It is the Summer Solstice - Happy Solstice!

It's a bright and early Sunday morning. We are staying with an old friend, Diana, and her family down in southern Dorset not far from the coast. Yesterday we walked around Lyme Regis, a beautiful coastal town where "A French Liutenant's Woman" was filmed. It really was a lovely day - later in the afternoon Alea got to go swimming with Andrew, Diana's husband, in the Channel! She didn't even realized how cold she was until she got out and realized that her body was actually numb!

We head back to London today...and sadly have to give up our little rental car. We have loved this little car - I have gotten to drive on the left side of the road, shift gears with my left hand and really enjoy the little single country lanes that are carved out of the hedgerows.

Still wondering what the "Pilgrimage of Initiation" has been about for me...but the experience I have had in the past week or so is one of coming home and really feeling where I want to grow my roots.

I had mentioned in my last blog about my leaving here 27 years ago...in no way do I want what I wrote to be misconstrued. I have loved my last 27 years...and I am so blessed to be with Steve, our 4 wonderful children and to be living in Boulder, Colorado in our farmhouse with our community of family and friends nearby. My life is rich and full...and I am so grateful. My comment from the last blog was a reflection of how much I appreciate being in England and my being English...and that this is an aspect of me that cannot be ignored any longer. It is not that I wish these past years have unfolded in any way differently than they have. Not at all...now I just wish to bring all these relationships, people, and aspects of my life together into an integrated whole.

Perhaps this is what a pilgrimage is all about...to go on a physical journey in search of something, a spiritual truth, that actually has always existed within yourself. Yet it is the journey itself that is the catalyst for experiencing the Truth...that even though it is always already within, the journey provides the means to actually acknowledge, experience and embrace the truth that is within...and that for each of us, this truth is a different reflection on some deep inherent truth that we all share, yet we each get to - actually have to - experience in our own way, with our own slant on it.

And for me, for whatever reason, this journey has been about coming home...coming home to myself, to what is true and right for me...to accept and embrace all of who I am.

Not sure if I am making any sense...as I am literally processing as I type. I will continue to be with all of these thoughts and awarenesses, and see where they go and how they develop. But the thought of COMING HOME has been coming up quite a lot over this past week since my visit to Rosslyn Chapel a week ago. Was it really only a week ago? It seems like we have experienced lifetimes since our visit to Edinburgh last weekend.

It looks like it is going to be a beautiful day. We have the morning here with Diana and Andrew and family, and then we are off to meet Carol, an English friend who was living in Boulder and has just moved back to England, at Avebury - a circle of ancient stones that makes Stonehenge look small.

I had thought that I wanted to go to Stonehenge on the Solstice, which I did quite by accident 28 years ago. We got to go up to the stones as the Druids were completing their rituals and ceremonies. I had no idea at that time that it was the solstice, or that going up to the stones was anything special...I have since learned that the stones are now cordioned off. So we will drive by Stonehenge and see what the crowds are like, and perhaps stop for a while. But our real destination is Avebury and to walk the circle of stones that encircle the town. To walk a circle of stones as we come full circle on our journey, on our pilgrimage of initiation, and complete our travels with 3 days in London.

We then head back to Colorado on Thursday! In the meantime, I am excited to share one of my favorite cities with Alea - and to go up the London Eye, walk the Silver Jubilee walk all around London (during which I got to look Warren Beatty in the eye filming a scene from "Reds" 28 years ago!), go to a show (perhaps "Wicked") and just take in the town. We are staying with my godfather, John Smith, who lives right in the center of the city so we will be able to walk and take the tube everywhere. I will be sure to write from London and let you know how it all is!