(This blog was originally written on April 14, 2010.  I wasn't able to post so I'm playing catch up here. More blogs will be posted in the next day or two from my April journeys.)

This is my last trip overseas for this year as I know it.  As I'm writing, I'm high in the sky, listening to Whitney Houston's new album, "Nothing But Love" and feeling in the groove.  It's the only other album I've actual bought of hers after her first album that released when I was 14 or 15.  These are bookends to my journey at this moment.  My iTouch (thank you Sara) is filled with nearly all spiritual/yoga-related music, and then Whitney tunes.  Her music resonates on the same line for me.  Her gospel background is present in her life and songs and I can hear the love and prayer of spiritual devotion, whether it sounds like its directed to a person or to a supreme being - the words can be interpreted as you choose.  Since I first listened to her music as a teenager and as it connects my memories like guide posts to the "many places in my life and times," I feel a sense of spiritual journey simply based on reflection.  (see previous blogs: "Back From Running Away" and "Having lunch with Melissa, Whitney and Greg.")  There's so much about Whitney these days in my blogs since that's what the many hours of my days are filled with as I help coordinate Platinum Travel Experiences for guests from all over the world.  Now heading to Dublin for 2 groups, then 2 groups in London.  I've been to Dublin only one other time with this work, escorting a group of Rolling Stones fans to a soggy but amazing concert at Slane Castle.  I've been to London a small handful of times, also for Rolling Stones groups in different years.  I'm excited to return to both cities for a bit longer of a time in each.  What a cool ride this has been!

I've racked up lots of miles from flying and get excited thinking how I plan to use these for a return trip to India next year.  I'm thinking about taking an intermediate yoga teacher-training course with Integral yoga in Coimboiture next January.  Several others from Integral Yoga SF are talking about this as well.  We want to keep building on the training we started last year, keep the learning going, keep the practice strong for our own practices and as teachers.  I'm grateful to have this work that I do just for the miles alone!  - A free trip across the globe for yoga training!  Thank you Fan Asylum!  It makes it all worth the journey which I leave without hanging on with resentments and unresolved issues (I think).  I remember this is how I felt when I left Joe Goode Performance Group after an 8 year career, and when I stopped dancing.  I had a good handful of issues while dancing and in my last year I felt many resolve, including a heart-opening of only love for Joe, and only love for myself versus the harsh critic I had been. Tapping into my peace helped direct me onward,  along with the screaming signal being my physical body pain.  Becoming a yoga teacher has brought together all of my life's experience into one channel of my highest self.  It's felt like all the pieces of all I've done have been quilted together for the purpose of sharing through yoga.  Dancing, making art, struggling through addiction and recovery, happy and sad relationships, difficulties and celebrations, everything high, medium and low - all shared when I teach in my own quietly large way…or largely quiet way.  :)

Traveling.  Am I addicted to it?  I do love to imagine when my next trip will be, sometimes to the point that I'm already gone before I leave, or I'm still away even when I come home.  Generally, it's rarely more than a couple of months away that a trip will come up for work, family or even a visit to the Headlands Center for the Arts in Sausalito, CA for a retreat.  This has nearly been the case since my first touring experience in 1983 as a student of SCPA in Cincinnati.  Aside from my college years, I have traveled each year more than I could have imagined when I first started.  And it's been especially fun for me because these destinations have all come by surprise - not chosen like one would for vacation.  For the most part, they've been assigned by touring management, whether for theater and dance, or popular music tours of these recent years.  Granted, mostly I've been to major cities so there's much of the planet yet to be explored; however, covering every inch of the planet isn't my goal.  It's simply about GETting to travel, taking a step out of my routine and into another place, learning how to feel that sense of inner home no matter where I am, or being challenged to feel this when part of me snaps into an old childhood place of escape and rebellion.  That's the yoga of traveling - meeting that point of resistance and seeing what I do with it, breathing and acknowledging.  For work,  I go where the schedule says to go, trusting it's exactly where I need to go for my next journey, next awakening.  Or when family calls, like my many visits to LA to visit my now 99-year old great aunt, or to Cincinnati to visit my Mom and Dad, I get challenged with showing up as my adult, present-day self, versus the young, lonely child, often expressed by inner-acting out than showing signs of these emotions outwardly, verbally.  What's informative to recognize is how much of my forward motion has been directed from outside elements versus inner impulse.  But I also recognize that so much of my life has equally been guided by an inner voice that I have trusted and appreciated.  How often do I take the path of least resistance, or another way to say it could be - the path of the outside wind before checking in with my inner voice?  And vice-versa?  I'm learning to discern which current to take, but I wonder how much it's been nature versus nurture here.

Traveling became exciting and enticing as a child because I got to leave a family home that I wasn't too thrilled to be in.  I got to be taken out of classes and grew to feel special because of that.  Feeling special was so important to me, sometimes still is.  Ok, maybe I always like feeling special.  But I can truly say I like when ALL of us feel special.  I'll need to meditate on this to check-in about feeling separate versus special.  There's nothing wrong with feelings just as there's nothing wrong with traveling.  It's what happens in me, around them.  Am I using them to escape or to become expansive, truthful.  Same thing with sex or food - There's nothing wrong with either of those in and of themselves.  Where is the line where sexual connection/behavior brings true happiness and peace about oneself, happening as a natural expression, and where it causes separation of self, acting as a higher power and a distraction from pain and loneliness? When does eating become an unconscious act versus a very conscious act of what the body needs for sustenance and good health?  Often, I can find myself using food as reward, punishment or to drown feelings or even create bodily pain from over/under-eating, creating a real sensation, dulling response to other uncomfortable feelings.  Does it feel like a never-ending road of settling, or does it feel like each day is a new beginning?  Or a new beginning but with the same ending?  Or does it feel unknown and curious?  Drugs, drinking, gambling, stealing, cutting, lying, compulsive sex or denial of sex, over/under-eating, debting, being Republican (sorry, just kidding) and many others are all similar things to question like this.  Where does it all begin?  Does it end?  Are we always beginning each day anew?  Is there any meaning or purpose to finding the "right" choice for ourselves, our community?  As I learned from my Spirit of Life family and what helps me greet life with grounded innocence and devotion, is this phrase that keeps me off the loop of insanity:  "Each new sun that rises, never rose before."  

For right now, I celebrate the opportunities I've had to travel and perform and to have had that opportunity as a young person.  It helped me dive into life and dive into many emotions that have enriched my being.  Yes, traveling awakens my desire for anonymity in the world, to be disconnected from obligation and discipline, but it also opens the doorway to meet new parts of myself, to see what I gravitate towards when feeling less restrictive.  What stays strong, is my commitment to yoga, being vegan, meeting new people and having quiet time.  What gets aroused is my desire for anonymous sex, over-spending on food and consuming sugary foods, and feeling separate.  I'm learning to not judge either as good or bad, just that they are there as messengers and I do my best to greet them with honesty and openness.  I do this with the help of my tools of sharing, writing, meditating, bringing all into my practice of yoga.

I thank my parents for seeing the artistic calling in me, for allowing me to follow this part of my life's quest, this thirst for traveling away from home.  I'm sure it was my path to start this early curiosity, which did include early addictions.  Emotions can be a lot to handle, especially when young and not well equipped with life experience.  I think this can be true at any age really.  Age isn't really the factor so much as life-experience and karma (that just inspired me to blog my thoughts on karma!  another time.  For now I'll just casually throw that in there:) I definitely promote an arts education for children.  Consider keeping the arts a viable part of society by supporting either an artist, company, or organization that you know.  It pays you back more than a value can be placed on money.  But I digress.  I love to travel and see the world.  See the people of the world.  Be myself amongst this world.  It reminds me that we're all one, great, fantastic global family with the same issues, same suffering, same happiness - just wrapped up in different packages, different vibrations and different ideologies at the very least.  

This is the last trip as I know it.  So I plan to let it have it's own life balanced with my inner guides mission. This is the final packages for the Whitney tour as we know it, and my final packages with Fan Asylum as I know it!  I'm just at the starting line of these last weeks, landing in Dublin around 7am for the start of the day.  I'm Finishing the Beginning of the End of Where it Started!