Eco Gallivant – Soft adventure and eco-voluntourism

Well. Isn’t this a surprise! I haven’t written a post in FOREVER!

Because…. I have been very busy. The result of all this busyness is a new business: Eco Gallivant.

It is a culmination of:

• A near drowning
• Swim lessons
• Learning to scuba dive
• Volunteering in Quintana Roo and the Sian Ka’an Biosphere Reserve – collecting data for Coral Watch
• Becoming a rescue diver
• Volunteering in Indonesia doing reef restoration
• Becoming a partner in a non-profit – Sea Communities, in Indonesia
• Traveling to Indonesia three times in the last year to dive and work.

 

 

And thus:

Creating Eco Gallivant with my friend Kathleen – soft adventure treks for women of all ages. We will be volunteering in the host community with reef restoration while learning the culture, craft, food, art, and teaching some English on the side.

So please jump over to our website, and please pass the link on to any women who you think might be interested! I would be so appreciative.

And don’t worry guys. Once we have this down pat, we will extend invitations to men as well!

Thanks for the visit!!

The Holy Spirit Snatch

My friend Amanda has a favorite line she says often, and with gusto: “The universe conspires!” I do believe it does, if you look closely enough, you will see it. Don’t make any rash pronouncements about how and why things happen. If you are open-minded enough to let one step lead to the next: to simply let things and events and twisting turns in the path ‘happen’ as they will, you will notice the universe conspiring!

Something occurred last week that came as a total surprise to me. Was it my subconscious working behind the curtain, unbeknownst to me? Maybe. Or, quite possibly, it was what Anne Lamott calls “The Holy Spirit Snatch.” Lamott, one of my favorite writers, is a person I would probably label as “religious.” She refers not only to her spirituality on a regular basis, but also to events that occurred while teaching Sunday school, or something her minister said, or words pronounced by Jesus. I am in no way religious, but I would certainly call myself spiritual. So I know what she is talking about when she says an event occurred by way of the Holy Spirit Snatch: something grabs you and sends you hurtling down a new path that you didn’t even know existed a minute ago.

I was supposed to go to the Dominican Republic in April to begin dive master training. I received my certification as a rescue diver from this particular dive shop/instruction center in January. I had made arrangements to continue for a week in April and then again for four more weeks over the summe,r to achieve the next certification.  When I got there in January, I found I didn’t like the safety protocol of the program. I didn’t like the town where it was located. Republica Dominicana was beautiful, but I didn’t want to go back. It took me a few weeks to come to the decision, but one night I sat down and cancelled my flight, which had already been booked a few weeks earlier.

Then, I set it all aside. I would think about where to go on another day.

Over the next couple weeks, I sort of thought about it, in a very abstract way. I thought about diving in Mexico, but I had already made a plan to complete the dive master certification in July with a shop I was familiar with and respected there. I thought about all the beautiful places to dive that I hadn’t been to yet: Seychelles, Fuji, Australia…..

Then, along came the Holy Spirit Snatch. I saw a movement out of the corner of my eye, and looked that way quickly, but there was nothing there. When I turned back, I had clicked the button on the computer that read: “purchase” and I realized I had a plane ticket in April for Bali. I really don’t know how else to explain it.

And it felt right. It didn’t feel risky. It didn’t feel irresponsible. It didn’t feel ill considered. Even though you could say it was all of those things! Pondering risk at that moment, I reminded myself that taking a risk actually opens you up to a world of possibilities you have yet to consider. Something new.  Something fomenting. And, as Neil Gaiman says, “If you dare nothing, then when the day is over, nothing is all you will have gained.”

So off I go.

Have you ever met your doppelganger?

My travels took me no further than out of my armchair and across the room, this weekend. It was quite the fabulous trip!

Turtle Power!

 

 

No, no! Not Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles……  Green Turtles!

A Short Visit in Los Angeles – A Reflection on Walking

As I walked up Beverly Boulevard this morning, I learned I was something of an oddity. Nobody walks in L.A. The shops and other places of business are one story, or rarely, two stories. Neighborhoods stretch out for miles and miles. The residents here drive wherever they have to go. Valet parking is available at restaurants and clubs, sometimes free and sometimes at great cost. Cars dive into open parking spots, as if they have found gold.

There are, however, the invisible walkers. Like ghost ships on a foggy night, the homeless shuffle the sidewalks, pushing their laden grocery carts in front of them. Each seem to be following their self specific round from one spot to the next, on auto pilot. The carts are mounded with home. Sheets of cardboard, ratty blankets rank and brown with dirt, bottles of water, overcoats over the top, tied down with belts or rope. A doorway, an open alley, a crawl space next to a garbage scow; all destinations. Only someone new to town, like me, seems to see them. They don’t make eye contact, they don’t ask for money. They sit, lay, or shuffle.

The drivers in cars see me, however. I am the lone person, apparently walking with purpose, along the sidewalk. Cars wait when I step into the crosswalk, to allow me to reach the far curb before they turn. So unused to people in a crosswalk, they don’t know how to judge the amount of time needed for me to cross. They could turn in front of me three times before I arrive at the point of walking in front of their car!

Now and then I did come across another soul, apparently walking with purpose, like  me. I learned, however, that some of these walkers were actually not like me, either.

A woman in a fashionable outfit, neat and clean, swinging her phone in one hand, walked twenty paces ahead of me mid morning. I noticed her only because we were both walking alone on the long stretch of sidewalk. Suddenly she stopped and spun, waiting for me to come abreast. I smiled, about to say good morning, when she pointed at me and began to chastise me, “…walking there…talk about me…. you have issues…” She then waved me past her. When I was two or three paces ahead, I heard the angry slap of her sandals on the pavement. She quickly overtook and subsequently passed me, shaking her head.

At the next crosswalk I waited through an extra light so she could move away well in front of me. I don’t know: maybe she didn’t want to share her sidewalk with me.

The Faces of Vincent

A recently published article in the Literary Traveler, The Faces of Vincent.

Please  check it out!

They Used To Be Called Pen Pals

Long ago and far away, when I was a young girl, I loved to write letters. This was a time when there were no computers, no cell phones, and… gasp… long distance telephone calls were very, very expensive. I wrote letters to friends in the city I had moved away from.  I wrote letters to my grandparents.  I wrote notes to classmates…. (antique style texting under the table) in class!  I also had three pen pals.

I don’t remember how I acquired these pen pals.  Debbi lived in Massachusetts and owned a horse.  I had a horse too, so we had lots to talk/write about.  We even exchanged black and white photos taken with our matching, Kodak Instamatic cameras.

I also had two pen pals who lived in Japan.  I think I may have made these two friends through Girl Scouts while earning one of the badges that got sewn on my sash.  Both of their names started with T, but I don’t remember anything else about them, or what we wrote about to each other.  All three of those relationships slowly fizzled out.  When I went away to college, I wrote to my parents, my friends, my grandparents.  Eventually long distance got cheaper and I did more calling than writing.

Then along came blogging.  Suddenly I found myself with all kinds of new, far away friends.  At first, I thought it was very strange to be writing back and forth with people all over the world whom I had never met.  Then I realized, it was just like having lots of pen pals!

Bob Kaufman…. The Coffee House and Beat Poetry

Please visit The Literary Traveler for my latest published article.

Thanks for checking in on me.