Chance Meetings

Does coincidence or fate bring people together? Maybe both. Maybe something altogether different. However, with age and experience, one simply cannot escape the notion that some force or a greater purpose is behind some meetings.

I recently flew South, and on the first leg of my journey over several hours, my seatmate gave me great insight into several things I need to do to get my professional and personal lives in better order. The timing could not have been better. I am in great need of coaching now. We parted, and I left invigorated and resolved.

A couple of days later, in a training session among 27 people with whom I presumably had no common connection, I found two who worked at the same place in England I had been nearly a quarter century ago. These young men were still in diapers then, and yet we discovered we even had some common acquaintances. It was fun to catch up with news of old friends through new ones.

On the return flight, an adjacent traveler enthralled me with tales of sacrifice and hardship during two-and-a-half years in the steamy, soggy China-Burma-India theater of World War II. After the war, he built a homestead and raised a family on 160 acres not far from where I live now. He still cuts firewood and bales hay on the same land. He is 87. The history lessons moved me, and I came away in awe of his obvious courage, strength, and determination.

With over 150 other passengers on the airplane, with hundreds of potential students for the course, what would bring us together?

Weird, huh?

http://psychologytoday.com/articles/pto-20040715-000008.html

Knock, Knock

Opportunity knocks. A painful transition looms. The alternative is complacency coupled with suppressed regret. Hope for the best, either way.

http://www.leadershipnow.com/risktakingquotes.html

Look Into My Eyes

The human condition, properly experienced, involves deep introspection interpsersed with expressions of hope as well as great pits of despair. "Tomorrow is another day!" Life imitates art and vice versa. Failure to look into the mirror is a closed-minded way of demonstrating cowardice.

Eyes tell all. Comtempt or compassion, repulsion or attraction, the eyes emit the entire spectrum of emotion. Through the eyes, we communicate our innermost convictions, our expectations...for both of us.

Alas, the tendency is to look past ourselves and towards others for blame.

http://www.iep.utm.edu/i/introspe.htm

Into the Fire

One might easily believe the desert is the complete antithesis of the arctic. Yet both have many things in common. They are ruthless, often unforgiving of the careless and the uninitiated. They are also great reserves of aesthetic inspiration, expanses of tortured landscape, seemingly empty to casual observers. But humans have clung to life, even flourished, in both places for thousands upon thousands of years.

Not far from Las Vegas, the Valley of Fire State Park handily serves up evidence of the long struggle humans have endured surrounded by breathtaking beauty. Mysterious petroglyphs are a few steps up and away from the pavement at Atlatl Rock. A witness comes away with many questions no one living can answer with certainty.

http://parks.nv.gov/vf.htm

Snapshots & Fortitude

My love affair with the aurora borealis began immediately after moving to Alaska in 1998. The oft-fleeting, dancing lights inspire equally mythology and scientific study. Under a deep polar night sky penetrated by lavender-fringed drapes of green, blue, and red, a viewer can easily swoon and forget their frigid, harsh surroundings...at least for a little while.

Cold-burned flesh and frozen accouterment plague the Northern Lights photographer. Mother Nature has a way of beating back those who would taste too much of Her sweet offering. Spent, I warm myself inside and wait impatiently for another late-night liaison, one more chance to re-capture the beauty. Finally, summer comes, and there are no more. My heart aches for another icy embrace.

http://photo.net/photos/lighttrekker