Sir Francis Drake Boulevard

Sir Francis Drake Boulevard
2.5 miles
2 hours
Start: Pierce Point Road
End: Pierce Point Road
Includes: Pierce Point Road, Sir Francis Drake Boulevard

Hike 10
February 22, 2013
Ten-of-Swords
Surrender

The ten-of-swords signals surrender. This is the point at which your thoughts have completely immobilized you and in order to move on, you must lie down and wait for inspiration to find you.

Melinda and I started our walk from the parking lot above Heart's Desire Beach. We headed south on Pierce Point Road toward the intersection with Sir Francis Drake Boulevard.

We walked along the road. The goal was to get to Drake's Bay Oysters. Melinda parked her car 2.5 miles down the road. Once we got to her car, she would drive, I would walk, and we would meet at Drake's.

Douglas Iris popped-up along the road. A plum tree was beginning to flower. We found a lot of trash along the road. With the stopping and going, time wore on. By the time we got to Melinda's car, it was late.

We photographed the fruit of the trash-picking effort and Melinda drove me back to my car. Drake's Oysters would have to wait until next time.

Frankly, I welcome the ten-of swords. It allows me to rest after nine winter weeks of thinking about thinking. Our minds are where our realities begin. Thoughts are different from ideas or inspiration.

Ideas and inspirations come to us from somewhere else. Our thoughts are the tools we use to interact with ideas. They allow conversation between the imaginative and logical parts of our minds.

The ten-of-swords signals when thoughts have reached the end of their usefulness. If we are immobilized, unable to move forward, we must let the thoughts about what we are trying to do go and return to imagining.

Ideas are perfect and perfectly realized in the mind. If thoughts are useful, they allow us to make and carry-out a plan to realize our perfect idea in the imperfect, physical world. They become counter-productive when they keep us from moving forward.

All the walks I took, up until this one, were exalted, stunning and beautiful. This walk was more of a trash pick-up than anything else, although with great conversation. Thanks Melinda.

It was hard for me to get started writing this entry because I was uninspired by the walk. Life is like this. There are many tasks we must slog through to keep the thing going. If we get hung-up in how we think things should be, we are burdened by our thoughts. We become immobilized. To move forward, we must surrender to the reality of what something is and just let it be that. In this case, my walk was a trash pick-up.

Now I am going to lie down, surrender my thoughts and re imagine my journey in all its mental perfection and get up and walk again. We progress when we take the actions we need to get where we want to go. As we lighten our mental load of unproductive thoughts and expectations, the journey becomes easier.

This is the essence of unshakeable happiness: to progress and be contented regardless of external circumstances.