Very Different Border Crossing

There is very little in the way of formal border to speak of crossing from Belgium into France, which I did on a couple different afternoon trips to Lille (about 25 minutes from Tournai). As I was in the driver’s seat on one of those occasions, my host father Jean suggested slowing down to maybe 30k/hour as we drove through the row of ghostly gray structures which once were filled with guards readied for questioning.

By contrast, my interrogation, an evidently perfunctory aspect of the check in for flights from Bruxelles to Tel Aviv, was the first clear indication that I was traveling to a very different corner of the world. Why was I in Belgium? With whom was I staying? How did I know them? Could I open my laptop and show photographs of the people with whom I was staying, the people I was going to visit? Those look like old photographs taken in summer, how about more recent photos? Where I am from in the US? What do I do there? Why am I going to Israel? Who am I visiting? How do I know them? What are they doing there? Do you have a number where I can reach them to verify these details?

And she did; the El Al airline employee disappeared with my passport, ticket and all contact information for those I’m visiting and called Ron in Israel to corroborate the details of my travels. The poignant punctuation to that interchange, I leave to the poem catalogued in the post just prior.

I shared the flight with more infants and small children than I have ever encountered on a plane. My friend Maha, with whom I am now staying, explained that there is a veritable demographic war occurring in this country. The Jews are geographically surrounded by hostile Muslim neighbors. The Arabs struggle as minorities within the Jewish state. Pressure exists within each community to bear more and more children to influence the demographic pie favorably.

In contrast to my interrogation in Bruxelles, I was waved through the airport check points in Tel Aviv with barely a glance. My body relaxed with delight in response to the warm temperatures; such a contrast to the thickened frost and falling mustard and brown leaves which I left behind in the Belgian countryside. Maha greeted me with enthusiastic wave amongst the crowd.

 

Sanctuary & Hosts in Haifa

Maha and I met during my search for shared housing upon my return to the Northwest in the autumn of ’99. She had a room available in her Fremont home. Although I did not end up living there, a vital rapport between us was almost instantaneous. Over these years our intimate and profound sharing has been nurtured in the midst of long stretches of extremely episodic contact, often at great distance. Although she continues to make trips back both to visit her adult children and continue her PhD work at UW, Maha settled with her husband Jamal in Haifa over 3 years ago.

Having arrived in the dark, I could only hear the sound of the waves and feel the warm marine air of the Mediterranean stretching out from the land of this hillside city. Haifa, with a population of close to 270,000 is the largest city in northern Israel. The city seems to be arranged almost like a hand, with fingers reaching down to the sea. In order to travel from one finger to the other, one has to retrace the path back up to the palm and then descend again. Maha & Jamal live in a lovely, light apartment in Kababir, a previously isolated Arab village now integrated as one of the more outlying suburbs of Haifa, the tips of the one of the fingers.

The room in which I am staying, Maha explained, is a fixture of every newly constructed home in this country. The bedroom walls are densely reinforced concrete, a thickened, padded door with industrial metal closure, Israel’s version of a modern day bomb shelter. She commented, “The country is in a constant state of preparation for war.”

Upon waking this morning, I walked out to the front kitchen, living, dining space to gaze west to the water. What was a pit of darkness last night was now illuminated as a vast Jewish cemetery, separating this hill hanging suburb from the waterfront. Thousands of white headstones stand in lines broken by varied forms of cypress and other small pines standing individually and in clusters. Directly below is the Jewish cemetery. To the left, the Christian, and further up into the hillside the Muslim. Maha commented that initially she was horrified by the prospect of living above a cemetery, the presence of it in her daily view & life. Now she can say, without any doubt, that they make the most polite & quiet of neighbors. In the Western world, I am more accustomed to cemeteries being situated upon hills. It is a stunningly different vantage point to look down upon the refuge for thousands of souls.

Jamal is a physician working in the context of a community clinic. He has articulated a significant level of fatigue due to the pace and nature of medicine in this context; patients scheduled every 10 minutes, regularly prescribing diabetes and hypertension medication for people who don’t tend properly to diet and lifestyle. One day a week, physicians here are required to pursue some form of ‘continuing education’. In that context, he has recently begun working with the schools providing required annual physical exams to all the children grades 1-7. He spoke of how different to his normal work, these days being all about engaging with health, life, vitality.

Maha is in the final throws preparing for her PhD defense at the UW. Her research focuses on the role of the hamula (traditional kinship group-clan) in the local political and decision making structures present within the Arab minority in Israel. She departs for her defense days after I leave their home.

Many a Novel Facet

In contrast to the familiar of northern Europe, so much here is novel. Maha & I drove on a cursory tour of Haifa this morning to get me oriented. We swept over to the German Colony, a vital stretch of terrace cafés and shops lining Bengurion Ave, which ascends the hill to merge into the gardens and grounds of the Bahá’í World center, where I will walk tomorrow. Further beyond the German Colony is the port and more concentrated industrial area of the city. After a brief stop at the view point beneath the rather gracious and imposing nunnery of the Sisters of the Carmelites, we dropped down to the beach. She pointed out the location of one suicide bombing, and some of the areas struck by bombs in the conflict with Lebanon in the summer of ’06.

The early evening, the three of us spent hours walking up through Kababir into the Carmel, a bustling commercial area full of shops and cafés. We walked through soft, balmy evening air, bougainvillea of magenta, crimson, peach and white spilling over walls and gates. Carob trees perfuming the air, their boughs both laden and littering the streets with heavy, brown pods (quite tasty, the softer ones). Most homes are strikingly geometric, box like in architectural structure; cement or covered in sand colored stone. One home had space allocated to a dozen goats milling about. There is a mosque just up the street, but Maha commented, in this mixed neighborhood, she thinks the Muslims are so afraid to offend the Jews that calls to prayer are a decidedly muted phenomena.

Our dialogue wound along as did the streets. Maha spoke openly of her experiences being raised in Libya by Israeli born Arab parents, attending boarding school in Egypt, migrating to England and continuing on the US years ago with her ex-husband. We spoke of relationships being sustained at a distance. I shared with them more about my companion Ewan, who has entered my life since we last shared time together.

And now it is late, the sky dark, the strip of city running along the beach illuminated with light beyond the cemetery. The air remains warm as are the cream tiles beneath my feet.

Check in, Bound for Tel Aviv

Had my interrogator come not
as a woman my age, not quite 5′3″,
proud nose, marvelous bright eyes,
deep brown curly lochs falling far
down her back, I might
have held the lengthy questioning differently
in the cage of my chest,
the depths of my belly.

As it was, I answered each
question with measured breath
truthful words, lightness
in my own heart & eyes.
It seemed a game of sorts.
Fewer points for an answer’s content,
more awarded for each phrase
delivered with calm and confidence.

Close to the end
she spoke with warmth,
without smile,
It will be wonderful…your trip. Summer’s
so hot, now it is perfect.
These words were punctuated
by apology
for all the questions.
I understand,
you are doing your job, I offered
with well intentioned smile.
I don’t use that phrase,
anymore...she said flatly
both eyes deeply engaged, you know
that’s what
the Germans said.

Reasonably Quiet Life

L’Hermitage Marcel Baudry

            Toward the end of August, my host mother Caddy called me in a rather excited and agitated state, “Amy, we have won a trip to Turkey!  But it’s right when you’re here, we’ll be gone a whole week.”  Considering I am in Tournai for a longer stretch (over the course of two months), rather than being disappointed, I was elated at the prospect of some quiet, reclusive time.  I declined a variety of dinner invitations and took the majority of the week to further slow down and calibrate to my own clock in a way I have not had the opportunity to do in years.  It has indeed been a period of sublime hermitage.  Days have unfolded with simple food, regular sleep, writing, although evidently not much here, reading, daily laps in the local public pool.  The darkened, puffy circles that took up residence beneath my eyes in my first year of school have packed up and gone elsewhere.  I am deeply rested.

 

Long~standing friendships 

            Mid week I traveled up to Bruxelles to share a couple days with my friend Musimu and her family.  Musimu, born in Zaire, the former Belgian Congo, moved to Belgium at the age of 9 in the wake of her parents’ death.  She was taken in and supported by a woman who lived close to Tournai until she finished her studies.   We met here in school.  Interestingly, although we moved in similar social circles, it was only through written correspondence, and my subsequent returns to Europe, that our friendship really developed.  

            In her early 20s, Musimu married a Dane and moved to Copenhagen, where she and her husband Morten lived and gave birth to their children Mathias & Maya.  Eight years ago they moved back to Bruxelles.  Morten is an antitrust lawyer defending corporations against the EU.  Musimu recently finished her studies in Sociology and currently focuses her energy on their family & home.  Matthias & Maya, ages 11 and 10 respectively, are radiant and enthusiastic young ones who move seamlessly between Danish, French and English.  They study at the international school where parents choose the primary and secondary languages in which their child studies.   Matthias speaks animatedly about plans to study and live in the US. 

            Musimu & I spent much of the visit in dialogue, walking.  We walked through the streets of their Bruxelles suburb Uccle; the embassy row of the EU capital.  We walked for hours through the Forêt de Soignes, a deciduous park which stretches some 100k through Belgium, vestiges of the same forest found in scattered parcels in France.  Midday, we shared a beautiful simple lunch at Le Pain Quotidian; a delightfully typical cafe with its three small rooms each filled with one enormous common table, chairs nestled beside each other so that no conversation is truly private.    

 

            Sunday, I ventured into the Belgian countryside, to the village of Ecaussinnes.   I traveled to share time and the midday meal with Matt & Kelly Paradise and their children Megan (15) and Tyler (14).  Matt’s and my family were close during childhood, parents remaining good friends even now. 

            Having recently moved after four years at a naval base in Japan, Matt is now working at S.H.A.P.E., the large NATO command in Mons, Belgium.  The family has settled for this year and half post in a quintessential Belgian farmhouse, solid and elegant in every detail, view out the kitchen window to adjoining fields littered with lazily grazing cows. 

            In addition to getting thumbnail sketches of each others lives over recent decades, we spoke a great deal about the opportunities afforded to learn via travel; speaking a language other than one’s own, adapting to the food and cultural mores of another culture.  It was a joy to share time this week with a number of young people whose eyes and minds appear to be so open to the wonders of this big world of ours.  

 

***

            I am, perhaps, not the best narrator of northern Europe’s quotidian details.  For while foreign, they are also dearly familiar; the smell of fresh baked bread, the irregularity of cobblestone streets which mirror the teeth of many an elder in this part of the world, the idiosyncratic and surprisingly functional traffic regulating device ~ the roundabout, the myriad different architectural styles of door and dormer, window and buttress, all centuries old and lined up beside each other like nestling spoons, the lyrical accent of Flemish vendors selling their eggs and milk at the farmer’s market, the undulating hills peppered with small brick houses, proud rows of poplars, languid cows, heavy mounds of harvested brown sugar beet.  

 

Turning East

            Tomorrow I leave this familiar place and fly to Tel Aviv.  I will spend the first half of my time in Israel with friends Maha & Jamal in Haifa, just south of Lebanon.  Toward the end of my week with them, Maha has invited me to join her on a trip to the Arava Institute, 5 hours drive south of Haifa, close to the Jordanian border.  For some years now, she has been involved in the facilitation of Compassionate Listening workshops which foster peace and conflict resolution between Jews & Palestinians by teaching skills of active and compassionate listening. 

 

http://www.compassionatelistening.org/

http://www.arava.org/new/about_arava

 

            And so I leave the falling leaves of mustard and brown, and the thickened frost of recent mornings for clear skies with warm temperatures in a land completely unfamiliar to me.  Many adventures lie ahead. 

 

 

Gestures of Peace

Friday, 139 people died secondary to suicide bombings in Pakistan. The attacks were directed at former prime minister and opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, recently returned to the country after 8 years in exile. More than a month after the beginning of large scale peaceful protests, led by monks and suppressed by the military junta in Burma, the curfew in that country has been lifted. “It’s not peace you see here, it’s silence,” words of a 46 year old Burmese writer quoted in the NY Times. Also this week, following the US Congress bestowing its highest civilian award to the Dalai Lama, the Chinese government ‘clashed’ (little detail provided) with monks attempting to celebrate in Lhasa.

And I write from a warm brick home situated in a bucolic landscape of resplendent blue sky, a small town in southern Belgium where the air has become crisp, just since my arrival over a week ago, and the leaves have begun to fall. How does one, any one of us, hold the unrelenting violence in this world. I would argue one way is to focus on the crucible of our smallest daily choices and interactions, how we communicate with those we touch, the expression, the intention which we bring to every gesture of our lives. This is part of the reason Zen meditation practice is a part of my daily ritual, that I might cultivate my skills in being present in each moment, each interaction.

 

In my home as a child, we had a small spare bedroom with a prominently revolving door. My mother, being Australian, reeled in visitors from a rather vast web of extended family Down Under. Additionally, we welcomed in exchange students from different parts of Europe, Mexico, and elsewhere, some of whom remain important members of our family. With my first journey to Australia at the age of 4, first trip to Europe a decade thereafter, travel and interacting with other cultures has been the very warp and weft, both weaving the basic structure and providing vibrant color and texture to my life.

Last week, I attended an evening meeting of Tournai 3 Lys, the all male Rotary Club which sponsored my year here as an exchange student. I was warmly received by some familiar and decidedly aged faces. Roget Claeyssens was one such face. Now in his early 70s, Roget oversaw all those on exchange in the region during my time here in ‘91/92. He has maintained close contact with an Australian student who was here during the same period. He recounted being in the hospital some years ago following a thrombosis and picking up the phone to find his Australian filleule ‘god daughter,’ inquiring about his welfare.

In reflecting on Rotary’s global impact over so many years sponsoring cultural exchange (and this evidently applies to not just Rotary, but all organizations facilitating such exchange), he articulated, “They are gestures of peace; every student and their interactions with families and communities.” At length, we discussed the impact of these youthful emissaries; filtering throughout the world as travelers do with enthusiasm and curiosity, propensity for cultural blunders and judgment, wonder and all the other experiences which accompany being away from one’s home. Amongst their souvenirs, I would like to think these ambassadors carry home more open minds and the sensibility that there are, in fact, many ways to live and work, raise children, share food and family and companionship, create art, care for the body, one’s elders, the home, the community.

Tournai 3 Lys continues to welcome new students every year, this year has brought young men and women from India, Ecuador, Brazil, Australia and Japan. With the increased…hmm let’s just say restriction of the American border since 9/11, academic exchange into and out of the US has been significantly impacted. In Tournai, they have only had 1 American over since that time. I wonder what ripples we will continue to see over the coming years as a result of our government’s choices since September 2001.

 

I hold all these thoughts along with the pain and violence of this world. Here I will include what feels like an apropos passage from some writing to more intimate friends and family which I sent out before my departure from the US.

 

I want to mention a recent public dialogue held just after retreat between my teacher Shodo Harada Roshi and Michael Lerner of Commonweal.   Amongst a broad constellation of subjects, some of the most poignant were those addressing the relationship of the individual to the world, the manner in which the suffering of the world is held by and consequently impacts an individual’s health and wellbeing.  They each spoke about the challenges and urgent necessity of remaining present, awake, engaged, and hopeful in the midst of such a deeply troubled era for our world. 

The audio of the evening is available ~

http://www.sendspace.com/file/26zpf4

(2007-09-13.talkWhidbeyInstitute.mp3)

 

            Michael described three distinct narratives of the past 500 or so years of human history.  The first, arguably the most celebrated is that of scientific and material progress.  The second, being the destruction and exploitation of nature, indigenous culture and the feminine. The third in which Michael appears to root his own hope for this world is as follows:

                                                                       

It is a narrative of a movement in consciousness, from despotism to democracy, from slavery to citizenship, from women as property to women as equals, the history of the labor movement, women’s movement,  the civil right movement, the human rights movement, the environmental movement, the animal rights movement.  And if you ask what all of these have in common, it’s an expansion of the respectful consciousness of other sentient beings.  It is an awakening to our mutuality and oneness of all sentient beings which is of course is the teaching of the Harada Roshi…

… what I want to suggest is that the way most of us deal with this {the planetary crisis}, is with anxiety and depression, and a sense of being afflicted, and a sense that this is such a terrible thing…This is not the skillful way to live with this, anymore than it’s the skillful way to look at our personal transformation…I believe that the right way to live with this is the belief that we can turn this around.  It doesn’t mean we will turn it around, or that there won’t be a tremendous amount of suffering…But there is a sense that this great journey of millennia of the human spirit is not destined to have been made in vain.  That we are not destined to be destroyed.  That we are not a mistake in the history of planet earth.  That we carry the dharma, the sangha within us, that we carry a spiritual tradition that we increasingly understand as one within us and that from the axial age of the Buddha and Socrates to the time of Christ to the Sufi masters; our spiritual history is a history of awakening, again and again and again…

 

            If prayer is a part of your days, prayer in the most expansive and ecumenical sense of the word, be it for yourself, an individual in your life, your community, those in poverty and hardship in this country, in the world, those embroiled in Iraq, for the monks in Burma, I would invite you to cast those prayers in an affirmative spirit with images of strength, harmony and vitality. This is not about denial of reality.  It is rather about invoking and orienting toward the constructive, the vibrant, the light.  Perhaps it is best illustrated by Czech playwright Vaclav Havel’s words differentiating hope and optimism. 

 

“Optimism is the belief that everything is going to go right.

Hope, by contrast, is a deep orientation of the soul

that can be held in the darkest of times.”

 

             

Settling into the countryside

Returning ‘Home’

I have called a number of places home over the course of my life. Browns’ Pt, WA, ages 0-18, Tournai, Belgium (where I write from now), Maine (college), Nepal (college and later work), Scotland (college), Australia (travel & visit of my mother’s family). Most recently Seattle has been home.

Since a year spent in 1991/92 as a Rotary exchange scholar in this small town minutes from the French border, I have had the lavish fortune to return a half a dozen times. Over these sixteen years, I have not only maintained but cultivated the relationship with Caddy & Jean Delhove, the parents of my first of three host families from that year. They have visited me on several occasions in the US, shared travels in Europe with my own parents, and we have corresponded initially by handwritten letter, an antiquated and I would still argue sacred form of correspondence, phone and more recently email.

Tournai et la region ~ Local History

Caddy & Jean live in Froyennes, a small village 4 kilometers from the center of Tournai. Brick homes are scattered throughout the bucolic landscape of individual farms. Yesterday on a run, I encountered machinery harvesting potatoes, corn standing witness across the single lane country road, still other fields full of beetroot and other low, green sprouts, plants which I cannot distinguish or identify.

This region being familiar to me, I haven’t such a need to take photographs for posterity. Even if I did, I’m not the most technologically adept (in terms of uploading etc). And so for now, this will be a written narrative and you will have to supplement with the provided websites. The Wiki site has quite good photos of Tournai.

http://www.tournai.be/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tournai

The rooster’s call, beginning at 4:30am, is one of many indications that I am far from Seattle’s urban city limits. The history of settlement here dates back 2000 years, with a village, which later became Tournai, established along the banks of the river Scheldt. Vestiges of its long history include the road Tournai-Bavay, an ancient Rome bound thoroughfare, which still runs through the countryside from the hills of Chercq to the village of Saint-Maur.

Tournai is perhaps most noted for its 12^th century Cathedral of Notre-Dame; a rather regal and imposing architectural structure of Romanesque and Gothic influences. Although the town was devastated due to bombing and ensuing fire in 1940, the cathedral endured largely unscathed. Subsequent reconstruction and restoration of the town center took place over the course of a decade (1945~1955). For some years now, the Cathedral has been in a state of perpetual restoration in the interest of maintaining its structural integrity for centuries to come.

Aged Friendship

This home, aside from a face-lift of interior decoration, which brought much needed light and color into it, has remained largely unchanged since my time here in ‘91. The tall, narrow cabinet beside the European size fridge still houses towering stacks of tea cups, the breakfast tray holds requisite jars of jam, nutella style chocolate spread, instant coffee, the little plastic cutting boards on which one places bread, and the sugar bowl, from which, as a punctuation to every meal, Caddy withdraws a single cube and, after dunking once, places it in between her cheek and teeth as she drinks the remainder of her coffee.

The crystal cabinet is filled with a dazzling array of glasses, each having its place and function in the drinking of a particular kind of wine or liqueur. Some things have been recently added to the house since Mami, Caddy’s mother, died of an aneurysm in her sleep 4 months ago yesterday.

In recent years, Caddy has taken to the tending of orchids, an inspiring ambition in the climate of northern Europe. Currently, a number remain in bloom, white and violet, their surreal tropical texture brings a certain vibrancy to the somewhat austere living room.

Caddy worked initially as a primary school teacher and later as the principal of an elementary school until early retirement due to a Scleroderma diagnosis in 1994. In 1995, she founded the Belgian Scleroderma association in order to promote fundraising for research into the disease, and provide patient support and services. She has since become active in the European Scleroderma association as well as an umbrella organization focused on supporting research into auto-immune disease. She balances the demands of her own body for rest and moderation with an intense drive to work for the benefit of others.

Jean worked for decades managing a textile factory just the other side of the French border. He retired early, due to cardiac problems, and has since devoted his time to activities with the local Rotary club and more recently administration of the regional food bank. At the age of 60, they are a couple fiercely generous in contributing their time and energy to local and not so local needs.

It was with this couple that I truly learned French. During the months I lived with them, after many an evening meal, my host sister, Caroline, would adjourn to her room while we remained at the kitchen table, large Harrap’s French-English dictionary close at hand, discussing politics, education, religion, relationships, the state of the world, whatever presented itself on a given day. Over the years, our dialogue has deepened and matured. They might say it has just aged, as we all have, each of us with more grey than upon our first meeting.

It is deeply nourishing to me to continue the dialogue, the development of these friendships. There is an ease and familiarity both to this place and our interactions. When I considered a visit here after finishing school, I felt a rightness about it. Somehow I knew coming here, separated from my life in Seattle and all that that entails, that I could truly rest and recalibrate.

The days since my arrival have unfolded, each with a decided leisure and simplicity; a trip into the farmer’s market and errands in town, a shared meal with my host brother Fréd, his partner Lydia and their new son Gaspar, an afternoon jog through the country everyday, leisurely dialogue after dinner at the same kitchen table, with the same dictionary, although the Harrap’s is not so necessary anymore.

Sunday afternoon, Caddy and I visited the studio and gardens of 70+ year old artist Marie-Josée AERTS. She has worked largely with the nude human form in cast bronze and fired ceramic works. Normally charging a fee for entry, once a year she opens her atelier freely to the public. The gardens weave around her home and studio space with a distinctive intimacy. Wisteria gracefully adorns an arbor which stands beside rows of spinach and leeks, nude figures poised and nestled amongst the greenery. It is a delight to have returned to Europe, to have returned here.

Flight

A hollow sense

 

A strange hollow sense arose in me

when, after barreling along the runway,

the wheels retracted,

tucking up into the metal underbelly,

and the noise fell away,

as did the earth.

 

Glossy in its morning stillness

the Sound stretched out,

hardly a craft

disturbing the line of it.

To the west, snow crested ridges

emerged between billowy contours.

And in another breath it was gone.

All of it.

The plane engulfed,

clouds gently parted to allow

our passage through shades of blue,

cream, white, grey, tinges of dirty yellow.

Swallowed up, we were,

and that hollowness,

a part of the ethereal texture,

as we were swallowed

into a gossamer sky.

Itinerary

Itinerary

    I have been working with a wonderful travel agent by the name of Lajuan Donaldson at Council Travel in Seattle’s U District  LDonaldson@statravel.com.  Real people with these skills still exist in this world.   My tickets are an amalgam of discounted student fares and one way whole sale tickets.   Lajuan has been working with STA travel for 27 years!  If you have travel needs that require more than a web browser and some patience, she is an excellent resource.   

 

TOURNAI, BELGIUM ~ arrive October 11, depart December 12

In 1991-92, as a Rotary exchange student, I lived in southern Belgium for a year. I have since cultivated close friendship with the host parents of my first family, Caddy & Jean Delhove. Fréd & Caroline, my host siblings, and Musimu, a dear friend from school, remain in the area, from Brussels to Lille, France. My companion, Ewan, will fly over to meet me for Thanksgiving…in Paris.

ISRAEL ~ 3 WEEKS (embedded in my time in Europe, cheapest to fly round trip from Brussels)

My former Seattle neighbors Lisa, Ron & their girls Laila & Mayaan (whose birth I had the good fortune to attend in 2005) just moved back to Tel Aviv. My friend Maha, also from Seattle, has been back and forth from the US to Israel over the 8 years I have known her. She and her husband Jamal now live in Haifa. My time in Israel will be shared with these wonderful people, exploring a part of the world into which I have never stepped foot.

SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA ~ 1 MONTH

My mother is Australian and we have family strewn up and down the eastern coast. I intend to base myself with my dear cousin and friend Alice Addison in Sydney. Christmas will entail a road trip up to Brisbane to visit her folks Susan & Rex Addison. Ewan is flying in several days after my arrival December 12^th and will stay until the New Year.

INDIA ~ 3 WEEKS

My friend Cris & I have known each other through meditation practice for some years. For the past 8 months I have been providing treatment to him for cardiac arrythmias and general wellbeing. He has invited me to meet him in New Delhi, from which we will venture northeast on a pilgrimage of sacred Buddhist sites. I will be a traveling companion and offer ongoing OM treatment during our journey.

NEPAL ~ ?

Over the course of 2 trips earlier in life, I spent the better part of 2 years in Nepal. I do not have contact with those I knew from that era. I do not know what/who I will find there. However, I cannot travel to that part of the world without returning.

TAIPEI, TAIWAN ~ ?

Upon arriving in Taiwan I envision two (of myriad) possibilities. If I arrive and am able to

1) Study Chinese

2) Keep ‘my feet wet’ in OM by continuing to study with a doctor

3) Teach English in order to support myself

4) …if it all feels right then I will stay for a time.

If upon arriving I am not successful in getting all of the pieces of the puzzle in place, or I simply decide I am sated and ready to return to the US, I will do so and establish practice in Seattle. Evidently, this last leg of the journey will depend largely on Ewan’s and my willingness to remain separated by large bodies of water, for a prolonged period of time.