My heart: a wildly improvised thing, a simple machine, all of wire and string

delicate, sputtering, powerful

My mind:  a well-framed window askew in a mudbrick wall standing with no ceiling in the vast landscape of me and you

My body: an electrical storm grounded to the Earth spinning in space

My spirit: a light breath of the grace that the Hurricane blows in each tiny flow

I had a dream:
I cradle my dear friend's head
in a sweet hotspring at dusk or dawn
and nothing can go wrong.
We say not a word at the visit of Hummingbird on wing,
and knowing we wouldn't see each other for a year,
we shed no tears
as I recall another dream:

I imagine tending a fire by the stream
down from my once-lover's home up the hill
where I try clumsily to help in the kitchen,
and think to give her new husband and baby a sapling.
I do not stay, we do not sing,
but simply are together as I move, softly, to other dreams:

Everything moves, I miss half the cues,
and the train's always leaving.
I lead seekers through muraled labyrinths
and battle nausea on shoot-out seas
where huge beasts –that I heard about from my ancestors– leap
flashing surprising colors and elegance in flight in Amazonian moonlight
before they dive back down into rivers divine
that seen from above join to make the infinite sign
with tributaries radiating serpentine out–
visions of my soul: rhizome veins that connect what they will when I can
be still.

Expanding Horizons

I was going to post each chapter of this video one-by-one, but I've decided just to release the whole shebang here, and refer you to this page if you want to see the 8 stand-alone videos.

So...

Here is Expanding Horizons, as I have been thinking of the project, or as Where There Be Dragons, who commissioned it, is calling it: How We Travel.

This is a collaborative, education- and community-based video project, featuring the work of Dragons' students, educators, and partner communities worldwide. I co-wrote the script in collaboration with the Dragons community of experiential educators and guides.  I then directed instructors and students in 15 countries on 4 continents, and personally filmed in 7 countries. Total, including the musicians, we were well over 100 contributors in as many communities.

My deepest gratitude to everyone who participated, who are too many to name, though I've done my best to credit everyone who had a direct contribution here.

This video draws from Dragons’ Summer, Semester, Gap-Year, College Accredited, and Custom programs worldwide. Dragons students and instructors recorded all of the images, words, and music in the field, with help and inspiration from local communities. The relationship with local communities is an integral component of the Dragons experience, as families share their homes, temples, villages, music, and wisdom with our students, and through them, with the world. We have aspired to honor, and do justice to, this relationship through this video, both in product and process.

Enjoy.

How We Travel: Dragons Summer Abroad & Semester Programs from Where There Be Dragons on Vimeo.