Le Joie de Vivre, New Years Resolutions, Rainbows & Beyond!

Recently, my seemingly fruitless pursuit to learn how to speak French, my struggling inner-student who wants to learn and remember history, and my desire to have a mariner’s geographical photographic memory, feel mildly quelled and a bit inspired by a small purchase. We’re back in the Caribbean and on a French-speaking Island as I write, where I bought a bilingual (French-English) Caribbean Atlas that gives a delightful map and bilingual summary of nearly 50 either: islands, countries and/or archipelagos. Its format is simple, digestible and has flags and other delightful visuals. Just my speed. Cool interesting tidbit that Paul taught me recently, was the country that has the most time zones of any other. Not the most territory on the earth, not percentage of land…, want to guess? Think colonization and not Russia. Russia’s the largest in terms of area (11% of world’s land mass) and nor is it the United States. The more I learn the more I realize how little I know but it’s a very grand, challenging delight of this sailing life. “We can know only that we know nothing. And that is the highest degree of human wisdom” (Tolstoy). Huge learning curves abound. It’s a journey that without Paul’s extremely prudent fearlessness to captain us, we’d go without. That I do indeed know.

Our dear friends, Thania & Jeff, recently came to visit us here in the Caribbean on the French and Creole speaking island of Martinique, for a whole week, in early January. Thania had spent a day sailing with us on the RK a few years back when we sailed north through Cape May, N.J.. I believe this time around was a much more enjoyable experience since no sailing was involved and she got more of a taste of the lifestyle. Objective of this trip was relaxation, not adventure, for both her and Jeff. For the visit we were med-moored, stern-to, in a slip at a marina. Very much a “tiny home” experience relevant to Thania since having a tiny home somewhere, one day, is a dream of hers.

Living in a small boat with non-ordinary living conditions and ways of doing things could be enjoyable… or not, so you never quite know when you have guests if others will enjoy the lifestyle as much as you do, even if they’re sailors or love the water. I met a sailor recently that told me she’s not a “water person” which I found fascinating. Anyhow, cruising is not day sailing. Most open spaces on the boat are one-way streets and even for two you can get tangled up. Nevertheless, Paul and I love sharing our lifestyle with the kids, their friends, boyfriends, girlfriends, cousins and they’ve all enjoyed and/or been deathly ill with us at some point. As one of them put it, “Type 2 Fun” is still fun. That is the kind of fun that you can laugh about after the fact, as was explained. All of them, including friends and cousins, have suffered some degree of motion sickness at one point or another yet, they’ve also returned to again sail with us. Naturals!

We have met fellow sailors who’ve had to sell their boats because one partner or the other could not resolve their motion sickness. One couple ended up investing in a donkey farm instead, somewhere in Kentucky, I think. I myself have become a drug pusher on the RK. If you’re sailing with us, you’re going to take motion sickness medications starting the night before the sail. I’ve had too many miserable, dehydrated sea sick visitors and will insist on one of the 4 different dosage options (must pick one) and special ‘night before’ prescription (no compromise) that works well. And if you’re really sensitive you arrive with your doc’s prescription of the patch. Very recently I didn’t take my own advice for the first time in my relatively brief sailing life and vomited from motion sickness (TMI?). I ate a big meal and took my morning vitamins before going out in rough seas and after not having sailed for several months, voilá. Careless, rookie mistake. In many ways I’m a perpetual rookie and I don’t mind. I’m a natural…, rookie, that is.

I was speaking to an Amelian Sea Sister, Robin, the other day. She shared the story of when her husband Michael’s sister, Karin, for the first time joined them for a sailing passage and had requested that they not sail too far off shore where there’d be no sight of land. Certain passages, that’s simply not possible. We all agreed, you just never know how it’s going to go when you have friends and family coming for a stay. They made it happen even if it is often said that sailors write their plans in sand at low tide and hope for the best. Sister Karin did return for a second visit and this time for four weeks. That speaks a great deal both to the hosting and sailing abilities of Michael and Robin, in addition I’d say, to Karin’s adventure quotient. She’s an experienced day sailor from what I understood, but now she’s a blue water sailor. Much like life anywhere, it’s being comfortable with where you find yourself. That takes time, sometimes a very long time. In sailing life, just like life anywhere, you’re dependent on a Higher Power, Mother Divine, Laws of Nature… Each and all have a strong influence, though on the sea you’re a tad bit more vulnerable when it comes to weather. I suppose that can also depend very much on your line of work or lifestyle. Geographical location can make all kinds of lives extra tentative. Even though sailors have weather-routing and handy-dandy instruments to help us along, the Unknown’s parameters, lack thereof, geography, and your boat’s requirements: are what they are. While, land folks are restricted to their very demanding obligations, busy lives, and time constraints, sailors follow weather patterns and the depths and heights (bridges sometimes), they best fit into and/or under. When the land-dwelling people’s constraints coincide with the sailors’ and a successful visit ensues, it’s pretty big magic.

For me that’s le joie of this sailing life, the challenge of finding yourself in unusually unique situations and especially those that are just moments filled with sounds. During even the shortest of sails those sounds can range from the rain pounding in a squal, of water lightly lapping, to the quiet of no humans, no humanity for miles around. At times hundreds of miles off shore when it’s literally smooth sailing, even if the waves are 12 feet high, they’re in the right direction and at the right frequency it is a sweet spot you have as they say, “fair winds & following seas” and not a spit of land on the horizon, only the moon the sun and the stars with lots of sky and lots of rollers. But to others, this might not be as much of a unique thrill as it is a nightmare. Many who say to us often to continue “living the dream” are I suspect the same people who would consider not having a car 10 or 11 months a year unfavorable. Biking on land is often the form of transportation in certain ports. This form of land transport forces you to traverse some hairy scary places (Maddog-bite-your-heals Ave. and Risk Your Life Highway) or even along the East Coast Greenway to Orchard beach, less than ideal for some. I used to be one of them.

Sharing this lifestyle is not just a joie but our raison(s) d’être and that is plain and simple: sharing our love. Love, all that really matters. Sharing this lifestyle, à la boutique tiny floating hotel (two at a time, chocolate on pillow upon arrival) and its delights, even if in just small doses, is simply that. My French is minimal but la raison d’être I believe is a term that is a bit more comprehensive, uncountable, and an immeasurable philosophy of life, all-encompassing of the whole consciousness. You may consider yourself or someone you know to have la joie de vivre, as they say. The joy of living, the joy for life. Joys may include the simple pleasures like eating real ice cream and freshly baked warm French baguettes, for example. The wonders and the levels, I guess I’ll choose to say, abound. One of the many, and I hope one that remains such, is seeing rainbows: lots and lots of them. All sizes, shapes intensities, single, double, bright, faint, whole, partial. “Le joie!” For some. Maybe not for those who don’t have le joie de vivre? When I was driving with a friend who has lived in the islands since he was little, we rounded a corner when I pointed out the magnificent rainbow that appeared after a tropical downpour. I just pointed with a huge smile on my face and he shrugged with a wave of his hand, “oh yeah we see them all the time…” Stab my beating heart. How humans see feel, live light, in the deepest of ways, is my raison d’être.

Thania, just recently prior to her and Jeff’s visit had shared a 12/31/2023 NYT article in a group chat of friends for the New Year from the Opinion section about “seeking out delight” by Catherine Price, a guest opinion author, that encourages readers to make 2024 the “Year for Delight” and it’s exactly the kind of thing I can get behind and my naivité wonders why more, who are seemingly able to, can’t. Or won’t, perhaps? It’s Abraham Lincoln, a man known for his brilliance and tendency toward melancholy, who is often and perhaps incorrectly cited as having said, “folks are going to be as happy as they make up their minds to be.” The quote investigator found it in print for the first time in a 1914 New Year’s Resolution Newspaper article written by a Dr. Crane.

So during their stay, Thania and I had fun, when we came across delightful food, views, circumstances… we’d thrust our pinkies in the air and tilt a chin up to the sky and say in a soft, squealing, joyous tone, “delight!” as the article suggests. We may have used it sarcastically a few times but when we found ourselves dancing with some young folk preparing for Carnival, we did not. “Delight!” pinky pointed up to the skies. Just as Catherine Price suggests in her article, stating, “The concept of prioritizing delight may sound silly or almost irresponsible, given the heaviness of current events… But this is exactly why it is so important. Far from being a frivolous practice, making a point to notice and share things we find delightful can improve our moods, outlooks, relationships and even physical health.” Very far from frivolous indeed. I’d further defend that stance and add that when these observations come to you while in the outdoors, it’s quite the contrary to frivolous, especially if you make it a practice.

Here in Martinique they might call this approach to “delight,” la joie de vivre as I said earlier, or even greater, la raison d’être. Keeping in mind, one’s greatest intentions, day to day, does help with navigating this world. The grandest of scales can begin with the tiniest of things, simply not overlooked. I think of the yellow rims of the diurnal green gecko I see often, now that I’m in love, and learn that they have developed a unique ability, unlike their nocturnal brothers and sisters, to thrive in very sunny conditions.

There’s a sailboat docked not far from us that recently pulled in. It’s called Lot 99 from Rotterdam. I had to research the name… or what Paul and I like to say, “D.D.Go” it, i.e. DuckDuckGo (our preferred search engine) and what the name means. I have to do that often. There are a plethora of Greek and Roman god names, names with astrological origination, or astronomy references. I don’t know many of them well, but recognize the general reference and search the meanings because, well, I’m curious. I know what it did to the cats. I know and I’m ok with that. But Lot 99, I had no clue to what it referred.

In my research I find that Lot 99 is of Chinese origin, from the Guan Yin Oracle or Guan Yin Book of Divination, a Fortune Telling, of sorts. Situations in life are neither good nor bad, the philosophy believes, in a nutshell. Though lots and their corresponding numbers are considered good, bad and medium, they’re not static. It all depends on the unique pools of influences and their effects. Outcomes of a given lot, affected by and depend upon the situation and relationships to the lot and number. I’ve coincidentally recently learned about Vedic Astrology, this reminded me of it, though in my limited experience I find Vedic astrology’s accuracy stunningly precise. Anyhow, in the Guan Yin Oracle, the recommendation is to just resort to simplicity and kindness regardless of the assigned interpretation of your lot. Resorting to simplicity and kindness will then help not just yourself but all you touch. I also learn in researching Lot 99 that this lot number is particularly “bad” in that it parallels this lot to an example of a person riding a horse on fire and galloping ferociously. I then wonder about the choice of name for the very large, over 100 foot, yacht it belongs to. It then reminds me of a Chinese Proverb I’ve heard before in addition to the advice of keeping it simple… and kind.

Sometimes “living the dream” has lots of nightmarish moments. How do you explain that and still invite the people dearest to you to come along? We’re learning and have lots of disclaimers if the sailing part is anticipated to be rough. Like the time Daniel came to crew when I was not well and there was ice to cut on our way out of the bay in the Chesapeake and he did his first solo nightshift. But again, for Jeff and Thania, no sailing this time and it was definitely good practice for Thania’s dream. Downsizing and immersing yourself into a living situation where you need to spend most of your time outdoors, is mostly a saving grace, we have found. With all its challenges and downright frightening aspects, this sailing life has healed our bruised hearts and has made us feel more alive than ever. Day visitors streaming in while on a mooring ball close to home was a great perk, like the cherry on top of your favorite ice-cream sundae.

As our friends Judy and Mayo (above) said on their day visit to the RK, the square footage is sort of like a floating NYC Studio. Yeah, kinda. For the several hurricane seasons we spent as guests of CIYC, a hidden gem of a place in da Boogie Down Bronx; it certainly was exactly that. Best part about being there was how many could visit without getting on a plane. Now there’s a plane to take. The draw seems to be the warm turquoise sea to jump into, some lovely tropical rainforests to hike, and kind, colorful varying cultures to explore. It’s great being back to the Caribbean since cold sailing is simply not for us. At least, not on our own boat. It’s complicated with potentially hitting growlers and humidity levels, with an uninsulated boat like ours in colder latitudes. Being cold on a boat is like the kind of cold you might experience on an open chairlift while skiing on a frigid, wind-whipping northeastern day in the U.S., but without a fireplace in a lodge for warming up. It’s a deep down to the bone kind of cold since heat only comes on in spurts and the cockpit enclosure is not heated at all nor is it airtight. When inviting visitors, weather conditions can make or break it. Our BBQ plans with Judy and Mayo were rained out. Instead, we got to experience lunch at a landmark City Island locale which they had never been to. Delight.

These short day trips are ideal as prerequisites to more serious visits on the RK that might involve more time out at sea. If anyone wishes to return after a day trip, even one involving sea sickness, you’ve got your answer. It’s worth it. And that’s happened more than once… off the top of my head, all terribly sick passengers have returned and/or want to return.

Several months ago, we watched a movie called The Way with Martin Sheen and his son Emilio Estevez who walk the El Camino. We watched it thanks to the recommendation from a wise Priest (who also did the El Camino and happens to be a sailor). In the movie, four unlikely pilgrims end up reluctantly walking along together. Each of them having his or her story, reason and secrets for walking which they reveal slowly. Eventually the raisons are revealed, and as the one female companion in the group of four, states; starting from the beginning and arriving to the end is not “the point.” Friends of ours who did parts of the Appalachian Trail can attest to that. In their experience it was very much quality and not quantity of the hiking they experienced, the trail “magic” as it’s called along the way, and the friendships that were forged are what moved them most, it seemed. They’re returning this season.

Paul and I coincidentally are planning to do a small bit of El Camino this July and find the timing synchronous. As the journey progresses in the film, and the Pilgrims’ motivations and authenticity eventually reveal themselves, the plot unfolds. The traumas or challenges they are each healing from or seeking the answers to, are brought to light. The Pilgrims all soften, even the toughest nut among them. The intimacies, trials and tribulations of their lives, of the(ir) journey(ies) bring them closer and the viewer learns its not just a healing between and among but from within. Though in a way they’re walking each other, they also walk alone and alongside; witness and participant, friend and stranger.

Paul and I watch the movie The Way that very same night that I learn about it from the wise Priest. At a small climaxing point in the movie one of my favorite Alanis Morrissette songs plays and it strikes me that much more profoundly than ever before. I later bring up the lyrics and read the words of a song that I must have heard a thousand times over, but never really listened to. Thank U, and this time I hear and listen ~ several times, much to Paul’s dismay, singing loudly and fairly off key at the newly heard words. Co-experiencing does bring you closer together in many ways that you can pinpoint. In other ways a bit more expansive and beyond words, more understood in a glance. Maybe that’s why we have a good rate of return.

The last time Paul saw Kathryn, he was driving her back to the Metro North Station in downtown White Plains, NY. She was telling him all about what was going on in her life and Paul was filling her in on all her brothers’ and her sister’s news. It was the start of her fourth year of medical school at Mount Sinai, just a few days away. Then, Paul coolly reported in his understated way, “We may have found our boat, I flew down last weekend, it just might be the one.” Kathryn’s face lit up, a huge smile beamed as she quipped, “Your life’s dream may be coming true and you’re wasting time telling me about practice schedules…” If you’ve been graced with having known Kathryn’s quick wit, I imagine you can see her soft beauty, her delicate features’ expression, and hear her keen tone.

Kathryn was the only kid who never got to enjoy our years of bareboat charter sailing and an epic extended-family Christmas visiting Kristin in H.I.. It seemed she always had a test, practicum, or was studying and simply couldn’t take the time. I have a vivid memory of Kathryn coming back to Sherman just for a few hours to go water skiing on Candlewood lake, where she grew up. It was about her 2nd/3rd year at Mt. Sinai. She yearned for a dose of blue mind medicine. In the beginning of our life aboard, during quiet times in the cockpit, Paul would muse, this is what I was hoping Kathryn would be able to see. I just hoped we could get her to a Mount Sinai graduation. He wanted her to see that she could pitch an MD placard up anywhere she chose, that she could choose her own path and make it work somehow. He wanted her to see beyond the path she was then on, grinding away at unreasonably, to see beyond to a kinder, potentially gentler reality of medicine. Kathryn was working hard because she was a high achiever, she showed up for the rigor, like scoring a 41/42 out of 45, on the old MCAT scoring scale and passing the Board exam that she took the day before she left us.

I asked Paul, if he could pick only one part of this sailing life that we’ve chosen to live these past 6.5 years, which aspect has contributed to his healing the most, which would it be. And he said, “the stress levels…the lack of stress.” Paul seemed to notice the searching look on my face, paused and said, “…well what do you mean…?” He thought I was referring to the fact that the size of his heart (the physical one in his chest) had actually shrunk after just two years in this lifestyle, which prompted his doctor’s accolades. But that’s not what I was referring to. Nor was I referring to his now enviable blood pressure. His doctor recently reported his bloods were “stellar” and wanted to know what he was “’doing’…, twenty-year-olds would be envious of his blood work levels…you just don’t see bloodwork like this in a 62 year-old man,” he went on to say. A smile develops inwardly because my doctor has told me that my cortisol levels are exceptionally low. Good reports all around. However, I believe the answers can be found in the not doing rather than the ‘doing.’ I then clarified to Paul. No, I’m talking about the part of this lifestyle that healed your broken heart. His quick-silver answer was then the exact same as mine. Not exactly in the same way, arriving at the same ever-changing destination, ever-healing with the same means; we then agreed it was being immersed in nature, nodded and gazed at one another. Nature is what has acted as our heterogeneous catalysis. Paul a chemist, the scientific reference is done in solidarity with love from his favorite metaphorical linguist.

Soon after we bought the RK (it was still flagged Canadian), Paul hopped into the dinghy and began to zip off to bring some trash to shore. Something told him to turn around and look over his shoulder, at that very instant, and he did. When he did, there, over the boat was a unique, low-arched rainbow that framed the boat. At that instant, Paul heard Kathryn speaking to him. She was telling him, it was all going to be alright, you took care of me for so many years, now it’s time for me to take care of you. Go on and live your dream, and that’s why he resolved to sail the RK, with the same level of passion Kathryn lived her life. The picture he captured at that moment became our logo and is known to us as “Kathryn’s Rainbow”; Our sailboat, the s/v Rita Kathryn.

Being at sea makes you vulnerable to the elements in a way that is hard to imagine without experiencing it. Only in the best of conditions is it really perfectly comfortable when under way. When you find yourself hundreds of miles off-shore without any possibility of opting out of the circumstances, you develop an inner resolve to the potential catastrophe. Unlikely but potential. Catastrophe much more likely for the average individual driving on i95 on a morning commute, yet it’s still part of the mind-scape while sailing because when you look out at the empty and seemingly endless horizon… the mindscape has no choice but to transform.

At the more uncomfortable times, like when your mainsail outhaul snaps or a ten-foot wave whaps you broad-side like a toy, you have to depend on each-other and the faith in your well-engineered boat. Yet, there’s a greater Faith that encompasses it all, sitting through the fear long enough.

Those moments at sea are about 5 percent of the journey. Again, it’s a journey, that without Paul’s extremely prudent fearlessness to Captain us there, we’d go without. Even once moored, the journey of having been surrounded by nothingness remains simultaneously our vesicle and our refuge. “There can be no very black melancholy to him who lives in the midst of Nature and has his senses still” (Thoreau). The stillness in our lifestyle is not a symbol of divinity, it has become Divinity itself. “But how can I hope to explain myself here; and yet, in some dim, random way, explain myself? I must, else all these chapters might be naught… Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth… I account it high time to get to sea…” (Ishmael & Moby).

Paul has a story about Kathryn from when she was about 11 or 12. A fairly large snake had gotten wrapped-up in one of those plastic net garden fences in their backyard. She insisted they save it and wouldn’t take no for an answer. Paul made a noose, using a hockey stick and rope and then used it to hold the snake’s head in place. As he did, Kathryn cut the plastic fencing away with the precision of a surgeon and the heart of the empath and highly sensitive person that she was. As Paul has said, it was no surprise when she decided to go into medicine.

What other than medicine and doctors can heal us, heal our broken and bruised hearts and souls? A workshop I took might provide the answers: “The ethics of wholeness is profoundly needed right now. Within our society, our collective acquisition of knowledge currently outreaches our expression of wisdom. As Albert Einstein once said, “The release of atomic power has changed everything except our way of thinking…the solution to this problem lies in the heart of mankind.”1 The technological advances of this century have given us greater mastery of the physical world without requisite co-development of the heart. Thus, as a species we have resistance to our own unfolding at this critical time. In order to take the next steps together to make a future possible for our children, we need to reawaken our inner compass by connecting with that hidden wholeness, our awakened heart/mind, and take action that reconnects whole communities. In order to live well, it is necessary to come into alignment with family, community, the natural world-discerning and honoring all our relations. We then find ourselves within a sacred and undivided circle” (Padma, pg. 31, Living the Season).

Paul and I were dancing on the street after a hiking event called a “hash” we participated in, on a street directly outside a medical school. There are many medical schools in the Caribbean. A U.S. doctor friend whose husband and also brother in-law attended this particular one, reinforces my observations and emphasizes, the Caribbean medical schools are “particularly” profit driven since they’re not technically NGOs and actually private. After our last dance, I believe it was a swing, we begin walking home and the sweetest young girl/woman/student – came running, not walking, running up to us and asked wide-eyed, “Is there a place on the island where they give dancing lessons…? I’ve been looking all over and all I can find is Latin, I am interested in ballroom…” It was an impassioned ramble of sorts. A tiny sense of desperation in her tone. I replied, “well, mambo, rhumba, merengue, tango are ballroom dances too.” She demurred…. And confided she grew up in a very conservative home, it was a miracle -eye roll- she was allowed to dance at all. I told her I wouldn’t be calling home… and she shuffled away quickly, her reactive, instinctual joie de vivre squashed, or maybe more determined -not sure-, but she did rush off.

Paul and I watch her young peppy step and her bobbing ponytail rush away. Her natural energy and beauty, inside and out, linger in the air. Our much slower, mature pace envied her speed and I said to Paul, wouldn’t a simple intake survey take care of that? And I jump up on my soap box really fast.

That’s what we did in my tiny little public-school programs. We had an intake form and matched our students’ interests with the classes we offered. If the class didn’t exist, which was almost never, we created an independent club. Our own salsa club, movie club, after school homework club, graffiti opportunities, whatever they needed, we created/co-created. Plain. And. Simple. Keep it simple, but make it part of the infrastructure, the very foundation, a foundation of real supports that catch us all or at least start changing the directions of our suicide and overdosing statistics.

After encountering so many medical students in the Caribbean, we silently wondered, if these medical schools use the incredible Cathedral of beauty and pool of science they have around them to help their student-body lower their cortisol levels a bit and, learn even, how to scientifically lower their very own stress. The absolute explosion of ever-present blooming trees, vines, flowers, it’s overwhelming; the scents they give off, the infinite color combinations there are. The shore birds, the finch, the birds of prey, the hummingbirds as common as insects on some islands. The teaming fish, the water, its salinity, its bioluminescence, its movement, its biodiversity or lack thereof, the amazing snorkeling. I was told by one medical school student that the school took them on a tour when they first arrived. When I asked if the school provided a mental health safety-net or curriculum, the same student replied, “we’re adults they leave it to us to figure it out.” Having started my career in academia in 1994, it’s not a terribly far stretch for me to see anyone under 35 as still figuring it out, if I had to choose an age, for discussion’s sake. Frankly, at 53, I’m very much a work still in progress.

Today we saw a double rainbow, as we did yesterday while we swam on a small beach around the corner. These were Kathryn’s and now we’ve decided our Ritas’ rainbows, joined in. On our morning walk there were two hummingbirds sort of dancing with one another, so closely, beak to beak that their wings were clicking. One of the bays we like to anchor in seems to have a consistently clear parade of cloud animals and otherworldly creatures, we give them creative names… try to articulate the colors of brown in the cliffs, the crisp white of the surf and I wonder if they see it, see it despite being surrounded by it like a fish in water. Water, what water?

It’s “…on this restfully rolling ocean… one learns all dimensions anew. One discovers: land is huge, water is something huge, and above all the sky is huge. What I have seen until now was no more than an image of land and river and world. Here, however, everything is itself. – I feel as if I had been witness to the creation; a few words for all existences…” Nature is pantheistic (Rilke).

I hear the perpetuating grueling stories of medical students we encounter, I feel that sweet child-woman’s desire to ballroom dance. I want to tell her…. “Dance first, think latter” as any mom might, like the little bright yellow book, a gift from a Sister, on my shelf yells at me. I want to tell her “Your studies are not the end-all and be-all of a good life. Let the good come first…” but the inevitable failure of well-intentioned, parents (those very privileged, many disenfranchised), teachers, professors… is deeply felt in my silence as I contemplate her woes. When exactly do we stop sacrificing information for our sanity. I am one who believes in rigor, sure, but also sanity and reason. A saner raison d’être.

There’s this young man, a Caribbean Medical student with a British accent, on his way back to campus and the dog he has following him, whom we stopped to talk to. He loves the dog’s company, but it’s not his, he stops to tell us. It’s not “his” he’s someone else’s he thinks, and recounts about how far back they’ve been on their little camino together. I observe the way that the dog is looking up at him at that moment, and he is very much his, in my eyes. Their companionship brings them both a knowing, visible joy. Right now, on his walk back to campus, the place the young man is temporarily spending most of his time, unless he chooses to take his classes exclusively on-line. That is actually an option, a choice, I learn. I wonder how long the dog will be able to stay with him and if he even has an exclusive human somewhere else. I know many of the medical school students bring pets along with them. I think back to a time in my Yonkers, N.Y. neighborhood where everyone was an honorary member of each other’s tribe, an honorary Jew, Italian or Irishmate. A time when people just showed up at the door for a visit. I think of my childhood dog Sugar (yes of course I named her) roaming the neighborhood and my neighbors, who didn’t even have dogs, buying biscuits for her.

A night I find myself typing after hours, my idea of a good time, I hear the waves slap on the hull, I hear I’ve distracted Paul again with my late-night typing. There’s the mast light from a neighboring boat that keeps shining in through the hatch like the moon did the other night, but it’s not the moon and I’m annoyed instead of wondered. But, what’s the difference, moon or mast light?

Neuroanatomist Dr. J.B. Taylor documents her near-death experience and subsequent eight-year recovery from her unique perspective of knowing the human brain so well. She gave a TED (2008) talk about it, the first to have ever gone viral. She comfortably holds a human brain in her hands as if she were in anatomy class but gives an altogether different lecture, starting with an introduction of her mentally ill brother’s inability to distinguish dreams from reality and it cuts me deeply since I come from a family with mental illness too. In her TED talk, her brilliance and humor unfold slowly. And she bates us well and transitions from biology to her scientific explanation of how we are energy beings and moves onto something altogether nonclinical. And then back. Essentially a biological explanation of consciousness from a brain scientist’s examination of her very experience of having a stroke. In her book Whole Brain Living, she explains “From cosmic energy to human life… (the part of our brain she identifies as “Character 4″) is the original consciousness that we were born with, before our brain and body were neurologically wired up for function. Long before… we were just a ball of energy infusing and radiating around a lump of cellular life… following our conception when our father’s DNA combined with our mother’s DNA… it embarked upon its maturation… gestation…developed at a rate of 250,000 new cells per second… as impossible as that may seem to imagine… lined up in perfect formation when we left the womb…cells making up various levels of function… cells of our diaphragmatic muscle of respiration…wired up with our reptilian brain stem cells… in the moment of our birth, we gained our physical individuality, but we could never shed the shared consciousness of the universal energy that infused our every cell… humanity’s collective Hero’s Journey” (JBT pgs. 128-129) and the power of our choices, what she calls the anatomy of choice. Choice, deliberate choice backed by educational guesses stemming from intention, she highlights. Purposely choose to step to the right of our brain’s left hemisphere, as she explains, in the humblest of ways from a place of intellectual neuroanatomy prowess and the wisdom and humility of her NDE to find the collective energy once again.

An article I read in the Times comes to mind when I think of what’s possible when intellect, choice, humility and art come together. It’s of a photo journalist’s documentation of the return of whale and dolphin to the northeast (the only point off of Sandy Hook, NJ, that Paul and I have repeatedly spotted whale in nearly 20,000 miles of sailing) since the fishing of menhaden has been ceased and my heart fills with hope. Change has brought about improvement to our environment, just look at these photos for a bit of hope of what’s possible with intention. I’m reminded of the teaming schools of fish seemingly making the water boil, that we saw in the bays where we were anchored this and other hurricane seasons, an abundance of fish, thousands upon thousands. After reading her book, I attended a class given by JB Taylor, she was living on a boat on a lake, I could see the blue water behind her. More recently, I asked the wise Sailor-Priest I mentioned earlier what sailing meant to his spiritual journey, he reported, “…physically experiencing fluid dynamics, i.e. wind, water, currents, wave trains, sail foil, hull design, joining all to move toward wherever as experiential knowledge, embodied and joined with dynamic complexity (a) major doorway to practice.”

We meet another medical student. In her we see Kathryn and also Kristin, she’s an equestrian and medical student, a soft natural beauty -inside and out-, closest in age to Brendan. This child, whom we met while on a lookout point, was walking her sweet little pup to watch the sunset. The friendship started thanks to my being a serious sucker for her dog’s breed. My knees melt when I see him and bend down as we begin to exchange pleasantries, admiring the sunset, the moonrise, the approaching eclipse, the cooling sea air and she begins to share her painfully familiar story, the story of an American Medical School Student.

This student says she tries to come out to Sunset/Moonrise Point as much as she can. She tries to get outside. It keeps her sanity. Med school is hard. The 18-hour study days she did in grad school made her think she was prepared, she scoffs, shakes her head, turns her reddened face. Paul has joined our chat now and he and I softly gaze at this young woman and come in close as she says she can’t believe this is what she’s wanted to do all her life… I feel my stomach quiver, tears coming, my throat constricting. I peripherally glance at Paul. The eternal pillar of strength, my anchor. My captain. His heart-opened gaze, loving eyes, I see his authentic concern, his knowing, his deep knowing as he listens with the empathy of a Father. A father who has lost a daughter to a part of the struggle this young woman is articulating so fluidly.

The next day at lunch she expresses her gratitude for our concern and desire to lift the load, ever so slightly. I assure her she’s not alone and that we just wanted her to know that, especially since we’ve had our own struggles… and she replies, “pain knows pain.” We don’t mention Kathryn but want to add and say “and love knows love…” but I try to just listen. Something I’m not very good at, as evidenced by the seemingly endless words on these pages. “We can know only that we know nothing. And that is the highest degree of human wisdom” (Tolstoy).

By definition a ritual is a sequence, actions characterized but not defined by invariance… in all known human societies… the simplest of examples given is hand-shaking. Here in the Caribbean it’s more often the fist-bump that ends with the fist brought to the heart. To me it’s a sign of gratitude for the friendship shared. A daily ritual of gratitude is recommended in happiness studies. When I am invited to use the local greeting ritual, I feel honored and graced, very much like I do as a yogini when sharing prayer hands at my heart, but more so since I am prompted by locals and it feels like a blessing to feel so welcomed. Certainly with time ancient ritual may vary in our modern world, but it’s the invariant part that seems to matter most to me on my spiritual path at this juncture.

As we gaze out at the exquisitely brilliant double rainbows’ neon glow on the top of a hill, lots fill the senses at our new exercise spot. This viewing point happens to be under a small gazebo at the top of a cliff, which we learn was the site where American Black Hawk helicopters landed for an invasion in 1983. The rainbows that have formed in-front of us wax and wane in intensity as the clouds billow and stream. This was the place of waring, now of great solitude. It’s quiet as can be this hour of morning, with a view that takes your breath away and soon this will change as well. A businessman has bought the property, there are talks of another hotel going up.

According to the professor from my workshop, Dr. Padma, we are hungry not for more material possessions but “hungry for a direct experience of the sacred in this culture. We try to fill the void with technology, and its “quick fix” of images and information. This leaves us hungry for true connectivity. We don’t need more information. We need more appreciation. Gratitude opens the heart and gives our life meaning, it becomes a form of spiritual experience that gives us strength… Ritual is the story (of our inner and outer lives) brought-to-life and a powerful vehicle for spiritual transformation, for reconnecting people with and embodied wholes…” that leads to the deepest of healings (Padma, Field of Blessings).

Happy New Year of the Wooden Dragon 2024. May you have many very tiny moments of “delight!” (pinky to the air) in nature, wherever in El Camino you are. May your joie de vivre resonate with the earth’s vibration and beyond, and may your raison d’être bring you ever closer to your loved ones, neighbors, and most of all yourself.

I would like to dedicate this posting to my dearest Soul Sister, Sarah Jordan Kessous. A loyal mom, passionate prenatal and community health nurse, radiant human, open-hearted friend who had a joie de vivre like no-one else I know, and is now gone from this earth and I mourn her deeply. Anyone who knew or met her would feel the need for her exuberant, loving presence for as long as possible. My heart goes to her family, especially her 3 children whom she adored in the deepest of ways. May they heal in time.

Sarah and I were born ten days and one year apart. Her birthday is 5/29/69 and she passed away on 1/22/2024. I was looking forward to this year’s traditional co-birthday celebration. I’ll now find her in the hummingbirds, moonbeams, bumble bees, endless blossoms, crisp tumbling leaves and hear and feel her in the clave rhythm of a good Cuban salsa.

Light Dreaming

It came to me ~ more in a dream than memory. A slumber true, deep close to you, and nothing much but light itself. A warm and sweet and dreamful sleep of neon lights and silken spirals. Enveloped in satin pure, then turned it did away. Nevermore here. Nor there, nor where; now wonder, was this all true? Is truth this love or, only so deeply due its lot? Perhaps dew of hearts’ window sills evaporating? Evaporating in morning waking glitters to quench eternity. Dare I say that you and I, not the twain shall meet again? Nay ~ in this misty dream we’ve never parted. Not to do, not to die, not done, just is ~ a sweet and golden slumber. by, AMD