Of bridges

[Guest guest]

Mark wrote:

> I sat at

> the front end of the small bridge and pledged my life to the

crossing...This past August (16 years later), I spent two weeks in New

Mexico... I went back to

New Mexico in October...I think my passage across the bridge is still a work

in progress... <

 

Ah, Mark, you shared so much richness about yourself that I am awed and

speechless. Thank you so much...I appreciate the links and would very much

like to know more about the chanting you speak of (with Jai Uttal and

Geoffrey Gordon). Where are they? Is there a website or a way to contact

them?

 

I also am deeply appreciative of your sharing that you are an alcoholic. I am

what is known in that paradigm as an ACOA (adult child of an alcoholic). It

seems we have the same dis-ease and often resort to the same kinds of

behaviors as alcoholics. I have resorted to some of them recently (what

Alanonics refer to as an emotional slip), which at first discourages me, but

them humbles me if I'm of a mind to be humbled (rather than humiliated). I

believe I am going through something similar (again) (oh no, not again!) to

the identity crisis you have been speaking of. It is as though all the

familiar moorings have torn loose or been severed, and I am standing in the

middle of my life saying to myself, "okay, now what?" Ack, ack...babbling

again. I believe, now that I have completed this journey west, which was very

much about solitude and focus inward, that my journey to the southwest is

partly about community. This is very important to me as something to be lived

every day. But I also know it will be different from any community I've been

involved with before. I wonder if that is because I sense that my spiritual

expression will now be a more significant aspect of community for me. This

group is becoming that for me, a community, and for that I'm deeply thankful.

(And aren't some of y'all ~ 'scuse me, my southernese coming out ~ in the

southwest anywhere?). I will let you know where I land, and perhaps we will

meet out there. Blessings to you and your journey, Mark. Shanti ~Linda