Pick Up A Pebble

Stars at Our Feet

“...Are the stars too distant? Pick up the pebble at thy feet and from it learn the all.”

Margaret Fuller (1810-1850)

I have friends making their way through Ireland, England and Scotland right now. They are adhering to a rigorous schedule of seeing everything there is to see in their path, some days walking more than 22,000 steps. Their first day out, all nine of them spent five hours bicycling through Dublin. These are not young people who bike everyday. I wonder how their fannies are feeling right now. They will be at Stonehenge at sunrise on the Autumnal Equinox—I'm pretty envious of that, actually.

We all have different ideas of how to travel, how to be somewhere new. Most of us, as tourists, want to see all the things we've heard about, or read about in books, so we spend many hours every day traveling from one sight to another in order to clap eyes on the place before moving along to the next. Some of us feel a sense of triumph if we can check ten places off our “must-see” list each day of our vacation. We typically come home with thousands of pictures on our phones, but with a body that is profoundly exhausted and a mind that has seen and done so much it can't recall half of it. At least, that has been my experience on that sort of trip. It's an extrovert's way of travel.

Some of us, myself included, want to go to a new place and simply be there. Settle in, get acquainted with the people, get a feel for the land, its flora and fauna. Listen to the sounds of that place, listen to our own insides, and see how we feel when we're there. If we see a sight, it's because there is something that draws us to it. Would I like to see standing stones? Of course, because my family originated from that place, and I think standing stones would feel familiar to me. Perhaps that sounds boring to seasoned travelers. This is the introvert's notion of travel—the pilgrim's journey.

Any of us, however, could follow Margaret Fuller's advice and simply pick up the pebble that lies at our feet, and learn from it all there is to know and experience. This pebble is the same as those that stand in the pastures of the United Kingdom—and probably just as old. If we were to spend a whole day fully immersed in our own environment, and conscious of all its sights and sounds, would we come away knowing something new? Why not give it a try.

                                                          In the Spirit,

                                                             Jane