This wonderful method was taught to me by the abbess of a contemplative order in Oxford. She was a vibrant, big-boned, red-faced woman straight out of Chaucer, and we were great friends; because she couldn't leave her cloister and needed to exercise every day, she had had to invent things "to spicen life up a bit."

"And this is what I came up with twenty years ago now," she told me on a dreary winter afternoon. "I've been using it ever since. When you start to walk, imagine Jesus or Mary (and I'll add here anyone you deeply love or believe in) standing on your right shoulder, radiating divine light and love to you, and wanting to come on a walk with you. As you walk, just imagine that you are walking with them, and concentrate in your heart on their living presence."

This is a method I have used very often and always found calming and purifying. Another beautiful variation I have used is to imagine Jesus or the Mother actually walking silently by your side, filling you with their joy and peace and subtly waking you up to the divine in you and around you.

Andrew Harvey in The Direct Path