Salt Lake City

In my continual quest to appreciate the beauty of daily life, I snapped this photo Thursday morning as we were flying out of Wichita on my trip to Salt Lake City. By the way, this photo was taken on the Palm Treo 755 phone. My camera was not accessible in my bag and I didn't want to miss the shot so took it with the phone.

One of my seat mates on the Denver to Salt Lake leg of the trip mentioned what a pretty flight this was, and I was glad she reminded me of that. I took the opportunity to take some photos of the mountains I'd seen from a different perspective on my last trip to Salt Lake some years ago.





In some ways, it seems that trip was a lifetime ago. I was naive about so many things then. But I guess that is always how you feel when you look back. I'll probably feel I'm naive today when I look back on it with a few years more life experience. Before I digress into my life at the time of that trip, I'm going to get back to this one.

I was in Salt Lake for a conference that was one of the most interesting I've ever been to. It was very nontraditional and I loved that for a change. The gentleman who organized it included many Native American speakers, who gave a very different perspective on things.

Lacee Harris of the Ute Tribe was one of my favorite presenters. He spoke a great deal about the medicine wheel, the Mayan prophesies, and many other things. It was refreshing to hear a different perspective.



He was really expressive.



He was only one of the Native Americans who spoke to our small group. We also had a local Reiki practitioner - Lilli DeCair - come in, who brought along a couple of her students (Kent and John) who did Reiki on those of us who were interested.



I volunteered immediately, as I love having Reiki. I've had three different people do it on me now, and it has been different every time. Jocelyn, of course, is a Reiki practitioner, as is Andrea's friend, Marti. They have both done me a world of good on various occasions.



When we had this done the other day I was suffering from a tinge of altitude sickness - just a little bit. My only real symptom was that I couldn't breathe deeply and was getting winded with the least bit of exertion. "Exertion" in this instance being defined as walking across the room - a small room. That's a typical altitude sickness thing. Anyway, shortly after the Reiki, the feeling went away. It may have been that I just acclimated at that point and it was coincidence. Regardless, I was thankful.

One of the other things we did was make life maps. It was an interesting process. The final question on the list was to define your personal symbol. Well, it was easy for me to know what mine is - a star. I love stars. I have star shaped earrings with ankhs I bought in Egypt hanging from them. One of my favorite pins is a star shape. I have star shapes hanging in my house. Well, you get the idea.

But, the interesting thing about this process was that it caused me to consider why that is my symbol. I came up with two reasons.
1. I like it that the points of a star go in every direction - much like my mind goes every which way. I like it the idea of not having to pick a certain thing and stay with it.
2. I thought about how when you look at a map and there's a star marking, "You are here," and it occurred to me that that's a metaphor for always living in the moment. - you are here right now so make the most of it.

At our final lunch together on Saturday I asked everyone if they lived in the past, present or future. For me there is always only this moment - there's no tomorrow - just today - just this second.

We didn't get a chance to really talk about life maps, but it was a cool experience to do them.



The woman in the pink below is the very first MHA person I met. We shared a room in Denver at a training about a month after I started my job. We had a great time together and have enjoyed running into each other at various events since then.



Sometimes in life you meet someone you just know you're meant to meet. I had that spine-tingling feeling when I met Susan more than five years ago. Over the traditional fare at Cafe du Monde in New Orleans a couple of years after our initial meeting, I knew why Susan and I were supposed to know each other. In that one lengthy conversation, we finished our "business" together, but it's still delightful to see her whenever our paths cross. Oddly enough, they crossed in an airport once when we were both surprised to see the other. We have met up in DC, Florida, Louisiana, Utah, Colorado and California now, but not in North Dakota where she lives or Kansas where I live. I've never been to North Dakota, and she tells me she has a guest room, so who knows...

I had that same spine-tingling sensation this weekend when I met someone new - that it was a person I'm meant to connect with. It doesn't happen on every trip, but it is something I often feel while traveling.

I've thought before that those of us who like to travel probably do so to connect with people we are supposed to meet in this lifetime - for whatever reason. In order to facilitate that, we have to move around to different locales. I get, literally, a spine-tingling moment when I meet someone I know I'm meant to encounter. I had that feeling this weekend, although what "business" we have remains a mystery as of yet. Hopefully that will be revealed eventually, and it's always an interesting ride.

To top it off, one of the other attendees at the conference revealed that she used to read palms. She quit because it was eerie how often it was true. So, she quit. But, she came out of her self-imposed 20 year long exile and read my palms at dinner Saturday night. I've had it done a couple of times before, but this was the most interesting one. Although she doesn't know me well, she pegged me as an "adventure junkie," which, of course, is true.

All in all, it was a great couple of days, with some new concepts and interesting experiences, including that spine-tingling feeling of connecting with someone you're supposed to meet with. Life is always interesting.