As a friend recently pointed out, these months of quarantine feel like being sent to my room to my inner child. We can see perfectly rational adults becoming as belligerent as a teenager about staying at home or wearing a mask.

So I took my inner child or teenager on vacation one day this week.  We went on a road trip to a small town 30 miles northeast of where I live.  Around the back side of the mountains.  No idea what I would do there.  It was an adventure....  An exploration..  I would see what there was to see in Oracle.   My curiosity was my guide.

As I drove to Oracle, I recalled my first marathon run along the route.  How my children met me at that corner there and ran alongside me for awhile. How my youngest son Miles ran the last mile with me. I remembered the second marathon run there.  I didn't expect this trip to be so fruitful, filled with nostalgia.

Wondering where to go once I arrived, I followed the road and found a state park.  No one else was there. Perfect!  Never mind that it was 93 degrees already and headed to 99 in the next hour.  I hiked for an hour without cover.  In retrospect, I could have cut off 10-15 minutes and not gotten so hot.  But what an adventure! Not only could I sort out some futures I am considering but I got out of the house and spent time hiking.

What have you done for your inner child lately? 

The video is here.

By Mpmajewski - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6676030

In last Sunday's installment of David Whyte's lovely webinar, A Road Always Beckoning, he shared a story and poem, Camino. A story of the inner pilgrim.  Of those who walk the Camino de Santiago in Spain... seekers, I call them.  People like you and me.

Camino means "way."  It could be road.  It could be approach to life.
It got me thinking about where I live in Tucson.  I live on Camino de las Grutas.
Literally, "the way of the grotto."
A funny thing to name a street in the desert.

Grottos are caves usually underwater and near water.
They connote places of rest, of shelter, or worship.
Their mix of rock and water combines with wood and plant to form a balance of elements.

Our rainy season, the monsoon, is the only time we really have water here.
But we dream of water and the ocean and fish.
My friend Jorg has painted every car since I have known him blue with fish, "The Sonoran Ocean."

An approach to life as if it were from a place of rest, of shelter, or worship.
I can step outside my cave door into a world of breath-taking ocean surges in my mind's eye.
I can see the desert landscape spread before me from my shelter in the rock.
I can worship the divine in each rock, cacti, bobcat.

I see now I chose the perfect place to live, the Way of the Grotto.

HT Jorg Hader

Photo by Emma Gossett on Unsplash

Traditional Chinese Medicine sees pain and issues of the body and mind as disharmony.
Thus the treatment principle is always to restore harmony.
Yin and yang in balance.  Mind, body, spirit unified.  Internal and external harmonious.

We speak of the root, branch and leaf of disease or imbalance.
The leaf is what is easily seen, felt and described.
It seems to be the problem. 
In Western symptomatic medicine, the leaf is oft chased and placated.

Careful study, observation and searching is our only path to the branch or root.
Cutting off the leaf leaves the branch.
Removing the branch does not destroy the root.
Another branch and leaf will form eventually.

It takes time and effort to destroy the root.
This same principle applies in our society.
If one takes the time to carefully observe.

What are the motivations of leaders who seek to manipulate us?
What do they stand to gain? Where are their actions and rhetoric leading us?
What is the root?

Photo by Ashley Knedler on Unsplash

I steer my life by intuition.  That includes my traveling. 
Often I pull off the main road to take a less traveled road.
I make stops along the way, led by curiosity or being tired of drone of wheels on highway.
Nothing like a good road trip, I always say.  Just ask my kids.

As a single mother of three, I made cross-country treks of hundreds of miles routinely. To visit their father. Or other relatives.  If I needed a nap, I would pull off the road.  We found the coolest places off the beaten path. One time I decided to do my drive from upstate New York to Oak Ridge, Tennessee differently.  We took the road through the Shenandoah Valley.  It was breath-taking.  After hours on the road and all of us needing a break from the car, I saw a sign for "New River Gorge National River." God bless the national parks!  Curious about why it was "New", I followed the signs which led to this bridge. 

A tremendously beautiful place.
An undiscovered country.

What if I had never stopped?
What if I was so driven to get where I was going that I passed this beauty by?
What if I had been tied to a schedule?

Photo by Dave Hoefler on Unsplash

What inspires you to be your best version of yourself?

To create something original?  Something only you can create..

Can you see it?  Is it physical or a dreamworld? A hope.  A vision of what could be.

In moments of darkness, where do you reach?  For light....

To aspire to be more.  To live into your true potential.

By Nina - Own work, CC BY 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=282496

It's always easier to handle life and it's ups and downs if you can think ahead.
But sometimes, especially in these world-turned-upside-down days, thinking ahead seems not possible.
The best you can do is create today... an hour at a time.. or even a minute at a time.

Constructing the great pyramids took planning. 
Much human effort directed over years to create a monument to last thousands of years.
A monument to the human spirit of creation.
To this day, we don't know how they did it...   4,600+/- years later

Imagine what you could do with a little planning....

What if we just act as if we know what's next?
Invent our own future?  Change what is broken currently?

Photo by Jason Caywood on Unsplash

The rains have come.
Washing away soot, grime, sins.
Nourishing life.

Blessed cool descends.
Sun-scorched sands drink lustily.
We leave our shelters to dance
In the rain.

Photo by Holger Link on Unsplash

Have you ever noticed the roadrunner hiding under a bush?
Or seen the lizard who blends into the rock just a ways off?
They have a way of hiding in plain sight.
Camouflaged to protect themselves from predators.

Sometimes it is that way with people.
We miss seeing things about them.
Things that are hidden in plain sight
If we look carefully.

In retrospect, maybe we could have seen the betrayal before it came.
Or the subtle marionette string-pulling of successful manipulators.
But we also sometimes miss the generosity that surrounds us.
Taking for granted a friend who makes listening to us a priority.
Or even someone who points out our faults to help us be better.

Hiding is one of my favorite things. Blending into the background as if I am not even there. As a girl I imagined myself an American Indian warrior who was stealthily moving and ready to attack without being seen.  From my hiding place, I could watch the world and judge the right time to make my move. I was in command of my own actions.  I knew something they didn't... that I was there... watching. waiting..

Are you hiding?

Photo by Alci Alliata on Unsplash

Rigorous training of the body with seemingly impossible challenges day in and day out
Traditional Chinese Gongfu exercises
Demanding teachers
Through time strength grows
The ability to calmly breathe while the body strains to hold a stance

And one day seven years later, I noticed I had the calm that I admired in my teachers
The calm that drew me to them
To ask them to teach me