Excerpt from The Yoga of Sailing by Dyana Wells:
I gaze around. Everything is extraordinarily present and precious. A roughly-dressed Fijian crosses aimlessly in front of our bus, a rangy dog noses for scraps; they both ooze the glory of existence. Emily’s thigh presses solidly against mine. I feel the day-pack, rough and uncomfortable on my lap. I glance across Emily out the window. The bus snorts away from the depot, rumbles through town and heads for the jungle.
The road is not the way it looks on our map. The map shows a straight dark line. I thought my spiritual path was a straight dark line, taking me all the way to liberation. Maps are helpful but deceptively over-simplified, I decide. We bounce over gaping potholes, and stop to inch through deep mud in treacherous grooves. We follow a silvery snaking river inland – the way I follow fine silvery threads of feeling down into my body when I’m meditating.
These life experiences — and many more — are detailed in Dyana’s Anchors in an Open Sea trilogy, beginning with book 1: The Yoga of Sailing.