Down-to-the-bones Traveling & Beginning Again

I’ve been traveling. Big traveling. Far away and deep inside kind of traveling. Across oceans, past boundaries, down-to-the-bones traveling. And now I am home with a journal full of memories and a photo catalogue filled with images. I want to write and share and process, but I am scattered. Yesterday, I would have named this state as unmotivated. Today, the word is scattered and distracted. The tapestry is full of loose threads to tug upon, each one leading down its own connected and disconnected trail.

And so, I do the only thing I know to do. I begin. I open to the first page of my newest travel journal and read:

Sunday, April 17, 2016 – 5:00 a.m. – Seattle, WA  The journey is here. Entering in my sleep. Last night? Last year? 100 sleeps ago? Warm and shimmering, it awakens me through my third eye – the place that sees beyond time and space. My internal clock is shifting, moving toward Paris time, like it did those early mornings last spring in Tuscany.

Blue – the color of voice. Pink and green – the heart chakra – lovingkindness. I wonder about 1 Corinthians 13 (the “love” verses) and how old Bible stories blend with my love of Buddha and all that surrounds me in this vast ocean of wisdom and story.

I wonder about the memoir I’m writing, the memories I’m making. Mrs. Peck’s kindergarten class, finding her words written on a status report in reference to me. “She is most interesting to me.” They seem like odd words to write about a 5-year-old child, but then again I look into my granddaughter Violet’s eyes and see vast oceans in her blue orbs.

I see in metaphor – the magic wand, the ocean, the color blue – my voice and wisdom. How can I stay tucked inside my own story without exploding past the boundaries into a bigger life? Shimmering images call me to Notre Dame and St. Michel and Namibia.

In twelve hours, our plane will be in the air. In 24 hours I’ll be in Paris. Again. Still. Always.

Again. Still Always. There is no separating one thread from another. They are intertwined and sometimes tangled. Each day, we begin again. Building on what has gone before and hoping toward what is still to come.

What’s rising on your tapestry today? Will you tug the thread or let it lay as it is? Can you be satisfied with being here now? Is there something that’s inviting you to begin (perhaps again)? 

I'm writing a new book! In the meantime, I hope you'll take a peek at BLUE: a novel and As I Lay Pondering: daily invitations to live a transformed life. 

Live it LIVE with me this November. Only two spots remaining for Awakening the Creative Spirit. Is one of them yours?