Speaking of epics, as icicles swell on the eaves of our house (pictured here), I have been reading about ice ages, ancient seas, and volcanic uplifts in John McPhee's book, In Suspect Terrain. The book itself is not an epic (only 200 pages), but it originally appeared as an article in The New Yorker in 1982, when that magazine would regularly treat its readers to 60+-page features on obscure things like world rice growing or a 19th century Russian shoe designer or, in the case of McPhee, a study of the geology of the eastern United States.

Driving and tramping around Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Ohio with geologist Anita Harris, McPhee imagines the world as it looked millions of years ago, even as he describes in vivid detail what it looks like now. You the reader feel you are experiencing as many layers of earth as these explorers discern in the rock before them. Here's an example:

If in late Cambrian time you had followed the present route of Interstate 80, you would have crossed the equator near Kearney, Nebraska. In New Jersey, you would have been wading among algal mounds and grazing gastropods. You could have waded to the equator. West of Chicago and through most of Illinois, you would have been wading on clean sand, the quiet margin of the Canadian craton, which remained above the sea.

I wish this extraordinary journalist would write about the current changes taking place on the planet. He would do it with wisdom, eloquence, and even a dash of humor.

At the end of our annual vision quest and camel caravan journey in the Sahara Desert, we are often able to participate in a Tindi, a traditional festival of the Tuareg, the nomadic people of the Sahara, who are our guides. 
 

Everyone gets dressed up in their finery, both men and women. As the women sit in a tight cluster in the middle of a wide open space, drumming and singing, the men parade their camels around them. It is a mutual, frank, and respectful appreciation of one another's beauty. The men race the camels, then everyone joins together for more singing.

This year, one young man was enjoying riding a little too close to the circle of women, then dashing away. He was showing off, as young men on big, powerful animals like to do no matter what their culture. Suddenly, during one of the races, we saw him slip off his saddle and topple to the ground.

Instantly every single Tuareg was on his or her feet, dashing over to see how he was. There was no hesitation. Nobody waited to see if somebody else would attend to the problem. The young man wasn't badly hurt. He injured his foot, but fortunately his shesh, the length of fabric that Tuareg men wrap around their heads, cushioned his fall and protected his head. But what was moving to me was that immediate response of concern, the impulse of every woman and man to get personally involved with caring for one of their own. 
 

I thought of all the occasions in our western world where a person is injured, confused, or in need of help and is simply ignored. I vowed that, the next time I encounter anyone who "falls" in any way, I will respond with the same immediacy and urgency as the Tuareg--as if that person were of my own tribe.

 
I admit I didn't like Eat, Pray, Love. I started reading the book (which I found in a small hotel in Nyukuning, Bali that, like most hotels, has a couple of shelves where guests can leave behind a book they've read and pick out a new one, a kind of informal library), but I put it back halfway through the Italy chapter. I did go see the movie, because I was glad for any excuse to experience that beautiful island that I love, even if only on screen.

All I can say is that the Bali I've been going to nearly every year since 2004, and that my Balinese co-guides and I usher people into on our Bali From Within journey, is not that Bali: partying with ex-pats at night, and shopping and telling your problems to the locals during the day.

Of course, travel is personal, and deeply so. I think of travel as an opportunity to pick up a few missing pieces of oneself. Hasidic Jewish tradition says that, although the soul is focused in the body, it isn't confined there. It can also be found in one's belongings and even in those things not found yet in one's possession. Surely that includes the places we visit.

Poor Liz in Eat, Pray, Love is certainly trying to find pieces of her soul throughout her journeys in Italy, India, and Bali. The problem is, how can you find these precious fragments if you're so focused on looking into yourself that you miss what's going on all around you? Liz seems oblivious to the deep spirit of the cultures around her, their mystery, their enigma.

ANCESTRAL MEDICINE

Daniel Foor and his Earth Medicine Alliance, based in the Bay Area of California, are doing very exciting work to help people "heal and enliven our relations with the rest of the natural world." 
 

Daniel himself has studied earth-honoring spirituality with medicine people of several cultures around the world, and he combines a deep grasp of these ways with his own creative path, along with an innate understanding of the ways people love the Earth and the ability to bring that forth in community. This path includes coming into relation with one's ancestors, sharing commonalities of spiritual tradition, and creating ceremony for the Earth. 
 

Last year, Earth Medicine Alliance's first annual conference brought together Yoruba, Native American, European, Buddhist, and other leaders to share ceremony, discussion, and practices for living on Earth.