Travel as Therapy in these Challenging Times
California dreaming...Big Sur's coastline
Big Sur...Where Heaven and Earth Meet
Big Sur...Where Sea and Mountains Kiss
Photo credit: Sean Diediker via PBS
"Paradise or no paradise, I have the very definite impression that the people of this vicinity are striving to live up to the grandeur and nobility which is such an integral part of the setting. They behave as if it were a privilege to live here, as if it were by an act of grace they found themselves here. The place itself is so overwhelmingly bigger, greater, than anyone could hope to make it that it engenders a humility and reverence not frequently met with in Americans. There is nothing to improve on in the surroundings, the tendency is to set about improving oneself."-Henry Miller
Not long ago, a few years back, I wrote a Blog on The Healing Power of Travel and Wanderlust. Today, reading through the pages of my Sunday Paper, I felt sad and confused, so much news coverage on all the horrible things going on in the world.
Usually, at times when I feel like this, I turn straight away to the Travel Section and as I did, I found the Gem I wanted to read: ‘To Big Sur, with Love.’
The first paragraph of this inspiring writeup resonated so much with me. During 2009 to 2011, my wife and I were so lucky visiting California, not really as tourists, but visiting friends and colleagues at California Lutheran University (CLU). Prior to that at our GCGI Conference in Istanbul, I had met a like-minded spiritual and values-led economist, Prof. Jamshid Damooei. We became good friends.
Jamshid invited Annie and I to CLU a few times. Needless to say, we held our GCGI 2010 Annual Conference at CLU.
I got my first taste of travelling along Highway 1 before the conference, when Jamshid and I visited a few regional universities in our pursuit to inform and promote the upcoming conference.
Then later, my wife and I drove a couple of times from LA to San Francisco along the ocean drive, (Highway 1) visiting many cities and towns, staying at different places with family members and friends, including at a beautiful small farm, where we stayed in a log cabin under the red woods in Big Sur for a few days. What beautiful fond memories we have from those long drives.
Reading the gem today from my Sunday paper’s travel section, I only wished that we knew about this gorgeous GEM, this inspiring Catholic hermitage, New Camaldoli, which is the main subject of this wonderful piece.
A view from the monastery grounds. Photograph: Hiroko Takeuchi/The Guardian
I know well that due to our current health circumstances, we may not be able to go to the Big Sur again. But, hope is our reason to carry on. I hope one day with the grace of God we may go back, and this time around to stay at New Camaldoli.
Now, we are delighted to enjoy reading about it: To Big Sur, with love: a monastery stay on the northern California coast
A must-read book a the beauty and wonder of Big Sur
'In his great triptych “The Millennium,” Bosch used oranges and other fruits to symbolize the delights of Paradise. Whence Henry Miller’s title for this, one of his most appealing books; first published in 1957, it tells the story of Miller’s life on the Big Sur, a section of the California coast where he lived for fifteen years. Big Sur is the portrait of a place―one of the most colorful in the United States―and of the extraordinary people Miller knew there: writers (and writers who did not write), mystics seeking truth in meditation (and the not-so-saintly looking for sex-cults or celebrity), sophisticated children and adult innocents; geniuses, cranks and the unclassifiable, like Conrad Moricand, the “Devil in Paradise” who is one of Miller’s greatest character studies. Henry Miller writes with a buoyancy and brimming energy that are infectious. He has a fine touch for comedy. But this is also a serious book―the testament of a free spirit who has broken through the restraints and clichés of modern life to find within himself his own kind of paradise.'- See more and buy the book HERE
These are the times when we desperately need inspiring and healing words of wisdom, hope and beauty.
A Gift from our GCGI archive to help set us free from chaos and despair, so that we may achieve inner peace and spiritual calm, a more generous and rewarding imagination, inspiring and empowering us to take action in the interest of the common good.
Life Lessons I've Learned in a World of Conflicting Ideas and Aspirations.
Journey to Healing: Let Me Know What is Essential
The monastery above Highway 1 in the Big Sur state park. Photograph: Hiroko Takeuchi/The Guardian