Hello friends and family,
We’ve been in Chaing Mai for about 4 days now, but without any technology and with the time change, we aren’t really sure how long its been. It’s so refeshing– the people, the culture, the lack of connection with our past. It’s a rebirth of the mind and soul; I’ve never felt so free, yet so at home. The unknowns have become the teachers of our personal journeys. We each have our own calls of action, reasons why we’re here, but we also realize that in order to reach those goals, we must work and live together as a family. Mindfulness (a sort of inner meditation) and gratitude have become daily staples for our minds.
Yesterday, we worked on coming up with some group agreements and discussing them. We all got kinda hungry after a while, so we split up and went to look for lunch. (good food. good food in thailand.) After we regrouped at the hostel, we took a Song Tao to a waterfall where we thought there was a place we could swim, but it took us a little while (but a beautiful walk!) to find it. And it rained…a lot. Then we dried off (sorta) and then took the Song Tao to a temple on a mountain. It was so beautiful. For me it was unlike anything I’ve ever seen. I loved the gold work and the green statues and the feeling of being barefoot and watching the way people kneeled in front of them. Ive gotten Hello (sa wat dee ka) and thank you (kap kun ka) down, but i have a ways to go with the language. Anyway, after we went back to the hostel, we went out to a big market where we all got some street food for dinner. I found this chicken-and-vegetable wrap-type-thing (yes! not a fan of cucumber though. i’ll have to remember that). There were also some artisan-type shops, where i ended up with 3 new pairs of pants… That’s good though, because apparently i went a bit minimalist on the clothes I brought, except underwear. I brought a lot of that. Gotta love the quick-dry stuff. And I’m really glad I bought those sandals last-minute before I left. Super-handy.
So as we’ve begun to embark on personal journeys, I think it has become evident that the group will have a beautiful journey together in these coming months. We leave you with this: “Do you know what you are? You are a manuscript of divine letter. You are a mirror reflecting a noble face. This universe is not outside of you. Look inside yourself; everything that you want, you are already that.” -Rumi
Much love,
-Maggie and Indigo