![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/voyager.jpg\" "\\"voyager\\"")
<\/a><\/p>\nIn my own travels I often look to find myself as the other, therefore to see myself more clearly. \u00a0When in Angkor, for example, the quarter mile long bas relief sculpture, which culminates in the churning of the sea of milk by Vishnu, made the religious worldview of these 1100 A.D. Khmer Hindus evident. \u00a0What they imagined, I could see, just as a visitor to any Catholic church can see paintings of saints, views of the Last Judgment, or a man on a cross, covered only with a loin cloth, a crown of thorns on his brow.<\/p>\n
On the streets of Bangkok vendors sold for less than twenty U.S. cents fruits I had never (Voyager’s 1 and 2 at the heliopause where the sun’s magnetic field hits the pressure of interstellar winds)<\/p>\n But. \u00a0There is no place on earth I can go where the influence of the sun cannot reach me.<\/p>\n Now this 35 year old pilgrim, on a trek to San Arcturus, or a Holy Well in the midst of the Orion nebula, will soon leave the sun’s influence behind. \u00a0Forever. \u00a0No magnetic field. \u00a0No warmth. \u00a0The heliosphere in the rear view mirror. \u00a0The solar system in the rear view mirror. \u00a0At least as we know it. \u00a0The Oort cloud is considered by some to be the true outer boundary of the solar system, but that boundary is still some 14,000 years away.<\/p>\n This human artifact has positioned itself as other by virtue of its madeness. \u00a0It was not crafted by the furnaces of the big bang, or the stellar ovens that crunch out elemental particles. \u00a0It was not made by the collision between planetary bodies or asteroids or volcanic activity. \u00a0No, it was made by human beings out of materials created in all those ways. \u00a0And now we have returned them to their origin, refashioned and able to talk about their experience.<\/p>\n But, ironically, Voyager is, exactly, the universe reflecting on itself, seeing itself, knowing itself. \u00a0Its pilgrimage is the same one Apollo inscribed on the doorway over his Delphic temple, Know thyself. \u00a0Only in this case the pilgrim is the universe, voyaging not to experience itself as other, but as its self. \u00a0Thus, Voyager can be seen as a metaphor for our inner journey, where we try to move beyond the Oort field of the Self, in order to better know the Self. \u00a0An equally daunting \u00a0trail.<\/p>\n \n \n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Summer \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Solstice Moon In my own travels I often look to find myself as the other, therefore … Continue reading The Ultimate Traveler<\/span> <\/a>known existed: \u00a0jack fruit, durian, dragon fruit. \u00a0Alleys less than three feet wide ran between store fronts filled with men’s, women’s, children’s clothing, plumbing supplies, watches, toys, home furnishings. \u00a0The crowds packed into the places were large and hot. \u00a0Not at all like the Mall of America.<\/p>\n