This was one of the weirder nights of my entire pilgrimage, no doubt. After Ivan left me at the Dunkin Donuts, I drank some of the Coke he had given me and tried to sleep on a row of chairs on the roadside patio there. Almost needless to say, not even the massive fatigue I was feeling allowed me to get anything more than a few hours of uber-restless sleep, so I woke (still essentially in the middle of the night) and began to walk onward along the now car-less (and now extremely dark, almost pitch-black) roadway. I ambled slowly but steadily through the towns of Lisbon and Poplar Springs, where I unsuccessfully tried to sleep on the Bolder restaurant patio sofa there. And yet it was still soaking wet from the recent rains so onward I sauntered into the night, eventually making it to a bench outside a local veterinary clinic. The motion sensor overhead kept turning the lights on every time a rolled over, and so the sleep there was fitful at best, and yet I was too tired to go any further at the time, and remained there for the last few remaining hours of the night …

“Concerning the body: ask not to be free from all injury or discomfort, for when the body is free from all forms of pain, a sloth born of comfort quickly arises. And where comfort arises, growth becomes regression, and courage dies in ease … In a world where everything comes at a price, if you’re choosing to stay kind, if you’re choosing to value your dignity and your integrity, if your choosing to understand and embrace the smile of solitude, if you’re choosing to employ your faculties to understand the real questions of Life’s greater Meaning, then you’re alive, much more alive than your ego’s more human dreams could have ever made you feel. Because no matter what, when sunset hits the night, and the day comes to a close, you know you’ve done your part, you know you have embraced one more day with gratitude and grace and gusto, with a formidable & sincere zeal for Life and an invincible spirit of human understanding that stands firm-pillared in both Faith & Courage. And then no matter how many voices shrill your mind, the echo of your Soul reverberates through your Heart and enlightens every inch of your mind, body and spirit. And you know in that moment how proud the Universe must be to see the faithfulness and the strength and the resilience and the integrity of the Life you have chosen. In that instant you honor the very mold of YOU that was forged in the fire of the same stardust that glitters upon the night sky, at times becoming a beacon to others while at others lying beautifully hidden but always there, always alive, always shimmering, always true.” ~ inspired by Debatrayee Banerjee

Filed under: Peace Pilgrimage #02: Walking HOME (2019) by Scaughdt