Choices

These have been trying days, the project have been making very slow progress. The key challenge for me is making sure to do something very small every day to keep the idea alive till is the time of departure. The search for a field front started yearn some results, we found something suitable, for sale instead of rent. The field has a lot of potential for our future family plans and has opened a new series of challenges. Shall we try and buy?… It is amazing to think that it all started 6 years ago when Matthew wanted to try horse riding. As any parent would do we supported him, 6 years later our entire life is pervaded by horses 🙂

Yes maybe this is a path we need to follow. A few years ago I remember reading a wonderful Book, ‘Synchronicity’ by Joseph Jaworsky. In the book one of the passages that got my attention was when the author explained and interesting metaphor; this is my recalling of it:

Life is like a river and we often trying to row our canoe against the current. Pretty soon we find that despite the incredible effort, we don’t make much progress. When we finally decide to turn the canoe around and follow the flow of the river we discover that we can go a long way without too much effort.[singlepic id=1 w=320 h=240 float=right]

The way I interpreted this passage is that life has a way of ‘unfolding’, I have the choice to row along with the flow of life or against it. I also have the choice to just stop along the shore and wait for something to happen. There is no fault in any of these choices I make; as long as I recognise that is my own choice, and that I’m ready to deal with the consequences and accept the implications. And Know that any day I can make a different chice: row against the current, row with the current, or just wait another day for something to happen.

For me this is an empowering thought.

Tags: Horses, project

The new site

I’ve been working on building the site so that is all included in one single place and has the same look and feel, I’m really enjoying working in wordpress is so easy and intuitive. More than anything I’m enjoying learning about working with the web. It is kind of amazing to think that I worked for IBM for more than 9 years and I never felt the motivation to put up my web site :-). And now it is hard to get away from playing around with it.

Well I guess there is a time for everything…

In the last few days there have been a lot of developments, the quest for a site has almost turned into a purchase of 20 acres land, still a work in progress. Some prospective option for our horses companion have been also surfacing, nothing certain yet, just possibilities.

I’ve got back to my rowing machine, and I’m planning to be doing some Yoga too, I know that body flexibility will be of essence. Rachel gave me some lessons on Cara, while lounging her, only half an hour, my legs remained stiff for 3 days I couldn’t even cross them ;-0.

The whole project entered a into a steady pace mode. It is ticking one day at the time….

Tags: Horses, project, son

Meeting Mise

It has been another intensive week, it certainly started in style when we got to meet Mise, the Criollo that accompaigned Marianne across two americas. And as I suspected Matthew fell in love with her, he even got to ride Mise bare back, the contentment in his face was a priceless. And he was full of beans and ideas afterwords 🙂

The project pieces are falling into places one at the time. To be truthful I’m still eager to start, but what I’m experiencing in the last few weeks is telling me that there is a certain value in holding my patience.

I’m not quite sure how to describe it. A good metaphor would be “waiting for the planets to align”. It feels like there is a series of event that are waiting to fall into place. I’m not quite sure what those events are. What I do know is that I have become able to recognize them when they are there or they are approaching and that is what counts.

Yes I guess is that sense of living in the moment. Carpe Diem. which I always believed was to size the moment as it come. Really what I’m experiencing is the I don’t have to size the moment for the sake of sizing it. Each moment, each experience has a deep value to itself and when I do understand its value and make a conscious decision to act (and the action is consistent with who I am at that instant), then and only then I’m living in that moment.

Tags: project, track, west

The First Act of Kindness

Wow, on monday I send an e-mail to 800+ people announcing this journey. My heart was racing so fast that I had to get out of the house for a very long walk after that.
When I came back There was a lot of e-mail in my westrack inbox and for a minute I panicked “I wont be able to respond to them all!” I thought to myself. While I’m teaching communication I’m not that good at keeping in touch as I would like to.

Yet every single message I received was incredibly supportive and gave me a huge amount of courage to keep going.

After a while a thought started to form “Have I been sendimg out the right message? I’m wonder how many people will take up the challenge of a random act of Kindness?” I don’t know If I have sent the right message out but today I opened one mail and here it was ;-)) the very first Act of Kindness.

Thank you to Lucinda and Simon Boucher for making a donation to the Temple Street Children Hospital in Dublin. While I haven’t yet met Lucinda I know Simon since just over a year and you could always trust him in being the one to lead the way.

Thank you again guys.

Tags: Journey, project, track, west

Hello world!

This is my new blog site to keep you all up to date on my adventure across Ireland with my son Matthew.

I made this change to make it easier for anyone to follow this journey and contributing by adding their Random Acts of Kindness.

I’ll look forward to read about you.

Ciao for now, Fabio

Tags: Adventure, Journey, son

The big Day

Yesterday was the big day I set for myself to send out the announcement via e-mail to all the people I know. It was quite tense, and part of me kept pushing it forward. And when I finally found the energy to do so technology had to spoil the day by making it difficult, I’m still wondering if it was technology or me. After sever attempt I decided to go to bed a bit disheartened a bit relieved. So here is a new day, and with it a new resolve to make this project work, and take the next step work. I’m considering split the mighty 800 plus mailing lis in 8 smaller ones and see what happens. At times I wonder how can it become so hard to use such a simple technology like e-mail. Well I better get going. I’ll update this post later this evening.

Tags: father, project, son, track, west

Drawing a Map

Today I found a very interesting web tool, http://www.geolives.com/ it allow me to explore maps of ireland to 1:50000 scale enough to view tracks and paths. This is one of the details that for me has always been important I need to know the how to get there on a map.
So I spend most of the day drawing up the beginning of the journey, I discovered that there is a dismantled train track that crosses most of Donegal down to Sligo, which could be an excellent route to follow and stay out of the main roads. I don’t quite know what kind of condition is this track, it might be worth a while to survey the grounds. Yet I can still have a choice if the track is not practicable I can still use a variety of roads.
The brilliant thing about geolives is that it tells me exactly how long is the route and how long would it take if I go by foot this gives me a good estimate of how much time will take me. it also allow me to plan the areas where we will potentially stop for the night.
The last few days I also started feeling a bit apprehensive is I don’t do at least something every day about planning the project. It is really a strange sensation Last week was a great buzz to talk about it with a number of people and set up the site, it made me feel so close to it, it felt like it was actually happening. Yet the few days that I didn’t do much about it I felt drift away, and with it the fear of giving up.
This sensation made me think about everyday life, if I don’t do something about it every day it just goes by with a sense of giving up.
That in itself is a great discovery…

Tags: Journey, project, track, west

New Ideas

Yesterday I had lunch with Marianne Du Toit. I had mind mapped what I wanted o ask and I guess most of it was about practical matters, I was interested in understanding how to rise founds for the journey.
I have to say if I admired Marianne while reading her book, meeting her in person confirmed her genuine, inspiring, and generous character. Almost immediately I got faced with reality, often times I tend to get so carried away by my dreams and aspiration that reality gets a bit foggy.
Yet again she has been highly supportive of the project, and for that I have to thank you Marianne.

The one thing that I wasn’t expecting was the idea of self found my journey. That Idea caused me to think hard about the how am I going to make it happen. for the first time in years I’ve been driving back from Dublin to Leitrim without the company of my audiobooks, and surprisingly enough the 2 hour journey seemed so fast. so yesterday evening I spent some time reviewing my approach and visualize it on the site

Tags: Journey, project, son, track, west

Deja Vu

Another day full of excitement, I’ve seen this before, I’ve been here before. It’s the place where I get to start an engine and the engine gets into motion. It’s the place where things happen and the only one that can stop them is me….
OK enough of being cryptic. Let me explain what went on today that it was really exciting and energizing.
This morning I was fresh of enthusiasm for having set up the web site that I decided to share it with few people, just to get an initial feedback. But before I did that a thought just come to mind and I could not resist. Few months ago when I first conceived the idea of this project Rachel truly believed I was gone crazy, yet being the supportive person that she is she gave me a book as a present, Crying with Cockroaches from Marianne Du Toit. Since I started reading the book I truly believed the project was possible and I also had a compelling feeling I had to talk to Marianne. Well today I finally took the courage to find Marianne’s e-mail address and write to her and she kindly agreed to meet me. And I also got a lot of constructive feedback and support from my friends.
This is the same feeling I had before on at least tree occasion when I decide to “publish myself in the world”, to use Dawitt Jones own words, “then you never know what can happen”.
It’s up to me now to keep the this alive to completion. And I don’t mean to reach Mizen Head, in time at all costs, but just get on the bigger journey this project is all about… Love and Connectedness…
What a great day!!! 😉

Tags: Journey, project, son, track, west