Pondering the Spaces In-Between...

St. Germaine de Pres - ParisDrifting in the liminal space between sleep and waking—between night and sunrise—between space and time—then and now—my time on pilgrimage and here. I’ve been pondering whether or not we time travel in our own mysterious ways. Floating between where we’ve been and where we are.

Was I not with my "Irish" friend Christine for a few moments in my recent sleep? And, seriously, how is reality or dreaming delineated? Our time together felt real. I saw her, spoke to her, shared poems and laughter. Dream or reality?

Here I sit now in this in-between space between pilgrimage and home…  Can I be here now and not there? ‘There’ has followed me home. Doesn't that make it ‘here now’? So sweet. So curious… this dancing between worlds within space and time.

Weren’t my husband and I with Jackie Robinson for a couple of hours as we watched the film, “42”? And don’t I revisit Paris and Vienna each time I share my adventures with a friend?

I want to carry the pilgrim spirit home with me… allow her to be alive in my days… not tucked away like my suitcase in the closet.

Central Cemetery in ViennaThe pilgrim wanders with intention. She stops to take pictures of flowers in the market… heck, she goes to the market! She greets no one as a stranger, knowing we are all travelers passing through; all looking for the road that leads us home.

I know what that road looks like, and especially what it feels like. The lifting of heart and the rise of a belly laugh. Opera drifting through an open window. Surprise! Church bells. Horse hooves. My daughter looping her arm through mine as we stroll down the boulevard. My hubby changing his own flight to meet me at the airport (and adding his own special touch by taking a picture of my plane landing).

A corner in ViennaThe road home is a little girl or two or three each holding a book with the answers to life. It is friends and pilgrims traveling across the world and entrusting themselves to my care. It’s surrendering into the purr of a cat, tasting the bursting flavor of fresh fruit, smelling the aroma of homemade granola.

Home is the strength in my body and the tenderness in my heart. It is finding compassion in every face without judgment or guile.

One of several "girls with books" who greeted me.Home is here now. My seat pressed into the mattress, pen in hand, lights low, morning arriving.

I get to choose whether or not I welcome the pilgrim into my day…

The artist has arrived alongside the lover, sage, monk and magician… and of course the sovereign—the one who greets them all, welcomes them into her kingdom, opens the gate to the throne.

To follow the way of the pilgrim… that is my challenge… my mission... to be the one who sees it all as sacred and every step as holy.

Comments

[Dianna]

"all as sacred and everything holy"........ Lovely post. Xoxo