A Note To My Friends Up North

There are some drawbacks to living in Florida, but none of them were in effect today. That is unless you were hoping to wear your new winter coat.
I spent the earliest part of the day jogging and then paddleboarding around our lake. The sunrise and air temperature were awesome. The water is a little cold, but I think I might survive a fall into it. It's probably about as cold as the ocean in the summer in Los Angeles right now.
I then came to work and spent the day on my laptop, out in the Zen Garden, using some of the best WiFi around. Friends came by for a picnic lunch and by late afternoon it started getting cool enough to imagine the possible need for a longsleeve shirt later...maybe.

Yes, Christmas won't be white and in a few days it could be rainy and windy, but right now, I have a smile on my face that is hard to put away...

The Special Places

I love the outdoors and find myself to be a pretty earthy person. I pretty much am a skeptic and 'believe it when I see it'. I had something a few years ago and kind of altered that outlook a bit. I was in Hawaii on vacation with my wife and had managed to pick up a flu bug on the flight over. Out of the two weeks of vacation, I was pretty sick for half of it and a number of times we ventured out to hike and I couldn't do it. When I was finally feeling like I could handle a short hike, we took off on the Kalalau Trail on Kauai. It is one of the most beautiful bits of adventure I can remember. On one part, we took a little side trail and found a clearing, that to me made me think, "this is where they sacrifice virgins to the volcano". I half laughed, but I am pretty sure there is a contingent of worshipers of some sort that held services there. There was a hearth and fresh flowers on it and rocks arranged in a semi-circle around it. I found this one big stone and decided to sit for a minute and rest. I was sitting with my back to the mountain, facing the ocean below me in almost 180 degrees. The wind was blowing hard and cold, while the sun was bright and hot. As I sat there, I realized suddenly that I felt better than I had in days. I thought, the scenery is so pretty that it is making me feel good.
I related this event to my sister later, who actually is Pagan, and she told me I had stumbled upon a "Place of Power". There was something about magnetic fields, etc. I knew then, that I didn't actually care about the how or why, I just knew there were more of these and I wanted to find them. I have found 4 or 5 since, and nowdays, I make it part of my nature trips to see if one of these spots can be discovered.
Below is a photo of my wife on the Big Island of Hawaii, on the hike to the Petroglyphs. There were no marks for the spot, but you knew it when you found it....