Follow SSIS Travels Online

Here’s a note from Louis Prussack at Spring Street International School, and links to some blogs they’ve set up so we can all follow their travels…

Dear Families and Friends,

Keeping in mind that it is hard to say what updates will occur along the way, where internet connection may be spotty at best, the following blogs are set up:

ssissouthwest.blogspot.com
ssisethiopia.blogspot.com
ssisguatemala.blogspot.com

Before we left, the school met together where each of us had a chance to reflect on the year. In closing, I shared a short piece by John O’Donoghue which is pasted below. May we all have safe travels that enrich us and challenge us and bring us back safe.

For the Traveler
Every time you leave home,
Another road takes you
Into a world you were never in.

New strangers on other paths await.
New places that have never seen you
Will startle a little at your entry.
Old places that know you well
Will pretend nothing
Changed since your last visit.

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:

How you unexpectedly attune
To the timbre in some voice,
Opening in conversation
You want to take in
To where your longing
Has pressed hard enough
Inward, on some unsaid dark,
To create a crystal of insight
You could not have known
You needed
To illuminate
Your way.

When you travel,
A new silence
Goes with you,
And if you listen,
You will hear
What your heart would
Love to say.

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.

May you travel safely, arrive refreshed,
And live your time away to its fullest;
Return home more enriched, and free
To balance the gift of days which call you.

~ John O’Donohue ~

You can support the San Juan Update by doing business with our loyal advertisers, and by making a one-time contribution or a recurring donation.