We Make The Road By Walking

by Amalia Kalisz Tonsor

This song came to us with quite a story. It was shared with me immediately post-Hurricane Helene, after my dear friend, Sarafina, sang it with a group of friends in WA, as a prayer for those of us here in the midst of it all. I later found out that there were other dear friends of mine in that circle, including someone who was friends with Amalia who wrote the song.

I shared it with small groups of friends as we began to gather together to process all that had happened, and the story began to accumulate layers and depth as we found out just how many threads were connected to the lineage of this song, and to the dear ones who first sent it our way. It has become a conversation across time and space, a sharing of a vision of future possibility, despite, or because of, great challenges.

“We make the road by walking” is a quote from Brazilian educator/activist Paolo Freire. It became the title of a book that was a dialogue between Freire and another seminal educator/activist, Myles Horton, who was an important figure in the Civil Rights Movement in the US. There is conjecture that Freire was paraphrasing this poem by Spanish poet, Antonio Machado:

“Caminante, son tus huellas
el camino y nada más;
Caminante, no hay camino,
se hace camino al andar.
Al andar se hace el camino,
y al volver la vista atrás
se ve la senda que nunca
se ha de volver a pisar.
Caminante, no hay camino
sino estelas en la mar.” - Antonio Machado

Traveler, your footprints
are the only road, nothing else.
Traveler, there is no road;
you make your own path as you walk.
As you walk, you make your own road,
and when you look back
you see the path
you will never travel again.
Traveler, there is no road;
only a ship’s wake on the sea.

- translated by Mary G. Berg and Dennis Maloney

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LYRICS:

This moment calls our hearts here
Step by step, we make the road by walking
And, where we go, love follows

Let love move through me (x3)

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