Peace Rider On The Road Again

Hi Lois,

Nice to see a note from you pop up on the screen, a reminder to me to say hello and post on the blog.  

I'm now relaunched in another place arriving Cancun the day before yesterday with bicycle.  Took me a couple of hours to put it together and head down the road toward Morelos south of Cancun about 10 miles.  Stayed with an artist there a couple of times in the course of the Peoples Climate Summit.  Renato was not at home when I showed up but one of the workers there gave me the okay to stay when I explained my connection.

Pitched my tent and crawled in when the mosquitoes came out at nightfall.  Boy was it muggy humid.  I just lay on my pad with only my swim suit on for a long while.  But it cooled off later.  Put on a shirt then towards morning  a light cover.

The next day I wasn't moving fast and got off to a late start or probably just in time southbound for Playa del Carmen as a next stop.  By this time the sun was up, hot and I'm sweating like crazy.  Right around noon I arrived at Playa and tried to call my friend there but only got a message that the phone was disconnected.  I forgot to transfer his street address to my new book.  Oh well, kept going south to Akumal to another friends place where I stayed before.  I was camped next to Nancy de Rosa for the PCS.  She has a  bar and places for rent on the beach, lovely spot. 

But getting here didn't remember the exact turnoff and go down three false trails before finding the right one.  So here today at her place Villas de Rosa and using her computer.  Feet in the sand at sunrise on the beach.  A beach bum yellow lab was on the beach in the evening.  I would throw an unhusked coconut into the surf and he would retrieve it.  If I didn't throw it in he would paw it back into the water, watch it roll back and forth then grab it, haul it back up on the beach and then repeat the game.  

Today, shortly after I finish this will pedal a short way down the road to Gabriel's place, a Maya elder I met at the same time as Nancy.  Two years ago I showed up at his place,  as it happened, on the same day 12/21 but then not aware of what day it was.  Anyway, he has just a sweet spot in the jungle, a community actually, with a gem of a cenote or spring on his finca or farm.  It's perfect for cooling off during the heat of the day.  

So excited to be here, don't know what will happen but then if I did it would spoil the fun of discovery.  Could be the end of the world as we know it, not a physical end but a change in perception and evolution of consciousness.  In fact this seems to be happening and a thing I have mention on the blog. 

Learned that because of the Maya connection a lot of celebrations will be going on at different ruin sites Tulum and Chichen Itza two I know about.  A big music festival at the latter, not sure at the former.  May visit one or both while I'm here but not sure when.  Probably spend Christmas at Gabriel's place but will see where the winds launch me.

Nancy has an organization called SAVE.  You can check it out on the web.  Shes been involved in trying to save the mangroves along the coast and turtle nesting beaches.  But it's been tough going against developers with deep pockets and money to spread around.

Had a wonderful time with the Warrens in Miami.  First stayed with them on way to PCS.  Their young daughter, Natalie,  now out of St. Olafs is trying to start a business in Minnesota to reconnect young women with nature.  A worthy effort.  Connected with her, home for Christmas, just before leaving for Mexico.

About all the news for now

Feliz Navidad y Ano Nuevo, peace, love and joy to all.

Palante, onward,

Don 

Some Thoughts from On the Road 12/9/2012

If you think it's hopeless because of what's happening on the surface think again.  If you think we are abandoned in our hour of need you would be mistaken.  Human consciousness is evolving. We are a race awakening.  We are being pushed to a higher level of consciousness because our survival on the planet depends on it.   A wise person would not wait until a full blown crisis was at hand when current severe climate events are indicators of what will only get worse as the atmosphere warms further and sea levels continue to rise.   We know governments will not save us.  It is as Margaret Mead once said ¨Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world.  Indeed it is the only thing that ever has.¨   

We cannot solve our problems at the same level of egoic consciousness that created them to paraphrase Einstein.  The growing perception is that we are all One.  It is an illusion that we are now or ever have been separate from one another, creation or All That Is many call God.  The egoic state of consciousness by its very nature reinforces a perception of separation.  This widespread belief reinforces the illusion, that there is no connection (energetically) between ourselves or any other thing in the created order.  It is from this false belief, just a thought really, that all of our problems have arisen.  It has served its purpose which was to provide a contrasting field in our physical reality.  We could not know in our experience what Oneness is without having experienced separation, or what the good is without the evil, the up without the down.   We now have a collective memory of these experiences with their pain and trauma.  It is no longer necessary to keep repeating these experiences but only to remember.     It is past time to create a heaven on earth instead of the recreating the hell that has been our long history.  We risk our survival on the planet if we persist.

Sending our young people to fight our wars with the belief that killing is justified creates an internal conflict between the mind/egoic state of consciousness and what the Higher Self within each of us knows is only harming itself.  Healing those who return with PTSD requires great compassion and understanding.  Wars and violence inflicted on the "other" we label as enemy become unacceptable practices when we know in advance we are only harming ourselves.  

All thought is creative of our experience individually and collectively.  Thought is energy. In that sense we are co creators with the Divine of our experience.  From the misperception of separation we have created the world we live in.  As we collectively awaken and turn aside from our past it is important for each of us to flee negativity, especially with the chaotic events unfolding at the moment.  I like what Peace Pilgrim had to say about this, I don´t eat junk food and I don´t think junk thoughts (negativity).  On the other hand thoughts with the highest vibration (energy) are love, peace and joy for example.  It is these thoughts that have the greatest coherence and power to change the world we live in.  

There is nothing to fear as we create a new world based on the reality of interconnectedness or Oneness.  Change and impermanence are constants in our world.  Death, there is no death, only a change of worlds,¨ Chief Seattle.   We are spiritual beings, not our minds or bodies, having a human experience.  We are not without recourse or help in our hour of greatest need.  We only have to ask.  

Be open minded,  keep love, peace and joy in your heart and a smile on your face as we tip toe through the tulips - we're in very good hands. 

As for me I will be tip toeing south by bus from Boquete to catch a plane from Panama City to Miami this Friday the 14th.   I will be in Miami a few days before flying to Cancun in the Yucatan of Mexico to close out the year there with friends.  The adventure continues, have-bicycle-will-travel.  More down the road.  

Peace Rider - Don

 

Peace Rider from Boquete, Panama 11/26/12

Dear Friends,

 

At this wiritng sitting in an internet cafe off the man drag, there´s only one in Boquete,  my home for now in the western highlands of Panama.  An array of flowers are in bloom gracing this place with their beauty and fragrances.  At my friend George´s place humming birds aggressive little creatures with their own kind dart about seeking flowers and nectar as well as vieing for sugar water at his feeder.  In the dry season these get filled more often than now when there are so many floral sources to choose from.

 

For some reason a small bat has been coming to the house attaching itself to the walls at night leaving its calling card  in the process making more work for Amalia, George´s AM helper and my Spanish coach. 

 

It´s blessedly cooler here being higher in elevation and rainy - it poured yesterday and the day before.  My plan to walk into town yesterday and watch the parade celebrating independence from Spain was aborted by the rain.  George has seen enough of these he didn´t want to venture into town to see the locura (craziness).  The parade went on but I waited until today to venture out with most of the rain past.   The news reported flooding and homes being washed away in Colon on the north coast in roughly the center of the country.. 

 

It´s rather nice to have no agenda and to just sit and enjoy the place and its beauty.  My Spanish is improving with practice.  The computer I´m using has its commands in Spanish, more practice.   One of the things I came to look for in town this day was harina integral, wheat flour. Bleached white flour is the other more common choice.  There was none a couple of days ago but I found some in two different stores today and bought a stash for the house.  Amalia bakes bread for George and the rest of us with a mixture of wheat and white flour.   I made an eatable version a couple of days ago and rice pudding last night.  Enjoy the process and the results are usually eatable with some renderings being a wee bit denser than  others.  The latest of mine got favorable reviews.

 

Into my second reading of Adyashanti - Falling Into Grace.  Tammy is helping George and I become more sensitive to the energies around us including our own.  We all have the ability but it does take letting go of the mind and being present.  Our minds are a tool, not who we are.  We are the awareness, the consciousness behind it something we can tune into and many are.  Adyanshanti is worth reading for his insights into the nature of mind growing out of his experience and searching for a way out of the human dilemma and suffering.  He speaks to the fundamentals of spiritual practice from a non-dogmatic point of view with fresh insights into the teachings and life of Jesus and the Buddha.   

 

Time to head back up the hill and home with a load of harina integral while the bajareque, mountain mist, is not falling.

 

Peace Rider

 

 

Peace Rider in Panama

Dear Friends,

 

I didn´t quite get to final thoughts on my ride as planned, apologies.   I headed out of Denver soon after I arrived to help Eddie at his cabin near Fairplay in South Park. My good intentions fell by the way side upon return amidst seeing other friends,  swapping worn out tires for new ones, making a new pants guard and deciding which things to keep and which to leave behind and oh yes, packing it all up.  Getting my break apart bicycle into its "suitcase" takes time and I usually end up sweating "blood" to make it fit.    

 

In the end I took most of my stuff with me rather leave things for my college friends Eddie and Babbie to deal with later.  Long underwear will come in real handy in Miami - right?  I was very grateful for their help throughout especially Babbie getting up at 4:30 AM to get me to the airport for an early flight.  I return to Miami and another friends place there then to the Yucatan in mid-December.  I left my bicycle behind there with Richard and Lisa but will take it to Mexico.

 

I was gifted several books complementary to one another in different ways but speaking to the theme of this ride - elevation of consciousness.  They are:  Falling Into Grace, insights into an end to suffering by Adyashanti, You Can Heal your Your Life by Louise Hay, and the Man Who Planted Trees by Jim Robbins.  

 

I´ve found them affirming.  See what you think.  I´m into all three savoring them from a relaxed perspective at another friend´s home on a mountainside outside Boquete in western Panama.  Cool but rainy here now in the wet season.

 

We are being pushed to break with the past and the illusion of separation to save ourselves in the face of an ecological crisis we have yet to take seriously.  It´s a four alarm fire and it doesn´t care who slept with whom.

 

More later now that I´m dismounted.  Got to git, my not so ample posterior is sore from sitting at the computer too this day.

 

Don - Peace Rider

 

 

 

 

Peace Rider Arrives Safely in Denver 11/1/2012

Just a quick note to let all know who are following the blog that I made it safely to North Glen, CO my destination for the moment.  I left the next day for South Park to help my college friend Eddie Kockman with some work around his cabin near Fairplay. 

 

When we return to Denver no later than this Thursday will try to carve put time to together a longer piece on final thoughts and learnings from my third jaunt across the country by bicycle. 

 

I would say in brief that traveling across Montana and Wyoming I was reminded of a similar windy passage across Kansas on my first ride.  Sometimes the winds were a bane with stong crosswinds out of the west and southwest and at other times a real boost with a stong tailwind pushing me along.  I was very glad to not be on a west bound slog.   But it did give me a real sense of what our pioneer forefathers faced heading out onto the prairies.  I thoroughly enjoyed free camping on the prairie often led to the only stand of trees for miles around.  Without a heated tent a morning and evening campfire to cook on and warm hands was a boon to a body weary from a days hard but satisfy work. 

 

As it stands now I will be leaving Colorado November 13th,  to catch up with friends in Panama, rest a bit and let what needs to happen next clarify.

 

Peace Rider - Don