It is 9pm and I am alone, on my return flight to Melbourne, and although the past 4 and a half weeks I've been allowed the luxury of reflecting on my trip, it is now at 35000 feet flying over Istanbul, I feel a sense of myself connecting with the enormity of where I have been for the past month.
As I head home, I feel like I'm returning to the person I need to be.
I have spent an enormous amount of my life feeling, thinking and believing I can BE better, but in Santorini I was stripped bare. I couldn't hide from the nature of the island, and the deep confrontation was myself, and on every occasion where my boundaries were pushed I became extremely aware of my heart.
Waking on the first morning in Oia, I walked out onto the landing of our villa. I stood and became suddenly aware of the silence. Looking across the caldera the view of Thirasia, the natural enormity astounded me. My heart started thumping realising my life had become visions of man made spectacles. My once connectedness to nature had ceased. Yet again something I was so unaware of. Childhood memories of the King Valley come flooding back, the silence of the place reflected images of my childhood. It was so present I could feel it beating in me, moment upon moment in my ears.
This was my heart.
How could two places, geographically so different be so similar in my being. Mornings in the King Valley, where dew and mist draped the earth and the sky and mountains met. The sun slowly would rise behind our house and the deep green rising to life from the night time fog. The sun would break the darkness.
Eyes closed now the vision so clear, even though I am conjuring a 20 year old memory. Cobwebs snagged me on my morning walk to our outside toilet and the brown of dead leaves blowing in the cold of breaking dawn air. The silence indescribable, and there I was in Oia, feeling those same feelings where my voice was no longer larger or stronger than my thought.
That was my heart.
