Feeling good

Silent walk takes hikers on meditative mind trip through Dallas' Klyde Warren Park

The experience is described as meditative or trancelike.

Photo courtesy of MindTravel

Last August, dozens of Dallasites took a musical journey into mindfulness through a silent hike at the Dallas Arboretum. The company that runs them is back for a second hike in a new location — on a date that probably won't be quite so sweaty.

A live-to-headphones SilentWalk meditative musical experience, conducted by MindTravel, will take place at Klyde Warren Park on March 16.

SilentWalks are a concept created by composer and concert pianist Murray Hidary. During the walk, hikers wear wireless headphones to hear music, guidance, and thoughtful commentary from Hidary.

"Explore your city in a whole new way and allow yourself to be carried away by a deep feeling of freedom and connection," MindTravel says. "This music-driven experience is a new way to practice walking meditation while fostering a greater connection to the world around us, to each other, and to yourself.

After a quick introduction and intention-setting, the group will take a meditative walk, set to music, while exploring Klyde Warren Park. The music piped into their headphones — the core of a MindTravel experience — are original compositions written by Hidary. The peaceful music is meant to match the imagery in the background, resulting in a meditative or trancelike feeling.

Hidary, a Brooklyn-born composer, pianist, visual artist, tech pioneer, entrepreneur, and physics lover, created MindTravel in 2014 after finding that music helped him heal after the tragic death of his sister in a motorcycle accident. "Now, he is on a mission to share music’s healing power with others and make it the centerpiece of a multi-sensory meditative journey," the company says.

The Dallas experience is part of a 70-city MindTravel spring tour, which features events around Texas, including Galveston on March 10, San Antonio on March 11, and Austin on March 12 and 15.

The Dallas hike takes place from 6-8 pm March 16. It is free, but registration is required here.

Participants should wear comfortable walking shoes, bring water, and take appropriate precautions for the weather. MindTravel will provide the headphones.

fitness health

Movie Memorabilia

Dallas auction house hawks stolen ruby slippers from Wizard of Oz

Heritage Auctions

Wizard of Oz ruby slippers.

DALLAS (AP) — A pair of ruby slippers worn by Judy Garland in The Wizard of Oz is on the auction block nearly two decades after a thief stole the iconic shoes, convinced they were adorned with real jewels.

Online bidding has started and will continue through December 7, Heritage Auctions in Dallas announced in a news release Monday.

The shoes are part of a bigger auction of Hollywood memorabilia which also includes items from films such as Cast Away, Easy Rider, and Back to the Future Part II.

Other items from The Wizard of Oz include a witch hat worn by Margaret Hamilton’s Wicked Witch of the West, the screen door from Dorothy’s Kansas home, the gloves Bert Lahr wore as the Cowardly Lion, and producer Mervyn LeRoy’s copy of the Wizard of Oz script from the MGM art department.

The auction company received the sequin-and-bead-bedazzled slippers from Michael Shaw, the memorabilia collector who originally owned the footwear at the heart of the beloved 1939 musical. Shaw had loaned the shoes in 2005 to the Judy Garland Museum in Grand Rapids, Minnesota.

That summer, someone smashed through a display case and stole the slippers. Their whereabouts remained a mystery until the FBI recovered them in 2018. The man who stole the ruby slippers, Terry Jon Martin, was 76 when he was sentenced in January to time served because of his poor health.

Now the museum is among those vying for the slippers, which were one of several pairs Garland wore during the filming. Only four remain. This particular pair are considered to be the most valuable of the four, in that they were the ones used in close-ups of Dorothy clicking her heels.

Other items include a "Wilson" basketball from Tom Hanks film Cast Away; a stars-and-stripes motorcycle helmet worn by Peter Fonda in Easy Rider; and the “BAT-1/GOTHAM CITY” license plate from Adam West’s Batmobile; and a wooden hoverboard from Back to the Future Part II, signed by Michael J. Fox and writer-producer Bob Gale. According to Heritage Auctions, this Mattel hhoverboard has "impeccable provenance," as it comes from Fox’s stunt double Charlie Croughwell, who writes in his letter of authenticity that “this Hoverboard has been in my possession beginning with our first day of Flying Rehearsals up until present day.”