The Fortune I Uncovered in a Book and a Park

Tiziano Terzani – A Fortune-Teller Told Me

This was one of the best books I've read in my life. Perhaps in part because I was receptive to it, but I truly think Terzani possessed exceptional wisdom and the skill of poetry to share it.

I have never had an answer to the question of who you would most like to have dinner and conversation with, living or dead. My answer now would be Tiziano Terzani. Unlike many travelers or writers I have encountered, he was connected to my thoughts. He spoke distilled truth without pomp and he lived, truly breathed life, vibrancy.

This book came to me at a used book shop, my favorite kind of place. In fact, it was on a journey- Downtown Books and News in Asheville, NC. That's the best way to find an interesting book, in my experience. The unusual and rare, the rarely read and unique pop out of old eclectic shelves and find their way into my head and head forever. It is one of the few books I have marked up with sticky notes mainly, and I noticed someone else had made notes in it as well. It is full of quotes that I wrote down for later reference. I couldn't love it more.

"Travel makes sense only if you come back with an answer in your baggage. " -Tiziano Terzani

As I finished the book at my breakfast table in my motorhome Harold, the early breeze whispered through and all I could hear was cicadas and birds. The sun rose to the side, off stage enough not to heat and burn, but visible in colors and presence. I used just my metal camp dish and drank a coffee. I had woken at dawn and walked around to see the sun rise. I'd smiled at the waddling opossum, heading home through the grasses after a late night, and nodded at the nibbling rabbits, who froze by instinct but did not run from me.

This morning I reaffirmed my desire and drive to be free spirited in my way. To move around, to see and visit and record whatever I can; to see nature everywhere I go, and to make my own beat.

"I felt once again that tremor of excitement, so pleasing but rarer as time goes on, of setting foot where few had been and where perhaps I might discover something."

-Tiziano Terzani

Last night I saw some shooting stars and Milky Way and Jupiter, my governing planet. I made a fire and cooked on it. I reflected on my day of effort and exertion and reward of wildlife viewing and quiet. I enjoyed my solitude among the busy and eclectic mix in the full campground. I was alone but not lonely. Again.

I vowed to keep focusing on not letting things burn- the man dumping his gray tank on the ground, the young group in the rented RV loudly discussing getting high, the bright projection TV on the outer wall of a family camper breaking the darkness of stargazing. I can only be myself. I watched until the fire was embers. I toasted marshmallows. I watched stars. I was quiet and still. The young group laughed and said they thought I was "a post or something, and then it started talking" when they came bumbling by talking about the darkness.

These people were all just living their own lives. Their own way. Maybe they'd never been outside in nature in the darkest skies in Florida, or never taken a camping trip; maybe the man had to get his children and wife home and didn't think anything of dumping his soapy waste water on the ground. And maybe, no, definitely, I can't live my life policing theirs. And nor should I.

The final chapters of 'A Fortune-Teller Told Me' discuss meditation, which he came to late and skeptically. He certainly gained something from that experience and I gained something from reading his account of it.

“The silence was a great discovery. Without the foreground of other people's words, I realized that the glorious beauty of nature was in its silence... for so much of our lives we are pounded by the cacophony we have invented, imagining that it pleases us, or keeps us company. Everyone, now and then, should reaffirm this right to silence and allow himself a pause, some days of silence in which to feel himself again, to reflect and regain a degree of health.”

-Tiziano Terzani

This was ideal timing because I have been reflecting on my own journey and next steps. I know my next move lies in pursuing this journey. The journey. I want to continue to be outside experiencing nature and seeing with my senses. I have heard sounds here that we have lost in civilization. I have seen colors that I had missed for a while. I felt the sun, breeze, darkness, fear and joy, exertion and life effort that I have longed to return to. This is me. This is what I need, so I will not stop while there is energy within me to continue.

"It seemed to me that the point of traveling is in the journey itself, not in the arrival; and similarly in the occult what counts is the search, the asking of questions, not the answers found in the cracks of a bone or the lines in your palm. In the end, it is always we ourselves who give the answer."

-Tiziano Terzani

That is the answer I bring back in my baggage, but I do not return to sit for long. If I stop, I will stagnate and disintegrate. That is me. I will keep on. And I am truly grateful for this return to myself.

If I return to anything, it is not to a place. It is to myself.