It is hard to believe that the trip was three years ago! Time sure does fly. I am killing time waiting for the woman who poses for me to show up. I have been thinking of doing another grand adventure... Maybe cross country solo? I know the fellas are talking about burning man, but that is only softly calling me... where as the bike is calling me hard.

Maybe this time I would start in Seattle, ride down the coast towards LA and do the southern tier... 70 days again, but a different route?

My bicycle sits in the living room a victim of the ice and snow and a flat rear tire... I have a bundle of sage sitting on the back rack with the hopes that it clears any bad mojo... This spring I will try and ride again... I have been invited to a two day cross PA trip and a few smaller rides... So back in the saddle I go.

I'd love to hear memories people had from the trip? Something that you remember that you thought funny, odd, sad, exciting, etc... something that maybe you forgot to say at the time? What you really thought? lol

anyway. Thanks

Much Love
Thomas

Life and the speed...

So when I started this... I was crazy attached to things. I had ideas that were really made up or only partial truths...

so almost 4 years later... I am no further along in the answers of life, but I have accepted my humaness... and understanding that I am a real jerk, but a great guy and my capacity for both is equal and opposite... now the difference is I get to choose...

do I want to be the asshole or the great guy?

so what do you choose?

Someday

How many somedays do you have going?

How many of them are nevers that you call somedays?

How many of them are you waiting for something for someday to happen?

My question is why not today?

Reasons are just stories that get in the way of possibility. The are stories that we tell ourselves that say, maybe one day...

Declare who you are being to the world as a possibility and it will be possible for as long as you are willing to keep it that way.

A friend wanted to go to Machu Pichu more than life it self. She had every someday you could think of... Money, relationship, companionship... god the list was endless. then one day she took on who she needed to be to get it done. In her case it was to be with out reasons. And to be freedom. and to be Grace. She opened herself up and had many breakdowns, but she never let the possibility die.

Along came opportunity. It was not Machu Pichu, but something that she would have never been open to if she had been stuck in somedays grip. Where is she now? She is in India, studying Yoga. She will be in new zealand, thailand, paris, london etc... She will be around this world this year all because she wanted to go to Machu Pichu and one day I am positive she will stand on the mountians surrounding Machu Pichu and a new possibility will open its doors, but it will not be someday!

The soul is a curious thing

It is amazing to me how easy it is to get wrapped up in the pain of desire. How we as humans desire so much and suffer because of it. We desire people, we desire recognition, money, love, companionship, etc... All of them lead us to suffer because none of them are what fill us, but they are what we focus on.

It seems that part of that desire is waiting. Waiting for an e-mail from a love, a call from opportunity, a letter from something we think we need.

I don't have an answer to letting go of these desires, except to say the sooner you become un attached to them the sooner you can focus on where and what you are. The sooner you can enjoy life just as it is and just as it is not.

"The Way is not difficult for those without preferences"
-SENG-T'SAN

"Don't search for truth. Just stop having opinions."
-TONGAN ZHI

"Here it is - right now. Start thinking about it and you miss it."
-Huang-Po

Knowing nothing to be true

Someone said it that we are only as big as our smallest complaint. I feel that.

I don't know it to be true, just a place of reference for creating what is possible.

So maybe my smallist complaint should be that the community is suffering around me and I am the cause of it. (remember ghandi once said in-action is just as bad as the action to cause the problem.)

I don't know, but it is one possibility.

What is your smallist complaint? Time, relationship, clutter, weight, etc...? be authentic, why is it a problem? is it playing the game called life big or small?

No judgement, just a question?

Consider the tree

Consider the tree that allows the birds to pearch and fly away without calling then to come or longing for them not to leave. If your heart can be like a tree you will be on your way.

Fear...

I have been thinking alot about fear recently. I'm sure you have read all sorts of stuff of getting over your fear or eliminating your fear or finding ways to do stuff inspite of fear.

It seems that all of them only deal with the fear it self, but never delve into the cause of the fear.

I took a course recently where they delt with fear in a new way for me and I am practicing the game called dissapearing fear.

First off they say that there are two types of fear. One is a physical threat to you or someones well being. Like a gun to the head or fire, etc... The other fear is a story and is irrational. Like the fear of relating. Or the greatest fear of them all... you know it... say it with me.... The fear of failure!

Failure is a story. nothing more, nothing less... It is based on not facts, but something you say you know. Think about it. Pluto was a planet. It was a fact for my whole life. now at 40 they have down graded pluto to something else! Science is doing this all the time and even then, there is no absolute proof they are right then too. so what does Pluto have to do with fear?

Great question... It is just to prove a point that the only thing that seems certian is that there is nothing certian. Fear of failure is just something you made up. Either you are basing it on experience, which is not a truth, but what happened right then and depending on how you looked upon it, it may or may not have been the failure you said it was...

Or it is based on lack of experience..., but is it? It usually is based on a story. Either someone told you it was true or you thought you saw it happen, or you belive it to be true. The common factor is that you just don't know. Most times this kind of fear has some roots in something that happened in the past and now is being carried to the future. IT IS ONLY TRUE BECAUSE YOU HAVE SAID SO...

There is no how to, to dissapearing fear, only the distinction that any fear that is not physically immediate, is only a story that you made up. Once you feel that, you are free to make something else up in it's place. Hey, I'm not saying to go jump off a bridge because you havent tried it and you think you can change the fear... What I am saying is that the story of failure is based on you story adn it can be re-written in a responsible manner. If you need to look at the previous post for what responsible is. then look at being at the cause of a powerful life.

If you need an example... ask me how I turned a three year wait list into a five day list. or how I added a zero. or how I said I would have a show in NYC and did...

Fear is only an option if you say it is and look to seek failure. Thomas Edison was asked about the many thousand times he failed to create the lightbulb and he replied that he has succeded in finding many thousands of ways not to make a lightbulb.