I found my way to Sandpoint, Idaho, one of my favorite places in the world, with tall mountains and a very large deep water lake that makes me think more of a Bay than a lake.  Some of the best hiking is in this area with tall pine forests and beautiful expansive views of Lake Ponderay.  I was hiking between 5.5 and 6 miles a day, sometimes straight up hill.

I’ve lived near Sandpoint for many years and in some ways it is “like home” to me but it also brings up a lot of emotional energy that is coming to the surface to be healed and released.  I was very near old memories and wounds and yet I was drawn here for a reason.  To heal!  Ironically, I have an appointment with my Lyme Disease Doctor while here.  He specializes in the alternative diagnosis and treatment of Lyme Disease and was my “miracle doctor” when I was in the worse pain of my life.  Now and then I have relapses and he helps me kick the healing back in.

A series of events led me to delve a little deeper into my own emotional ups and downs and a deeper understanding of myself.  I knew that this trip/journey was a spiritual journey for my own growth and expansion, but I wasn’t sure what I needed to expand in myself.  Life seemed to bring a lot of lessons that had me learning how to roll with the punches and accept whatever happens on an external level.  But my journey was becoming much less “external” and much more “internal” as the time passed by.

I haven’t had any further issues with my van since leaving Colorado.  That was the first phase of my journey where there were a lot of external challenges.  Ironically even as I was leaving Colorado, I lost my credit card at a gas station.  I was hesitant to report it missing at first, thinking it might show up somewhere in my van, but it never did.  I had this card attached to all the auto deductions for my business, and it would be a pain to replace, especially while traveling.  Eventually I found my card.  It wasn’t in my van.  It was with someone who was planning on having a spending spree in Vegas.  Fortunately, I get notified by email whenever there is a purchase on my card and I happened to be Online when the notification came in, so I immediately reported the card stolen and it closed my account down.  Another “out there” experience.

The external issues began falling away and in its place the deeper emotional healing was on the table.  As I walked miles in nature, everything would just flood to the surface and I experienced a lot of emotional highs and lows.  I ended up having a psychic reading from a psychic medium who was visiting the area for a day.  One of the first things he told me was that my deceased Father was a powerful guide in my life and traveling right along with me.  His was the loudest voice of all my guides as he had an important message for me.  The message had to do with some choices I needed to make for my well-being and highest good at this time.  Ironically I had already made “the right choice” and my Father’s words were validation that I was listening.

The psychic was actually very accurate and described my Father’s appearance and his approximate age, his love for water and even the way he died.  My father also wanted me to know that he had a sense of adventure like I do.

Since this phase of my journey took me deeper into loneliness and a feeling of isolation, knowing I had an invisible traveling companion was helpful.  The other validation I received in the reading was that this journey was indeed for my spiritual growth and there was a lot of emotional healing happening.  There always seems to be a lot of emotional healing on the table.  It has been my life path to embrace healing and to facilitate it.  I learned long ago that a therapist can only take a client as deep as he/she has gone herself.  The more we are able to face our own core wounds and develop the awareness of what lies deep beneath the surface, the more we can “see” the wounds in others and help them to heal.

As I travel around, camping in various campgrounds, I am constantly exposed to families, couples, and groups of friends, and it makes me feel more a lonely wanderer without a tribe.  Most of the time, other than my contact with clients, I spend long hours in the world within, listening to the voices in my head and riding the various waves of emotion that stem from complete “awe” of the beauty that surrounds me, to deep sadness connected to my own isolation.

I picture myself as a monk on a mountain, just sitting in solitude for days, weeks, months and facing the inner demons that find fault with my existence.  I suppose it is also like the story of Jesus in the desert, confronting Satan.  When we spend a lot of time alone and in isolation, the dark forces see an opening, a weakness that it thinks it can exploit.  That voice sometimes tries to convince me that my life isn’t worth living; it has no real purpose, and nobody really loves me or cares about me.  I am truly alone!

Sometimes it is a choice that I find myself alone in the world.  I enjoy long periods of reflection and solitude.  But sometimes those long periods seem to extend into eternity and I begin to feel I am an alien. I don’t belong here.  I’m not like the “others.”  There is no place I really fit in.  I’m an outcast.

The one thing I have learned in life that is quite profound is….wherever I go, I’m still here.  There is no reason to believe this reality will ever change.  Whether I am in this physical body or floating somewhere beyond it, I’m still here!  I still exist.  The healing journey I am on urges me to find a deeper peace within myself and to foster a deeper sense of love and forgiveness for those who have rejected, hurt and betrayed me.  Everybody is doing the best they can, with the level of awareness they are in.  The more we face our darkness, the more light that surrounds us.  Some people are attracted to the light, others fear it because it exposes the darkness within the Self.

In many ways I have felt more invisible on this leg of the journey.  I fly under the radar and feel that I am rarely noticed at all.  I’ve even noticed the friends who were contacting me on a consistent basis suddenly dropped out.  Not just one friend; all of them.  It became very quiet on the inside, although I was surrounded by a lot of activity.  I spend my time in campgrounds where everyone is chopping wood, carrying water, busy as beavers going about their business of boating, swimming with the kids, barbecuing and taking their day trips.  I am but another camper going about my business.  And it may also be, that the deeper I go into my personal reflection, the less I notice them.  I hear the sounds of boats on the water, children laughing and screaming, the pitter patter of feet, air mattresses being inflated, and vehicles coming and going.  I smell the coffee, the fire, and the barbecue.   I am aware of life going on around me.  But I don’t pay much attention to it.

In Colorado there was a lot more human connection.  I made friends and enjoyed time with people along the way.  I had a feeling of being more “visible” and embraced.  But it was time to go.  I felt it.

When I first arrived in Sandpoint, I took my van to a car-wash to clean the pitch that fell from the pine trees I was camped under in Whitefish.  I was busy washing my van, trying to get the pitch off when a large truck with a boat attached pulled up behind me, waiting for me to finish.  When I realized that I hadn’t pushed the right button for the soap, I went and flipped the switch and started scrubbing the area’s that had the pitch with the brush, and the man in the truck yelled out at me “Are you going around again?”  I was a bit oblivious to his obvious distress that he was going to have to wait a little longer.  I explained that I had pitch on my van and was trying to wash it off, it would be a few more minutes.  He angrily jumped back in his truck, backed up and screeched out of the car-wash.  Welcome to Sandpoint!

Several times I was returning to my Van and putting things away, getting food out, or whatever and someone pulled up behind me asking me “are you leaving?”  Innocent question, I know, but when I explained that I would be a while, I often had the same reaction…”I wish she would just leave!”  It was an opportunity for me to NOT take on other people’s intensity.  Sandpoint is crazy busy in the summer.  With that comes a certain amount of traffic, waiting, parking issues and difficulty finding a campsite. I got lucky with the campsite.

Each area that I travel to has different experiences and lessons to learn.  Sandpoint has been the most emotionally challenging for me, so far.  Perhaps it is the memories attached with this area, or perhaps it is the accumulation of over six weeks on the road living in my minivan; my little sleeping pod on wheels.  But I will be leaving soon, over the Mountains to another place, other experiences.  I will be visiting friends and family.  That will be a nice break in the isolation.