In the Beginning Was...The Dream

I once wanted to move to Scotland. Some 20 years ago it was, when I was in my early twenties and living in the ever-sunny San Diego. I laid the plan aside to get married, have a couple of cats, pursue a career, and build a home and a (now single) life in the Pacific Northwest, where the overcast weather and the perpetual green were as close as I'd get to the moist green fields of that small country across the water.

My yen to live in Scotland has since evolved into a more general longing to see all of Britain (and so many other countries) up close and personal. On foot. At a slow pace. One on one with the land, the people, the animals of a place. The hours I've enjoyed most on my travels abroad are those spent just ambling around...wandering a city or an estate or an open-air market, stumbling upon whatever site there was to experience, opening myself to the opportunity to talk to strangers and find that we're not such strangers after all.

So here I am, speaking out the intention to embark on the longest trip I've yet taken: a three-month, solitary, serendipitous, mostly-walking sojourn in Britain in summer 2006.

The thought is both exhilarating and (when I let it be) frightening. So many logistical questions would stop me if I let them. How to see that the house and cats are cared for in my absence. How to pay for the mortgage, boarding for my horse, and other constant costs while I'm gone for three months at the same time that I'm trying to cover the same during the interim months until I leave. How closing my writing business for a season might affect my ability to start it up again (quickly) upon my return (presuming I'll be ready to return from such a wanderlust adventure). How to fund both the trip and other dreams like the TTouch training I'm pursuing. Where to find the courage to throw myself upon the universe and know that the needs of each new day will be met with unlimited, unconditional supply and support.

It is that last point that draws me forward. The desire to conquer my fears and follow my heart wherever it leads me on this planet, knowing that all is well and that I am safe and provided for no matter where I go. The proof to my Self that I need not fear meeting new people or landing in unfamiliar territory. That every moment holds a treasure when I let go of All That Isn't and yield myself to All That Is.

So I embark on this intention with an eager if sometimes quavering heart, still gathering ideas of what to do, where to go, how to fund it all as I choose to Be Into The Plan, instead of to Do The Planning.

And so it begins.

Gestalt & Pepper

OK, OK, so I’m finally on the web. About time, no doubt. Here I am—a born writer, making a living by putting everyone else’s ideas into words—and it’s taken me the entire history of the Internet to sit myself down and put my own story out there for others to read. I was just too chicken until now.

All of us have one. A story, I mean. Actually lots of ’em, all gathered in memory like so many beads tossed in a bowl. Fiery glass tubes. Lumpy clay blobs. Sparkling crystals. Big wooden rounds in primary colors. Occasionally we rake up a handful and string them together in whatever order suits us, as if creating some sort of personal rosary that reminds us of who we are. We wind strands together and call it a Lifetime.

That’s what this particular blog is about: A chance for you to join me on the front porch of the Internet as I stir through the bowl of my own memory beads and share what comes up.

I may free-write about a particular word of the day, or record a truth that I woke up remembering. Perhaps post a poem that came to me on a walk, or a vision that rose from a meditation, or a dream that stayed with me til morning. You may also find snippets from my journals and an occasional soapbox delivery.

And sometimes I’ll just post the rambling, “nothing” kind of talk that defines all our days—the meeting with a friend over supper, the fragrance of a rose I’d never noticed before, the bite of Thai basil plucked fresh from the bush and sent zinging around my tongue.

So come on in. Grab a cup and a chair and stay a while. Even I don’t know what will pop up next in this place.