The Beauty of Guiding and being Guided
Well, you may have heard one of the growing stories of people who come to Dominica and set off with full optimism on a trail, and get lost, or worse injure themselves or lose their life because they did not listen to the locals about the perils of river currents. And sometimes for days.
If this is because you are being cheap, please stop. The cost is not worth it. Save your money elsewhere. This is a way to support the local guide community who have years of observing and walking those places you come to for just a day. I’ll get off the pulpit..
Now this came up for me personally over Christmas, when I finally had an opportunity to hike to Victoria Falls, Delices. Having spoken to Moses it was clear that Tiffany and I would have a hard time knowing when to cross the river FIVE times on the way up to the falls, so we let the guide take the strain. And I watched with quite mounting irritation, a French family deciding to be cheap and refusing a guide – I own the judgment- yet continued to come back to ask the way to go even when it was clearly signed. They ended up following us…..
Now, I guide people on their inner planes, and I know the joys and perils of that journey and how people do not appreciate my role in their transformation until they hit a boulder and they still cannot see it. So sometimes I admit you have to get lost, or even injure yourself, before you appreciate the joy of being guided.
Tiffany and I could just flow, grappling over the rocks, feeling the surge of energy moving though our bodies as we just enjoyed being present, connected, drenched and truly enlivened, which is I think what everyone is secretly or openly hungry for in life…
