The Great Remembering: An African Journey Home

PHoto credit: craig neal

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Last night I interviewed Craig, my Heartland partner and husband of 26 years, following his recent trip to Tanzania, Africa. The trip with 13 men over 50 years old, led by old friend Richard Leider, was a watershed journey into his emerging elderhood as well as surprise "inventure" into a deep remembering into his humanhood. Caig kicked off the session saying........

We’ve all had those moments of awakening or remembering, some fleeting as if from a dream, where we know and feel connected in a visceral sense to all things, human and otherwise. Then, most of us return to the “real world” where day-to-day life resumes. What if these moments were the reality in which we were born to live, and that what if these episodes are the great remembering of what it truly is to be human?

My recent trip to east Africa, the birthplace of humanity, was one such moment in time, when the journey to a far off place brought forward a deep remembering of innocence, and connection to all things.

Craig's connection to the land and the people who have inhabited and known the land for over 4000 years was ground-shaking for him because it brought him squarely to the question of being, remembering, connection.

What is it you wish to remember about who you are, why you are here, and to whom or what you belong?

Patricia Neal

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