Category: Service Vacations

Happy New Year Pravir,

I wish more peace and happiness for you this year.  Time is a concept that none of us really understand.  How one moment actually changes to the next.  Why space exists, why movement exists, why all of this has created all of us?  What is it all supposed to be about, what are we supposed to be doing?  At best, we are experimenting with our time here, either to create a legacy that will last beyond us, or to experience more happiness than the moments that have already past.  At best, we are always stepping into the unknown.

Life, a movement from one unknown to another.

You may be too young to understand some things, but I know that you already understand the one thing that matters most in life: Love.  Your grandfather, grandmother, father, mother and ¨chachu¨ love you very much.

The world belongs to you, and you to the world.  Everything is a circle and we are all points along this circle.  Anything you do to one part of the circle eventually touches every other part of the circle.  It is never ending.  What more is that everything that is inside the circle is the same as what is outside the circle.  Emptiness inside, emptiness outside.  Infinity inside, infinity outside.  Only a thin line separates what is inside from what is outside.  That is a circle.

I´m in Quito, Ecuador right now.  I went with 15 other friends who wanted to make the world a better place.  I think of you often.  How the part of the world that is somehow brighter because of our actions will somehow directly ripple brightness into your life.  If everything is truly a circle that I have faith that what we do here will be good for you there.  What is good for others, is good for me, is good for you.

I love you.  You are in my thoughts, in my dreams, and in my convictions.

In this part of the world they say ¨Feliz Ano Nuevo¨ (Happy New Year).  Maybe one day we will have a conversation without words.

Tired but joy-filled, we arrived safe and sound at LAX last night around 10:30pm.  Breezing through US Customs was somewhat anti-climactic after all we’d been through – it seemed as if the officers should want to know more about where we’d been, the memories we had stored, and the experiences we had brought back in our hearts.  But no, a smile and a half-glance at our passports and we were on our way.  I don’t think any of us, but especially those of us “first-timers”, will be able to assimilate what this trip meant for many weeks.  I don’t feel fully at home yet; the freeway was too linear, the neon signs too bright, the drivers too cautious (though Angela still raced across the crosswalk at LAX in fear of being hit!)  My bed doesn’t quite feel right and the night sounds of Quito were strangely absent in my sleep. 

“For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go.  I travel for travel’s sake.  The great affair is to move, to feel the needs and hitches of our lives more nearly; to come down off this feather bed of civilization and find the globe granite underfoot, and strewn with cutting flint.”  R.L. Stevenson.

“The real meaning of travel, like that of a conversation by the fireside, it the discovery of oneself through contact with other people, and its condition is self-commitment in the dialogue.”  Paul Tournier.

My heartfelt appreciation goes out to Ben & Michelle, Fred & Shveta, Kristeen, Thoi, Mike, Sri, Sukh, my fellow goddesses Joy & Criselda & Jim (!); my ‘new best friend’ Bharti, Jason and (most especially) Angela, for trekking the granite globe alongside me while allowing me to participate in a wonderous conversation of self-discovery.  Our journey is a treasure that I will hold dear and close; I am so thankful for the gift of all of you.