Day 1: Travel to Honolulu and on to Molokai

As I type these words the bright screens above us on the new Boeing 767 indicate that we have traveled over three thousand mile since our departure from Dallas earlier this morning. We are flying at more than 34,000 feet through the vast sky over the Pacific, hurtling along at nearly 600 miles and hour.  It is an unfathomable -54F outside the plane and we are about ninety minutes from landing in Honolulu where it is currently partly cloudy, with a light breeze, and 81F on the ground. This is how we automatically and habitually orient ourselves, isn't it - measurements, numbers, comparisons, evaluations, anticipations, and memories? Sitting in this relatively comfortable seat, drinking endless bottles of water, and feeling rested from a brief nap, it is easy to forget that all of this is a strange thing to do to a body.  Spending the equivalent of an entire workday (nearly 8 hours) in a pressurized cabin in order to travel to a dormant volcano (now called an island) rising from the ocean floor in the middle of the ocean is stressful challenge. Not to mention that the day will somehow be 29 hours long and even though it is bright and sunny as we travel on to Molokai, my body will know that it will be midnight, not 7:00 PM as shown on the face of my iPhone.  The phone simply changes without any apparent resistance or stress.  My body, however, takes time, and that is what we will begin doing tomorrow - taking time to sit in silence and stillness and the fullness of the moment.  I hope you will take some time to sit, even for only a few minutes, and enjoy your life just as it is.