Being in THE HEART

In the past I have been able to venture into foreign lands and get lost in the culture and landscape. I want to continue being a free spirit as I travel south in a few days to Mexico and then further to Ecuador. To be free means abandoning an identity that tethers me to a race, nationality, gender or any other limitation of circumstance. It means being in THE HEART, pulsing in rhythm with the beat of wherever I find myself. And I like finding myself in unexpected places. 

So many experiences come to mind. Some I call THE DREAM, because they take me into enchantment. For instance walking across Piazza del Popolo in Rome and having an epiphany of time and place as I stepped over cobblestones under the Egyptian obelisk of Ramesses II from Heliopolis. Or riding a camel at the foot of the pyramids in Giza, Egypt and nothing could tell me I was not a nomad of ancient days. Pressing flesh with Masai tribes people, we smiled together as I experienced their Africa. Living in a houseboat floating on a lake bestrewn with water lilies at the foot of the Himalaya Mountains in Kashmir, India, or getting lost in the great cities of the world, roaming the streets and taking photos in chance places with unexpected outcomes keeps me in THE DREAM.

When I leave the USA I hope to accept bewilderment and then discover life is wonderment when surrendered to SPIRIT.

Life Away From The Familiar

The coast of Sicily

 “Once you have traveled, the voyage never ends, but is played out over and over again in the quietest chambers. The mind can never break off from the journey.” – Pat Conroy

 “Our battered suitcases were piled on the sidewalk again; we had longer ways to go. But no matter, the road is life.” – Jack Kerouac

The experiences of life away from the familiar that comes from distant travel are not for everyone, but for me, the exciting effects of combining known elements with unknown ones is essential. I need to travel, to experience the freedom of motion that carries the possibility of expanded consciousness. Written upon the tablet of my memory are indelible streams of life that have come from living like the wind carving through space and time without inhibition, even circling the globe. I feel the fire of this passion that burned so bright and joyously unencumbered for the entire year of 2008, and is still alive with burning embers of that lovely flame—ready to leap into intensity again at the slightest opportunity. 

Masai youth, herding cattle . . . Tanzania

Camel at the Great Pyramids, Egypt

The feeling to explore new life is coming these days like an imperative. The flames that died down now long to spring forth once again. It almost hurts me to be settled. The strange apparition of a whirling dervish must challenge most peoples consciousness. Who could possibly care to live without being the occupant of a home? For most, home is where the heart is, but I also observe it is where stuff accumulates and that stuff requires guardianship. I don't care to be watching over stuff. To do so requires maintenance and expenditure. Let loose I say.

Material possessions do not hold more for me than a soft breeze and warm sunlight upon my skin, a bird song in my ears, the sight of new terrain to explore, and the incredible luxury of time, with the only requirement being that of awe and wonder.

At Ipsos, on the island of Corfu, Greece

Halong Bay, Vietnam

Come, Come, Whoever You Are

Wonderer, worshipper, lover of leaving.
 

It doesn't matter.
 Ours is not a caravan of despair.
 

Come, even if you have broken your vow

 a thousand times
.

Come, yet again, come, come. 

-Jalaluddin Rumi