Posts

The Way of the Couch - Walking The Freud Promenade

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Dear Fellow Travellers, So here are the couches - oops, benches! - and the quotes from Freud along the Freud Promenade. Each photo collage shows the bench and the view from the bench, so that you can both pause and settle down on the bench and take in the view.  Should you like to walk the way of the couch, you will need to begin to associate freely with your own thoughts and perceptions, dreams, wishes (most especially those unfulfillable ones, squashed down to avoid conflict and reappearing in dreams and in waking life in a thousand masquerades and disguises.). You will see how impossible it is to translate into the thin thread of words the lush multi-dimensionality of what you see (not even the shape and color of one tree can be squeezed into words), what you hear (it is spring, there are the sounds of the birds, the workers in the fields, the construction workers, the passing tourists and local people of all ages), the scent of lilacs and so many other blooming flowers, wild and cu

Good Fences Make Good Neighbors

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Today is Sunday, May 22. Tomorrow early we will take a bus to Bolzano where we will take a train to Verano and another to Venice, where we will take our Covid tests required for reentry to the US. Then Tuesday we fly to Frankfurt, then Seattle and Wednesday drive to Anacortes and ride the ferry home to Orcas.  Last night the evening was so warm that several guests ate dinner on the patio outside. Chris and I joined them.  We ended up visiting and the interactions reminded us both of meetings when we walked the Camino. Two women had come for the weekend from Bremen (which happens to be the port Chris departed from at age 4 on the ship by the same name that carried her and her mother and brother to Anerica). A couple had walked 90 kilometers in the last week - with their dog - and were off for Bolzano (partly walking, partly by train) this morning.  We continue to enjoy interacting with Katia Beklaner and her niece Linda (and occasionally her husband). Here’s a picture of Katia. Hospital

The Way of the Cross

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Dear Friends and companions in imagination, This is not my usual sort of post. To read my post about the last few days of our Europe adventures (and for an introduction to this post) please read my previous (May 19) post.  Trauma trigger warning. This post is not for everyone. If you have been hurt by the Catholic Church or any other form of Christianity or organized religion, this post might stir up disturbing memories. Even if you have no trauma associated directly with religion this post invites vivid imagining of torture and death which could stir up painful concerns about our own future and that of our world.  On the other hand, this post might possibly make you feel - as it does me, thanks to your imagined presence beside me - less alone, and so offer consolation, connection, and hope.   Note: Although the first two trails I walked had 13 stations of the cross,  Padraig O Tuama says that 14 is the more usual number. His prayer-poem includes 14 stations. The last trail with statio