Sunkissed summer brochures, gorgeous discounts if you want to get tanned in the right places. "If you got the money honey and you got the time......."the world is your oyster. The lure of distant places, the magic, the enticement to journeys away, journeys into the unknown. Whether Benidorm, Canadian Capers, Seychelles, Fiji, Unkleshparkanbrechen (ah! you don't know where that is do you?) Those precious holidays.

But don't be fooled my lovelies. The Wise Ones have things to say about journeys and holidays. They will tell you that holiday means Holy Day and that every day is to be made a holiday. The search is certainly on, we want to know more, see more, experience more. Yet the Wise One said to the world-traveller, "Stay in your cell and that will teach you all you ever need to know."

The traveller replied "I'm no monk and anyway I don't have a cell."

"Of course you have a cell," was the reply, "and you can enter there any time you wish. Look within."

Madame Vanity Fair refused to acknowledge the passing of the years. She was applying more sun tan lotion on a far distant shore and someone asked her what her age was. "/ really don't know," she said, "// keeps changing every minute." She had not travelled very far. True freedom is not away from it all, running around topless or facing a rugged challenging encounter up some alp or down some hole, though that may help from time to time.

True freedom is making every day a sacred holy day by the way we are and live moment by moment.

Dag Hammarskjold, as Secretary General of United Nations in the 50's, journeyed constantly across the surfaces of the world, always high-profile, always in the public eye at momentous meetings in the world's big places. In his diary he wrote,

"The longest journey is the journey inward.......The more faithfully you listen to the voice within you, the better you will hear what is

sounding outside."

So an ancient Jewish tale. Isaac lived in Cracow, Poland. He kept having a dream which told him to journey to faraway Prague and dig under the bridge that led to the royal palace, where he would find hidden treasure. To begin with, he thought nothing of it, but the dream recurred so frequently that he eventually decided to take it seriously.

He arrived at last at the bridge to discover, to his dismay, that it was always closely guarded. He didn't know what to do, but kept presenting himself at the bridge each morning. The captain of the guard became suspicious and asked him his business. Embarrassed Isaac told him about the dream. The captain roared with laughter and said, "Heavens, where would the world be if we all took our dreams so seriously. I keep having one - why I don't know - but I would be stupid to do anything about it. In my dream I hear a voice which tells me to go all the way to Cracow, find a Jew called Isaac, and dig up the corner of his kitchen. If I did I would find buried treasure. Fancy that, how stupid!" And he went away laughing his head off.

Stunned, Isaac turned round and made his way home. There he dug up the corner of his kitchen and found a treasure abundant enough to keep him in comfort until the day he died.

Have a lovely time this year, going hither and thither, doing this and that. Only don't forget to read the signpost which points to You-in-Your- Own-Backyard. You are sacred, you are holy ground, you yourself are treasure beyond price. The most important journey we all make is the one we make every day.