Namaste, A gifted reader and friend once told me that I would live in a foreign country in a house on a hill overlooking the ocean. She saw the house as Mediterranean style, whitewashed by sunshine with an inner courtyard. Because I adore Mexico, for years I thought it would be Mexico as I have often traveled there. Greece is also a favorite of mine. The mainland and the islands are joyous to me and I often imagined it to be a Greek Island. My first visit to Athens in 1978 was like coming home as I walked the streets I knew where to go and identified what alleyways to take as shortcuts through the ancient city. I seemed to know the city well although I was traveling there for the first time. Returning to Greece each time I feel like I am returning home. Nafplion on the mainland about a two-hour drive from Athens, on the Peloponnese penisula resonated with me in the same way as Athens. It happened by chance that I went there with my son in 2009 as an afterthought. Like all who travel to the islands, I love the beauty of Santorini and it’s volcano.  The first time I visited we anchored in the harbor and I went uphill by donkey and walked back down to the port in the evenings to board a private yacht. Now on my last couple of visits there has been the cable car. My son and I loved Mykonos, also. What is there not to love?   Mykonos, Greece Why does this happen? I don’t live on an island or beside the sea. Most everything the same reader has told me has happened. Still, I live in the desert. The reader also told me that I return to America when I am very old. Time is flying by and pray tell. . . when is old? Am I invested in the outcome? Maybe in the beginning I was dreaming and fantasizing of a life I did not have. I do love to travel but my life in America is filled with family, friends, and happiness.   I do not speak Spanish well nor can I say but two words in Greek. I was engaged to a Greek fellow in Seattle many years ago and with true serendipity, Greek people and opportunities involving Greece come into my life and consciousness often in the form of Greek friends every where I go. However, I have no plans to sell my house and leave for Greece. I have learned to no longer invest in the outcome of my destiny; it is the process not the outcome that is the journey. Instead, I try to live in the moment. It does take some practice. We...

Namaste, In 2008 I visited Vietnam with my artist friend Caroline http://www..carolineorner.com and we were interviewed by Tracey Teo a freelance travel writer. The article was later published and I want to share it with you. Tracey is currently working on a documentary about the Smoky Mountains in the US. You can follow Tracey on Twitter. Asian cruise lets foodies learn to cook Vietnamese cuisine By Tracey Teo  Special to the Herald-LeaderTracey Teo The Vietnam Cookery Center in Ho Chi Minh City HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam – Susan Stockton Koss and ­Caroline Orner are on a gastronomic odyssey, eating their way through Vietnam as the cruise ship Rhapsody of the Seas sails down the country’s coastline. But Ho Chi Minh City is what the friends have their hearts and palates set on. Orner lives in Hagerstown, Md., which has no ­Vietnamese restaurants, so to satisfy her craving for those sweet, salty and sour flavors unique to Vietnamese food, she wants to learn to cook it herself. That’s why she’s at the Vietnam Cookery Center. For her, this is the highlight of a new Asian itinerary offered by Royal Caribbean’s during a 12-day cruise that originates in Hong Kong, includes stops in Vietnam, Thailand and Cambodia, and ends in Singapore. Vietnamese is my favorite Asian food, Orner says. If you don’t live in a big city like New York, it’s hard to find. After today, I’ll be able to make Vietnamese food by myself and won’t have to search for it. Stockton Koss lives in Phoenix, where Vietnamese food is more readily available, but she also is determined to master the culinary arts of Vietnam. About 20 other passengers of various nationalities have chosen this shore excursion from the numerous Ho Chi Minh City tours offered. The students are seated in pairs at small bamboo tables, each with a miniature gas stove. Orner and Stockton Koss are trying to identify ingredients inside the delicate blue and white bowls. After their “field trip to the market this morning, they think they should know what’s what, but after some discussion, they can’t agree. During the visit to Ben Thanh Market, the group was introduced to foods common to Vietnamese cuisine. Vegetables like elephant ear and morning glory the vegetable, not the flower are as ordinary to a Vietnamese cooks as iceberg lettuce and spinach to an American homemaker, but quite extraordinary to most Westerners. The market has many varieties of fresh fish, sometimes really fresh: alive and swimming in the tank. If you want fish in Vietnam, simply look for the conical hats. Under those hats are fishmongers, sitting on stools so low they appear to be squatting on the ground. Point to the fish...

  In Memory of my Beloved brother Robb who died November 3, 2009.  CROSSING THE BAR   Sunset and Evening star, And one clear call for me! And may there be no moaning of the bar, When I put out to sea.   But such a tide as moving seems asleep, Too full for sound and foam, From that which drew from out the boundless deep Turns again home.   Twilight and evening bell, And after that the dark! And may there be no sadness of farewell, When I embark;   For tho’ from out our bourne of Time and Place, flood may bear me far, I hope to see my Pilot face to face When I have crossed the bar.   -Alfred Lord...

Namaste, I returned last week from a trip to Egypt, Turkey and the Greek Isles. It did not occur to me until I was flying home that I indeed had experienced a “Kairos” event, preceded by a Kairos moment when on a whim I asked my son, Barry, what in the world he wanted to see in this lifetime and if he could go anywhere where would it be? He immediately answered, “The Pyramids.” The fact that he is single once more and I could take the time off from my practice was nothing short of a miracle. Also, our ability to pull the money together for an extraordinary trip was in itself miraculous. We did not book until quite late with only a few cabins left on the ship as my son‘s passport had been stolen and we could not book until his new one arrived. But alas, it came and we obtained a choice cabin with a wonderful view from our large window looking out to the sea. We had not taken a trip together since he was a teenager but somehow all the stars aligned to create a vacation together as mother and son. We flew to Istanbul staying a few days in town seeing the sites, the Blue Mosque, Sophia Hagia, the Grand Bazaar and recuperating from jet lag in our luxurious hotel, before boarding the Norwegian Jade for a 12 day cruise. The Biblical words, fullness of time,” came to mind as interpreted by the noted Lutheran theologian Paul Tillich who described Kairos time as “the fullness of time,” or “moments in which conditions are ripe for events to transcend in linear time and take on greater, even eternal, significance.” My son had not been to this part of the world and I had been to all but lovely Mykonos which we both truly loved. Santorini, Mykonos and Napflion on the mainland of Greece were our favorites as was Istanbul and of course Cairo with its mystical Pyramids. We left the ship in Alexandria and traveled to Cairo, staying at the Mena House close to the Giza Plateau where we could almost touch the stone. The experience was fantastic and we were blessed with a wonderful guide for our tour of Egypt. He was associated with the North Africa Tour Company and was without a doubt the best informed, charming guide I have ever had anywhere in the world. I salute you Hamy! I learned more from him in a few days than my entire previous tour of Egypt some years ago. It was indeed an “opportune” time. The trip itself was true Kairos. The Sphinx at Giza Plateau “The two meanings of the...

Namaste, Amid all the frustration I learned painfully that I needed to let go and flow with the river rather than swim upstream. We all know what it feels like to move effortlessly forward without obstacles, it is like floating with the current of a river, or riding a wave in the ocean. This begins to happen as we release our inner resistance based on fear and become in sync with the energy flow of the Universe around us. It is as Eckhart Tolle describes in his book, “The Power of Now.” Resistance breeds new difficulties at every turn; in my earlier years it became a game of my strength and endurance as I kept pushing against, rather than with the energy flow. Old patterns within us and outside influences of the environment (i.e., no time, no money no partner, no access, no education) reflect like a mirror upon us guaranteeing more resistance leaving us with fearful negative feelings and an overall lack of trust in ourselves and the Universe. Trust is a difficult issue for many of us. We have been disappointed so many times in life, we find it hard to trust our partners, our lovers, and our boss, let alone the Universe. “Letting go” means moving with the energy flow, flowing with the river and not emotionally investing in the outcome of a desired effect. That is a difficult thing to do as the “Course of Miracles” teaches us we are paralyzed by fear rather than love. The irony of life is that when we “let go” of a person, a desire, a place or or a job and pay attention to our selves, everyone around us responds in a different manner and things fall into place. To quote my dear friend Caroline,” if it is not “easy peasy” let it go! The hardest thing about the wonderful things you hear in a “reading” are the wanting of them in the “now”. However, in a quote attributed to the writings of King Solomon; “to everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven.” (Ecclesiastes 3:) (King James version) Divine timing or the right time divinely inspired, or what the ancient Greeks called Kairos, meaning the right or opportune moment in time is a concept we have all experienced. It is a moment when time stands still whether we are quiet in illness or active in the physical. It is the moment in love when we forget about time as we embrace our beloved; it flows when we are in a creative endeavor, painting, or writing, playing a musical instrument or conquering an intellectual challenge, mathematical or scientific, or simply running or swimming. In Greek mythology Kairos was the youngest child of the God Zeus. The original allegoric statue sculpted by Lysippos of Kairosis beautiful, and we know that beauty is...