Yesterday Anadii and I caught the river boat instead of the tube.
We journeyed from the Embankment to Battersea, ‘disembarked’ and then walked the rest of the way back through the park… Along the long tree lined avenue, with fallen leaves golden brown dry; beside the grey expanse of river, bright skies above.
Past the Buddha statue golden huge on his white seat… The bustle of stalls readying, appearing just for for the fireworks that night.
Celebrating gunpowder treason and plot!
Families out together, babies in prams, children racing and couples wandering.
A Saturday afternoon in London Town where I now live!
Six years of nomadic life seemingly gone in a flash…
Like it never happened.
I have stopped travelling with all I own in a rucksack. And I have landed, but not where I began…
In any way at all.
The surroundings are different, and I am different.
In truth living without a base to return to – does not truly suit me.
As a child I was often sick before going away on holiday – ‘Oh poor little thing. She doesn’t like going away’, my Mother would say… Off we would go, and I would settle in and have a marvellous time – only to cry when it was time to leave again…!
However my inner compass moved me to shed all I owned six years ago and take the road less travelled… And even though at times I yearned for my old life, I knew that I must keep travelling, keep letting go, keep clearing the way.
Journeying within.
And then early this year, in February I sensed the time of journeying as a nomad was drawing to a close.
I had shed not just my possessions but so much from within too.
I was lighter.
And then on my 60th birthday I shed my body and my mind too.
I collapsed on the bathroom floor at 6.30am – for no physical reason – all subsequent medical tests revealed me to be super healthy.
I left my body. I experienced a sense of aliveness, awareness, vast expanse, silence, freedom and I was zooming along at great speed towards a dot in the distance…
I had shed everything – even my self.
And then I heard Anadi calling me… And I came back.
And now a new adventure, a new life in London Town is opening up before me.