Found some new luggage in the bowels of a half filled flea market in Sanford Florida. In the past I had always attended this carnival atmosphere on Saturdays and Sundays: always busy and crowded and body close with human scent and sweat. Never realized how deserted it was on Friday afternoons. Amazing, since traffic is at its peak in the Sun City on Fridays. Everyone anxious to escape the office doldrums to find happy hours and Disney rides, or beach rentals for relief from the stress and heat .

Someone on a radio talk station mentioned that thousands move to this area every week. The environment is sadly showing the real stress of the situation.

I was one of those thousands twenty years ago that moved here for business and better winters than the 20 below blizzards of upstate New York. Since then the smell of orange blossoms have disappeared, the lakes struggle to breath, new species infest and replace native creatures, aquifers stressed to the max causing more and more sinkholes and pavement additions increase the reflection of heat altering the weather patterns on a local scale.

So I am told that in the time of the bible there were only three million people in the known world. ..in comparison to the 7 billion that now inhabit the planet. And a good portion of them in condos on New Symerna Beach.

So anyways, I have my new luggage and it has a nice handle so I can pull rather than carry me luggage on the long treks between plane and train to get to Brittany.

We received as a bonus on our ticket to Paris…a 2 night stay in London at a posh hotel. So we are looking into what would be the best touristy thing to do for our brief stay.

Any suggestions?

I leave for London first on Tuesday the 28^th of February,2006. Where is Terrie when I need her. All these 2s must mean something.

Taking just the one piece of luggage and 2 carry ons. Minimizing everything. Taking only what will be used. But then that is pretty much the way I live. If it doesn’t fit in me car it is useless. Hoping to move up to a van soon.

Today is Saturday and I have one last day to complete a mural in a church out in Midway. This one is in addition to the Last Supper Mural I painted in the Sanctuary behind the pulpit I will get pics to post later today Just a few more egrets and herons to complete then I can concentrate on finishing my packing.

Having dinner with my oldest daughter and her family this evening to say goodbyes.

February 13,2006

And so, it begins. After years and mountains of synchronistic events and trivialities, I am going to take a trip to France. I have known for a long time I would go there. No real way to say why I felt this but it has been as sure as I know anything else in this vague place of earthly delights. No need to tell. It’s all in the play now, and the unfolding of a story found in the gathering of pieces and parts that I hold dear and sacred. I have so little to back up the seeming real, so all this will be is a series of fortunate events experienced, revealed, discovered, remembered and portrayed.

I have decided to let it unfold like the mystery it is and give freedom to the imaginal. So if it seems a bit fantastic or unreal, just consider it poetic license.

This is a time in my life for formulating personal myth and a legacy for the ages to come.

All events, up until now, are scattered in me writings and may well be for generations (me children and grandchildren) to sort, if they see it as tangent to the path being formulated on this journey.

Hoping that I do not put forth too much personal philosophy or insight to the point of ad nauseam, I will attempt to paint a portrait that captures the reader in the events as they unfold. And if something inspires poems along the way I will insert them too, to be interpreted as they may.

Take to mind that all I write will be part fact and part fiction/imaginal. I will tell you how I see it through me eyes and heart alone.

So lift fair glass o wine and open our eyes as the veils lifts for both the seer and the seen.

Join me in a journey meant to confirm/affirm our right to magic and the inspirations of the everydays.