Articles
Browse every published article connected to Halle Eavelyn, with exact attribution and full-archive search.
Articles
Browse every published article connected to Halle Eavelyn, or search within this exact expert archive.
My travel memoir Red Goddess Rising follows my transformation from reluctant spiritual tourist, through the staggering revelation of the truth of my soul, to my new life guiding other travelers though the mysteries of ancient spirituality. To purchase or read more of my book, visit RedGoddessRising.com I hop you enjoy this excerpt from the chapter, The Dogs of Egypt...
About every quarter, we pack an ove ight bag, leave the dogs with a housesitter, and drive the two-and-a-half hours from LA to San Diego to visit my favorite cousin, Randy, and his long-time girlfriend, Lisa. Wonderful people, warm, hospitable and friendly, Lisa is a Catholic who attends mass, well, religiously, and Randy is a bit of an atheist.
This morning, just past dawn, when my coffee and I walked out of my villa here in Bali, a huge grey egret was standing by the pool. Perhaps he was examining the Koi in the fishpond, waiting for one to poke his head out so that he could enjoy a swift breakfast. When he heard me, he turned and with a great flap of his wide wings leapt onto the thatched roof of the open bale, then in a single hop took off over the palm trees.
Spiritual tours and travel are everywhere, it seems. So how do you know whether you should take a spiritual tour the next time you travel, as opposed to a regular tour, or just going on your own? Here are the Top 10 reasons to take a spiritual tour: 10. See an exotic culture and country, and learn how they worship and live. Spiritual tours - good ones, at least - will often give you insights into, or enable your participation with, how the locals pray.
On our current tour of Egypt, some members of our group asked for home-baked cookies. We were sailing up the Nile aboard our private cruise ship, the Afandina, so I asked our chef to take care of it. Since individual requests happen often (everything from raw food to vegetarian to a personalized birthday cake) I was surprised when Chef demurred, explaining that he was no baker. As Julie the Cruise Director, it’s my first job to make all our guests happy, so I ended up baking six dozen cookies.
Experiencing dawn at the Temple of Isis at Philae should be a part of everyone’s holidays in Egypt. However, usually only people going for spiritual travel will get to have this incredible opportunity. We take a bus from our cruise ship, arriving in the pitch black at the ticket booth, and then step onto a ferry that takes us over to the small island where the temple is located. Moved stone by stone when the Aswan Dam was built, the temple looks as if it has sat in the same spot for thousands of years.
Sometimes, something comes along that profoundly affects you enough to need to talk about it... a lot. I read a book that I think, in addition to being highly entertaining, also had a profound spiritual impact on me, and on my own spiritual tour as I careen through this thing we call life. So I thought I would share it with you - it's coming out this week, and you can also read the first 2 chapters for free at Forgiving Ararat.com.
Those words, easy enough to write, have always been so hard for me. So let’s look at that concept. Letting go and allowing has been hard for me – the very sentence conjures resistance and cross-purposes, neither of which is particularly easy for the Universe to help guide my path. Recently, though, I had a marvelous lesson in the power of getting out of my own way:
It's nearly midnight on the beach in Puerto Vallarta and I am crouched down over a small open pit, watching something that looks like a scene from Alien — strange pink flesh and lots of drippy goo. Over the pit, right at my eye level, an enormous sea turtle is heeding the strongest call of nature and laying dozens of eggs, which drop down into the pit like tough, rubbery ping pong balls, bouncing a little before coming to rest on top of their future brothers and sisters.
First, a caveat. I'm in the travel business, and not the armchair, I'll-book-your-trip-for-you type. I lead trips myself. Trips to Bali, where bombs killed tourists less than a decade ago; to Spain, where thousands rioted in the streets against austerity measures; to Egypt, where the recent US embassy attack marked the latest in a long list of civilians clashing with government. Why would I still go? Because it's extremely safe, much safer than staying home.
This is perhaps a weird topic to relate to spirituality, but it is timely and something that we are all extremely aware of right now. Whether you believe in people's rights to own guns, are a rabid Second Amendment fan, or think all guns should be locked up, we can probably all still agree that things have gotten a little bit out of control. The question is, who should make these decisions, and when do we stop believing in our personal freedoms over the common good?
I was in Cairo on the day the world ended. Well, not really, but on the day the world was supposed to end, Dec. 21, 2012. We took our spiritual tour group out in the desert to Dashur and inside the Red Pyramid, where we toned, sang, rang a crystal bowl, and spoke our intentions for the future aloud. We startled some tourists who were coming through, and I thought they might be offended. But they stood silently by, their interest deepening as the sound grew, filling the chamber, echoing until it seemed as if a chorale were performing.
We can never really know what the universe has in store for us, but we can affect what happens by our thoughts, our feelings, and our resistance. And despite our best intentions, sometimes a chance encounter occurs that is so unexpected but changes everything, or a person you meet in passing affects the rest of your life, or you see something that makes you question all your choices. This is why we travel, not only to other countries but along the journey of life.
Did you know that one of the most important things on people’s To Do Lists is travel? That when it comes to happiness, people consider travel one of the most valuable things they can spend their money on? Ironically, looking back, it’s one of the few things most of us can remember having spent that money on. So why is it that so many Americans STAY HOME? Until Mexico and Canada required US citizens to carry passports, only 18% of us even owned them.
I’m in Hacienda El Carmen, a delightful old Spanish estate that has been turned into the kind of hotel that is both wedding destination and respite from the everyday world — you can walk the restored rooms full of antiques, inside walls over a foot thick, and imagine the footsteps of the generations that called this place their home. I’m actually on a Mexico spiritual tour, leading a group of folks who are interested in a deeper experience, not just a vacation.
I’m a fairly adventuresome person, but I don’t have that thrill gene—you know, the one that makes you want to sky dive and bungee jump and have sex in public places. But I’m also a woman in my forties, which makes me, if not more staid, at least more experienced with having done, well, a LOT. So while I might visit someplace new (and since I’m in the travel business, I do so regularly) my activities are usually ones I have experienced before, just in other spaces in the world.
From the time of the Middle Ages, people in Southern France have honored Les Saintes Maries -"The Saint Maries" - with Sara's Procession to the Sea. Candles in hand, the crowds of worshippers take part in a ceremony that has remained the same for these past centuries, honoring the Saints Mary Jacobe and Mary Salome, who, along with Mary Magdalene, are said to be the first people to see Jesus' empty tomb. The ladies then sailed from Alexandria, Egypt to France, along with a mysterious figure, "Dark Sara," who was possibly their servant.