How it all began. And more photos.

From Don:
Some of you who have been reading Ali's blog about our European travels may have wondered how and why we came to be doing all this travelling. So for you, and anyone else who’s interested, here’s how it all began.

By way of background I trained as a neuropsychologist at McGill University in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s, and then went on to teach neuropsychology at the University of Victoria for six years. From 1991 until 2011 I had a successful private practice in Vancouver assessing the consequences of traumatic head and brain injuries. I pick up the story from late May 2011:

May 26, 2011: It’s time – everything in my little universe has conspired to push me into letting go of everything – work, home, life-style (such as it is) and moving on to whatever The Mystery wants of me. My enthusiasm for my work has almost gone, my bookings have diminished to zero as of the end of June, my health has deteriorated to the point where I went to VGH Emergency Department yesterday to get checked out for my potential to be at risk for a heart attack, and I’m going for an MRI of my brain Friday morning because of attention and memory problems. I get it – stop working, stop working, stop working and let the Creative Force of The Universe carry me wherever it wants me to go.

I clearly can’t go on as I have been – a few more months, even a couple more years, is not going to make any difference to my financial circumstances. Pray for clarity, pray for guidance, and remember that I am held in The Great Hands of Mystery. Here’s the opportunity to jump in and put my heart where my mouth has been – living the dream of travelling, just being, trusting The Mystery to provide whatever is needed in the moment, moment by moment. It can no longer be something that I consign to the realm of magical thinking or wish fulfillment – I need to keep feeling into and trusting The Mystery to support me. If I try to keep on doing what I’ve been doing I’m going to die or become incapacitated in some way – The Mystery has been pushing me to stop and I’ve finally listened and said YES! Yes to selling the apartment. Yes to travelling to Italy, India, Bali, wherever. Yes to trusting God - Good Orderly Direction, as Julia Cameron in The Artists’ Way puts it. Whenever the mind comes in with its reasons why not I will remind myself that I am always held in the Great Arms of The Mystery, and that to resist the flow of The Universe is to invite suffering in one form or another. Fear is the great stopper of flow. Joy, enthusiasm and willingness put me into the flow. Acceptance of things as they are keeps me in that flow.

I want to ask my spiritual teacher about ways to remind myself about The Truth of Life: that it’s all a moving picture show put on for my edification and entertainment. I’m the writer, director, editor, star, co-star, bit player, extra in the story of my life, and God is the creative genius who first suggested the theme for the show. I’m also cameraman, sound engineer, and stunt coordinator, stuntman, set dresser, costumer and make-up artist. I am voice coach, food truck driver, roustabout and every other participant in the creation of the show, and if I’m not happy with the way it’s turning out I have no one else to blame. Trust the Magic, trust the Mystery, keep moving, keep breathing, stay strong in the knowledge and belief that I am being guided every step of the way. I‘ve been a cynic all my life, unwilling to trust Good Orderly Direction and my life has reflected that. Yet despite my cynicism I’ve somehow managed to survive this far. Now it’s time for a radical shift and a great deepening of trust in Good Orderly Direction.

The next few months can be joyful or terrifying – it’s up to me how I choose to experience things. When I trust the flow all is well, when the mind steps in I forget and fear arises. Therefore I need to be continuously actively reminding myself to trust The Mystery, trust the Magic and let go of trying to control the outcome of whatever The Great Mystery has in store for me for the balance of my days here. I may be anywhere from 5/6th to 9,999,999/10,000,000th of my way through this incarnation. I may have great things to achieve in the world or just peace and joy and contentment in my being. I have no idea. All I can do is to keep listening, keep trusting, keep moving, keep writing, and stay focused on the desired outcome, which at this point in time appears to be to divest myself of the majority of my possessions (apartment, car, household goods), close my business practice, and travel. It feels like exactly the right thing to be doing even though fear keeps trying to insinuate itself. Arrange for a realtor to come and look at the apartment. Keep feeling, keep trusting, keep moving. There’s an energy in me now that has been dormant for years and I know that it will get stronger as I move forward into actualizing the goals that have been set for me by The Mystery. Travel (yeah), joy (yeah), enthusiasm (yeah), aliveness (yeah), and new energy for life (yeah). It’s all good: trust The Mystery, trust the Magic, keep moving forward with purpose. More life, more love, more trust, more . . .

From Alison:
And so that’s what we’ve been doing – trusting as best we can and moving forward, step by step on this great adventure, completely amazed and constantly blessed by the beauty of the world. To share the beauty here’s another small selection of my photographs - pottery, masks, and my strange fascination with laundry.


Gorgeous Italian Pottery


















Beautiful Venetian Carnivale Masks






















Even laundry can be beautiful!





























This very last photograph is of a piece that was in an art exhibition in a cinema in Milan. Too good to resist. I actually took 4 photos of it because it had coloured lights swirling over it so it continually changed colour.

Next blog post coming very soon: Positano and the Amalfi coast.

Tuscany too

On October 6th we went to Orvieto in Umbria. Our friends Michael and Ricki were in Rome, so we arranged to meet them in Orvieto for the day. They got a train from Rome, and we drove from Tuscany. We arranged to meet in front of the duomo at 10.30. When we got to Orvieto we had no idea where the duomo was, so just kept driving, deeper and deeper into town, up and up, over narrower and narrower roads, eventually following signs to the duomo. And suddenly there it was. Right in front of us. It took our breath away with its completely unexpected grandeur and beauty.



Suddenly we realized we were driving right into the middle of a large piazza, and walking right towards the car were Michael and Ricki, who had just arrived at that moment. It was so synchronous as to feel kind of miraculous. Just driving and driving into the town because we didn’t know what else to do, and then suddenly seeing the duomo, and being the only car in the middle of a piazza, and then seeing Michael and Ricki walking directly towards us, all at they same time. It was weird, and wonderful. A truly joyous, funny and unexpected moment. They didn’t immediately realize it was us until we tooted. Then we all laughed, and piled out of the car and hugged. Fortunately for us driving in the piazza was allowed and there was parking close by.




Then we set out to explore Orvieto, a town that dates back to Etruscan times (i.e. about 2 ½ thousand years – I guess it’s kind of historic).

We found this



And this – it’s wild boar hunting season right now and we hear shots from time to time



And this. I swoon for Italian pottery. Since I have no home to put it in I take pictures of it. Maybe I’ll do a blog post that’s all just pictures of gorgeous Italian pottery. The only other place I’ve seen anything like it is Mexico. Different style but same exhuberant use of colour.



And a whole town of streets like this:

















A couple of days later we went to Siena, another beautiful, very old place ☺
The duomo there is equally as breathtaking as the one in Orvieto, and the interior is stunning in its ornateness and richness, but one of my favorite things in Siena was the baptistery ceiling.

A painting in the duomo



Baptistry ceiling




And the library of beautifully preserved medieval vellum illuminated manuscripts took my breath away. This is my only picture. It’s not very good, nor is it of the most beautiful of the manuscripts. There were about 20 or so of these huge bound vellum books, each double page measuring about 4 ft x 3 ft, and preserved under glass at an open page. Just exquisite work, and I thought of the monks, hundreds of years ago painstakingly doing the detailed paintings and perfect gothic script. For me it’s the excitement of seeing the real thing, rather than just reading about it in books, that makes travelling so wonderful. I never though I’d get to see actual real vellum illuminated manuscripts, and here was a whole room of them!



Beauty everywhere - this on the outside of a house



Creativity everywhere



In Siena we also saw a couple of boys practicing their flag throwing for the Palio (a crazy annual horserace around the town square), and heard, but could not see, the drummers practicing.

Speaking of town squares, the Piazza del Campo is astonishing in both it’s size and beauty. OK, I’m quoting wiki now – “it’s one of Europe’s greatest medieval squares, and is renowned for it’s beauty and architectural integrity”. It’s huge, but still inviting in spite of its size. We stopped there for a coffee break (of course. It’s like stopping for coffee on the Champs Elysees. How could you not?) Don took this picture of it.



The streets of Siena










The next day we went to Volterra, another walled hill town, for more history and exploring and eating too much (though I have no memory of lunch in Volterra but I’m sure we had some) and gelato. We passed through quite different countryside on the drive there.








I remember Volterra for beauty in the cathedral




The Etruscan Gate (a pre-ancient Roman civilization in the area that is now Tuscany)



and the Roman ruins



Having had our fill of hill towns, we decided to go to the beach for the day and headed to Cecina on the Tuscan coast.





Lunch




Reflection in Don’s sunglasses





I think the day in Cecina can best be summed up by this




Next blog – something or other about Florence, and a day in Chianti country.