New Grandchild

We are back in the US until December 12 for the birth of our fourth grandchild, a darling little girl named Arwen. Her parents (Jesse and Yui Reynolds) now have two girls and with Max and Owen (children of Greg and Kristin White) we have four. Mother and babe are doing very well and Yui's mother just arrived from China to help them for the next 6 months, so our services are pretty much no longer needed. I'm going to spend a few days in Portland with my daughter and then it is back to Spain. Here is a photo of Elyn and Sophie being introduced to the new baby.

Powerful Places Website

Great news! Our new Powerful Places website is up. Click HERE to see Michael Fox's great work.

A Backup Plan, Don't Leave Home Without One

Elyn's latest article has just been published on YourLifeIsATrip.com. It's called "A Backup Plan: Don't Leave Home Without One" and describes the challenging (and nearly disastrous!) beginning of a recent family visit in Spain.

If you're interested,

1) You can read the article at

http://www.yourlifeisatrip.com/home/a-backup-plan-dont-leave-home-without-one.html

2) You can leave a comment on the website at the end of the article.

3) You can support Elyn's writing by joining the website for free--they'll send you announcements automatically of new articles.

Her previous articles can be found at http://www.yourlifeisatrip.com/home/author/elynaviva

A Procession in Girona Part I

We happened on this little parade while we were out at the market shopping this morning. I decided to experiment with my iPhone and took a few seconds of video of the "Big Heads" dancing to the sound of the primitive oboes and drums, the usual folk instruments here in Catalonia.

Procession in Girona

Following the "Big Head" dancers were two "Giants," a King and a Queen. Notice the remanent of feudal society with its stratification in this little parade.

Note from Ireland

Here we are in the middle of the magic land of Ireland on a two+ week research trip for our next book: Powerful Places in Ireland. Here is Elyn today as she was climbing out of the Cave of the Cats, an entrance to the underworld, near Roscommon. What a place.

Elyn's New Article on Your Life is a Trip

Elyn has a new article, this time about Brittany, on Your Life is a Trip. You can read it by clicking HERE.

Powerful Places in Brittany

Barnes & Noble has our Powerful Places in Brittany for sale at $10.04, a 28% discount from list price. Click HERE to go directly to the Barnes & Noble site.

Our house is for sale

As of today, our beautiful house in Santa Fe, New Mexico is up for sale. The price is low and the house is in great shape. We are living full time in Spain and don't need a US residence. Look it up if you are interested. It is at 205 Irvine, Santa Fe, NM. Contact our realtor, Robin Zollinger at Barker Reality for a look.

Healing at Saint Onenn's Holy Well

Elyn's latest article has just been published on Your Life is a Trip. It's called "Healing at Saint Onenn’s Holy Well" and describes a very intriguing experience she had recently in Brittany, in northwestern France.

If you're interested,

1) You can read the article at

http://www.yourlifeisatrip.com/home/healing-at-saint-onenns-holy-well-brittany.html

2) You can leave a comment on the website at the end of the article.

3) You can support her writing by joining the website for free--they'll send you announcements automatically of new articles.

Her previous articles can be found at http://www.yourlifeisatrip.com/home/author/elynaviva

A New Article

Elyn just had another article published on Your Life is a Trip. It is about the Black Virgin of Rocamadour. It is also about a summons that got Elyn up out of bed and night to pay the Virgin a visit. Interesting reading (I slept through it all.) Click HERE to read the article

What a Town We Live In

We repeatedly have to pinch ourselves to believe we are actually living in this wonderful town, Girona, Spain. Here we are near the Costa Brava, one of the most beautiful coasts along the Mediterranean. We are near the French border on the north, close to Barcelona on the south and within a few miles of la Garrocha (Garrotxa in Catalan), the volcanic region on the west.

Last night capped them all for us. We walked a few blocks from our apartment in the old town to the cathedral, where we heard a concert by Anonymous 4, the Grammy award winning a cappella group that specializes in ancient music.

The concert began in the 12th-century cloister of the cathedral, where we heard 15th century music from nearby Montserrat. After a half hour we all trooped into the cathedral proper, where we heard music from the 14th century Codex of Las Huelgas, a monastery near here.

In the cloister we sat amid a sea of arches, columns and capitals with candlelight playing about the shadows, creating the illusion that we might have been transported back in time. The voices floated through the atmosphere accompanied by an occasional coo of a dove in the central courtyard. The cathedral was in near darkness when we entered. The voices came to us, amplified by several seconds of reverberation time and a few sparrows high above, who sang with all their hearts. It was total enchantment all evening long.

We walked out of the cathedral into the crowds of people eating at the booths set up to celebrate the religious and world music festival that is going on all month. Food from many countries around the world was being served to the hundreds of people, also from around the world. (The night before, when we ate at the outdoor tables the group at our table were from Romania.) Last night we strolled through the crowds and walked down ancient streets in the old Jewish quarter of Girona to our modern apartment in a 16th century building on the original Roman road through town.

We hardly can believe the richness we find ourselves in here and are thankful every day for our good fortune.

Elyn's Article on Girona

Elyn's latest article (on our new hometown, Girona, Catalonia) is up on Your Life is a Trip. Click HERE

Your Life is a Trip

Elyn has a new article up on Your Life is a Trip. Click HERE to read it.

Change of Plans

Well, here we are back in Sahagún after only two weeks. But this is a temporary situation because we have rented an apartment in Girona for one year, starting the first of March. We came back to Sahagún to wind up our business here and move out of the apartment.

We have fallen in love with Girona and thought we might as well make the shift now, since our lease on the current apartment is up in the middle of April and we will be traveling most of the time after that.

With us, you never know which way we will turn next. It is a life filled with activity and change. This is only the most recent. So bon voyage from Sahagún and hello Catalonia.

Elyn's Latest Article

Elyn just had her article about the lunar standstill at the Calanais Stones in Scotland published by Your Life is a Trip. Read it HERE and make a comment.

Girona Photos

Here are two photos from the photogenic city of Girona. If you want to see more go to my Facebook, or Elyn's Facebook, or the kids blog HERE

Report from Girona

We arrived in Girona two days ago and have moved into our apartment for the month of February. We are in the heart of the old Jewish center in the town on Calle de la Força, which is the original Roman road through this area. We feel the depth of history here very deeply. We spent the morning walking the walls of the town and taking pictures. We'll get them up on Facebook in the next day or so.

Our newest book: Powerful Places in Catalonia has just been released and we got a great review in "Foreword" magazine. If you go to Powerful Places Guidebooks in Facebook you can read the reviews and see the book covers.

Our intent is to rest and relax for most of this month before a very busy travel schedule that begins at the first of April. We'll keep you informed of our adventures here in Girona and surroundings.

Leaving for Catalonia

We leave on Wednesday for Barcelona and intend to live in Girona for the month of February. We have loved our time in this town before and want to spend enough time to really get to know it.

New Article by Elyn

Elyn just had an article published on My Life is a Trip. Go to the link to read it. Leave a comment at the end. It helps get her out to the online public. Click HERE.

Powerful Places on the Caminos de Santiago

Our first Powerful Places book is out and available from Barnes & Noble. Click HERE to see their ad. Powerful Places in Scotland will follow shortly. Stay tuned.

And one of my faithful readers pointed out that B & N has a special on. Their members discount (10%) is available to everyone, member or not. The book is $8.05 with the discount.

Cabalgata in Sahagún

Here in Spain, the Day of the Three Kings (January 6) is bigger for children than Christmas. On that day they get all their presents, not on Christmas Day. The eve of the Kings day is filled with anticipation here. All day long I was seeing children with bright, excited eyes on the streets with their parents. It is a big day of general celebration, brought to a close in the evening by the Cabalgata—the arrival of the Three Kings.

At about 7:30 a train arrives in the station here in Sahagún and the Three Kings are on it! They descend and climb aboard trailers pulled by farm tractors that have been highly decorated and are filled with local kids in costumes. The parade begins and spirals through the streets with the kids on the trailers throwing candy to the assembled masses. General excitement prevails. The Kings arrive at the town hall (just across from our apartment—how convenient) and hold court on a stage especially constructed for the occasion. More presents are distributed and everyone goes home happy to await the big bonanza of presents on the morning of the Día de los Reyes.

This year, for the first time in the history of Sahagún, the black king was really black (a local restauranteur), who played the part to the hilt. The king has always been a white guy in black face before. The black guy looked really happy to be included in this small town celebration and we were happy to see him there.

Transformational Travel

We have just launched our new Facebook site about transformational travel and our new series of books--"Powerful Places . . ." The first of the series is coming out this month and we look forward to discussions on the Facebook site.

Go to: http://www.facebook.com/ and type in "Powerful Places Guidebooks" into the search. Take a look at our site and join as a fan. We look forward to the conversations that will follow.