"In Antarctica I experienced a certainty amidst the morass of thoughts and emotions and preoccupations seething inside my balaclavaed head. This is what I glimpsed out of the corner of my eye. It wasn't an answer, or the kind of respite offered by a bottle of calamine lotion on a sunburn. It was something that put everything else -- everything that wasn't Antarctica -- in true perspective. I felt as if I were realigning my vision of the world through the long lens of a telescope. The landscape was intact, complete and larger than my imagination could grasp. It was free of the diurnal cycle that locked us earthlings into the ineluctable routine of home. It didn't suffer famines or social unrest. It was sufficient unto itself, untainted by the tragedy of the human condition...
It wasn't a permanent diversion. I knew I would meet my demons again and again before my life ended. God didn't appear to me in any particular shape or form -- if anything he became even more nebulous. But I heard the still, small voice. I had never known certainty like it. I felt certain that a higher power exists, and that every soul constitutes part of a harmonious universe, and that the human imagination can raise itself beyond poverty, social condemnation and the crushing inevitability of death. For the first time in my life, I didn't sense fear prowling around behind a locked door inside my head, trying to find a way out. It was as if a light had gone on in that room, and I had looked the beast in the eye."
-- Sara Wheeler, from Terra Incognita: Travels in Antarctica
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This is brave and daring, in my book. To boldly express yourself from whatever feeling you are feeling that day. That's courage! We talk so little, compared to old days, but I read these and I hear you and feel you sitting next to me drinking a coffee. Write for healing, write for expression, and write for us who love you.
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