The Journey of Story

Storytelling, Technology and Life

Sailing on the Schooner Fame

September5
Yesterday was my sister’s birthday.  We went down to Salem, Mass. and after visiting the wonderful Peabody Essex Museum, and being throughly “witched” by Salem’s more touristy side* we were looking for something cool to finish our day.
*Salem was the site of the witch trials of 1692, and because of that has been built into a major tourist destination around both the witch trial history and the rather large Wiccan and pagan community that has made the town theirs in recent years.
We were walking along, talking about how nice it would be if we could find a harbor cruise, we rounded  a corner and there was a sign advertising sailing on the Schooner Fame, a modern replica of an 1812 privater (essentially a pirate ship that was sanctioned by the government of the time.)
They had a sunset cruise leaving at 6, and we were going to be on it.
I have to say, this was an absolute blast. It was a perfect evening, and being on the boat was lovely.  The crew was wonderful, and taught us as much about sailing as we wanted to know.  It was really fascinating.

They even let me help rase the sails.

More pictures of our lovely evening

By the way, if you happen to be heading to Salem, they’ll be sailing through October…
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posted under Uncategorizable | 12 Comments »

Allowing things to be easy can be hard

August23
There’ve been a number of major things in my life recently which have all been leading me back to a focus on consciously including the divine in my life. This isn’t a new idea from, since around the end of my senior year of high school I’ve explored spirituality and connection in lots of different ways. Today I consider myself a “mystical freelancer.”
I guess the resurgence really started when I wanted to try the Resident Pricing Exercise which Mark Silver teaches at the Heart Of Business. Mark talks about starting this exercise by performing something called The Remembrance. This is a wonderful practice, which comes out of the Sufi tradition. I had never done anything like it, and found it to be remarkably profound. It’s all about “remembering” our connection to the divine, and really feeling that inside. This quickly led to me starting and later finishing Mark’s 14 day challenge.
At the same time I’ve also been taking the Grace Blessings Mastery class which my dear friend Erika Rock teaches. If I was going to summarize this class in five words, they would be:

Letting Go and Letting God

It’s all about discovering how magical and how easy things can be when we let go and let the divine work through us.
Problem is, I was having a lot of trouble letting go. I really felt for the last several days like I was in the hard. I felt frustrated, as if whatever I did wasn’t enough. I felt adrift.

“But wait, there’s more!”

And on top of all of this, I had a session tonight with spiritual alchemist Melody Kiersz. We explored what I’ve been experiencing, and she helped me to really feel it, which created the opportunity to shift. Things started to become very clear as I realize that I was not very open to receiving from the divine.
I recognized this as programming, something which was entrained into me, not something I really believed.
Then, all of a sudden, I felt very strongly that receiving from the divine is, in fact, a form of recognition, of worship.
I realized that to receive gracefully, open, fully is a gift to the giver, and the divine really wants to give to us, to me.
And that realization changed everything.
I have to say, that I post this with some trepidation about how you, my readers will respond. But I’m really feeling called to do it, and so I will answer the call and push the button.
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posted under Personal Development, spirituality | 24 Comments »