"I never had to and I don’t have to. One’s Passion can also turn out to be your biggest enemy in Life…"

No! There is no storm… to the contrary. I just think it is one of my favorite photo I have captured… The rest as this one also is are in our Photo Coffee Table Book with maps where taken and 62 quotes.

Our Book “Freedom on Both Ends of the Leash” will also be always available here or on Amazon. Please email me [icon above under banner] for International shipping.

The words, thoughts, sentences and paragraphs will never stop throughout this Journey we are on. A few days ago we passed the nine year mark when these pages took birth. 885 posts… Is it a short time? A long time? I don’t know. Being here these present months in Big Bend Valley at The Oasis makes me not know much this time around while dealing with this bureaucracy of the Medical care so I become soon as someone called it "second hand brand new"! I always said and still do that these pages are mine, they are merely a reflection of my thoughts as I cannot leave the cap on that bottle of Life. Yet, and I really don’t know how to explain it, they are starting to weigh on me. Not the writing, but the exposure which in itself opens up maybe too many doors to too many Social Media platforms. That has been my own doing of course. A naive maybe parallel companions to these pages, yet also a bit too present.

It is as this presence which was within me, now is next to me and has started dragging us as almost a responsibility towards others I do not want to support anymore. Even though it is not true, I feel as our Life is slipping away a bit demanded by expectancies which in reality are not, but that is how I feel. Unintentionally we have been too public… in the public eye. It was never my goal. It still is not, unlike many who literally ask me "what is your secret?"… "we want to be just like you…". Unlike the too many taking pleasure in posting on Facebook or Twitter or whatever a gazillion times a day, including daily Blogs while their "likes" is their barometer of happiness and self indulgence. We are unlike again like the too many that try so hard to be so famous adopting variances of so many strategies today available without realizing that their own lives is slipping away. That their present goal has now separated from their own Being. Harsh maybe, yet it is reality… There are no secrets and maybe "that is" the secret. Too many have stopped living for themselves. They live for their own self gratification from others, they live to be seen and not see. Harsh again? Maybe. It is a generality, the odds of a high percentage.

I have just witnessed a couple acquaintances exiting the Social platforms of the Internet as we are doing. They are not the first ones and won’t be the last. I wrote to them that I so totally understood while contrary from most of the other comments which in my eyes, in my understanding, were not directed towards those persons well being but instead towards themselves as "what is going to now be MY entertainment…". Kind of funny… isn’t it? So much has changed these past couple decades! I still remember years ago when someone said I could reach them through their email address!… as I looked at that person and asked what was that? Internet? and what was that also? I miss the old days even if such Internet is at times a plus and to be honest, I myself don’t think I could live without it as far as information, searches and emails.

Where am I going with all this while trying to sift the plusses and minuses from this relationship towards the core of our own Life. My goal and my well being confronting my tumultuous waves these past years have been both bundled up into one. There is no separation. I have tried hard and still do to better myself, as I say it often, honing my tools to clear this path that stares at us daily. That is where the redundancy comes in plastered over and over on these pages because, these pages are my well being. Again, I do not expect anyone unless wearing the same shoes to understand the deep scar which will never heal, which will always bleed even if one drop at the time and there comes a point when publicly for many it can be the same "song and dance" which for me is however every day a different tune.

So why continue? I feel as a public sabbatical is in order to free me, to tighten up and close the cracks of these walls surrounding us. I don’t know for how long… I am not an entertainer! I am not an "adventure rider" writer! I don’t keep track of our mileage to impress, our hours ridden or care towards such promotional aspects. I just as they say spill my guts and I know I do as some Friends of mine know me better than I know myself! I think it is time for these pages to remain for my eyes only and for us to re-emerge with what was then when a telephone was used, when letters were mailed, when time was spend truly conversing around a cup of coffee or spend the night chatting and trying to solve the World’s problems around a campfire. I will nod to emails!

I have to take that path. I did not expect "this" nine years ago but then again, that was nine years ago and time has passed, knowledge has been instated, I have even written a Book! All that so amazing I must say. I have to try… There is a pull to regain the true moments as they are versus this mysterious band wave called the Internet. The plus of course has been the fact that we have met so many wonderful people which have become Friends, true Friends who have with no questions asked bailed us out so many times while broken down physically or mentally when plan B was non existent. My Friends have our email and phone number to communicate. This Journal will stay open as a final decision has not been yet taken, it is a sabbatical, for a while…

Our Facebook pages [Ara Gureghian and The Oasis of my Soul] also will be at idle. Our Instagram and Smugmug Photo Galleries will go on. So will our You Tube Channel. For those reading these pages I hope you understand as I think you will and we wish you the best in Life. Who knows what tomorrow holds… We might some day be back on these pages. The roads await…

Stay well.
              Ara and Spirit