Six Senses Sunday #40

Hear:
• This week I discovered that the cat snores, almost at loud as the dog. Maybe sleeping by the heat of the wood stove brings out everyone's inner wheeze.
• 50mph gusts rattling the frosted windows in their frames, tearing the tarp away from the woodpile and waving it in the air
• Crinkling newspaper as I unwrap fragile treasures from my mom's hutch
• A cacophony of instruments being played in our friend's wood-shop-turned-music-studio
• J's chainsaw whining by the woodshed

Moonlight!

See:
• The old man in the moon poking his head above the treeline
• Slowly unfolding petals of a vermillion hued Amarylis
• In the light of the full winter moon, the shadows of trees laying down on the snow

Taste:
• Homemade peach pie, a taste of summer
• Honey lemon cough drops, ginger lemon tea
• Chicken soup
• Gingerbread cake baked by J

Touch:
• Hollow, marbleized eggs, light as air
• This week it's been bitter cold enough to warrant the use of an electric blanket while I sit up in bed reading, making me feel a like a slice of human toast
• The almost-dead battery of my laptop bulging out of its compartment. Who knew an old battery could be so badly behaved?

Smell:
• Honestly, thanks to this cold/flu I haven't been able to smell a thing all week, even when I tried

Feel:
• My head still feels as if it's stuffed with cotton
• Nervous about an all-day work meeting tomorrow, at which I need to make a presentation I haven't had a chance to prepare for
• Glad to be well enough to go back to kirtan tonight, but paranoid I'm going to cough disruptively the whole time

Toto: Melanie

Until Suki asked prompted me to search for one, I had no idea there was a song out there with my name in it. I was 11 years old when Toto came out with "Africa" and remember my brother playing it so loud the picture window in our living room shook. I still have a soft spot for that song.

Thinking of You

J started reading this piece on the "messy and tenacious" process of grieving in The New Yorker last night and then handed it to me. Parts of it certainly resonated. I hand it to those of you who have lost loved one's recently. Good Grief. Is There a Better Way to Be Bereaved?

I snapped the above photo on Main St. in Northampton a couple of weeks ago. The "Thinking of You" sticker pasted on the plexiglass caught my attention.

The View

Well, this is where I've been holed up for the past couple of days, watching the light shift across the covers (here it is graciously warming up my feet). Everything I planned to start the week with (including going to work of course) has fallen to the wayside.

I'm not usually good about the "bed rest" part of treating a virus, but part of me is thankful for a legitimate reason to hide beneath the covers for a couple of days. I wasn't about to let myself take a break, but perhaps sometimes our bodies know better than our minds what's needed.

Since I'm not often this sick I remember the last time quite clearly. It was about 6 years ago, during a January cold snap, and I remember my mom calling every day to check in with me. The bedroom was tucked away upstairs, and rather than stay removed in the attic I'd head downstairs with a comforter and curl up in the bright kitchen, by the wood stove. J was away at work, but we had a sick kitten who slept on my bathrobe-covered arm and kept me company all week. On one of those afternoons I turned on NPR and found myself listening to Deepak Chopra for the first time, gazing out at the crisp blue sky and trying to absorb every word. He was talking about a world that made sense to me, a place where the universe can send messages to those attuned to it, where our intentions can become realities.

Six years later the bedroom is downstairs and filled with light, and on the windowsill stands the bronze Shiva Nataraja statue J bought me for Christmas. I'll explain the many intricacies of the statue in a future post, but for today I'll tell you that in this form Shiva is doing a cosmic dance of destruction and rebirth, and among other messages related through his hand gestures and in the details of the statue, his upper right hand forms the Abhaya-mudra, the "fear not" gesture, as his right leg destroys the demon of ignorance.

Beyond Shiva and his cosmic dance I can watch the dried blooms of last summer's hydrangea wave in the gusty wind, and the clouds slip away beyond the horizon of bare hills. Being sick is never pleasant, but I'm thankful that I have a comfortable place to rest, companionship, plenty of tea, and a stack of books, though I haven't felt much like reading. Today was an improvement over yesterday though, so I'm confident tomorrow will be better still.

As the afternoon wears on I watch the clouds bump into each other and begin to pile up and turn gray, and the sun dips into the back woods as a half moon rises and is soon eclipsed by a stray cloud over the field. I blow my nose for the umpteenth time and reach for another sweater as the bedroom temperature begins to swiftly sink without the heat of the sun. I've missed two days of work already, Sunday night's kirtan, and the Anusara yoga class I'd hoped to start on Monday, but all of these things will be waiting for me when I'm back on my feet, literally and figuratively.

Until then I sit and lay still, sip tea, appreciate the view, and contemplate the way in which the universe has guided and continues to guide me. Oh, and I blow my nose. Again.

Six Senses Sunday #39

Touch:
• The panic and pain of getting stung by a hornet. This happens at least once every winter — an interaction with some sluggish left-over stinging insect hibernating behind a picture frame I suddenly feel the need to move, or in this case tangled in a jumble of antique decorative spoons I felt compiled to take out of storage and sort through. One winter I discovered (the hard way) a hornet hiding in my sock.

• Hands bloodied on sharp snow. I should have put my gloves on before descending the curving, rutted hill on skis, not removed them and stuffed them in my pocket.
• The warm cork floor of the yoga studio, nubby cotton blankets for sitting on.

Taste:
• Homemade chicken soup with dumplings
• Bragg's Liquid Amino Acids — where have you been my whole life?

• Carrot cake with cream cheese frosting
• White Russian cupcakes
• Organic Fuji apples
• Fried pickle. Yes, I was surprised too.

See:

• Chickadees pecking on the windows. Time to fill the feeders.
• Photos of my mom at 18, on her honeymoon in NH.
• Beneath the couch at my parent's almost empty house, a scrap of torn green wrapping paper from our last Christmas all together, 2008.

Hear:

• 3 kirtans in 5 days — lots of chanting this week.
• "She's a 10"
• "We stop serving coffee at 4"
• The pitter-patter of little Yeti feet

Feel:
• Lights on but rooms empty at my parent's house. Pulling out of the darkened driveway at night like I have thousands of times before, I realized that the only thing I leave behind there now are the ghosts of my own memories.
• Feverish and sick, I'm determined to stay in bed all day today. With my laptop of course.

Smell:
• I woke up to the smell of fresh brewed coffee this morning
• Exhaust fumes and old cigarettes in the cab of the old UHaul truck we took to RI
• Menthol waves of Olba's Analgesic Salve

Sunny Afternoon

Skiing with the boys...

Our Atmospheric Habitat

According to this article in the New York Times yesterday, I am an early adopter of the furnace-free lifestyle. A very early adopter - we haven't used central heat in our 200+ year old home for at least 6 years now. A wood stove keeps the kitchen area toasty, and for the rest of the house there's a propane stove that looks like a wood stove in the main hearth. It's regulated with a good old fashioned on/off switch, not a thermostat, and it's used sparingly; we can usually eek through the long New England winters on one 300 gallon tank of propane. My slippers are lambs-wool lined UGG boots, and multiple layers of clothing are essential. The bed? Like sleeping in a down-wrapped burrito with flannel and fleece innards. Dinner guests? Not until spring, unless they're our close, rugged friends who can overlook the temperature and enjoy what the Times article calls, "atmospheric habitats."

"The generation of random numbers...

...is too important to be left to chance."
— Robert Coveyou, Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

While checking my daily-read blogs yesterday morning, an odd coincidence took me by surprise. Wanda, who just lost her father this week, mentioned that she keeps getting "repeating or sequential number references several times a day" and felt lifted and encouraged by them during this difficult time.

That's interesting, I thought, because for the last several years of her life my mom kept talking about seeing "11:11" everywhere, every time she looked at the clock. "What does it mean?" she'd ask. It scared her, and she mentioned it often. For some reason I never felt compelled to look into 11:11 online (though if I'd I bothered I would have found 216 million google pages to sift through, as well as a wide variety of theories regarding its significance, some stranger than others). When my mom died I thought I had our answer - she died in the 11th hour of the day, in the 11th month of the year. Odd, yes, but case closed. I didn't even want to mention it here. And yet since then, if I happen to notice it's 11:11, I say a little hello to my mom, in an attempt to make the association a bit more positive — I refuse to be frightened by numbers on a clock.

Cut to yesterday morning, my mom's birthday, my blog reading. Wanda linked to an older post of hers when she mentioned the "sequential numbers" and of course I clicked. Post title? 11:11. Oh, of course! You can read the post and Wanda's wonderful words about living with myths, walking with faith, and looking out for signs and coincidence here.

gifts.

freedom from the grip of pain.

reunions.
the absence of tears.
peace.
the reaping of faith's rewards.
love.
the realization of eternity.

Waiting for a Parade?

Did I mention we had some heavy wet snow here? This guy had to be at least 8' tall, towering on the side of the road as I made my way to work this morning...

Pushing the Reset Button

Monday was brighter than Sunday in every way, full of fresh snow and warm sun. J dragged my cross country skis out from wherever they've been hiding all season and we spent the late afternoon in the woods, moving at a leisurely pace. I recently read that spending time in nature is the best way to reset and recharge yourself emotionally.

Droplets of melting snow hung from every branch, reflecting the sunlight and splashing down like rain around us.

I found this tuft of deer hair clinging to a low branch of an apple tree in the yard.

Our destination was this open field, a beautiful spot to watch the clouds.


And along the field's edge the silhouettes of elderly apple trees stoop.

Skiing on sunny winter afternoons brings back a lot of memories. We used to go out on longer treks, packing food and sometimes a bottle of beer to share on the return trip home, and when we stopped in the middle of the woods to eat and drink it seems we always ended up talking about our renovation plans for the house — some big, some small, some practical, some not. An outdoor hot tub has been a recurring topic of conversation for 14 years now...someday...

Burnt

This was a beautiful and historic place — a beloved old church surrounded by green, set against a backdrop of rising hills — and a true hub of community. I never attended services there, but know many who do. This article from the Northampton Gazette describes the resiliency of the parishoners quite nicely.

Sunless Sunday

The afternoon winter sky is flat and dismal, its grayness filling up every room of the house with a weight I can't seem to lift off today

and the sun don't shine anymore

There's chicken soup bubbling on the stove top in a churning brew of colors - orange carrot chunks and white parsnips, pale rounds of onion and green leaves of parsley all wilting in the heat. In an hour or so I'll mix up soft dumplings and drop them into the steaming broth, spoonful by spoonful, watch them sink and rise, sink and rise. Comfort.

and the rains fall down on my door

Running Sunday errands for coffee beans and bottled beer, the NY Times and fresh baked bread, I hear that the beloved Congregational church nearby has burned to the ground this morning. Driving home, I watch the horizon for drifts of smoke. If there, I can't tell them apart from the rest of the sky.

and the clouds so never hung so low before

This long weekend was once filled with the arrangement of unseasonable flowers, the blowing out of birthday candles and their ensuing wishes. What did you wish for all those years, mom? More years, I'll bet.

and the dawn don't rescue me no more

Me, I wish for a "time out" card I can't produce. I wish to find an unfading flower, an undying truth, an idea whose time doesn't come but always has been and always will be. I wish for faith that doesn't burn down with the church, and for love that won't decay with the heart.

and I never felt so alone before

I send my intention out — a breath, a swirl of steam, a puff of smoke. I keep my eyes on the gray horizon.

You Will Always Have Enough

Northampton, MA

And the winner is...

I decided to take Ruth's lead and use the True Random Number Generator to choose a winner for the photo giveaway. A little less photogenic than names-in-a-hat, but a whole lot easier. The result:

17! JC! Congratulations! Oddly enough, JC and I must be on the same wave length today because when I just visited his blog to link to I discovered that earlier this morning he posted a beautiful photo that he took for me! The synchronicity around here lately is astounding, really, both online and off.

Thank you everyone for your sweet comments and support. And welcome new visitors and followers! Nice to "meet" all of you.

Five Senses Friday — Only Better

Every week I come up against the same issue with my Five Senses Friday post (other than the fact that I type "Sense" instead of "Senses" each and every time), and that issue is the "Feel" category. Because while I "feel" the cold wind against my face, I also "feel" the delight of a surprise in the mail, the anguish of loss, the boredom of routine. Aren't these sensations just as real?

While reading Sharon Salzberg's Loving Kindness book this week, I landed on a way to remedy this situation. According to the Buddha (and this will probably not come as a surprise to anyone) there are 6 doors of perception — seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, touching, and through the mind door by thinking, feeling emotions, and seeing mental images. "Those six ways of perceiving define the totality of our experience." Sharon writes. My thoughts exactly. So, welcome to "Six Senses Saturday." Or sometimes Sunday.

Touch:
• cold wind blowing snowflakes against my cheeks
• an impossibly light polyester/spandex workout top from Athleta, the fabric so soft it almost doesn't exist. What a treat!
• soft brown corrugate giving way to the smooth, glossy cover a new book

See:
• the heart-wrenching images of death and destruction from Haiti

• the distraction of angel statuary illuminated on a cemetery hillside, motionless sentries
• winter's limbs of gray and brown, interrupted by the fullness of hillside pines
• puddles of melted snow

Taste:

• homemade open-face tuna melts on sourdough bread
• steeped ginger tea

• a chocolate chip cookie that tasted stale and disappointing at first, until I discovered the size of the chocolate chips, which were more "chunk" than "chip"

• a Bento box lunch of miso soup, crisp tempeh vegetables, seaweed salad, tuna and avacado rolls, steamed edamame
• the comfort of homemade burritos, followed by the joy of finding just enough chocolate pudding mix in the pantry for 2 servings

Hear:
• that the last layer of the family freezer was unearthed this week, with a roast and meatloaf dating back to 1980, when I was all of 8 and my brother was still working on his undergraduate degree. I'm glad my brother is throwing this stuff away immediately because I'm a sentimental enough person to keep and potentially even try to eat anything that my mom touched at some point in it's disturbingly long, mostly cryogenic lifespan.

• smashing cloves of garlic between a ceramic mug and wooden cutting board, and the ensuing brittle, peeling-away sounds
• the white noise of our hallway fan, valliantly trying to push warm air against cold
• sleeping dog, dreaming of treats, thumping her wagging tail against the metal radiator

Smell:
• breaded eggplant frying in olive oil
• an old light bulb's burnt covering of dust
• jasmine green tea
• the perfume of fresh coriander

Feel:
• surges of impatience, along with
• the nervous thrill of considering a new and challenging plan
• eager for a friend's return from Ecuador
• thankful for a full week of meditative after-work activities ahead

Annaleise

Starting this week I'm making a slight change to the Five Senses Friday format, which I'll share with you tomorrow, new and improved. In the meantime, meet Annaleise of Gordon's Fold, our friend's herd of Highland Cattle. Her horns are a bit intimidating, but I was standing on the other side of a metal fence. Only after J distracted the herd (including Thor the enormous black bull) with a bale of fresh hay did dare venture into the pasture...

There's Annaleise watching me with a mouth full of hay, Thor behind her.

Annaliese became a cow only after giving birth to her first calf, Yukon, last spring. Before that she was technically a heifer — just one of the little facts I've picked up about cattle this year.

Happy Love Thursday

heart from laurent clermont on Vimeo.

I found this adorable video by Laurent Clermont over at Drawn!

A Celebratory Giveaway

Because we all need things to celebrate.

Back in mid-November I submitted the image above to the Gardening Gone Wild photo contest, for that month's theme, The End of the Line. And then, with everything that's happened since, I completely forgot that I'd done so. Until today when I was surprised to discover it posted on the site and chosen for an honorable mention with the words, "the poetry of work with zinnias as seen at secret notebooks • wild pages is simply superb."

Unlike the peer-judged photo contest sites I used to submit to on a regular basis, the Gardening Gone Wild contests are judged by professional garden photographers, so I feel quite humbled to have been mentioned (or should I say "honored?"). I remember the day I shot this very clearly, because the dying garden had struck me as so beautiful, clinging bravely to its last bit of color, its end so close and inevitable. How appropriate this sentiment turned out to be for the month of November.

To celebrate, I'm going to give away an 8x10 glossy print of this photo. To enter, just leave a comment on this post between now and Friday (at the stroke of midnight - dong!) and I'll do the old draw-a-name-out-of-a-hat thing to choose a random winner. And then my win can be your win.

An Indian Commercial for Toothpaste...

Wow! J pointed out that this is actually a commercial for gum, not toothpaste, but it's still impressive.

Eternal Genesis and Eggrolls

In yesterday's post I mentioned two books by Sharon Salzberg I've read this month. In addition, a couple more Deepak Chopra titles have found their way to my bookshelves recently.

The Book of Secrets by Deepak Chopra

I know I've already mentioned The Book of Secrets, but upon completing it I noticed I've created the most dog-eared book on my shelf, proof of a dozen plus "ah ha!" and "wow!" moments. This book is like biting into a dense piece of chocolate torte, each sentence rich.

The passage below, about making the most of every experience, brought to mind my creative friends, especially fellow bloggers:

"Consider the way three people might observe the same sunset. The first person is obsessing over a business deal and doesn't even see the sunset, even though his eyes are registering the photos that fall on their retinas. The second person thinks, "Nice sunset. We haven't had one in a while." The third person is an artist who immediately begins a sketch of the scene. The differences among the three are that the first person sent nothing out and received nothing back; the second allowed his awareness to receive the sunset but had no awareness to give back to it — his response was rote; the third person was the only one to complete the circle: He took in the sunset and turned it into a creative response that sent his awareness back out into the world with something to give. If you want to fully experience life, you must close the circle."

So many of you close the circle— lots of circles, in fact!

And statements like the following are both dog-ear and and underline worthy...

"At any given moment, the bubbling subatomic activity that keeps the universe going is in flux; every particle winks in and out of existence thousands of times per second. In that interval, I also wink in and out, traveling from existence to annihilation and back again billions of times a day. The universe came up with this lighting-fast rhythm so that it could pause in between and decide what to create next. The same is true of me. Even though my mind works too slowly to see the difference, I'm not the same person after I return from my billion journeys into the void. Every single proceas happens by infinitesimal degress, and the overall result is eternal genesis."

The Chopra Center Cookbook by Deepak Chopra, David Simon and Leanne Backer

This book just arrived and there are already 5 scraps of paper marking some very wholesome-sounding recipes I'd like to try soon, specifically a Simple Marinade for Tofu or Tempeh, low fat Blueberry Muffins, and Szechwan Baked Egg Rolls. Mmmm...Egg Rolls! I may gather the ingredients for these tomorrow. Hopefully they'll turn out better than last week's chai cheesecake.

It's good to feel some enthusiasm for cooking again.

Reading, Swimming, and the Warm Fuzzies

This spring I'll be attending a four day loving-kindness (metta meditation) and chanting retreat with Buddhist teacher Sharon Salzberg and devotional singer Krishna Das. Equal parts excited and terrified, I'm preparing by familiarizing myself with some of Susan's books and teachings. And still chanting as often as the opportunity presents itself. Which around here is fairly often. Here's a short video about Krishna Das:



Loving-Kindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness by Sharon Salzberg.

I'm only a quarter of the way through this book, but I'm already curious about putting it into practice. One late, sunny afternoon during our trip to NYC I had just emerged from the hotel pool and was gazing out the 40th floor window at the towering building next door when I noticed a man standing in the building opposite me, talking on his cellphone. Across several blocks and through the layers of glass and air separating us I couldn't make out many details — a white button-down business shirt, a sterile conference room, a long table surrounded by chairs. He had gone in to the room alone and closed the door almost all the way, obviously seeking privacy. His gestures — waving arm, hand running quickly through hair, pacing — gave the impression of stress. At times I think he was looking out the window as well, but couldn't tell if he noticed me. Curious, I couldn't help but speculate; who was he was talking to? What was it about? One of the things I love about the city is the constant yet removed presence of other people, living their lives anonymously right alongside you.

Surveying him, a story I'd just read about Sharon Salzberg sending people to a train station to silently practice loving-kindness meditation on strangers came to mind. I could try that right now, I thought, and began to focus on my unsuspecting subject while silently repeating the words "May you be happy. May you be peaceful. May you be free from fear." Since I'm not even half way through the book I don't know if this approach was quite right, and of course there's no way to know if my experiment had any positive effect on this stranger behind glass, but personally I experienced what can only be described as "the warm fuzzies" in the center of my chest. Maybe the glass I was standing in front of deflected my good intentions right back at me! After a few more minutes his call must have come to an end. He slipped back out of the darkened room; I dropped back into the aqua water of the pool.

I've used my naive version of this technique several times since then (I should probably hurry up and finish the book), quickly repeating the mantra for every person I see in the supermarket or walking down the sidewalk for example. One thing I've noticed is that it eliminates (or at least lessens) the natural propensity for making appearance-based snap judgments about people (good or bad).

Faith: Trusting Your Own Deepest Experience by Sharon Salzberg.

This is a quick read that's especially good for anyone who has come to equate the word faith with gullibility. This is a book that encourages intelligent inquiry and faith verification. What it is not is a one-size-fits all religious decree. Sharon welcomes the reader to be unsure, to question, to test, and to grow.

"When we place our faith entirely in others, rather than remembering the need for faith in our own understanding, we end up caught in the shadow side of surrender and devotion. Whatever relationships we form, whether with a friend or lover or coworker or teacher or doctrine, will be passive and dependent, leaving us afraid to question, afraid of being unable to see clearly for ourselves, afraid of being left out, of being challenging. We may subvert reason, intelligence, and whatever else we have in order to keep someone as the repository of our trust."

"Faith...doesn't carve out reality according to our preconceptions and desires. It doesn't decide how we are going to perceive something but rather is the ability to move forward even without knowing."

The Happy Ending

Tell me a story . . .
What kind of story, child?
A story with a happy ending.
There's no such thing in all the world.
As a happy ending?
As an ending.

— Jeanette Winterson it's a lovely universe in us all
via Whiskey River

Life Before Your Eyes

I think many of you would really appreciate this moving collection of photo stories, from Pictory.

Five Senses Friday #36

See:
• One night, while sitting at the kitchen table and working on my laptop, I watched a ladybug beside me eat an entire sesame seed, and it didn't take as long as you'd think
• In January the day's light disappears from the Berkshire hills first, turning them inky black against the purple sky of lingering dusk
• Last night we saw some amazing videos and photos from our friend's two week stay in Calcutta, India

Hear:

• Sacred Verses, Healing Sounds
• "I ain't trying to go to jail." overheard on the sidewalk in Northampton
• The cringe-inducing sounds of the dentist's office; whirring in one room, drilling in another
• Roosting crows cawing in the dark

Taste:

• Back to work, back to lunches of canned soup accidentally boiled in the office microwave

• Sesame honey crunch bars from the health food coop

• Homemade coconut curry sauce over veggies, pan-fried tofu, and rice
• Onion barley mushroom stew with warm sourdough bread
• Homemade spiced chai and the related, disastrous chai cheesecake. Clearly the recipe was wrong (calling for 1/2 cup of my fresh Masala spice mix) as the cake was overwhelmingly spicy and immediately put my tongue to sleep. J is determined to make use of it anyway, and thinks it has potential as a spread for toast. I think it's destined for the compost pile.

Smell:

• Ground cardamom, cinnamon, black pepper, ginger, cloves
• Fresh black tea from India — Darjeeling, ground and leaf Assam
• Damp earth and moldering wood, emanating from the torn up floor of our back room where J has been working on replacing some of the crumbling parts

Feel:
• Cold feet, cold legs. This morning I ordered three insulated glass storm doors for the windy house. This won't solve the problem, but it should help. And there's a tax credit available for the doors, which should also help.
• The rough cotton of dyed tapestry

Let There Be Light

I find comfort in the near-daylight glare of Times Square at night. These lights never go off, do they, and in the depth of winter I bet 3am looks a lot like 5pm. Do New Yorkers who find they can't sleep wander 42nd Street and pretend the night isn't slipping away (as I think I would)?

Sleeplessness in the country is a solitary affliction, you, your book, your worries, your small circle of yellow light in an ominous, edgeless, black world. Or worse no light at all. Coming back on the train at night the utter darkness outside city limits is the first thing I notice, the hardest transition, from light to dark.

Lately I don't leave falling asleep up to chance. 3mg of melatonin ("the hormone of darkness") and a cup of hot Sleepytime tea (like the one I'm sipping now) and I'm more than ready to hibernate for 8 hours. In the morning my new Zen alarm clock, a Christmas present from my brother, chimes until I reluctantly emerge from my down and flannel cocoon. Have I mentioned that there's no heat in the bedroom?

I wake to a shifty and dull smattering of dream memories, nothing at all like the clear vision of my mom I had in early December. It disappoints me a little, but then again, this is the way of things. The sun sinks below the horizon every day, but only a handful of sunsets take my breath away. If moments of beauty and grace became common occurances, would we take them for granted? Or would we find ourselves living in a permanent state of bliss? What would our spiritual signposts be then — or would we no longer need them, because we would have reached the destination?

Personally I'm still fumbling for direction in the near dark — but there are lights along the way. And I see the tea is kicking in — goodnight, friends!