©2011 Danise Codekas, all rights reserved
“Arriving at each new city, the traveler finds again a past of his that he did now know he had: the foreignness of what you no longer are, or no longer possess, lies in wait for you in foreign, unpossessed places.” – Italo Calvino
Nat King Cole singing, holiday coffee blends listed for sale, and forty degree weather seeping in through old, leaded windows and mud rooms’ unheated walls. Must be almost Christmas.
Friends start asking where I will be for Thanksgiving, Christmas, Boxing Day and New Years Eve. Close friends know that my favorite day is 6 January. I love to celebrate the true gift exchange date, recognized from the old ways in Europe and South America. I spend time, in those places, over the holidays.
My heritage of Crete, high school years in Argentina, living in Peru and Brazil, and spending Christmas holidays in France, Italy and England, across all my life, inspired me to begin holidays from the day before Thanksgiving through January 7.
Christmas is a time for dinners and meeting friends, in Italy and France, most of Europe and S.America. January 6, Feast of the 3 Kings, Epiphany, is the day to travel to be with family, open presents, just like the three kings did in Bethlehem, Italy and France.
Part of my Christmas DNA comes from France, the Brittany region and Crete; and a lot of my joy DNA, comes from Italy and Switzerland. These places engender Christmas spirit, as does Switzerland and Austria. Just go, if you ever have a chance. Take warm clothes, rain hats, and a video cam.However, there is nothing more fun than LA for New Years Eve, too.
Once, in India, I actually went out and bought frankincense, myrrh and gold, as presents for friends, I had become friends with when I was there for 5 months. It was the question of the power of those gifts, delivered by 3 Kings of long ago, which inspired me. The amazement on their faces ,when they realized what those items signified mystically, made me happy.
I prefer to give, than receive. usually. I am always surprised when someone gives me a present, or sends a card. When someone sends me an email, after a trip or a meeting, one of those once in a lifetime meetings, well, I am always pleased they remember me. Am I not memorable?
Perhaps, however, I do not carry around much hubris in my heart, so my sights are not set on people remembering me, in my jaunts around the planet.
“Travel at its truest is thus an ironic experience, and the best travelers… seem to be those able to hold two or three inconsistent ideas in their minds at the same time, or able to regard themselves as at once serious persons and clowns.” – Paul Fussell
My gratefulness that they spent time with me, as I wandered, alone, exceeds a personal desire to be remembered, by them.
I am so blessed by those who befriended me, as I have sought out my soul’s path, the shamans and mystics investigated, and challenged, through all my travels across my lifetime.
Seeking something indefinable, an answer to life’s deepest questions. Trying t0 heal the pains of a relationship, the loss of a love, the end of a dear one’s life. The push, from my soul, for something different, unexpected and challenging, that jolts me out of the staid and familiar, for a time.
Seeking the next inspiration for the next paragraph in my story, or sweating in the unforgiving Bangkok sun while composing a melody for my piano.
Capturing that perfect, incandescent photograph, from a mountain side, outside Cuzco or Vaduz, or the memory, of a blue, unlike any other blue on the planet, glacial glow, reflected from a 200 foot glacier’s cliff, slipping into the Bering Sea.
Yes, I know the next journey is being pulled up from the cosmic, rabbit’s hat, that sits upon my soul. Whenever these memories and peace-fractured whispers, arise, to disturb my known habits, a new adventure is about to develop and a new map is drawn, in my life.
I sit with my consciousness and mediations, follow the signs on the serendipitous revelations in my daily life: on bumper stickers from chance meetings. As repetitive destinations, arise, on the universe’s cartographic by-ways, an unwritten travel plan becomes known, and I see, in incendiary flash awareness, where it is next I go.
My holiday season starts marching toward me, slowly, gathering momentum and mystical, universal reasons, for why I am going somewhere, on this next part of my Virgo’s mission. What is the purpose, under the stars I am born? W@ho am I meeting, in order to enlighten my heart and vilify my existence? Will I be re-direct ed back on the path, or is it time to pull off the freeway, at a new exit, headed to joyfulness, expansion and self-knowing? Heal my heart, embolden my mind, expand my soul and place me in front of love, is my travel prayer, for all my journeys.
Oh, it is painful, sometimes, traveling these roads rails, water and airwaves. Mournful, stressful, challenging, dangerous, incredible, joyful.
Anything is possible once I walk beyond my door, with a bag of belongings, and the horizon’s destination. I change routes, dates and expected encounters arise, yet, it leads somewhere, and at some point, I rest at the end, to understand, absorb, marvel.
There is always a new story, though. There is always a revelation about the state of my heart and an answer for my soul.
During the holidays, the seeking and satisfaction increases, as we all move in tandem to touch on something, an incredible essence, that enfolds the universe in its power and importance, and reveal and remind me and you about our momentous, planetary existence, and missions, on earth.
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