Scotland Journey: Inverness to Kirkwall. As I sit and read Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince I am reminded of the past when I sat in the Las Vegas airport for eight hours with $11 in my pocket. Returning from disaster and coming home to humiliation, I was broken and bruised. Scared and vulnerable. My first adventure that I was not prepared for. Then, too, I read a good book to pass the time and returned to begin again.
Today, though, it is a happy adventure filled with joy and optimism. I sit at the train station in Inverness, Scotland (a country where J.K. Rowling did much of the Harry Potter writing) and I look about and wonder how many people are sitting in a degree of fear, heading to or being in a place of the unknown that happens when we travel.
We tend to think we are alone and that everyone else has the answers they need to live their perfect life. Spoiler alert: They don’t! We are all on this journey alone until we group together for support.
While travelling we can find we lack community. Places are foreign and strange. Community is a way of travelling together with like-minded people. Support groups help those on the journey get where they need to go. Much like the 10:41 train I will take that will get me to the ferry. All means of travel. While I am solo on this trip, I am not alone. I have a plethora of family and friends watching me from afar through the various ways of connecting.
The best connection I have, though, is with the trinity consisting of me, myself, and I. The teachings of my faith and the three legs of the stool, the three forms of H2O remind me, I am only whole when I can embrace all the parts of myself. Travelling tests this ability.
The deep nature of J.K. Rowling and her story of a boy coming of age with all the challenges weaves a dark tale of how evil can split the soul, fracturing it thinking it brings mortality when, in truth, it brings nothing but pain. When we travel and journey with purpose, awareness and gratitude, we find the pieces of our soul that are hidden in the caves, Horcruxes waiting to be found and collected to bring ourselves together in this lifetime.
Our soul’s quest is to find meaning and purpose as we travel the human journey. This Scotland adventure is helping me find myself and I am grateful.
Cynthia Breadner is a teacher, author, grief specialist and bereavement counsellor; a soul care worker and offers specialized care in spiritually integrated therapies. She lives and works in the Bradford West Gwillimbury area as a LTC chaplain assisting with end-of-life care for client and family. She is the mother part of the #DanCynAdventures duo and practices fitness, health and wellness. Her book, In Stillness – Short stories from a life well lived is a compilation of her work and available from Nancy’s Nifty Nook and Health Food Store downtown Bradford. She is available remotely by safe and secure video connections, if you have any questions contact her today through [email protected] or breakingstibah.com.
