On the road from Boquete, Panama 1/27/2014

Note:  I leave for Panama, City by bus on Wednesday the 29th and on to Havana mid-day the 30th.  More on the road from Cuba as time and opportunity allow.  

 Why Is Love the Way

Eskimo Nebula - NASA

 A simple answer is nothing else has worked.   Wars, violence and suffering of all kinds are still with us.   It is time to look at it anew,  "with the eyes of the heart. "   The good news, many are.   There is hope.  


Peace Pilgrim who walked penniless across America for years was my inspiration for riding a bicycle for peace. .  She had a very simple message:   The Way of Peace is the way of love:  overcome evil with good, hatred with love, and falsehood with truth.   It is an old and timeless message.  It is what Jesus taught.  We have tried everything else but its consistent application.

I have found it helpful to think of  Love as energy,  powerful, self giving, sacrificial,  beyond words to ultimately describe from a finite perspective.  Yet it is knowable intuitively through the heart reinforced by experience.   It is the stuff of the mundane and poetic.

  "Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.  Rumi
 

Love is Divine power.

Carolyn Myss - Anatomy of the Spirit

Love is one of,  if not the most powerful energies in the Universe.

Tom Kenyan

Love does not insist on its own way.  It bears all things, endures all things, it never ends.

The Bible

Love impels it does not compel.  There is nothing that can overcome it.

Love conquers all things:  let us surrender to love.

 Virgil

Love is the energy of unity - coherent, positive, high frequency vibration or energy.

Love has the power to drive out or transform incoherent, low frequency, negative energies that alienate and separate us from ourselves - fear, hate, anger, envy and the like.  Nothing else can.

 Tom Kenyan .

Love is heart centered energy, not of the ego dominated consciousness.

Love is the way to enlightenment through the heart.

Love is the Divine essence interpenetrating all things, making all things sacred. Various

Love is our True Nature, the essence of who we are,

Anam Thubten

Love in its perfection casts out fear.

The Bible

Love is the way to inner peace and joy.
 

When your chest is free of your limiting ego. Then you will see the ageless beloved.  You cannot see yourself without a mirror.  Look at the Beloved, He is the brightest mirror.

 Everything in the Universe is within you.  Ask all from yourself.  Rumi

If you do not go within you go without.  Victor Frankl

 Wine Throated Hummingbird 
by Pixdaus.com

A thing of beauty is a joy forever. John Keats

Love and beauty intertwine and speak to me of things Divine.  Peace Rider  

GAIA

A Story

Once there was a beautiful lady young, virginal, vibrant and full of life.  Time past.  She gave birth to many children.  The children grew and prospered. They took care of their Mother.  They understood that the one depended on the other for their well being.  They were One.

These children bore more children. They scattered to the four winds.  In time they lost touch with where they had come from and what sustained them.   The link was broken, they were separated from their Mother.  No longer did they see their welfare and that of every living thing around them as intertwined.  This understanding was lost to them.

More children came.  Instead of sharing the bounty of the land as before they hoarded it each to themselves.  They fought among themselves over trivial things.  They cooperated only if it was in their best interests.  Many had more than what they needed to survive.  They believed the more things they had the happier they would be.  They lived off the fat of the land while many more had much less than what they needed.  They and their children lived in poverty and died of disease and malnutrition.   This was accepted as just the way things were. 

In time their Mother's health began to decline.  She became worn and haggard not vibrant like of old.  The air she breathed was fouled by pollutants her children produced.  So long had this been going on that her disposition changed.  Her mood swings and behavior became more violent.  Some were alarmed at what they were witnessing.  There were naysayers who denied it was their fault.  They did not realized her heart was failing for this alone was not all they had done.  In fact, their Mother was slowly dying.  They did nothing to stop it.  Most could not see it.  They believed there was plenty of time, when time was running out. 

Peace Rider

 

Peace Rider on the Road Again in Boquete, Panama 1/18/2014

After a long quiet spell reentering the blogosphere to report, hopefully on some regular basis of the continuing journey inward and outward of yo mismo Peace Rider.  

As often happens what comes next for me comes just in time to make plans and gather what I need for the next journey.  The idea came late in the summer that Cuba might be the next place I should head to.  I had been there once before but should I go again?  A friend asked why Cuba and not some other country?  I couldn't readily answer until as before the ordering of circumstance and persons met made it clear Cuba was the place I should go.

I "portaged" out of Alaska to Seattle for a few days of very enjoyable visiting with friends continuing on to Los Angles on AK Airlines and from there to Panama City via COPA 1/13.  I was quite happy with my choice of this national airline of Panama with friendly service and real meals at no extra cost.  Made it out of the city by bus late the same day overnighting in Penonome three hours west.  Fortunately, the bus stop was close to a hotel I stayed in before.  But the "portage" was over rough ground putting holes in my duffel bag, at least that's where I think it happened.  No harm done otherwise.  Three more bus rides and two taxis got me to my friend's place on lovely mountainside outside Boquete.  It was a relief to stop moving and toting bags for  and just enjoy the flowers in bloom, birds of many kinds and the green magic surrounding Boquete.  Just a bit of ongoing local busyness and madness, as my friend calls it, during the annual Flower Festival ending this Sunday.  Now that my friend has returned home from Columbia the birds are returning to a feast of bananas and rice he sets of an early morning a sunrise.  A real joy to be here once again.

I learned a hard lesson in Mexico about having to deal with heavy bags with bike and associated gear.  This time I made two light weight wheeled dollies, one to use under my disassembled bike in a soft suitcase and the other for a large duffel with other biking and camping paraphernalia. Boy, was this a hernia saver, especially after I left airports behind and had to get bags through bus stations or into a hotel.  I wanted to leave some gear behind in Panama City.  That didn't work out.  Upon later reflection I had more peace of mind knowing it was all still in my possession in Boquete without the concern of having to arrange a later rendezvous. .

My time here is all too brief.  I leave and fly to Havana from Panama City 30 January.  

I go with a letter of introduction from Chena Ridge Friends (Quaker) meeting in Fairbanks, AK where I have been a long time attender.  The plan of the moment, subject to circumstance, always, is see where these contacts lead beginning in Havana and go with the flow, don't push the river.  I already have a place to stay in Havana at a Casa Familiar thanks to Moira, a Fairbanks friend who visited Cuba over Christmas.  

From Havana I will leave by bus or train, for the Oriente (east end) of Cuba.  I prefer the clickity clack of wheels on steel to another bus ride but will see.  The prevailing winds are out of the east with other Friends to meet in the cities of Holquin and Gibara.  With all of that I will as time and circumstance allow post to the blog with happenings.

As you will note from previous postings I began riding with a banner that says Love is the Way leaving from Homer, AK last June.  Geoff at Dateline copies again did a masterful job of redesigning a a smaller banner with the same essential message I can hang from my rear panniers.  I also had it made into bookmarks in both English and Spanish I can give to people I meet in the course of what could be a two month stay.  On the reverse of the bookmark is a sampling of the handprints and words, you'll need a magnifying glass, from the Homer to Talkeetna, AK trip.   This should be posted to my FB link from the blog fairly soon.

On the message side is also a Cosmic Wheel combining sacred geometry with the four earth elements and colors from the Mayan Cross.  Curiously after this image came to me I looked on line and found a similar flower pattern, actually figure eights lying on their sides, the sign of infinity and the divine.  

A thought for the day.  We are a nation driven to distraction by our technologies, its handmaidens not its masters. The more you allow distractions of the mind to take you away from awareness in the present moment the less you are with the sacred, present only in this eternal, ever changing moment of now.  

Bendigas,

Peace Rider