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May 25, 2013 I have been doing a lot of restructuring of my Epic Quest, and have updated it as follows: Retitled to "ShadowLion Weaves the Strands Together," to reflect the more complete version of my epic quest that has evolved since I started this post. It now includes more of a life list and various modules for different aspects of my life that will be showing up in challenges as Life Quests. The "ShadowLion Returns to the Fireline" title has a narrower focus than what I currently see as my epic quest. I am now thinking of that as my Main Quest for the 40 week period that begins June 2, 2014 and ends in mid-March 2015, just in time for the Arizona Wildfire Academy. My plan for that portion of my epic quest is outlined in the next post of this thread and will be called "Forty Weeks to Fire Fit," so that I can abbreviate it to 40W2FF. Writing up this epic quest has been a time of intense and valuable reflection on my values and a realization of my own unique perspective that has grown out of my life experiences and choices to date. Oddly enough, I seem to have come back around full-circle (spiral, maybe?) to a new appreciation of the poem "Ulysses" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. More than 38 years ago, I hung a poster with the following excerpt on the wall of my dorm room above the head of my bed. I dreamed of what I would do when I was out of school, the places I would travel, the adventures I would have someday, somewhere. Some of those dreams have happened, some have changed, some have been left behind in favor of other dreams...but the same words still inspire and guide me. And, as I write this, a line from a popular rock song of the time is running through my head..."You're still the same old girl you used to be." Yeah, I guess so! Ulysses (excerpt) I cannot rest from travel: I will drink Life to the lees: All times I have enjoy'd Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those That loved me, and alone, on shore, and when Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades Vext the dim sea: I am become a name; For always roaming with a hungry heart Much have I seen and known; cities of men And manners, climates, councils, governments, Myself not least, but honour'd of them all; And drunk delight of battle with my peers, Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy. I am a part of all that I have met; Yet all experience is an arch wherethro' Gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades For ever and forever when I move. How dull it is to pause, to make an end, To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use! As tho' to breathe were life! Life piled on life Were all too little, and of one to me Little remains: but every hour is saved From that eternal silence, something more, A bringer of new things; and vile it were For some three suns to store and hoard myself, And this gray spirit yearning in desire To follow knowledge like a sinking star, Beyond the utmost bound of human thought. As I get older, other parts of the poem take on new meaning, yet this fragment is still a polestar, a wish, a dream, and a reflection…