Please do go visit the World Trade Center Memorial Gardens.  Although I have to say that when my husband and I shared with our good friend, Adam, who has lived in NYC/NJ his whole life his response to us was that he still couldn’t bring himself to go there. And he works a few blocks over.  I understand and I live way far away in Texas.

Still, when we walked into the Memorial park (you can go on-line and make reservations for a pass), I became mute, grabbed the info brochure and sat down to see what was there and what was in process.  Where the Twin Towers had been are now pools (North and South pools), but it’s much more than that.

I think the pools are very classy and perfectly capture so many of our deep feelings.  All around the lip of the pool are the engraved names of all who perished on 9-11-01.  The water flows down the walls and then into a pool the size of the base of the towers and then into a smaller hole that no matter where you stand you cannot see the bottom.  Anyone who has ever felt deep grief or pain, understands the powerful imagery of that pool.

The other touching living being on the site is the Callery Pear Tree.   I don’t think they allowed camera’s or cell phone use on the site, but even if they had…it wouldn’t have felt right to take a photo.  Still. I did ask one of the people giving information about her and if I could touch her and was told that many people wanted to touch her and that she probably needed that.  I could feel all kinds of life pouring through her and also deep grief.  A lot of times we humans are ignorant of the animals, plants and trees that also feel the energy and trauma of what happens to them as well as what goes on around them.  Important to consider.

Anyway, if you are a New Yorker or from the surrounding communities and have felt that going to the site would be too much for you…of course I understand. We all do. And….going may be a very healing process for you.  There is absolutely nothing expected of you.  Just go and sit and be and know that you are loved and that you are taken care of and remember that we are all connected.

Stuck in a rut? Tired of doing the same ole routine day after day?  Find a way to get away from it all and travel.  Where there is a will, there is a way.  Right now I’m sitting on the balcony of our hotel looking at another incredible Mexican sunset.  There is rain off in the distance on the mainland and underneath the cumulus clouds on the horizon is a very faint patch of clouds which are  outlined in rose.  All of these clouds, of course, are hanging over the beautiful Caribbean Sea.

We had another great day of diving and spotted 8 or 9 Sea Horses! Yay!! Finally got to see them in their habitat.  And these guys were big!! I’m talking at least an inch or more!  So beautiful with their arched necks hanging out with their looped tails on a blade of grass.

Seahorse in Cozumel

We also so a puffer fish when we were sailing over the grasses looking for Seahorses who was such a funny beastie.  He hung around really still at first as if he was saying, “you can’t see me, I’m not here..”

Puffer Fish

New ways of thinking are coming into my consciousness because my usual ruts of thinking have been changed by all the new sites, sounds, and people that I am seeing and experiencing. Right now the last rays of the setting sun are bursting through the clouds making big wide blue and white streaks that reminds me of the Northern Lights.  It’s easy to forget what I thought was so important last week when I was worried about how to bring in more income.

So grateful for travel and for friends who we love and enjoy enough to travel to experience all kinds of places.

How will you discover new ways of thinking for yourself?

Male Seahorses are the ones who carry the eggs...

Cozumel has been preparing for celebrating Independence from Spain (100 years?) for weeks now and the day is finally here! There are brightly lit decorations in red, green and white everywhere from hanging beaded lights wrapped around street posts to waving flags everywhere (I even contemplated getting a tiny Mexican flag tattooed on my ankle).  We enjoyed an incredible meal with our friends at one of our favorite restaurants, La Cocay before walking up the newly expanded sidewalks along most of the one-way streets running up to the main street that follows the water’s edge.  As luck would have it, my sore foot from the oxygen tank falling on it yesterday began to protest at the idea of walking another ten blocks to all the festivities so David, Abbe and I bowed out to return to the quiet of our hotel rooms and get a good night’s sleep before diving in the morning.

Although the Mexicans are certainly proud of their independence, on the whole they are certainly less obnoxious about it then we northern Americans can sometimes be although the certainly will have lots of music and cerveza along with a big fireworks display at midnight.  All down the streets leading up to the festival being celebrated on the island were quiet. Not a firecracker popping anywhere; however, as you got closer to the main square the main thoroughfare was blocked off and policia were directing traffic out of the way for parking.

Some of me feels guilty for turning down the opportunity to go watch a few hundred of my favorite people in Mexico as they celebrate their day (you are more apt to see a father holding hands walking his child down the street as anything untoward ) but then again, I did have the privilege of undergoing a re-birthing experience with one of my friends who is trained in such regards right there on the beach in front of our hotel today so I’m feeling rather quiet and enjoying listening to the hum of the air conditioner trying to lull us to sleep.

As one of our friends said today, “if more people travelled around the world and experienced different people and views, there’d probably be 90% less violence towards one another”.  I sure agree with him.  Get out there and explore other places and find out how other people live and think.  The mind you open may be your own?

Where will you explore tomorrow:

Families in Cozumel