Radio Silence: Book of Walks by Deb Todd Wheeler

The Book of Walks is an edited logbook of guided walks at Lost Pond. It simulates the path walked, and acts as a spacious grief meditation for the reader.

The Lost Pond is a wilded sanctuary space in Massachusetts. It includes long, meandering trails, a kettle hole, and a quaking bog. A section of the surrounding woods was recently remediated, because of its proximity to the (now closed) town dump. Deb Todd Wheeler calls this site ‘The Clearing’. When her beautiful, vibrant son Lucas unexpectedly died in his sleep in 2017, she made a provisional shrine in the adjacent woods with sticks and flowers, along the trail to Lost Pond. It continues to be a site of pilgrimage.

Wheeler began inviting people to walk with her through the trails of the Lost Pond in 2019. The invitation was for an audiowalk, made in collaboration with musician friends. It involves walking while listening to geo-located music, sounds, and song, along with live storytelling and trail guiding. It’s called the RADIO SILENCE audio-walk. By now wheeler has guided this audio-walk hundreds of times, with all kinds of walking companions, through all kinds of crazy weather. It has become a repetitive grief ritual, pressing feet over and over into the soft, well-worn ground of mourning.

The Book of Walks is an edited and geographically organized log book of these walks through the Lost Pond between 2019-2021. Proceeds from the sale of this book go to support the vital works of The Children’s Room in Arlington, MA.

 (With this book, you will receive a QR code to the music.) Deb Todd Wheeler, Paperback, 2023. 149 pages 5 x 7 inches.