3 Lessons For Traveling with Life

Lesson #1. Embrace the Unexpected Detours with a Cough, Grimmace, and a Grin!

Ever the rebel and with my slightly irreverent yet joy-filled tone, I had a recent rendezvous with COVID while attempting to do what I hadn’t done in several years—a 10-plane work trip in 8 weeks. Yeah, let’s do it! 

It was somewhere up at 39,000 feet, between air mile marker 5,551 and 9,184.2, that the sneezes around me were closing in like shadowy particle creatures! 

Closer and closer they came. Inch by inch. Until… 

Bestowed upon me was “Hose Nose.” A clever term my bother John uses for colds and plagues. 

No getting closer to family, friends, and colleagues; no exploring the world's hidden gems from a large empty bedroom. 

Seriously, we lost a lot of people during the big push of the pandemic, and this is no joking matter. It was traumatizing for the planet. 

As I leave this second round of COVID behind me, we need to keep moving. We need to keep doing our best. No matter what. 

I choose to keep moving. One way is to fully return to my vegan/vegetarian roots (pun implied with gusto!) To travel this world with as much joy as my body lets my heart express.

My body was cranky for this short term, but my heart was determined to be as Light and Bright as possible. Because good times and tough times ebb and flow. 

I can do that, and so can you!

I’ve seen you do it. You’re awesome at it!

Because I am a pragmatic optimist, I choose to walk in the Light, even when it’s dark outside or around us; how else can we move forward into what’s here and now and then upward and onward? 

Isn't it just like the universe to hand you a cup of herbal tea mixed with a tinge of an endemic? COVID is but another unexpected stop on a travel itinerary! 

Due to Hose Nose, there’s no podcast this week. Whine! I wouldn’t want you to suffer through it. The mic is ready when my face’s faucet has run its course. 

After all, you never know what kind of eccentric characters you'll meet while isolated in a quaint, dimly lit quarantine room. Hopefully, some angels from the nearby Italian country church. But just for a conversation, I’m not going anywhere. Not yet!

When we embrace the detours, we learn to dance in the rhythm of chaos and find spiritual connection and solace in the shared human experience of sneezes, wheezes, and solitude. 

Lesson 2. Speaking of the Symphony of Sneezes, Find Your Melody!

I’ve rediscovered a new rhythm inside of me. Cough, cough, cough, sneeze, and breathe. Cough, cough, sneeze, and breathe. It’s a cool 3/2 rhythm.  

It’s rather catchy and always reminds me how precious the breath of life is. 

Sometimes, we must remember how to rediscover our unique melody amidst the cacophony! 

Every sniffle reminds me to pause and tune into the universe's rhythm and my rhythm within the larger, to learn the subtle art of finding joy and spiritual awakening even amid a choir of wheezes. 

Life’s all about creating your harmonious symphony, one cough, Wheee, or Yahoo at a time, allowing the echoes of laughter to mingle with the subtle notes of sniffles and snarffles ( an original word, which is totally different than sniffles, of course!)

Lesson 3. The Sacred is in the Snarffles!

Snarffles are vastly important. They aren’t just when you have a cold. They are a voice that comes calling when you need to slow down. 

When you’re snarffling over your desk, at the sink, or looking at yourself in the mirror, snorting words under your breath, those are the beginning notes of snarffles. 

Snarfflers beware. To snarffle is your signal to pause. Breathe. And most likely, turn (or run) away from what you’re doing that brings out your inner snarffles. 

Snarffles are different from sniffles.  A sniffle draws breath in. 

A snarffles pushes air out. The beginnings of dragon fire!  

So if you find yourself sniffling or snarffling, slow down. There’s humor and holiness in the inconveniences you may be experiencing! 

Every sniff or snarff can be a lesson in humility, a nudge to remember that we are all wonderfully messy human beings, journeying together, trying to find the sacred amidst the mundane, the spiritual amongst the sniffles and snarffles of our lives.  

The cosmic whisper of the universe says, "Lighten up; the path to enlightenment is laden with the joy of the present moment, even if it’s filled with tissues.”

Remember, it's all about embracing the journey with all its unexpected pit stops, melodic sniffs, and sacred snarffles! 

Keep traveling, learning, and laughing. You might find the divine in the most unexpected places. 

With love, 
Laura