Among the first people of Australia, young persons on the threshold of adulthood set out utterly alone into the forbidding and uninhabited regions of the continent.  One makes one’s way relying on one’s wits, discovering along the path one’s previously unknown inner assets.  One confronts one’s limits, and defines one’s identity.  A walkabout is a test and a quest.

A walkabout is an apt metaphor for the writing task.  Writers, too, set out into the wilderness alone; they struggle to set down on paper the thoughts rattling around their brains.  Sometimes in the process one stumbles into self-knowledge along the way.  No one knows where this expedition will take us or what resources it will require.  We’re on our own  —  into the wild realms of farthest fantasy, or into the deepest, inmost regions of our own hearts.  The writing walkabout tests our spirit’s mettle for withstanding the rigors of our passage; it is a soul-search in quest of an elusive verbal art.

If life is a journey, then we all are on a walkabout.  We are always crossing under the liminal lintel that marks our transit into a new reality; we are perpetually on the verge of transformation into new levels of maturity.  With every step we move into the unknown and into the sphere of the Mystery that animates our Universe and our writing  art.  Walkabout: A Journal of Writing and Spirituality seeks to put this test and quest into words.

Welcome to Walkabout.