was coming up. I danced with suicide for months. I’ll never forget how raw and alone it all felt. Moment by moment, I began to see light. Trees, flowing water, sunsets, and loving friends/family moved with me in all my uncertainty, pain, and fear. As I started to find ground, I became aware that I craved filling in this gaping hole: Who am I? Where do I belong? Who do I trust? Do I have what it takes?
After a season of seeking and searching, reading amazing books and several divine, gut-punching moments, it was clear to me that walking across the USA was what my soul needed on every level. I wanted to learn from and connect with real people, at a gentle and open pace. I wanted to be with – deeply be with – the wisdom of the natural world and all her elements. I wanted to move with patience and care, further into my inner truths, rumblings, and dreams.
The experience of walking 3,030 miles for 242 days across the U.S. transformed me at every level. I walked with hundreds of people for hours, days, and even weeks at a time. I walked solo and with my pup, between the sky and dirt for months. I, with hundreds of others, generated over a half-a-million $$ in micro-loans to entrepreneurs all over the world through Kiva.org. I stayed with over 120 strangers spanning class, race, age, sexual orientation, ability, politics, and religious/non-religious practice.
Walking as a pathway for human and planet healing/connecting became central to my creative and professional life. Soon after I finished my walk, I started hosting connection-focused walking events. It gave me life. It gave others life. As daily engagement with technology continued to grow and environments/livelihoods in the U.S. and the world centered the automobile, the timing for a creative people-centered solution felt urgent. I started Walk2Connect in 2012. Walk2Connect now has hundreds of walking leaders hosting hundreds of walking events all over the world. This beautiful and unique one-of-a-kind grassroots organization (now worker-owned co-op!) continues to inspire my journey in profound ways. While I no longer manage Walk2Connect, I am still an active co-op owner and host walking events throughout the year.
Intrinsic Paths is my new creative outlet (see below) and I continue to walk hundreds of miles every month. It is my most trusted practice. I create custom walking routes, guide walking meditations, host walking workshops, and so much more. My use of the term walking is always inclusive to those who move with a wheelchair or powered stroller. For me, unhurried, present, and awake movement between our walls and screens can do wonders for our health and survival. I also make jewelry from gathered natural objects (fallen branches, rocks, seashells), write poetry, draw ink/pencil pictures, and move alongside a wide variety of inspiring individuals and organizations. I support myself mostly through Patreon. Oh! Kanoa is still at my side and I married my now husband in September of 2018. ; )
Please tell us about Intrinsic Paths.
As an artist, I am always feeling a deep desire to create without too many lines or limitations. In my current creative journey, Intrinsic Paths is rooted in what I like to frame as “a way of being” more than any specific program or project. My three core areas of focus are Walking Invitation, a new campaign I’m calling Pedestrian Dignity, and Engaged Contemplation. I care so deeply about human dignity and human healing as it relates to many of the ills in our time. I believe in what – intrinsically – lives inside of each of us, and in one another. I believe these details – the hard, the heavy, the joy, the dreams, the aches, the pain – are some of our greatest teachers as we imagine a more whole, loving, and undefended life.
Do you look back particularly fondly on any memories from childhood?
Getting dirty in the creek behind our home in Tennessee pretending to make soup out of mud, bowls out of leaves and spoons out of sticks. This was usually followed up with neighborhood flash tag until the sun went down. Free-range. I cherish these memories.
Pricing:
- Join as an Intrinsic Paths Patron – $2-$100 (monthly)
- Fill out the Intrinsic Paths Jewelry form for a custom piece – gift, trade, dollars ($25-$35)
Contact Info:
- Website: www.IntrinsicPaths.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/intrinsicpaths
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/intrinsicpaths
- Twitter: www.twitter.com/intrinsicpaths
- Other: www.Patreon.com/IntrinsicPaths
Image Credit:
Art Heffron – Main photo
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