In Route From the Frozen Land People move in and out. A stream, often a torrent of rivers, merging at the confluence of the mightiest elements. It is an inexhaustible movement, churned in thought and action, speech falling over the tumults of smooth pebbles to rocky boulders. Whether you’re in the smooth stillness of a calming pool, or stuck in a white mass of water tumbling upon water, you're a part of it, whether here or there, you're a part of this massive flowing river. PDX, better known in a common vernacular as Portland Airport; that maze of the elements, the [View Full Entry]

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Put a smile on my face. I'm home, I have a job. I have family and friends within my life, there when needed, when lonely or drained, when sucked like a Pixie Stick of all the juices that would otherwise bring a sweet flavor to life. And then the memories, the floods and torrents of the moments in the past that brought me to where I am today. I know I haven't lost them, or slipped on that large, wild banana peel placed before me by the callings of everyday life. I am here, present, but distant in thoughts where I [View Full Entry]

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I'm at home, comfortable, within the western world; the western United States to be precise. A fire cackles. Spring clouds approach like sticky glue from a southern horizon, one dappled with the silhouettes of pines. Beside me; a dog on the left and two books to the right. One is by the Dalai Lama entitled An Open Heart and the other a book of poetry by Rumi. In the background, the hum of a fully automated heater adds choir to a Johann Sebastian Bach suite (Mass in B minor), emitted from a speaker recessed in the ceiling. My belly is full [View Full Entry]

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I wound further toward a most northwesterly point. The highway was littered with debris; rock, sand, dirt, remnants of trees from last week’s storm. I could make out the traces of mudslides in route, the black tarmac stained with the enriched brown of fertile soils. Slowing around each curve along the water, I looked as far ahead round the bend wherein revealed a cleared patch of earth, a deep brown scar clean of green mosses and ferns, or a fallen trunk laying in pieces, now sawed and mangled to keep traffic flowing. To my right the Strait of Juan de Fuca. [View Full Entry]

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Like a roasted bell pepper, you’re done: well-cooked, charred on the outside, burnt, spent. But on the inside, hidden within the veil of life’s fire-burner, you are soft and ready—ready for more. It doesn’t come all that easy though. After the months, weeks, or often only the days of travel, you return home to the accustomed life once left behind, and there, piled with new baggage you thought you were ready to unpack, you find yourself overloaded with a new beginning. And despite how many times you attempt to escape from this, seeking the bliss of freedom discove [View Full Entry]

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Upon the cliffs, deep within a georgic land of the Alpilles they met their madness. Okay… one certainly more severe than the other, but to a degree they’re both equal. It was Les Baux, a hill town (actually “cliff-town”) set in the Middle Ages. Today, upon a limestone plateau, it is still nestled beneath an imposing decay of rocks, walls and towers which is known as its defining chateau. This fortified village lying within the region of Provence has a population below 500, but the presence of past inhabitants pervades and leaves questionable the future of those [View Full Entry]

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You love travel. You love the senses of your adventure to lose their bounds amidst the revelations of new things. You love to bask in minority, in the ages of time passed. You love to hear everything, yet understand as little as possible, finding yourself alone, but surrounded by culture. You love to feel a part of it, yet somehow divided from it. You love to travel, yet you seek that isolated experience distinct from the connotations drawn upon like a child’s coloring book of the common tourist. So how do you do it? How do you travel and find your [View Full Entry]

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Day 5. We met the sun that morning on a bed of clouds. An orange searing red flame; the day's orb caught between the gossamer tails of passing sky. All of us, peace-walkers in heart, felt the surrealism of reality, its magic and its unbelievability. It was a bridge, a long bridge, crossing the Mahi River which divided two districts of Gujarat. And it was Day 5, day five out of seventeen, on the Dandhi Yatra, a peace walk retracing the steps of Mahatma Gandhi's Salt March. Here, on this bridge we witnessed another morning begin. And together with the passing [View Full Entry]

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Like a crack to a stone, frozen in a high mountain clime, warmed by a sudden release; Tashi, then Loti, and then Shampa came back into my life, as I their's. We met on the streets, upon the steep hills of McLeod Ganj, spontaneously, by the will of what is. It started with an early arrival on the 5th. 5:30 AM, freezing, a small pack and the British Airways blanket cloaked as a shawl. Kicked off the bus at its final destination, I wandered down familiar paths toward Tashi and Gyathar's home. I arrived, half numb, and waited outside with the [View Full Entry]

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"Oshi, please. Uncle is waiting for us." I am sitting in a renovated immigration hall with too much time on my hands. "Oshi, please!" The lines are getting smaller, but I look forward to the arrival of 747s from Frankfurt and Hong Kong. A woman beside me shoos her young daughter away. She is kneeling on white marble, resembling the Taj Mahal, and scribes in black letters the details of her arrival card. She's finished. Mother and daughter leave for an awaiting Uncle. I am in India again. India; an India that seems little compared to the journey with Global Citizen [View Full Entry]

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