The past year has been the next step in an internal journey, the end of which I do not know. It will take time for the experience to utterly fill my being. Then I will know what the next step might be. I am content, with Thomas Kelly, to be “walking with a smile into the dark”.
Epilogue
The universe is a constant prayer
Vivekananda
The Spirit moves in mysterious ways, and in its own time. No obvious opportunity from our travels has drawn me back, but the pull of developing countries has led to an opening in Madagascar. And once I let go of my own frustrated attempts to explore the culture of Native Americans, an invitation arrived to set up a project in Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, the poorest community in the Western Hemisphere. I paid an exploratory visit in autumn 2003, and hope to return. Stephen and I did not stay together. The tensions during our year of travel took their toll, and Stephen never really settled back into my London flat. We remain close, however, bonded by our memories and by the continuing friendships with those we met on the way. My pleasure at the rediscovery of my belongings faded quickly, and in July 2003 I gave much of my furniture to my children, sold my flat and embarked on a more peripatetic life, carrying with me little more than I had taken on our travels. I wish to live more lightly on the earth, able to move to where the work is, where the leadings draw me. Having lived a life of travel for a year, I now find that I do not want “a home”, or know where I wish to be. This new phase is not about more travel, but another stage in letting go. Anthony Gormley spoke of “the profound experience of unknowing”. I wish to embrace my unknowing, live a life in which geography does not matter, be, as Simone Weil wrote: “rooted in the absence of a place”.
Another step on this unexpected path.
Further reading and information
Quaker
Quaker faith & practice
Advices and queries
The Quaker Universalist Reader no 1
Fager, Chuck, Without Apology
Jones, Rufus, The Double Search
Kelly, Thomas, A Testament of Devotion, Hodder
Thomas Kelly as I Knew Him
Woolman, John, ed Moulton, The Journals and Major Essays, Friends United Press
Other faiths
Chinmayanander, Swami, We Must, CTT Publications
Conze, Edward (selector and translator), Buddhist Scriptures, Penguin
Dyckman and Carroll, Inviting the Mystic, supporting the prophet
Gibran, Khalil, The Wisdom of the Master
Griffiths, Bedc, The Golden String, Templcgate
Happold, F.C. (ed), Mysticism, Penguin (includes William Law, William Blake)
Huxley, Aldous, The Perennial Philosophy, Chatto & Windus
Krishnamurti, J., The Wholeness of Life
Lawrence, Brother, The Practice of the Presence of God
Lewis, C.S., Letters to Malcolm: Mainly on Prayer
Merton, Thomas, New Seeds of Contemplation, Burns Oates
Nouwen, Henri, Seeds of Hope, Darton, Longman & Todd
Pandit, M.P., Spiritual Life
Rinpoche, Sogyal, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, Rider
Roger of Taize, Brother, A Heart that Trusts
Sinetar, Marsha, Ordinary People as Monks and Mystics
Swahanander, Swami, The Power of Prayer, CTT Publications
Tagore, Rabindranath, The Religion of Man
The Mother, Notes on the Way
The Upanishads, Penguin
Traherne, Thomas, Centuries of Meditations
Vardey, Lucinda (ed.). God in All Worlds, Vintage
Vivekenander, Swami, Is Vedanta the Future Religion?
Waddell, Helen, The Desert Fathers
Watson, Elizabeth, The Guests in my Life
Weil, Simone, Waiting on God
Solitude CTT Publications
On the Path
de Bernieres, Louis, Senor Vivo and the Coco Lord
Eliot, T.S., Complete Poems, Faber & Faber
Greene, Graham, The Power and the Glory, Penguin
Hemingway, Ernest, To Have and to Have Not
Marquez. Gabriel Garcia, The General in his Labyrinth
Marquez, Gabriel Garcia, Short Stories
Narayan, R.K., A Tiger for Malgudi
Travel
Bryson, Bill, I’m a Stranger Here Myself
Bryson, Bill, The Lost Continent
Morris, Jan, Among Cities
Naipaul, V.S., India
Road Trip USA
Thubron, Colin, In Siberia
Microcredit
Yunus, Muhammad, Banker to the Poor, Aurum.
Other non-fiction
Dooley, Tom, The Night they Burnt the Mountain
Galland, China, The Bond Between Women
Gandhi, M.K.,
Marquez, Gabriel Garcia, News of a Kidnapping
Merton, Thomas. Gandhi on non-violence
Chaudhuri, Nirad C, Autobiography of an Unknown Indian, Hogarth
Russell, Bertrand, The Conquest of Happiness
Seattl, Chief (based on). No Quiet Place, Pickpocket Books. Explanation of Ted Perry as screenwriter for Home (1971), a film about ecology: www.snopes.com/quotes/seattle.htm
Tomalin & Hall, The Strange Last Voyage of Donald Crowhurst, Penguin
Poetry and fiction
Nordhoff & Hall, Mutiny on the Bounty
Spanish Short Stories – Penguin Parallel Texts
Steinbeck, John, Cannery Row, Penguin
Tolstoy, Leo, War and Peace, Penguin
Further Information
Alternatives to Violence Project (AVP):
www.avpinternational.org
UK: The Old Painswick Inn, Gloucester
Street, Stroud, GL5 10G
Phone: 0845 458 2692
www.avpbritain.org
Microcredit
The Grameen Bank
Mirpur 2, Dhaka 1216, Bangladesh
Phone: 800 2 803 559
www.grameen-info.org
Results
www.results.org
UK: 25 Clemens Street, Leamington Spa,
CV31 2DP
Phone: 01926 435430
[email protected]
Quakers
The Religious Society of Friends, Friends
House, 183 Euston Road, London NWI 2BJ
Phone: 0207 663 1000
www.quaker.org.uk
Servas
www.servas.org
UK: The National Secretary, Servas
Britain, 68 Cadley Road, Collingbourne
Ducis, Marlborough, Wilts SN8 3EB
Phone: 0208 444 7778
www.servasbritain.u-net.com
Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF)
I rue de Varembe, Case Postale 28, 1211
Geneva 20, Switzerland
Phone: 41 22 919 7080
www.wlpf.int.ch
UK: www.ukwilpf.gn.apc.org
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