1987, Hawaii. I was enroute to Los Angeles, when I was transitting Oahu. It is hard to give the great Pacific weather you get in Hawaii a miss. Not only was it plain magic, the freshness of the young land - volcanic, rising out of the middle of the ocean - gives you a sense of the catalysmic change constantly happening on the earth's crust.
There, on Ala Moana beach, I sat on the sun-bleached sands, and spend an hour in personal contemplation. What did I see, out over the wide expanse of blue before me? If life is made up of extraordinary moments, then those such as these are epiphanies. The few white sails far out, a few ships passing, and a whole lot of ocean. Then closer in, the endless crests of white waves breaking, wave after wave. The wind is louder in your ears than the waves breaking and ebbing on the shore. Then you feel the white heat of the sand, radiating the bright sun above. On the left, the high coconut palms in fraternal salute, their arms flailing and arching with the wind as the white water bursts on the breakwater below. People, now you see them, are busy with their own activities, Jogging, on bikes, and tanning in 
the sun, like me. I turn around and look towards the park behind me and at the looming Ala Moan centre and hotel. Sunlight is falling like bright snow on everything, bathing it with warm like the heaviest monsoon, but everything is dry, and illumined. It was then there that I met Rene de Chevrotiere, and our conversation brought us to a bright friendship where all this made sense. Life is about the journey, and the journey is the source of happiness, not the destination. He passed me Dan Millman's "Way Of The Peaceful Warrior", and back then I did not fully see what influence this would have in my own journey, and what a ride that has been. Salute Rene, and merci. I wish your journey has been bright and full of light as mine has.
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