POSITIVITY , ANGELS , AND OUTBACK GODS
It was probably my upbringing that prepared me so well for my adventurous later years . I was lucky to have been born to parents who never said “ Be careful ”. My big brother and I were granted glorious freedom to explore far and wide around the coast and countryside by our English seaside home in the days when children were not harnessed by fear . My father introduced me to the joy and wonders of the natural world from a very early age by paraphrasing the biblical words … “ Lift a stone and I am there .” He taught me to respect nature and to not fear small creatures under stones so that years later , I didn ’ t panic when I discovered I ’ d been feeding leeches with my blood . Together with passing on an overwhelming sense of curiosity , my mother had introduced me to Julian of Norwich ’ s comforting words , “ All will be well and all will be well ”. Between them , my parents endowed me with the necessary foundations for exploring the world at its largest . The rest was up to me .
My subsequent , extensive wanderings around the world have been sufficiently long that previously held attitudes and beliefs have been scrubbed out and rewritten . Travel does that . Until the age of forty-eight , I ’ d been happy being a daughter , a sister , a wife and a mother alongside a fulfilling career in nursing . However , my circumstances changed dramatically and I was driven to venture into a new phase . It was time to be alone to work things out .
A year ’ s backpacking in Asia not only enabled me to embrace a whole new world of sensory input , but I met remarkably open-minded travellers who listened to my story without judgement . I learnt about faiths I hadn ’ t been exposed to before . The temple colours and devotional music of Indian religions appealed to me as did the peace and acceptance of Buddhism and Daoism .
A proverb , widely attributed to Lao Tzu , a Daoist philosopher “ Those who flow through life as life flows feel no wear feel no tear , need no mending , no repair .” became my way of life . However , as I ’ d discovered , life doesn ’ t always meander along calmly ; sometimes the flow goes recklessly over boulder-strewn rapids and plunges over steep cliffs .
After a year away , I returned to the UK but , unable to settle after the enchantment of India , it wasn ’ t long before I went back . I combined my love of travel with my other passion- motorcycling . I bought a 500cc Royal Enfield motorcycle . Little did I know at the time that I would be on the road for seven years !
Before I left the motorcycle showroom and rode into the frantic Chennai traffic , it was blessed and adorned with a garland of jasmine flowers . It was further blessed and decorated with flowers at its first mechanical service
TRAVERSE 32