Tag: travelling

Soul Sunday

Jet lag is a real thing. It’s a really real thing. Despite sleeping soundly all night, I feel the need to creep back into bed. Welcome to poetry day on the blog. Any poem which I would try to write, right now, would be even more garbley goop than my original poems usually end up being. Below, this poem speaks to the joys and experiencing of traveling, better than any poem I could ever hope to write. “A journey can become a sacred thing”

For the Traveler

by John O’Donohue

Every time you leave home,
Another road takes you
Into a world you were never in.
 
New strangers on other paths await.
New places that have never seen you
Will startle a little at your entry.
Old places that know you well
Will pretend nothing
Changed since your last visit.
 
When you travel, you find yourself
Alone in a different way,
More attentive now
To the self you bring along,
Your more subtle eye watching
You abroad; and how what meets you
Touches that part of the heart
That lies low at home:
 
How you unexpectedly attune
To the timbre in some voice,
Opening in conversation
You want to take in
To where your longing
Has pressed hard enough
Inward, on some unsaid dark,
To create a crystal of insight
You could not have known
You needed
To illuminate
Your way.
 
When you travel,
A new silence
Goes with you,
And if you listen,
You will hear
What your heart would
Love to say.
 
A journey can become a sacred thing:
Make sure, before you go,
To take the time
To bless your going forth,
To free your heart of ballast
So that the compass of your soul
Might direct you toward
The territories of spirit
Where you will discover
More of your hidden life,
And the urgencies
That deserve to claim you.
 
May you travel in an awakened way,
Gathered wisely into your inner ground;
That you may not waste the invitations
Which wait along the way to transform you.
 
May you travel safely, arrive refreshed,
And live your time away to its fullest;
Return home more enriched, and free
To balance the gift of days which call you.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:

1744. How do you feel about the statement, “Home is where the heart is”?

Quotidian

Quotidian – ordinary, every day, common, conventional, unexceptional, commonplace, mainstream, nondescript, characterless, colorless, pedestrian, uninspiring, garden variety.

Due to the coronavirus (and my chosen response to the coronavirus), my every day life, perhaps, could be described as quotidian. I have tried to spice things up by bringing a third dog into the raucous mix. I have invited drama into our lives by allowing our sons to go back to college. I’ve conjured up old, barnacled ghosts, by bringing the thrills and perils of boating back into my life. I have read many new books, and I have spent much time walking and thinking and ruminating on life’s mysteries. Still, I am honestly at a point of restlessness in the ho-hum doldrums and tedious mundanity, of my every day life. Thus, I have created a road trip for myself, to a destination unknown to me, and to my family. I always get jittery and excited before trips, and I am fortunate enough to have explored some truly fabulous places in this world, but the level of excitement that I feel right now is unexplainable. You know that you need a change of scenery, when the idea of another day in your own company, makes you want to throw up, and to make excuses to not meet up at the mirror. In the words of “The Boss”, Bruce Springsteen, “I’m just tired and bored with myself.” I need a revived version of myself to keep me interested. Trips have a way of waking up my creativity, and of reminding me about the dusty corners of myself that I had long forgotten existed. Of course, the trip planned is to a remote place of limited habitation (thanks again to the coronavirus), but still, places of limited habitation are typically full of rare and beautiful and wild species rarely seen in quotidian life. I plan to fully immerse in the delightful, untamed energy of it all and to report back to you daily, hopefully in a more lively, un-quotidian style.

253 Inspirational Travel Quotes From REAL Travellers To Fuel Your Wanderlust | Bel Around The World