How the journey went from There to Here...

I used to think that in order to experience the magikal mystery of living, one had to get rid of personal possessions, find a very small backpack and fill it with only a few important things, including a sacred and powerful amulet.  Once this was established, I believed that one had to head off into the far corners of the earth to climb mystical mountains with medicine women.   I thought this journey had to be undertaken alone, without the support of friends and family, and that it must be done seriously without frivolous distraction or silliness.  

When I was 20 years old, I set out to find the mystery at the edge of the world.  I found myself in indescribable places, experiencing the wonders and beauty of the stars from secret villages in the Himalayan mountains. I walked through the green terraced hills of south east Asia, and chanted to the sun rise every morning with exotic red flowers in my hair.  My prize possession was a wooden flute and a stone from a white beach that I found along the way.

I told myself on many a day that I would not be limited by the ways of the world, that the cultural traps of mortgages and marriage would not hold me back from seeking the mystery.  I declared this from hilltops and river boats, across valleys and in candle lit temples where the holy men kept vigil clutching prayer beads that connected them to the infinite.  

Two years after these declarations, I was married to a goodhearted Englishman, who I had met in those mystical mountains.  A few years later we were living in a city, with a mortgage, a leaky roof, 2 cats, and steady jobs.   The backpacks were relegated to the hall closet and used once a year for lakeside camping trips near my home town.  It was only after the redecorating and the renovating, and the endless fixing of our new ( but very old) little green house, that I sat down to contemplate my life.  It had all happened so fast.  I had barely noticed that I was not on a solo journey, in an ancient land, with a handful of possessions, studying mystical things. 

And when I did notice, I freaked, and it It happened like this: 

I was on my way, through my new kitchen, to my new fridge to retrieve a left over burrito for my lunch when the awful reality struck me, out of nowhere it came, like a kind of inside thunder that shook me to the core. Here I was living the life that I told myself I never would. The tears, and fears, and rage that came in that moment brought me to my knees and I threw the bean burrito at the new white humming fridge and sobbed.  How could I possibly be inspired by a life that was dedicated to interior decoration and deluxe kitchen appliances. 

It took me three difficult years to pull myself together, and the details of that are not necessarily important, lets just say they have something to do with acceptance and simplicity, and growing older, and the encouragement of a wise and loving friend with a lot more life experience than myself, who took it upon herself to show me the magic in the day to day.  

I now know that walking in the beautiful mountains that surround the city I live in, is as holy an experience as hiking through the Himalayan foothills.  The flowers in my garden teach me things about my soul that I can hardly believe.  The books on my bookshelf constantly take me on mystical adventures as I  retreat each night to turn their pages, curled up with my fluffy white dog in a nest of pillows and handmade quilts.  The circle of women I dance with each week is a ritual of the most ancient kind, and can only be described as a kind of ceremony of the heart. The babies whose births I attend look into my soul with a knowing older than the stars. The songs that I sing with good friends, on rainy afternoons, over cups of herbal tea, remind me that one need not leave one's house to find God, to taste the mystery, to surrender to the infinite divinity of all things.

This site is therefore dedicated to the mystery of the day to day, to the magic that abounds on your doorstep and the infinite blessings and mystical happenings of each moment.  It is dedicated to the inspiration that sneaks in through the kitchen while  you stand at the stove scrambling eggs, and the poetry that garden crow encourages you to write.  It is about the rituals of living a spiritual life in the most ordinary way, ever single day.

Blessings to all the beings who continually remind me of the incredible significance of a human life, and the enchanted landscape of soul, who's journey has nothing to do with going anywhere, but in.