Cultural Exploration can begin near home

Check local event calendars:

Keep an eye on your community calendar for events that highlight different cultures, such as festivals, concerts, and food fairs.

• Attend cultural performances:

  Look for opportunities to experience local music, dance, or theater performances that showcase diverse cultural traditions.

• Participate in community celebrations:

  Engage in local holidays and celebrations that reflect the cultural heratage of your hometown

• Visit local museums and libraries:

  Explore any museums or librariesthat may have exhibits or collections related to Varied cultures.

• Explore art galleries:

  Discover local art galleries that showcase the work of artists from various cultural backgrounds.

• Attend cultural workshops:

  Look for workshops or classes that teach traditional crafts, music, or languages from different cultures.

Consider Outdoor Pursuits

Explore physical activities, such as sailing, canoeing, and rock-climbing, which take place in a natural setting where part of the activity involves the challenge of coping with the natural elements.

On a recent trip to Puerto Rico, I joined my daughter and daughter-in-law on a jungle hike. We came upon a rock slide in the river. I considered passing on sliding the rocks and taking the 20' drop into the pool below. I chose to challenge my fears, and rode the slide. Absolutely EXHILARATING!

Nature is Art

Look Closely

A GoodWander leads beyond avenues, roads, and paths, and encourages one to push into jungles, woodlands, seas...onto beaches, prairies, and open boats. Just as man focuses on creating visual, auditory, or performing artifacts that express imaginative or technical skills, so too does Nature.

Brad and I recently traveled to the Azuero Peninsula in the Los Santos Province of Panama. It is one of the first parts of Panama to be settled more than 10,000 years ago, long before the Spaniards' arrival. Because it has only just begun to get noticed by travelers, much of the area remains minimally developed. Cultivation and extensive grazing has limited flora to a dry coastal forest and narrow margin of mangroves. To enable relatability, it appears like a tropical variety of a pastoral area the US midwest.

I chose a boutique 'village', Dos Mares Venao, as our home away. It sIts off the recently paved, narrow main road, beyond a bamboo fence, just on the edge of jungly forest. Coyotes and monkeys roam and often commence with their harmonic, native chats. Playful butterflies and focused hummingbirds flit from bloom to bloom. Two large, silverybirds perched high in a tree. They gazed, flew and returned, often with a stick or piece of grass that each worked to strategically place in a growing nest.

As noted, straying from the paved mains proves exciting. There's nothing like simply making a right turn, curving, climbing, descending, and arriving at a quiet stream or mountain edge. . .it's the closest we often get to our pioneer brothers and sisters.....time constraints often prompt me to team with the internet to identify the turns that lie beyond our view. While at Dos Mares, I spotted a crescent beach tucked between a rocky wall and jungly forest. We named it our destination one morning.

After a wide turn east, we bumped, rolled and climbed between the canopy of date palms and giant buttress root trees, understory of baby palms and ferns, and mosses, lichens and wildflowers of the forest floor. Parrots trilled and squawked high up to our left. Faint ocean crashes pierced their squawks. A stuccoed wall stood, running parallel to the road on our right. A path lead between one wall's end, and another's beginning. We took this to be reason to turn. We arrived: the ocean laid beyond a broad, smooth dirt lot, near a historic resort.

We stepped out of our SUV, and began surveying. An eclectic mix of nature and structures rose around us, as if greeting. A pensioner approached us, exchanged, 'buenos Dias' and requested "siete por persona'. Our Spanish is lacking, so we handed him twelve dollars, US. He looked at it, shrugged calmly, waved us passage, exclaiming, 'Disfrutar.'

We explored the resort, coming upon a humble bar where we ordered two cervesas. Cold beers in hand, we walked past intricate tile murals, down a wide, curving stairway that guided us to the beach. The rising tide narrowed the crescent. Ocean water surfed and crashed on the rocky wall protecting the bay. It thundered a rhythmic crescendo, then eased as some force intermittently calmed the water. It lapped at, licked, then sucked the sandy fringed of the beach. Smoothed fragments of shells, corals and rock freely tumbled in aqua foam. Thick, salty mist hovered above it all.

Work For Personal Growth

You didn’t come this far to stop;)

Life without growth stagnates. Self-awareness, self-improvement, self-transformation, learning, new skill development, and emotional intelligence enhance your well-being and life quality.

It is easy for people to succumb to a life routine. Shake it! Focus on developing your mind, including cognitive functions and learning abilities. Play a Hallmark game. Learn a new language. Reach and grow.

Seek social Growth. Connect with old friends in new ways. Strike a conversation with a stranger possessing a common trait or interest. Work to improve the health of your treasured relationships.

Mindfulness is a practice that aids in grounding, supporting all this growth. You can achieve this by practicing focusing on your surroundings. Let your senses guide you. Calmly acknowledge and accept your feelings and thoughts while tuning in to your senses. Breathe in, breathe out, and choose to do nothing more....if only for a moment or two.

Take Art Adventures

"I think everything in life is art. What you do. How you dress. The way you love someone, and how you talk. your smile and your personality. What you believe in and your dreams. the way you drink your tea. how you decorate your home. or party. your grocery list. the food you make. how your writing looks. and the way you feel. life is art."

-Helena Bonham Carter

Embrace this. Live as such. Life is a beautiful journey when all is art. As you dress, adorn. As you cook, create. Don't walk, sashay...strut... and Savor....caress....polish....Proclaim....gaze...

Walk in your life with the creativity and personal expression as the artist you are;)

Unique Adventures

Explore cultures, challenge yourself, and embrace new experiences mindfully.