The Daily Mantra is dedicated to the journey of enlightenment, and hopes to encourage its readers to put aside preconceived notions in order to allow themselves to be open to all the lessons and opportunities the Universe presents. I'd therefore like to illustrate this idea with a tale of serial serendipities from a recent trip I took to New York.
We spend so much of our time traveling these days, whether it's the daily commute or long distance travel. Rather than becoming frustrated about the time we think we're losing, we can make the most of it by listening to something that can enrich our minds as we go. You can pop a CD into your car stereo or download a book to an mp3 player or ipod and experience the wait as extra time for you.
Sounds True has a wide range of audio programs on spiritual topics to enlighten and expand your mind. You can get academic lectures to brush up on those forgotten or never attempted subjects at The Teaching Company or The Great Lecture Library. Language courses are available for download at both Squidoo.com and Loquella.com, while Audible.com has what used to be known as "books on tape", but since cassettes are going the way of the dodo, they shall heretofore to be known as "audiobooks".
If you are on a train, plane or other mode of transportation that doesn't require your attention to operate and navigate, you can always catch up on the latest film releases to DVD on a portable DVD player or your laptop. Many cell phones these days allow you to download and view video content as well. You Tube offers a bit of anything and everything, while both the Discovery and National Geographic channels offer DVDs and downloads to expand your horizon beyond what you can see in your immediate surroundings.
Let technology work for you to help make potential times of frustration into opportunities for education and enlightenment.
The new trend in the travel industry offers more than a chance to get away. Now you can also find a package offering transformation. While yoga holidays are increasingly popular, there are also vacations centered around meditation, workshops or detoxification — potentially life-changing experiences that may help you find inner peace and a new outlook.
Ken Johnson, owner of Retreats Online, offers a list of yoga and other getaways in the U.S. and abroad for between $100 and $500 a day. "People are dissatisfied with their life for some reason and they want to get a fresh start," Johnson said. "So they go to a yoga retreat or a detox retreat so they can learn how to get (life) going in a different direction."
So why have these types of vacations become increasingly popular? Is it that Americans don’t know how to relax without instruction? Or are we so tightly wound that two weeks a year isn’t enough time off to allow us to relax on our own? Maybe we need to make the most of the time off that we have, so we try to do everything in one vacation –– travel and learn new techniques for living. Perhaps we feel that we need to seek out ways to connect with like-minded individuals and meaning outside of our daily lives.
Author Carolyn Myss, is offering a workshop in Scotland based on her latest book Entering the Castle. In the promotional literature it states: “Too many people are in pain because they feel they need to leave their homes to be happy and to be spiritual.” But perhaps our challenge as spiritual beings having a human experience is to learn to blend our two worlds. We can find ways to be spiritual while living our normal lives, without having to remove ourselves to experience transformation. If taking one of these vacations can help us to shift our perceptions and return to our lives with a new understanding and ability to integrate the spiritual and material to live fully, then it is certainly well worth it.
Butterflies are easy-to-love insects; they don't buzz, sting, or invade your Cheerios. What's more, they're really pretty, especially compared to, say, the Madagascar Hissing Cockroach.
So even the most "eh" of environmentalists will be pleased to hear that the once-endangered El Segundo Blue, a butterfly native to the Los Angeles International Airport area (!) and surrounding beaches is beginning to make a comeback.
Development of the Blue's habitat, and replacement of native plants like the buckwheat the butterfly thrives on in favor of erosion-controlling iceplant threatened the fluttering lovelies, but with the help of extensive native plant restoration, their numbers are rebounding. But if the native plant restoration project doesn't continue to expand, the El Segundo Blue will stay on the endangered list.
Local homeowners are less than enthralled with the relandscaping of the area, however -- some have complained about the less green appearance of the native plants that have been restored and the increased sand erosion. But if the butterflies could retort, I'm sure they'd complain right back -- about the ridiculousness of insisting that native plants be eradicated from their habitat. For the humans, it's a matter of aesthetics, but for the butterflies, it's a matter of life and death.
Two guys travel across the US in scooters going no faster than 29 mph. A joke? An adventure. Since I spent 14 hours yesterday driving 650 miles in the desert (including Death Valley), I can identify with their desert experience. Except that I love the desert, whereas you could say the desert kicked their asses...
We broke down in Death Valley, I hate the desert and until you go for yourself you will never know what it is like. I lost my mind, Pete and I were seeing things, we ran out of water it was terrible. It was 130 degrees and 103 at night- so bad. I do not know what else to say. I can say with all honesty that being in the desert like that pushed me mentally to no place I have been before, I can’t even begin to explain what was going on…Oh and did I mention that I need to get my scooter serviced cause it is going 19mph max speed. It was horrible.
Otherwise like I said before we are in Nevada, we met a guy at the bar named Jason and he and his girlfriend took us in. We are crashing here tonight; it is amazing how many good people you meet along the way. I am exhausted and I have a beard. So with that said we will push to vegas…Be happy…endure the heat….and hope that I can get some servicing to the scooter.
Here's a video of their experience. I can say, that being in the desert is no joke. It is a harsh environment that pushes you places you would never willingly go. That is why I like the place.
Another hat tip to the mantra of: the journey is the destination.
The new trend in the travel industry offers more than a chance to get away. Now you can also find a package offering transformation. While yoga holidays are increasingly popular, there are also vacations centered around meditation, workshops or detoxification — potentially life-changing experiences that may help you find inner peace and a new outlook. 
