here come holidays....

I've been waiting a while for this: to wake up in the morning and have nowhere to go and nothing to do other than walk down a rocky trail, stir porridge on a coleman stove, and wash my face in really cold river water. Apart from these posts of mine I will be disconnecting from the world of paper and e-mail, and re-connecting with the world of stone and lichen, water and sun.  If you are reading these posts you can expect to find musings, ramblings, a bit of good poetry from those I am reading while away and links to some of John's great photos....all as part of my reluctant lean into the world of social media.

Reluctant?...yes...reluctant.

While I am well aware of(and fully support) the amazing movement of ideas and communities, the push and victory of excellent environmental and political agendas (human rights and social), the grassroots energy that can shift and govern a marketplace, well....I also wonder about how many screens we have in our lives these days, how many people we are expected to stay in contact with, and what that does to our mental space.
 

The great American poet, Gary Snyder says that one of the banes of modern society is unnecessary socializing; that we are like apes, sitting one next to the other, picking gnats from each others hair. 

Yes....and ironic I would choose this electronic forum to weigh out these ideas. Yup. I know.

Oh well. Here goes. Travel with John and I if you choose. :) This travel blog will chart our course this September through some great parks, on hikes through their alpine, and to places of silence and retreat. Scapes to consider the meaning of the word 'world' and insignificant place in it.

To start things off I'll leave you with a small poem by the Polish poet Cseslaw Milosz...

My-Ness

"My parents, my husband, my brother, my sister."
I am listening in a cafeteria at breakfast.
The women's voices rustle, fulfill themselves
In a ritual no doubt necessary.
I glance sidelong at their moving lips
And delight at being here on earth
For one more moment, with them, here on earth,
To celebrate our tiny, tiny my-ness.

To find my home in one sentence, concise, as if hammered in metal.
Not to enchant anybody. Not to earn a lasting name in posterity. An
unnamed need for order, for rhythm, for form, which three words are
opposed to chaos and nothingness.





Something to think on when everyone wants you to join their network and share, share, share...

...check in with us again next week when we're tent dwellers...

Sue