For the third year in a row, I'm participating in a five-day new year meditation at sunrise. It's a marvelous tradition to start the year, and I'm appreciative of the Shintaido teacher who introduced me to it. The first year was a most mysterious experience, practicing with others in San Francisco. Last year, it was a source of inner support as my father and I helped my mother navigate her last weeks.

This year, the meditation started later than usual; day 2 was today. This has been the hardest year for me to get up before dawn. I guess I'm just tired. I've been packing to move, then loading the car and now, I'm traveling cross country to a new life with my car packed with so much unnecessary stuff. I don't know in each new setting exactly where to meditate, and in the stress of the travel, I'm not as organized in what I do.

This morning's meditation took place at the window in my motel room in Las Cruces. It was unorthodox, but ended with a sense of surprise and joy at the first witness of the sun.

After leaving Las Cruces feeling very good, I drove way off track, so off track-several hours-I felt sick.

I pulled off the interstate and called a friend to discuss options. After the call, I got out of the car to take a look at the paired saguaro in the Waffle House parking lot where I'd pulled over. I don't think I'd ever seen one in its home habitat before, and didn't remember them from the I-40 route I'd planned for today. The saguaro seemed so amazing to me that I wondered if the reason I'd gone so astray wasn't just to have the experience of meeting this one lifeform.

After the Waffle House, though, I was to have a high-traffic and tedious stretch of I-10 driving on the day that should have been most pleasant. My faith in myself was damaged, I felt deflated.

But some odd luck (associated with the phone call) intervened. I ended up off the freeway onto Tangerine Road in Marana. This led to Oracle Road and eventually to Globe, Arizona where I'm spending the night.

I found myself within ecstatic vistas of mountains covered by saguaros, all the way through sunset. I'm in new territory.