New Beginnings...Every Day!

In one of my many self-examining discussions with my dear friend, Jill Ouikahilo (@jill44hearts), she asked why enlightenment was not instantaneous? I was rather flip when I responded that we would not get the lessons that way. But I watch Jill with amazement as she manifests her highest good, and some astounding opportunities, while I sit fretting too often about everything. I think I may be a tad bit wrong, but I may also be a tad bit right, in my assumption that we incarnated for the lessons, for the karmic experience.

So Jill is off to Turkey today with a team from Syracuse University's Hendricks Chapel, for a cultural/spiritual exchange that is called "10-Day Journey of the Heart." As she was describing her role and the trip as we spent the evening together this weekend (and I was already missing my friend...like she was never coming back! DUH!), I shared with her one of my new poems. She responded in the manner I hoped the poem would elicit from a reader. Then, as we talked further, the poem not only suited the content of her messaging about the trip, but she invited me to be the digital poet-in-residence.

The trip is intended to present the lenses that we, as armchair travelers, could apply to our own daily navigation of the world and reflect upon as a contemplative practice. This is exactly the intention of the course I teach every spring in the Renee Crown Honors Program at Syracuse University, "Viewing the World through Changing Lenses." So now the assignment is mine, just as my students must meet my expectations in class. I will reflect and respond in language and verse, while gleaning the experience and resultant lessons that the travelers, as emissaries, send back to us.

I encourage you all to join me in following the tour and making it a part of your worldview as well. We learn about the world through the voices and eyes of others. We can all grow together and now I am, in my heart, at the threshold of a new beginning, as my friend Jill, heads to the airport.