I just got on-line to write some thoughts for today, and saw that those I had written late last night were still sitting there. I completed writing them but apparently didn’t push the button to publish. That demonstrates how tired I was. So tonight I am publishing one right after the other. But I do want to add a thought from today.

Catching up on the news from the week I was gone, aside from all of the political and economic confusion, is the powerfully moving story of the miners in Chile who finally were freed during those days. Hearing that they tried to put on a brave face for their families and the world for the cameras that were sent down there, now hearing how they were actually suffering so profoundly, and have made a pact of silence to keep their experiences among themselves is heart wrenching and so inspiring. I wish I had a way to ask the world to stand back and give these men the respect and privacy that the situation calls for. Media madness, book options, movie options, talk shows, the world pounding on these fellows who have gone in to the heart of the earth, lived in darkness, experienced a life-changing – certainly shamanic – journey of the strongest order, and are now just wanting to embrace their families and assimilate what has happened – why don’t we have the wisdom to back up and let them speak when and if they ever want to? Tell us the men are safe. Tell us their wishes. And leave it there.

Take your own deep journeys, plumb your own darkness for the gold and real power that is there. Leave these men to the sanctity of the incubation of their initiation.