Sometimes it's the journey that teaches you a lot about your destination. - Drake

On my birthday we traveled to Yellowstone National Park and stayed just outside the north park entrance near Gardiner.

This was our only day of rain on the entire trip, the landscape was eerie, grey, empty, and silent, but also beautiful, vast, stunning, and awe inspiring.

This was also our only real close encounter with wildlife, a lone deer ran out in front of the car... you know how everything goes into slow motion in these experiences.... as we both see the deer, the possibility of an impact registers, Dylan swerves into the other lane to avoid the galloping animal, the thought crosses the mind- [oh you're not supposed to swerve];  simultaneously scanning the small two lane roadway and remembering that you've been the only car on either side of the highway for miles and miles, I close my eyes and brace for the sound, that horrible sound of flesh impacting metal at 50 miles per hour, I blink as the deer exits to the opposite side of the road, jumping a fence, and Dylan turns the wheel two fisted as he brings the vehicle back into its proper lane.

The car is still rolling and Dylan looks at me, his face ghost white, looks at me expecting me to say something... I say nothing... slow motion still in effect... the sky fills with sparrows, sparrows pour over the sunroof and flock and stream just over our heads and then burst into a myriad of wings in front of us through the windshield.  

I'm startled and awestruck, I open my mouth "The sparrows, the sparrows... look, they're speaking to us." 

I'm not even sure why these words came out of my mouth. But I felt so strongly that the birds were sending us a message.  Dylan pulls off to the side of the road, still shocked from the possible impact with the deer, his face still a pale shade of green, we get out of the car and walk off the shock in the light drizzle that is falling in the brown but beautiful valley.

Eventually we high five each other, shake off the close call, and get back in the car. A few miles down the road we pull into a wild and lonely campground, fixed two strong and spicy bloody vodka drinks, and then set up camp for the night.

I couldn't have known that I would fly across the country, to HOME, though, home was a place I hadn't been to in years, and before that had been a place I had avoided returning to, and before that, my small town had always been a place I'd intended to get as far away from as possible. And I guess I'd managed to do that considering I was living in Seattle, Washington about 2,780 miles away from home.

I didn't know that I would return home after years of seeking myself and getting to know the voice of my inner wisdom and meet a boy I remembered from childhood, who had grown into a man. He spoke to me in such a way that I had to pause.

I had to pause long enough to consider; was coming home after all this time to heal and be healed, as a full and whole, inspired, and open and loving version of myself, just as perfect as it was trite? All at once, a cliché and immediately a self-evident truth.

Well then, so be it.

My friend just released a new single on his upcoming album "Fireflies". I liked the words and thought it was fitting, if you like it you can get this track now.

Considering where I was not that long ago, read blog post  "The Dos and Don'ts of the Woman on a Spiritual Path Seeking True Love, Don't Get Drunk with Dreamers ", I would never in a million years have imagined the adventure I have just been on.

#10 of the Dos and Don'ts of Dating for Women on the Spiritual Path Seeking True love: Don't give up on love. 

Today may be a turning point.  It happens that way- not with flashing lights and fanfare, but quietly. In the past we searched for reasons, for something we could pinpoint as the catalyst for change. We could never decide what it was, though we said many things. Something in us, something about our awareness, gives us reason to suddenly be conscious of new circumstances and new ideas. We are able to think outside the limits of our usual methods. Life, for no apparent reason, begins to fit together as though we found a piece of the puzzle that completes the picture. As turning points go, some are not particularly great to see, but are often hidden in such small, ordinary events as to go undetected. Our part, is to be aware of the change and make the most of it while its at its strongest. - Joyce Squichie Hifler

Regardless of whether our life purpose is to nurture children, to discover quantum theory or to help others awaken through some difficulty we voluntarily take upon ourselves, it is good to keep the words of Mother Teresa in mind: "We cannot do great things in this world, we can only do little things with great love." - [Joan Borysenko]

A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arrival. Be content with what you have, rejoice in the way things are. When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you. - Lao Tzu

The good life is a process, not a state of being. It is a direction not a destination. -Carl Rogers

Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope. - Maya Angelou

One's destination is never a place but rather a new way of looking at things.- Henry Miller

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. -Steve Jobs

Keep close to Nature's heart... and break clear away, once in awhile, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean.

Walk away quietly in any direction and taste the freedom of the mountaineer. Camp out among the grasses and gentians of glacial meadows, in craggy garden nooks full of nature's darlings. Climb the mountains and get their good tidings, Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves. As age comes on, one source of enjoyment after another is closed, but nature's sources never fail.

When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe. - John Muir