Third Eye Views

I just returned from a much-needed vacation!  I visited islands in the Southern Caribbean.   Leaving from San Juan,  I visited St. Thomas, St. Kitts, St. Lucia, Barbados and my favorite island of all, St. Maarten or St. Martin (depending on whether you’re on the Dutch or French side)!

I met so many interesting people, had plenty of fun, ate fabulous cuisine and just disconnected from the world, while reconnecting with myself.   I wasn’t even trying to go on a personal/spiritual journey when I took this vacation, but that is exactly what happened and I am very grateful for it.  I feel physically renewed, emotionally revived and spiritually replenished.

In this world of being busy-bodies, we often misinterpret the actual meaning behind the phrase ‘taking a vacation’.  The word vacation derived from the Latin word vacare, meaning “to be unoccupied, empty, free, or at leisure”.   However during my vacation, I spent Easter Sunday in Old San Juan, P.R.  In Old San Juan people are very spiritual/religious and it is something that you can actually feel and even smell in the air.    I visited an old Catholic church and while taking pictures, a priest came up to me asking if he would be seeing me at mass the following Sunday.  I informed him that I was visiting and as I began speaking to him about my renewed self, he informed me that the Latin word vacare actually derived from the Latin phrase vacare Deo, meaning “to be empty for God; to be at leisure for or available to God.”  He began to explain to me that when a true vacation is taken, it is only natural that one will feel spiritually replenished.  Then he asked me, Do you think it is an accident that you are here on “vacation” and speaking to me about this on Easter Sunday?

All I could do was smile, because at that very moment, I realized that nothing in this world is an accident or coincidence.  There is a time for everything and I will definitely began making time for the next ‘vacation’.