Beneath One's Feet

"A journey of a thousand li starts beneath one's feet." (Laozi, Tao Te Ching, Chapter 64).

journey - 1. (noun) an act of traveling from one place to another.
     Tomorrow night, 9 pm, JFK, NY, I fly to Morocco.  It is a literal journey of 3,647 miles to Marrakech (5,870 kilometers, as I'd better get used to calculating).  It is far -- far from my home, my family and friends, my work.  Yet, not so far, truly, since I can have instant contact by text or Skype.  I think of Laura Ingalls Wilder and her family, her parents setting forth into the wide, wild prairie of undeveloped 19th century America, never to see their families again.  They might as well have been traveling to the moon.

 journey - 2. (noun) a long and often difficult process of personal change and development.
     Figuratively, this journey actually began three months ago when the seed of an idea began to germinate.  I feel the press of time.  It is finite.  It also is a blank screen, a nebula, an unknowable assemblage of possibilities or lost opportunities.  How much time remains?  I see that, at 54, I could have a year, a decade, or more -- what do I want to make of it?  I do not yet know.  This is a journey of discovery.

 faith - complete trust or confidence in someone or something.
courage - the ability to do something that frightens one.     
     This thousand-li-journey must begin with faith that I will discover how to make a better world and with courage to proceed into the unknown, giving my best impression of fearlessness.

      I look down.  I look ahead.  I take a step.

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