One heartbeat at a time

As I sit here on my computer for the last time before my big adventure, I can see the wind gusting and leaves raining down from the old birch tree in front of our house. It is a quintessential overcast day in Portland, and the penetrating chill of the damp Northwest air makes it hard to believe that there might be sunshine warming the skies in any other crevasse of the world.

In Native American practices, Winter is associated with the Northern direction. It represents a time of emptiness and death where we go inside and clear our minds for what is to come. Today, as I prepare to take off to an unknown land where I will know no one, no direction or even the language, I feel as I close my eyes and see darkness, the vast expanse of nothingness. It is a blank slate that connects me to what I imagine as both the beginning of time and the infinite loop of time eternal. I am ready for my next blind step forward into the unknown.