Home

In twenty-four hours, I will ride a big ol' jet airliner back across the globe to what I've always called home. Except that what I've always called home doesn't exist anymore.

I will probably live in my house until it sells, but with most of my stuff packed away, with a lockbox on the door, and with people coming to view the place, it won't feel like mine anymore. It won't feel like home.

In the weeks before I left for Greece, while packing my stuff and feeling such deep sorrow for having to leave my house, I decided to practice Qigong against/with/through the walls of my house, particularly load-bearing walls, for within those walls are wooden beams that have held up the house since 1947. Lots of energy in those beams. (Thanks to Sifu Dan Ferrera for this teaching.)

I have barely a beginner's understanding of Qigong, but I have an open heart and an open mind. So, standing a few feet from a load-bearing wall in my house, not really sure what I was doing, I inhaled and exhaled, leaned toward and away, cried and didn't cry, felt angry at my circumstances and then accepted them.

Then, slowly, quietly, I let go of the the anger and not-anger, the crying and not-crying, and I simply felt, noticed, listened.

And the house said, I'm still standing.

And I said, so am I.

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P.S.
The house sold. I got the news today,  just two hours after posting the above. Still standing...

Meandering

 

Once upon a time on Mount Pelion, somewhere between Katichori and Makrinitsa, I came upon an entrance to a wood. I entered and walked along the path. I wandered, diverted, stopped, sat, bent, climbed, looped, and circled. I had no other goal but to be there, to explore, and to enjoy.

Scattered beams of sunshine breaking through a tangled web of tall tree branches, chirping birds, a brook rushing over rocks, a wooden bridge, fallen leaves, melting snow. Who would have thought Mount Pelion could look so much like Michigan?

I'm leaving Greece in two days. Two days! Where have I been and why haven't I been blogging? I've been wandering, sifting, sorting, circling, taking it all in, and taking notes.

What difference does it make whether I tell my stories in chronological order, from Europe, as they happen (too late!), or if I tell them to you from Michigan after the fact? Come, join me on a nonlinear walk like the one I took on Pelion, riding tangents without apology, daydreaming with abandon, melting into the past, sneaking into the future, and barely recognizing where we are.

Rock

On my last day at Akrimios, I took a walk down the mountain road to the sea. There, I noticed a rock with several markings. Among the markings, I saw the initial of a certain beloved. I liked the rock. I wanted to keep it, put it in my pocket, treasure it.

So, I cupped both hands around the rock, held it to my lips, breathed his name into the rock, and hurled it into the sea.

 

I watched the rock disappear with a tiny splash and barely a ripple. The gesture was symbolic of surrendering my hopes and desires to something greater than myself, trusting them to the stillness of the bottom of the sea. Isn't that what my journey has been about, surrender? Letting go, not clinging?

Dear Universe: I like holding. I would like to do that again. Amen.