Skip to main content

AROUND THE WORLD IN 23 YEARS~BODY & SOUL


 My body traveled, my soul took me there.

It's difficult to separate body and soul but C.S. Lewis does a pretty good job of it.

What we think, what we decide, what we feel, that's soul;  what we do is body.

My travels to exotic places didn't change my body, but my soul reinvented itself over and over changing who I was and how I perceived the world. 

I've read about places and cultures but never understood them until I went there, lived with the people, and experienced their dreams and fears, so different from my own.

Travel softens the edges of your humanity, you become more empathetic as you realize there is more than one way to live. It's not always your way or the highway it's your way and their way, parallel universes spinning in the same direction by differing means.

I'm often asked what was my favorite country during my travels, that's the wrong question. The question should be why did I drop a life of comfort and convenience for one of adventure and discovery? That's like asking someone why they climbed Mount Everest, putting themselves in harm's way for no logical reason.

The answer is logic has nothing to do with it, it's metaphysical:

"Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that examines the fundamental nature of reality, including the relationship between mind and matter, between substance and attribute, and between potentiality and actuality."

I'm not a philosopher, in spite of my liberal education. I'm a realist that discovered the magic carpet, a conveyance to places different from my place, to cultures different from my culture, and an understanding that there is more than one way to live my life.

Stay with me, as I continue my journey.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

IT MUST BE SUNDAY

" Life is like a river, if you cannot let go of the past, it will drag you down the stream.” ―Amit Ray I've Been Thinking... A few months ago, I was talking to a friend of mine about life when he said to me: “Maria, if you want something new, you are going to have to first get rid of the old. It’s the only way to make room.” Damn, I thought. Ain’t that the truth? One of my big New Year’s resolutions for 2020 was to clear out the old in every area of my life. I had made a promise to myself that this would be the year I would take a hard look at how I was living my life: my beliefs, my attachments, and all my stuff. I started sorting through things from my office, things from my time as First Lady of California, things from my parents, things from my kids (do yourself a favor and do not save all of your kids’ school things like I did), and so many other things that had found their way into storage when life got the best of me. In fact, I was already in the thick of shredding, di...

PLEASE GOD, SAY IT ISN'T SO

Pause. Breathe. BY MARIA SHRIVER   It’s okay not to be okay today. I certainly wasn’t okay when I went to bed. I hit the hay way too late. I ate way too much. I bit off my nails. I didn’t have the evening I thought I was going to have. It felt reminiscent of 2016 at times. It was a total roller coaster. (I'm writing this as the election has yet to be called.) I know most of us are waking up feeling confused, sad, angry, bewildered. Most of all just exhausted. We’ve all been through a lot, and while we have been through it together, we have also all gone through it in our own personal way. It’s brought up so much for so many, so go easy today.    Put your hand over your heart. Feel it beating, close your eyes. Breathe.    Honor yourself for making it to this moment. For having made the effort to make your voice heard, even if you didn’t get everything you wanted. Honor the fact that you stepped up. You were a part of history. Think about that.    For me...

TRUMP-OUR OWN WILLY LOMAN

  "Death of a Salesman is not set during the Depression but it bears its mark, as does Willy Loman, a sixty-three-year-old salesman, who stands baffled by his failure. Certainly in memory, he returns to that period, as if personal and national fate were somehow intertwined, while in spirit, according to Miller, he also reaches back to the more expansive and confident, if empty, 1920s, when, according to a president of the United States, the business of America was business. And since he inhabits ‘‘the greatest country in the world,’’ a world of Manifest Destiny, where can the fault lie but in himself? If personal meaning, in this cheerleader society, lies in success, then failure must threaten identity itself. No wonder Willy shouts out his name. He is listening for an echo. No wonder he searches desperately back through his life for evidence of the moment he took a wrong path; no wonder he looks to the next generation to give him back that life by achieving what had slipped so un...