Ready, set...

GO!!!

T-minus 7 hours until I hop on a flight for Dallas, my gateway to Mexico D.F. [Mexico City]! It's been a long time coming, and I am so soo ready to let the sails loose and go off to a marvelous adventure. Am I mentally packed? Nope. Physically packed? Heck no. Am I ready?? Well, I will have to be tomorrow!

Last summer, I embarked on a different adventure. Flashback one year to date: Maggie was in Zambezi, Zambia, Africa with the CLP Servant Leadership Program. Hell of a first-time international-travel experience! We had a group blog that the [roughly] 13 of us took turns writing on that was an amazing opportunity for us to share our journey with our friends and family. One year later, I realize that I most definitely left my heart in Africa, as for the past few days I have been religiously checking their 2010 blog for the latest update. It's an amazing group that will undoubtedly have some amazing insights on their experiences. I will continue to check it religiously, I encourage you to check it out too: www.gonzagainzambezi.com.

My friend Liz Purdy introduced this poem to the 2009 Zambezi group last summer, and I have found resonance with it ever since. Dr. Josh Armstrong, the director of the Zambezi program, posted the same poem on their blog this year, he beat me to it so now I feel like a copycat posting it on mine! Here it is though:

For the Traveler by John O'Donohue

When you travel, you find yourself

Alone in a different way,

More attentive now

To the self you bring along,

Your more subtle eye watching

You abroad; and how what meets you

Touches that part of the heart

That lies low at home:

A journey can become a sacred thing:

Make sure, before you go,

To take the time

To bless your going forth,

To free your heart of ballast

So that the compass of your soul

Might direct you toward

The territories of spirit

Where you will discover

More of your hidden life,

And the urgencies

That deserve to claim you.

May you travel in an awakened way,

Gathered wisely into your inner ground;

That you may not waste the invitations

Which wait along the way to transform you.

I look very much forward to updating the blog, which I hope to do a few times a week. Next time you hear from me, I'll be in Cuernavaca!

"The world is grand, awfully big and astonishingly beautiful, frequently thrilling"

- Dorothy Kilgallen

Besos,

Margarita

(Margaret = Margarita in spanish!)