A Traveling Person

One of the things I do with this life I have been given is to travel. I am fortunate to be able to do so! Part of my intention, in all I experience, is to make my experiences available to others so they might find some value for themselves.

On May 9 I flew to England for a month.  I went to visit friends, and to meet up with old friends from Vermont to hike Hadrian's Wall, an 80+ mile trail which runs from one side of the island to the other near the Scottish border.  I attended a friend's concert, I met new friends, I did some bodywork happy to see that I still "have it," I received some excellent bodywork, saw great art (the Van Gogh Immersive Exhibit), ate good food, drank lots of cider, and felt the strong connection I have with that land.  I have 0% Celtic genetics in this body but 100% spiritual connection to the Earth in that place.  I grew up in New England, and if you look at the Pangea maps (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGdPqpzYD4o) you see that New England and the British Isles were all once part of the same land map adjacent to each other,  which may be part of it.  I recognize the flora and fauna as familiar.

Something I notice traveling is how easy it is to share kindness, whether with friends or the person serving in a pub or café or the person ringing up groceries in the store.  This is not news to me. Traveling across Canada and the US in the early 2000s I found the same thing.  Most people are available for a smile and a friendly word, if not more.  With all of the political sturm and drang, and the active efforts by political agents to polarize We The People, I hope this is not lost!  Nowadays politics and religion serve more to divide us than to bring us together, and more's the shame.

Now I am back in Jamaica.  It's hot and green.  The politics here are as corrupt as they are anywhere, with the politicians recently giving themselves a 200% raise while giving teachers 2% and police 5%. 

My vision, and I thank my parents for their contribution to this, is for humanity to collectively reject violence, to reject the power-over paradigm and blossom into co-operation and kindness.  We can do it!  I know we can.  I wonder if we will.

This week's episode of Paradigms focuses on a specific modality of healing music coming from African traditions, infused with some modern instruments and multi-cultural foundations.  I hope you'll check it out at Paradigms.Life.  The episode speaks to our individual healing needs and possibilities, which of course informs the well-being of the whole of humanity.  Made with love.