Solar eclipse shining in the sea

Instead of hitting the floor running, uncrumple your soul first.

Mel,   Laura came to Greenland with me. We got home last night.   Before this year, we used to almost never travel together. Six kids, mountains of responsibility. Me running the business, she being MamaLaura. Zone defense.   Now that the kids are mostly self-sufficient... now that we can complete a sentence without constant interruption... our way of being together has changed.    In January for the first time, I took her to my fabled “thin places” in Ireland. She fell in love with the land and the magic grass, just as I had. And now Greenland.   Greenland might be the most under-rated travel destination on earth.   Greenland is not for everybody. If you demand hot sun and shimmering beaches; if cool summer days at 50F / 10C sounds like misery to you, don’t bother.   But... if a light jacket and cool breezes and midnight sun sound like joy for you... dazzling resplendent icebergs in glistening deep blue... the freshest air your lungs have ever breathed... if the scent of tundra and jagged mountain crags call your name...    ...Then a spot you may never have given a moment’s thought to could be your next happy place.    We were booked to go home yesterday, August 12. That was also the day of a solar eclipse stretching from Iceland down to Spain.    We were en route from Greenland to Iceland, then to Chicago.    IF our plane was on time, we MIGHT get a shot at seeing the eclipse through the Reykjavik airport windows between flights.   But our plane was delayed 2 hours. Plus, 150,000 who traveled to Iceland to see the eclipse were about to miss it because it was overcast.    Late in the flight, the stewardess announced that the eclipse was about to begin.   From above the clouds, we would be able to witness the whole thing out of the right side of the plane.    At our seats, the wing and engine blocked our view of the sun. It looked like we were going to have to settle for other peoples’ pictures.   The sky went dark. Far out on the horizon I could see “dawn.”    Then I looked down. Through thin clouds we could make out the reflection of the sun and moon in the ocean below.   Because the plane happened to be going east, we experienced about 2 minutes of totality.   I snapped these photos:     A wave of cheers rippled through the plane as we all celebrated a singular event in history. None of us passengers could have planned this. All relished it together.                                                             ~   A poignant memory kept returning during the trip.   I was in my 20s in my “slammin’ down motivational tapes” phase. I remember driving through ghetto neighborhoods seeing unemployed people standing around on the street corner with nothing to do. I was slightly jealous of them. They had time on their hands. I had kids in diapers and debt and obligations.     I subscribed to a travel adventure magazine. There was an article where a guy was dropped off in the middle of Alaska for a week. He described how peaceful it felt to walk through virgin tundra, to absorb the quietness and solitude.   It took days for him to tease the frantic “big city” pace out of his system. At first he couldn’t synchronize with the glacial pace of the arctic. Lichen grows a millimeter a year. Tundra takes centuries.    But finally he was able to just... BE.   That story haunted me for years. I craved that in the worst possible way. ALL OF IT was out of my reach financially and logistically.    I could only dream of what it might be like to sit in the tundra and watch a caribou walk by.    I dreamed of it anyway.                                                             ~   Travel is a great gift. IF you can go to your happy place, go.    Yet: the single best habit I’ve cultivated is Renaissance Time each morning. Even if you can’t visit your favorite spot physically, you can travel there spiritually. Instead of bounding out of bed and hitting the floor running, you uncrumple your soul first.   The first Renaissance was 500 years ago. We’re overdue for another.   A New Renaissance becomes possible when certain things speed up.    But it still doesn't happen until some of us slow down.    Running 6000 RPM all the time is a false economy. It FEELS like you’re getting ahead, but you don’t. You just burn the candle at both ends until there’s nothing left, even as you tell yourself it’s so virtuous.   Frantic is just... frantic.   Sanity starts HERE and NOW. Not 30 years from now.    Seize the day, Perry   If you’d rather not receive *any* more emails from us Unsubscribe Perry S. Marshall & Assoc 805 Lake Street #295 Oak Park, Illinois 60301 United States