The Journey is the Destination

About 10 years ago i was engaged in a lot more world traveling than i am doing these days.I embarked on many of what i would call 'Side Trips' at the end of a work mission. I also read a lot of travel books and magazine articles in those days, and was sufficiently enthused by those kindred nomadic scribes, to write something about the art of wanderlust myself. 

And so after a decade of slumber i am about to wake this little book up and publish it on this blog. Heres the intro:

The Art of Travel

for all travelers everywhere,

getting lost is the only way to find

yourself

"Keep Moving"

Hunter S. Thompson

"What am i doing here?"

Bruce Chatwin

"Many nights on the road

and not yet dead-

the end of Autumn"

Haiku by Basho

In Feburary of 1999 after a decade of travel i found myself living by lake Peten Itza in the northern highlands of Guatamala.I had been exploring the ancient Maya of Mexico, and had flown across the border from Merida to the see the pyramids of Tikal. Each day by the lake i became more aware of the timeless rythyms of nature around me.The daily whoosh of fly bys by large flocks of black birds early in the morning and their noisy return to roost in the evening.The way the gentle lagoona seemed to breath the vast mountain sky in and out.The comings and goings of the villagers traversing the lake on majestic long colorful boats. The rising and setting of Venus, caught in the evening in the arms of an interloping Jupiter.

(the close proximity of these planets happened again recently, and when i saw it here in the Bahamas one night i recalled this particular trip quite vividly)

As days drifted by i descended (or perhaps ascended) into a profound part of my being, like a pebble dropped into the deep water of the lake. In moments of liquid stillness i wrote the original versions of The Art of Travel in a sutra form.They are an attempt to thread together the many diffuse aspects of travel.

I am reminded by anthropological research that 90% of our time as a human species on earth has been spent as hunter gatherers, is it any wonder then that with our modern mobility we are still entranced by wanderlust.

All that has changed is that there are a lot more of use out there.

Tread lightly.

Your humble scribe 

Summer Solstice 1999

I will begin to publish all 81 chapters/sutras in future postings with a new commentary.

10 years on, let's see if i had any insight back then about that road less traveled, or whether i have any even now?