I had forgotten to mention in my last post that friend Tom spent a day helping on Gypsy last weekend. He came equipped, as usual, with some amazing tools from his vast inventory of high-end woodworking gear. This time I got to use his Festool skill saw which I must say it is the most amazing saw I have ever used. It comes with a guide bar so it always cuts straight. I ripped marine plywood for shelving and was blown away by how clean, crisp and splinter free it left the wood. I’ve been using a skill saw all my adult life and have never seen anything like this. When Tom wasn’t helping me with the shelves he was helping Susan scrape and sand teak. Thanks Tom!It was a good and productive weekend and I realize that I’m much closer to my root happiness than I can ever remember being. I’m fully engaged, firing on all cylinders and can feel my smile close-at-hand as I go about the many things that need to be done in preparation for our journey. I think there’s several reasons for my abundance of joy; first and foremost is that I’m in a healthy relationship with a wonderful woman, second is that I’m following a dream that is true to me and central to my authentic self and third is that I’m involved in something that’s so vast (circumnavigating our earth), that it almost seems beyond me and I thrive on challenge. Sometimes it’s important to attempt something that is larger that ourselves in order to get out of ourselves, out of our day-to-day ordinary selves and take up our extraordinary selves.
Krishna Das has said that happiness is our native state but that over time we loose touch with that happiness. Like most true things it’s a beautiful concept and KD sums it up, as all great teachers do, in a simple, straightforward sentence. But how does one go about getting reconnected with our happiness? KD says that we get distracted and lose touch with our native joy. What to do? KD being a Bhakti yogi will tell you to chant and I can’t argue with that. I chant as often as I can. There are other ways also. It all starts by reducing our distractions. Turn off the TV and the radio, calm yourself, get in touch with your breathing, then ask yourself what’s important. Do this often enough that you get an unwavering and strong answer. Then give yourself permission to follow through because dreams are nothing without action.
Several people have asked me if I have ever done anything like this before and the simple answer is no. That answer usually leaves them with a big blank look on their faces and they usually follow up with; “Well you have as least crossed an ocean” and again I have to disappoint by saying; not yet. “Well how do you know you can do something as big a sailing around the world if you haven’t done anything like it?” I can because I know it in my heart. How did Columbus know he could cross an ocean or Drake know that he could take a ship around the world or Slocum know he could do it alone? Where else is such information written but in one’s own heart? I’m not saying that we will, without a doubt, make it around successfully; that remains to be written. What I am saying is that we’re a strong, capable crew & vessel and we will do our level best on the pursuit of our dream.
83 days...
