Traveling Thoughts

I’m heading out for Colorado this week.  I’ll be driving. Road trip! I love to drive across the country and am busy planning and packing. I want to be well-prepared.

The hours of solitude are like a personal retreat for me. I take the roads less traveled whenever possible (in this case, Route 50 “The Loneliest Road in America”) and I carefully choose audio books and music to accompany me.

This trip, I’m taking David Whyte’s new 6 CD set “What To Remember When Waking” (available from David’s web site, from Sounds True, and from Audible.com, among others).  The title of the course is taken from David’s poem of the same name, from which I offer this excerpt:

What you can plan
is too small
for you to live.

What you can live
wholeheartedly
will make plans
enough . . .

Honestly, the whole poem is too amazing for a mere excerpt to do it (or you) justice.  I encourage you to find his collection of poems entitled “House of Belonging” which includes the poem among many wonder-full others.  (I thought about posting the whole thing, but I notice that David has not posted the full poem on the page of his site dedicated to his poetry . . . so, I’ll honor that choice and give you the chance to “ask the Google” about the poem.)

Also, I sometimes choose a “theme” — a question to follow as I journey through the physical and inner landscapes.

For this trip my theme is a quote from Rainer Maria Rilke’s letters:

One ought to turn the most extreme possibility inside oneself into the measure for one’s life;

for our life is vast and can accommodate as much future as we are able to carry .

Letters on Life

I’ll have three days to explore; and another three days on the return trip.  I am SO looking forward!