Syllables of Silver Sinnamon Sticks

2006-05-05T23:09:00.000-07:00

coming soon: Ocean Shores and Wallace Falls

2006-01-20T10:17:00.000-08:00

peace in the fog. sitting on the motionless, icy, rain-glazed dock, the only sounds being the crunching of carrots in my mouth and the friction of sean's jacket arms...I imagine what this lake has seen. what trees have grown and fallen, how rain piercing the water has looked like fireworks exploding below the surface, how the sun must change the water's color and mood, and the dock...who has it been friends to? who has it allowed rest? i will never know. there is something magical existing in a dock. one can step out and not look back, can see the flickering of reflections, can breathe, can have their feet not touching the ground. we had intended to drive to high elevation and see all of orcas island from the sky, but we found ourselves here, floating on wood and ice, looking up, freezing in the quiet afternoon, and the trees watched as we mimicked the stillness of the water.

2006-01-17T16:17:00.000-08:00

Poetic moment on Orcas:

Waking

Fulness covering the quickening
beds where shadows go, music, transparent
dawns draped across the uneasyness,
they mold new statues in the place of patterns.

Here, listening for what the
archipelego of desires really means when
it says, "Cast your running branches out
towards that feeling, a dying sun rising,
the absence bleeding of nowheres."

Like trailing courage of sparks left behind,
this alpenglow of incense suffocates the
landscape. It is not now, nor was it then.

Only the beating of a stillness, alive,
makes sense. The beating of a wind against
the sky, the depths of a soft decent
like a kiss or a multitude of wanted eyes.

So many questions, so much space between
the waking and the dormant heart.

2006-01-17T15:19:00.000-08:00

Here are some pictures of Sharon and I on Orcas (all taken by the photographer Sean Swearinger).

2006-01-12T15:37:00.000-08:00

I have never been so wonderfully trapped as when I was staring through the archipelago maze of the San Juan Islands. When looking at a map, Orcas Island appears to fold around, in the manner of a horseshoe, a small town known as Eastsound. From the desolate beach, looking out towards the water, one gets the impression that they are standing at the end of a long, enclosing corridor of statuesque pine trees with Lopez Island barely visible in the distance. It were as though I was a voluntary prisoner to this unique world of quiet islands.
With only the ferry and a landing strip as potential escapes, the inhabitants of the town have an appearance of graceful resignation that one cannot find in a major city. While indulging in a cup of tea at the back of the bookstore, I overheard one man conveying to an acquaintance his love for the culture of Native Americans, saying that theirs was one of a lost spirituality. Another older man, at the counter, expressed his shock to the barrista over how many tourists, or "visitors," as he called them, there were for this cold, dismal part of the year. Needless to say, this style of small talk was intoxicating, and one that I had always associated with the "older generations" back home. Yet, everyone in Eastsound, or so it seemed, was willing to let the world pass them by, to become philosophers and theologians of an unusual existance, set apart from the rest of Washington State.

2006-01-10T19:53:00.000-08:00

"For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's sake. The great affair is to move; to feel the needs and hitches of our life more nearly; to come down off this feather-bed of civilization, and find the globe granite underfoot and strewn with cutting flints." -Robert Louis Stevenson

Sometimes I wonder if humans do not fall into two categories: those with "the itch" and those who are "itchless". Fortunately, both halves of this relationship are rather itchy. Sean and I dream of centering our lives around traveling...of experiencing as much of God's creation that we can...we want to "live" foreign lands, drink adventure, meet people so different from us that we are changed, we want to put on paper the wonders of nature and culture and life and art and I could go on, but I mustn't write a novel tonight..

For many, traveling seems impossible...but traveling is more than spending thousands of dollars and hovering seas, and reading a map and taking pictures...traveling does not require you to leave your country, city or state (my opinion of course)...I believe traveling to be a sort of heart one develops over time. A heart that needs the nourishment of adventure, wonder, delight, experience, and exploration. And so it is at this time in our lives, with little money along with obligations to school and work, that we are beginning our travels best we can: sometimes by road, sometimes on accident, sometimes a few minutes from our homes and at all time in our hearts.

2006-01-09T15:45:00.000-08:00

Greetings friends! The purpose of this blog is to officially document the whereabouts of Sharon Marjorie Barbour and Sean Gregory Swearinger in their unique adventures throughout the world, as well as those spaces occupied in the brain that we often find ourselves as foreigners. We hope you enjoy.