Another sun

Yesterday I sat down in a small NY-village park picnic table with a large piece of flipchart paper and a handful of crayons. I laughed with myself as I attempted to sketch a world map. For as many times as I've marveled before the layout of our globe, you'd think replicating it would come easier. The message speaks again, "slow down, listen, wake up." Am I moving a bit too fast that I'm missing the delicious details? Nonetheless, I listed out my travel stops in the years since graduating college in 2001, and roughly connected the dots from one destination to the next. I ended up with a mess of colorful lines, and I added to the mayhem by layering on top names, ideas and symbols representing pivotal pieces along the journey toward discovering my inner truths.
This was one of several ideas that came to me in a brainstorm flurry while wielding the hoe between a few lines of Freedom Farm snap peas. It's the third year in a row that I've made it back to my cousin's farm here near Otisville, and in that sense it's become a 'home' at which I can rest, recover, reflect, reconnect, and soak up renewed inspiration. To be honest, though, my tally shows a total of 21 countries I've traveled through over the past five years. I can feel the spinning inside me which lets me know that less than four weeks is a small candle to the mountains I'm attempting to see.
So I do what I can, asking self-compassion to ride my veins and breath to ease my stride. I bounce between present moments and memories of waterfalls, condors, conversations, market sights, smells, friendships extended and deepened, welcomed in and let go. At times I feel the million-layered soil that composes my island and furrow my brow in isolation, only to look up and remember the sun feeds us all. Between nothing and everything, there we dance.