I started this journey in San Jose, CA. My first stop was landing in San Jose del Cabo, sleepy sister city to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, which together make up Los Cabos. Then I ended up at the port of San Jose in Quetzal, Guatemala, only to fly home from San Jose, Costa Rica. There seemed to be a recurring San Jose (Saint Joseph) theme here….only reinforced by the fact that Passover, the Lunar Eclipse, Blood Moon, and Easter all fell on the same weekend this year! Perhaps I’m supposed to be getting in touch with my Inner Spirituality so I’ve taken the time to meditate daily on my ocean front balcony where the seas have changed in colors daily. In Cabo, the waters were a bright teal, in Puerto Vallarta, I witnessed the most epic sunset, and the seas in Acapulco and Puerto Quetzal, Guatemala the seas were a deep cobalt blue. What a luxury to have an ocean front balcony from which to sit and write all day long! Today on our way to Costa Rice, the waters are the deep blue which matches my sapphire ring.

On the evening of Passover, I got up at 5:30am just to see the Blood Moon that was occurring this early morn over the skies of Guatemala, night of the shortest Total Lunar Eclipse of the 21st century, lasting just 4 minutes, 44 seconds, on the evening of Passover, Evening of Freedom. Last time this auspicious event happened I was with my Mom. I feel so thankful to have been able to witness this eerie event with her as it somehow brought us together.

In the spirit of unusual events, I did something today that I’ve never ever done in my life….. against Doctor’s orders…. I went for a run! As I’m getting older, I’m battling the weight issue, and although when I’m at home I can usually bike and swimming as a work-out routine, when I’m on the road I don’t always have a good place to swim. Now, I’m so excited to have embraced running.

I get super excited about things especially if they are things I’ve never done this before, I get crazy excited this way! It’s kind of like when I started cooking. I had never cooked in my life until I decided 3 years to cook a holiday dinner. Now I’ve become quite the Vegan Chef, if I do say so myself. In this same way, I only recently rediscovered swimming. I started swimming when I was 6 years old as a form of therapy when I was in between body casts. I became quite competitive at an early age, winning awards and ribbons. But at the age of 11, I decided I no longer wanted to cut my hair, and I quit the swim team. I recently started swimming again inspired by a FB post of my flutist friend, Pamela Ravenelle. I joined her health club and we periodically have swim “dates” when I’m home in between tours. These swim dates, evolved into my jumping into the ocean periodically. And on some days, I’ll swim for 30-45 minutes in the pool and then, if the tides and waves are favorable, I’ll jump in the ocean and swim again, twice in the same day!

It wasn’t until the end of this journey that I actually realized that I was sailing on the Silver Spirit…. yet again another “spiritual” metaphor!

I do strongly believe that it is good to stretch oneself, I encourage everyone to do something totally new and different at least once a month. On this trip, I meditated every day for an hour, I worked out every day for 2 hours and I practiced my flute every day for 3 hours and I ran everyday for 30 minutes. A very fulfilling and successful trip this was!