The Charioteer

The Charioteer is sitting, contemplating, holding the wheel of possibility and fortune in his hand.  He knows a stillness that survives war.  

"Swing low, sweet chariot, coming to take me home."

The name sweet Chariot came to me before I looked for the meaning.  While that seems backwards, it makes sense.  So much about this trip is in reverse.

For example, I have no idea where I'm going, but I've begun saving money and adjusting my life to leave.  I'm simply exploring.  The world, the people, and myself, and the connection between us all.

"Leap and the net will appear."

The Sweet Chariot.  A warrior, sitting in lotus position.  Armored, like the crab, protecting the soft and gentle nature within.  She holds the power to change her fortune.  She is unafraid.

"Swing low, sweet chariot, coming to take me home."  A home that comes with me wherever I go.  A home right in my very own bones.

Every single morning I realize that I've been dreaming myself into other cities through the night.  I'm a world traveler in my sleeping hours.

I meditate every day, and I pray every day.  Every day, I am grateful.  Every day, I say thank you.  

I've been forming travel plans based on prayers and daydreams and sleeping dreams that repeat themselves in themes and feelings.  I wake up every morning with the vivid dreams that won't let sunshine scatter them.

These dreams follow me through the day, singing and laughing and jumping and clapping and cheering.  Then there's the grand jam session of dreaming sleep, where the new ideas mix with the running plans and create a masterpiece of smoke and steam that is entirely unique to its moment in time.  Then I wake again, and like the previous day, dream-riff stowaways cling to my hair and play their songs around my ears throughout my wakeful hours.  Repeating and repeating, like catchy songs will, until their emulation and transformation into the next evening's dream.

All plans are like catchy riffs from the evening jam session of ideas and may or may not be used in the final composition.

Sister Elizabeth says, "If the dream escapes, don't worry.  If it is important, it will come back to you."

These dreams are serenading.  Determined to stick around this time. Winning my heart anew with every note that the play. 

The Sweet Chariot

And thus begins the travel plans.

I woke up one morning and found that an old dream had returned like a prodigal son.

Ten years ago, when I was 18, I had a pocket full of hand made Italian vocabulary flashcards and a dream of travelling.  And then I fell in love with a fellow, and we had a whole different type of journey.   It was valuable, but it didn't include backpacks at all.

The other long lost dreams must of caught word that I have so welcoming of my first prodigal child, because they've been returning to my mind so frequently it's a wonder I can focus on the present.  Sometime, an old dream, like an old lover, comes alone, gentle and quiet, and sometimes many come, like high school friends, like a crashing party, raucous and endearing.  They show up on my pillow and the spaces between my active thoughts. I adore their company, and I feed them and care for them and, a in short time, I've noticed that they are growing with me and on me.

I'm in Portland, Oregon right now, at the other side of my country.  In the next year I will connect with as many travelling souls as I can.  There's so much to learn from others, but what I'm looking for, I know, is in me, myself.

I will write more about my ever morphing plan as time goes on.  At the moment, I do believe it will begin in the U.S. with some volunteer work, some time in monasteries, and some time couch surfing and getting to know the cities and the city folk.  There will be a bike, trains, and monks.  I'll most likely make a lot of mistakes, and then I'll head to Great Britain.

For now, while I'm still listening to dreams that I had once sent packing, everything is subject to change.  Everything except the fact that I am going, and that I will be going alone.

I'll go in about thirteen months.

On June 15th, 2011, my lease will be over and I be on the road.