We thought an okay weather window was upon us as we left Gray's Harbor in Washington and sailed toward Newport, OR. The swell and and chop was far worse than we thought it would be, though, and after 24 hours of battling the Pacific we turned in for shore and ducked into Tillamook Bay in the town of Girabaldi for 2 nights. It turned out to be a very quaint and friendly town and we'd give it good reviews. When we left yesterday morning around 8am (early for us!) we thought - again - that we were headed into fairer seas and winds at our back. But the small low pressure system that was right offshore chased us south down the coast into Newport.
Coming out of Tillamoook Bay, the morning started off quiet for my 4-hour morning watch. Light fog and low clouds hugged the rocky Oregon coastline and we skimmed a glassy sea. All was quiet on the Feral Soul as we each tucked into a corner of the sailboat for personal time. I put on some Celtic music and meditated along as the sun threatened to be seen behind thinning clouds until mid-day. Sandy took over for her watch at noon and I laid down on the settee with a Buddhist book and eventually for a nap. When I awoke about an hour and a half later we were evading lightening, heavy rains, and much rougher seas. Nothing that our vessel can't handle, but not the sunny 70 degree weather we were expecting. Darn expectations - they'll get you every time! We keep saying that farther south will be better but thus far we're still in the Northwest for sure. Fortunately, my sea-legs and sea-stomach are getting stronger and the ocean swell is slowly becoming a comfort.
With the pace we're on figured we'll make it to San Francisco or a little ways south and not all the way to San Diego. So we bought plane tickets to leave SF on the Sept 18th for Chicago where we'll stay for a week with Circus's family. Hopefully we'll have a few days to spend with friends fam in California.
This transition of being "gone" for me is a strange one. Usually when I move away or take off for a long trip there is at least a time difference - if not a great distance - between where I've been and where I'm going. Maybe I'm used to the buffer of comfort in being in a totally different culture with constant acclimation and newness to distract me from feelings of home- (or other place) -sickness. But with a week + of bumming through coastal towns and minimal distractions on the boat, I allow myself no choice to be present with what is. And 'what is' is a mix of contentment, sadness, dull excitement, some residual sea-sickness and achy-ness from boat travel, and hope that I'm headed down the right path.
Often when there are periods of quiet and introspection, little sprouts of doubt and fear creep in trying to disguise themselves as caution and rationality. Fortunately I've learned to recognize their stories - which are based on distrust of the ability to flow with the waters of life and accept what is given - as just stories and not listen hard enough to change my course. I think I still have some trouble with just enjoying life when it's not directly benefiting a big community or working towards some life changing goal. For all that I teach about finding balance and the necessary beauty of play, I apparently still have some negative self-talk here! And for this and many other reasons, I still practice every day as diligently as travel allows. I find in my meditation more space to accept the places I am growing and integrating, and the clarity to see the small strides that I make every day. Those little negative voices tend to recede when I don't feed them and my practice lays the tracks that I prefer to be my habitual mind-speak. Namely, presentness and a mind less distracted by negative talk and self-doubt.
I found a book called 'Money, Sex, War, Karma' by David R Loy at a bookshop before I left and it's relevance in my life right now makes me smile. It's about how the spiritual path doesn't give us permission to sit quietly and "be spiritual" but instead holds us accountable to our actions and our every day impact. Rising consciousness hopefully inspires us to understand more macro-cosmically how every thought, word, and deed has an impact on our community of human beings and our Mother Earth. We get to make moment by moment choices about how to relate to people, where to put our money and our energy, and how all this effects our smaller and wider world. I guess one of the reasons I like traveling is the tangibility with which I see those effects. And the moment-to-moment impermanence that is living out of a backpack.
Lastly, I've been musing over my life-long discomfort with living in the place I was born. I don't know where this seed came from, but I've always had a gnawing little voice that said if I stay in Seattle my whole life - or even come back there to live long-term - I am a failure. I know that is a big, fat lie and probably even hurtful to my friends and family in Seattle. It's certainly not a judgement that I impose on anyone else. In my current musings, I identify this as my silly little ego. This past few years in my hometown has convinced me that a life in Seattle is just as noble as a life on the road or anywhere else and hopefully has laid rest to that voice of insecurity and personal judgment.
Today we sit in Newport to provision for the next leg, perhaps to Coos Bay and then to California. The rains have stopped and the skies are gray with touches of blue as I watch the rolling ocean waves outside the jetty that our boat is safely tucked behind. It's nice to have times of calm mixed with days of excitement. The days of integration are important for me to process and be still, and to communicate with you. And the days of excitement are awesome! You'll see some photos on facebook posted by Circus Maximus and Sandy Melland. Gratitude for all of it and for my patient, kind and fun-loving travel companions.
Coming out of Tillamoook Bay, the morning started off quiet for my 4-hour morning watch. Light fog and low clouds hugged the rocky Oregon coastline and we skimmed a glassy sea. All was quiet on the Feral Soul as we each tucked into a corner of the sailboat for personal time. I put on some Celtic music and meditated along as the sun threatened to be seen behind thinning clouds until mid-day. Sandy took over for her watch at noon and I laid down on the settee with a Buddhist book and eventually for a nap. When I awoke about an hour and a half later we were evading lightening, heavy rains, and much rougher seas. Nothing that our vessel can't handle, but not the sunny 70 degree weather we were expecting. Darn expectations - they'll get you every time! We keep saying that farther south will be better but thus far we're still in the Northwest for sure. Fortunately, my sea-legs and sea-stomach are getting stronger and the ocean swell is slowly becoming a comfort.
With the pace we're on figured we'll make it to San Francisco or a little ways south and not all the way to San Diego. So we bought plane tickets to leave SF on the Sept 18th for Chicago where we'll stay for a week with Circus's family. Hopefully we'll have a few days to spend with friends fam in California.
This transition of being "gone" for me is a strange one. Usually when I move away or take off for a long trip there is at least a time difference - if not a great distance - between where I've been and where I'm going. Maybe I'm used to the buffer of comfort in being in a totally different culture with constant acclimation and newness to distract me from feelings of home- (or other place) -sickness. But with a week + of bumming through coastal towns and minimal distractions on the boat, I allow myself no choice to be present with what is. And 'what is' is a mix of contentment, sadness, dull excitement, some residual sea-sickness and achy-ness from boat travel, and hope that I'm headed down the right path.
Often when there are periods of quiet and introspection, little sprouts of doubt and fear creep in trying to disguise themselves as caution and rationality. Fortunately I've learned to recognize their stories - which are based on distrust of the ability to flow with the waters of life and accept what is given - as just stories and not listen hard enough to change my course. I think I still have some trouble with just enjoying life when it's not directly benefiting a big community or working towards some life changing goal. For all that I teach about finding balance and the necessary beauty of play, I apparently still have some negative self-talk here! And for this and many other reasons, I still practice every day as diligently as travel allows. I find in my meditation more space to accept the places I am growing and integrating, and the clarity to see the small strides that I make every day. Those little negative voices tend to recede when I don't feed them and my practice lays the tracks that I prefer to be my habitual mind-speak. Namely, presentness and a mind less distracted by negative talk and self-doubt.
I found a book called 'Money, Sex, War, Karma' by David R Loy at a bookshop before I left and it's relevance in my life right now makes me smile. It's about how the spiritual path doesn't give us permission to sit quietly and "be spiritual" but instead holds us accountable to our actions and our every day impact. Rising consciousness hopefully inspires us to understand more macro-cosmically how every thought, word, and deed has an impact on our community of human beings and our Mother Earth. We get to make moment by moment choices about how to relate to people, where to put our money and our energy, and how all this effects our smaller and wider world. I guess one of the reasons I like traveling is the tangibility with which I see those effects. And the moment-to-moment impermanence that is living out of a backpack.
Lastly, I've been musing over my life-long discomfort with living in the place I was born. I don't know where this seed came from, but I've always had a gnawing little voice that said if I stay in Seattle my whole life - or even come back there to live long-term - I am a failure. I know that is a big, fat lie and probably even hurtful to my friends and family in Seattle. It's certainly not a judgement that I impose on anyone else. In my current musings, I identify this as my silly little ego. This past few years in my hometown has convinced me that a life in Seattle is just as noble as a life on the road or anywhere else and hopefully has laid rest to that voice of insecurity and personal judgment.
Today we sit in Newport to provision for the next leg, perhaps to Coos Bay and then to California. The rains have stopped and the skies are gray with touches of blue as I watch the rolling ocean waves outside the jetty that our boat is safely tucked behind. It's nice to have times of calm mixed with days of excitement. The days of integration are important for me to process and be still, and to communicate with you. And the days of excitement are awesome! You'll see some photos on facebook posted by Circus Maximus and Sandy Melland. Gratitude for all of it and for my patient, kind and fun-loving travel companions.
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