This is an excerpt from my last book, “Voice of a Voyage: Rediscovering the World During a 10-year Circumnavigation.” I’m using it as a post because a friend recently told me that it was meaningful to her and felt like a much-needed reminder that included hopefulness. Hope is something useful for all of us right now.
What I learned to feel—in the deepest personal spiritual sense—is that all life is interconnected. I had known this theoretically and academically, but now I understood it from a personal perspective as one of the truths of the human spirit. It was not just my relationship with the family on Toau; but with Princess, the orangutan mother I empathized with as her son Percy scampered about in southern Borneo; Antonio who loved his land and river in Guatemala; John in Suwarrow who taught me patience and the art of making a broom.
I learned that the Earth isn’t round; although it certainly isn’t flat. It’s a soft, gentle curve beckoning us on as far as the light goes. I learned that the earth is there for us to find.
I learned that people smile the same through parched, cracked lips; land-mine scared faces; the blackest skin; more pain than we can imagine. I learned that people smile when you smile at them.
I learned that children believe what you tell them. They believe in ghosts and spirits and that you will somehow do the right thing for them even if you never have.
I learned that time isn’t absolute or even constant. It is illusory, deceptive, and plays games with space. I wanted to learn how to make friends with time. Sometimes I did.
I learned that nothing exists by itself. Nothing. Not a drop of oceanic water, not a person, not a fish, not a forest, not a word. Nothing. I learned, too, that lessons find us wherever we may be, and if we listen we may discover what we believe.
Hatred, bias, divisiveness, and prejudice are as much poisons as those that we use to pollute the soil, air, and water. In the diversity of our languages, skin colors, customs, and beliefs is found the human beauty of this planet. I learned, saw, felt, and continue to believe that there is a desperate need for stewardship by all of us for the cultures and environment of this special planet Earth. This is part of the place I now know. This is part of me, where I started and now have returned.
| The Lucky School, Palmerston, Cook Islands, a remote part of the Cooks, where I taught while we were anchored there. It was called The Lucky School because the islanders considered themselves lucky to have a school; they had a problem finding teachers, however. |