If driving along Route 50 through Kansas had been something of an endurance test on the westward trip, by the time I was midway along the eastbound return, I began wishing that a strong wind might carry Kukla and me off to somewhere in the vicinity of Oz for awhile. After all, Kukla had never met a wingèd monkey or a wizard before... and other such daydreaming notions as that. Besides, I was getting hungry for something more healthy than the Fritters n' Groundhog menu special that I didn't eat at the roadside diner which shall remain anonymous. Would it do, I wondered, to sit by the side of a silo and wait, like the man in the tale of The Food of Paradise* until some celestial morsel should just come my way?
But as you may already know, thoughts do have wings - and consequences. And sometimes the light or the atmospheric pressure, or whatever it is that gives rise to moments of synchronicity do seem to cause a celestial penny or two to drop. By such means beyond my comprehension I very soon found myself whizzing past a sign that read "Nature's Paradise". "What's this?" I asked aloud. "Make a U-turn!" said the GPS Lady who wasn't there. So, I did. And, sure enough, there it was: a little store in the middle of The Land of Silos offering the very food of Paradise I had been dreaming on. So, in I went. Wouldn't you?
I know that somewhere in amongst the many words I've posted here I shared one of my favorite quotes from the writings of Hermann Hesse - this one from the story, Demian:
"Wo befreundete Wege zusammenlaufen, da sieht die ganze Welt für eine Stunde wie Heimat aus."
(Where paths of affinity intersect, there the whole world can seem like home for a time.)
And this was so for me in the light of a moment in which I knew I had met a kindred spirit, a fellow traveler. Not a tourist, mind you, but a traveler with a true Gypsy Soul. When one meets such people there can be something like an immediate recognition and understanding... the language of affinity. But the remarkable thing was also that I had, earlier that day, been thinking about the travels of my youth, the travels of so many of my generation... Rumi's "wanderers, worshipers, lovers of leaving" who had - perhaps without ever having read Jung - were taking his advice to bid farewell to their libraries and "wander with human heart through the world". And I was thinking it rather a pity that so few young people today have known the joys and sorrows, the learning that comes of setting out into the Unbekannte alone or with "Birds of a Feather" towards some distant Conference of the Birds. Yet here was one such a one who had journeyed as I had - as we had - nearly half a century ago, in a world and time governed by an entirely different Zeitgeist. One who had crossed boundaries of both Time and Place. And in this chance (?) meeting I suddenly felt hopeful for a whole generation. And it is a very good thing to feel hope in these times.
"To know there is someone, here or there, with whom you can feel there is understanding in spite of distances, or thoughts unexpressed - that can make this life a garden."
____ Goethe
* A story from the collection, Tales of the Dervishes, by Idries Shah
Wait, I need to know more! Do tell!
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