Sep 10
Our contemporary life styles too often demand of us the kind of decision-making that results in quick and deliberate action. And this seems to be ongoing with little space for just being. It seems like every situation demands that we take an action … NOW! When in doubt do something! Any action is better than nothing. But is it?
Aug 28
One of the motivations for doing this blog is to turn readers on to the importance of elevating their relationships with the Earth and the Places she contains. Many of us travel to experience such places and hopefully receive some kind of gift from them to bring home to our communities. Often we purchase “tourist trinkets or keep sakes” to help remember the visits we have made.
Aug 13
As I embarked on my daily walk around the park I live near, it occurred to me that I had grown acustomed to “her face” to borrow from a line in the Broadway show “My Fair Lady”. Prior to this I had taken “her” existence for granted. But now I began to realize that my repeated visits to the park was in some subtle way intertwining its presence into the fabric of my existence. This park no longer was just a name. Now it had become a Place for me.
Aug 01
I was recently sifting through the journals I wrote from my first journey to India. It was a bit of a shock. After all the years since these travels I recalled vividly certain episodes and would frequently tell others stories about these experiences. These are stories that I have held dear to me and people have come to know me, in part, by these stories. So it was unsettling when I began to read my journal entries
Jul 09
Jun 18
Below is a posting I had sent to a subscriber list about an extended journey I took in 2005 in South East Asia. This particular entry brought home to me just how powerful it is to really meet and see The Other.
“Within an hour or so we turned off the Mekong into the Nam Tha River which immediately narrowed and began to present us with rapids. It was like a journey back in time. The further up we went the more we would encounter life all along the river. Many small villages presented themselves with each bend in the river. What impressed me was that there was no sign of modernity to note. All the building material was from the local forests: wood, bamboo and thatching. This could have been the medieval ages and no one would known the difference.
Jun 03
I like to get lost. For many this would be anathema. For me it is an invitation for adventure. Travel brings this to the forefront. Getting lost is a process. It follows an arc that often starts with a sort of panic. In this uncertainty my senses are heightened and I become hyper alert. If I can catch myself in this uncommon state I can put the “brakes” on my initial impulse to run away and seek safety and comfort. In this stopping, holding my reactivity in check, I allow for another possibility. What usually occurs is a sort of amusement. Something in me gets tickled and I become interested in what is happening around me. And as I settle into observing I get comfortable and actually feel at home in the place I find myself in. In a very real sense I am now found.
I recall my first visit to Nepal in 1980. I arrived late in the day and the sun was already setting. I didn’t have plans as to where I would stay.
May 07
How we come to leave-taking and embark on a journey is really a mystery.
Our hunger for certainty often trips us up in our attempts to fathom causation. Most of us have been seduced by the idea of a simple cause and effect chain of events. However, beginnings are far messier. They are never what our mind invents them to be. Unlike reading a book from page one, the inception of just about everything is vague. It is out of the mist of some remote prompting that great enterprises are born. There is a kind of ‘mucking around in it’ that takes place before something peeks through, at first, only for brief moments. It is almost like some vulnerable animal is tentatively testing the atmosphere to determine whether it is safe to come out. The slightest disturbance is enough to quickly withdraw and wait for another time.
Apr 02
This is my inaugural blog post for GlobalWalkabouts. I want to share with you and, hopefully, an expanding audience the ideas I have been exploring about a way we can relate to our planet and all the richness and diversity it manifests. The inception of this idea was prompted by some powerful, even ecstatic, epiphanies about why I like to travel. From this interest, I also realized that the GlobalWalkabouts process could greatly impact and improve the way we relate to Nature and to the spirit of Places on this planet. Furthermore it can offer a remedy to the angst of modern living.
