Along the Merry Way....

The waves keep on coming, one after another, hour after hour. Sometimes we glided smoothly over gleaming sea hills while at other times, giant crashing waves fought around us for hours. Ups and downs! Lifting the boat high and then sending it flying back down a watery slope. Somewhat like life :) Troubles and thrills. Ups and downs. Problems and solutions. Forks in the road, and decisions to be made. Mysteries and sorting-outs. Questions and answers. It seems never-ending! When one thing passes, the next looms up. Thinking about the waves out at sea helped me realize that the trick isn't trying for there to be no problems, mysteries and questions. There's no point in being angry and frightened by the next wave. Or trying to figure out just how we're going to get over a wave that hasn't even arrived yet.  How will we make it over this monster? What is past the horizon? That's just part of it - not knowing and not being able to see, yet believing, having faith tha...

Kava is a drink that comes from a root and is commonly enjoyed in the South Pacific islands. As kava has a paralytic effect, you will often see people staggering home or collapsed in the street after a kava party. It's also known to cause vivid dreams! I was able to rustle up some kava in Tonga and bring it home. While completely legal, it unfortunately came as a powder packaged in suspicious little baggies. As I was being searching by New Zealand customs officers, they pulled out the baggies, looked at me like I was a hideous criminal, and demanded to know, "What is this ?" When I told them it was kava, they nodded and smiled and moved on. The Canadian border officials didn't know what the heck it was, but they were happy with the description of, "A ground-up root." This kava was not very strong--probably brewed for unexperienced visitors--but it numbed the lips and tongue and gave a feeling of slight light-headedness. It also tasted like the most disg...