“Whether drifting through life on a boat or climbing toward old age leading a horse, each day is a journey, and the journey itself is home.
– Basho

Of all the many things to feel, I think I am saddest thinking of the immigrants all over the world who can no longer come to America or see it as a refuge from suffering and cruelty.

I am an immigrant in my heart. Every day, I think of those hungry and hopeless souls sitting in their dismal camps yearning for the land of caring and acceptance.

We seem to have become a land of suffering and cruelty for many. I will always be a refugee in my heart.

That gives me a heavy heart. This may be why I am a writer because I understand the world as one endless ocean I never stop crossing, even at death.

In the Book Of Awakening,  poet and spiritual writer Mark Neko asks us to “imagine the life of your spirit on earth as such immigration, as one constant arrival in a new land.”

I accept that on this journey through life, the toss of the sea never ends. The immigrant and the inner pilgrim’s work is to keep eternity and revelation in our heart and mind’s eye.

Six years ago, I had to stop walking in our beautiful woods (a friend’s beautiful woods, actually) because my heart ached and my breath grew to short. After my open heart surgery, I came back to the woods and relished taking my pictures.

About a year ago, my heart again and my breath was short, and I stopped walking in these woods with Maria and the dogs. And then a week ago, I had more surgery, and I walked in the woods with Maria for an hour today without any pain in my heart or struggle to breathe.

The toss of the sea never ends. One day I will ride my bike in these woods, perhaps after my next surgery in less than a month.

The Life Of The Soul has me bobbing on a small raft in a rolling sea, the ocean of experience. I am a constant arrival in a new land, giving birth to myself, again and again, using my camera to see the world anew and anew.

It’s a miracle for me to be walking in these woods again.

Everywhere I look, I am finding life and love and meaning in my life, a new immigrant in a new land.