Very soon I'm off to the airport. I'm going to Christchurch and tomorrow to Melbourne to spend 10 days at the Gawler Institute. I'll eat vegan food, meditate for a period every day and participate in classes on the relationship of body mind and spirit in the company of about 30 people in much the same position as me. I hope to walk a bit. Take photos of Kangaroos and Koalas and bright raucous birds. It's the deferred beginning of the sabbatical which was the starting point of this blog, all those months ago. The Gawler Institute doesn't offer an internet connection and doesn't encourage cell phones. So it'll be a week or two until you hear from me again. TTFN
This poem captures it perfectly Camino. The way forward, the way between things, the way already walked before you, the path disappearing and re-appearing even as the ground gave way beneath you, the grief apparent only in the moment of forgetting, then the river, the mountain, the lifting song of the Sky Lark inviting you over the rain filled pass when your legs had given up, and after, it would be dusk and the half-lit villages in evening light; other people's homes glimpsed through lighted windows and inside, other people's lives; your own home you had left crowding your memory as you looked to see a child playing or a mother moving from one side of a room to another, your eyes wet with the keen cold wind of Navarre. But your loss brought you here to walk under one name and one name only, and to find the guise under which all loss can live; remember you were given that name every day along the way, remember you were greeted as such, and you neede
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Be well.
IRISH BLESSING
May the road rise to meet you,
And the sun stand at your shoulder,
May the wind be always at your back,
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
May the rain fall soft upon your fields,
And until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of His hand.
The Irish always say things better than I ever could.
I hope your journey is wonderful, and everything you want it to be. I will be praying for you. God speed!
There is a sameness about airports - and hotels - the whole world over. They are places where noone lives; they are bardos. There is a particular flavour of spiritual deadness that clings to them.