Sunday in the Valley of Salts

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My screeching alarm clock coincides perfectly with the call to prayer from a nearby mosque. It’s before dawn and I’m both disoriented and angry.

Where am I again? Oh yeah. Cairo.

Why am I awake so early? Oh yeah. Emil.

I’ve just worked two weeks straight and, regardless of the opinions of the muezzin or

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The Secret Alchemy of Travel – Presentation: Mystic Journeys, Venice- May 6th, 2010

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Join me on Thursday May 6th, from 7 pm to 8:30 pm, at Mystic Journeys Bookstore in Venice for a talk on travel and spirituality called “The Secret Alchemy of Travel.”

Mystic Journeys Bookstore 1319 Abbot Kinney Blvd. Venice CA 90291 Telephone: (310) 399-7070 May 6, 2010 7:00pm – 8:30pm

info@mysticjourneybookstore.com

Mystic

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The Secret Alchemy of Travel

Join me on Sunday November 8th, from 4pm to 5:30pm, at the Theosophical Society of Seattle for a new talk on travel and spirituality called “The Secret Alchemy of Travel.”

Theosophical Society of Seattle 717 Broadway Ave. East Seattle, WA 98103 206-323-4281

After more than a decade traveling to the world’s most sacred places, Greg

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Lessons from the Road: Hipless in Seattle

What is the appropriate behavior for a man or a woman in the midst of this world, where each person is clinging to his piece of debris? What’s the proper salutation between people as they pass each other in this flood? -Buddha Shakyamuni Just before this last Christmas I flew from Los Angeles to Seattle to spend the holiday with my family. A sudden snowstorm closed the airport in Seattle and forced our diversion to Spokane, which ironically was itself sitting under 3 and half feet of snow, but where the airport was at least open. The scene at the airport was a kind of panicked chaos. It was now well past midnight and the tiny airport was overwhelmed with rerouted travelers from up and down the West coast. There were no facilities, no food, not much information, and many unhappy people.

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Happenstance, Coincidence and the Divine Mind

I’ve been recently reminded again of the great genius that is constantly at work behind the everyday events that seem, at first blush, to be accidental.

I’ve just returned from leading a group to Egypt and during our visit to the Temple of Seti I in Abydos, I left the group of forty with my

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Karnak Temple at Dawn Near the Winter Solstice

During our last tour, with Houston Baptist University, I ran into my friend Robert Bauval over breakfast at the Mena House and he reminded about a spectacular phenomenon: the “solar rebirth” at the Temple of Karnak in Luxor which occurs at dawn on the morning of the winter solstice. I was familiar with this, but

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Tourism as an Act of Bravery

For the last eleven years in Egypt, independent travel to places like Abydos or Denderah was forbidden by the government. Numerous cities could only be visited by tourists who traveled together in armed convoys. Happily this decade-long restriction has been lifted. This might seem like ironic news in light of the recent horrific events in

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Spirit Guides: Bali, Egypt and Europe

A quick googling of “Spirit Guides” returns well over a million results. Just about every spiritual tradition on the planet embraces the idea of some form of spirit guide: whether they’re called angels, devas or ascended masters. And I have to say that I’ve had my share of experiences with these “non-embodied” helpers. But that’s not what I’m talking about here. I’m referring to the real-life, flesh-and-blood, currently incarnated kind of “spirit” guides without whom meaningful experience, if not useful access, at sacred sites would be a lot harder to come by. All over the world I have consistently found myself dependent upon, and deeply blessed by, the kindness of strangers who would become friends.

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