Departing and Arriving

Yesterday afternoon as I sat besides my mother, in her car traveling back home-- observing the familiar highway, streets, corners of Santiago-- we discussed my return to Chile. 
As we conversed and spoke of our experiences, our thoughts and our sensations, I realized that this "event" in my life is quite profound.  Granted, I believe to be working daily on my awareness, on opening the doors to mindfulness and linking my intentions/beliefs with my actions.  Working on the "now" and the beautiful state of presence. 
Acknowledging all of that, appreciating my efforts, there are things that only time and the mystical magical element of life provide. By "things" i refer to knowledge, epiphanies, moments of true experiences and sensorial findings.  
I've found myself, at times, judging or categorizing myself as a late-reactor.  Things hit me with a certain delay.  I repeat, I judged myself for it: as if living blindly and then boom! what the heck? I was surprised with this feeling or thought..from which i couldn't really deny or escape.  Today I realized that judging is that last thing I actually need, deserve or even spend a mili-second on.  It's my process, it's life process.  It's the actual definition of process, a journey. 
My journey is the work, the on-going practice of ownership, mindfulness and being here. 
***I was surprised when my mother shared with me the feeling of "emptiness" with my departure years ago--which I never suspected.  Comes to show me, shine a light, on the perception of myself.  Information to take in, study upon and work on***


So, zoom back in to sitting in the car with my mother.  What do I feel with my return? How do I feel? Where am I in this departing and arriving?  
I guess my answer is exactly that: departing and arriving. The journey.  It's a journey.  Will the journey ever end? Who knows--and a part of me wants to say "i hope not".  For then there is room to discoveries, to findings, exploring, growth, life! 
I do have a sense of departure: i know i'm physically somewhere else.  I know there have been some losses, a traveling.  
On that same token, I do have a sense of arriving: there are definite gains, findings, touching ground...and a traveling as well. 


I don't want to measure it as "good", "bad", "better" or "worst".  I love where I am.  I want to connect to the love around me, all that has been provided for me, all that i've accomplished for myself, for those around me.  Connect with where I am, that is so full of kindness, divinity and beauty. 
I want to end with an excerpt of The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran.  He commences his book with these wise poetic words...quite appropriate:

"Almustafa, the chosen and the beloved, who was a dawn unto his own day, had waited twelve years in the city of Orphalese for his ship that was to return and bear him back to the isle of his birth.
And in the twelfth year, on the seventh day of Ielool, the month of reaping, he climbed the hill without the city walls and looked seaward; and he beheld his ship coming with the mist.
Then the gates of his heart were flung open, and his joy flew far over the sea.  And he closed his eyes and prayed in the silences of his soul.


But as he descended the hill, a sadness came upon him, and he thought in his heart: How shall i go in peace and without sorrow? Nay, not without a wound in the spirit shall I leave this city.
Long were the days of pain I have spent within its walls, and long were the nights of aloneness; and who can depart from his pain and his aloneness without regret?
Too many fragments of the spirit have I scattered in these streets, and too many are the children of my longing that walk naked among these hills, and I cannot withdraw from them without a burden and an ache.
It is not a garment I cast off this day, but a skin that I tear with my own hands. 
Nor is it a thought I leave behind me, but a heart made sweet with hunger and with thirst.


Yet I cannot tarry longer. 
The sea that calls all things unto her calls me, and I must embark.
For to stay, though the hours burn in the night, is to freeze and crystallize and be bound in a mould.
A voice cannot carry the tongue and the lips that gave it wings.  Alone must it seek the ether.  And alone and without his nest shall the eagle fly across the sun.  


Now when he reached the foot of the hill, he turned again towards the sea, and he saw his ship approaching the harbor, and upon her prow the mariners, the men of his own land.
And his soul cried out to them, and he said: Sons of my ancient mother, you riders of the tides, how often have you sailed in my dreams.  And now you come in my awakening, with is my deeper dream. 
Ready am I to go, and my eagerness with sails full set awaits the wind.  Only another breath will i breathe in this still air, only another loving look cast backward, and then I shall stand among you, a seafarer among seafarers..."