hi everyOne,

we’re baaaa-ck! back from sailing the gorgeous, wild, mystical, mysterious, and oh-so-weird southern coast of newfoundland.

fog, gale, or doldrums...take your pick!

two weeks away! many books read:

• my third read of “Eat Pray Love” — enjoyed it even more this time around
• “A Flash of Lightning in the Dark of Night,” the Dalai Lama’s interpretation of an ancient text on how to be a bodhisattva, the Bodhicharyavatara by the sage Shantideva
• “Bird by Bird,” some instructions on writing and life, by Anne Lamott
• the Upanishads, which i must say i didn’t understand hardly, perhaps one minute iota, and
• a couple trash novels which i only seem to enjoy on long, endless days aboard a sailboat

sunset at anchor

we were a crew of five:

• lordflea and carter (american)
• captain petur (iclandic) and his lady rhea (american)
• malde (danish)

some crew of yacht Dagny

and oh, let’s not forget the boat’s doggie, Scrappy, the queen of Dagny (pronounced dine-ee, an Iclandic name for girls meaning “new dawn”).

scrappy with her best friend, rhea

the retired fishing captain from iceland….Petur, our boat’s captain: the man who –without even blinking an eye–sailed our 70 foot yacht through an inlet’s tiny hole, one that looked to any other like we were surely headed for deadly rocks; the man who senses change in current, weather or wind, or any other sea conditions, long before news comes over the airwaves:

captain petur peturson, seaman extraordinaire

and finally, the young (19 years old) Danish mathematician, Malte (pro-nounced in English, mal‘-dah) who is having himself a fine adventure  sailing Dagny from Newfoundland to the Caribbean, before going off to college, back in Denmark:

the modern viking, a young dane named malte

our time aboard dagny was filled with the pleasures of simplifying our complicated lives: living in a small space, sharing that space with others, cooking simple delicious nutritious food (lots of cookouts on the shore, next to one magnificent waterfall after the next), and, most importantly, getting quiet in the mind.

it took us about three days to quiet ourselves from the hustlin’ pace of living in the fast lane (well…. let’s face it, anywhere in the good ol’ U.S.A. is much faster than anywhere else, to live).

i’ll have more to say about my experiences in newfoundland in my upcoming posts.

before leaving for our sail i made it a goal of mine to spend some time after returning to learn how to get this blog of mine out into the public’s eye. so that’s what i’ll be learning in these next weeks. always something to learn! always! i’m also working on my spanish, something i’ve been enjoying and speaking more and more over the past years, but…unless i practice daily, it all goes out the window (there was not much opportunity of speaking spanish up in “the rock” as the newfies call their country).

this life is so filled with possible adventures…all we have to do, like malte, my new friend from denmark, is to pack our bags and hop aboard a boat and go somewhere new. of course not all of us can do that, literally. but we can, however, metaphorically do it. we can “pack our bags” by making a decision to make space in our lives for something new. we can “hop aboard a boat” by setting a goal, then unfurl our sails (by choosing to direct our energies toward that special something new) and … finally … we’re cast off, setting out on our new life adventure, simply by one day deciding to do it!

go somewhere new, somewhere different!

breathe…enjoy…take a chance and go some place different (in your mind, at least!) that you’ve always wanted to go. you CAN do it! how? just by giving yourself permission to do so. and then…surround yourself with people, situations, affirmations, visualizations, activities, etc. that reinforce the positive decision, and the adventurous destination you’ve chosen.

congratulations on opening your mind, opening your heart.

lordflea with daphne...we are all capable of living a mythical journey...just choose, and then do it!! don't think! just do.

how exciting it is to experience something totally, absolutely, mind-blowingly different from what we know as “normal everyday life.” what an incredible adventure life is, this journey, with you all as my fellow crewmembers. i’m very thrilled to be alive, especially at this time, this amazing time when so many vital things are happening that will forever influence the evolutionary course of all humankind. think about that for a moment, why don’t cha?

with love, in the Light, your pal lordflea