a morning reflection...

Hey everyone... I promised more details of this morning's wonderful start... and they are below in a reflection I wrote for my class "People and Places"... there is a Daniel Quinn quote that I've already posted a few months ago, but I think it's worth another go..... thanks to everyone back home who keeps reminding my heart how to live...

I woke this morning early to a phone call from the other side of the world. The vibrant voices of friends woke me, not just literally, but deeply. Old friends have the power to remind you who you are and what your goals are in the world. They have the ability to fully pull you into the present faster than you might wander there on your own. They can remind you that no matter where you are, you are not lost. I'm reminded of a quote from Daniel Quinn's Tales of Adam, "The second gift of wisdom is the gift of tracking, of discerning the true course of things... the journey embeds us in the cycle of life, in the fire that burns forever. In it we find out place. In it, we live. A tent is not our shelter. Rather the journey is our shelter. The journey is the song we make of our lives...we are seekers of holy places...wherever life moves, the hang of god is under it, so no step can be off the path. When you stumble on the mountainside, that is part of your path... when you wander hungry in the desert and cannot find your way, you are not lost, you're on your path... Remember too that the person standing in your track is you... the tracks you make are your own. Stand in them bravely."

I am seeking holy places, and from my perspective sacredness is in the eye of the beholder. We are surrounded with the burning fire of life, and remembering that this is constant woke me up today. I felt so alive inside my skin, dancing down the red dirt road grinning bright as the sun. Absolutely full-up, yes, full and spilling over with life (like Paiger's love poem). Just completely overflowing with joy, love, and presence; sharing my morning excitement with everyone, beaming to the world. Announcing that yes, I am in Australia; not just physically here, not just transplanted, but that I felt nourished from these roots that have begun to sink into the burnt earth that is this place. That my heart felt open and elated instead of naked in this barren landscape. You don't really know a place until you've seen it in the pink glow of dawn and met it in the morning.

This has been one of the most vivid experiences I have had in this landscape. For me it feels as if I know the landscape better today, as if we have communed and shared energy. Getting to know places for me is much like becoming acquainted with people. At first there is entertaining small talk, but at some point it boils down to a different feeling of companionship than what I'm used to. Like it or not, there will always be a moment of comparison of the new place to where I have come from, where I last felt surrounded in the life of a place. At some point, some communion will be shared that shows a new side of the person or place, one which I had no idea I was missing until that very moment. At that point it's likely that a part of my being has been altered that will remain with me far after my actual location separates us.