Peace Rider at Central, AK 2/8/13 -2/13/13

Dear Friends,

Just to let you know I have not quite finished a piece on a past life experience form my last long distance bike ride. 

That was interrupted by a few days spent as a volunteer for the Yukon Quest sled dog race from Whitehorse to Fairbanks.  In even years it begins in Fairbanks.  If you catch this blog in time and Google Yukon Quest.com and click on tracker you can follow the last of the mushers headed into Fairbanks.  At this point it's nearly over except for the person whose last and secures the Red Lantern award.  But even so just finishing is a worthy effort regardless of finishing order.  This is the toughest sled dog race of any out there, a thousand miles through the wilderness of the Yukon Territory and Alaska. 

This year it was a bit shortened because of impossible trail conditions over American Summit on the way to Eagle, AK. 

After 40 years living in Fairbanks I thought it would be a gas to volunteer and get up close and personal with the mushers and the dogs which I did.  We were especially lucky to have temperatures no colder than about 10 below zero F.  Each musher is required to carry certain mandatory equipment and at each station these items are checked for being in his or her possession.   Since mushers can arrive at any hour we had our check station in operation round the clock.  In the process we got to experience some of the sleep deprivation that is a part of long distance racing.  But it was also pretty cushy with a warming fire in a wood stoked burn barrel plus bales of straw to sit on.  The latter was a diminishing pile. Each mushers got one bale of straw for his dogs to lie on.  The musher got a free steak dinner at Mike's Central restaurant plus a warm place to sleep and a bed next door in the "red barn." 

Some musher's dogs were still eager to keep going after they stopped and would bark and hit the end of their harnesses not ready to stop.  This was a real treat to witness and a statement about the care these dogs receive all along the way. 

All the dogs are checked by volunteer race vets after they are checked in.  Dogs not fit to continue for a variety of reasons are dropped and collected by the musher's handlers.  After that the musher tends to his dogs, removes dog booties, spreads straw for each dog to lie on, then heats water on an alcohol cooker to reconstitute the musher's dog food. This is prepared in advance and hauled to each drop point ahead of race time.  Rules do not allow the handler to assist the musher at this point but he or she does have the "privilege" of cleaning up the straw and any other messes after the musher departs. 

After all the chores are taken care of there is not much time left for the to rest, one to four hours seemed about the norm.  Hallucinating due to sleep deprivation is not uncommon.

This was only the second year Trackers have been used.  Basically it's a small GPS unit securely fastened to each sled that allows continuous position location for each musher.  It's a safety feature and also allows fans an opportunity to follow in real time the location of their favorite racer. 

So a wonderful opportunity to meet folks from all over.  I met a vet from Australia, a woman vet from Madrid, and another form Alberta, CA.

An early AM departure from Central for Fairbanks on the 13th got us over Eagle Summit at first light with calm winds.  This was a relief.  We had to be led over by a snow plow on the 8th when the winds were howling and whiteout conditions prevailed.  The road closed overnight afterward. 

Going down the over side we spotted one wolf running up a hillside and then three more that scattered from a caribou kill on the road as we approached.  It may have been a hit by a car,  there was no way to tell at a distance.  My friends lamented not having a gun with them but I was just as happy to see them depart unharmed. 

Saturday is the mushers banquet in Fairbanks.

Don - Peace Rider

Impressions from the Road 2/4/2013, Fairbanks, AK

Dear Friends,

I returned to the snow and cold of Fairbanks, AK on 16 January.  Since then I have taken up writing about things that came to me over the course of my long distance bike riding.

I wrote the following short piece as a Community Perspective for our local paper in the hope of reaching a wider audience.  It may or may not see the light of day but at least you who have been following my peregrinations will have a chance to read it.
It repeats some of the things I've already mentioned in the blog in different places.   Repetition is not a bad thing.

I also want you to know there will be more to follow, I hope in the next few days.  On the journey just completed I had a past life experience I wanted to share knowing in the process that I make myself vulnerable to skeptics and criticism from the "incredulous" bleachers.  So be it.  It was meaningful to me with horizon broadening implications for all of us.

Don - Peace Rider

These past five months I've been mostly on a bicycle.  The first beginning in mid-September, was a long leg from Grand Prairie, Alberta through Jasper and Banff Parks in the Canadian Rockies, across the Great Plains reaching North Glen, near Denver in early November.  In mid-December I flew to Cancun, Mexico from Miami, with my break apart bicycle, to visit friends and be in the land of the Maya for "fin del mundo," end of the world on 12/21/12. 

To the Maya this date was never viewed as a cataclysmic world ending event but the end of a long calendar cycle and beginning of a new one.  It may well be the end of the world as we know it.  Whether we create a self-fulfilling prophecy and a New Earth is up to us.  It can happen if all the positive energy and growing desire for positive change I experienced are any indication. 

I left on my first long distance journey as Peace Rider in early October 2009, motivated in part by the urgency of addressing climate change.  It was no surprise climate change legislation was dead when I reached Washington, DC seven months later.  The urgency remains. 
 
I met a lot of really kind and decent folks in my travels which were more about the journey than the destination.  I believe they're the vast majority and not the fringe minority that are the daily grist of the reporting media.  There's a basic goodness in each of us we have yet to fully embrace.  A lasting joy for me were the many connections and friendships that became a part of my life. 

I realized before cycling in the Yucatan of Mexico that climate change and the failure to address it along with other problems are the result of a more fundamental cause, namely consciousness itself.  Einstein  said in essence, you can't solve a problem(s) with the same level of consciousness that created them.  When this became clear to me my focus shifted to working for peace on earth and peace with the earth through the elevation of consciousness guided by the Way of Peace which is love. 

We live in a materialistic culture yet what expands, fulfills and brings happiness comes not from the getting and things you possess but from the unselfish giving of one's self.

The "insanity" in our world comes from our thoughts or perceptions about our place in the grand scheme of things.  Thoughts are energy and from them we create the reality we live in.  What you focus on grows.

The good news, consciousness is changing.  What is arising now is a perception that though we are separate physically, there is an inherent energetic connection between all things.  Separation is an illusion.  As one author put it we are spiritual (energy) beings having a human experience.  From this perspective comes a knowing that we are not our minds or bodies but an eternal essence present in all things.  Call it what you will.  I have met people living from this new understanding. 

Centuries ago in Europe people thought the Earth was flat.  It was believed you'd fall off the edge if you went too far. This seems silly today.  Back then it took a few courageous souls to challenge the prevailing thinking and venture forth into the unknown.  In the process they discovered a greater reality, a new frontier and their perceptions of the known world were forever changed. 

The ongoing awakening is similar.  It is a perceptual shift from separation to unity or Oneness.  From this perspective it's understood that what we give to another we give to ourselves individually and collectively because of our interconnectedness.  Violence, wars and fear come from a long misunderstanding of this relationship.

My impression is women are leading the way with a re balancing of mind and heart energies.  It's the imbalance and dominance of male, left brain, ego centered energy that has created most of our problems. 

Thirteen is a sacred number to the Maya.  It signifies love.  It is a number connected to the natural world;  the number of annual fertility cycles in a women's body; of lunar cycles and the number of major joints in our bodies. 

In this year of love 2013, it is time to end the "insanity," of the world we have created for our children's sake.  Their well being depends on it. 

We are being encouraged to awaken and take the next giant leap for humanity.