Posting for the first time after such a long and silent absence was quite an experience. Undoubtedly the best part was hearing from so many friends welcoming me back. It’s easy to get so caught up in daily life that I forget how much I like people and miss friends from my various paths and communities. I feel loved and energized!

Unfortunately, the spammers were also waiting for me with some truly horrible comments. I’ve had to put restrictions on commenting, so please be patient and creative in how you reach out to me. The problem is that this is a really old blog – I want to keep it live, but I suspect that I’m going to have to make some updates and learn a few new tricks. For now, commenting is only allowed for the first week or two after a post is published but I am always happy to hear from friends and readers via other platforms.

Today I did a big thing. Putting my head above the parapet felt a bit overwhelming, to be honest – but instead of freezing and ducking back down, I took a step towards simplifying my online presence so that I can stay balanced but still visible. Over time I will be writing more about the stresses of excessive busy-ness, but today I imported all my posts from Walking in the World into Ariadne’s Thread so that I will only have one site to maintain, one place to show up, one site to enjoy rather than being constantly overwhelmed by juggling them both. The old blog didn’t come across perfectly, but I’ve cleaned up the posts back to 2019 and that is good enough for now – the posts I cared most about were about my pilgrimage from Paris to Chartres last year. Just reading back through them as I fine-tuned the images let me re-live an important experience, something we should all do more often.

It underscored the significance of a local pilgrimage I made last week, a walk with a friend through the edges of London to visit Word on the Water, London’s bookbarge moored on Regents Canal. Books, gentle cello music playing in the background, a fire in the woodstove, and the gentle swaying of a boat on the water combined with restorative alchemy. I was in heaven. And it all came to life as we were standing by the little outdoor till. Would we like a story, the wild man asked? Our eyes lit up as we nodded our heads, sensing magic in the air – clearly he was a man who knew stories. And soon we were lost in the swirling words of the The Quangle Wangle’s Hat, recited the way a magician would speak to beloved grandchildren. We were mesmerized!

I haven’t been able to be out and about much this year, so the day was a rare treat. It isn’t necessary to journey far to find meaning and renewal.