09.21.18

It was a bumpy landing into home, as I brought back a nasty virus I collected along the way, during my journey to Ireland.  While I was still bedridden, Don caught the bug and joined me in misery during these six days I’ve been back.  Beautiful sunny days went by out my window, and I was morose not to participate.  But, now that I’m back to health, I’m wondering if it wasn’t so bad to have this time-out, this being forced to stay still.  Re-entry from any trip can be hard, but, in the cross-over from Ireland back to home, a bridge of some sort would be useful.  It’s like it feels sometimes, when you finish an enchanting story, and you put down the book, and just walk around your living room, looking out the windows, trying to find your way back into your own home.  To the Irish, there are ‘thin places’– mystical places–“where the veil between this world and the eternal world is thin”.  It’s easy to lose your bearings for a while in Ireland, as you walk across the windswept Burren, and consider that new cardinal directions may be coming into your view.   Perhaps, that’s what a journey is ultimately all about.

At last, I was able to leave the house yesterday morning, and I took a lovely walk at the head of the lake, which has always been a thin place for me.  Everything was golden.  The air was cool and clean, the blue sky was dotted with cotton ball clouds, and a pair of Bald Eagles watched me from high up on a tree branch.  The Vernal Equinox is upon us and the full Harvest Moon is coming into all her luminous glory.  It’s the official start of Autumn, a season so beautiful it always breaks one’s heart.   I am home in time for it all.  As I sat by the water on driftwood, and watched a jet fly overhead, I thought of all the individual journeys which were crisscrossing the big blue sky overhead, and how when we think we are leaving, perhaps, we are really arriving.

The Journey, by David Whyte

Above the mountains
the geese turn into
the light again

Painting their
black silhouettes
on an open sky.

Sometimes everything
has to be
inscribed across
the heavens

so you can find
the one line
already written
inside you.

Sometimes it takes
a great sky
to find that

first, bright
and indescribable
wedge of freedom
in your own heart.

Sometimes with
the bones of the black
sticks left when the fire
has gone out

someone has written
something new
in the ashes of your life.

You are not leaving.
Even as the light fades quickly now,
you are arriving.