Traveling Magi

Return of a Magi

2011-06-12T12:13:00.000-07:00

There and Back Again - A Magi's Tale

Yesterday I arrive in Boulder with the intention of moving into a cool new apartment with one of my spiritual brothers named Peter Roth on JUne 18th. Peter is a fellow astrologer, but is also adept at other arts like Chi gung and computer software design...but mostly he is just funny! I met Peter at an astrology conference in Atlanta back in 1998...and we have both visited each other on the West and East Coasts...but now we are meeting in the middle for some cosmic creativity.

A year ago on Father's day I left Boulder on a bike...and now I've returned. It feels quite amazing to be here with new eyes, open-broken heart, wounded arm (from being hit by a car), and ready to start from the emotional ground of being to simply be. Part of me wants to buy seaweed and roast it with sesame oil, sea salt and cayenne pepper and just focus on creative projects. Another part of me wants to build an astrological-friendly university, an academy of the ages.

Freed from my exile and painful, lonely imprisonment in Chico, CA where my son fell in love with the Chico Green School, I return to where the journey began, where my heart has always been for over three decades. My father picked me up at the airport and was glad to see that I was in better shape than he thought since getting hit by a car on my bike three weeks ago.

At an intersection in Chico the light turned green and a car honked loudly at me as I was wading through the stopped traffic. So I turned to look to see if the light had really turned green, and before I could look back my front tire coasted into the next lane where a car was suddenly bearing down on me at 25 miles per hour!

I squeezed the breaks hard but it was too late. The car struck the front of my bike and my left thigh collided with the mirror as I lowered my shoulder and took on the momentum of the car. Taking on a car with your shoulder is tough and hurts badly! It's a lot harder than facing one guy on a football field. Imagine being hit by five 300-pound offensive linemen at once, and you can imagine the pain that exploded through my shoulder that day. I went flying off the bike twirling through the air in circles and, due to my agile reflexes, landed on all fours like a cat in the next lane, scraping my palms in the process. My life's work on my computer went flying too, but was okay.

The guy says he didn't see me. I came out of nowhere. I get it. I wasn't interested in suing him or anything, just glad to be alive. If it was anybody's fault, it was the rude lady who honked and scared the you know what out of me. But I'm not interested in assigning blame. Like I said, just happy to be alive, although my creative plans for my last month in Chico were derailed.

After the accident, the ambulance crew wanted to take me to the hospital but I refused. I just wanted them to make sure nothing internal was badly damaged. It wasn't. Just a ton of pain! And the cop wanted to call me a cab, but I told him I just wanted to walk alone with Magellan (who of course rolled all wobbly because the forks were bent), and so I wandered across the street to Trader Joes, bought some seaweed snacks, clif bars, and ice cold root beers and checked myself into the Movie theater across the street to sit through Pirates of the Caribbean to take my mind of the sharp pain pounding in my shoulder like ten headaches. I placed the cold cans of root beer down my shirt on my shoulder and upper arm to help quell the pain. I knew I was going to need a lot of ice later. So much for my gym plans that day. Actually for two weeks!

The funny thing about it is that I was on my way to fax and notarize an apartment rental agreement back to Boulder to escape Chico and commit to becoming "Kelly of Boulder." I almost inadvertently became "Dead Kelly of Chico" instead. But my body is too stubborn to die for now. The ironic part is that during my 3200 mile trek, I never even came close to being hit by a car. But as soon as a settle in a town, BAM! The universe challenges me with this humbling experience. It makes you appreciate each moment and to get serious about what you're about. It would have been a bad joke for the Universe to take me out when there is still work yet to be done by this Renaissance being.

So there I was on my Saturn-Descendant line (a tough astrological place to be because it's so damn lonely and harsh), during my Saturn dasa (a long 18 year period in Vedic astrology where you establish mastery in your focus). Normally I'm not one to sulk, infused with so much confidence. But sometimes you need a dose of Saturnian harshness to make you stronger and bring you wisdom. "The deeper the sorrow is carved into your being, the more Joy you can contain," says poet Gibran. My sorrow for this world is like the Grand Canyon at this point with all the instituted confusion and suffering. All I can do at this point is BE...and love what I love and live as an example of heroic courage and inspiration.

My spiritual brother David Alexander English picked me up and took me to the airport. David has Capricorn Rising and is the embodiment of the Wise Elder archetype. It takes a Saturn figure to break a Saturnian connection. As if to emphasize the grip Chico had on my soul, we ran out of gas on the way to the airport! David's Volkswagen Van, which has spiritual words like Consciousness and COmpassion painted on the sides, has a broken gas gauge. We mistimed our gas stop by a few miles! While he called Triple-A, I told Arian to follow me. My intuition said that the farm house that we just passed had someone who could help. After wading through a pack of dogs diplomatically, I got a rice farmer to come out on his porch and asked him for help. He had use fueled and ready to go in about ten minutes. We would still make our flights on time...whew!

I slept in my old high school room last night in the furnished basement at my Dad's and Step-mom's place just outside Boulder. Arian and I parted ways at the Sacramento airport after David came through Chico on his way to the Rainbow Gathering in Washington State. It was fitting because only his Capricorn Rising, Saturn Governed earthy self was enough to break the intense gravity-field that was Chico. Don't get me wrong. Its a pleasant little college town, but it's not for me to live there. My son wants to continue going to school there, but that's his choice. I don't want to stand in the way of his destiny. I realized that that meant not seeing him for at least a year. Life flows on. He will thrive. Part of me feels like I've graduated parenthood with the arrival of Arian's mature self. He's already arranged for a full scholarship in Chico staying with an amazing woman named CJ and her genius son William, who is Arian's classmate. They will be fine companions on the path ahead, developing their mutual gifts. Thanks CJ for taking in my kid! I enjoyed playing board games with them.

So my first day in Boulder, I have a tradition of climbing the Chattaqua trail up tot he base of the Flatirons. Since my new spiritual brother Logan had just come out of an eleven day silence retreat in the mountains southwest of Boulder, we decided to meet up and I got to meet his good friend Peter. We both have good friends named Peter. For more on how I met Logan on the Winter Solstice Full Lunar Eclipse, check out the post where I spent the twelve days of x-mas in San Francisco.

Logan is an amazing being and a great spiritual healer. His friend Peter was an alchemist himself. We had chais together at Trident and then walked up Boulder Creek Bike Path by the river. It was serene and mystical as we talked abut life the universe and the path. Then Peter drove us up to the Flatirons base trail and we huffed and puffed and hiked up the sloping trail, the same one I trained to run up during football in college. I aim to master this fine art again in Boulder. We sat in meditation on a great rock together and insights surged into our fields of consciousness. I had the vision of coming to the rock there every Thursday, the day of Thor, also known as Jupiter's Day, so that will be my SUnday...my holy day to march up the mountain to sit with the muse of solid rock during this Saturn Dasa.

After we went out for amazing salads and met peter's wife and two kids (which both reminded me of Arian), they dropped me off at the location of Peter and I's new place. I wanted to just walk around and get an inner "feel" for the hood. I found that the doors to the Glenlake apartments were open after saying goodbye to Logan and Peter, and so I walked in looking for apartment 220, our new pad that we plan on making into a cafe-like den of cosmic creativity! I found the apartment at the end of a narrow hall and heard music playing beyond the door. Somebody still lived there until next Saturnday. I was delighted to see that our place was close by the swimming pool outside. I stood before the door and invoked the blessings of the spirit holding my hands before me palm outward aiming at the door.

It would have been funny if whoever lived there opened the door to see this big centaur beaming Reikan at them, divine inspiration. After that I went over to a nearby cafe and was not impressed. Peter says there's a better one around. But I checked our relocated charts and found tht perfect time to move in for both our charts was at 6:24 PM on Saturday when Sag was rising to activate my Jupiter-Neptune and Peter's Venus...it's a most dynamic moment indeed! We need to break the plane of the threshold and be "born" into our new place at that moment! I laughed at the thought of us hugging and leaping through the doorway together!

So then I remembered that there was gym a block away called 24-hour fitness and that they had a steam room. In my new incarnation, I'm going to strive to awaken each day at 5 AM, drink tea, and head straight to the gym for a dynamic workout. Then I plan on being at my favorite writing spot (there may be many), by 9 AM...and work till I get hungry for dinner around 6 PM, head home, and be in bed by 9 PM. My acupuncturist says that each hour of sleep before Midnight is worth two after due to the powerful descent toward the Yin turning point. In other words, Midnight is like a New Moon and also begins the liver cleanse process. This way, I stay attuned to the life-giving Sun like on my bike trip, and also stay healthy and vital to be a pure lens for spirit.

So I walk into the gym and the young attendant there asked me to fill out a form for my 7-day free trial membership. And then she asked me to add my birthday, and I said jokingly, "I'm an Aquarius. What are you?" We got talking about astrology and she loves it. Next thing you know we are busting out my laptop to give her a mini free inspiring reading right there on the spot. Then her manager came out and he wanted one too! We were there for four hours interpreting charts for them and for another gym member who walked by and wanted hers. It was a glorious descent of the spirit right there at the front desk of gym. I told them of my intentions of teaching astrology and starting a new kind of educational academy in Boulder. They were all psyched and promised to spread the word about my vision and work. Afterward, the lady member and I went to work out. It felt bizarre working out at Midnight, and I didn't really get home till 3 AM! This made for a perfect moon entering my 12th house of sleep and dreams phase, because I got to sleep in at my dad's till 11 AM. Since there was no bus service to Lafayette ten miles out at 3 AM, the kind lady offered me a ride home!

The next morning I woke up and headed back to the bus stop. I saw a UPS truck go by and yearned for my bike Magellan to arrive! My right arm was tired of lugging around a loaded pannier and I preferred to ride my bike than bus any day. SO Logan was departing today, and I met him at Trident cafe, and we went out back into their garden and we took some atomic gold alchemical stuff he called Osrim or something. It looked like sperm. It was invented by Egyptians and was crafted from a gold atom. SO after getting properly drugged up, we went out ito to Boulder to raise some Heaven!

Logan was hungry so we hunted down some Thai food near Pearl Street Mall and checked the bus schedule for his departure to the airport. Recently, Logan had been thrown a curve ball by the universe, when he met an enlightened woman named Juliet in Santa Cruz. I met here briefly before leaving Chico, and she seemed very wise and powerful, and gorgeous to boot. Logan was in love, and he wanted me to do a Synastry chart between them. So I did. It was so powerful that in the middle of the reading when I told him that Juliet was the incarnation of Kali with her Moon conjunct PLuto in Scorpio (which Logan has a need for in his chart), that we looked at each other and mutually felt the spirit of life come over us. It started with me as I looked down at the chill bumps spreading over my right arm...and then they spread over my back and down the left arm and all the way down to my toes. I had never experienced a full body goose bump episode before, and when Logan saw me extend my goose-bump laden ams out, he began having the same experience, and tears welled up in my eyes and then his. It was as if the Goddess had appeared to bless my words..and both of us sat there laughing and crying intensely. It was such a magical threshold experience, and I feel so blessed to have been touched by the divine in his presence. He was indeed one of a few spiritual brothers who I can count on one hand's fingers.

After that, we took him over to the bus stop and I saw him off on his divine journey. Then I walked up Pearl Street and decided to have some tea at the Dashube Tea House....ordering a chai of course plus some brewed black tea called Russian Caravan. You could taste the spice carried by that Caravan across the silk road! After an hour or two of writing and opening my heart o spirit, I realized what needed to be done to teach in Boulder. I didn't need a building and a rich investor. My body was the building and nature was the classroom. I would begin teaching those who yearned to lean and just watch the miraculous wave grow in strength. I had a vision of inviting my five spiritual brothers and five spiritual sisters to Boulder to teach a week-long workshop on awakening and astrology. That would be awesome! My friend Hadley could design us a cool website. We could have a great time together teaching....

I would bring it up at the gathering of astrologers at the Astrology Salon next Sunday. A local Boulder astrologer named Melody invited several of us to join together with the Moon in Aquarius next Sunday the 19th, a day after Peter and I move into our new place, and exactly the same day I left (Father's Day) on my epic bike trip a year ago.

After having tea I decided it was time to seek out a cafe with Internet to write this. I ran into Carrie the Knitter who I knew from Asheville,a nd she directed me to her new hangout called OZO on Pearl Street, and gave me a card for a free drink! Of course I ordered a Bahkti Chai. But before going in, I remembered that my musical genius friend with amazing pipes named Lea, who had followed my blog and whom I met before when I was in Boulder, was playing music at Saxy's cafe around the corner. So I walked in and she was sitting there with her back to the door and I slowly walked around her, and she slowly raised her head, and then her face exploded with surprise and she jumped up and hugged me deeply. She and her other musician friend named Steve were writng their set list. I just wanted to say a quick hello and tell her I was back, for good! She was happy and I loved to see her glowing magical Leo-Pisec face.

So here I am back in Boulder...ready to devote myself to the great work of inspiration during a time when the world as we know it is collapsing and the dawn of the Global Renaissance of 2020 and beyond is in sight...nine short years. I think I can build an amazing academy in nine years. Anyone out there who is inspired has an open invitation to help in any way they can! Let's rebirth this world with the pure enlightenment of consciousness by teaching people to become whole, to find their unique archetypal synthesis so they can give the gift of their authenticity to the world!

The Inward Journey

2011-05-04T18:24:00.000-07:00

The Inward Fire

There is a fire brewing within that we are afraid to unleash.
For we know its surge of creative power will wreck our lives.

But bleak is the landscape of the life ignorant of this burning well of desire.
I want to explore all those dark, unattainable places of the soul
that require a journey of a lifetime just to ripen.

In those secret fathomless depths, await the original seed images of my being,
thirsting for germination as the inward tide of consciousness stirs them to life.

When those seeds sprout, and the gods walk the earth again,
I will then be content with the march of time, surrendering to the rich merging with eternal presences at last.

* * * * *

Hello Faithful Cyber-Companions! It has been a while since I've posted much because I've just been chillin' in Chico, CA and bouncing around the Bay Area and Santa Cruz working on writing projects. When you live in a fixed location life becomes routine. I don't know if I like that or not. When you are traveling, you have some routines that don't change too, like waking up and riding your bike. But the scenery is always changing and that alone is a deep comfort to this soul. But sometimes we can get addicted to change for the sake of change. And sometimes we are called to take the journey inward so we can accomplish things in the inner planes of the mind. As you know, I've been working on my magnum opus astrological masterpiece that I call the Tao of Astrology. It will be finished this year, hopefully by fall, but not if I keep traveling.

Whilst working on the book, the muse has taken me on many side-treks for research that have been highly illuminating. Recently, whilst researching the Jupiter-Saturn conjunction cycle, I got so caught up in comparing historical events to their alignment every 20 years that I spent the better part of 3 months fully engaged in study, and the conclusions came together in my first ever e-book called Elemental Wave Chronicles - The Jupiter-Saturn Cycle. You can order your own copy here!

What I learned is that history unfolds in these 8 dynamic Elemental Waves, both hybrid and pure, that together define an 800-year Elemental Epoch. During Fire Wave conjunction periods, there are Scientific Revolutions, massive land expansions, and charismatic new leaders and civilizations that arise like America. During Earth Waves there are population explosions, advances in production and trade, and Industrial Revolutions like the one we are emerging from right now in this hybrid Earth-Air 40-year period from 1981-2020, when the cycle goes to pure Air Sign meetings.

During the approximate 200-year Air Sign Waves there are Renaissances characterized by intellectual revitalization inspired by philosophy and science that fuel social, political and economic transformations. This is why the world is becoming more mental right now! We are entering a Renaissance period like never before, because this time it has the chance of going global, and that's an exciting piece of news. In the past, astrology always flourishes under these Air Sign Waves, like when the Hellenistic Greeks arose to create horoscopic astrology used for individuals around 220 BCE. During that time, when the ages were about to shift between Aries and Pisces Alexander united Greece with India and crafted a super-highway of intercultural exchange centered in Alexandria where the Great Library was built. This time is coming again starting in 2020 and we already have our World Wide Web super-freeway in place, born during the Libra Chronicle between 1981 and 2000!

During my research, I realized that the people who contributed great works of writing and teachings were always known by the place they worked in like Plato of Athens, Archimedes of Syracuse, Ptolomy of Alexandria, etc. I started wondering who I was as an emergent Renaissance man of this amazing period and realized that my favorite city in the world was Boulder, Colorado. I don't call it my Mecca for nothing! And then I realized that my best friend and fellow astrologer/computer software designer/Chi Gung healer Peter longed to live there too and suddenly I had this longing to get myself planted in Boulder where I could begin building the Great Pyramid of information that is coursing through my being with all these book and film projects that aim to inspire people to live their true paths of individuation and to rebirth astrology.

One night, while the New Moon in Aries conjunct Jupiter was in my 4th House of Hearth and Family, I had a dream that there was a teaching/healing center in Boulder and that the building was based on the Zodiac. I woke up at 3 AM with this vision burning inside me and wondered if the Universe wanted me to build it! But my intuition urged me to do a Google search...so I typed in Boulder CO, astrology, house....and several seconds later I'm staring at image of a house used for workshops called the StarHouse about 5 miles up Sunshine Canyon near Boulder!

I was like Wow! SO I clicked over to Orbitz and bought a flight home in an instant! I'm leaving an hour after Arian returns to his mom's for the summer on June 11th to go become Kelly of Boulder! I'll be shipping Magellan back. I thought about riding through the deserts of Nevada and Utah and was like "no thanks!" Does this mean my outer journeys will cease? For now, the journey is going inward. I told myself I wouldn't go on my European trek with a backpack until I completed my Great Work. It might take some time. So now, I'm just open to travel if money and time permit, but I'm radically altering my focus from the wandering locational-independent lifestyle. Do I feel bad about it? There is a little sadness, but not really, because the inward journeys are becoming so rich that no outer journey can even compare. The books and projects I'm working on are becoming entire nations and wildernesses that my inner fiery explorer is charting for humanity.

What will happen to this Traveling Magi blog? It will continue as a vivid story of what I am exploring in the inner landscape. My kid has fallen in love with Chico and the Chico Green School, and mostly wants to return here. Since I'm not very taken with the place after my first 6 month settling spree comes to a close, we'll see what happens next. He enjoys Boulder as well, so I asked him to go home to his mom's for the summer and think about having a semester out in Boulder again. If when he turns 16, and he still wants to continue at Chico Green School, the principle said she would take him in because he is "the exemplar of the kind of student they want representing their school." I love the school too. It's like a Harry Potter school of the future for amazing creative kids. Arian's history teacher asked me to come in and do a lecture last week on my new e-book about the Jupiter-Saturn cycle and the kids loved it!

So if any of my friends and allies want to come to Boulder to help me create an Academy devoted to teaching metaphysics, astrology, creative arts, and healing arts, by all means join Peter and I in Boulder. We can get an amazing community house right downtown by Pearl Street and hike the Flatirons together! Peter is there now searching for us a cool place to live. It's kind of fitting that the outward journey is taking me back to where I began this quest to rethink my life. As I turned 40, a deeper conviction has set in, into my gut and in my heart, about what I'm about and how I want to spend the rest of this life teaching and inspiring people to contribute to the emerging Global Renaissance. In studying history, I noticed that during Air Waves, when Renaissance characters would emerge like Albertus Magnus, Imhotep, and King David, that they were always masters at multiple disciplines, polymaths of their times. Some of them had mastered 12 fields ranging from invention and architecture to music and mathematics. How are you developing your polymath potential?

As I contemplated the fields that impassioned me I saw the 12 Signs of the Zodiac as a template for these fields and began asking myself how I expressed each of these in my own life. Starting with Aries I realized I was a warrior-athlete, then a Vegan Chef-Naturalist, a Writer/Publisher, a Counselor-Father, an Independent Filmmaker, a Guide/Mentor/Technician, an artist of language as a multilingual lover of communication through fantasy novels and visionary poetry, an alchemist/researcher/psychologist, an enthusiastic Teacher/Philosopher/Speaker, an executive/consultant and CEO of Divine Inspiration, a pioneering Astrologer/Metaphysician/Mathematician, and a spiritual Mystic of the Unified Field. That's a lot of fields to be mastering in one individual, but I can say in full honesty that I'm passionate about every one of those fields!

So the main reason I'm canceling my wandering travels, to return to Boulder, is to focus all this potential into a beam of laser-like clarity where the great works can emerge. I'm still going to be a minimalist in terms of owning things. After living on a bike for four months I realized what I truly needed, and it's not much. Arian is excited about digging out the HD TV and hooking up a new X-box (I have to admit the new Madden football game looks way cool!) In fact, after five or six month in Chico, I've come to despise the way our dark sides emerge along with inharmonious habits when we live indoors. For instance, it's easy to get involved with writing and stay up all night when there is abundant electricity and indoor lighting. As a result, my lifestyle design project in Boulder is going to involve maintaining a healthy circadian rhythm waking up with the sun and spending time in nature, jogging up to the base of the Flatirons and eating healthy produce. So I'm excited about mastering my tendencies when living in one place and hope to inspire you to do the same so we can all become high quality expressions of our Visionary Selves!

I will still write about travels in this blog when they happen, and I have set such a powerful intention for wandering through Europe that it will most likely happen in another strange way. So stay tuned. But for now I'm preparing the middle chapters of the Tao of Astrology and focusing my consciousness on what kind of ideal teaching and writing lifestyle I want to craft in Boulder. Traveling Magi will become the blog where I present new ideas as they emerge and tell you about new projects. It seems fitting that the journey will end where it began. I think I'll add The Traveling Magi as another novel project indeed!

For those who truly want to help this Renaissance being in the journey, please subscribe to my Divine Inspiration Newsletter. Think of it as an investment and a kindness for $5 per month, basically the price of a Soy Chai, which I drink a lot of at coffee shops while writing! When I released my new e-book, my subscribers were the first to see it and got their copy free. Not only that, many of them helped me edit it into refined form with their email comments. So if you want to be part of my creative team and take me out for a chai tea once per month, I hope you will join.

When my plane touches down in Denver on June 11th, I mean to launch a silent revolution of consciousness with the construction of this pyramid of wisdom that I'm going to oversee. It's so exciting to be alive right now! What are you waiting for? The world needs the Renaissance version of you...

A Tsunami with Your Chai?

2011-03-28T16:57:00.000-07:00

My new friend Jason (who reminds me of my own brother Jason - both born in 1973) tugged on my shoulder and woke me up.

"Kelly, we've got to go! There's been a massive earthquake in Japan and a tsunami is coming this way. We've got to get up to higher ground."

It's not the best way to be woken up in the morning. Suddenly you're laying there in that warm slumbery coziness of pre-dawn wondering if you're going to die unless you get a move on. The memorized comfy self wants to just boil some water and make a mug of steaming chai with soy vanilla creamer, but the universe wants to toss in a tsunami! And part of you is wondering if you are ready to die. And part of you wants to die, thinks it's the key to space travel, but you've realized that you already did that to get here, so you figure you'll hang around and see why you came here despite the needless suffering around, including earthquakes.

Maybe the planet is waking up and letting us have it at last? Maybe we deserve to suffer for paving over woodlands and ecosystems with skyscrapers and gravel and death. Maybe I'll jus tlie here and withstand a tsunami...

"How much time do I have?" I asked. He smiled and said, "It strikes at 8 AM, but we should get going."

"Good!" I said. "Then I have time for a shower at least."

So I took a nice hot long shower as he packed up supplies in his truck. Who knows? We might be on the mountain for a while. When we rode up out of Santa Cruz, we came to the top of a beautiful scenic mountain top overlooking the city and the ocean in the distance. We ate some Clif bars and talked about pyramid power and earth energy fields. We sat there on the apex for a while just talking interlaced with moments of silence, waiting for our impending doom.

Then we went back to the truck to see many other vehicles pouring into the parking lots to escape the disaster. I noticed Jason had tons of frisbee golf discs and there was a 27 hole frisbee golf course right there. "We should play!" I said. And so we did. We played a friendly game of frisbee golf while waiting for our impending doom. So nice to relax when possible certain death is coming your way. I wondered if I could be this relaxed if kidnappers held a gun to my head. I was pretty certain I could be, but you never know. When you see through this world's empty endless cycle of craving and suffering, you kind of start to look forward to death. Like old people on their last leg who just want to take one final breath and say goodbye. There body's are tired and ready to let go. What's wrong with me then? My body is strong and fit, despite a few adventurous scars. My heart is the part of me that's weary of this world.

I see homeless people struggling on the streets to stay warm and fed and people with homes struggling beneath mountains of bills and useless possessions that distract them form their true gifts. The planet Uranus just entered Aries, I thought. The planet of revolution and change has once again returned to the first degree of the Zodiac. Astrologers think this must be a volatile time indeed in the sign of the warrior. I wondered? What happened the last time uranus was in Aries in the Roaring Twenties? The birth of television and atomic energy...Hmmm.

Two weeks later I completed this article about it called Pioneering a Revolution: Enjoy!

Wintering in California

2011-03-23T17:29:00.000-07:00

“Within each of us a universe awaits exploration.” That’s how I’m opening my new astrology book called The Tao of Astrology. And it’s finally unfolding after all these years out here in cold wet rainy California. After securing a nice place to stay for Arian and myself in Chico CA, Arian flew home to spend Christmas with his mom, and his other family on Dauphin Isle, Alabama. So I decided to hop on the bus Gus and head down to spend 12 days of Christmas in San Francisco as the Traveling Magi.

Before I left on my bike journey last under the Summer Solstice, while still in the preparation stage of leaving everything you know behind, I met a lady online named Alicia Lin, a Chinese lady from San Fran who was both into video game designer recruitment and astrology. We instantly became friends and I told her that I would love to visit if I ever made it to the big city. In addition, a friend of mine named Adam Apollo also lived just north of San Francisco in the Marin County region...and I arranged to stay the night at his place and have Thai food with him and his love Ka, who is the most amazing artist I’ve ever encountered. Adam is the most innovative web designer and visionary I know.

Getting to Adam’s place in Fairfax was harder than it looked. I took the bus down to Sacramento and then over to San Francisco, arriving while the light still shined. Wandering around downtown in the financial district was disorienting with all those huge yawning, looming buildings everywhere creating a maze of modern living that most rats would have a hard time of. So I just walked around trying to figure out which bus went north across the Golden Gate bridge. After the sun had gone down, I still didn’t have a clue, and Alicia was busy for one more night so I couldn’t stay with her as she had friends in town already couchsurfing there. I managed to find her apartment building just in case I became stranded and then I went to talk to the bus people.

Eventually I learned the number of the bus I needed to take, and Adam was expecting me soon, but I didn’t know where to catch said bus. So I just walked around in circles with my vibram five-finger shoes and sore feet from carrying a heavy backpack. Then I saw it! A bus with the right number was coming right for me and so I flagged it down and chased it to the next stop. Next thing you know I’m heading across the Golden Gate Bridge in the dark fog and rain headed to a place I’ve never been to meet an old friend and Jedi trainer.

Adam and I had been roommates back in Asheville between 2002 and 2005 or so. He was in college then and I enjoyed hanging out with the 20-something crowd in my early 30’s. Turns out that he ended up getting into a relationship with a lady named Ka, who was born about 7 days before Christina, my last wife...and I had done her chart before. It was great when she picked me up at the bus drop-off and I finally got to put a face to a chart! We drove over to her place where Adam was waiting. It was so good to “hug his neck” again as they say in the Deep South. We spent the night sharing stories of our journeys of awakening over the last decade and it was truly magnificent. I showed him some of the new ideas in Tao of Astrology and blew his mind, and he showed me the magic he was doing on the web and blew mine! Then he invited me and my friend ALicia to the Winter Solstice party they were having in a few days. The next morning I interpreted some astrology charts for Adam’s other roommates over at his place. They live in these giant beautiful intricate 2 million dollar houses on mountains overlooking the lush Marin county region. What a way to wake up in the morning with such amazing views. I felt like we were back in Asheville NC with all the rain again.

After riding the bus back down to San Francisco I finally got to meet Alicia Lin and we went out for Thai food and she began telling me that she had all these amazing people she would love to connect me to. Alicia is Libra rising with a Libra moon...so Miss Connections...you could call her a human Rollodex! If you need to connect with someone in the Bay Area or in the world, she has a magical way of making it happen.

We went back to her gorgeous apartment overlooking the Bay Area Bridge and Alcatraz and she invited me to stay on her couch or in her bed. It wasn’t a sexual thing. I mean, it could have been. But we were not attracted to each other in that way..so we just slept in the same room but with no romantic fondling. Unless you think conversation is romantic, which I do. We talked about everything, but mainly astrology and barely had time to sleep between roaming the city and meeting people. I think I must have met over fifty influential people while there, and did about seven charts per day on my I-pad....mini sessions that gave people a taste of what I do: Give people valuable insights into their integrated character and the qualities of time they are experiencing, along with some poetic inspirational spiritual advice to help people on their journeys.

Alicia was relentless in her goal of introducing me to the movers and shakers of San Francisco’s creative scene. After reading Jack Kerouac’s Dharma Bums in my tent on my I-pad months before, it was an honor to visit the City Lights bookstore where Ginsberg and company used to convene. I could feel their spirits there, still whispering in echoes off the old walls in the downstairs area. I also found a great book by Jung which opened write to a cool quote for my astrology book. Yahoo!

On our way to the Winter Solstice party, Alicia arranged a quick visit with Noah Falstein, a pioneer of the video game industry who has been doing video games since the beginning back in 1980! I showed him my manuscript in progress on the astrologically-inspired character generation aspect of my new RPG and he was quite impressed. He said, “Most people come to me with ideas scrawled on napkins, and you look like you’re ready to go to press.” His basic advice was that I do something to make the system I’ve designed go viral, since I didn’t come with funding. Maybe a new RPG would use my system as the engine of a game if I could do that. I told him that a character creation app for the I-pad would be something that would be great for writers and gamers, and he agreed. It was great to sit with a fellow creative game designer either way.

When we got to the party I got out of Alicia’s car and met a guy getting out of his car named Logan Griffin, an amazing healer and metaphysician. And we gazed at the stars together and talked like we already knew each other. I think we spent a good hour or two at the beginning of the party staring into each other’s eyes and talking astrology and metaphysics. We were both highly impressed with each other and glad to know one another. Later when I returned to Chico we did an astrology session just before he went out to Hawaii to do a workshop on healing. If you’ve ever wondered what it would be like to be standing next to Jesus, this was as about as close as I imagined it could be. At least the long-blonde haired blue-eyed version. If you need any healing whatsoever, look him up on my Facebook friends. Wow! Is all I can say about the quality of this human being and it was a deep honor to do his chart!

Then as the evening progressed, I ran into my soul mate..LOL I met the happy wandering soul of Australia in one named Monica Day...and what a happy day she was indeed. We were not soul mates in the usual sense of lovers and all that greasy merging with bodies and stuff, just in the wandering vagabonding smiling spreading love sense! If you could imagine us at the center of a party full of metaphysical practitioners sitting on these two cushions like a king and queen of joy while I read her chart. She later had a full-on two hour session at Om Shan Tea in the Mission, but this was just an introduction and it blew her mind. She ended up staying with Alicia and I a few nights later. If there was ever an embodiment of joy on the planet in female form it was Monica Day. Her smile was medicine for the soul...and the darkness she has faced and overcome and loved has led her to a special kind of enlightenment that has opened her to a calling in the healing arts as well. The world needs them!

After leaving Australia she did a stint in England for 8 years before she awakened to the life of a global traveler. It was fun to meet another one! The globe is getting smaller and more intimate and people are realizing that if they can find a way to work from home, then they can actually embrace a mobile version of home and ultimate freedom to blend travel and work. I think meeting Monica was a milestone in human relationships for me. I was totally attracted to her, and yet we didn’t need to go there. It was like we were spiritual brother and sister..no physical bonding required...and it was bizarre. We laughed and we roamed the city with Alicia meeting her Rollodex...ending up at a gathering of Couchsurfer.com people one night, having vegan food the next, and having sacred tea at Om Shan Tea in the mission the next night. I can’t even name all the cool places we went and people we met: everyone from managers of multi-million dollar companies to billionaire geniuses starving for true love to masters of the I-ching.

Everybody seemed so highly accomplished in their fields, but no one seemed vitally happy without a reason, except Monica of course. She was a saint of happiness and joy. Everyone was so driven by their projects, their lives, their desire for authentic human contact. I even ran into a guy who helped develop the Authentic Man Program, which helps men find their core presence in life. Great program and great people running it. I later attended a party at a house on the hill in Berkeley and met one of the core founders named Bryan Bayer. We had a great time at the party that night and I told Alicia I wasn’t doing any charts at all. My voice was hurting and I wanted to just relax. But after meeting a fellow traveler and cooking together in the kitchen, I couldn’t help but unleash my full arsenal and bestow the people with the Magi gift...I mean, it was a Christmas party after all! If you look on Facebook you’ll notice the pics of me in the corner in a black shirt doing about seven charts! LOL Sometimes the gift just comes through spontaneously whether I like it or not. We are all called to serve with out gifts. In the end great spiritual healing happened that night!

One night at Om Shan Tea I met a mystic named Peter who happened to be born on my birthday. We had a tremendous talk about the I-Ching and Taoism and astrology and I need to get back down there to just bask in his presence. I told him about my spiritual brother Peter in Colorado who just translated the I-Ching directly. If you ever go to the Mission check out Om Shan Tea and look for a wise man in the corner with a long beard...that’s Peter. I was overjoyed to add another spiritual brother named Peter to my collection of unique companions on earth.

The next day I returned to Om Shan Tea to meet a guy I’ve been meaning to meet since I began my journey in Colorado. Early in my prep to develop this traveling lifestyle, back when I was reading the Four Hour Work Week and Vagabonding, I came a cross a series of websites of people devoted to this idea of Locational Independence, mostly bloggers traveling the world making a living online writing e-books and such. One of them had created a blog called Far Beyond the Stars, which was right up my alley as a stargazer, and his name was Everett Bogue. Everett had skyrocketed to blogging infamy in the last year with his e-books on minimalism, creating movements, and minimalistic businesses...when I met him he was working on Augmented Humanity. Later that month he completed the work and I downloaded the PDF on my I-pad to read about the nest stage of human evolution from an authentic visionary of our time.

And he agreed to meet me in the Mission at Om Shan Tea. I kept emailing him from the road as I trekked through Canada and down the coast saying that one day I would meet him in San Francisco if he was still there. Turns out he was planning on relocating the next day after I met him. He had been gaining enlightenment though yogic practices at Yoga to the People, but he had never had his astrology chart done before. So after months of being inspired by his blog, I gifted him with a full on session and blew his mind with cosmic insight into his chart and the emerging seasons of the soul right there in public at Om Shan Tea, with Peter listening from the corner. Afterward, we went to yoga class to let the insight filter in. All I’ll reveal about our session was that this guy was onto something amazing and would surpass George Lucas if he kept at it...LOL

After my meeting with my new cybernetic-yogi friend who in person reminded me of Wolverine from the X-men, I continued my journey by learning to ride the BART, that is, the Bay Area Rapid Transit. I had never been on a subway before, so the idea of going down a dark stairwell into the earth to be shuttled between locations reminded me of Mercury’s descent into the Underworld leading the spirits of the dead to their final meeting with Hades. And some of the people I saw on the subway reminded me of the spirits of the dead. But I overcame my fear and learned to ride the Bart over to Berkeley. After reading Way of the Peaceful Warrior, a book that changes lives, I had to visit the place of Dan Millman’s enlightenment. It was almost surreal to be walking around in the rain to see roads from the novel like University and Shattuck. I was happy to simply be, and remembered the scene when, after winning a national gymnastics championship, Dan felt totally empty. After nine years of vagabonding he had finally woke up with an open broken heart ready to serve the world. Now I can relate for sure!

While sitting at Berkeley Espresso one of my all time top astrologers instant messaged me on Facebook and told me that even though he was editing his new film “To Dream of Falling Upwards” and quite busy, that he would love to meet at last. He lived ten blocks away from where I was sitting! His name was Antero Alli and he inspired me to become an astrologer along with Steven Forrest and Dane Rudhyar. So I ran through the rain to meet him for an hour, and after knocking on his door, he opened it and invited me into a warm living room like chamber with a fireplace burning away for hot tea. I felt like I was being invited to sit at the table with a king, and was honored indeed. His astrology book Astrologik is still one of my faves! That’s one thing travel affords, the ability to meet all the most amazing people who have inspired your journey. Suddenly there they are right in front of you having tea and sharing stories.

Our hour long conversation easily ran over to an hour and a half as we journeyed between astrology, filmmaking and the spiritual path. Besides being a great honor to meet one of my astrological heroes turned filmmaker, it was also great to hear his wisdom about the path of life in general. After a great bear hug, I was sent back out into the rain to continue my amazing journey. At one point in our conversation, Antero looked at me with that wry smile and asked, “But who do you think you are?” As if I was supposed to proclaim I was some sort of messiah or something, LOL. Which I responded to by saying, “Just an ordinary guy with some extraordinary insight.” And it seemed that he was pleased to know I wasn’t totally delusional. LOL

Once I had ridden the Bart once, I was way hooked. I wanted to Bart all over the place and explore everything. We should have a World Bart where we could just get on and off at various countries exploring astro-cartography at will! I tried to connect with my astrologer colleague Rebecca in Oakland but she was unavailable. Instead I ended up back in the Mission staying with fellow alchemist/astrologer Caleb Grayson. One of his roommates had served me tea at Om Shan Tea and I was impressed with her minimalism as an actress. I stayed at his pad that night and he made us a feast in honor of my coming. We stayed up late talking about life the universe and everything, my favorite subject by far.

The next morning I walked through the mission with my backpack and my blistered feet to find the Bart again. I was addicted to the subway. Those Vibram five-finger shoes are great except when you are carrying a huge loaded pack up and down hilly cement streets. My feet were hurting so bad that I almost bought a new pair of shoes. But the Bart was my saving grace. When I got on the Bart everyone seemed so bored, so modern and jaded and wired into their cellular devices. I was glad that my Droid had died. Whereas I had my head on a swivel looking around at all the sights and just being in awe of moving that fast underground and overland. I mean, we were riding through a tunnel dug under the bay shooting forward at high speed, riding the wave between the surface and the subterranean realms.

Alicia gave me a key to her place so I could come and go. I only used the apartment-complex gym one day while I was there. Travel definitely interrupts your health routine! It's best to find a way to devote yourself to movement and sweat with no need for a gym. The cool part was that I could come and go at will and always had a safe warm place to crash in the big city. Thanks Alicia! One night during the Full Moon, Alicia drove Monica and I up to the top of the hill overlooking San Francisco where you could see the entire city and it was a sight to behold! Twelve days sped by in what seemed like a blur of meeting a hundred interesting people and tasting ten different Thai restaurants. My favorite quickly became the Green Papaya in Berkeley! A vegetarian Thai restaurant surpassing Arayas in Seattle, now that’s an achievement, except they had no all you can eat buffet. If I ever did decide to settle into an ordinary existence I could see myself living in Berkeley for Fall and Winter and Boulder in Spring and Summer.

All in all, my trip to San Francisco was grand and awakening. The jewel city of enlightenment and creativity on the west coast was a fun place to galavant around and meet many amazing folks If I was stuck on a desert isle with all the people I had met, I’m sure we would be able to form a great community and village. In the months to come leading to the Spring Equinox, I went back to San Fran to celebrate International Astrology Day at a Unity Church downtown. Steven Forrest and other astrologer friends showed up and I even got to see Alicia Lin again. This was the week after the Earthquake hit Japan and Uranus entered Aries to shock and rock the world again, beginning a new 84 year cycle through the Zodiac. In my next blog post I’ll recount my visit to Santa Cruz and my return to San Francisco under the Spring Equinox. I began this journey under the Summer Solstice in Colorado, enjoyed the Fall Equinox in Seattle, the Winter Solstice in San Francisco, and then the Fall Equinox back in San Fran with Chico, the land of almond orchards in between. Where will I be come next summer Solstice? Will my astrology book finally be finished? We shall see indeed!

Chico Adventures

2011-02-23T11:34:00.000-08:00

As you know, Arian and I have chosen Chico CA as our first settling spot on the globe we know as Earth. Chico has been a unique respite from living on bikes and in the tent for us. After our arrival in this little gem of a college town (Population 80K) Arian was immediately accepted into the Chico Green School, an alternative public charter high school where they buy the kids I-pads and focus on creative individuality alongside the almighty curriculum. Arian of course already had an I-pad but that didn't stop him from getting another one for school work. They told him that if he graduated the school he could keep the I-pad. Arian was ecstatic and threw himself into his new world of teenage friends and wise teachers. How many 14 year olds have two of the latest groundbreaking technological innovations of the era?

The kid deserved them after riding his bike 1200 miles to get to Chico and also rides his bike every morning four miles through rain, cold mist, and icy temperatures each morning to school and back. In the morning he scarfs down a bagel laden with soy butter (Earth's Balance) and downs a small pot of steaming chai mixed with soy vanilla creamer. In school he has met lots of other interesting and talented kids and he realized they were like him - cultural creatives that don't fit into the mainstream - he had found his cosmic tribe of fellow geekdom! They were unique and different like him, each in their own ways. He also bonded instantly with all his teachers as they were all amazing creative types and scholars too. Especially his arts/science/music teacher. She was a master of the violin on the side and she began teaching Arian to play. He was hooked hard and begged me to use my power of manifestation to conjure up a violin for x-mas.

Instead, I told him he had his won power of manifestation and abundance within and could visualize anything he wanted in the higher realms and it would appear down here with a little dedication and a lot of elbow grease. In this case, I suggested that he put some muscular motion into writing a proposal for Craigslist and hope that someone would answer the call of a budding musician thirsting for an instrument to call his own. In our role-playing game terms, we figured his character was taking a devotion in Performance Arts skill during the adolescent phase of development, increasing his bardic repertoire to include the stringed instruments.

I also posted his plea to help an instrument-starved teenage mutant ninja performer on Facebook, hoping that someone out there had an old violin sitting on a dusty closet shelf somewhere. Within days a college engineering student dropped by the cafe and delivered a violin into Arian's keeping for a mere $30 bucks. He was overjoyed! Then an astrology client of mine in the Northeast chimed in saying that she would be honored to help Arian become a great musician and for a trade of a few future astrology readings, she would send her ultra-expensive Stradivaris-replica violin for Arian at Christmas. She had it looked at and tuned by a local Luthier and one day while we were sitting at the Empire Train Coffee shop, I was in the middle of a conversation with a lady about metaphysics and astrology, when Arian said excitedly, "Dad! I gotta go! Btetsky just messaged me on Facebook. The violin is here!" It's a wonder he didn't wreck his bike on the way home.

Turns out the violin's bridge and sound post needed to be installed by a veteran Luthier - violin repairman, and my friend who we were staying with helped Arian get online and locate one in town. The next day Arian rode to school with two violins strapped to his back in their cases and two I-pads in his waterproof panniers. The kid was doing all right in Western materialistic terms, true to his Capricornian nature. After school, he rode his bike south fo town to hunt down the Luthier and the guy only charged him $5 bucks to set everything straight and get that fiddle into perfect playing shape. The first song he learned how to play was called the Swallowtail Jig, (he likes to call it the Swashbuckler's retreat), followed by a Christmas performance with his fellow school musicians at the Banes & Noble bookstore. Arian played Joy to the World with his fellow female violinist.

Later that week he brought hoe his report card showing that he had straight A's, and had already worked his way up to the top of the class. He's motivated about learning and the teachers love that. How could they not give him an A after he shows up an hour early for school to work on violin and stays after school sometimes till 7 PM to finish his homework, socialize, and play more violin! Turns out the teachers let him drink hot tea with them on their breaks and in the classroom. He had me buy him packs of Awake and Chai tea for school! When most schools close, the children are clawing at the doors to be released into the world, a hectic tide of screaming children running for buses and cars. Not Arian. He just takes a deep breath, plops another tea bag into his microwaved hot water, enjoys another banana he saved from lunch, and settles into his chair to let the real learning begin. He ate a record nine bananas at lunch one day. He has informed me that there is no way he's leaving Chico, despite my stubborn commitment to locational independence. He says I can travel during the summer when he is at his mom's and during Winter break I could go down to San Fran and connect with people then to go visit on the weekends. Besides, he says, there are plenty of people to teach astrology to right here in Chico. The kid does have a point. But I mean to circumnavigate the globe like Magellan (even though he died in the process)!

I was torn inside because I had gotten used to seeing something new each day - new scenic vistas, new horizons, new towns, new people. After the first four weeks in Chico, I was already hungering for the open road. But it was freezing cold at night, so I appreciated deeply the opportunity to sit at warm coffee houses working on my astrological magnum opus. Everyday I was working on it for hours on end. I began getting a nice steady stream of astrology orders online again too, so money and food for the kid were back on the menu. I was relieved that I could pay my supposed friend Brett $400 per month to live in his cold garage with its icy cement floor. I did manage to manifest some cool furniture form locals. A random stranger I told about our living conditions said, "Wow, he's not much of a friend is he? Charging you to stay in his garage?" I guess he was doing the best he could given his situation.

After major life changes and struggle with his ex-wife and being forced to relocate to Chico from beautiful Hawaii to be close to his kid, I could understand his harsh judgement of my free-wheeling uncommitted lifestyle. he sounded perturbed by my notions of riding around the globe wandering where the spirit lead me to go to inspire people with astrology. He let me know in no uncertain terms that he was "setting up a HOME for his son, and that is I came there, he expected immediate financial contribution." So I acquiesced, despite feelings of betrayal, and paid the man his cold garage fee. Camping in the cold in November proved too much for Arian and I, so we threw in the towel while heading south to San Fran and took the detour to Chico for some winter retreat R&R. We rolled into town with 12 bucks to our names! I told my friend that if I didn't make money that week online, that we'd hit the road, no harm done - just a brief visit. We would enjoy some time together and that would be that. Arian and I would continue south.

As luck would have it (I prefer attunement to the cosmic tides), the online astrology orders poured in! I was able to pay him every week on Saturday. He was already complaining that I rolled into town on a Friday and tht he expected to be paid every Friday on time. We compromised on Saturday. I was already remembering why I detested living with him. He was so anal about the most minute details with his Virgo Moon. So the day before Arian flew home for x-mas to be with his other family, I put out a call to the universe for better living conditions. Even though I was paying Brett his blood money, he decided in the last week that I was unworthy of even speaking too. I guess his practice in mediation skills froze up. I don't know what I did, and I didn't hang around to find out after I tried to talk to him peacefully for the third time, and he just walked on by ignoring me. I got the hint. It was time to leave. I felt terrible inside. This was supposedly my best friend next to Christina, the wife back in NC. huh?

So there I was at the end of a 3200 mile bike ride of exhilarating freedom and liberation, and the two people who I considered my best friends in the world, male and female, had both given up on me, had both turned against me. It wasn't a delightful emotional storm inside at all. I guess the new person I was becoming was too small for the old life I had left behind. If Brett would have ridden his bike 3200 miles to my house back in NC and showed up with a shivering kid and 1 bucks in his pocket I would have let him stay for at least 6 months. You know help a friend get his life together. If Christina would have argued against my friend staying our marriage would have been in serious jeopardy. But I guess I'm fiercely loyal to my cosmic friends that way.

If they couldn't accept the ME I was slowly becoming I guess they wouldn't have a role to play in my path forward. Some people get very shaken when one leaves everything behind. I guess the lifestyle I'm pursuing does look irresponsible and unrealistic from the earthy practical perspective. But after tasting the freedom I've experienced, I'd rather sleep with the homeless people under a bridge than be a slave to the conformity of this insane society we've erected. Besides, if I was going to foreign countries it might be nice to be homeless as long as I had funds to buy food and it was warm. I don't wan to go to interesting far away places and stare at the white walls of comfort anyway. Homelessness in a foreign land began to look appealing to me. It would force you to explore more. The only thing I could see that was bad would be the possibility of someone stealing my technology while I slept.

So there I was the next morning ready to depart. I told Arian to take everything he was interested in keeping to school with him. We were not coming back. I didn't know where we would stay our possible last night in Chico, but I had some leads. I was determined to finish my journey to San Fran, even if I had to go the last frozen leg by bus. After Arian left for school with his bike loaded down and the rendezvous coordinates in his memory, I slowly packed up my stuff with tears in my eyes. Brett was in the room across the hall sleeping, still refusing to speak to me at all. So I opened up the garage door, and got on my bike looking down the cement platform that lead to the driveway and the street behind. I certainly wouldn't miss the noisy college kids screaming at 2 AM every night. I tossed the key to the garage on the table, lamenting the fact that I had to leave such a beautiful table, chair, and fold-out sofa behind. I had just manifested them and they were serene. But a person with attachments to large material possessions is possessed by them in kind. My vow was to own only what I could carry with me, despite the storage locker with all my books back in Colorado. When I got the chance they'd be given away, donated, or stored at a friend's house. But who were my real friends in this world. The two people that I loved the most, the two people that I had trusted with my deepest heart had both turned a cold shoulder to who I was. I felt like I could never trust anyone again. And at the same time I knew I had to trust everyone with an open yet broken heart. With tears streaking down my face, I gave my bike Magellan a kick, and we rolled on to freedom.

It was cold and raining out and my panniers were loaded down like never before. Seven weeks of living in normal society and I had already accumulated more stuff than I could carry. What a disaster! I rode through the rain disheartened and overwhelmed by the immensity of the world and the pressure of my visions and dreams. The world needed me to pull it together, needed me to thrive and harness the creative genius that had been stored in the fibers of my being. The next day, we would be heading into a new adventure. I told Arian that I didn't know if I wanted him to come back. He might have to stay at his mom's next semester. I was lost at sea in my fears. I pulled into a local coffee shop to write this all down on paper...it's taken me this long to post it... But it was an important part of the story. I guess the betrayal of friendship can also mean that you are moving into a new reality that they can't visit in their limited perspective. If I've learned one thing in this life as an Aquarian it is to be true to yourself and your individuality no mater what systems of conformity are pressuring you to fit in.

I checked my email and noticed a message from a cyclist who I had met outside a bike store named Jenn, a chico native. Turns out that her and her husband Todd, who was a Green Builder, had a room for rent in their exquisite house. It had it's own private entrance, bathroom, and furnished bedroom with a bed, a desk and a chair. And it was close by the Chico Sports club where I worked out and Arian's school! They'd be willing to reduce the rent from the normal $500 to $333 for astrology trade starting January 1st, and I could stay for free until then. A ray of hope pierced my faltering heart. Thank you universe. Arian would be overjoyed that we didn't have to spend our last night in Chico out in the cold camping in the wilderness. 333 was a magical number to me symbolizing the Grand Trine. It had made itself known in me brazenly back in 2007 when I was filming Return of the Magi.

After riding through the rain to Todd and Jenn's place near a beautiful almond orchard, I was amazed by the design of their house. The room was perfect! It was like moving from the desperate sticks to a luxury hotel and for a cheaper price. Todd was a fellow Sag rising renaissance man who had served in the Peace Corps in Africa and wanted to discuss me building a website to help fund the education of the children of the family he had stayed with in Kenya. I told him I'd be overjoyed to do it when I returned form San Fran on January 1st. The site is called KenyanEducationFund.ORG and you can sign up for 10 bucks a month to help this family of Kenya's go to school and make their lives better. Jenn works at the university as a research grant writer. They are both cyclists and avid environmentalists who appreciate Arian' and I's lifestyle of minimalism and cycling. It's nice to have friends who enjoy you again! But it's also a cruelty of this fixed world that people you love turn against you when you change. But I was inspired again. Two total strangers took us in in our great time of need. Maybe it was time to just clear the decks of old friendships so new ones could come in. The next morning Arian got a ride to the airport form one of his school friends to fly to the Gulf Coast home of his mother on Dauphin Isle Alabama. I got on the Greyhound with a single backpack headed for a 12 day adventure in San Francisco.

Arian was happy that his would continue on with his friendships and his studies at Chico Green School, and my traveling spirit was happy to finally be seeing some new scenery from the bus window. It was a cold and rainy day but I sat on the right side of the bus peering out the window at the rain soaking the shoulder of the road and imagined riding all those miles in rain and heat and spiritual adventure with my thoughts. At that moment I was happy to be in the bus for a change. Magellan and all of our gear was safe in Chico. I would meet Arian at the Sacramento Airport in 13 days... This Magi had 12 days of Christmas in San Francisco... I hoped to bring light to this vibrant cultural center! In my next post I'll tell you the story of what adventures transpired!

Destination Chico!

2010-10-29T11:31:00.001-07:00

Confusion Hill

We woke up in the Recreation Room of Confusion Hill and were quite confused. The nice old lady woke us up and said the owner would be coming by and that we needed to get up so he wouldn't be angered. Sounded like a monster of an owner. But we appreciated the workers allowing us to "camp" in their Rec-room and so we quickly packed up our gear and bolted down a sunny road. The rain had faded and as it turns out, it was a record breaking rain that dropped more inches in those two days than any other recorded time in history and we were glad to have had a warm fun place to hole up!

We got an email that morning from a lady named Jessie in Laytonville (who I had contacted via Couchsurfing.com), down the road about 30 miles that we could come and stay with them out on their farmland about two miles from town. So we rode excitedly for Laytonville and when we got there Arian wanted a large hot pile of fries and I had a veggie burger. It was a cool little town with a couple of cafes, a well stocked market, and enough nick knack shops to keep it interesting. And it was marijuana harvest season! So there were hippies with dread locks roaming the streets in search of work. They tend to stand outside until a secret grower comes by and offer them a job harvesting the buds that people smoke to get high. I've never smoked anything like that (although people always ask me what I'm on during my exciting spastic moments) but it was interesting to see an entire supposedly illegal profession operating there. I personally think they should legalize this weed and tax it enough to pa down the national debt, but hey, that's me. People tend to abuse things more when it's against the rules just to prove they can.

So we got nourished and then we rode on out to Jessie's place where her companion Ian and two other friends dwelled on a lot of land. The dirt road leading onto the property was long and winding and then it declined at an incredible angle. They had laid rocks on the road so cars could keep their grips, but our bikes were having trouble. We didn't know if it was the right place at first because it was way out there, but seemed right from the directions. Luckily we met two other couch surfers who were both artistic folk. They had already found jobs in the area. They kindly guided us down to the little homestead and it was like entering the Rainbow Gathering. They had this cool little house hooked to a camper and lots of fields for growing crops. Ian and the others were working on a Chicken Run for the 8 chickens that were wandering around. They welcomed us wholeheartedly and told us to make ourselves at home. We unpacked our wet grimy tent and let it dry out in the last embers of the setting sun. Then the temperature dropped and night fell and we all found ourselves inside around a toasty fire talking and sharing stories and art forms. At least three of our new friends played instruments, two guitars and a mandolin, and so Arian broke out his clarinet and joined in. I proceeded to tell my new friends about there astrology charts and think I ended up doing about five 30-minute freebie sessions that blew their minds. One of the artist guys was amazed because his mind was very scientific and yet astrology grabbed him and opened his eyes to new forms of knowing. One of there roomies was Chinese and her name was Christina, which I thought was bizarre. She was from Santa Cruz, as most of them were (Jessie's family owned the land), and she spoke lots of languages. She was extremely intelligent and fascinating and continued to make us chai and almond wine while telling great stories. I never got to look at her chart, unfortunately, but it was a great night of feasting and drinking chai! Turns out that Ian and Jessie had stumbled upon a Macaroni and no cheese recipe too and made us an excellent dinner. We even had seconds! Arian was happy sitting by the fire interacting with 20-something year old progressive, artistic folks and playing his music with a full belly. The kid worships food!

Eventually we all bedded down and the other two travelers graciously offered us the fold out couch and so we slept on a cushioned surface again with warm comforters and pillows. Real pillows! We were living in luxury again! The next morning we slept in, even though I knew we needed to go like 95 miles to get to the Blue Lake area south of Laytonville near Ukiah, but it was too cozy. Everyone else got up and went to town as Jessie worked at the local health food store and today was the day that the rare bookmobile came o town. They had all placed orders for faraway books from libraries online and the bookmobile delivered them once per two weeks.

So Arian and I headed out eventually and made our way back up the treacherous rocky road. I felt like we were forgetting something, and asked Arian to double check, but he said he had everything. I didn't want to have to come back down this crazy driveway. And just when you thought the driveway was ending it would start up another slippery slope. Eventually we did reach the top and were both winded. Then we turned onto the dirt road and I realized that my rain pants were not on me! I had slid out of them and folded them up and placed them on a nearby table! I had paid $70 bucks for those pants at REI so I wasn't about to leave them, especially with the skies threatening rain again. So I left Arian there by the fence where we leaned our bikes and jogged back down the hill. It was strange to be jogging again. My entire leg musculature had been transformed and it felt really weird to run! I wanted to pedal! So there I was running down the rocky, muddy dirt road in the most awkward way possible feeling like a stick figure whose legs didn't work right anymore, when the best thing happened. The joke was on me.

While Arian was waiting at the fence four of the others came driving back form town and they asked him what happened to your dad? Arian said, "He forgot his pants!" And they all busted out laughing, I heard later. Then they caught up to me running along in my tight little padded black biker shorts and offered me a ride back to the farm. I accepted wholeheartedly!

After I retrieved my pants, we went back to town and stocked up on some food and found our way south at last passing through Willits CA where highway 20 began that would take us east and back up to Chico. The day was sunny and the rain didn't come so we rode fast and hard down many amazing mountain passes. We stopped in Willits to see if any couchsurfers were available in Ukiah but no one had responded. Ukiah was five miles out of our way anyway, so it was just as well. But now we would need to search for camping sites out in nature along the big lake where the 20 skirted across the valley passing the Blue Lakes and then the larger Clear Lake. It was a long way to a town called Lucerne and I didn't think we would make it, so I was prepared to do some stealth camping. We did pass a few campgrounds but they were all closed for the season with large bars across the entrance, so we continue on our trek as the sun begin to set. Then we came to the largest pass and looked on with disbelief at the ominous slope. Arian asked me if he could hitch-cycle, our new term for riding along and sticking out our thumbs. I told him sure, but only when he saw open-bed trucks.

No one seemed to want to pick us up though and we trekked on and upward straining and struggling with gravity and our loads. It was getting late and dark and cold and we needed to stop. But just as we were about to cres the top of this pass, a large white truck came back from the direction we were traveling and the guy asked us if we really wanted a ride over the hill, at which point let out an enthusiastic "YES!" We pulled our bikes across the road to a parking area where he had stopped and he helped us load them up. He took us about 20 miles to a town called Upper Lake, where he dropped us off at a truck stop where he though we could camp. He was going south from there and we were going east, so we thanked him and bid him farewell, and stumbled into the warm truck-stop desperate for a place to set up camp. The wind had started howling through the valley and the chill factor was intense. My shivers started to return.

We met the owner of the Three Brothers truck stop who was a Muslim Indian guy. He and his wife were working the register when Arian and I rolled in. We asked him if we could camp in their grass outside or somewhere. The guy was really gracious and quite intelligent. It turns out he spoke Indian (Urloo), Spanish, English, and German. They had several kids and one was Arian's age and played basketball. He took compassion on us and told us we cold camp out back where the truckers sleep all the way in the corner so the trucks coming in wouldn't see us. We bought some food and thanked them profusely and went out to stake out a tent site. It turns out were were exactly in the corner of a giant shadowy parking lot bordered by thick bushes. As we set up our tent the wind intensified and we were both shivering cold. It was going to be a cold night with the wind coming off the lake and the temperature plummeting. We got into our little T-3 Quarterdome tent and that took the wind chill factor off but it was still cold sleeping in a tent on the hard blacktop with the cold ness escalating. At least we had our thermarest mats! Arian wrapped his jacket tightly around his feet to keep them from freezing all night. I breathed heavily down into my sleeping bag to create a toasty environment. We heard diesels going by right outside but luckily our tent had strong reflectors and they couldn't get to us anyway in the corner unless they came right at us. I imagined a diesel plowing into us and quickly erased that thought, praying for protection. That was when we heard the wild coyotes begin howling and the dogs barking in the distance. It was going to be an interesting night!

I woke up at four in the morning and Arian was sitting straight up on top of feet. He was shivering and cold and said his feet were frozen so he had to sit on them to keep them warm. So I quickly told him to come over to my side of the tent and get into my sleeping bag with me. He was still in his bag, but we tucked him down into my toasty bag and I rubbed my warm feet against his to transfer my heat. With Sagittarius rising, my body is always warm and throwing off enthusiasm and heat. With Cancer rising, Arian is a like a wet lake and gets cold easy. We got him good and warm even though we couldn't get the zipper on my sleeping bag all the way up, so I had to sleep in the most uncomfortable position ever just to barely keep myself covered, but at least the kid was warm and sleeping well again. It would only be a few more hours before morning and we would make a bee-line for the store and brew hot tea and hang out with the friendly Indian Muslim.

Turns out that when we got inside, there he was talking Spanish to all the liquor delivery guys counting stacks of alcohol and goofing around. It was col to witness a bright spirit such as his bringing camaraderie among many races in his little truck stop. I told Arian it was bizarre to see an Indian hanging with Mexicans and said that Indian was kinda like the Mexico of Asia with the same kind of tropical climate and such devotion to family and religion, etc. Arian thought that was cool and said maybe China was the America of Asia because they had invented so many things like paper, and gunpowder, and compasses, and clocks and thst maybe Russia was the Canada of Asia, and so forth. When you get this kid's mind churning, he just goes off like a rocket swirling in his brilliance. So we talked with our Indian friend for about an hour over several rounds of hot tea and several trips to the bathroom. Eventually we downed a couple of Monsters and took off down the road. it was sunny again but chilly and we had 120 miles to get to Chico, and facing the hardest part early for 40 miles of steep hills! I knew we wouldn't make it but I hoped to get over the mountain pass and down into the central valley where they grow lots of fruit. Maybe it would be warmer down there?

We rode hard all day, mostly up impossible looking slops until finally we gave in and started hitch-cycling again where we hold out our thumbs as we ride hoping for a pick-up truck to take compassion on us. At this point I just wanted to get to Chico, reunite with my good friend Brett and get working on books and possibly get Arian into the Chico Green School, an alternative High School where they buy the kids I-pads to replace text books. Arian already had an I-pad, but he wold gladly have another for educational purposes. But I was open to getting him into regular high school too in such a cool college town. I had made a deal with his mom that if I got him into school, he could stay with me as we planned for the whole school year, which Arian really wanted to do, and then he would go down there in the summer. Brett had a six year old son named Jatin, so Arian was excited to have another kid to hang with and play toys. Arian is like Christopher Robbins on Winnie the Pooh, the caretaker of all the young kids. He has such a great imagination and love of play and a gentle nurturing demeanor. I couldn't have had a more perfect child. He is very respectful and polite and creative and I love him dearly.

So we fought the mountain passes all day long and it was about 4:30 and the sun was sinking and I began to worry about camping in the cold again like the night before. Maybe we would zip our bags together like his mom and I used to do in our twenties backpacking through Australia and down the Colorado Trail? I began searching for suitable campsites off the road in secret looking places. I was feeling tired and weak and my spirit was broken. Then we found ourselves on the side of this steep incline and a religious person wrote a chalk message on the shoulder that said, "And the Meek shall gain Strength!" Arian and I joked around that we felt pretty bottom-of-the-barrel meek at that moment. He said maybe that was a sign we were going to get a ride all the way to Chico. I hoped so. We had made a pact that morning that we were going to get up early and make it 120 miles no matter what, even if we had to ride through the dark. He wanted this pact more than me. I was perfectly prepared to camp, but he just wanted to get there badly. So just as we crossed the last high pass and were gazing down into the valley with at least 25 miles to go to get to Williams along I-5, a white truck stopped and a 59 year old guy named Mark asked us if we wanted a ride!

We were overjoyed. He told us he would take us to Williams or Colusa and we could catch the flat roads to Chico from there going north. We talked and shared many stories about our adventure and he said he had always wanted to backpack across Nevada and go down the loneliest road from hot springs to hot springs located on government land. That was col, so I encouraged him to go for it, telling him about all the elder cyclists I met in Wyoming. He phoned his son Kirk, who lived in Chico and asked him if he wanted to have dinner. He was looking for an excuse to go to Chico to visit his son. Luckily his son was there and said yes! We were going to be dropped off in downtown Chico right next to a tree outside Starbucks along Broadway st. After we thanked him, and he sped away to see his son, I turned to see Arian standing with his hand on the tree and he said, "Dad, this is the first tree we landed in Chico by, and will remember it when we ride by." I gave him a high five and then went into Starbucks to phone Brett.

Brett had just rented and moved into a new house near the college two days ago and he offered us the finished garage for $100 a week. Turns out that he was still job searching and was needing help too. So we all came together to help each other! It was great seeing each other again after five years. Brett has the same kind of dry wit and sense of zany humor that Arian and I do. We had been roommates with him in Boone NC when Arian was 4 and lived in the pantry. We had been roomies in Asheville when Arian was 6 and lived in a fort in the attic. And now we would get to be roommates in Chico CA for a time while Arian was about 15 with his son Jatin at 6. Everything runs in cycles. Arian hit it off great with Jatin and in a matter of hours they were building forts and star wars legos and engaging their imaginations in play, which a lot of adults have forgotten how to do.

The next day I decided that getting Arian into school was the priority and also the litmus test of whether or not we belonged here. I had $12 bucks in my Pay Pal debit account and Brett wanted $100 a week. So obviously I couldn't give him anything until I got my next astrology chart order. I was feeling so lost and uncertain about life. The only thing I was perfectly Buddha-minded about was my love for Arian and when I was writing. Everything else was quite nebulous. I had been on the road for a long long time and made my peace with the Scorpionic rebirth lunar progression. I still had nine months to go before the enthusiastic flames of Sagittarius kicked in. But we went down to the school and got lost on our ay there. So we went and hacked into a coffee shop's wifi and phoned them and got the exact directions. When we found the alternative high school it was lunch time and there were all these brainy, interesting kids hanging out behind a high fence in a playground area. It was definitely alternative and Arian liked it. Two strange girls greeted us at he gate and invited us to the office. We told them about ur epic journey by bike and they were amazed. The word about us spread like wildfire throughout the playground and we were invited into the office to sit down with a lady named Susan. She introduced us to the staff and the Director had indeed received my email from Oregon. He was excited to have us and he was a cyclist himself! I smiled at Arian and he smiled back. He had found his tribe!

Normally they make you fill out all these forms and then bring them back and then they set you up with an extensive interview and then they might accept you. But after an hour of hanging out with various staff members who kept floating through the office and telling them our story and about Arian, Susan scrapped the whole process, and just declared that this was such an unusual and interesting turn of events that they would admit him right now! We decided to wait till the next day because we still had some exploring to do on our bikes and Arian was hungry. He deserved the best chips, hummus, and salsa twelve bucks could buy after completing an epic trip like that. I had ridden 3128 miles and he had gone 1128 miles, according to my bike distance computer. That didn't count the hitch-cycling miles. Turns out that the school was having a Halloween Day of the Dead festival/party on Friday, the next day. Arian said he wanted to go and begin making friends. The Director wanted me to come by next week and share the story of our journey with the kids and I agreed.

Shortly thereafter, we got a donation for $20 bucks from one of our loyal readers and we went and bought some groceries to get us started. The school signed Arian up for free lunches, due to our economic situation. I feel good about being in a progressive town, ready to complete my epic magi opus work on astrology and the RPG game with Arian. I'm feeling unstable with no finances so we ask our friends and family to help us out if possible through our donation button here. If we can't afford to live here, I guess it's back down the cold lonely road for us. But we are really happy to be here and it seems like things are flowing toward us staying for a time. We'll see what happens. As always, people can order charts at my website Divine Inspiration Astrology Help us help the world with our projects!

If we continue to stay here and hole up for the winter, I will continue the blog and start to ell the stories of synchonistic encounters we have her in Chico. The town feels like Boulder to both of us, all hip and progressive and big enough to have a lot of cool stuff going on but small enough to be really welcoming and warm. And there are trees everywhere! I'm ready to write like I've never written before! Woo hoo!

Avenue of the Giants

2010-10-24T18:36:00.000-07:00

We had a restful week in Arcata staying with three different sets of people, thanks to Couchsurfing.com As noted in my previous post, the three college ladies and their one male roommate shared their abode with us when we arrived, which was a good thing because I was out of it for a few days from over-exhaustion and had the shivers that night. Not fun! After our agreed upon two nights, we transferred to another house about a mile away but very close to Mosgos Coffee shop and Murphy's Health Food store, so we were in heaven for four nights. I had met a guy named Kevin who was a friend of the ladies and he was a Gemini, and we really connected even if briefly. Turns out, true to his sign, he was a journalist major and was on his way to a conference in NYC where he hoped to make some career contacts. As a result he offered us his room, and his three roommates were very cordial and cool. We didn't hang out much except for to sleep and heat up tea at night mainly because everyone was in class all day and we were at Mosgos drinking chai and working on our new RPG called Emergence, where you create an adventure character based initially on a random astrology chart. Think Dungeons and Dragons meets Astrology and Archetypes!

After making great headway on the book, we decided to transfer to another gracious couchsurfer host whose name was Paul. Turns out that Paul was into strategy board games and had a copy of Settlers of Catan that he had bought online but that none of his friends would play with him. So Arian and I jumped right in the first night and I barely won. Paul gave me some stiff competition! Then the next night we played two games in which Arian came out victorious both times. He is a wise master of strategy. He just needed to see the game in action one time before he became a force!

After two nights with our surfer friend Paul and his college roommates, we were finally rested and ready to continue our journey to Chico, CA to visit my friend Brett and possibly settle there for 3-6 months. Chico is another hip college town with lots of unique characters. We could have went across to Redding and south to Chico but decided that we really wanted to see the Redwood Forest and ride our bikes down the Avenue of Giants. It was a good choice because the rain held out for a few days and the sunny ride was spectacular. My friend Kriss had said that the Redwoods would be like church, all reverent and holy, and she was not exaggerating. When you ride your bike down the Avenue of Giants, you feel like you are entering another world, another time. Turns out some visionary environmentalists of the 1800's got together and managed to salvage just these 2% of our nations old growth forests. The other 98% helped build the industrial centers of the coast like San Fran and Eureka. I'm so glad that there is more of an environmental focus in the modern world along with a deep appreciation of natural beauty.

Some of these trees tower 300 feet into the air weighing over 300 tons. Some have sections near the bottom that look like black doorways into the realms of the fey carved by lightning blasts. We like fey portals into the astral realms! One grove was dedicated to Fairies and invisible beings. We met a elder gnomish bicyclist who had a sticker on his bike about being on a quest for invisible beings like elves and dragons that only he could see. But he quickly found out that we had the sight too! I sent some couchsurfing requests ahead to places in the Redwoods, but it turns out that they were traveling or overbooked, so camping was back on the menu. Whenever we pass roadkill on the road we jokingly scream the Lord of the Rings orc quote, "Meat's back on the menu boys!" Which has to be way gross if you think about it. But hey, people eat cows, which is bigger roadkill in my book. LOL

The night we arrived at the beginning of the Avenue of Giants, we tried to connect with a couchsurfer in Fortuna but we were unfortuna, and so we road on hoping for a campground or something. Unfortunately we were down to our last ten bucks, so we couldn't afford the one RV park we did find. I tried to haggle with the old grouchy owner, but he refused to budge and told us we should go camp down by the river. Yeah right! Instead we rode on into the deep night and it got really scary but I had Arian behind me with the red blinking backlight and I was in the front with my camp head lamp lighting the way. At last we came to a Vista Point, but couldn't enjoy the vista because it was pitch dark. We met a hippy guy who had a bus who was headed to San Fran, and he suggested we just stealth camp down the way in the bushes and trees, so we did! We wandered off into the woods with our bikes and found a suitable flat spot. At least we thought it was flat! Later we were both dodging rocks under our mats during our sleep finding many variant sleeping positions! We heard lots of strange animal sounds off in the woods and I was quick to have my razor sharp camping knife and my devil stick nearby in case I needed to fight off raccoons!

When morning came, we were still alive and no animals messed with us. Thank you nature! We woke up with the sun and we were right there at the entrance to the Avenue of Giants! We saw many amazing trees riding down that picturesque stretch. Some of the bases of these century-old magical beings are larger than elephants. We saw the old base of a felled tree whose tree rings near the center dated back to the signing of the magna carta! Wow! The trees kept going too. Grove after sacred grove of great wise tree beings surrounded by floors of green moss, right out of a fantasy world. But it was the real world. Arian and I found that our creative imaginations were on fire as we began working out the details of the first adventure we would publish for our new role-playing game. We called it the "Mad Artificer", about two nations at war and the evil nation forcing a genius enchanter to craft a super weapon to turn the tide in their imperial aims. So we started dreaming up this artificer character, kinda like a medieval engineer-scientist who works with magic and technology, a technomancer. And he was kind of a mix between an Einstein and a wild nature man.

Next thing you know, we come around the corner and we run into this hippy guy, with wild red hair and flurry unkempt raving red beard that jiggled as he spoke, carrying a load of carpets. He called himself Wondrous Mountain, and we greeted him and talked for a while enjoying a rest. We even shared organic food and water with him, and Arian gave him a sewing needle because he said he needed one to sew his new cloak from one of those fabrics he was hauling around. I couldn't believe Arian actually had a sewing needle! Turns out that he rode an old Schwinn bicycle across country from Missouri this summer and that he had long abandoned his bike to search for a gypsy community in the western Redwoods, I think he said Mirtola or something like that. We wished him well after our half hour visit and told him that we would use him as the model for our crazy mad scientist character and he was overjoyed in Irish delight. He was Irish with Leo Sun, Leo Rising, and an adventurous Sagittarius Moon. Triple fire sign! No wonder he had such fiery red hair!

So we trekked on and ended up camping at an actual campground called Richardson Grove, and it was amazing to sleep surrounded by these huge trees. We had to ride another 8 miles through the dark to get there through towns called Redway and Garberville. It was the full moon that night and we had a delicious stir fry before retreating to our tent when the rain started. We didn't realize it was the beginning of the rainy season, the first big storm! We overheard many couples who came into camp with RVs quarreling over things like where to park the RV, etc. One couple got into a flaming fight when the dad rammed the RV into a wooden barrier. There were three camps near ours where major drama was going down. I told Arian it was typical during a Full Moon in Aries with the Sun in Libra. Lovers quarrels were in the air!

The next day we packed up our stuff in the biting, intensifying rain. Our tent was in a bad spot as a large pool had formed under it! Our feet were basically barely floating on our matts at one end of the tent all night. It was a mere precursor of what was to come! The rain was so intense that both our hands and feet were cold to the bone and it was miserable. Arian declared that he hated cycling! I told him it would make him tougher and add Stamina to his character during his adolescent phase of maturity toward being an authentic adventurer. That was right out of our character design system, but it didn't help quell his foul mood. We kept stopping under bridges to get warm and eat and even stuck out our thumbs when pick-ups went by, but no one had compassion for two lonely soaked travelers. And it was another 30 miles to our destination in Laytonville. It was going to be a long cold drizzle of a day!

We rounded a corner to see a bridge with an intense incline near a place called Confusion Hill. The canyon below was hundreds of feet deep to a rocky river and the bridge just kept going and going. When we finally made it to the top we were both relieved to see an enigmatic gift shop called the Gravity House with an RV-Campground across the highway. We pulled in and had some hot apple cider and hot chocolate and warmed our souls while talking to an old retired navy guy who was also a biker. He was smoking a cinnamon stick to help him stay off cigarettes and he had strange eyes, a burly mustache, and a a shirt with a crazy looking jester that said something about everyone around here was kinda weird. To top that, the place was called Confusion Hill because government scientists came in to study the weird magnetics in the area blaming it on minerals beneath the earth. Our new friend had a sign with about seven other theories, his favorite being a deeply buried alien computer. I liked that one, but I liked the one that blamed it on multidimensional portals even more! Especially after I had seen many that day! He said the locals called the lightning charred holes in the big trees goose-pins. Turns out that settlers would pin their livestock in them so the wild animals wouldn't get them!

The rain kept barreling down and I could tell that Arian was done for. It was only six more miles to Leggitt, and he probably could have made that, but not 30 to Laytonville. The sun was going to set in a few more hours and it didn't feel right to keep him out in the cold again. I didn't want him to get sick like in Washington. So we went next door to haggle again. Before we went into the office to talk to the people, I logged onto their wi-fi and found that I had gotten an astrology order and a few small but heartfelt donations. Food and lodging was back on the menu boys!" we cried. Which was a good thing because they wanted $21 dollars for us to set up our tent in the rain and mud! We never set foot in the tent though. We enjoyed the recreation room so much with a TV for for college football and large cozy couches with comforters, that we never actually made it out to the tent. We stayed inside all night with the owner's permission. They had compassion for us as this was their first big storm of the season. We enjoyed the coziness so much that we broke out our cookware, made some hot tea, and cooked some Thai noodles and basically enjoyed being warm and dry for a spell. The next day we woke up on the couches and decided that with the rain still coming down hard that we might as well stay another day and hope the weather report for Monday was right. The forecast said we'd have some light showers in the morning on Monday, but that the storm should break. Arian didn't have to twist my arm to keep me curled up with Pro football happening, especially since my Broncos were hosting the rival Raiders! It was a depressing game, because the Raiders jumped out on us due to lots of errors and we just imploded and ended up being cooked alive at home 59-14 in our continual commitment to sucking!

During the night we had two strange events happen. First a guy from San Fran who was on his way to Eureka came wandering in. He had a flat tire and had driven the rent-a-car twenty miles on a flat and he needed to send an email and use my computer to call his girlfriend. Then several minutes after he decided to drive on to Garberville, another stranger comes in who claimed that his lights on his car stopped working. We told him about the strange magnetics in the area and advised him to get some distance from here and things would be fine. We hope our two stranded soaked travelers made it to their destinations!

So here we are on a rainy Sunday night watching the Packers face the Vikings and feeling quite content to stay inside again on these cozy couches. We are both ready to be settled again for a while. Being homeless and wandering around is fun in the summer, but the cold weather makes it stupid. My good friend Moses, an astrologer and now fantasy writer like me, offered me a chance to come down to Prescott AZ for a winter retreat, but I told him I was intent on checking out Chico CA fist and then San Fran. But at this point, and with the cold creeping in, Arian and I are craving a place to call home. Living like this makes you really appreciate the simple pleasures of life...a hot cup of tea, a warm soothing shower, friends and community, a dry place to sleep, a good strategy board game, etc. When I set out on this adventure I was committed to Locational Independence, but I added the cycling part of the equation to the lifestyle. Yesterday Arian cracked 1000 miles in that rainstorm and I cracked 3000 miles. Three-thousand miles on a bike. He made level 1 Cyclist and I made level 2, but we are both ready to be commuter cyclist in a city. We still have at least four more days to make it to Chico, California. Hopefully the rain will let up some, but I fear it will challenge us till the bitter end when we roll into town to begin a new life. We went back down to the campsite and packed up our dirty rain-soaked tent and gear and hauled it all with the bikes back up to the Recreation Room. We played a game of foosball and then air hockey. I won foosball, barely, and Arian won air hockey. Only the Universe knows what will come next. Time to go record the chart order I got that enabled us to stay here. I am so grateful that I can inspire people's paths with astrology, my words, and my insights into their character.

As always, we appreciate donations here and chart orders here! We will need some funds to get settled in Chico, even if we decide to live with my good friend Brett. I will finally be able to settle in and finish these books to release to the world. 2011 will be an inspiring year of publishing for sure!

Entering California!

2010-10-15T18:44:00.000-07:00

Abandoning Bandon

The night we arrived in the little cozy, marsh-surrounded town of Bandon, Oregon we rode south to find another campground at the Bandon State Park near the beach, but it turns out there was a sign that said Camping Prohibited. Bummer! The Sun was descending over a great forested hill that stood between us and the dramatic ocean. We thought about stealth camping, but worried that the wild raccoons would be a pain, so we decided to ride south to what looked like an RV park on the I-pad Google Maps.

We got there and they wanted $15 to set up our tent in this grassy fenced area. So I paid the camp host through her RV door while her potbellied husband watched college football on the TV. I would be sitting pretty watching the Broncos face off with the Ravens in Baltimore tomorrow morning. That was exciting, even if I had to ride three miles back to Bandon, possibly through intense rain. The storm was kicking up with the wind and Arian and I barely managed to get the tent set up without the rainfly flying off. Once we set up the tent we realized they had an indoor area with tables and bathrooms with showers, so when the storm raged, we went inside and enjoyed the warmth and worked on Emergence, our new role-playing game.

The next morning it was still a torrential downpour as we rode into town to witness the worst defeat the Broncos have had this season against the stout Ravens. My heart sank in disgust as I watched my team go down to face a tough loss. It was depressing, especially with all the injuries. Oh well, next we we had the Jets at home!

Arian and I decided to head back to the RV park, pack up our tent, and ride south once the rain let up. After the bitter loss I just wanted to ride! We passed the purple Yurt artist colony that our new friend Daina had told us about, but we were making good time and it was dry so we just stopped briefly to say hello, and then got back on the highway to pedal hard south so we could reach Port Orford. We passed a lot of campgrounds along the way, but just kept persisting until we reached Port Orford. It was a small town with stores and the main avenue looked inviting with lots of tourist gift shops and cafes, but we couldn't stop. The panoramic views of the ocean were exquisite! Our friend Tony said we could camp just beyond the town, so we rode hard to look for the spot. We eventually found it, but the Sun still had an hour on it, so we decided to ride toward Mount Humbug towering ahead and hope that they had re-opened the Humbug State Park. Tony said it was closed for construction. We thought we'd try it anyway, even if we had to Stealth camp!

Riding along the 101 glancing occasionally down at the marvelous sea is such a serene feeling. Your legs are pumping, your body is sweating, your mind is calm, and everything in the universe seems as it should be...and you live in nature. I have found that when I open my mouth to speak the words don't have much volume. It's as if I've seen too deeply into the darkness of the unknown and it's hard to even want to say anything about it. Arian always brings me back to laughter though, so that's a good thing indeed.

We eventually found the campground and we lifted our bikes over a stone wall to sneak in, but the camp attendant came by in his golf cart and told us to register. He was a friendly guy and said that the camp was still open to cyclists and hikers, just not RVs. He offered to bring us a pile of wood in his golf cart, but wanted $5 bucks, so we declined. We were overjoyed and cooked a great stir fry and boiled some delicious green tea. Our fuel canister was depleted after the meal and it was difficult to find the special butane cartridges that fit our stove, so we were despondent about the future of our outdoor culinary arts. The camp had showers and Arian told me to go first while he watched the camp so that he could stay in the shower a real long time and just soak up the heat. He loves the hot water meditation. I think I fell asleep before he returned. I was glad he was cozy and happy and had finally overcome those awful Northwestern sniffles.

The next morning we woke up inspired but a little sore and we set our destination through Gold Beach down to Brookings, Oregon right near the border to California. We wanted to make it into California, but when we arrived in Brookings we were so inspired by the Whale Rock and the campground overlooking the sea, and free showers, and a fellow cyclist, that we decided to stay and enjoy it We had stopped earlier in Gold Beach at a unique bookstore/cafe that charges $2.50 just for three hours of tapping their wi-fi. And we also had the great fortune of finding an outfitter that had fuel canisters that fit my SOTO stove! We got three and got some groceries before leaving town so we could cook something exquisite on our new butane cartridges.

When we got to camp we went down to where you could sit at a picnic table overlooking the choppy sea. The Sun was setting and the Moon was glowing bright in it's Waxing Crescent phase. The next day we would cross into California and hit Crescent City during the Crescent Phase. How cool would that be? And this time when we rolled into the post office, we prayed that my friend Steve's incredible care package would be there. He said he sent it USPS instead of UPS this time, so it would be waiting in General Delivery. I was psyched! The Whole Foods Pharmacy produces some amazing organic blends of this cake-like mixture that has the texture of a cliff bar. It is delicious!

When we got back to camp and started cooking, another cyclist rolled into camp named John (another John!) who was from Atlanta, Georgia and had ridden his bike up the east coast and across the Northern Tier and was intending to go all the way to San Diego and then complete a loop back to Georgia. He had already logged over 6000 miles! And I thought we were hard core! He was about 46 and he often stayed in hotels to break the monotony of the grind and enjoy the comforts of modern life. He had a pack of Cuban beans and yellow rice that he had carried from Atlanta 6000 miles that he just gave to us. Arian, who was born in Key West just 90 miles from Cuba, loved black beans and yellow rice. It was in his conch blood! His eyes grew wide with excitement while opening his mouth in surprise, his signature expression. This kid loves food!

We had a peaceful night at the campground and enjoyed long hot showers again. There's nothing like a hot shower when you're used to going days without one. You go into one of those little stalls and you slowly peal your biker shorts and sweat-soaked shirt off and hang them on the little towel hooks while you get the water going. Then you step into another universe of pleasure. Plus you get to go back to your tent squeaky clean and crawl into your sleeping bag without a care in the world but being fluffy and warm inside. You open up your I-pad and play a little strategy game and then drift off into bliss-filled dreams.

The next morning we rode out before our new friend but he quickly passed us when we stopped at a coffee shop for chai and storytelling with the locals. The barista had a magnificent spirit and was genuinely open and enthusiastic. She loved hearing about our journey. Next thing you know, her brother comes in too, and he's a gypsy with a van that he lives in. In a matter of moments we got talking and he wanted to know more about astrology and the Spirit of Life led me to do a quickie free interpretation for him and he was beside himself with a burst of celestial inspiration. He was a Double Aries, Sun and Moon in the Balsamic dark phase, and Scorpio Rising with Mars in Libra opposing his Aries luminaries. Intense dude but really cool. He had tattoos all over with heroic and dark themes and he sported a short cropped beard and he just reminded me of Hercules. A living breathing oracle of Hercules! I felt like I had briefly met a potential spiritual brother, and something told me our paths would cross again. But for that moment, the road was calling us to California.

We rode down and across a beautiful stretch where you could see the ocean full of strange rock formations that had once been mountains, but now reduced to rubble in the mists of eternity living dangerously as time. I imagined how many millions of years had to go by for the sea to dissolve a mountain down to its last lonely rocky core. And then I looked down at the asphalt my tires were spinning over and realized that this very road was a mere newborn compared to those mountains. We had been driving our obsessive vehicles down these roads for less than a hundred years and we acted like we belonged, paving mountain tops and cutting forests so that road could be laid in the name of progress. I was happy to be rolling on the side of that road, but I also realized how fragile it all was. A pair of thin rubber tubes full of air and some tires were all that separated my body from crashing onto the pavement. Death could happen any moment! A car could hit me or worse, a diesel. I had long overcome the fear of vehicles brushing by with their gusts of wind and noisy motors. In life you learn to block out the parts that vex the soul and just go for the ride freely no matter what happens. And then it does happen. Things happen. People die and other people get scared and wonder what it's going to be like when this frail vessel is reduced to a pile of bones or ash.

Science took a different route when it divorced itself from metaphysics. The Scientific Revolution freed us from religious oppression but gave us a world devoid of soul, a disenchanted drama of cold masses and billiard balls clanking against each other in vacuums of experimental space. Where was God in all this? I think we replaced God with to-do lists, television, and now the internet. The eternal being of love that crafted the Universe is still in all these things, lurking silently, waiting to pounce on one of us who happens to wake up and sense the reverential awe swirling through every unique moment. In the end, we will fade. We will die. And that's a comforting thought. Because that means there's something greater than I can imagine going on, and believe me, I've tried. I've been working on a book about the metaphysics of the Universe since my college days in Boulder. I call it Living the Mystery: The Physics of Consciousness. One day, I might finish the last two volumes and publish it. Maybe I should just get the first volume out there. I have it with me in digital pictures of my hand-written medieval script form. There are some amazing truths I've stumbled upon just by starting with the postulate of the Unified Field and constructing the Universe from there on up. The Lord Thy God is One, the Hebrews stressed. And today the Scientists who broke us away from taboo superstitions are back on the quest for the Unified Field. But they're a century late and a spiritual equation short.

I looked back to see Arian faithfully pedaling along. He gets behind in the mornings and then he leaves me behind in the afternoons. That's because we have different styles of going through the day revealed in our birth charts. He has Cancer Rising, a watery, emotional sign that wants to be nurtured and feel safe and gooey and starts the day slow. He crawls out of his sleeping bag in the morning like a pile of thick molasses. I have to keep shaking him and I'm all excited to pack up and go, and he is in another vivid dream ordering food or another hot chai. This kid is something else. That morning he was talking in his sleep again and he said one perfectly articulated sentence and then went silent again. He said, "Basically, would you like to go swimming or not?" That was it. He must have been having swimming dreams. My little crab! The whole morning I just let him ride back there through the misty cold so he can ride out his moodiness. Because I know by the time the Sun gets shining and descending toward the horizon Arian comes alive. You see, I have Mars Rising in the east in the enthusiastic fire sign of Sagittarius, so I wake up and dance and prance and neigh and stomp my feet cause I'm ready to go. Arian has Mars in earthy plodding Capricorn and it was setting in the 7th House at birth. So he doesn't catch his Mars wave of energy until the Sun has nearly set. He always wants to get jazzed off a Monster drink and charge the summit of the next hill then, leaving his poor tired lonely dad behind. But it's okay, because I let him sulk behind me in the morning and he doesn't say much until I mention lunch, and then he starts to perk up.

We rode hard into California and crossed the State line where they inspected us for produce, but I ate the last apple I picked from Tony's tree in Coos Bay just that morning, so they let us through no problem. And as soon as we crossed that border the Sun came out strong and blessed us with starshine the whole way to Crescent City. I had entered my 8th State on Magellan since leaving on June 20th. I was tired and 8 was the number of change. California would be the place of transformation. There were no couch surfer hosts in Crescent City so I knew we'd just pop by the post office, get our food package, and head toward the coastal hills. Tony the surfer warned us about the hill out of Crescent City. He said it was a monster of a hill and the way he described it made it seem like the wicked ones in Wyoming, but with more gracious scenery of great Redwood trees stretching their limbs to the sky. We rolled into Crescent City aching and tired and ready for some delicious food. Unfortunately, we had stopped in Brookings that afternoon when I was feeling weak and dizzy. I needed food, and I needed it bad. I got hungry. Then I got weak and bought a bunch of food. Arian was happy to be sitting on the sidewalk outside of the supermarket chomping down on an apple butter and peanut butter whole wheat sandwich though. And I was satisfied and ready to ride too. But we had loaded up on food right when we were about to receive food, and plus we had John's pack of Cuban rice and beans delivered by bike 6000 miles from Atlanta.

So I walk into the post office and it turns out that two front line employees called in sick, so I had to wait thirty minutes in a long line just to ask them to hand me my package. Indeed Steve had come through and saved our tummies with a ton of delicious organic goods. And that box was heavy as the postal lady dropped it with a deep thud on the counter. I picked it up and felt how heavy it was and just closed my eyes in disbelief. There was no way we would be able to pack all that food on our bikes and make it up the monster hill before sunset. Would we turn around and head back to some of the campgrounds we saw on the way into Crescent City and try to sort it out? Or would we eat some first and then try to desperately stuff our panniers with food and try to make it to the campground we were aiming for over the mountain in Klammoth? Either choice was a desperate gambit.

I remember the time me and my dad were traveling through Macon, Mississippi and our truck broke down. I was only about 3 or four, but when he went traveling I always wanted to go with him. He was my dad and I loved him, plus I was blessed or cursed with wanderlust. I see it as a blessing. But there we were, me and my dad broke down on the side of the road and I was crying. But an older black guy came along and rescued us and we got to stay at a hotel. I almost drowned that day in the swimming pool. My dad went to get some towels or something and I was so excited to jump into that pool that I just dove on in without even knowing how to swim! About a minute later my dad returned to find me underwater struggling to breathe. He pulled me out just in time before I died. He was my hero that day and we enjoyed the rest of the day. He must have been scared out of his mind.

I had a situation happen like that once with Arian when he was about three. I was out at the beach one day and we were out about a hundred yards over the Atlantic Ocean sunning on our favorite pier. I was hooting and hollering and carrying on with all the little half-cuban Key West local kids and showing off by doing backflips off the pier and into the water six feet below. Then later, Arian wanted to come swim with me so I taught him how to jump six feet off the pier into the sea where I would catch him and swim him to the ladder. Then when were done frolicking I decided that I would just swim with Arian back to shore with his arms wrapped around my neck and riding me like a dolphin. I got about halfway to shore and started to sink and run out of gas. I wasn't the best swimmer. And Arian, sensing me struggling kept squeezing tighter to hang on and choking me in the process. So there I was with my kid on my back in the water, but exhausted and ready to sink. I tried calling out but it was a quiet day at the beach and no one was in sight and I my head kept going under.

Sometimes we make stupid decisions and have to face the consequences. But that day I had my angels in my corner. Because right when I knew it was over, I realized that I could probably touch the bottom with my feet and just walk along the bottom of the sea through the current and the brine and just hold my breath while holding Arian aloft so he could breathe. I knew I might drown, but I wasn't about to let him drown too. So I just surrendered. I reached back and said calmly so I wouldn't scare him Ayenne wanna Fly.. (Arian always pronounced his own name Ayenne when he was that little so I did too). I took my son into my arms and I breathed down a huge gulp of air. My arms were exhausted from swimming and I could barely even hold him. It was probably the most horrible and terrifying feeling I've ever had in my life as I reached out my right foot for the brine covered coral seabed. To my astonishment, it wasn't too far down at all and I found that I could even poke my face out of the sea just a bit as I made my way through the shoals barely able to hold Arian. What a relief! When I got to the shore I collapsed and cried. Arian wondered what was wrong. I was coughing up sea water and felt like I had just fought three sharks. That day something in me died and something was reborn. I've never told anyone that story until just now. It's still a painful memory. But it reminds me just how frail this life really is and that we could go in any second. It makes me devoted to living life to the fullest. That's why I can't live a normal life of punching a time clock and showing up for a job and being subservient to the establishment. I was born to challenge and change the paradigm and I've devoted myself to my destiny even if it kills me.

Arian and I were able to somehow pack all the food gifts on our bikes, but his backpack was way too heavy. I wondered how he would do going uphill. But we decided that we were going to give it our best shot and tackle the hill south of Crescent City, the Hill of Doom, as it came to be known. With our waterproof panniers stuffed and open so the rain could get in them, we rode down the beach toward the ominous slope that began one of the hardest rides I've survived. The Sun was going down in an hour and we had too far to go and it was uphill most the way. We made our ascent with confidence, but Arian started to fall behind. We stuffed the backpack strapped to the back of his bike on top of his panniers to the gills and it was severely limiting his ability to move briskly. I found myself trying to encourage him but just getting angry instead. I stopped and let him catch up and there was terror in his eyes. He looked bewildered and I could tell he wanted to cry but was holding it back.

"We're not going to make it dad," he said. "It's too heavy and the sun is going down." He pointed off through the thick redwoods to the setting sun. I let my anger go, even though I knew I would need to summon it again to really crest that hill. My panniers were packed to the gills too and I was having an extremely hard time pedaling as well. But sometimes you've got to be a hero to your kid, like my dad did when he jumped in and pulled me out of the pool in the deep south. I looked him firmly in the eyes and I grabbed both his shoulders and I said with fierce determination on the shoulder of the road, "We are going to make it no matter what. Give me that backpack. I'll carry it on my back. I spent all summer with a heavy pack on my back and I can do it again for ten miles up this hill, damn it!"

"But dad, it's too heavy. There's no way you can carry it and all the extra weight you already have."

Don't quote me the odds," I said, quoting Han Solo from Star Wars. I unstrapped the pack from where it was bungie-corded to his rack and I slung it on like a warrior going into battle and I said, "Ride! And you better not let me catch you!"

He sped ahead and was delighted by the feeling of lightness. I turned inward to call on that anger again. I was going to need every last drop to get to the top of that hill before darkness fell. The huge Redwood trees were a sight to behold, but I had one focus, and that was to pedal like that day when I held Arian up out of the sea and walked along the bottom to save both of us from drowning. The going was tough as I had never carried that much weight on a bike at one time. I felt like Magellan's wheels were going to just buckle and bend, but I put it in the lowest gear, "One-slash-One" as we call it, and I started churning out distance. It was the most excruciating ride of my life and with the amount of sweat I was generating under my jacket I felt like I was drowning again. Not only that, the Sun disappeared behind the trees and rocks and the cold seeped in, so I got a chill even though I was burning up at the same time. Arian was impressed that I could carry that much weight and I did catch him. Not only did I catch him, I generated enough energy from the depths of my soul, that I started leaving him behind! When we reached the summit, I was in so much pain that I couldn't even talk. We just pedaled along in agony across the flats waiting for the slope to start is descent. When it did, I told Arian "See ya at the frickin' bottom!" and rode like a man possessed by gravity. I didn't feel safe going that fast with that much weight so I had to apply the breaks to keep from crashing out of control. As I rode the Sun came back into view again and it was just sinking into the brilliant blue ocean as I streamed down the mountain, the essence of beauty displayed in brilliant fiery orange and blue. I stopped at a rest area near the bottom overlooking the sea and waited for Arian to catch up. He eventually did but the sun was long gone and he said, "The Sun set at exactly 6:45!"

"Cool," I said. Now we know what time to shoot for. When we get to Arcata, I'm going to need a week of rest."

"Me too," he said, and then we broke out our lights to face the twilight road. We still had a ways to go before Klammoth. Sure enough, we rolled into the first RV park under the covert cover of darkness, and a very unfriendly old lady made us pay $18 for a tiny tent sight. Arian could tell I was pissed. 18 bucks for one night in your own tent on Eternal Being's carefully crafted earth? Arian looked at me and said, 'Look, they've got warm showers and wi-fi dad. I've got five dollars I can contribute."

"No," I said. "Keep your five bucks. That's yours. I got this humor (a constant inside joke between us). And I plucked down my debit card to pay the foul-tempered lady. She was like talking to the crone on a bad hair day. After we paid our fine for sleeping on the earth, we wandered back to the campsite and set up our tent. There were two Canadian travelers in the spot next door (a guy and his girlfriend - young twenties) and they came over to chat and ask us if we needed help setting up. I love Canadians as they are so friendly and cordial. We didn't need any help but I enjoyed talking to them and sharing stories while we cooked the Cuban Black Beans and Yellow Rice from Atlanta. I told Arian that he could have double rations tonight, mainly because we needed to get rid of some food, but also because I was hungry as a horse. We all laughed and after dinner I took a deep long Arian-style shower.

We looked at the map and it was 60 miles from where we were to Arcata. I told him we could do it in a day if we got some good winds and flat roads. But it didn't turn out that way at all. The next day I woke up sore as could be, but partially recovered from over exhaustion, thinking that we had a nice medium 60-miler of a day ahead of us. Not only was I wrong, I was worse than wrong. I made another bad decision by skipping the scenic bicycle route to stay on the 101. We learned long ago that bicycle routes take you down the most out-of-the-way hilly as hell but scenic as heaven path. And we didn't want that. We wanted efficiency and expediency. It turns out that the 101 hill we had to climb was worse than the one out of Crescent City, even if a steadier climb. But I had emailed our future hosts in Arcata and told them we would be there around sunset and I knew we could make it, even with all the extra weight. I found out later that the scenic route was the easier trek. Not only that, we ran out of water (the raccoons ate Arian's water bottle and we had not found a replacement yet). Running out of water on a hard ride is almost worse than drowning. It's like drowning in dryness. I remembered that fateful day outside of Jackson Montana where I had to hitch a ride 15 miles to town after becoming dehydrated. It was not fun at all.

So I gave most of my last water bottle's liquid contents to Arian, and told him to conserve it. If we could make it another 20 miles to Orich, then we'd celebrate with a pair of Monsters so we could make it another 20 miles before sunset. We rode up and up and up and up, and it seemed to never end. I was sweating buckets under my coat but feeling chilly due to a mild headwind that kicked up. My old favorite friends had returned: harsh headwinds and steep hills. We passed a road crew at the apex that consisted of prisoners from a nearby correctional institution. I thought about stopping to ask them for water, but it felt weird and the apex was here, so I excitedly charged forward to realize that around the next few bends, the road turned up again and even steeper! Holy frak!

I had one drink of water left in my water bottle when we finally made it to the real descent. I told Arian that I was going to ride fast and had to find us some water and to just keep on coming at his nice easy slow downhill pace. I was ready to give the horse his head. I pointed Magellan downhill and said to Arian, "You know how you are always charging me a quarter for saying a bad word?" He just nodded and smiled slyly. He could sense what was coming. I said, "See you at the _)*#*^$&#*@(*#@(*^&@)@&@&#@(#&)(@&#)(&)@(#)(@&#)(&@)(&#^!#*&#)(*#)(*#(*!_#*_)*#_!&& BOTTOM!" I had been composing it in my head for about ten miles and it was better than some slam poetry. But I won't repeat it here. I had to buy him a couple of Monster drinks!

When I did see the kid again, he found me rolled off into a cabin resort area where they had a water pump right there by the road. I had already downed two bottles and was feeling waterlogged. I made Arian down a container and a half and then we rolled down the road into Orich. Arian had made himself a sandwich back at the apex and I kept munching on the care package food trying to put a dent in it, but it was so much! Steve had been his usual generous self and hooked us up good, even though we could barely carry his gifts. He even sent body lotion and chap stick and other interesting products based on the Phi ratio. We had cleared the mountains and now we were back on the sea, and I bought us both Monsters so we could begin the second leg of ou journey through the lagoons all fired up and excited. Arian rode ahead of me wild and free. The lagoons were a sight to see, but the traffic was dense and the road was curvy and the shoulder was a foot, so it was hair-raising riding the whole 20 miles., but we made it.

Then as the sun was threatening to set on us again, we rode fast down the 101 to finish out the last 20 miles in the dark. We rolled into the hippy college town of Arcata ready to fall off our bikes. I had memorized how to get to our hosts house, three young beautiful college ladies and there male roommate welcomed us into their clean, warm, inviting home. We took hot showers and collected all of our clothes for laundry. After the shower we stayed up late talking and I ended up doing three mini-30 minute astrology readings to their utter amazement. You should have seen their eyes light up when my words unraveled their characters and spoke to the mystery of being. They knew they had heard unfathomable truths about themselves that night, and would probably always remember it, but I was over-exhausted and shivering when I took to the futon couch in the living room by the big cozy soft couch that Arian wanted.

My upper back was in such acute pain that I could barely suck air through my left lung. it hurt so bad just to breathe in the air.
I didn't tell anybody except Arian about how bad my condition was, but I was going down hard with a sickness that had me shivering through the night, coughing, and aching all over. I knew I had pushed it too far the last few days and I was ready for a week off. I had Arian walk on my back to release the pain and I did manage to get some sleep. But the next day we could barely enjoy the town of Arcata. We rode our bikes around looking for a cafe to sit at like zombies, almost crashing into each other on occasion. We finally got settled in the sunroom cafe of a local health food store and were happy to have such cool hosts and to finally be where we wanted to be in a college town. Arian even thought it felt like Boulder. To the West you can see the great hill with the Community Forest where transients often live and where the Humbolt University is situated. To the east and coming into town from the north we saw great swaths of sand dunes leading to the sea. Later that night, our hosts offered to take us to a poetry reading in Eureka and I had the gall to sign up to read a few of my cosmic poems. The poetry reading was held in an art gallery space and they had chairs set up in rows all proper, surrounded by the strangest art I'd seen. They made me pay five bucks to get in the door, but I was cool with supporting the local artists. There were only about twelve or thirteen poets reading that night, but each one was amazing and left the audience cheering in delight. Some of the elder poets would scream out when a poet would get his or her groove on and let em know they were feeling it by snapping their fingers. "You tell it girl!" "A-huh!" And that kind of hootin' and hollerin'. I thought I was in a black church in the deep South. When I went to the stage, after feeling like I might not make it through the night, I told them that I just biked about 3000 miles to share this moment with some beautiful fellow poets. I felt like crying. But instead, I took a deep breath and tried to speak through the numbness and read three poems.

Year After Year

The leadership changes again and again
   but the agendas and deceptions remain.
   Year after year people call for change,
   for something institutions could never arrange.
There’s an amazing revolution around a blazing star
   it opens us to life as a still pond,
   rain piercing the surface calm,
   as moments drum on and on...
   There are no nations in this
   courageous orchestration.
   I want to know if you can summon the discipline
   to govern yourself, if you can be guided by
   faith in the mystery of eternal being?
   Sure it's tough playing a freedom-fighter
   in this shaking theater of the soul.
   But it beats wandering through life cold
   living someone else's crumbling mold.
   Laziness haunts humanity like an insidious mist;
   we'd rather be slaves than face the terror of our bliss.
   Wake up! Wake up!
   Feel the "whack" of a Zen master's stick!
   creative power unleashed, the cosmic kick.
   Transform your world, people of the edge!
   Precious time is wasted seeking approval on the ledge.
   Jump in! Jump in!
   Find the inner treasure.
   Cross the threshold seeker; fulfill your measure.
   Once you join the spiral dance,
   you'll never live your mystery in a trance of chance.
   No government could ever contain the surprise that you are.
   So aim your passions arrows at horizons afar...

Then a Haiku that took me three hours to compose while meditating on the surf and sand in Key West.

"Sand dried rapidly.
Ocean Tides Crash on Beaches.
Footprints washed away."

Then I hit em with my title poem, "Engaging the Infinite"

Above the whirling sea, stars await your return  mirrored across the deep span stretching within.  The curving space between here and there is endless yet it feels like you’ve been abandoned in the emptiness.

You can never stop the flow of dark imagery coursing through your heart.  Those chambers of guilt and fear always struggle to contain the tingling fire dancing as your soul.

It hurts to be free. It hurts to be free.  But when you step into your passion, the whole universe opens within and others may wander with black holes for hearts devouring your visions with their fears.

Tell me. Tell me. How old are you?  That’s not your age. It’s simply the number of orbits you’ve made around this star. You’ve made many orbits around other stars.

Like a timeless electron zipping around an atomic nucleus, you are infinite. 
And if you argue for your limitations you have to fight them.
But if you discover your possibilities you get to create them!  
So stand still. Gaze at the sky. Sense the reverence rising inside, and know that your being, your aliveness is an extension of eternity.

They loved that last one and the whole crowd went wild as I stumbled off the stage. It was an honor to be among fellow poets in the faraway land of Arcata. I went to bed that night feeling slightly better, but one of the girls had to bring her friend who was all into metaphysics and Tarot by so I could interpret his chart. So there I sat at ten o'clock looking into this young man's eyes and knowing that my words could change his life forever, but my body wanted to collapse on the floor. Would I ever recover from this? I knew I had to line up more couch surfing in Arcata. I wasn't ready to ride in this state, but our hosts said we could stay for two nights only. It would be brutal to ride again now. So I prayed for guidance and I spent about 30 minutes with this young man who was a born healer with Chiron conjunct his Sun and Jupiter and Mercury in Leo, a Moon in Aquarius conjunct Saturn, and Scorpio Rising with Pluto in the first house like the German Goethe. I quoted him Goethe's Holy Longing poem and the chart reading blew his mind wide open. He said, "Wow! Others have tried to read for me but no one has ever even come close to describing the depths of my soul as closely as you did, thank you! It sounds like I have a lot of responsibility with these gifts."

"Indeed you do my friend. To whom much is given, more is required."

I told him I had barely scratched the surface. After he left, I lumbered over to the futon couch where Arian was still reading a new fantasy novel on his I-pad, and I crashed hard again into another dreary fitful pain filled night of dark half-breathable sleep. I felt like I had finally symbolically drowned...

Sand Dunes of Enlightenment

2010-10-09T11:55:00.000-07:00

The Road Winds South

I woke up the next morning at a campground near Sutton Lake, excited to see Christina again, just to sit across from her over a steaming chai and look into her eyes and say "Hey friend. I still love you." But my intuition kicked into high gear and said, "She's not coming."

"She's not?"

"Nope, and it's probably better this way. Easier to move on..."

Arian and I packed up our little camp surrounded by the thick green forests and rode 3 miles into town. We hadn't done laundry since Astoria, and we wanted dry warm clothes bad. So right when we entered the north end of Florence, Oregon and spotted the Laundry/Showers store, we quickly zoomed in for a spell. And they even had Wi-Fi. I called Christina on Skype to see if she was on her way to meet us, and she said she wasn't coming. I told her "I know, I heard..."

It's strange having a psychic connection through the creative void and a relationship to the invisible guides of the soul, because you know more than you should, but they still keep you guessing and spontaneous. In a way, our connection to Spirit cultures our spontaneity. I was trying to plan my day on seeing Christina just because she happened to be in the area, a planned spontaneity I thought, but the universe had greater ideas. Instead, Arian and I rolled into town and found a quaint little coffee roaster cafe under the bridge with a perfect view of the river, and I was able to focus and get an astrology order done, connecting with the cosmic muse. It was a happening little cafe and so I tried to keep my voice down a bit, because if I open up full steam and talk as loud as I normally do, people might think the universe is caving in as the archetypes begin there rhythmic dance.

Turns out Christina didn't want to talk much about why she wasn't coming but I eventually got it out of her. She had a new boyfriend who was a Scorpio jealous type, and she didn't want to rock any boats. How lame! What kind of friendship were we supposed to have then. I guess only words across cyberspace and phones. Oh well, I bid her soul goodbye in the depths of my being and thanked her for the experience. She said she was still going to sell our house in NC and try and settle our debt. I didn't really care. I told her I wasn't interested in any of it. She could do whatever she wanted. I didn't even care if we ever got legally divorced. I was now eternally immune to the legal marriage bug. I had gone over our relationship and how it began and in hindsight saw the wrong moves we made, maybe unconscious moves better describes it. We jumped into a boat together to escape a situation where my former intense Canadian girlfriend Tanya and her old boyfriend Richard were all up in our space and lives. So we bought a house together in the woods and moved out to enjoy the isolation to our own detriment. I love the serene isolation of the woods, but my soul thrives in a vibrant community. I got depressed and gained weight and felt like dying, because I gave up my dream to live another's. Never again. Have a nice life, Christina. I'm so over your darkness and confusion and ready for a new day to dawn. Can't wait till the Scorpio finds out how frigid you are. That will be some in intense drama. If I sound miffed about her ditching us to please another I am. Oh well... Life is already much better without her and her fearful limitations and attachments to the so-called REAL world.

Anyway, back to the journey at hand. I've always been great at escapism. My family has a long tradition of it. My dad was an alcoholic and my mom could get raging drunk and emotional by a bonfire with bikers too! We just love to escape. I was against drugs and drinking mainly because of the pain I endured watching them go through it and a devotion to a pure lifestyle nurtured by great teachers I met through school and sports. In life, we tend to create our own demons out of the fears that haunt us, and then we run from them and pray to some higher power for help. We pray for divinity to help us defend against ourselves, our illusions, our madness. We run from our fears.

When I embarked on this quest I was running from my fear of being bored to tears in the isolation of the woods. At the same time, I was doing an experiment in lifestyle design to embrace a new way of digital nomadic living on this bright blue planet we call Earth. After dropping and breaking my LCD screen on the DROID phone, (I have to admit that I miss it, but only because email was an addiction), I had an intense realization. It brought more craziness and obsessiveness into my life than I needed. So I'm consciously choosing to break my contract with Verizon as a statement of rebellion against another monthly bill that only added compulsive behavior to my life. I hardly ever used the phone to TALK to people! And I can TALK to people over Skype for free, or even call their phones from anywhere in the world for $3 bucks a month. I hated how I entered Canada and started getting all these instant roaming charges from Verizon. Screw you too Verizon! Can you hear my now, bitches?

I seem to have a negative tone today. There's wind outside and the storm clouds are rolling in. But Arian and I have been having a great bonding time as Father and Son, and as friends. When he is in school around other kids all day he seems to take on this attitude that the parent is just an authority figure that must be appeased so he can get fed and whatever else he wants. Most kids think there parents are necessary hardships to be endured. That is until they get older and realize the cool relationship that could have been developed. In a way our society breeds bratty, selfish, egotistic children with its addiction to winning and being number one!. Somebody need to smack them with love. But instead we just keep buying them gadgets and trying to entertain them.

On this trip Arian and I have developed a new relationship. I feel respect coming from him and I respect him too. He has struggled up hills in the face of devastating winds, he's pedaled through rain for three brutal days with sniffly nose. He's rolled into camp exhausted after 50 milers and collapsed after a mug of hot tea. But most of all, he appreciates the little things so much more. A homeless cooked meal in the middle of nowhere soothes the soul. Stir fried veggies in MOngolian hot oil with rice noodles makes one's tummy tranquil. We've laughed together and shared stories and insights and amazing vistas. We've become friends, even though the boundaries of parent and child are still firmly in tact. And I don't get that feeling that my kid thinks I'm stupid when I tell him to do something like pack up the tent or wash the dishes. He understands the responsibility of being alive of enduring a long day of pain and overcoming the selfish self just enough so that the visionary self can shine through.

So we packed up our stuff in Florence and headed south to the Honeyman campground five miles to the south. We felt great with freshly laundered clothes and a nice stock of food, including his favorite meal: Chips, Hummus, and Salsa. Altogether we only rode our bikes less than ten miles, and our legs enjoyed the rest. We also stopped in after doing laundry and had some Thai food in Florence. It was delicious. I love the tingle and spicy heat of a nice red curry sliding down your throat and into a waiting warmed belly! We camped at Honeyman campground and encountered several other cyclists at the hiker/biker site: Two girls from Canada and a guy from San Diego heading home. We saw him before in Newport and heard his story about fighting with the raccoons over his panniers! We brewed some hot tea and set up camp and enjoyed another nice dinner. Afterward, Arian and I began working on our new Roleplaying game called Emergence again, fleshing out the Skills that characters can train like Ranged Weapon Combat, Seafaring, Courage, and Wizardry. We're nerds that way! We both get really excited about designing characters and going on mythic adventures in our imaginations.

Arian said that he had a long term goal of figuring out how he could make money in the world, like I did with astrology. I suggested that he could run the Emergence RPG website and make money from selling and promoting the PDF we were creating. We both agree that it's going to be the best character design system ever devised, and that it would appeal to the novelist as well as the gamer, so we have two markets. I told him we could get my German I-pad ap developer to design an ap that runs people through the process of character creation and that we cold sell the whole book and a series of accessories online. He got really excited. I told him that he comes alive most in life when discussing RPGs and music. So why not make them the center of your longing. I told them he would never have to be a slave to any job but the one of his own creation. He is now very excited about running the online website when we get it done and getting people excited about the new game system by talking about it on forums. I told him we would release the first three chapters as a free PDF download as a try before you buy deal. That seemed to excite him too. I want my kid to live his dreams. I would be sad if he just took a job and showed up to "make ends meet". What are these mythic ends that have to meet? And if they are really meeting, then why is everyone so unhappy, clogging their lives with food and TV and gas-guzzling environment-destroying cars and glued to their little Smart-phones all day long texting like the world is going to end. Surly we've one batty as a culture? I've learned to watch any commercial and hear the message tot he core and then realize that the opposite of what they were saying was closer to the truth. If someone says they are #1, they probably only wish they were. I hear desperation. If someone says you'll save money, you'll actually spend more. If someone says something is great for the environment and all-natural, somewhere in their production process nature is being screwed. Smart-phones are really dumb phones...they keep you tuned into the cyber-world while ignoring the world around you. You miss the spontaneity happening in the flow of life.

The next morning we woke up and Arian was cold. he had put on another pair of socks during the night to try and warm his feet. I woke up first and he was talking to himself in his sleep. I looked over the great Wall of Panniers that divided the tent in half and he said, "I would like a hot chai." He was completely asleep, and a laughed out loud. His eyes shot open and he slowly realized where he was. He asked me, embarrassed, "Did I say that out loud?" I said, "Yes, we better get you to a coffee shop!"
We both laughed our heads off. My kid was dreaming about steaming hot chai with cold feet in his sleeping bag. He said that we were couchsurfing in his dream and that our host asked us what we wanted to drink. I had asked for hot tea and when the host turned to him, he said, "I would like a hot chai." Hilarious!

So the next thing you know, we're packed up and heading south toward a little town called Gardiner. On the way we rode past the great Sand Dune near Dunes City that you see above. The sun poked through the clouds and began to warm the sand and I had a great idea. I stopped next to one of the huge sand dunes and Arian came riding along and stopped too. I said, "Are your feet still cold?" He said, "Freezing!" I said, "Then take off your shoes." He turned to see the large gleaming sand dune through the trees and his eyes widened in excitement. I love when he gets that excited look. We parked the bikes and took off our shoes and socks and we ran up the sandy dune. It was quite a hike to the top and our old couch-potato, video game selves would not have made it ten feet without gasping for air. But we made it all the way to the top no problem with our rock solid legs and strong lungs. Life is just more fun when you are in shape! Sex is better too!

I vowed that when I did settle down for 3-6 months somewhere to write and create that I would start each day off with a devotion to the body and physical fitness and that I would ride my bike everywhere like I used to before Christina came along and wanted me to have a cell phone and a car so I wouldn't feel so lonely in the woods. That was the best part about Christina, her loving nurturing spirit. She was so nurturing that I think it deprived her of her self-assertion, always pleasing others. She used to come home from rubbing people all day exhausted and I was just excited to see somebody and wanted to jump on her like a happy dog! She just needed five hours of recovery and would sink into web TV land and feed her food addictions and I would jump on the futon couch next to her and help her down yet another bowl of popcorn. Sometimes I had dinner waiting, but she liked bland food and complained about the rich spiciness of my cooking. It was always a struggle between her pure Virgo and my multicultural Sagittarius.

The town of Gardiner was a ghost town, and if you blinked. you pretty much missed it. And some old exploration party was massacred by Indians back in the day. Yeah for the Indians! Damn white people think they can just move in and take over these sacred lands and push the Indians away like a disease. I imagined taking a load of machine guns back into time, and uniting the tribes against the invading Europeans. I imagined a scene where the over-confident European/American soldiers encountered a small skirmishing party of Native Americans wielding M-16s. That would teach them not to just come in and take land from people! Instead we have the depressing grey paved over modern world and the continual worship of Progress in a land lined with little churches where people congregate and pray for a better existence in some elusive afterlife. Blah!

So we pushed on to Reedsport and found an amazing natural foods store with adjoining cafe and had some soy chais! We topped them off with some vegan Mint CHocolate CHip ice cream and then restocked our oatmeal supply. We also added some enticing spices to our small growing collection. We had honey and cinnamon for our oats, but we added garlic pepper, and a cayenne/pepper blend called Hot Shot, plus some Basil. We were looking forward to tonights spicy stir fry if we made it to Coos Bay. The State Parks looked like they were on the far side of Coos Bay near the beaches and it didn't look like we would get to see Coos Bay and make it to camp, so I got on Couchsrufing.com and looked for a host. Within ten minutes I had a lead on a cool place to stay! A guy named Tony who was an avid surfer and his belly dancer instructor/performer wife had a cottage we could crash in behind their house just south of Coos Bay. Yahoo!

We got on our bikes with renewed spirits and rode like wild centaurs toward the bridge that crossed into Coos Bay. We quickly found Tony's place after hacking into a random wi-fi hot spot on one of our I-pads. He was a gracious host and had a wonderful little daughter. We never met his wife as she was busy teaching/practicing for a show. But he showed us to their little cottage in the back and said we could have all the apples we wanted off his tree. There were hundreds! I was overjoyed, but Arian can't stand the texture of apples and biting into them is like someone scraping fingernails on the blackboard! he gets the chill bumps just from thinking of biting into one!

We had a good night indoors away from the chill night and Arian enjoyed warm feet for a change. We got another response from a lady named Daina on Couchsurfing up in North Bend but on the other side of the bay near the State parks. This was perfect because we wanted to spend a day in Coos Bay working on creative projects and I could do my charts. So we told her we'd stay with her through email and then we went back into Coos Bay to find a cozy coffee shop called Cafe 101. It was a Christina themed coffee shop where the Barista would claim that God deserves all the credit for her recent stroke of planning fortune etc. They had a section with a big sign hanging in the air surrounded by stars that said "The Heavens Declare the Glory of God." If they only knew the truth of that, I thought. Then we devoured some more chips, hummus, and salsa under that sign on these big cozy couches and broke out the computer to work on Emergence! We worked at an astonishing pace all day until the clock stroked six. I thought about doing charts in there, but it was too quiet, and I didn't feel like rocking any Christian spoon-fed world-views this day. Eventually we made our way through the twilight busy streets and avenues of Coos Bay and North Bend to find Daina's place. She had a wonderful set of houses that she rented all on a large secluded plot of land and a large RV type trailer out back that she let couch surfers crash in. It had no hot water, no beds, but plenty of space and a nice little table. We pulled our sleeping bags and matts out and put them in the back room on the grey carpeted floor and broke out our cookware to make a great feast. But then there was a tap on the door...

It was our host Daina and her friend's daughter who wanted to ask us about our cycling trip. I invited them in, saying enthusiastically, "Hello! Welcome! Come on in. I mean it's your place!" They came in and I knew something felt off. Daina seemed way cool, like my own mom in a lot of ways. She felt like a kindred spirit. Her friend's daughter thought it was way cool that I had ridden my bike from Boulder. She was gorgeous, a princess, but with sad eyes that reflected her pain. She had recently entered recovery from drug usage and was in need of help, I found out later. Something told me to do her chart for her, to help her, so I started off by showing her the I-pad, and that lead to the astrology ap called Kairon, and next thing you know we're gathering up chairs to sit down at the little table with the MacBook Pro to do a full blown session.

She stayed quiet the whole session and just kept looking at Daina in amazement as I described the character her soul came to inhabit, and she was in her Balsamic moon phase when everything crashes and ends and prepares you for the next 30 year cycle of living. I gave her the full spectrum of insight and ended up blasting her with the Dead Poets and Daina's eyes shot wide with knowing and excitement. She loved poetry and philosophy and the discussion of astrological ages and cycles. Next thing you know, the daughter's mom shows up mid-reading, right when we got to the good stuff of chart evolutions, the changes indicated for her based on transits and progressions! The archetypes came through strong and blew the top off that mid-sized trailer with imagery and inspiration. Afterward, Daina wanted her chart done professionally, and wrote me a check for $195, my standard fee. The daughter was amazed at the timing of these revelations, because she was making a life changing decision the next day under the New Moon in Libra and was grateful for the celestial perspective and advice.

Daina let us stay two days and we worked on the game system and I got caught up on a synastry chart I had been meditating on. Those relationship charts are the hardest to do because you have to hold two total human fluctuating lives in your mind and communicate the strands of conflict and harmony in such a way that it inspires people to work with the energy and understand why we've been brought together. The mistake we make is that we tend to fall in love with a person as they are right then and there and our attachment to the vibration of goodness we feel when we encounter them stifles their growth. What we have to love in another is the very thing that will drive them away from us, once they spread their wings and fly. I was in the middle of the road of letting go of love myself, and both of us were better human beings for our time together. As the cosmic genius Simon Vai once aid, "What we love in others is the hoped for satisfaction of our desires. We do not love them for their desires. For if we loved them for their desires, we would love them as ourselves." But we never really do, do we? We love through the lens of our needs. Christina needed me to be normal, to go to a job and make money and punch a time clock to work on the debt that we had accumulated. But I couldn't do it. An artist would rather starve than accept mediocrity and the drudgery of soulless work. My choice was to let all the material wealth go. Let's declare bankruptcy and head down the road. We can work on our sexual incompatibility on a grand adventure! She craved the security of a home in the woods. That's what she'd desired ever since she drew a picture of it in 3rd grade, her little homestead in the woods, her place to escape and have plants as friends. I respected her for that, but I wanted to see the world and develop a traveling lifestyle. We had both been dreaming about having a cool Roadtrek travel van for years. Now I see them go by on the road and think of our sad dream. Now I camp next to them in campgrounds and am overjoyed that it never happened after experiencing what RV campers are like...Blah! RV campers are people who take all their family dramas and comforts out into the woods and try to pretend that there's not another family doing the same thing on either side of them.

I prefer rolling into a campground and seeing who is there at the hiker/biker site, the cheapest campsite in the park. Every night you could meet part of your human family. Yesterday we rode hard south through blustery winds uphill and Arian got to experience the pain and surrender of struggling to go 3 MPH uphill with wind tearing at your face. We only rode 30 miles to reach the coastal town of Bandon, Oregon, but it was a fierce uphill that burned our legs and made us leave more layers behind. And when we rolled into the campground exhausted, defeated, but serene and happy to simply arrive, we made our way pat all the petty families with screaming children and fenced fires to the hiker-biker site to meet a young couple from Seattle who were doing the 101 in reverse, an old man with a cart who was nearly deaf, and a middle aged man from Alberta, Canada who was an introvert and needed cycling time away from his life and his wife to go inward and dream. I know now the feeling Jesus had when they told hi his mother and his brother was here to see him. He gestured to the assembled masses and said, "These are my mothers and my brothers." And I feel the same. Thank you Jesus, for being a great humanitarian and teacher of the Way. I wish more of your retarded dogmatic followers could grow their hair long and go vagabonding down the road to share cosmic insight as you did. But no, they stay in their little clubs and meet on Sundays to see if all the gossip is true and compete over who has the best clothes and cars in the parking lot, and complain about the weather and the country is going socialist, and that we need more guns.

Everywhere I go I hear people saying the country is going bad and we need to defeat the Democrats and Obama before we lose everything we've fought for and become Socialists like in Europe. I say return to your body and perfect your own temple! I say focus on being happy deep within and living your dreams and you won't care about big brother. I say reach for more than Nationalism and go for the Global Village culture that is emerging. America will be one culture among many exciting brilliant expressions of humanity on the bright blue planet-spaceship we call earth soon. We won't feel the need to be number one in everything. We won't feel so divided across these fake lines we call borders. The borders are there to control the people on the inside more than they control anything else. I say reach across your borders and conquer your fears with your bliss. Go deep into the darkness of your woundedness and ask why you aren't happy? The French root word for Bliss means Wound! Can you transcend your cultural programming amidst the blaring commercials beaming materialism at you and find your true longing. As David Whyte says, "I want to know if you know how to melt into that fierce heat of living, falling toward the center of your longing, if you can live day by day with the consequence of love and the bitter, unwanted passion of your sure defeat."

Time to go consult the cosmic muse here in Bandon, Oregon. I think we'll spend the day here and create art through language. Our hot chais are finished, but the sweet potato fries are on the way. It's all fuel for the road of life! I emailed my spiritual brother Brett in Chico CA, and told him I'm coming. I'm ready to settle for 3-6 months, before wandering somewhere else. But first we need to make it to Arcata-Eureka and couchsurf with people for like a week! I've heard that the people there are to the far left of left politically. My kind of people! We'll see what inspiration we can bring and find there as we complete the last stretch of the beautiful Oregon Coast. All my life I've heard of this amazing place, and now I've lived it day by day on a bicycle. I'll have it in my soul memory after I drop this sacred vessel and blast off to incarnate on other worlds in the galaxy. And I'll remember the time Arian and I had while pedaling along together laughing and making up jokes and sharing insights about our Emergence game.

If you love reading these words and you want to support our journey (feeding the kid is tough sometimes when gold pieces run short) I welcome you to make a donation. Even $10 bucks means we can camp somewhere legally and eat some veggies! There si a donation button on the lower left of this web page.

Or better yet, you can support my work in astrology and order a life-changing session here. If everyone knew what wisdom could be gained through astrology, I'd have people chasing me off the side of the road to do there charts. But science and religion and superficial culture are out to surpress such uncanny unmeasurable sacred wisdom. I enjoy being a rebel!

Oregon's Magnificence

2010-10-01T12:49:00.000-07:00

The Splendor of Oregon

All my life I've heard of this faraway lush region called the Oregon Coast with its breathtaking beauty and wondered about it in the back corners of my imagination. The picture here looking down on Manzanita, OR does it justice, but now that I've stood right there and looked with my own eyes, smelled with my own nose, and enjoyed it with my favorite person in the world, Arian Brazenwood, now I know it's splendor. It's not just majestic, it's another world of dank forests that remind me of scenes from Lord of the RIngs, moss covered trees with secret voices and ancient stories. And the Pacific Ocean stretches from here to Japan and beyond and we ride our bikes alongside its powerful roar day by day, taking heed of the signs that say Tsunami Disaster escape route. According to the experts it's been a good 300 years since the big one hit, and they are on the edge of their seats waiting for another. I tried to imagine escaping a tsunami on a bike and laughed inwardly. That would be a day to surrender and drown peacefully. On some levels my soul already felt that way.

After spending three rejuvenating days in Astoria, Arian and I left the quirky little artist town behind and bid farewell to our host Eva, who shared her one-room studio with us. The floor was hard but the bathroom next door had a shower, so cleanliness was nice. We enjoyed the little town seeing where the Trans-American Trail cyclists would end or begin their long journey across America at the Maritime Museum where they have a large fishing boat tilted on its side. We woke up and got on the bikes and visited the bike store before leaving, having recently received a small rush of astrology orders and donations online. I needed a new tire because mine kept waking up flat and it was about time that Magellan had an overhaul after 2500 miles! My gears were shifting weird and everything was loose. It was simply time...

We spent $106 getting Magellan up to speed but the bike felt great and with a new tube and tire, I hoped the end of my flat tire slow leak mornings were over. No one likes to roll out of a tent into bike repairman mode! We rolled west across the windy bridge toward the ocean continuing down the 101 with a mere 30 miles to go before our next couchsurfing.com appointment. I had gotten online in Astoria and secured a night with an older gentleman named Jon Markham and he had emailed directions to his house in Arch Cape to the south. It was nice to stay with the locals and hear their stories and see what they were doing with the life they were dealt. The ride was noisy with the traffic but as we turned south the headwinds dissipated and we cruised through a tourist town called Seaside, where we made a detour to the beach and enjoyed the sites. The town was crawling with visitors taking advantage of the many shops along the main avenue. We pulled into a cafe and ordered a couple of hot steaming chais with shots of espresso and sussed out the internet for other cool locations. Arian found a Subway around the corner that he longed to trade $5 for a footlong, so we eventually made our way over there and I sent him inside to fulfill the demands of his belly. This kid could pack a lot of grub into his scrappy, skinny form! I encountered a group of high schoolers outside who were waiting for their parents to take them back to Portland and they asked me about our journey. The young males were excited to hear about the traveling magi lifestyle, but one of the females took more of a scolding tone and said, "Your son should be in school. What is he going to do without an education." I told her that she had been brainwashed by her culture to believe that having a piece of paper that proves you can follow orders is going to help you find your destiny. We got into it for a time and went back and forth. She was perfectly canned by her culture. Young and programmed and aimed at another predictable and secure life of materialism.

So we rode on through the next beach town down the coast called Cannon Beach and found a whole new set of richer tourists enjoying its beaches laden with ancient rock formations carved over millions of years. We wanted to linger at the local coffee shops but we still had seven miles to go to reach Arch Cape and our host was expecting us. We later found out that he had passed us on the road, as he had been to an estuary conference up in Seaside all day. We rode to the top of a hill and gazed out through the mist through a pair of soaring rock pillars that looked like a gateway to another dimension. After a deep breath and soaking in its beauty, we hurried along realizing that the sun was setting and mist and darkness would make it increasingly dangerous to ride down the 101.

We clicked on our back lights and rode as hard as we could up and down hills to finally reach Arch Cape and find our hosts street: Markham St. The street was named after his very own father who had built his house on the beach and had helped build the street back in the day. We rolled down the rocky gravel road and through a sacred grove of arched trees and bushes to find his beach house. He answered the door, a 70 year old Ph.d in Marine Biology with a quizzical gaze and a scientist's imagination and sense of dry humor. He had a severe limp after being in a near death car accident and walked very slowly and painfully. His lower left leg had a huge scar from the ordeal and I sympathized with him having my own scar from my head on collision back in 1998.

He welcomed us and showed us to our quarters, the master bedroom with adjoining bathroom with two single beds set up specifically for couch surfers. He said he had tried to move into the master bedroom after his mother had did, but since he had grown up in the house he just favored his old childhood bedroom. He had helped his father build the house as a child. The house was a museum of the early 20th century with nick-knacks and heirlooms cluttering every corner and wall. Somebody had a lot of Taurus in their charts and liked collecting stuff, because you name it and an older version of it was sitting in a corner. Mostly he had books as a proper scholar of the sea, but also shelf items and an amazing collection of blue Dutch hand-crafted plates with winter themes that his mom had collected, one per year at Christmas. The kitchen was fully stocked with devices and cooking utensils even if outdated. He brought up some old potatoes and onions and celery and other veggies for us wondering how we got enough protein on our diet of "volition over evolution" as he described it. He spoke in many scientific terms and openly insulted my profession as an astrologer, arguing that religion in general was a sore subject to him.

"Who made up all these strange beliefs and why should we believe them?" I wholeheartedly agreed, as a science geek myself, but then when he went at astrology, I just respectfully declined to argue with someone who had already made up their mind (brainwashed by his culture like the teen girl on the street) that my subject had no merit whatsoever because you couldn't measure it. I argued that you can measure the archetypal influences of the planets on the human being, but that you couldn't apply the statistical methods of science to it. Every person is a unique expression of the archetypes, born with a God-given nature and inflected and mollified by an environmental experience. Nature with Nurture, but nature first. I thought about doing his chart to show him what I could know about his character and life events, but i didn't seem worth the effort so I decided to simply enjoy his scientific company and his majestic view of the sea. It is difficult to argue with a person who has already decided that they occupy the superior ground, even though astrology and alchemy gave birth to science. I respected his stance and yet knew he frowned upon my passion just because it had to do with the soul. Science is always trying to eliminate consciousness from the equations of life, and consciousness refuses to be eliminated. And so science limits the field of its investigation through its blind worship of the rational and logical over the intuitive, spiritual, and meaningful.

We sat there at dinner enjoying a spicy stir fry that I cooked for us with brown rice, enjoying gazing through his huge dining room salt-covered windows at the sea below the small cliffside where the house perched. Jon enjoyed playing classical music at high volumes the whole time we were there. In the distance we could see Castle Rock, a giant rock formation about a mile out to sea with a top shaped like castle walls. To the south, you could see where the sea had spent eons eroding the mountain side and forming a separate pointed rock away from the land creating a great divide between the coast and the rock. It looked like a gigantic U-shaped entrance to another realm. Jon asked a lot of practical questions and I tried to give creative answers. Practical expected answers didn't interest me. He had great stories about the past and his couchsurfing.com experiences in New York city and other lands. He loved meeting new people and even had a guest book for people to sign. He seemed like a lonely fellow who enjoyed the company of strangers, especially since his terrible accident. He would take his long walks down the beach to try and rehabilitate his leg while taking the temperature of the ocean. He had a living conversation with the ocean which was admirable and poetic. Arian really enjoyed his company and stories. Between Arian practicing his clarinet and solving geometry problems, me writing and doing creative design, and Jon reading bulky volumes, the house was filled with culture! There was on precious moment when the music from 2001: A Space Odyssey was playing when I looked up and everyone was fully engaged in what they were reading or doing.

Jon had wi-fi but it was sludge slow. Arian announced that the new version of the highly anticipated computer strategy game Civilization V had been released and I told him to his utter surprise we could download it via the internet. That sent a tremendous wave of excitement through the both of us. We stayed with Jon for three days after he offered to let us linger for a time since the rain was so fierce. So the first day, we all just hung around the house reading books, downloading the educational game, and having meals together and hot tea. He seemed to enjoy the chai and the green tea. At night, when I would work my cooking magic in the kitchen I would open his spice cabinet to find a great wall of spices stretching back for a few feet that symbolized two generations. A lot of them were old and stale and hadn't been used in ages. But I managed to make the best of the dusty situation and made some tasty curries laced with basil giving life to those old potatoes and onions that had been lingering in fifty pound bags in the cellar. Jon enjoyed buying things in bulk, another Taurian trait. But I suspected some serious Virgo in him too!

There was a whole other existence down in the ocean side cellar, and the damp rooms were stacked with old books and mountains of paperwork. Actually, every room in the house had a stack of interesting paperwork mixed with copies of TIME magazine and books like Hawking's Brief History of Time. One book struck my interest by Fritjof Capra called Da Vince's Science. You could never get bored examining an educational pile of Jon's paper mountains of information. And if you did, you could just turn your gaze to the walls to take in the luster of possessions that he and his family had amassed over the last century. I felt like I could sense what childhood was like for people in the 30's and 40's of last century just by the collections of old stuff.

But the main point of interest and the center of Jon's existence was always the view of the roaring sea right there below. It was as if you were in an aquarium devoted to the ocean. At any hour of the day the sea had a mood, and Jon could describe it to perfection. The sea was his spirituality. At high tide you could watch the tides crash along the rocks and chase the occasional strolling local up the beach. At low tide you might see a stream of young tourists walking by. Each house by the sea had carved its own little sitting spot along the sloped hillside leading down to the beach complete with cozy wooden beach chairs, a wind wall to the north, and a rocky fire pit. I could see how one could spend a lifetime here just listening mesmerized to the roar of the sea.

But on the third day, we decided to go for a ride back to Cannon Beach to hunt down a faster internet connection at a coffee shop called Bella Espresso. Unfortunately, when we got ready to ride, Magellan's back tire was flat again! I felt betrayed by the bike shop and the mechanic who had promised me my flat tire days were over. The tire would hold air, but it was another slow leak at the valve that required you to pump it before every ride. It would be flat at dawn! I was disgusted with flat tires.

The internet was six times faster and we managed to get 80% through our download of the new hex-based game of Civilization. We were both giddy as school boys to get playing this game. Arian argued that we should be Britain and dominate the high seas! I wanted to play Egypt and build monuments or the Babylonians and be the first civilization to build Stonehenge... You could alter history and play on a random map or Earth. After the coffee shop closed and kicked us out we kept downloading a few more megabytes from the courtyard outside until the sun threatened to set on us. Tired of potatoes and onions, we went to the Mercantile and I bought some broccoli and mushrooms and rice noodles for our last super with the old man and the sea.

We barely made it home under the cloak of twilight and found that Jon had been gone all day too. He managed to find the note we left and we cooked another fantastic vegan feast. He said that he had had some "real" food with meat in it and was happy to miss this meal. He was satisfied with the chicken dish he had ate in Astoria, where he needed to go. I almost wanted to go with him and have that bike mechanic make amends and fix Magellan proper, but decided against it. I had better things to focus my emotion into. I had some chart orders to prep and another chapter in the Tao of Astrology to write and another chapter in Emergence to write, my new astrologically inspired role-playing game system. Arian and I were crafting the perfect system for generating a fantasy character and his or her backstory. You started by rolling your character's fictional Sun, Moon, and Ascending Signs and then grew through five phases into adulthood. Your character would Emerge, hence the name of the system.

Eventually we bid Jon farewell and signed his guestbook. I left him with an old haiku that I had written in my head down in Key West while meditating on the beach for three hours watching the ocean tides wash up on the beaches:

Sand Dries Rapidly
Ocean Tides Crash on Beaches
Footprints Washed Away

We both thanked him for sharing his home and amazing view with us and rode south toward Cape Lookout beyond the Tillamook famous cheese country. We rode up some grueling hills until we reached the bold lookout point in the picture above and then cruised down into Manzanita to find no internet cafes, but there was a library. Arian downloaded the fourth Harry Potter book (he had started to reread the whole series in Port Townsend and was already on book 4) as a PDF and went to his corner and I went to mine. After a brief rest we continued on south to reach a town called Rockaway Beach where we found a restaurant/bar with internet that was 12 times faster than at Jon's place and we quickly finished downloading the last 20% or so of Civilization V. We had been reading the online manual and were excited to try it out in out tent that night. However, when we found our state park campground just south of Rockaway, we found that you had to have the internet working for your first game. With no internet in detectable range, we just had some snacks and drifted to sleep eager for a new day!

The next day we made it to Tillamook, a strange city that seemed ten years behind the rest of the world surrounded by smelly dairy farms that made you want to hurl. We had searched the town for internet cafes and found only the library which had a decent connection. We holed up in the library and started our first game as the English! It was exciting and fun but by the end of the day we both had headaches and Arian had the sniffles again and his cough had returned in full force. His weak constitution was wearing on my patience. I was ready to give into modern Western medicine and treat the symptoms with a bottle of cough suppressing nose-drying syrup! We located a bike shop at the end of the day when the sun was heading toward the horizon and I bought a new heavy duty thorn proof tube for Magellan plus a back-up. The tube was three times thicker than normal tubes and the bike mechanic promised that my flat tire worries were over! This time I believed him, because the tube was just a monster of durability. I could barely squeeze the backup tube in my panniers!

We had some soy ice cream and rode West toward the ocean looking for a camp called Cape Lookout and raced the sun toward the beach. We won this time, and slowly rolled down the last straight stretch of newly paved road into a campground for the ages. It was situated right on the beach and all the Biker-Hiker sites were set in an ancient gnarled forest where the trees weaved their great branches into the scenery creating little pockets barely able to hold tents and each had a picnic table. It was twilight and we met a German couple who had their four year old with them on a tandem cycle. We also met a Canadian woman who had a blazing fire going. And later, after we set up our tent we met a guy from Seattle who had bad knees and was riding slow on purpose named Jamie. We picked out a spacious site and I boiled water for hot chai tea with soy vanilla creamer. We made the best stir fry ever with broccoli, mushrooms, zucchini, thai noodles, and chile oil mixed with onions and roasted garlic. Arian's eyes rolled up into his head as he consumed the delicious meal in pleasure. I was glad we stocked up at Safeway that morning in Tillamook, even though it made the ride harder to have all the extra weight.

That night my intuition woke me up and I remembered that we had left all the food packs outside the tent on the table, and I went out to inspect things and bring most of the food back into the safety of the tent. I made the mistake of leaving our water bottles and the soy creamer and chai out there on the table. The next morning we found that the local raccoons paid us a visit and trashed everything out there. Only one of the water bottles had bite marks and leaked, fortunately. They devoured the creamer and had bitten into every tea bag except like five. And I had just bought a new pack of Chai. Oh well, it could've been much worse if I had not awakened. I made a vow to never leave anything out on the table again no matter what!

We started off the ride the next morning feeling great! The food had translated into pure energy and we tackled the first of two monstrosity hills that kept going and going for miles at startling inclines. We ended up stopping a lot to drink water and rest our legs, but in the end we clambered over the first giant hill and sped down into a valley of sand dunes. We saw people riding dune buggies over the sands and Arian said, "I feel like we suddenly entered the desert!" It was indeed bizarre to be traveling through this lush forest by the seaside to come upon an area where cream-colored sand dunes stretched out through the trees in every direction. We rode hard through the mini desert and turned off the 101 to visit Pacific City near the beach. We were unable to locate an internet cafe to our dismay and the food options looked limited to me, but Arian was eyeing the Mexican restaurant called Los Caparelos like a hungry wolf. Turns out he was tired of Thai food and was craving something different. So we went into the Mexican feast hall to eat some veggie bean burritos and complimentary corn chips and salsa, adding a side of guacamole. Arian asked the kind waitress for some hot sauce when our burritos arrived. He wanted cheese on his, but I kept it vegan. It was delicious! And turns out they had the fastest wi-fi connection in town. The owner served us personally and was very funny and entertaining with a spirit of helpfulness. They and some locals marveled at our journey.

After that, with beans fueling the next leg of our journey south, we rode back over to the 101 and met a German hitchhiker who managed to catch a ride right after we stopped and talked to her. She was a pretty short blonde named Minyon and her backpack was as big as she was. She waved out of the car window as she went by in a car. Then we looked up to see the great hill that the locals had warned us about. The road ahead forked and turned left. We could take the detour and avoid the scary hill but add five to ten miles to our journey or we could charge up the impossible-looking slope and hope for the best. Arian wanted to take the detour but I told him it was getting late and that we only had a few hours to go 21 miles. The sun surely would defeat us this day before we reached the Devil's Lake State Park in Lincoln City. But the hill was even worse than the last one, and made our legs incredibly sore. Arian's snot-cough had also returned in full force and I decided to heed the mothers and get him some proper medicine once we got to Lincoln City in the dark later. The hill was indeed spectacular in its terrible ascent going on forever. I just kept my mind focused on the moment and felt the burn in my legs as the peddles churned in rhythmic circles. I let Arian ride in front of me and he showed great resolve and endurance often leaving me behind thirty feet or so! We stopped often to rest and drink, but he had forgotten to fill his only water bottle and so I had to give him half my second one. We eventually made it to the decline and I passed him saying in jest, "Would you happen to have any Grey Poupon?" Arian laughed as I raced ahead at full speed and he yelled his usual "See ya at the bottom!"

In a matter of moments, in the highest gear, I got so far ahead of Arian that I decided to pull off and wait for him. I had to slow Magellan from his racing 30 MPH stride under the loud squeak of noisy brakes mashed against mettle rims. Eventually the time elapsed and I saw my little wise Capricorn emerge from around a corner and slowly approach like the old German cyclist Heinz Stucke. He heartily enjoyed coasting down the slopes while I relished the Tour De France mode! We always met at the bottom in peace and shared a drink of water. This time we exhausted our water supply and still had 8 miles to go with the sun already designing the dark clouds over the ocean with streams of brilliant light. Surely it would rain tonight, I thought. Maybe we should stay here for a few days and I could get some work done.

I wasn't in the mood to cook, even though I found some amazing chile oil and veggies at the supermarket. I bought Arian some medicine to dry up his nose too! I was over him being sick. We made our way through the busy streets of Lincoln City and eventually found the camp site near Devil's Lake. We rode around until we found the hiker-biker camp area and found that we were alone. No other cyclists were there to our dismay. We ate some soy ice cream and organic barbecue chips and brewed some green tea before I fed him his medicine and we retreated to the tent. Before going into our portable shelter we spotted three hungry raccoons trotting by like they belonged and I chased them into the woods with a stick like a madman with my headlight aglow. Then we settled into our cozy home and Arian read Harry Potter book Five (he blew through book 4 in a few days) and I played Civilization and advanced our English empire in between checking email and Facebook.

It was fun to be able to check in on all your friends spread across the globe and see into a tiny window into their lives while you felt so isolated and distant from everyone and everything. I saw that Alisha was going to be in Portland tomorrow visiting friends. She wanted us to come visit but we had already gone too far south. Turns out Christina (the Gemini woman I was still technically married to) was on a trip too. I wondered where and asked her via messaging and got a response. Turns out that she was flying into Portland too to visit her parents down in Eugene. Our relationship had ended in the cold winter months and now autumn had returned to the land. I said I missed her and she said she missed me. I would miss being a part of her family another painful letting go. With the end of our love came the end of our familial connection. I had spent last Christmas with them on the edge of the end.

I realized that in two days time Arian and I would be rolling through Florence, the town that was due east of Eugene where Christina's parents lived. I jokingly said in a Facebook message, "Who would've thunk that Arian and I would be rolling bikes down the Oregon Coast while you unexpectedly visited...maybe you should drive out and meet us in Florence. It would be weird and fun to see each other again, even if briefly over hot chai." She responded the next day via a Skype conversation and said she'd love to come see us and told me to say hi to Arian and that he could keep her blue raincoat that she had taken to New Zealand in her college days. So here we are in an internet cafe with an India theme sipping chai and contemplating our journey south. I was getting tired of being on the road, I had to admit. In the beginning, my goal was to travel to a place I liked and stay somewhere for three months to six months, working on projects. I had watched the creatures in nature and saw how it was instinctual to want to settle, even if for a time before migrating somewhere else. The projects were screaming for attention from deep within. Arian enjoyed our adventurous trek but had said that he longed to be in school around friends. I was happy he was away from the peer pressures of early high school for a spell. Everyone at that age of rebellion deserved an island of respite from it all.

One of my best friends in the world, a yogi named Brett Melchior, had just relocated from Hawaii to Chico CA to be near his young son Jatin. Maybe we could be roomies for a season or two? Arian could go to school and I could get my Magi Opus completed. There was still the matter of my stuff in storage in Colorado. I could keep on paying $41 per month to store it or I could go back and get rid of it all. I longed to own minimal possessions. Maybe in the spring I would return to Colorado before I went global vagabonding. I still had ten months left of my progressed moon in Scorpio, symbol of transformation and letting go. Christina's progressed moon had gone into Scorpio too five months ago when we decided to end our relationship. Now she was tasting what I was going through inwardly and it wasn't fun. I still loved her for her, for her brilliantly curious graceful nurturing self. I just couldn't deal with reality anymore. My soul was saying no to the insane way we as humanity had been living. I wanted to wander and create. We shall see what the next turn of events would bring. It would indeed be strange sitting across from Christina over a steaming mug of chai in the middle of my adventure during the middle years of my life. There would be no hiding the change in my aura, my body, the layers of soul torn back by this quest for authentic living. I felt defeated and serene, sad but tranquil, adventurous and yet disturbed by constant change. We would see what awaited the next day while we camped with the raccoons at overlooking the Devil's Lake.

Arrival in Astoria

2010-09-23T12:14:00.000-07:00

The Broncos defeat the Seahawks

We have to give thanks to Razz, the lady that runs the IC Internet Cafe in the Lake Quinault/Amanda Park area. Not only did she let us pitch our tent in the rain outback on her hill next to her fire pit, she allowed us to stay for an additional night. So we spent the whole day of Saturday holed up in her establishment, downing another large pizza for breakfast! We found board games to play like Othelo and we watched College Football in the bar area. The place was huge and inviting and had these cozy grandma chairs by the fireplace and we were both busy working on our tech devices. I labored over chapter 2 of the Tao of Astrology. When you've been working on the same morphing ideas over ten years, and you've got four boxes of research and notes to pour over in digital format, it can get overwhelming to channel it all into comprehendible form. But the Cosmic Muse is guiding and presiding over the creation of this sacred work. I can't believe some of the things that are being inscribed in the blank digital space before me. By the end of the day, when they were closing, I managed to complete Chapter 2 entitled Flowing Chart Interpretation, and emailed it to my spiritual brother Peter for editing. Arian had a warm serene day of relaxation and was able to heal up well. We were going to wake up the next morning and watch the Broncos face the Seahawks, but then I found out that the game didn't start till 1 PM Pacific Time which would mean we had less than 4 hours to ride 42 miles to Aberdeen. As fate would have it, I was a little concerned of rolling into Aberdeen, a city, with nowhere to stay, so during the day I found a connection there online through a site called Couchsurfing.com. A guy named Stephan agreed to host us as long as we were okay with a second couple being hosted that night as well. The more the merrier, I emailed, and he said to come over to his house at 8 PM, when he returned home from his job as a wine expert at a restaurant. I was overjoyed at having a safe haven in Aberdeen with a very cultured host. He even taught music at the high school level for four years. Arian was excited to meet him!

So I decided that we would leave early on Sunday morning and try to reach Aberdeen before 1 PM so we could catch the game. Last week the Broncos were trounced by the Jaguars in Jacksonville, but this week they had the home field advantage and Denver has the best record in the NFL on home opener victories! So we got out of our rainy tent and packed things up as best we could. Arian was still coughing but only occasionally. The day and half of R&R did him well and he was looking vital and strong. But I could tell he was not into riding through the rain for 42 miles. We were both sick of the rain and ready for the sun to re-emerge. As luck would have it, Magellan's tire went flat just as we were about to get on the road. I pulled him into the gas station and examined the tire to find that my stem valve where you put the air in had been bent badly and was producing a slow leak! So I could either change the tire and miss the game or...Jupiter would bless us with fortune!

Arian and I were sitting there with Magellan on his side, and we both looked up to see a bus pull into the station with the bright letters ABERDEEN upon its forehead. We both looked at each other and smiled. He knew I didn't want to miss the game and I knew he needed some more time to heal, even though his leg soreness had faded. I told him to go ask when they leave and how much. He came back and said the bus was departing in ten minutes and only cost a dollar each! Arian said, "I'd gladly pay a dollar to go 42 miles!" We quickly stripped our bags and panniers off the bikes, loaded them on the front rack (which held exactly two bikes) and we piled everything in the very back 5 seats of the bus. We enjoyed the scenic views of the moss covered forest from the safety and warmth of that fortunate bus ride and it dropped us off in downtown Aberdeen.

Excited to have arrived in a city in the morning we quickly found an internet cafe so we could log onto our I-pad GPS's and locate the nearest sports bar. The cafe we found was called the Popcorn Place, specializing in the popping and mixing of rare popcorn recipes. We ordered a couple of chais and talked to the locals. A wise elder local businessman named Bud gave us advice about where to catch the game and welcomed us to town. The lady that ran the Popcorn cafe and a few of the locals were fascinated to hear about our journey. It was fun hanging out and telling the story to the locals who looked on and listened in amazement.

After the storytelling we departed and they wished us well on our journey. We found a restaurant/bar called Billy's which had large screen TV's for the game. I was able to catch half the early games before the Seahawks/Bronco game ensued. The place slowly started filling up with Seahawks fans clad in Hasselbeck jerseys (their faithful QB). I decided that I would try and contain my excitement when Denver did anything glorious but this failed badly. When Eddie Royal, my favorite receiver caught the first TD pass and literally rolled into the end zone untouched, I let out a loud exclamation of joy and ended up catching many insidious glares in the process. I stood up and took off my jacket to reveal my true colors, donned in my #27 (Knowshawn Moreno) white Bronco Jersey. The game started off in Seattle's favor and the whole bar erupted in praise and claps as they drove down the field. But after Champ Bailey's amazing interception, the entire game tuned against them and we ended up winning 31-14! When the game ended Arian and I still had 3-4 hours before we were supposed to show up at the Couchsurfing.com host's house, so we simply watched the Sunday night game too and enjoyed some crispy spicy fries and onion rings! LOL

Once the clock struck 8 PM we rode our bikes through the downtown streets and into the residential district to locate the apartment complex where this guy supposedly lived. I had never actually used Couchsurfing.com yet, but had heard amazing things about the site and experiences of Couchsurfers, especially in Europe where the site was started. People have been known to not pay for accommodations for up to six months while Couchsurfing in Europe! This fact was later verified by our two fellow Danish couchsurfers fresh from Denmark.

It turns out that we arrived first and our host, a tall fellow exactly my age (39), welcomed us and helped us park our bikes in his garage. We packed our bags up two flights of stairs into his immaculate apartment. He had four towels and washcloths set out in the bathroom and Arian jumped in the shower first to wash the grime and mud and rain from the last five days off. I told him to leave his clothes at the door and my host and I gathered all the dirty laundry and put a load in the communal washer on the level below. Fresh laundry and showers and a cultured host! We were in travel heaven. Then the wonderful Danish couple showed up named Irene and Rasmus, and they too got showered and cleaned. They were traveling America by car and had already been to New York, Boulder, Colorado (before the fires), California, Oregon, and were heading toward Seattle by the same route we had taken. They gifted Arian and I with a pack of this bizarre salted black licorice which was strange but delightful. We spent the evening talking and sharing stories and cultures and it was all very enlightening.

I love getting foreign perspectives on the world just because they are so pure and divorced from the American media-brainwashed version of things. The world seemed like a bright real place when described by the people that actually lived out there, rather than the dangerous not-to-be-trusted place the media portrayed. Rasmus was a computer scientist who worked on security for banking systems and Irene had been an exchange student to Kansas. To their credit, they spoke almost perfect English compared to our Danish, which was nonexistent. Irene was a talented mathematician and had been a tour guide. We had an amazing time playing card games like "Set" (which Irene dominated due to her warp speed pattern recognition skills) and "Racko" I was pretty skilled at Racko but terrible at catching onto Set. We laughed into the night until it was time to retire at about 11 PM! Irene and Rasmus took the air mattress in the guest room and Arian and I took the one in the living room.

During the night, I was awakened by the Cosmic Muse and my consciousness went instantly alert. I didn't like the air mattress we slept on in the living room and rolled onto the more comfy hard carpeted floor. The air mattress felt as if I was floating on an unstable sea of air and I could not get comfortable. I was used to sleeping on the hard ground with just my thin mat between us. After wrestling with angelic visions for an hour I finally acquiesced to their will. The Muse was calling me to go to the dining room table and write, that they had instructions and visions for chapter 3 of the Tao of Astrology. I told them telepathically that I needed to sleep, that I would be physically unable to ride south and would be susceptible to accidents and fatigue. They promised me they would boost my energy beyond my means. After ignoring them as long as I could I finally got up at 2 AM and started laying out Chapter 3 according to the visions and revelations given to me. It was amazing! They instructed me to call the Chapter "Anatomy of a Chart". The chapter was about the various parts of astrology, giving meaning and definition to the alphabets of the planets, signs, and houses. By 6 AM everyone started to stir and by 8 PM, we were all showered, fed a scrumptious breakfast of grapes, bananas and oameal, and heading on our divergent paths. And mysteriously, I had more energy than I would have if I would have slept all night! Thank you Cosmic Muse!

Arian and I decided to roll back down to the Popcorn Place to look a the GPS maps and plan the next camp site. Arian felt great after another night of warm rest. We saw all our favorite characters there drinking coffee and enjoying the morning. They were dismayed by the Seahawks loss but happy to hear more stories about our quest. A few other locals joined in the storytelling and the lady who owned the place gave us these amazing vegan bars that she had made with trail mix and mangos and they were sensational. We decided to save them for the trail ahead. We rode south across the bridge and got back onto the 101 heading south up a large hill. By the top of the hill, we broke out one of those goodies and it gave us super energy. Thank you Popcorn cafe angels!

We rode hard to try and reach a campsite at Bruceport Park where we hoped to set up camp, but along the ay we came to a town called Raymond, where my good friend Peter went to Elementary School back in the day. We stopped at the Corner Cafe and had some lunch with a fellow cyclist named Don (in his fifties and a friendly experienced cyclist), who was from Lakewood Colorado. He was taking two weeks off from work to cycle from Seattle to Bandon Oregon. He left first and we told him we hoped to camp with him at Bruceport Park along the coast.

Ten minutes after Don left, another cyclist from San Diego showed up named Devin (25) from San Diego, who had flown into Seattle, ridden up to Vancouver and was heading all the way home to Southern California. Like us, he was tired of being drenched and we laughed and joked about Gang Green setting in on our wet feet. It wasn't really that bad, but it felt like it. We were all longing for Sun badly. He said there was a troupe of three Canadian girls in their late 20's who were doing the whole 101 down into Mexico's Baja peninsula. It seemed like we were going to have a glorious camp with lots of interesting characters that night! Arian was excited to be finally interacting with fellow cyclists.

We visited the grocery store on our way out of town and stocked up on fresh veggies for a stir fry as well as some spicy lime-laced chips and hummus. Then we road hard the last ten miles, going about 35 total that day. The ride was good and the rains had subsided for the day as we rode through a town called South Bend along the coast and made our way up the last treacherous hill into the campground. We found Don who had paid ten bucks to camp there and Devin and I split it with him paying three each to him. It's always cheaper with a gypsy caravan of cyclists sharing the cost. We surrounded our table and all went about cooking delicious meals. In addition there was another camper who was a Canadian backpacker named Jordan who was walking to Mexico down the 101. (WalkingtoMexico.com) Jordan was a young bearded, experienced backpacker and traveler who was also a master of the frisbee! He had been to India to train kids in villages the fine art of frisbee tossing and excelled at the Ultimate Frisbee sport. He taught Arian to throw an amazing frisbee in ten minutes. He seemed like a very cool guy and I felt some deep archetypal similarities between myself and him. I demonstrated my skill with the Devil Sticks and he loved it. Then I told him about my true calling as a Magi and he yearned to hear about his chart. But at that moment, everything was interrupted by the appearance of the three wild Canadian women!

We all gazed toward the entrance of the park where these three beautiful cyclists rolled down the road singing and cheering and basically making a lot of happy noise. Arian turned to me and said, "Yakimashii" in Japanese and we both laughed at the inside joke. Turns out that the Japanese character for woman was "Onna" To make more advanced concepts the Japanese combine basic characters (called radicals). For instance, the symbol for tree is "Ki", but two symbols for tree side by side are Hayashi (bushes) and three trees bunched together means forest (pronounced Mori). Well three woman symbols bunched together means noisy and is pronounced Yakamishii. I guess the creators of the original language had been men!

But indeed these three happy, adventurous women were making a lot of good noise, and it filled the camp with waves of giddiness and exultation. The women set about to cooking, Arian was playing frisbee with Jordan, and the male cyclists were also cooking. Turns out Jordan completely lost interest in any talk of astrology when he was en-spelled by the beauty of the tall blonde Canadian. I had to admit that she was gorgeous with amazing athletic legs and a face that could launch a thousand ships. The others were brunettes and they were gorgeous in their own ways. The menfolk tried to stay focused on cooking and wood gathering, etc, but the occasional glance went in the direction of the female camp. I could tell that Jordan was entranced and that he was showing off his athletic prowess with the frisbee. He cooked a quick meal and went over to join the womenfolk moving right in for the kill. He was a sexy Scorpio with Mars the planet of desire in fiery Sagittarius like myself. I decided then and there after my break up with Christina and my experience with Alisha that I needed a sabbatical from romance/love and that I would inwardly concentrate on my union with my muse, my anima, the inner feminine lover. I needed to channel all my libido into creating this work of astrology. The sun set glorious over the ocean and everyone rushed to take pictures through the trees over the cliff side. I lamented the death of the Droid, but accepted the way of loss, unattached to my possession.

Don, the elder cyclist among us located a great stash of damp firewood, and we stacked it into a large fire pit and poured gasoline on it and lit the match. The wood burst into flames but it was short lived. If we were truly going to enjoy a fire we needed to start small and get some kindling going and gradually dry out the wood. The damp wood sizzled when it burned. Where was Alex the Oriental master fire starter when you needed him? Probably attending graphics art design class at Evergreen College in Olympia or making dinner with Iris. Eventually, with the aid of everyone involved we got a great campfire going, and the womenfolk joined us in dancing about the flames as Arian played his clarinet. Everyone marveled at his musical skill and delighted in the sweet, deep sound of the instrument. All in all it was a great night of celebration as the Full Moon waxed toward its opposition to the sun in a few days time. I pointed out Jupiter on the ascending horizon and told stories about the planets and the equinox, sharing the gift of the Magi with them. We all told our sad stories about being drenched by rains for the last week and how intense it was and we laughed but hoped for sun. The fire gave us hope for the days to come.

The next morning we awoke to a busy and sunny camp. The rains had gone and everyone was dry for a change to start the day. The ladies were the most efficient and were already serving breakfast and we all went over to eat together. In a matter of an hour they were packed up and heading down the road leaving us men to slowly pack our camps. Jordan was saddened that we were all speeding down the road. On foot, he could go about 20 miles per day, whereas we could cover 60 or more. I sat down and offered to do his chart, a mini reading and went on for about 30 minutes blowing his heart wide open with astrology. He indeed enjoyed the interpretation and gave me a huge hug with shining enlightened eyes afterward. It was amazing to watch the power of the Cosmic Muse seep from my words into his soul and cause revelation, meaning, and inspiration. I noticed Devin and Don glancing quizzically over at me as I talked, watching the dramatic performance ensue. I could tell they were curious about this strange lost art.

Don broke camp first and rode ahead of us and we never saw him again, even though we all agreed to head toward Cape Disappointment and share the camping fee once again. He must have gotten inspired to go his own way and continue on to Astoria. Either that or all this talk of heavenly influences freaked him out, LOL. Maybe he wasn't keen on traveling with a bunch of wild youngsters? Devin was moving at our speed and we rode out together at about 10 AM and had a delightful ride down the 101 in euphoric bliss because the sun had come out again and we were dry and warm and enjoying those simple pleasures. Devin kept stopping to take pictures and enjoy snacks with us and we all went about the same pace, so we just ended up traveling together. Turns out he was a Sagittarius Sun sign and was into surfing. We rode down the Long Beach peninsula about 50 miles total and found the campground called Canby. It was huge and it was grand and it was positioned by the beach. We hoped to camp with the ladies if we found them to share the costs, but when we found them, they said they had friends coming form Canada by car and that it would be too crowded, so we ended up paying for a site nearby, number 166, closer to the beach, but still nearby the enigmatic rocks and trails. After setting camp, we all went off exploring on our own. I grabbed my tech bag and headed toward the beach with a bottle of Lime-aid that I found at the grocery store in the last town of Ilwaco. Arian ran off into the hills to explore the trails and rocks. Devin stayed at camp and got cleaned up at the local bathrooms.

As I wandered down the trail toward the vibrant sound of the ocean the most amazing sight was revealed of the beach stretching forth about two football fields to the sea with large waves crashing over each other onto the sand. To my right the beach rose to towering sea-carved brownish rocks where a great lighthouse guided ships in their passages. To my left the beach ran down the coast with tourists walking along beside huge husks of trees or flying kites. Many bone-colored large pieces of driftwood covered the beach near the undergrowth leading back to camp and someone had crafted interesting log forts out of them. I made my way to the center of the beach where someone had left sand castle structure of a stone henge and parked myself beside it to sit and meditate and just soak up the beauty. Later, Arian showed up and he began exploring the surrounding log forts and climbing on the rocks. I looked over to see him waving atop the rock formations below the lighthouse and waved back. He was true Capricorn Rock Lord like the planet Saturn that governed his character. His Saturn was in Pisces sign of the Sea, and he must have felt truly at home and alive on the rocks overlooking the sea. I would remember the bliss of this moment forever.

In time, Devin showed up and he and Arian explored the beach while I was content to just sit there and rest my legs and enjoy the sounds of the surf and the scenes of gloriousness as the sun made its mystical descent toward the western horizon. Arian offered to guide us all back to camp via a secret trail that he had discovered among the rocks and Devin and I followed him. Turns out the trail was laden with tricky logs and rocks and I slipped on one while carrying my heavy tech bag and cracked my right ankle. It hurt really bad but I couldn't afford to be injured stuck in the middle of nowhere and the middle of our journey south by bike, so I called upon some healing power after stumbling back to camp, and made sure the wound was treated. Luckily, by morning, my ankle felt great and I was ready to ride! We cooked an amazing stir fry with Thai Noodles, Mongolian Fire oil, mushrooms, broccoli, squash, zucchini, and onions while Devin cooked a noodle dish with a delicious Italian pesto sauce with veggies. He asked me to do his chart and I said that I would when we got to Astoria as my brain was tired from the intense day of riding.

That night I heard some strange sounds outside my tent and both Devin and I got up to investigate and found a tribe of grey striped raccoons digging into the food pouch on the back of my bike, chomping down on some Teriyaki chips! We scared the heck out of them and they went running into the woods, but they kept coming back. I grabbed my longest Devil Stick and Devin grabbed his large frying pan. We were ready to do battle. Instead, I decided to make a diplomatic gesture to the wild animals, and went over to them and spread the rest of the chips on the ground. They went to work devouring them with me standing right there over them. I told them, "Look, I understand your hunger, but I'm giving you this as a peace offering and I'm taking the rest of my food into my tent, so after this meal, you are not to disturb our rest." After that we went back to bed and they kept their distance.

After that, I slipped back into the realm of dreams, and I was visited by my anima, the feminine force of consciousness inside me for a romantic adventure. We both arrived at a strange rock cathedral to attend a wedding and some people orchestrating the wedding were rushing us into this back entrance to get us outfitted in the proper garb. They told us to hurry, and get out of our clothes and change. So here I was in my dream standing there with this beautiful, elven maiden with thick lips and gorgeous curves. I was entranced, and I said to her, "Do you know who is getting married?" And she looked at me quizzically and said, "No, do you?" I shook my head and put up my arms in the "I have no idea" gesture. Then she came closer to me. She and I were standing there in the shadows naked and she came over to me and looked deep into my eyes and smiled. I felt the heat of passion burning up through me and as she slowly turned I opened my eyes to find that it was morning. I had to pack up the camp and get going quick because I had agreed to meet with a new female client for an online astrological mentoring session who lived in Maryland. I wanted nothing more than to go back into that dream, but I thanked the anima for her loving visit. Maybe we were being married at a deeper level...

I woke Arian up and we had Chai tea with Devin and we all packed up our tents and camping supplies and rode out together. We split the cost of the site and paid the guards at the gate. Devin wanted to stay behind and explore but we had to hasten down to the great scary Astoria bridge to cross over to the Mediterranean looking and sounding city. I could see it across the sea as we rode our bikes back up the peninsula. We had 20 or so miles to go in two hours so I told Arian we needed to keep a brisk pace. We reached the bridge and pedaled hard across the four mile structure. Luckily they were doing construction and the crew stopped the traffic. So once they let us through, and the wave of RVs and cars went by, it was clear sailing for a mile before the next wave of vehicles screamed by. People were generally very respectful and gave us a wide berth. Looking ahead to the final mile, the bridge rose to an incredible height to allow ships to pass underneath. We pedaled as hard as we could but had to stop gassed about 3/4 the way up. After a brief respite, we waited for the next wave of cars to flow by and then we mounted a final effort toward the apex and rolled down and around the great bridge (seen in the photo above) into the bright city of Astoria.

We stopped at the first cafe called Three Cups on the right, the Columbia Roasters, and I went in and ordered chai and opened my lap top to find that I had 6 minutes to spare before the teaching session began! Whew! That was cutting it close. Fortunately my new student gave me 15 minutes to call her back so I could drink my chai in peace. We then had a wonderful connection for our first session that went on for three hours. I showed her the flow chart for analyzing astrological charts and guided her into this unique method. We looked at her chart and her capacities and her seasons of the soul to understand what new dimensions were opening in her path to begin studying astrology. After our session I bid her farewell, and she offered to help me by becoming my assistant, but I told her I didn't know what she could actually do, that I would think about it. I usually did all my own typing and scheduling and web design, and creativity. It would be nice to have an assistant! But I couldn't imagine what she would do!

After that, we rolled across town and I enjoyed seeing Astoria. It was a cool little ocean town that had been transformed from a fishing and logging settlement into an artist colony. I was excited to get to the post office to receive our food package from my friend Steve, my computer discs from Alisha, and possibly a digital camera from an online friend. I was deeply dismayed to find that Mercury Retrograde had struck again. I got the computer discs from Alisha, over $3000 in back up software and computer games that Arian and I enjoyed playing. But the food from the Whole Foods Pharmacy that Steve sent was sent back to him because UPS said they don't do General Delivery. This was horrible because my finances were dwindling, we didn't know where we were staying in Astoria and the Sun was heading to the sea, and we had depleted our food stores in anticipation of stocking up when we got to the post office.

Devin showed up and wanted to go have pizza together. But I found a cheap Thai restaurant called Oceans of Thai instead. I had had enough pizza in Lake Quinault and Arian pouted about it. Sometimes kids will be kids no matter how wise they were. Down to my last hundred bucks, not knowing where we'd stay that night, and a disrespectful tone from the kid, I felt frustrated. I decided to pop into a cafe and check on Couchsurfing.com to see if any of the emails I had sent had been answered. It turned out that a young lady named Eva (19) had responded and said that we could stay with her if she was in town. All she had was a floor in a very tiny studio space with a shared bathroom with other studio artist types. She might not be in town though because she was going to possibly go to a concert in Portland Oregon. So I used Devin's phone to give her a call and left her a message. Devin said that he had secured a common room at the hostel for $20 but now they were full. You had to rent individual rooms now for $72 and that was not happening. So we marched into the Thai place and sat down to eat. I had told Eva in my message that we would be eating there. If she showed up we'd get to enjoy Astoria. If not we would ride like wild furies across the bridge to camp at the State Park on the peninsula.

Luckily, Eva showed up just as we were ordering and offered a place to stay on her floor. She was 19 and this was her first pad away from home and she looked just like an old girlfriend of mine named Laena. She had short blonde hair like a baby angel with blue dreamy astral eyes, and she dressed in clashing colors that revealed her artistic bent. Even Arian thought so, and I asked her about her chart. She was fascinated with astrology and knew her sun, moon and rising sign. Laena had been a Leo Sun with Pisces Moon, and Virgo Rising. Eva was a Leo Sun, with Virgo Moon, and Pisces Rising. Bizarre! She was deeply shy you could tell with her Piscean Ascendant and very spacey and mystical. But you could tell she was happy to see us and after we ate, she took us on a tour of her little town and down to the bookstore cafe where her other friend wanted to meet us. Her other friend bought us a soy chai and we looked at books and talked with the locals.

I struck up a deep conversation with a Double Gemini elder who had started radio stations back in the 60's in Sacramento and San Fran, and he seemed to know all the artistic movers and shakers in town and gave me the lay of the land. Fascinating stories just poured out of his mouth and I could barely get a word in edgewise, so I just listened and soaked up all that he had to offer. The bookstore was really cool and had scrabble racks with glued on Scrabble tiles to indicate sections like fantasy and astrology. So there I was standing there looking at the Scrabble letters glued to a Scrabble tile holders that said ASTROLOGY and FANTASY and SCI-FI, and I was smiling hard. The wise elder owned a guitar shop and told me that Jimmy Paige and Robert Plant often hid out in the hills here and came into this very coffee shop/bookstore regularly. Turns out they all loved to throw down with some intense Scrabble. I was in cafe heaven!

Eventually Eva guided us to her building which had this great mauve door that she opened with a key that she wore on a necklace because she said she kept losing it. We pushed our bikes into one of the oldest buildings in town that had not burned to the ground in one of the disaster fires that had struck the town. Her apartment was indeed small, a one room wonder with a sink in the corner full of art supplies, strange abstract paintings on the walls, and bags of clothes stacked around the walls with a few lonely pieces of furniture that she had mostly found. Astoria had caught fire often as the oldest caucasian-settled town west of the Mississippi, founded in 1811. Eva had a medium futon against the far wall and their was just enough space for Arian and I on the floor. There were books everywhere too and you could tell she was an avid reader of fascinating subjects like Egyptian Legends and Myths. After getting settled, we decided to take a walk down to a local Safeway to get Arian's favorite meal: Chips, hummus and salsa. Eva guided us down the oceanfront walking path and pointed out features of the town including the Maritime Museum and a large column of light that loomed large on the hillside overlooking the harbor.

You could see the red lights of the great bridge flashing in the distance behind us. Jupiter and the Moon rose over the hill in front of us to the right and a great cloud shaped like a giant whale filled the sky as we walked until the Moon was aligned perfectly with the whale so that it looked like a great eye. We stopped in awe and just stared at it. I said to Eva, "You should paint that." And she said, "I just might." Arian made references to the whale in Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy and Eva made reference to the pot of flowers in the same which got me talking about dolphins. We walked a long long way and my arms were tired of carrying my heavy tech bag that I refused to let out of my site no matter what. Eventually we got our goods and went back to her studio to sit and eat together. Then we all went into reading land and I picked up the book of Egyptian Myths and got about three chapters into it before crashing.

The next morning we had showers after more reading in bed and Eva guided us to the bakery/cafe where she worked and we bought almond milk chais and settled into a cozy corner. I had this blog to write and some charts and internet work I needed to do. Arian broke out his I-pad and downloaded a new space exploration trading game and also talked to his distant other family in Dauphin Island Alabama and told them about our crazy adventures. We later bought a large round loaf of whole wheat sour dough bread and dipped it into a strange mixture of honey, agave, cayenne, cinnamon, nutmeg, fresh cracked pepper and chipotle hot sauce.

We planned on staying one more night with Eva and then heading south to tackle the Oregon coast. With hardly any money and my astrology online business in a serious lull we had to trust in the Universe to provide. Maybe that was the point. Out of nothing comes something. The Universe had not failed to manifest chart orders or work yet, but we were getting very close to the bottom of the barrel. I wanted to stop and work on the book, but felt pressured to keep going, to move on down the coast. Astoria seemed like a very cool town, but a little too small for my taste. I would love to spend a month here writing and creating, but the journey was calling us onward to keep exploring the unknown. If you're reading this and you're heart feels compelled to help us complete this quest to San Francisco, maybe you'll donate 5 or ten bucks to the cause. Every little bit helps this blog stay alive, keeps my web server operating so we can even get orders, and generally helps us endure knowing we have friends who care. Until next time!

Donations accepted at Traveling Magi

Chart Orders accepted at: Divine Inspiration Astrology

Death of the DROID

2010-09-17T19:26:00.000-07:00

Look carefully at that idyllic picture over there on the left, it could be the last one ever on this blog. That's because I got excited and started taking lots of pictures while riding, and then dropped the DROID! It hit the ground and it's done for. It still works, but the screen doesn't work, and it's hard to navigate tiny menus with no screen! But a lot happened leading up to that point.

First, we left Port Ludlow and out good friend Jeff Peters and his family with a brand spankin' new cart called the Aquarius. Jeff designed it himself and it looked like a wild cooler on wheels! Long had I foreseen that I would have to try a cart out for my Pacific Coast bike tour. Little did I know that one of my astrological colleagues in the Northwest named Jeff Peters was secretly crafting one. And Jeff is no ordinary craftsman either. He's got the astrological signature of the Greek God of Craftsmanship Hephaestus (Vulcan in Roman) in his chart, and he's pretty much a MacGiver. A painter and astrologer by trade, he builds anything for people on the side. SO we left Port Ludlow hauling a wondrous little cart behind us with silver reflectors that we stuck to it cut in the shape of an Aquarius symbol. Take that lille Piscean Age fish symbols on cars!

I had also realized after imagining what it would feel like to pull a cart that I might not enjoy the restraint of on object tethered behind me, and I found out real quick that I was right. First of all Arian began to leave me behind on the hills and that was not fun. Then I started thinking of my new minimalist philosophy and having fewer possessions. The cart clashed with this because suddenly I had all this room to carry even more stuff. So by the time I reached the camp ground about 30 miles away along the coast near Sequim, I had to make the difficult call and tell Jeff that I couldn't deal with the cart. He understood and even volunteered to come over and get ti before I got too far away. And while he was there we jumped in his car and he took us on a scenic tour down to yet another house built like a castle. In addition, they had these long fences where every fence post was a log carved into the shape of a fantastical figure, mostly trolls. The place was called Troll Haven and I uploaded numerous pics to Facebook.

Anyway, after I watched the Aquarius cart go bye-bye as Mars entered Scorpio, I knew it was a wise decision. I was rather enjoying my freedom after losing the backpack and my rear was hurting less and everything was good. Arian and I set up our tent at the state park overlooking a wondrous bay and our campsite was surrounded by gigantic old trees. We felt safe and secure in our little tent even though we missed the comforts of Jeff's RV and his house. We were back on the trail in full force.

We woke up and packed everything up and realized the rain had not come yet. The weather reports were mixed about whether or not the weather was in our favor. We also realize from looking at digital maps on the I-pad that there was an handy paved bike trail from our campsite all the way to Port Angeles. We had a great and quiet day of riding through the most scenic nature. If you're ever in Port Angeles and have a day to mess around, I highly recommend renting a bike and doing this trail. You won't regret it! Although I regret taking so many pictures even after the rain started. Right before we got to Port Angeles, along the scenic coast, riding five feet from the waters of the sea, I dropped the DROID, thus ending our relationship forever.

I had been thinking long and hard about even needing a cell phone since I can call people through Skype for $30 bucks a year, and free if they have Skype. And I'm addicted to mobile uploads and checking email while riding, which can be dangerous in and of itself! So now I'm free! I'll have to break my contract with Verizon, but oh well. I'm sure they won't miss me. With my progressed moon in Scorpio these last 20 months it's been about letting go of one thing after another. I had a chance to pop into a new age bookstore and check out astrologer Amy Herring's new book about the Moon and was intrigued and delighted by her witty yet deeply insightful treatment of the progressed moon, the mood of the soul. Check it out! Everything she said, I'm pretty much going through!

Anyway, the Aquarius cart was gone. The DROID is still with me but won't show its LCD screen. I'm sad but glad all at once. Now I have to rely on internet cafes and libraries to check email, so I'll be more focused. If you want to Skype me then download Skype for free and watch for kellyleephipps to go green check mark when I'm at a cafe!

Port Angeles was interesting but also crowded and misty. The mist thickened with the rainstorm and we found ourselves going into a cafe for a hot steaming chai and a bagel for Arian. We did some scouting and talking to the locals and they said the best Thai restaurant in town was Sabai Thai over on 8th St. We rode over there and enjoyed a nice plate of Panang Curry Tofu, only ordering one dish and splitting it due to dwindling finances. Internet orders and Traveling Magi donations had run dry for a week, so I was looking at about $200 bucks in my account with over a thousand miles to go and a hungry kid to feed. And Arian has Cancer Rising, so food is his number one issue. He loves it and he hates not having it, and yet he's a skinny scrappy Capricorn. I didn't know how I was going to pull this off. But I knew it would work out after what I've experienced so far. I had recently put my videos for Tao of Astrology up on the site for people to purchase one at a time or the whole lot at a discount plus I always seem to get chart orders right when I have time to do them. And I had just caught up on charts. So it was time. That day a guy from Colorado ordered the Video courses, the Celestial Mandala, and wanted a chart, so at least my server would be paid for (for another month) and we would be eating for another week! I knew it was time to complete my epic masterwork, The Tao of Astrology, and turn it into a profitable e-book.

So we headed out from Port Angeles to the south to go by the Crescent Lake with Pyramid Mountain looming over it, but I forgot that the Sun had started going down at 7:0 these days, and mis-timed things by an hour or two. We got way up into the hills and began seeing misty mountains everywhere. We could barely see them through all the mist and clouds from Port Angeles, except for the occasional floating tree that Arian kept pointing out. Once we were in them, we were astonished by their beauty. Then the unthinkable happened!

With two hours left to ride to our campsite on the far end of Crescent Lake and only one hour of sunlight, Magellan got a flat tire. That is the worst feeling in the world when you're trying to ride hard to get to your destination. You're putting everything you've got into the ride, and then suddenly the Universe just stops you in your tracks and says STOP! And all I could do was say, "Okay, I surrender. I'll camp right here by the road if you want me to." Then, as I was walking my bike up the next hill looking for a spot to perform the repair, we see this country store in the middle of nowhere on the right side of the road. A fisherman with a boat stopped with his daughter to get ice cream cones just as we rolled our sad bikes into the parking lot. They asked about our journey and I told him where we were from and where we were going and what had just happened. He offered to take us up to the Fairholme Campground on the lake! He told us we could just help him lift our bikes into his fishing boat, which he hauled behind his camper mounted to his truck. His name was Brad and he was on the way to take his daughter Abby fishing on the coast. Not only that, we got to be warm in the back seat for the whole ride and enjoy the twilight views of Crescent Lake. He suggested we go to a campground further down the 101 called Klahowya, amidst the majestic rain forests. We agreed and he dropped us off right at his favorite campsite next to the river.

We set up our tent in the dark using our headlamps and then cooked Thai noodles and stir fried veggies over the cookstove. We mixed Zucchini with Onion, dried Shitake mushrooms, and roasted garlic with rice noodles spiced with garlic oil and curry! It was delicious. We then retreated to our tent to break out our I-pads and play this new risk-like strategy game called Slay, where you attempt to take over all the hexagon regions of this island empire against five computer players. I talked Arian into downloading it back at the coffee shop because he was watching me play it and became fascinated with its simplicity yet amazing strategic attributes. The game boasted a thousand different islands to play on at varying difficulty levels.

After we both finished, we crashed hard and I found myself tossing and turning to try and sleep, but all I could do was listen to Arian snore. I thought about the time his mom and I got rid of most of our possessions back in 1992 and went hiking down the Colorado Trail 480 miles from Denver to Durango and ended up backpacking Australia! Tracey used to get sick a lot too. Arian's wounds from his bike crash had healed but now he had a serious case of the sniffles and was coughing and spitting all day long. He inherited the weak constitution from his mom's genes, but I hoped this journey would make him gain a point or two in his Resilience score. We had gone 42 miles by the end of the day and set a new record. He slept really well!

The next morning we had to get up and work on Magellan's back tire. Turns out Arian's back tire was flat too. He found a staple poked through his tire which we must have gotten on the bike trail close to Port Angeles. It had gone through an industrial area at one point where it was unpaved. I think we both got our flats from that gravel part of the trail. Mine was a slow leak. But it only takes a tiny sharp object to pierce a tire and tube. I was still amazed that these bikes could even carry as much as they did! So we went to work on our bikes and had them good as new within the hour and were heading south on the 101 toward Forks, WA in an awful rainstorm.

It was a miserable ride through intense rain but all we could do was put on our rain gear, lower our heads and push on toward Forks, the little town where the novel (and now movie) Twilight was set. We hoped there wouldn't really be any vampires or werewolves in the woods! Christina was obsessed with those books, so she would really enjoy visiting this area. The locals call Twilight tourists "Twilighters" and think of them as terrorists, we found out at a local cafe where we ordered hot chais and accessed email and the rest of the Internet world. I wanted to hang out and work on my book, but the cafe was closing in an hour because the owner had a doctor's appointment. So we went to the grocery store where we met two german lady bicycle tourists who were about to head out going south like us to get out of the rain. We introduced ourselves and said, "Maybe we'll see you on the trail going south!" Then we went into the store and had our favorite snack: Spicy Corn Chips, spicy Hummus, and hot Salsa! In a matter of a few minutes, we were both in tummy heaven!

Then we rolled over to the local library to access their internet wi-fi connection and continued to surf and play and design. I updated my Facebook and found out that Alisha was back in Redmond. How strange to think that we were about to combine our existences and raise our children together. Now I'm heading south into an unknown destiny with my favorite being on the planet. Then when I noticed it was Twilight in Twilight town, I made us pull our faces off the screens and head to the camp south of town five miles where we once again set up our tent in the dark. Oh for the days where the Sun gave you till 9 PM! We found a cyclist/backpacker site for $14, but couldn't find who to pay, so we just set up camp anyway. They have these fee stations where you put money in an envelope but what if you're using a debit card? So we just camped anyway and decided to deal with the consequences if they came. We cooked some spiced rice and it was delicious too! Then we crawled into our tent and talked about how amazing it was that we had ridden 42 miles through the relentless rain. I commended him on being a true adventurer and for breaking his previous record. I told him that tomorrow we only had to go like 30 miles or so to get to the Pacific Ocean and the Kalaloch campground. He was overjoyed and hung his head out his tent door to blow more snot onto the ground. We set up our tent next to the gigantic stump of an ancient tree long gone, but another branch was growing up out of it. You can cut a tree down, but it might still keep going!

That night Arian asked me what my grand plan was after we reached San Francisco, and I told him that I didn't know. I wanted to live in lots of cool places for about three months each. I told him I wasn't attached to cycling and he was glad of that. I told him that my life had come to a strange place where I didn't know what I wanted to do next. I told him that part of me wanted to leave this earth, escape its dreary existence. "So you want to die?" he asked. "No I just want to be reborn. I have ten more months of this Scorpio moon progression and Pluto is square to my Chiron, so something deep is being regenerated within me. I've experienced most the goodness this world has to offer and now I need to create some new form of experience."

I was glad he was with me right now. I'd probably be crying myself to sleep instead of laughing myself to sleep. Part of me wanted to send him home to his mom's so he could go to high school. Another stronger part wanted to expose him to the whole world and travel to other cultures, really open his eyes to all the world has to offer beyond the cultural programming.
I told him that if we found a cool place on our journey south that we both liked, maybe we would stay there for a while and he could go to school and have friends and play games. "Dad, you're weird. You know that don't you." "Of course, I'm an Aquarian! I wouldn't have it any other way."

Then out of the silence of the dark tent his little voice said, "Dad do you have worries. I mean do you ever worry about anything?" "Of course I do, kiddo. Like right now I'm worried that no orders will come off the internet since it's been slow for weeks and that I will run out of money and we would starve." "Wow, that's an intense worry," he said. "yeah, tell me about it," I said. "I just can't live in society the way I used to. I'll invent a new way, you'll see."

We woke up and found that the rain had stopped! We couldn't believe it. So we packed up camp, had a few cliff bars and headed on our way. We barely got through the park entrance when I realized I didn't have my glasses on. I remembered putting them in the little tent holder above my head before going to sleep, but I had already packed and rolled the tent up! OH NO! I couldn't lose my vision too! Without glasses, I tended to get intense migraine headaches from light sensitivity. So I unraveled the tent on the side of the road to realize they were not there. This was a good thing because they would have been crushed or bent. I told Arian to wait there and I doubled back to the campsite where I remember shaking all the debris out of the tent before packing it up. And there they were laying o the ground right where I had shaken the tent.

With my accurate vision restored, we rode hard through the dry weather hoping the rains would subside long enough to get south. It was a majestic ride through the lower edge of the Hoh Rain Forest region and the foliage was spectacular. Dense ancient woods covered in moss like in fairy tails blanketed both sides of the road. And ancient majestic mountains peaked through the clouds watching the two of us ride by like tiny Chinese paintings. In addition to being dry, the ride was also downhill most the way. We had our share of small hills, but mostly we made our gradual descent toward the Pacific Ocean.

As we approached the sea, I could sense the difference in the wind. It was thicker and the smell of sea salt was on the wing. Finally we crested a rise and turned into Ruby beach and gazed out in amazement at the largest ocean in our world. I too a deep breath and just said, "Wow!" We were both speechless. The waves were washing up on the sandy beaches below and many rock islands, one with a cool lighthouse, jutted up out of the ocean. I had ridden my bike from Boulder to the Pacific Ocean! The guy who gave us a ride in his fishing boat camper asked if I was on meds when I told him where I had ridden from. LOL

I wished I had the Droid for one last photo but it wasn't meant to be. Maybe someone will donate me a digital camera. I realized that Alisha had just sent the discs I left in Nelson to General Delivery in Astoria Oregon, where I'd be in a few days. And my friend Steve sent me a care package of ultra healthy snacks from the Whole Food Pharmacy to the same address. It would be exciting to find these packages waiting at the post office! Maybe somebody would overnight me a camera too! We would have to see. From the moment of this blog post till I reach Astoria would be about 3-4 days. Today was September 17th. They have to get it there by the 21st. I remember a freak snow storm ripped through Boulder Colorado when Tracey, Arians mom, were together back in 1992 and it was September 17th. We had a tradition of expecting something miraculous every September 17th. Today our son, the Arian Brazenwood, the child of our collective union got to view the Pacific Ocean for the first time in his life on September 17th. That had to qualify.

We rode for 11 amazing miles down the high cliffs overlooking the Pacific beaches below until we finally arrived at the Kalaloch campground. It was still dry so I asked Arian what he wanted to do. He was still coughing but he felt great. I wanted to stop and work on my astrology book and visit the lodge and get warm inside with some hot tea. But he wanted to push on arguing that it might be cold and rainy the next day. We could get further south if we went another 25 miles to Amanda Lake. He had been studying the Google Maps on his I-pad and had all the mileages figured out and the camp sites scouted along with internet cafes. I said okay, reluctantly, especially after we dropped by the lodge and had a look inside. We ate some hot spiced trail mix mixed with sea salted potato chips at the Kalaloch Mercanile and then strolled over into the Lodge. They didn't have Wi-Fi and that was Arian's main reason he wanted to press on I found out. Good reason, I agreed.

Within the first ten miles a monstrous rainstorm crashed out of the heavens and dumped on us! But we were committed and we pressed on and we had fun despite the cold wet raininess of it all. We made up a game of calling diesels Dragons and naming them by color. For instance red diesels were red dragons, etc. Then Arian's little gamer mind kicked in and he started naming every car that went by. All this because I told him that the logger truck that careened by with its loud shriek sounded like an Oriental Wood Dragon. Now we had blue goblins (blue cars), red orcs (red trucks), and all manner of fantasy monsters going by! We decided that RVs were pirates after I thought of Ravagers of Villagers. Only gold RVs were good pirates, as they wore Paladin Gold and were considered privateers of the high seas roadways. Making vehicles into fantasy monsters helped us laugh our way through one of the most wet and dreary storms I had seen in all my bike travels thus far. Arian was a trooper and when we reached Amanda Park near Lake Quinault we had ridden 65 miles! I old him congratulations on his new record as he leaned his bike against the IC cafe and painfully lumbered into the store sniffling and sore. I was sore too! It had been a while since I had ridden over 60 miles and all the familiar pain had returned, my rear soreness lessened by the fact that I didn't have a backpack weighing down on my lower spine area!

We entered the cafe and found out that it was the main sports bar and restaurant in the area as well and a kind waitress took our order for a large vegetarian pizza with no cheese and extra veggies, especially mushrooms, and extra sauce. She looked at us strangely and said, "No cheese?" "Yep," I said. "Hold the cow! We're vegans. technically he's not a vegan (pointing at Arian) but he doesn't need any more mucous to go with that sniffly nose." We all laughed. Her name was Ashley and I asked her about potential camping spots, especially free ones. She said she'd give me a map, but said they were all at least four miles away. She must have had compassion on sniffly, coughing Arian, because when she brought us our pizza later, she said the owner of the fine establishment said we could pitch our tent up on the hill right behind the restaurant! Thank the creative forces of compassion that run through this universe, because it was already getting dark when our Pizza was finished. So we ate in peace and I checked my email to find that I received and astrology order! Woo hoo! I also noticed increased activity on the astrology videos I posted of me teaching the Tao of Astrology. One person visited the Youtube site and wrote this email to me:

Hello Divine Master of the Cosmic Consciousness Communication,
You are unbelievable! And I mean that in the nicest way. You gifts and talents are amazing! I don't know where you are right now, (except that you might be on a bike :-) but if you ever get to Hagerstown, MD, look me up. My email is ????????????

There are no words to express the joy I feel for having been guided to your videos at this time in my process.

I think you may be the greatest Characterologist alive. You were born to do this and more.

Stay Strong

Please continue doing what you do, you do it so well.

Sometimes it feels heartwarming being a custodian of this celestial wisdom. Maybe I would hang out for a day in this little town and work on my book after all! But then again, if the morning brings with it dryness, we might ride like valkyries on speed toward the south and the city of Aberdeen! Today was Friday...tomorrow was Saturday. The Seahawks were traveling to Denver to take on the Broncos! At least I was in the right region to catch the game! I just didn't know where I'd be!

The Olympian Peninsula

2010-09-13T17:17:00.000-07:00

The First Ride - 35 Miles

I decided to take it easy on the kid after his little accident. With bandages covering his knees, we sped off toward Port Ludlow to visit my astrology colleague and friend Jeff Peters. We bid farewell to my brother and his wife's family and took to the road heading north from Silverdale, WA. We both want to thank Michelle and her mom for hosting us and feeding us and generally making us feel welcome! Thank you!

Arian's first long ride went great! We stopped frequently to let him drink water and stay hydrated. It was a perfect distance to give him a good taste of a long trip but not enough to make his bottom hurt! After stopping to pee at a gas station we headed across the floating bridge to head north to Ludlow. It was fun watching Arian in his blue rain jacket cruising along on his bike. SOmetimes I would let him lead and other times on the steep hills I would pull ahead and cruise down the decline. After his wreck, Arian was being extra careful with his speed when descending even though I assured him there would be no speed bumps and despite the fact that he had his brakes worked out in his mind!

Eventually, we saw signs for Port Ludlow and got excited about arriving. The town center was quite small and my friend Jeff lived to the north 5 more miles, so we decided to stop for a steaming hot chai. We met the owner of a cafe called Once Upon a Time and she heard me talking about astrology with one of her patrons. Fascinated with astrology, she decided then and their that she had to have me interpret her chart. So I took down her birth data and she paid me in cash. It was nice to have cash in the wallet again after living off the debit cards. I was excited to give her an unbelievably remarkable session.

After that we hopped back on the bikes and got flowing along again. I saw the marina full of boats and started singing the theme song to Gilligan's Island and Arian reminded me that I was indeed crazy. I reminded him that they have not locked me up yet, so I'm still just good crazy, not demented crazy.

Further down the road, we discovered patches of ripe blackberries along the roadside. Now we understood why the Blackberry Festival in Bremerton was in full swing! These things tasted delicious. We both placed our bikes on their sides and ate Blackberries until we were content. Arian went off into the woods to pee again. I told him he was like a woman on a trip in the car, always needing to stop to pee at exits. We both laughed.

A few more miles we came to my friend's address number posted on a sign and saw a dirt road ascending up into the foliage laden hills. We decided to push the bikes, passing hundreds of ripe blackberry bushes. I wanted to stop and eat moe but Arian wanted to press on. We came to a strange metal garage with a VW van parked out front, but decided to keep on going up the road. When we rounded the corner we saw Jeff standing on his porch and he welcomed us wholeheartedly. His house was an alternative domed structure that looked amazing. After leaning our bikes near the garage he showed us around and gave us a tour of the inside where he had painted many oceanic scene on the odd shaped walls. The large painting in the living room on a pentagram shaped wall was the most impressive, an undersea scene of a seal and a school of 3-D fish. An eagle and a floating tree was painted in a large blue circle above the entrance to the kitchen. We could tell that he and his family were very creative to say the least and his wife Jackie was extremely kind. They were both Aquarians like my new friends from Redmond in the Castle, but they lived in a DOME! What's the deal with double Aquarian couples living in strange structures! It fits the archetype of the bizarre, original, and unique.

After an extensive tour of the unique house Jeff showed us to our quarters: An amazing RV parked on the side of the hill just down below the house next to a tree house! Very cool! We had own own beds, a kitchen, a shower, and a cozy table! We felt spoiled. I told Arian to enjoy it because after this we would be heading into the wild rain forests of the Olympic Peninsula to the rainy west. We didn't know how long we were going to stay in Port Ludlow but after Jeff offered to take us on a tour of Port Townsend and told us we could stay as long as we liked, we decided to stay for five days until after Mercury went Direct, to avoid needless road repairs. You don't want to start a long journey under a Mercury Retrograde! Besides, that would give me just enough time to really get into writing my new astrology book and to enjoy the opening week of the Nation Football League! I could root for my broncos from the comfort of Jeff's couch with a delicious home-cooked meal, complements of Jackie.

Port Townsend was a beautiful sailor's town. Originally we were going to take the ferry over to Whidbey and head up to Canada through the San Juan Isles, but with the onset of Fall temperatures, I decided we better get heading south before the nights et really cold. We arrived during the week when Port Townsend was having the biggest festival of the yea called the Wooden Boat Festival. People come from all over to learn to craft wooden boats at unique schools in Port Townsend. He took us o the festival on Saturday and we enjoyed the tour and took lots of pictures. They even had wooden bicycles and pirates! We also went out to eat at 1-2-3 Thai, which was delicious!

On one day, Jeff let me borrow his car to go to town and write. Arian decided he wanted to hang out at home and cough his lungs out. He had been adjusting to the Northwest climate for a time. In the last 8 months, he had been in NC, CO, AL, and finally WA. Four different climates in nine months. I think his system was on climate change overload. By the end of our time in Ludlow he finally came to terms with the climate after regaining his voice and coughing up a bucket of sludge. Arian enjoyed hanging out with Jeff's son and daughter and reread their copies of the first three Harry Potter books.

When I was in town writing at the cool cafe by the ocean where ou can sit at a table and look out at boats and the sea, I bumped into Emily again, the girl with a backpack who was on her own journey of locational independence after growing up in insulated, isolated Utah. She decided that she was going to travel the world with her backpack hitching from place to place and was trying to find a ride on a boat down to California. In addition, the first NFL game of the season was broadcast on the web with the Vikings and Saints having an epic rematch. The coffee shop closed so the picture you see above shows my wooden picnic table outside overlooking the ocean with Brett Farve on screen!

One night when I came home Jeff unveiled his surprise! He had assembled a special bike cart for my journey ahead. That's right, one of those carts that you attach to the back of your bike to load your gear in. He had decided to build it when he kept reading about me breaking spokes. Turns out that Jeff is a Triple Aquarius with a strong Saturn in Virgo, the sign of the Craftsman. He is like a living Hephaestus, the Greek God of Artifice and was as clever and crafty as MacGiver! His shop down at the base of the field was full of tools and trinkets for designing anything. I had mixed feelings about the cart, mainly because I didn't want anything behind me feeling heavy and awkward, but my brother assured me I would love the cart. In addition, I had decided that if the opportunity to have a cart presented itself in my journey south to San Francisco, that I would give it a try. So this Centaur can't look a gift horse in the mouth. Besides, this cart was built by a human being who was both a master inventor and a Vulcan-like craftsman. How could anyone refuse a magical item on a grand adventure. The cart had two wheels and looked like a portable cooler. It could be locked and double as a small table!

I shared the Preface and Chapter 1 of my new astrology book with Jeff (being edited by my spiritual brother Peter Roth) and he loved it. We spent lots of nights discussing astrological ideas and I ran some of my new concepts by him and he helped me work it out on paper through discussion. It was fun brainstorming new idea combinations with a fellow Aquarian visionary whose 12th house of spiritual insight was packed with planets like mine. He was a painter by trade and a Magi by calling, often doing astrology for his painting clients. He was a lso a handyman and could pretty much build anything someone wanted building. Just give him the parameters and the visions and off he goes! And his Aquarian wife Jackie was a genius in her own right, managing a computer store and cooking the most eclectic foods possible! She liked going in the kitchen and taking base recipes and mixing them in unexpected ways. We had a great time watching football on Sunday even though my Broncos lost o the Jaguars. But the Seahawks won big in the late game.

Before I arrived, Jeff had inspired by my writings and astrology teachings and crafted a set of laminated, circular Tarot-like cards called Astro-Discs for educational purposes. Arian came up with the name of this new interpretation tool! He took many of my ideas about the twelve archetypes of the Zodiac and packed the information on the front and back of these 8" cards. I got to hold the finished products in my hands and they are amazing. He has a local astrology group in Port Townsend and upon seeing them, everyone had o have a set. Now we are offering them online for anyone who wants a set. When you place your order here, Jeff will hand craft your very own set of Astro-Discs!

In addition I've decided to release my popular tool, the Celestial Mandala for a donation of any amount. The catch is that you have to build it ourself with these instructions.

Also, if you are into learning astrology with me through my video courses I offer the first three courses on Houses, Signs, and Planets free on the web, plus an extensive FREE Course manual! Just follow the link below. You can watch the first 3 classes (with over 8 hours of video instruction) free and then order subsequent classes for $20 each. You make your purchase online and then I'll email you a private link to the class. You can also elect to buy the FULL course and gain access to all the classes!

Tao of Astrology Video Course

In addition, I'm offering a special Astrology Chart Interpretation to readers of this blog!

Normally my services (backed by 25 years experience) cost $195 for an Explore Your Birth Vision chart Interpretation or Seasons of the Soul update chart. Readers of this blog can make a donation of at least $25 and I will do an inspiring chart interpretation for you! The length of the interpretation will be proportional to your donation, but I will guarantee at least 30 minutes no matter what and you'll probably get more time because once my archetypal oracular window opens, I just can't stop talking about a chart. There so much vital information! Why am I offering this to you? Some people can't afford my full professional fee, especially during these trying economic times and I need to generate funds to feed Arian and the occasional campground fee and bike repair. So it's a win win situation. You can get started now with the special donation button below.

Traveling Magi Chart Interpretation Special

Enjoy the New Moon IN Virgo and both Mercury and PLuto going Direct as Arian and I head out to explore the Hoh Rainforest of the Washington Coast on our epic journey south!

Off We Go!

2010-09-04T19:26:00.001-07:00

Arian Brazenwood Joins the Quest

Every once in a while in life, you meet an amazing person who blows your mind and sends your heart soaring with inspiration. In my case I helped create one! His name is Arian Brazenwood, named after the mythic character from my first fantasy novel Brazenwood, which I am currently rewriting and revising. Arian arrived in Seattle August 29th, and my host, who I call my astro-mom, Kriss Shellman and I picked him up at the airport. Of course they lost his bag with Mercury retrograde and this really disheartened him because all of his adventure gear was in there. But I told him not to worry about it, that they'd find it. The next day, they delivered it to our door! Thanks United, for helping Arian unite with his adventure equipment.

Arian has been watching my adventures from afar and reading this blog while summering at his mother's place on the Gulf Coast and chomping at the bit to join me in this grand quest of locational independence and also escape the smell of oil. He says the beach on Dauphin Island smells like a mechanic shop! This kid has had a pretty amazing life. He's a lot different than his storybook parallel, but I love the heck out of him and his imagination. In fact you can check out a video I made (my first film!) called the Web of Life about him reciting poetry and talking about the philosophical meanings of each poem on Youtube!

So the night he arrived he was so excited to see his new bike, a Trek similar to mine but a few years older. I found it on Craigslist and went to vegan thai up in the University District where the guy from Craigslist delivered it to me. I tried to shake his hand and thank him, but he didn't have one! So I shook his other hand and paid him $180 bucks and took it back to Kriss's place in Burien. Can't wait to see what he names his bike. Then, the next day I took the bus into Seattle to visit the REI flagship store and hoped they would take my Osprey Argon backpack back for store credit with their 100% satisfaction Guaranteed return policy. I guess I was ready for a new trail name other than "Backpack". So there I was, down to my last $300 bucks standing in line at the service desk hoping they would give me my $333 bucks back so I could outfit my kid. They took it with no questions asked and gave me a receipt with a voucher for $333 bucks. Woo Frickin hoo!

I got a cart and went about shopping before they had a chance to change their mind. As my last wife can tell you, I can spend money quick, especially on cool gadgets and technology. I got him some bright yellow Ortlieb waterproof panniers ($165), a helmet (on sale from $100 down to $40), and a host of other essentials like a back rack to hang the panniers on, water bottles and water bottle mounts, a lock, a back light, etc. By the end of my shopping spree I ended up spending about $400! And I still didn't have any bike shorts, gloves, or extra tubes yet. But I figured we'd get some money from online orders or donations soon. And he told me that he had been mowing lawns all summer and had saved $160. So after $800, I pretty much had Arian an outfitted bike and got him out here to Seattle on a plane.

Much thanks and gratitude goes to our hosts Kriss and Jon Shellman. We had a wonderful time with them and ate extremely well. I think I gained at least ten pounds back from eating like a horse. Kriss just had this way of putting together these amazing stir fries with squash right out of the garden in addition to always having numerous healthy snacks on hand. I got off my wake up with the sun schedule as we sometimes stayed up till 2 Am talking about astrology, watching movies, or playing board games like Rumicube and Balderdash.

We loved playing Balderdash the best, and Arian actually won the last game we played the night before we left. Balderdash is this game where the players make up fake definitions about very obscure words and try to convince each other to vote for their crap. It was fascinating to realize how often Jon voted on Kriss's made up definitions. Kriss was very wise and she had a good BS meter so she usually picked the correct definition. If you wanted to score points you just had to vote for the same definition that Kriss did, LOL. Although Arian and I were able to get her and Jon to vote for some of our imaginary handiwork from time to time. We had an amazing time altogether, and Arian healed from his wounds fast.

Arian's Initiation

Oh did I forget to mention that the first full day of being in Seattle I took Arian for a bike ride that ended in disaster? Arian wrecked his bike badly. We were heading down a huge hill to see the Pugit Sound, and at the bottom of this massive decline, we encountered a large speed bump at high speed. I was in front of Arian and I just jumped right over it, but then I looked back and saw Arian brake hard and go flying straight over the handlebars. Turns out his brakes were wired backwards so that the right brake was connected to the front brake pads and when he hit it hard, he thought he was pressing the back brakes to slow up. It was a heart-sinking feeling to watch your kid get injured on a bike, especially after having such a great ride through the neighborhood. And this was our first ride together, hopefully not a sign of things to come. Arian has always been accident prone his whole life (South node in Aries). I used to call him my little headbanger, because he was always banging his head on something. It's surprising that he is so smart! Maybe all that head-banging knocked something loose or broke up the cobwebs in his mind and he became a genius!

So I pedaled back to see my child stunned and bleeding and trying to drag his bike over to the sidewalk. My heart just froze inside, like someone had thrown a cold razor-sharp icicle into it, ripping my innards apart. It is not fun to watch anyone suffer, especially your own child. He said he was okay, no major injuries, just a lot of scrapes: Two bloody knees, scraped up arms, bruised ribs, scraped hip, scraped shoulder, just terrible! I couldn't believe it, and I felt responsible for taking him down such an intense hill so fast. He was just trying to keep up with me. I wanted to test him going UP the hill, not down the hill! This was a cruel turn of fate indeed. I would have to be more careful with him and let him take his time getting used to his new ride and not push him so hard like I drive myself. He said his hands felt cold. We walked our bikes back up the hill and managed to ride back over to Kriss's place where she helped us doctor him up good. At least we got very acquainted with the first-aid kit!

I had carried the kit over 2000 miles and had not had to use it on myself yet. But there we were using everything in it combined with Kriss's arsenal of first aid gear. So Arian stayed in the guest room again although he was anxious to get out there and camp with dad. A few days passed and we just stayed around the house and kept changing the bandages and cleaning his wounds. He healed extremely fast, aided by reiki! The three gashes in his right knee (the worst and deepest injury) were completely sealed up with new skin coming in. Wow! By the third night he was ready to migrate from the couch (he gave up on the guest room) to the tent, and was excited to join me in our little portable abode. We had bought the tent together in January at REI in Charlotte NC. We never got to use it in Colorado because it was just too icy cold to trek up into the mountains. We went to sleep playing with our I-pads and we woke up and played a game called Othello on the I-pad. It was great, two guys bonding over technology in a tent set up in a beautiful garden. Then we played a game of Civilization and played as the Mongols using our horse archers to conquer the world!

By the fourth day, he was ready to ride again so I figured I'd take him on a light ride a couple of miles to the bustling center of the Seattle suburb of Burien. We had hot chais at Starbucks and I worked on my new astrology book (The Tao of Astrology) while he played with apps on his I-pad. I used to take him to coffee shops to do homeschooling while I wrote, but as he got older he got bored quicker and always wanted to go. But now that he had an I-pad and needed an internet connection, he craved time at the coffee shop too! This was an excellent turn of fortune, because we were going to be hanging at internet cafes a lot on our journey. He is heading into ninth grade and wants to start studying Geometry, so we found a cool book for high school geometry called Geometry Demystified. He will also be helping me play test our new Role-playing game, practicing his music with the clarinet, and reading lots and lots of books. This kid tears through 700 page novels in three days! Thank the Jupiter-Uranus conjunction in the heavens for the invention of the I-pad. This device is changing the world! I read that some schools are doing away with text books entirely and buying the kids I-pads.

The next day we rode the 120 bus up to Seattle's vibrant downtown area and explored. We left our bikes at home and got a ride to the bus terminal from Kriss who offered to come and pick us up whenever we returned. She was so kind to us on all levels. Arian had never been in a metropolis before (if you don't count Charlotte NC) and was amazed by the sheer size and intensity of the city. We passed the Mariners stadium and the Seahawks stadium on the way into town. Then we got off the bus and went down to the Pike Place Market to witness the old tossing of the fish. We found a cool novelty game store on the lower levels of the market and felt at home there. We also took some pics in front of the first ever Starbucks store across the street and got to hear live acapella African-American singers working the "lean on me, when you need a friend" tune. Then we marched over to the Seattle Center and checked out the Space Needle from below (we decided it was to expensive at $18 per person to actually go up to the top). Instead we found this amazing fountain area where lots of locals like to hang. The fountain sprays many jets (powered in sync with music) of water all over a huge crater-like area from a central alien dome where the children frolic in the water and mists. We laid in the sun and enjoyed peaches that we bought at the market. Eventually we made our way back to town to catch the bus, but spent about three hours at a Starbucks being creative. In the end we made it back to Kriss's happy and ready to play some games with Jon and enjoy her delicious cooking!

The days went by in peace and Arian told me he was ready to ride. His Swiss Army knife with a hundred extensions came in the mail and he felt complete. So we decided to leave the day after the next full day, just so we were sure he was at full strength and so we could enjoy more time with our hosts. Eventually, Saturday September 4th rolled around and we woke up ready to ride! We decided we would avoid the chaos and danger of the Seattle traffic by putting our bikes on the front of the 120 bus, which dropped us off about three blocks from the Ferry terminal. Our goal was to just ride 20 miles the first day, to allow him time to get used to riding. In addition, my brother Marc was visiting his wife's parents in Silverdale Washington, just up the road from Bremerton, where the Ferry went to. So we took the ferry to Bremerton and rode up to Silverdale. On the Ferry we met a really cool and courageous 22-year old gypsy woman who had decided to backpack around the world by hitchhiking and camping. She shared jalapeno hummus and organic chips with us and I gave her a mini reading of her chart. She was an Aries with a Leo Moon and Virgo rising. Her name was Emily and I took a picture of her and uploaded it to Facebook. I had a feeling I would be encountering her again and teaching her about astrology.

When we got to Bremerton the people were in full swing celebration mode with live music and vendors lining the streets and everything. We later found out that it was called the Blackberry festival. I fondly remembered the blackberries at the Aquarius castle! Arian did a great job keeping up with me and riding his bike up and down hills with no accidents. I could tell he was being extra careful at times and told him a little fear was wise and healthy especially after wrecking once. He just needed to remember which brake was which. It would cost us $25 bucks to switch them back at a bike store so he decided to just rewire his brain. He was a little unnerved by the traffic while crossing a bridge, but did great! He's a little natural on a bike, pounding the pedals from a standing position when the hills got to steep. Unfortunately, the last hill we climbed was the steepest hill I had ever encountered in my 2000 miles. My legs are wired for it now, and without my backpack, I just cruised right up it. But I decided to stop every once in a while to make Arian drink water and eat a clif bar or a handful of cashews and coach him on the finer points of riding up hills. I told him the trick of picking a point in the distance and just try to get to that point instead of focusing on the distant impossible apex. I told him, "When you reach your target destination, just pretend the landmark that you chose goes wild with celebration and maybe even bends over toward you and smacks you on the butt!" He liked that and we spent the rest of the hill roleplaying out loud the obnoxious celebrations of our targets and pretending to be smacked on the butt! Suddenly we looked up and there was the house we were trying to get to, and we found my brother in the back yard restoring a deck with two other guys, one in the family and the other an army buddy.

It was great seeing Marc again. He spent 20 years in service to our country as a demolitions expert. He's a Capricorn with a Leo Ascendant and a Pisces Moon and he loves cycling and adventure sports. He has always taken time off every year to go climb mountains like Kilimanjaro, Ayers, McKinley, etc. He thrives on adrenal charged sports like snowboarding, cycling, etc. He once got blown up in a bomb suit while trying to defuse a bomb in Afghanistan and when they saw him fly through the air and land with a thud his fellow soldiers thought he was dead. Instead, he jumped up and was so excited that he wanted to do it again. This love of excitement kinda runs strong in our family. Even Arian can't seem to sit still without rubbing his feet together. This kid is always moving in some fashion. I'm the same way. Marc wanted to attempt to climb Mount Rainier while in Washington state.

The back yard had an immense flat grassy area, enough for about 25 tents, and I let Arian pick out a spot and I guided him through the stages of setting up the tent. It was easy for him because he helped me disassemble our portable home that morning. He decided to take all of our panniers and place them in a line down the middle of the tent making a wall, and then he set up both of our sleeping areas on each side of the Great Wall of Panniers, with our Thermarest sleeping matts rolled out on either side.

The great thing about Arian is that we laugh incessantly when we are together. We are always making up stupid and brilliant jokes and laughing our heads off till we are on the floor pounding until we cry. That's just how our life has always been. He wrote one poem in the dark scribbled onto paper during a laughing fit at age 7 called Laughter you can read on his site here. And he loves learning things with a passion. He learned every symbol in astrology and something intelligent about each on by the age of 13 months. He was doing reiki by age two and building skyscrapers on his Tonka Construction video game for the computer. I still remember his first words in Key West when he learned to say "button" and "Moon" although he pronounced them BA-OOM and BOON. I remember at 7 months of age before he could even walk at nine months, when we were laying out under the stars on a pier that extended about a football field into the Atlantic Ocean in Key West, when I looked up to the heavens and pointed and said to him, "Stars". My little Capricorn baby next to me on his back just lifted his fingers and pointed to them and repeated me saying "Stars" That was so cool! Just imagining a baby's consciousness in full realization of a sky full of bright little points of light called stars. When he started asking me all these brilliant questions it got even cooler being a dad. One night we were looking at a star map when he was 4 and he asked, "How come some stars are little and some are big Dad? Are some of them farther away?" Now we get to ride our bikes to San Francisco down the Pacific Coast Highway, one of the best cycling tours in the world, with the wind at our backs! Hopefully the brave readers of this blog will order some charts or make a donation to keep us going. The third leg of this mighty quest has begun!

Also, if you are into learning astrology with me through my video courses I offer the first three courses on Houses, Signs, and Planets free on the web, plus an extensive FREE Course manual! Just follow the link below. You can watch the first 3 classes (with over 8 hours of video instruction) free and then order subsequent classes for $20 each. You make your purchase online and then I'll email you a private link to the class. You can also elect to buy the FULL course and gain access to all the classes!

Tao of Astrology Video Course

In addition, I'm offering a special Astrology Chart Interpretation to readers of this blog!

Normally my services (backed by 25 years experience) cost $195 for an Explore Your Birth Vision chart Interpretation or Seasons of the Soul update chart. Readers of this blog can make a donation of at least $25 and I will do an inspiring chart interpretation for you! The length of the interpretation will be proportional to your donation, but I will guarantee at least 30 minutes no matter what and you'll probably get more time because once my archetypal oracular window opens, I just can't stop talking about a chart. There so much vital information! Why am I offering this to you? Some people can't afford my full professional fee, especially during these trying economic times and I need to generate funds to feed Arian and the occasional campground fee and bike repair. So it's a win win situation. You can get started now with the special donation button below.

Traveling Magi Chart Interpretation Special

Small Ways to Make a Big Difference

2010-08-25T14:55:00.000-07:00

Raam Dev

Hello everyone! I've been enjoying some R&R in Burien Washington, a suburb of Seattle, waiting for my son Arian to arrive on the plane so he can join the adventure. I managed to find him a cool TREK bike, similar to mine, on Craigslist and the guy who was selling it delivered it to me at Araya's Vegetarian Thai restaurant in the University District, how cool is that? Astrologer Kriss Shellman and I have been hanging out having amazing conversations and cooking great food shared with her craftsman husband Jon. I've been working on getting caught up on charts at local coffee and tea shops.

Anyway, while I was enjoying some down time I wanted to tell you about my friend Ram Dev, a fellow seeker and traveler, who sold everything and went off to India, Thailand, and Nepal on his own unique journey of locational independence. I met him online when I was preparing for my own spiritual quest and he was traveling in India and having some amazing experiences. At one point he had encountered so much suffering, like a mother who lived with her children on a sidewalk and the whole family spent the day begging, that his heart was moved to do something about it, to improve the world in some small way. He eventually contacted all his fellow web/blog peeps and asked the one's he respected to write three things we do everyday that helps to improve the world or add quality to our lives. He also asked us to forward the request to other spiritual folks who might like to participate, and so I sent it to my good friend Peter Roth, the astrologer, web designer, computer programmer, and chi gung healer from Seattle. So Peter and I both sent contributions to the FREE e-book entitled Small Ways to Make a Big Difference, organized by Raam Dev and authored by people who care. I'm proud to be in the same book with my spiritual brother Peter, Raam Dev, as well as all these great contributors.

In the end, Raam spent three painstaking but amazing weeks in a cafe in Asia putting together our collective responses and now you can download it for free right here! Enjoy the heck out of it!

The Emerald City & Castle Aquarius

2010-08-20T12:53:00.001-07:00

Leavenworth

I rolled into Leavenworth (the town in Washington and not the prison) at around 5 PM after hustling up Highway 2 from Wenatchee WA. It was 90 degrees or more and I was sweating waterfalls and the only thing I could do was pull into a diner along the way and order an iced water, iced tea, and an iced lemonade, some garlic fries, and some onion rings. I was thirsting and starving and felt like I was dying inside. The Moon in Scorpio sign of death and rebirth wasn't helping! My friend and spiritual brother from Seattle who was living in Colorado now instant messaged me on my Droid over Skype as I was sitting there and I confided in him how I felt. I told him that I had thought of running my bike in front of a diesel to see if death felt any better than the relentless heat and pain of the ride! He comforted me and said that I was exploring a new way of being in the world, as he was, and that there would be times of testing to see if we were committed to the path ahead. He said I'd have to demonstrate more faith in the universe than ever before. He said that it felt like I would have to live more spontaneous than ever before to continue on this trek. It all felt very ominous but potent. After his bold but true encouragement and several free refills of iced tea and lemonade, I went out to jump on Magellan to continue my trek towards the Bavarian-themed town, but Magellan's back tire had a slow leak and was almost flat!

Luckily there was a gas station right next to the diner with free air! So I filled up the back tire and it held. Wondering what had cause the slow leak, I hoped I could make it to Leavenworth without a blowout. On the way, things got worse as I heard a back spoke snap, one of my tough new spokes that I had totally replaced in Missoula! This was not good. I didn't know if they even had a bike shop in Leavenworth and it was a long way through the Cascades to Seattle beyond, over 100 miles uphill. The tire held the air but it began to wobble and I rolled into Leavenworth and opened my intuition to seek a bike shop, glancing down side streets populated with Bavarian style buildings. It was a cute little town but had the smell of an over-priced tourist town that didn't cater to backpackers or cyclists. When I passed 12th street, something told me to stop so I did. I stood there on the side of the road straddling Magellan arguing with my intuition. I said, "The town is over that next hill," and I heard back from within, "But you just passed it!" I was like, "passed what?" So I powered up the droid and checked the GPS for bike shops. Turns out that the bike shop in town was a block to my left down the street I had just passed about ten feet ago! My intuition was razor sharp! My ego was dense...

The bike shop was called Das Rad Haus, and it was the dubbed the best bike shop in the entire Cascade region! The two workers there had Magellan's new spoke installed and ready to roll within a half hour and only charge me $15 bucks. Quick and effective service that's economical. Way to go! They even told me about a great campsite about 9 miles out of town along my route! Then I made way into the little Bavarian town center to see hundreds of tourists walking around exploring the mecca of zaniness. A lot of people were staring at me walking Magellan through the cobblestone streets as if I were the attraction. I did look like a fierce futuristic warrior in my salt-laden shirt, alien bike helmet, strange padded bike shorts, and pushing along my loaded mechanical steed with sweat pouring down my legs in streams. I quickly ducked into a Bavarian Starbucks and hooked up to cyberspace to write a blog post, the previous one. By the time I finished writing about my adventure back across the US border, I looked up and realized that the Sun was quickly fading. I might not make it to the campsite before nightfall...

I gathered my things quickly and headed out of town, only to realize that my slow leak had been leaking the whole time and was down to half a tire full of air which made the bike wobble strangely. I tried to air it up with my little pump and got it functional, but it still felt strange. But I had no time to spare if I was to make it to that campsite nine miles up the 2. However on my way west I passed a hotel with a large Knight statue outside that I knew my kid would love to see! So I turned around and crossed the street and took the picture you see above. That's for you Arian! Then I turned my bike toward the canyon and raced the setting sun once again. But this time the Sun won the night!

I got about five miles down the road with no light (my back light was stolen in Nelson and my front light was solar powered and not charged!), so I broke out my camping headlamp and stretched it's band over my bike helmet and hoped the cars behind me saw the intense bright reflectors on my panniers. Eventually it got so dark in that beautiful canyon that I started scanning the sidelines for a campsite next to the raging river. It reminded me of Boulder Canyon and I felt serene and at home despite the accompanying panic. My emotions were like a symphony inside raging between ecstasy and fury. I had wanted to do some stealth camping in the campground but decided against it since it felt awkward to try and hide the fact that I was camping in an actual campground. Who does that?

But this night I would have to attempt it, because it was getting too dangerous to stay on that road with cars whizzing by around hair pin turns in the darkness. The moon was in the last degree of covert Scorpio void of course and was traversing my 12th house of secrets, so I decided then and there that this was the perfect astrological alignment for stealth camping, especially since the void moon would signify that nothing would come of it, as I didn't want anything to come of it, like local rangers discovering me in the National Forest and giving me a ticket or sending me packing. I finally saw the perfect spot, a roadside turn off with a trail leading to a little campsite. There were no signs that indicated no overnight camping was enforced, but just in case, I went deeper into the woods where I could hear the river stronger than the traffic and hid my bike behind two great rocks. Then I set my tent up in the shadows under a creepy but huge pine tree. At that point I was more worried about what kind of bugs would be trying to infiltrate my fabric fortress than the authorities. After setting up my tent poles wrong due to hurrying, I had to reset up the tent, and finally got it right. I took a deep breath and calmed my mind, listening to the river. I tossed all my panniers and backpack into the dark hole and climbed in after them after I locked Magellan to a nearby tree.

Once I was in my little hidden shelter I felt safe. I opened up my droid and used the Tropical Skies astrology app to check the position of the Scorpio Moon. It was at 29 degrees and 16 minutes of arc. I knew if I went undiscovered until the Moon transitioned into Sagittarius that I'd be fine for some reason. Maybe my Jupiterian luck would kick in. So I kept waiting and watching the Moon get closer and closer, listening to the river and calming my mind amidst the buzzing insects. Eventually around 11 PM, the Moon entered Sag and an overwhelming feeling of relief saturated my being and I drifted into a peaceful sleep, even though the ground was uneven and there was a rock poking into my back through the tent and thermarest matt. I used it to massage my sore spots. When life gives you rocks, make rock massages!

The next morning I woke up feeling sore but refreshed and the insects had stopped buzzing. I guess they enjoyed sleeping during the day. I got out of the tent to check on Magellan and the back tire was totally flat. I rolled him out of the woods to a flat area near the road and turned him over for a quick roadside operation. It was much easier to change a flat when you were confident of what to do! Once I got the tire as full as I could get it with my little portable pump, I loaded up the campsite into the panniers, and started my long journey to Seattle over the Cascades. It was at least 30 arduous miles to the top of the pass over Highway 2 called Steven's Pass, but I'd rather have the stiff incline at the beginning of the day anyway when the legs are fresh. So I embraced the ride and enjoyed the majestic scenery, keeping a sharp eye open for a gas station with an air pump to get my tire full. A fellow cyclist named Russ pulled up beside me and we talked for about ten minutes and he heard my story. He was staying in Leavenworth with his wife and doing the Lake Wenatchee Loop back around the the Bavarian town. Then he sped ahead and bid me farewell. I told him about my tire situation and that it felt kind of unusually wobbly.

The next thing you know, several miles down the road, he was waiting at a gas station in the middle of nowhere about to turn down the loop road. He assisted me with examining my tire and saw that I had not pushed the stem up to get the tire into the groove and showed me how to do it right so I didn't blow out my tire! Thanks Russ. He took a picture of me by the free air sign and then departed. I went into the store to fill up my water but the lady there said it had foul tasting sulfur in it! So I bought a couple of large Gatorades instead, thinking I might need them to make the pass. Late I would wish I had bought three!

The pass was easy at first making gradual ascents toward the apex. I mocked the pass for it's easy incline, laughing and saying "You're not much of a pass now are you?" I knew I would soon be eating my words, but laughed about it. But the heat was blazing down at 95 degrees and I was leaving a river of sweat in my wake. I went through both my water bottles and both Gatorades and then came across a sign that said, "Grade Steepens Ahead." That's not what anybody wants to know after just running out of water. But according to the maps and the lady back at the gas station, the apex had to be within the next five miles, so I didn't panic. I just pushed ahead hoping for a rest area with water at the top! After many grueling moments of fighting the slopes and enjoying the scenery, I finally reached the end of the line and saw a construction crew building a great stone road over the pass. I pulled into a garage where they stored tools and asked if they had any water. The foreman took me to the back where they had this great pipe with a valve and he turned the valve and invited me to take as much of the sparkling pure spring water that I could carry! Thank you Poseidon! First I downed enough water bottles full of the delicious liquid to make my stomach act like it was going to pop, and then filled my three liter camel back and topped the water bottles off, feeling grateful. I shook the worker's hands and told them about my epic journey and they were indeed impressed. They told me it was all downhill from here and I responded with something like, "I'll believe it when I experience it!" They all laughed at my exhausted self. But I mounted my faithful repaired steed and went charging through the underpass into one of the most dramatic descents of my entire journey.

I could have easily broken my speed record of 46 MPH set in Wyoming had I not been utterly terrified of the angle of the descent. I kept puling on the brakes. I couldn't give Magellan his head of steam for fear of losing control and tumbling over one of those treacherous mountain ledges. I was tired and I wasn't feeling too courageous, so I just sucked on my spring water and took it as steady as I could for a good 13 miles of bliss, enjoying every bit of scenery and even stoping to take some amazing pics, which I uploaded to Facebook to receive breathtaking comments. The Cascades were amazing, marvelous, effervescent in their beauty, giving the Tetons a challenge, but eventually I got tired of seeing yet another group of mountains ahead of me in the distance. I began wondering if the range would ever end. It just went on and on as if someone was playing paint by mountain along my path. I tried to remember what the Cascades looked like from Seattle when I had last visited but could not form a grand vision of them in my mind's eye. They just seemed distant and far away, not so grand and spectacular as they actually were.

As the day wore on and the Sun approached the Western horizon, the mountains finally did give way to the plains and many little towns enticed me to stop and have a rest break, but I refused. If I was going to make it the full 103 miles to Redmond, I had to keep pedaling even through my rear war chapped, my legs were burning, my vision was blurring into twilight, and I didn't know which route to take from a town called Monroe. I did finally stop to have a wild berry smoothie at McDonald's of all places and was able to charge my devices. It seemed appropriate that my devices were all down to 1 % energy, which is how my internal battery felt. But I knew I had two hours of riding to go, and the day was failing. I decided to go south through a town called Duvall which would route me into Redmond from the east instead of trying to go down the busy 522, which I had heard was a nightmare for bikes. The route south promised a nice bike path and everything. But the Google maps didn't tell me how steep the final hill would be over Novelty Hill road nor that the bike path was unpaved and rough and that I couldn't really trust it. I rode along harder and harder not knowing where I would even stay in the busy suburb of Seattle. I would be hard pressed to find a campground and the only two people I knew in Redmond, astrologers Jeff Jawer and Rick Levine, were both overwhelmed with their writing project to host me. They were staying up till 5 AM editing and writing and talking on the phone with editors and there was no way they could take any time off for me. I respected that but I stubbornly persisted toward Redmond determined to check out this possible location for settling that ALisha said was amazing and full of good energy.

At first I felt resentful that my two friends couldn't even give me a yard to camp in, but one of them didn't have a yard and the other just moved into a new place and was hosting his 21 year old daughter, so I just resigned myself to whatever happened. But still, if any astrologer was within a hundred miles of my home and heading toward me I would prepare to treat them like a visiting royalty offering them a delicious stir fry, a hot shower, and a wonderful and comfy place to stay. I just knew I had to make it to Redmond by nightfall, even if I ended up on the streets with the bums staying up all night exploring the town. I was prepared to do that. My spiritual Brother Peter and I had said, "You'd have to live with even more faith and trust in the universe than you ever had before and more spontaneous than ever before."

Just when I thought of that, I saw one of those roadsigns along the 203 toward Duvall that said, "Please don't drink and drive!" and it had the name of someone who had died there named Angela. I didn't catch the last name as I sped by, but the name Angela hit me deeply. I have a spiritual sister named Angela who prays for me and loves me deeply and I said a prayer to this Angela, tapping into the Underworld of the dead in the process. I closed my eyes quickly and reached into the depths with my consciousness to contact her soul. I said, " Hello Angela. I know you're dead and all, and I too scorn alcoholism as my dad drank way too much when I grew up and it pained me deeply to have to fight with him and watch him destroy himself with his addiction, but I'm sure you can help me. I know you've haunted this region and was wondering if there was anywhere I could stay for the night that would be safe and guard my soul as I enjoyed the city of Redmond?"

I don't know if I was delirious and imagining having a one-sdied conversation with the dead or just desperate, but I prayed to the dead for guidance hoping her soul would guide me to the right spot, even if it was a secluded corner of a park where I could do some more Stealth camping. But with the Moon in grand and inspirational Sagittarius crossing my planets of spiritual fortune and initiation, I knew something cool would happened when I reached Redmond. I just had to stay open and watch for the signs. There had to be a reason Alisha wanted me to come here, and I was destined to find it. I turned onto Novelty Hill Road and was instantly dismayed by the intense slope of the road. Exhausted, dirty, and discouraged I had to get off Magellan and slowly push him up the most intense hill I'd experienced, with cars whizzing by like I was a mere nuisance to their passage. Where were all these people hurrying to, I wondered? I guess I was in a hurry too, but not able to go that fast. I had to sit with my every emotion at this pace and watch beads of sweat drip off my helmet down into my glasses blurring my vision and then onto the ground.

I have to admit that I was scared. I didn't know where I would sleep and I was entering a dangerous metropolis. This was no Wisdom, Wyoming where you could pitch a tent in the middle of nowhere. This was a giant sprawling city of apartment complexes and plazas full of people hungry for deeper living and I had powerful realizations for those who were open to hearing about planetary cycles and the magic of astrology. In all my travels on the bike I had not experienced the intensity of that kind of crazy traffic except maybe along the Interstate in Wyoming. But then I had a nice wide shoulder to navigate. Now I had a few feet and maybe a bike lane. I was grateful that there was at least a bike lane on some roads.

I finally reached the road called Avondale, and it had a mythic vibration. Avondale. It sounded like a fantasy novel name of a kingdom. I began to meditate on its vibe as the Sun went down and the darkness of the city encroached about me, forcing me to draw my camp light and stretch its band over my bike helmet again. So there I was alone in a faraway metropolis, haunted by shadows, beaming a tiny light into the darkness, with Magellan faithfully cutting a path through the unknown night, praying to the dead for guidance. I thought of the statue of the Knight back in Leavenworth and tried to summon my warrior's courage. I thought of my first principle: Something will always happen next...and continued pedaling through mad traffic. I must have looked like a medieval knight on a stallion with my helmet and head lamp looking like a visor. People were staring at me through car windows like I was the novelty and I was staring back at them like they were strange beings trapped in mettle prisons spewing deadly gases out the aft. Who was the true weirdo here? Of course I knew I was the strange one, the one who followed the road less traveled, the one who walked in faith amidst the deepening shadows. Maybe this is where I would die, out here in this terrible night, pillaged by urban brigands when I finally collapsed from exhaustion in some dark alley.

Then my intuition kicked in and screamed in my head, "Pay Attention!" I looked around and saw that I was passing a restaurant called Angel Thai, and immediately thought of Angela, the dead spirit as well as my spiritual sister in North Carolina. Angel Thai indeed, as I turned my bike into their parking lot and pulled up to tie up my horse and walk inside. There was not a soul in the restaurant and I assumed it was closed, but then a little Oriental lady came scurrying out of the back room surprised to see me.

"Are you closed?"

"Oh no, not closed, we mostly do take out at night?"

I doubted that. I knew I was a mile away from the Redmond town center and if this place was any good, it would be loaded with people. It must not be that good, I thought. But I was hungering with a fierceness and my stomach would translate anything to delicious at its current level of deprivation. So I plopped down and plugged in my devices at Angel Thai, hoping for the guidance of angels. It was 9 PM and the night outside threatened to swallow me. So I called Rick Levine, my fellow astrology brother, a Magi himself, often going by the name Merlin. I said, "Hello fellow Magi, Rick Merlin Levine, I know you are busy and I don't want to disturb your important writing deadlines, but I just arrived in Redmond and I don't know a soul and I was wondering if you at least knew anywhere I could stay?"

He responded with a disgruntled but amazed, "Kelly you are so lucky indeed. If you would have called 20 minutes ago or 20 minutes from now I wouldn't have answered the phone. I've got a three hour session with my editor coming up, where are you?"
I told him Angel Thai. And he said he was hungry and would be right down.

He showed up right when my Mussaman Curry arrived and he sat across from me watching me devour my food. He laughed when he saw my Droid phone, I-pad and Macbook Pro all sitting there being nourished by electricity. We both share a love for technological gadgets as my Gemini Moon sits right on his Gemini Ascendant. I must have looked like hell other than being in really good shape. In a few moments they brought his Panang Curry with Shrimp and he wondered out loud what he would do with me. He was Merlin. I knew he could work some magic. He had to know somewhere or someone that would host me for one bitter night. After eating, he picked up his phone and made a call to his good friend Chas, short for Charles Finkelstein, a fellow lover of astrology and sacred geometry who had apparently built a castle based on the principles of the Golden mean ratio up on a hill overlooking Redmond on five wooded acres of land. Merlin asked if he would host a fellow World Class Astrologer, allowing me to pitch my tent on his land. After verifying that I was sane and safe to be around his two children of 14 and 12, he agreed and gave me the directions to the castle.

After hanging up the phone and writing the directions down I looked up and said, "Is this guy for real?"

Rick smiled slyly across the table, and said, "You'll be in good hands tonight Kelly. You'll both do some good for each other." He repeated the directions adding some landmarks and said to definitely take the first road because it was less of a hill. He told me the dog's name was Raven, and to call him by name to calm him if he charged at me down the long driveway. He bid me farewell and said that Charles and I would hit it off magnificently, and then disappeared to write as quickly as he had appeared. A true Merlin to the core.

I stumbled out of my chair and gathered my things and loaded Magellan for one final five mile journey north to this enigmatic house built like a castle on a hill to the north. I rode the bike through the river of traffic back the way I had come, crossing over Novelty Hill road again but this time veering north instead. After many arduous moments my sore body pedaled my exhausted self full of warm spicy Thai food toward the castle. I had reached the outskirts of the Emerald City of Seattle and was now searching for a castle on a hill in the darkness. How much more mythical could it get? I thanked the Spirit of Angela for the perfect connection and thanked Rick again in my heart. He had indeed redeemed himself in my eyes as a noble and caring wizard.

When I got to the road that lead to the castle it rose into the night and disappeared into the shadows. It was steeper than Novelty Hill road and it winded up into the trees forever. I had to push Magellan slowly but steadily toward the heights where I finally found the road that supposedly lead to this mythic structure. I got back on the bike, but eventually had to get off again. After over 103 miles, I probably broke my old record set in Montana of 107.21 miles, but I didn't know for sure. I was too weary to puzzle it out and do the math and too tired to even try, so I just placed one foot in front of the other and trudged upward. Eventually I found the rock wall that "Merlin" had warned me about and turned into the secretive driveway and continued up the dirt road where I could see a large house rising up through the trees with towers like a castle. A tall man walked out the front door to greet me with his dog Raven at his side. He had broad shoulders and was taller than myself.

We introduced ourselves and he observed me cautiously, sizing me up to see if I was dangerous or crazy or whatever. He apparently decided that I was cool, and we walked around the lot looking for a nice place to pitch a tent and got talking about astrology, life, the universe, and my quest. After about ten minutes he decided I was worthy enough to be invited into the actual castle and we parked Magellan in the garage across the way. I gathered my things and followed him on a tour around the house first. It turns out that the house was blessed by the Zodiac. He and his queen were both born 8 days apart in 1962 when a cluster of planets were aligned in Aquarius. Those were the babies that would give birth to the Internet in their lives ushering in the Age of Information, and Charles himself had helped it become a reality. He was a chief Executive at Microsoft and made his fortune in the world of computers. He and his wife had joined forces back in 1992 with the intention of helping bring in the rising tide of the Aquarian Age through communications. They had met at a new Science ideas conference over a conversation and a book about astrology. I was in the perfect place! I felt an uncanny sense of home here.

We came back around to the front door and he asked if I noticed anything out of the ordinary. I got closer and saw a huge design of a mystical woman pouring water out of an urn and the symbol of Aquarius was etched below her: It was Aquarius engraved into the archway leading into the great door of the castle! So damn awesome! Then we continued around the castle where we came to Scorpio then Leo and then back around to the garage where Taurus shined above the road that separated the detached garage from the house. The moon gleamed through the distant trees in the sign of Sagittarius. The smile on my face was obvious. They had built the symbols of the four living creatures before the throne of God from Ezekiel's vision in the Bible, the Lion, the Bull, the Eagle, and The Man (in this case they chose a woman to symbolize humanity). I made comments on each of the signs and Charles began to realize the depth of my astrological vision, and invited me into the house, explaining that the entire structure, every room was built in line with the principles of the Golden Mean and the Fibonacci sequence. I thanked Eternal Being that there were still conscious people on the planet that put the spiritual teachings of the ancients into practice and life.

After a tour of the house, Lauren the High Priestess healer/hypnotherapist came home and we all stayed up late talking about astrology. They were both pushing fifty but looked in great health. Lauren had a face of vision draped with beautiful blonde hair and she gleamed like a princess in her dramatic dress and high heels. She was popular in the community for organizing conscious groups and women's groups, and artist groups. I had easily managed a third or fourth or even fifth wind given the amazing synchronicity that unfolded before me. Charles led me to a guest chamber that was above the entrance in the Aquarian wing of the castle and I was overjoyed to see a king-sized bed with zodiac constellations patterned over its starry blue surface. I would sleep amongst the stars this night.

Turns out that I spent several nights there and Charles and I bonded quickly. We were both defensive linemen in high school, physics and math nerds, and astrology enthusiasts devoted to bringing in the Aquarian age. His wife Lauren had 6 planets in Aquarius while he had five, and they were both Virgo Rising, wearing the mask of the sacred humble healer and servant, alive with technical and ritual precision. And they both had watery moons. Their two children were home for summer and busy doing what most modern teens do: watching TV, surfing the net, or texting their friends. They didn't pay too much attention to our amazing conversations, but the children are always listening in the wings. Charles escorted me into the dungeon where he had a weight room set up with exercise machines and all, and he showed me his cycling bikes. I longed for an upper body work out after two months of focusing on the lower body. My legs were like rocks and my waist was thin, so I didn't need any exercise, but the weights were music to my arm muscles. He had a scale and after weighing myself three times, I was 247 pounds, the lowest I've weighed this century! When I left Christina in North Carolina I had bulked up to 294. After returning to my homeland in Boulder and hitting the gym everyday, I got down to 268. Now after my sweaty quest, I was down to 247! I could easily make it down to 230 if I continued down the 101 with Arian and reclaim my true body. I did a handstand in the weight room and held it tight and then leaned over to stand on one hand for a moment. Then I did the splits. Charles was amazed and I was too! He was inspired to get in shape and reclaim his life too.

We talked about the astrological alignments that were creating such great transformation in the world and about how we were dealing with it in our lives. When Lauren, his wife, came home she invited us into the sacred tower at the top of the castle and it was decked out with a rare astrology rug and we sat in a circle and drew Tarot cards and astrology cards. I drew Venus in Capricorn in the 9th house symbolizing the need to love and make commitments in love while on a journey, and that was exactly what I was experiencing by contemplating moving to Redmond with ALisha. I told them that I was going to possibly move there and they said they built this castle to host workshops and metaphysical events and told me the guest list of all the amazing people who had spoken there or stayed there over the years. I was wowed, and honored that they were open to me teaching there. I mean it seemed perfect, the three of us Aquarians sitting in the circle in the magic tower of Castle Aquarius. I thought of the dead spirit I had prayed too, and imagined her laughing in the underworld in glee for this connection. I thanked her in my heart silently and looked at my two hosts.

I told them I had come to Redmond to scout it our to see if I wanted to live there for a time with ALisha, and Charles offered to drive me around on a tour of the area with the kids. Lauren had to do a healing session, so we told her we would meet her later for a home-cooked dinner. Charles drove us down to the town center and they took me by all the cool coffee shops and showed me where the Thai restaurants were at. We even ran into Rick Merlin at the coffee shop where he and Jeff do their monthly stand-up astrological forecast. Then we went to a park and hiked through the woods on mystical fantasy trails. Redmond seemed like an acceptable place for my spirit to reside for a time. The Castle had a separate apartment that they rented for $750 a month but it was already occupied by a healer woman tenant. I could imagine living there with Alisha and doing a weekly astrology workshop in the grand hall of the castle and Arian practicing archery with their prince and Ammalia dancing with their little princess. That would be amazing indeed. We could all hang out and cook delicious food and Charles and I could run up hills and work out in the dungeon!

His son, the prince, reminded me of Arian, and he showed me around the yard and we talked about video games and fantasy weaponry. He hacked away the thorny limbs of the blackberry bushes with a machete so I could get at the blackberries. Then he took me by the apple tree, the plum tree, the pear tree, and more blackberries. By the end of our sojourn through their yard I was completely full of fresh fruit right off the vine, a vegan dream. His daughter, the princess of the castle, was into anime dolls and artistic expression and felt so attuned to the character Kira, the druid Gelfling form the Dark Crystal, that she wanted to change her name. They were very interesting kids with larger than life imaginations and dreams, and of course they fought like all siblings but with more noble fierceness because they both had Mars conjunct there sun signs!

But alas I had to end our connection because I had told my astrological mom, Kriss Shellman, who was hosting me in Burien Seattle to the south by the airport, that I would be there soon. Charles told me it was very dangerous riding a bike all the way south and would take three hours or more so he offered to give me and Magellan a ride in the family van, a red carriage he had bought for his queen the day their princess was born. After all these years it was still in great shape. But the next morning I woke up feeling like I needed to finish the last leg of the journey like I started it, riding my bike the whole way. They agreed and sent me on my merry way. I rode back down past Angel Thai and went to the town center again where there was this large circular arena-like area covered in shops, and just as I sat in a cozy chair to down a soy chai, Charles texted me and informed me that I had forgotten my charger for the I-pad in the guest room. I was disappointed in my lapse in discipline and forced myself to ride all the way back up the hill to the castle to retrieve it. This time I pedaled up the hill and sweated intensely. When I got there, Lauren and Charles and I sat down to lunch and began talking and the afternoon rolled by. Before I knew it, it was 4 o'clock and I had told my host in Burien that I would be there by 5 PM. So I asked Charles if that ride was still available and he wholeheartedly and enthusiastically saddled up the crimson carriage and drove me south to help me continue my journey. I told him that our paths would cross again and thanked him and Lauren for their incredible hospitality. They thanked me for sharing lots of astrological insights about them and their children and Lauren said I was one of the most brilliant astrologers in the world. I bowed my head and told her that my chart made it so, with my Grand Air Trine to Uranus on the Midheaven. I must have studied voraciously in past lives.

After assuring himself that my host was legitimate in Burien, Charles bid us farewell to attend a dinner party with his queen, and I got to meet another Magi who reminded me and treated me like my own mother. Kriss Shellman had two sons about my age, and she had been reading my blog and rooting for my spiritual journey form afar. I had met her briefly in 2003 when I had traveled to Seattle to speak for their astrology group, but that was long ago. Little did she know, that I would one day be staying at her place in Seattle! Kriss was a true Aries Moon with Cancer Rising, but also a fellow Aquarian and a professional astrologer like myself. She showed me through her garden where there was a perfect place for my tent, and she let me park Magellan in the covered garage in the backyard. After I set my tent up realizing that my son Arian would soon be joining this magical quest, in this very yard, we went to the kitchen and began cooking a marvelous meal together. I even learned some tips form the old professional Cancerian cook like how to use a paintbrush to paint olive oil over garlic bread. I made a veggie stir fry and she cooked some exquisite brown rice mixed with veggies. We also had lush cantaloupe and delicious pink lemonade! Her granddaughter was visiting and they were also busy with a craft project in the living room designing a Wizard's Chest, which was being built from the specs in a book of magical crafts. They had just come from Michaels to gather their creative materials. I knew I was among fellow Magi again!

Her husband named Jon (Just like my dad) came home form his metal-smithing and enjoyed a wonderful dinner with her granddaughter, his wife, and the Traveling Magi. He had read my blog too and knew my story and laughed with me about certain events that had transpired. He also had many stories and I really liked him as a kindred spirit. Turns out he has Sagittarius Rising (like myself) with Jupiter in Sag in the first house (Mine is in Sag but in the 12th house of dreams). And I respected him as a craftsman married to a Magi. Burien had a more industrial feel than Redmond, and it looked like many people there practiced a trade of some kind.

You could hear airplanes flying into Seatac and grew excited awaiting Arian's arrival. That night in my tent I logged onto Craigslist and began my search for a tour bike for Arian. I needed to find a used one that would carry him down the Pacific Coast 101 route to the City of the Golden Arches, San Francisco. Mercury was going retrograde in Virgo in my 9th house of Journeys and I had gained a respite form my quest for a time while I rested and recharged my soul. I longed to work on my astrology book called the Tao of Astrology that I've been laboring over and researching for twelve years. I felt like I could write it in three weeks once I got caught up on my astrology charts for clients.

I am grateful for my astro-mom and her family and her house near the Pugit Sound. I saw the waters of the Sound when I came down her street and felt the call of the ocean that Arian and I would explore. Kriss told me to make myself completely at home and that we could come and go at will and use her house as a home base if we wanted to explore the Olympic Peninsula. That sounded deeply comforting and warm. Arian would be here in ten days. I look forward to the arrival of that musical archer healing Apollo-like son of mine. We had some high adventure and exploration ahead of us!

Moments of Perfection...

2010-08-16T17:39:00.001-07:00

Re-Entry

When I finally arrived at Christina Lake they had a campground with over 100 spots! I went by it to the next one and they charged me 30 bucks for one night with a tent, a royal rip off and insult to a cyclist. This was the most expensive campground I have ever had the pleasure of visiting. I generally try to avoid them for nature unless I'm there with other cyclists. I mean, who really has the right to charge someone to sleep on a parcel of earth. I know, I know, they gotta buy toilet paper and clean the place! But 30 bucks to pitch a tent plus more money to take a shower, plus more money to do laundry, plus more money for laundry soap. I plopped down my debit card in utter disbelief. It figures that a town called CHristina Lake would want more money out of me, given the debt that Christina, my companion for the last four years, racked up. But we're selling our house to pay it off and moving on. We once shared a dream of having a Roadtrek travel van (made in Canada) and just having this mobile lifestyle, but our relationship crashed before that happened. Now I'm leaving the most economical version of that dream possible pedaling across mountain ranges. Incidentally, an RS Roadtrek Agile van pulled up to the campground as I was leaving the next morning!

Showered and laundered I headed for the next town of Grand Forks to make my daring border crossing back to America! When I got to Grand Forks I decided to stop at a cool little cafe and have a sweet salad and chai. After charging my devices I mounted Magellan and road hard for the guards at the border. Since I had mailed a box to Canada before leaving, I had all this extra gear that I was longing to offload and send back home to be stored in my storage locker. After the polite guard welcomed me home, I made my way into Danville, a town that will not be there if you blink on a bike, and hit the post office up for a nice large box. I packed allt he extras in there and realized I had forgotten a whole box in Canada with important stuff like my backup CDs and a game Arian and I like to play called Colonization. Oops! I emailed Alisha and she said she would send it to Seattle! Thanks ALisha!

When I got back on the bike and felt a ton lighter that was my first moment of perfection...I felt like Amalie after she helps the blind man cross the street and gives him an audio tour of the city! A moment of sheer en-LIGHT-enment. I rode down the road through beautiful green country and with hardly any cars crossing the border, it was nice to hear the tranquility of the mountains and the forest, another moment of perfection without the loud rumble of engines flying by you at high speed.

I didn't know where I was headed, just to Seattle. But I noticed a lake called Curlew Lake on the map with a State Park so I made my way for that, hoping they would not ream me, since my finances were getting low, and not only did I have to make it to Seattle, I also had to figure out a bike and gear for Arian by the time he arrives on the 29th, nothing beyond my manifestation powers, but tight on the mind when you still have 300 miles to go over rugged terrain. My strong new spokes that I had installed back in Missoula were indeed doing the job, not a single broken spoke while riding through the wilds of Canada up and down some intense hills. The road that left the campground in Castlegar where I wrote my last blogpost, was rough. 33 Kilometers of uphill grind until finally I crested the apex at Paulson Pass, and began a rapid descent. I couldn't even stop for photos except for when I roared down this mountain and saw the most picturesque blue steel bridge connecting the road on my mountain to the road on the mountain far across the gorge. I was going 40 MPH toward that bridge and it was a hard right turn toward bridge which I had to break to make! I made it across the bridge without the diesel hitting me, and worried that the bridge would collapse while I was on it with the semi. Falling 3000 feet to my death with a diesel did not appeal to me, so I pedaled hard and crossed the bridge and was going slow enough to actually stop and snap a few pictures which I still need to upload to Facebook!

Anyway, when I got to the State Park at Curlew Lake, the kind ranger said it would be 14 bucks and that the cyclist/hiker camp was up at the top of the hill. Problem was, that I had just spent all my Canadian cash, and all I had was debit card, and they didn't take plastic! The guy had compassion. I said, "Well, is there anywhere in the woods I can camp up the road?" But his heart was too big to answer, and just said, "I'm not gonna send you down the road in the dark man, just go up there and camp, it's okay." Awesome! Free Camping at an amazing spot on a beautiful hill overlooking a grand lake! Take that Canada Camp grounds!

Then again I really appreciated the kindness of Canadians. Everywhere I went I found only kind people, despite having my back light stolen in Nelson. I love the Canadian accent as it sounds very British and I love that! If I was ever in need of defection, I know where I'd go now! British Columbia is amazing! And they have a leaf on their flag honoring nature. We have stars and that is cool too, but I could make my own hybrid flag with stars and leaves. In fact I think the fantasy kingdom of Meldran in my novel Brazenwood has that on their flag...

But I digress. WHile I was at the campground at Lake Curlew, people kept walking by commenting how awesome my camp site was with the view from up high of the lake. I stir fried some mushrooms and onions and Thai noodles and had a hot Chai with it that you see in the picture above. Plus I got to do some writing by hand, which was heavenly bliss. Another moment of perfection! Then that old tea bag quote from the beginning of my journey ell out onto the picnic table that said, "You must live for something higher, bigger, and better than yourself." As I was sitting there contemplating those words again two real life skunks walked right by and I kinda froze, wondering if they would spray me with their stinky stuff, but they were just chasing each other along frolicking and didn't even notice me! For a second I thought I was a bit-part in a Bugs Bunny cartoon. It was swell!

I took some pictures of the Moon in Libra conjunct Venus setting over a mountain in the West but you could barely see the Moon. Then the Sun went down and I got out of my tent where I was resting and just gazed up at the stars, opening my heart to them. Ever since I was seven, I have had a relationship with the stars, one of the defining moments of my childhood that prophesied my calling as an astrologer. As I stood there with my arms over my head embracing my brothers and sisters, the stars, I had a vision of thousands of worlds whirling about the billions of stars all swollen with life and people worrying about petty problems. It was truly a humbling moment of perfection. The sky and its cycles was who I served that was indeed higher, bigger and better. I crawled into my tent after that and my cell phone chimed that I had a message. It was from a client who I had done a chart for. He had written one of those long emails in amazement over the interpretation I had sent him by mp3, especially since it was a new client who I interpreted blind from afar without asking him any questions as usual. I trust the chart and its magical symbolism over the human heart any day. His message began:

Duuuuuuuuude. Sooooooooo good!

I want to write you a longer email in response, but for right now, before too much more time passes, I just want to reply and say that this interpretation was very enjoyable, clarifying, and inspirational.

At one point, you said I'm like a bard, which was pretty cool. But you've actually played the role of bard for me, with this reading. You have sung a song that's inspiring me for the next phase of battle!! So awesome.

I actually did download and listen on Monday night, during the Leo new moon. I know my chart placements and knew I was Leo and everything, but I had no concept that this was basically a "new year" type of event for me, so I'm glad I chose to get the reading at this time! I want you to know that I took your advice to heart about forming an intention and then doing something about it the next day. I actually was feeling ambitious and formed not one but three intentions: one that I had been thinking about all day anyway, and two that were inspired by your reading.

He went on for a page or so...then ended with...

Thanks again, Kelly. This recording is truly awesome, and I hope to explore it more in-depth and maybe get my Gemini motor running by writing to you more about it, if you don't mind! There's seriously so much I would like to say. Pretty much everything you said was spot-on, and I'd love to respond to all of that. (I'm pretty interested in ordering follow-up readings, too. Just so you know.)

I was feeling kinda guilty because I've looked up a ton of your stuff online (and I actually just watched your episode of Wife Swap, too!) and almost felt like I know you. And here I am, just a stranger walking up and asking for an astrology reading, but it turns out you kind of know a lot about me just by looking at when and where I was born. Go figure, right?

That was the next moment of perfection. I love helping clients unveil their authentic selves! What an amazing responsibility to help humanity wake up to their true potential. I love it.

So I went to sleep on that wondrous little magical hill wondering where tomorrow would take me. I didn't know. Just down the road somewhere. The Moon would be crossing into my 11th House of Community so I hoped to meet some cyclists at least. We would see indeed.

The next morning I felt great, even though my aches and pains from riding were starting to complain in unison. But I just kept going and going and riding hard and steady up to a town called Republic in Washington. I rolled into town and parked my bike to go into a hardware store to seek out a fuel canister since I knew mine was low, but they didn't have the right one for my little SOTO stove. I was hungry and asked where I could eat and they told me that the Natural Foods Coop across the street opened at ten, a half hour away. So I bided my time in a cafe with a chai, and then hit the store up for more Thai noodle packets and mushrooms and onions...delicious combo! I ate some sweet potato chips and hummus in preparation for the hard ride ahead. I had decided to veer west up the 20 instead of going south on the 21 because a post office employee in Danville, who was an avid cyclist, told me that the pass was a tough set up three stairsteps where you go up and then flat and up and then flat and then once again, but then it was literally all downhill to Tonasket 20 miles. That sounded like heaven. I would have never believed her if she wasn't a cyclist, but when you hear something like that from a cyclist they are incredibly more specific than motorists who don't know the pain of even 1 degree of inclination!

That lady was right, and the stairsteps were intense but doable and I reached another moment of perfection during the last ascent. You would think that the moment of perfection in cycling would come right after you crested a rise and saw the next horizon revealed and got to coast down the hill, but there are two others that seem more perfect. The first is when you are struggling up a hill for hours on end, or a series of hills, and you reach the last incline and it seems like you will never make it, and suddenly you shift down to your last low gear, and you reach out and place your hands as far forward on the handlebars as possible, you push your butt back on the seat, and you let your legs do their burning meditation on the pedals, and you simply surrender, a wholehearted deep let out the breath surrender! This was even more complete since Sarah McLachlan (a Canadian I think) is singing Sweet Surrender, which happened to me on this particular hill.

I let the tears flow again as I crested the apex and stopped to take a quick pic of the pass sign. My brother once asked me why I cried so much on my journey. It can't be that painful? He said I'm supposed to be enjoying the ride. I think I did all my physical exertion crying in Wyoming when I almost died a few times. Then I did all my emotional letting go crying of my old life in Montana, preparing for the renewal in Canada. When I left Canada with my tail between my legs, a starry eyed romantic with dashed hopes, but richer for it, I did my mental crying. Now I was down to spiritual crying. Shrek once said that ogre's have layers, and so does crying. My heart and soul are being slowly peeled like an onion on this journey. The whole world is experiencing a great transformation according to the great Cardinal T-Cross configuration in the heavens. We are all receiving new marching orders, or in the words of brilliant astrologer Jeff Jawer, an initiation into a new life.

I feel the heart of the planet bleeding and the people continuing on the treadmill of life pretending nothing is changing, or resisting the change, the great spiritual tidal wave that is crashing down on all of us right now! There are other Magi like me out there like my spiritual brothers Peter Roth, David Alexander English, Brett Melchior, and Gary Caton, Eric Meyers and all my astrologer homeys, who are all riding the tide in their own unique ways. Check out their blogs and Facebook for more insights into the journey ahead. The wold is rebirthing and I feel like I don't belong anymore. Something has to give? Do I return to my home amongst the stars, or do I stay and watch the show? For now I think I'll keep enjoying the synchronicities and watch what unfolds. I don't want to help pay rich people who own property pay off their mortgages. I don't want to ever work and feel like a slave with people telling me what to do. I am a human being, and I want to fight for the dignity of all human beings who are involved in this psychic slavery in the middle of of dividing up the rights to land and quality of life. I want to help forge a new path ahead, not some Utopian pipe dream, but a new set of systems for the Aquarian Age that honors the miraculous nature of the individual in his or her spiritually needed qualities and contributions to the community. I want to tear down the walls of fear dividing us as nations and cultures. I want to help people like the client above realize their genius and inspire them to go for it!
So now my tears are for humanity. I'm tired of overhearing shallow conversations while I sense earthquakes happening inside!

Let the earth quake. Let the music play through your soul! Let the creative individual rise up and claim its dream!

There's another moment of cycling perfection and that comes not when you're flying down the hill coasting with natural wind AC cooling your body. Almost, but that's just sitting on an object with wheels and rolling with gravity. The moment of perfection comes when you begin to level out or go back up hill and you start to peddle again and you are in the perfect gear to match the rhythm of the wheels against the road, and your legs turn in perfect harmony with the pressure that's needed to get up the next hill or over that rise. That feels like perfection when it happens. You try to prepare for it by shifting into a high gear when you head downhill, but rarely is it the perfect gear at the perfect moment when you need to pedal again as if your legs never stopped pedaling at all.

As I got hal way down the 20 mile hill I was pleased with the postal ladies assessment. There were a few places where the road slightly inclined, but for the most part, she was right, it was all downhill! I stopped in a little country market to drink a Gatorade and heard that there were cyclists ahead of me in Tanasket, a whole group from my recent home state of North Carolina. Holy Moon in my 11th House. I chased my Gatorade with a Monster and rode like a madman down the last 13 mile stretch hoping to catch them. I heard they were eating at a subway from some travelers who told me this out their window as we sped down the mountain together! I imagined rolling into a parking lot full of North Carolinian cyclists and raising my right hand and giving a great inspiring speech like Aragorn did before the Black Gate saying, " Men of Gondor, Rohan, my brothers!"

Unfortunately, by the time I got there, they had left. I missed them by thirty minutes and they were headed north. I was going south. Boo hoo! Plus they took all the buns, there was one six inch cheese sub left...rough. So I turned my bike deflatedly south and rode for the town of Omak, another 23 miles away, wondering where I would sleep.

When I got to Omak I was exhausted. The shoulder was composed of a strange substance called Chip Seal which is like riding your bike on those rugged gym matts that protect the floor from the metal weights, and your tires sink in and it feels like you have to pedal twice as hard to go the same speed! WHoever invented chip seal should be...no I won't say it. But it's a pain in the legs. SO I asked where I could camp at the first gas station and they directed me to a city park where camping was allowed.

With the Moon really in my 11th House there had to be some cyclists there. I was feeling lonely and needed the communion of cyclists again. Meeting cyclists is like meeting astrologers, we speak the same language and endure the same challenges. So I rode into the park after helping some locals fix their flat tire (good karma I suppose), and there they were: two cyclists who had been traveling the Northern Tier across northern America together since Wisconsin. The elder cyclist, about my age was named Barry and he had incredible gas that you could hear fro two campsites away, and the younger tattooed guy was named Matt and he was outspoken about what he liked and didn't like. They were sitting at a picnic table both working on their little netbooks when I pulled up and said, "Hello fellow cyclists, mind if I camp with you?"

They were surprised by my appearance out of nowhere, a true Magi entrance, and I sat down across from them and whipped out my I-pad to connect to the campground's wi-fi. They were impressed with my digital nomadic flow. And I was impressed with theirs. We shared stories and meals and had a great night together! The city park was sketchy as we had all noticed a certain impoverished neighborhood essence and had spotted some unsavory characters in the wings. Indeed, Barry dropped his guard and left his mp3 player plugged in wih the charger in the scummy bathrooms and had it stolen while he slept. There was nowhere really to lock Magellan, so I laid the bike down next to my tent and locked him to one of my heavy panniers inside the tent and stuffed the hole in the screening with a shirt to keep the bugs out. That way, if someone tried to steal my trusty steed, my whole tent would go with them and I would awaken. From the crazy sounds of the park, I was truly worried. I even prepared my zipper to be unzipped quickly and got my knife out and laid it ready by the tent door. Luckily, the night went by uneventful except for a couple of drunks who stumbled over my fly strings. But they meandered their drunken way onward.

The next morning we all woke up, packed our stuff and sailed on down the road. We parted when they turned to go up the 20 toward Seattle and I went down the 97 A toward Chelan valley so I could go up Highway 2 to come into Seattle near Everett. I heard the 2 had less passes and inclines than the 20, so I naturally chose the scenic easy route. My legs were tired and I had not had a rest day since Nelson. Nevertheless, it was a sweet ride down through the Chelan valley after I got over the first big hill. I was traveling alongside an amazing lake through wonderful smelling orchards growing all manner of luscious fruits. I didn't know the eastern cascades valley was so dry, but should have expected it based on geography where the Eastern slopes are always deprived of rain. But the Eastsiders as my friend Peter called them know how to work that long lake to grow amazing fruit. I wanted to reach out and pluck an apple or pea off a tree but decided against stealing when I could just stop at a fruit stand. Away with you Gemini Shadow side of the Moon. It never gets to live out its dark fantasies with all my Sag truthful honest tell it like it is and as blunt as possible side outgunning i in my character makeup.

I heard the night before that the NFL Preseason football games were on, and so excitedly searched for a sports bar in Chelan where I could catch the game. Unfortunately it was only broadcast on the NFL channel and they didn't have it. SO I logged onto the net at an Oriental restaurant called Bamboo Shoots and got to at least hear the game on KOA radio and chat with my football friends on Bronbcotalk.net's live chat. Another experience of community!

After that it was 7 PM,a nd the SUn was sinking behind the mountains already and the next town was 20 miles away! I didn't know what to do, because the town of Chelan seemed uppity and high class and no parks allowed camping. There was a state park 6 miles out of my way so I had to make a tough choice. Ride hard toward the next town even though it was uphill in the dark or ride six miles north along the lake to the state park, or hide in the bushes somewhere, or ask someone if I could camp in their yard? A very tough decision, but in the end my intuition told me to make for the State Park along the west shores of the lake. I made it jus as the Sun disappeared and found the campground to be full. So I snuck off into the woods behind one of the bathrooms and found a nice stealthy spot to camp, even though the forest rangers saw me pull into the camp. It was a large popular camp with hundreds of campers everywhere. Where could I blend in? After debating setting up in the woods in stealth I decided that I was still a human being, and I didn't deserve to be lurking in the woods with so much beautiful green pasture by the beach wide open for camping. So I went back up the rode and rode Magellan right up to the park ranger and said, "Hello! I just rode from Boulder COlorado and I was wondering where the cyclists and hikers could camp?" He was a very friendly ranger and we talked for a while after he said, "Oh, you can camp right down their by the beach out in the open under the stars!" I was amazed. That was exactly where I wanted to camp, another experience of a moment of perfection! And he didn't take debit cards either and waived the 14 bucks...whew! Perfection stacked on perfection!

So I rode down to the beach and found another cyclist down there that I hadn't noticed before, and set up my tent next to him. He was traveling the forest trails of Washington and just slept out under the stars with no tent. He even showed me a short cut on the map where I didn't have to backtrack 6 miles and it was perfect too. The next morning he was gone already when I woke up, so I brushed my teeth again, splashed water on my face, and headed up the intense three mile trek toward Highway 2 and Seattle. I was excited to see the little Bavarian themed town of Leavenworth that everyone had been telling me about!

IN a few more days, I would be rolling down the bike paths of Seattle to stay with a friend. I had put it out to the universe and to all my friends in Seattle that I needed a place to stay while awaiting Arian, and many answered. But the one that I chose to stay with first (I'll be visiting the others!) was fellow astrologer Kriss Shellman, who has become my astro-mom. She has been following my journey with the heart of a mother, as her son was born the same year as me, and I thank her deeply for hosing me in Seattle. She even lives in Burien, which is right near the Seatac airport where Arian will be flying in. How perfect is that?
There's perfection all around if your eyes are open...

The Magi Rides Again!!!

2010-08-12T11:32:00.001-07:00

The Journey Continues

I arrived in Nelson BC the day after the Full Moon in Aquarius and I left yesterday a day after the New Moon in Leo, a full 14 days of rest and recuperation and 118 miles of riding while in and around Nelson. The photo there is a view outside the window in the corner of the Dock and Duck Tavern at the ferry in Balfour on the edge of Kootenay Lake where I was able to catch up on all my astrology charts that people ordered over the last three weeks.

The first week I spent at the Nelson campground where I encountered the magical being of my desire, ALisha Michell, who is a female Magi of my caliber and whom I've had the opportunity to share some amazing and loving moments with. In fact, the second week of my time in Nelson, she was able to finally move into a beach apartment about five miles from the ferry. We shared the most amazing connection and meeting of minds, bodies, hearts, and spirits possible, and yet the timing was off. She has had some intense transits with Pluto crossing her moon (death and rebirth of the soul) and Saturn square her moon (the need for solitude and aloneness and a little depression) which are the same transits Christina was undergoing over the last year as well back in North Carolina. I thought I recognized the same movie playing out in Alisha that I saw in Christina.

At first, we were both amazed by our connection. We talked about going back to her favorite place in Washington called Redmond and joining forces as parents and astrologers thriving in a lively community. But after spending some quality time together we realized that we needed time to think about it. I'm used to giving up my dreams to go be with a woman where she wants to go (my last two wives come to mind) and I always end up depressed and wanting to die or leave! So this time before I just throw in my lot with another, I'm committed to finishing the journey I began as the Traveling Magi. I will continue my dream.

I left yesterday instead of on the 20th when I originally wanted to because ALisha was really needing some alone time to heal after moving so much and so often and going through a nasty divorce. I'm grateful that Christina and I were able to part in peace and I will always love that girl. In fact, today I'm riding south after I post this from Castlegar, Canada right by a lake called Christina Lake on my way to Grand Forks where I plan to re-enter the home of the brave and the land of the free.

Love can be a complicated thing for sure. You heart swells with emotion for this other being and it makes you crazy! It is a drug for real, but a beautiful one that tricks us into latching onto each other to continue the evolutionary imperative of bringing spirits into bodily form. I think I'd rather make sure that this bodily form is living its full potential before I invite another soul in who needs my love and support. I felt a little strange inside about being around Alisha's six year old daughter Ammalia because part of me doesn't want to go back to that stage of child training after Arian, my son, has reached his Saturn Opposition at 15 and is capable of being his own adult now as his mother and I planned. I don't want to interfere with someone else's strategy for child rearing either, especially with a jealous ex-husband in the wings who still claims that Alisha is HIS woman and that his love is undying and passionate for her and that it hurts him that we are together.

I don't want to be a target for that kind of wrath, as I've got better ways to spend my precious days on this planet besides fighting over a woman. And long ago when a girl came between me and my best friend and ruined our relationship as bros, I vowed to never fight over the love with a woman again with a brother. There's just too many amazing fish in the sea to enter poverty consciousness. But once in a while you meet someone like ALisha where all levels are clicking like never before, and that my friends is the big dilemma I contend with in my heart.

Anyway, on another note I'm excited that Arian is flying into Seattle on August 29th, and that I'm riding to meet him as fast as I can, even though I have plenty of time to get there. I've contacted several friends and colleagues in the Seattle area (Where's Peter when you need him? Oh, he moved to Colorado partially so we could be together....ooops!) I guess I'll have to eat enough vegan buffet at Araya's Thai restaurant in the University District for the both of us! So Arian is flying into Seattle on the night of the 29th. I'll be there to receive him at 11:30 PM that night after he has spent the day riding three planes from Mobile Alabama, starting his journey that morning on Dauphin Isle in the gulf surrounded by oil.

Do you see the dilemma here? Arian is coming to join me and at first he was going to join ALisha and me in Redmond and go to school there. But now that Alisha and I have decided to take a deep breath and just think about such a quick and faithful move, I'm back to being the Traveling Magi and headed down the Pacific Coast scenic 101 route, which I heard form many cyclists is the best ride in the world with tailwinds the whole way going south! So there we will be at the airport at 11:30 PM, midnight closing in. My bike Magellan will probably be parked at a friend's house, maybe on an island or the Olympic Peninsula somewhere, and my task is to get the kid outfitted for the journey ahead to San Francisco and possibly Hawaii if we can scrape together the funds.

Part of me feels bad that I'm depriving him of his first semester in high school somewhere, and another part of me feels proud that I'm depriving him of his first semester of high school somewhere. I've been through that system and know it's a babysitting job. You can learn more on your own and follow your own interests to the core. Arian is already smarter and more mature than most high school students anyway. And he's found his passions in Archery and Music. He is also a great poet, dancer, artist, and advisor. He would be a boon to any company right now and improve their work. Not that I want him to sign up for corporate slavery or anything like that. I want him to follow his talent and learn music from teachers wherever we go and live his passion. We can homeschool and get the algebra and history and the rest of it on the road, as he has an I-pad too and I plan on downloading lots of educational apps for the journey ahead. Audio Books for the I-pod anyone?

Meanwhile, we still need to outfit him with a touring bike like Magellan, some panniers, and other cycling gear like water bottles, cycling shorts, etc. So here is where I'm putting out the call to donational arms once again. Cause all that gear is going to cost about $1000 and I'm sitting on about $500 right now, and we still need to eat and pay for the occasional campground and chai at the internet cafe so I can write the blog and work on books and movies! So who wants to see the little Magi join his father in an amazing quest down the 101 that will knock the socks off him sitting in a classroom with a bunch of puberty-stricken teens being taught to follow orders and spit out meaningless facts on soul degrading exams? You can make donations right on the home page of the Traveling Magi website or better yet you can order a chart at my astrology website DIvine Inspiration Astrology, as I don't mind working for a living by delivering you an mp3 interpretation from a random Internet cafe that will blow your heart and mind wide open into the cosmic field of vision!

I hope to visit the bike store in Seattle ready to drop some serious cash on outfitting the Arian Brazenwood, hero of the elves!
In the meantime, I ride south and then west my friends, my heart uplifted from my time with ALisha and a little broken, because I never really felt welcome till the day before I left, when she told me that she needed alone time to heal, and wanted me to leave! Doh! It happens, and I honor where she's at in her process. Maybe I go to fast for my own good and need to take some time to honor my healing process before I dive into the deep tricky waters of love again too? I will think about Christina as I ride by her lake today in Canada, maybe I'll stop my bike and dive into the lake and feel her spirit from afar. I still love that beautiful plant-whispering soul despite our transition. Hopefully by tonight I'll re-enter the good ole US of A and find a decent campsite with wi-fi. Then it's down the 21 over to Highway 2 and on through the Cascades to the Emerald City of Seattle. I would love to take Arian up the Space Needle while we're there, but we'll see what happens! I told him I'd take him there one day when he was little.

For this day, I load my bike, I don my gear, I prepare to sweat and struggle up hills against the wind, my old friend. I embrace it all now with an open heart. The Traveling Magi rides again!

Feelin' the Universal Love

2010-08-02T18:57:00.001-07:00

Crystallizing Romantic Visions

When Alisha finally showed up at the Nelson Campsite, I was talking to some travelers situated at a picnic table, feeling the universal flow of humanitarian energy under the Aquarius Full Moon vibe. Back in February, I saw that the new moon was in Alisha's 7th house of companionship and asked her to plant a seed for love then, and maybe we would grow into something down the line 6 months later when the Full Moon showed up in her field of love. Little did I know, that I would be delivering myself to Canada on a bicycle 1435 strenuous miles under that exact flowering of seed potential! I saw her walking toward us wearing one of those little caps looking perfectly compact and sexy in a pair of jeans and some stylish combat boots. I excused myself from the table and went to her, hugging her deeply for the first time ever. We tried to keep it cool and just talk, but we had built such a charge of love and admiration between us over the last 6 months, that we kept giggling like teenagers and just hugging. Then in the middle of saying something she hugged me and lifted her shapely mouth to mine and started kissing me passionately. A wise man once told me that discretion is the greater part of valor, so I won't go into any intimate details, but we hit it off great! We really did like each other, despite the forces of resistance (our exes and their families) arrayed against us.

We quickly realized that we were being brought together under one of the most intense astrological alignments of the century to perform a great work, and share an interesting, fascinating life. We not only liked each other, we loved each other! We had already developed a deep bond long before we had met in person. Meeting in person just sparked the relationship into a full blown blazing fire of creative communion. I could not stay at her current house due to the landlord situation and her roommate being weird about it, but she was moving out in a week anyway up to some beach house near Balfour, the way had just come on my bike from the ferry. I was content staying at the campground anyway, just biding my time and exploring Nelson on my bike.

I had a good week of exploration, with an eye to spending some time in Canada working on creative projects like the next astrology film and my next book on astrology. I had all my research with me. I just needed to log some intense coffee shop time. I hoped Alisha needed the same. She had a busy chaotic week ahead so I saw her when I could and we quickly ascended into love. I knew my son Arian would absolutely love her. Her daughter acted very shy to meet me, but I taught her how to spin the Fun Stix (Devil Sticks) and juggle them around at the park where Alisha practiced dancing for her upcoming performance.

I explored various coffee shops starting with one called Grounded, just to get grounded. I had to go to the Bank of Montreal to withdraw money from the ATM so I could pay my $108 for six nights at the campground. Looks like the earth and I were going to have a nice bonding experience. I kept meeting unique people, mainly Canadian tourists, back at the campground. They were all amazed that I had ridden my bike from Boulder to check on a girl. They kept asking me how it was going every time I came "home". The lady who ran the campground was named Bonnie (same as my now deceased astrology teacher) and by the end of the week she was very familiar with my coming and going and even asked me to help her install a shelf in the commons area of the campground where people bring their computers at night to plug in and surf the web. Some campers were glued to their tech while others left everything like that at home just to really experience the natural vibe on their journeys.

I would start my day with a fresh shower and a hot cup of chai, talking to the friendly campers. Then I would get on my bike and explore the town until Alisha was available. Then we would hang out talking and mingling until the deep hours of the night, when I would return to my tent. At first I kind of felt isolated, like she was not really into it, but it was because she had a lot of guards up as she had recently experienced so much suffering through the experience of the end of her relationship. I had experienced the same so I could relate. We joked around that maybe we should introduce our exes because they were both born in 1980 and would be the same age with the same interior maturation levels.

I found a great health food store downtown as well as the best coffee shop in town called Oso Negro, which had vega delights to go with your chai like cookies, muffins, and other treats. Alisha said that all the locals favored Oso Negro as well and I met a lot of amazing people there like this runner who runs up three mountains a week. He was into extreme training and his name was Mike. He had a pair of Nike Airs on and proceeded to tell me about all his cycling and running adventures. He told me that they had an outdoor weight training area down by the beach, so I went down their the next day and had a pretty complete workout using a series of about 20 bizarre machines designed to use your own body weight as resistance. It was cool! My muscles were burning and I felt great to have an upper body workout to go with my rock solid overworked legs! Then this tan young woman came running down the trail and stopped by the lake and began stripping down to a swimsuit. Next thing you know, she dives into the Kootenay Lake and swims down the shore. I was amazed. It turns out that many of the locals take lunch break swims all the time. They say you can even drink the water!

So after a full week in Nelson and lots of interacting with Alisha, she ended up moving out of her place and into a little beach cabina up the coast near Balfour. I missed seeing her on the way out of town by about ten minutes. It seemed like our timing was always off in terms of getting together. But once we got together it was pure magic. It was amazing to share romance with a beautiful fellow astrologer, making dinners and enjoying each others company. We spoke the same cosmic language and had great fun communicating in it. We both felt like we were 14 all over again!

I decided toi ride my bike up to the new beach house 12 miles or so instead of waiting for her to come pick me up with the moving truck. I had just ridden my bike 1435 miles and I felt weird about sitting there at a coffee shop waiting for a moving truck to come take me 12 miles! So I jumped on my bike and trusted that intuition and our amazing connection would guide me home to her. The Sun eventually set and I found myself knocking on random people's doors asking if I could use their phone or internet to try and find her. I didn't know if she had gone back to Nelson to get me or whether she had stayed out there at the new place. I knew I could find her if I had faith, but she was not answering her phone and sent no emails.

So there I was, sitting on a picnic table at a closed bakery in the twilight wondering if she wanted me to find her. Our connection was so miraculous that I knew I would find her. I thought about my Traveling Magi mission and wondered if I should even be trying to pursue a relationship with someone who was obviously still struggling with her ex. They had not had a peaceful split like Christina and I. Maybe I should just collect my things and head over to Vancouver to begin my trek south down the 101? My heart was torn inside because I know we both felt magic when we were together. So I approached another house to ask if they knew Alisha, and this wealthy family invited me in for dinner. I used their phone and finally got through to her. The place was farther than she had thought. She had told me to go 16 KM (about ten miles) when it was actually about 18.5 KM! I knew something felt off. So I jumped on my bike with just a tiny glow of light still out and rode like a madman up the road to beat the traffic. Someone stole my backlight while my bike was parked outside in Nelson. I guess they needed it more than I did. Luckily not too many cars were heading east on Valhalla road, and I passed several telephone pole where Alisha had hung up signs with my name written in large letters with instructions. I kept going and found her standing on the roadside waiting for me. It felt good to arrive, and have somewhere safe to stay, as I had given up my campsite to some tourists who needed it. The whole town was buzzing full with tourists for three separate events, so I was lucky to even get a campsite I found out later.

Alisha had a wonderful Thai meal ready to go when I arrived and I ate it slowly and let the spicy tastes soothe my soul. It was good to be with her, and the lady that rented her the upstairs apartment was kind and had a daughter of her own for Ammalia to play with. So here I was about to spend a month of my life with an amazing beautiful fellow celestial characterologist in a little apartment overlooking the beach, surrounded by mystical towering peaks. When I set out on this quest I said I would do my best to resist the allure of her amazement, but I wasn't doing very well. Her mind was stimulating and our connection was out of this world. We didn't know what would happen or how our lives would change if we joined forces, but we both knew it would be a magical journey.

Meanwhile, the next morning I got on Magellan and rode five miles up the road back to the ferry and found an Old World Bakery and an Internet Cafe/Tavern overlooking the ferry dock and surrounded by picturesque views of the Canadian Rockies. I sat down to work on astrology charts for clients and opened my heart and soul to the poetic rhythms of the cosmic muse, thinking of sharing my life with Alisha. Kelly and Alisha. It sounded good. My first love's name started with "A", Andrea, and I had not met anyone else with an "A" name. "K" and "A" spelled KA, which was the Egyptian word for spirit! Hopefully we would make a great spiritual companionship of it!

The Destination is... the Destination

2010-07-27T14:41:00.001-07:00

Quest for Missoula

We left Hamilton the next morning and Alex shot ahead on his bike leaving even Tony the speedster behind. He had Mars crossing his ascendant and I told him he needed to channel that Martian energy into action or else it would leak out as frustration and anger at those around him. So he bolted and it ended up doing him a world of good. We traveled north from Hamilton where there is a wonderful bike trail along the highway all the way to Lolo, then a quick 8 mile jaunt into the big city of 60,000+ Montanans.

As planned, or synchronized by the Universe, we contacted Julia and she let us camp at her place right near downtown. As it turns out, I had arranged to meet a client named Amy in Missoula and she drove up to the house at the exact moment that I did (I had emailed her the address and she works in Missoula). So I grabbed my lap top and we headed off to enjoy an amazing Thai dinner at Sawaddee and after dinner I blew her mind with astrology and she loved hearing it. I also uploaded the recording and emailed her the link.

When I got home from work, LOL, I found TOny already slumbering in his tent, catching up on lost sleep from his romantic night with Chrissy. Although Iris and Alex decided to sleep inside on the small couch where the Princess got her way, and Alex slept on the floor worshipping her feet hanging over the edge all night.

Julia was great to interact with. She was still lovestruck over Dean who had reached the Grand Tetons by now and she was tracking his location through GPS and planning to drive down to meet him again. The next morning, we woke up and trekked over to REI where they exchanged my QuarterDome T-3 tent with a broken pol and torn rain flap with no problems. They just tossed it into a bin and got me a brand new one off the shelf. How cool is REI for customer service!

Then we all split ways after enjoying some discounted REI clif bars, and I went looking for the TREK dealer bike shop so I could do something, anything, about this wheel of broken spokes. ANother spoke broke on the way over there! So I rolled my bike through the door and told them about my situation and they admitted that TREK used the cheapest spokes possible on their new bikes. So they charged me $57 bucks to re-spoke the entire wheel with the strongest DT spokes in stock and said I should be fine from now on. They also replaced my brake pads. While they were doing this for 24 hours, they let me use their loner bike, a small dirt bike that I used for tooling around town. I loaded up my tech gear in my backpack and went downtown to write up the Blog post about our adventures in Hamilton. Of course, I had to stop back by the Thai place because they had a lunch buffet, and I had the Thai noodles with Tofu. Then I found a great coffee shop called Liquid Planet where I snuggled into a comfy booth in the corner and went to work recording another chart for a client, who was quite pleased with the interpretation. I still had four more chart orders to do, but they might have to wait till Nelson BC because I was feeling the need to break away from our little adventuring party bound for Glacier and just ride like crazy toward Nelson. I was really tossing it up to a 50/50 dice roll and I couldn't decide which way to go. With Sky the Unicyclist heading up to Glacier too, I figured I'd go with them and re-unite with Sky. But things didn't work out that way.

Instead we all went out for food with Julia at the Old Post bar with live music. I wondered why they played the music so loud that everyone was forced to scream to hear each other. Couldn't we all just lower our collective volumes by the same amount and then we wouldn't have to scream. Maybe they thought it would attract stray undecided customers down the street to have music blaring out the front door. The lone musician was good though, and he played lots of interesting folkish songs with great deep lyrics.

While eating I got a text from Chrissy and Haeli from Hamilton, and they were bound and determined to track us down in Missoula. Chrissy really wanted another night with Tony. She couldn't resist the allure of his Aries masculine essence with her Mars in that sign. When love strikes, it strikes hard and fatal. They showed up in the yard at Julias and we all went inside to have a big talk fest. Julia retreated to her room to contact her love Dean. The rest of us fed popcorn and corn chips to her dog, Sasha, and talked about everything, including astrology. I was really impressed by Chrissy's astrological knowledge from her four years of study with her mom. I think she was so well-versed and also beautiful that she intimidated Iris, who began attacking astrology like the German. I couldn't believe she was asking questions and then not letting us answer and then telling us to stop getting defensive. I got really cross with her because she kept asking the same question about how can there be three artist signs when everyone create art, all because I mentioned that the three main artistic signs are Taurus the Builder, Libra the Artist, and Pisces the Visionary. It doesn't mean that people who are say Virgos can't do art. Everyone has a Venus and that Venus has a sign and house and makes aspects which shape the person's unique artistic style. I kept saying this, echoed by Chrissy, but she just kept interrupting our answers and saying things she knew would push my buttons, like "Maybe I'm not so interested in this astrology after all." I knew what she was doing. On one side I had Chrissy, young beautiful, smart, inspiring, and already in command of the astrological language. On the other I had Iris taking the Capricorn skeptic hard line like the German Heinz (true to her nature) and attacking astrology. We had a lesson a few days before where I taught her to calculate the Element/Mode balance in a person's nature through using the 7 personal planets, the south node, and the Ascendant, so maybe she was overwhelmed with what you have to know and decided she didn't like it after all, which was fine with me. I'm not here to force anyone to like astrology. But there she was with her two weeks of exposure to astrological ideas and interpretation facing off with my 25 years experience and Chrissy's 4 years of study. And she was asking questions that sounded right out of the scientist's playbook for discrediting astrology, without ever having to actually learn the art itself.

So needless to say, I went to be feeling backstabbed. I mean I was willing to teach her astrology for free just because I saw she had the gift and she was young with not much money to pay for my services. Familiarity breeds criticism. So that night I decided in my heart that I was leaving for Canada and heading west toward the Idaho border. I was really yearning to meet Alisha to see if we had the makings of an incredible partnership or not, and after listening to Chrissy and Tony frolicking like 14 year olds in the next tent over, and having to turn my I-pad music on for them, I was ready for some romance myself.

So the next morning I woke up early knowing everybody else would be sleeping in, took a shower, packed up my gear, an headed toward the gate for freedom to roam alone again. I love traveling with companions and I knew I would miss them right away, but my journey had a mission, and going to Glacier would only delay the journey to meet Alisha in Nelson. Tony did wake up and go to the bathroom while I was packing and he said, "Packing up already huh?" I said "Yeah, I need to get going." But I didn't tell him that I was going going gone. Sorry Tony, but love was calling me too! We are all born with this strange freedom vs. closeness agenda that stems from early toddlerhood. We want the safety and security of our parents, but we also have the need to move about the living room, until a lamp falls on us. Then we want closeness again. So we end up oscillating between these two extremes out whole lives, drawing people close and then pushing them away.

When I got done packing some food supplies at the local Good Food Market I got on my bike and the odometer said 1100 miles exactly. I was like whoa! This feeling aose within me that I could make it 100 miles and I visualized the odometer being at 1200. Could I really do it? I had never ridden more than 80 mils before. I checked the map and found that there was indeed a town called Thompson Falls 103 miles away. The power of visualization is indeed strong. I visualized making it there and prayed for good winds and currents.

Right out of Missoula I hit a harsh climb but hoped i was the only big obstacle, as the road called 200 seemed to wind through a river valley and promised to be mostly flat. It was indeed, but it was the hardest ride of my life. At 78 miles, an intense head wind came against me! I said, "No, No, No! Not now! You know I won't make it" And it went away as quickly as it came. I was amazed by my un-manifestation power! At 88 miles I was about to fall off the bike with all the usual aches and pains: it all starts with the Butt, then moves to the Feet, then the Wrists, then the Knees, and then Everything in one big orchestra of pain. At that moment the orchestra was in full swing and I was dying inside. I got to 90 and thought about camping in the woods, but I wanted to break 100 miles in one day. You hear about cyclists doing these arduous 100 mile days but its hard to fathom with as much weight as I have. But I knew I could do it. I had been building my endurance for weeks now and my body had changed. I had developed new muscles in my calves and thighs that had never been developed, and so I rode through agonizing pain going for the Gold! I got to the late 90's and began stopping to rest and take pictures, as the Sun was sinking behind the mountains.. I even got a great shot at mile 99.5. In that last mile the song, "This is War," which someone suggested I download and play when I'm lying in a ditch with bugs about to eat me, came on and I kept fighting and using my weight to push the pedals down slowly. I finally broke 200 and it was a glorious moment! I was completely in tears and transformed. The song was chanting "Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight! the last half mile and I almost forgot to stop and get a picture at 100 miles. I was completely spent, but the town was still three miles away, so I kept adding miles to my record, hoping the grocery store was till open. The light had faded and I stumbled into a grocery mart with my legs quivering and visibly shaking. The lady at the checkout took one look at me and was like "Oh my God, what happened to you?" I told her what I had just accomplished and she was impressed. Then I asked her where the nearest campground was and she said it was on the far side o town out in the woods a few miles and wrote down directions. I wanted to cry while I watched her inscribe those directions on the little piece of paper.

I headed for the fruit and veggies section and rewarded myself with two bags of fresh fruit! I couldn't even think so I just got seven of everything, peaches, plums, kiwis, mushrooms, etc. Then I got a big pack of green grapes too! I wanted the watermelon, but even the smallest one would be too heavy o carry on the bike. So I payed the lady for my goods and painfully pedaled west to find this campground in the dark. Several miles later I pulled into the campground under the covert cover of darkness where I didn't have to pay the gatekeepers. There were lots of nice sites by a river with a train sounding off in the distance. I set up my tent aching all over but overjoyed by the final mileage record: 107.21 miles! I felt like I could do anything!

The next morning I rode another 80 miles and rolled into the rough own of Troy Montana with no campground in site. I asked some locals at a trailer park and they said that the Home Bar, a biker bar, lets motorcyclists camp there all the time. It was worth a shot. They showed me how to find this place right downtown by the tracks and it looked like they had a fenced in compound with a large grassy area for parties and camping. When I walked through the door with my sweat dripping over my body I was a vision of hell. I had my bike helmet on, with my big backpack and a tube for water and shaking legs with salt covered clothes. Even bikers clad in leather were quick to respectfully get out of my way as I approached the lady at the bar to ask if I could camp there. I told her about my journey and that my mom was a motorcyclist, and she had great compassion. She took on look at me and was like, "You poor thing! Of course you can camp here, I'll open the gate so you can push your bike through."

I felt extremely welcome and people gathered around to hear my story, after I finished setting up my tent and was perched at the bar. They were enchanted to say the least that I would ride 1400 miles or more just to meet a girl. "She must be real special," one biker said. They thought I was weird when I ordered a burger with just the veggies and also an iced tea, a cranberry juice on the rocks plus an OJ on the rocks. I took turns drinking from the three drinks and scarfed down a wonderful veggie burger with no veggie patty, just the veggies! Afterword they all wnet back into the indoor bar area where the party began, and they broke out the karaoke machine. You haven't lived until you've watched a bunch o rowdy drunken bikers singing Karaoke songs like their lives depended on it, full of heart and soul. They wanted me to go, but I respectfully declined because after two grueling days of riding I could barely sit in my chair.

So I just said goodnight and lumbered over to my tent and crashed face down. I remember waking up in the night and hearing the party raging outside. One rough sounding character asked a lady if she would give him a blow job for $1000 bucks, and she upped the offer and said, "Man, for a thousand bucks I'd go home with you, and my husband wouldn't care because the next day I'd buy him a new four-wheeler!" Then I realized that I was sleeping about 200 feet from the train tracks, and the Trains kept blowing there horns throughout the night and it was so loud that you could hear your brain shaking inside. Needless to say, it was a terrible night of sleep, and I woke up with a headache, but I knew I was going o make i to the Canadian border, so that re-inspied me.

I rode hard up an extremely dangerous an difficult hill and crossed into Idaho. Just when I started my descent down the other side of the hill, my tire blew up and I got my first flat. I knew it would happen eventually, especially after how many times I had bragged that my kevlar-lined tires were flat resistant. I pulled off on a wide driveway and took off all my panniers o turn the bike over o examine the damage. I hadn't changed a flat since childhood, so I hoped I would do it right. I knew how to do it in theory, but theory and practice are quite different. I managed to get the wheel off and fix the flat with a new tube but there was a problem. The Kevlar lining was stripping off the tire like old tattered tap and there were visible gashes in the outer tire. I had to face the fact that my tire was gone! I just hoped I could get to the next town of Bonner's Ferry 7 miles down the road before I lost another tube. My head hurt too much to even worry about trying out my patch kit. I saved the tube to practice doing that later. I got back on the bike and determined to make it to the next little town, praying they would have a bike shop. I stopped at a little diner that had wi-fi and downed a Gatorade while using their internet. I found that the nearest bike shop was in Sandpoint 40 miles to the south down highway 95, but the locals said there was an outfitter camping shop called Far North who could help me in Bonner's Ferry. I hoped they were right, or I would be hitching into Canada. My plan was to go north when I hit 95 30 miles to the border. The Universe must have a reason for this delay. So I bowed my head under the glaring hot sun and pedaled with caution, watching the road for thorns and metal screws, anything that could cause another flat. It was extremely difficult to avoid everything, and I just hoped that gashed section of tire wasn't hitting the pavement when I went over something sharp or hard that I didn't steer clear of.

Going to Bonner's Ferry was easy at first because there was a giant hill that just kept going and going and going down to the bridge that crossed a scenic river. I dreaded having to return the same way and have to climb that killer hill in the sweltering heat. I was determined to get Magellan fixed and at least make it to the border, even if I had to hitch down to Sandpoint. Luck was with me, as a local teenager at Far North had all the tools and tires and tubes and tools I needed, and he fixed the bike with a brand new tire and tube. I did get another flat going up this huge crazy hill to the bike store, and so had to push Magellan another mile, but it was a good mile of surrender and contemplation mixed with desperation. After the repair, I re-filled my waters and headed north to face that devastating slope, and it was indeed the hardest part of the journey that day. At the top, I turned into the local diner and had a baked potato with chives along with a veggie melt without the melt, hold the gross cow please! The lady questioned my diet, and I told her my theory of pure energy through photosynthesis and the sun and how if you eat the animal who eats the plant you're ingesting already been chewed on back wash energy from the sun...she laughed but understood anyway. She was a smart one, I could tell, plus she had shapely ankles and beautiful eyes, my favorite features.
As I sat there and ate I felt overwhelmed with exhaustion. After a soy vanilla chai, I was full and I didn't want to budge. I felt like I could just curl up in my little booth and go to sleep. Instead, I forced myself up and back on the bike riding like crazy toward the border. As I rode, I imagined I was Truman sailing his ship toward the horizon that he finds is a fake boundary meant to keep him prisoner. It was just the Canadian border, which I had traversed to Vancouver and Toronto already, but i felt like leaving America, going into exile. Nothing against America, I love my country and it's brief history, but I felt like going to a foreign country, even if just Canada, that I would really begin my journey of locational independence.

I took a picture of the first stretch of the last road called Highway 1 that led away through this amazing valley into the realm of Canada. I rode hard and made it to the station before they closed. I had been lugging my passport around for weeks now in its protective waterproof bag and was excited to pull it out and get some usage out of it. The guard asked me the usual questions about where are you headed, how long are you staying, what do you do for a living, etc... Eventually he smiled and let me through! I was in the land of Canada! After taking a picture of the Welcome to British Columbia sign, I rode hard racing the Sun again to Creston, the first town across the border.

When I got to Creston the town was situated high up on a hill while the main road was in the valley. I turned to go up one of those hills but it was way too steep, steeper than anything I had ever ridden, so I just did a little U-turn and went back to the main road, which turned out to be a key decision. After riding all the way around the town I found the road called 3A that led to Nelson and looked down it with longing in my eyes. I thought about riding at night but figured that was suicide. SO I reluctantly turned right to head into the town as I found that I had reached the top of the hill in a round about way, even though I went three miles out of my way to do so.

So there I was, once again about to fall off Magellan, spent to the last ember, looking for a place to set up camp. It looked like there were some RV parks ahead but that was when a Siberian-German Miner pulled up on his motorcycle and said in a Scottish accent, "Hey, you should get an engine for that thing," indicating Magellan. I mumbled something like, "I am the engine, and I'm exhausted. DO you know where I can camp?" "Your welcome to stay in my yard if you like!"

So I followed this enthusiastic 70-year old to his turnoff and fortunately he lived right downtown, just a few miles ahead on easy roads. I rolled the bike onto his property and he said I could set up in the grass nearby or just stay in his garage. Tuns out he had two lazy boy recliner chairs in his garage, and so I decided I was too tired to set up my tent. He noticed how exhausted I was and went inside to get me some drinks and ice. His name was Reinhardt and his wife was Linda. They had a big ten year old dog that looked like a small horse, but he was friendly.

Turns out Reinhardt's family was shipped off to Siberia where he was descended from miners. For age 70, he didn't look a day over 50, and was strong as an ox. We talked for a while and shared stories and then he let me crash. I pulled out my sleeping bag and got into it and then fell back slowly onto the recliner for a well deserved sleep, after I ate a few bite of peanut butter and another carrot cake clif bar!

The next morning my rooster alarm woke me up bright and early at 7 AM, and they invited me in for breakfast. I had cereal and coffee and brought my soy vanilla creamer inside. I can't stand the taste of straight black coffee! Linda gave me some organic cereal and I had two bananas for their potassium content. My legs were pulsing with pain and cramps. Linda showed me her impressive German library and even picked one book to open and it was about the poet Goethe's life, the guy whose poetry I had just summoned around the fire to counter the stubborn German Heinz. I was amazed, and wished I could read German.

The fascinating part about staying with them was that they seemed just like my Dad and step-mom. They loved their dog dearly and even gave him his own couch, which he guarded protectively. They had all these bird feeders hanging in the trees outside and they religiously fed the brid. Linda;s aura seemed just like my step mom in a strange way and Reinhardt was born in 1940, just like my dad. I loved his personality. He was like the retried miner version of Sean Connery, devoted to his tools, his construction projects, and his technology. He was very proud that he was keeping up with the modern age, able to check email and even use Skype. We became Skype friends and I showed him how to use the I-pad and he hought it was amazing. He went into try and do the zoom in and zoom out on his computer screen, but realized he didn't have a touchscreen. The next time I see him, I won't be surprised to see him with an I-pad, just for the maps program. He and Linda spent three months in Ecuador last year and he would have loved to have the maps program plus the language text.

By about 9 o'clock it was time to head out. I felt the same way that I did when I left my Dad's at the beginning of the journey, knowing I would reach Nelson today if there were no setbacks. Funny how you can cross imaginary borders into a foreign country and find the same beings in different clothes and with different backgrounds. I wondered if there were other Traveling Magi out there right now? Reinhardt assured me that I would enjoy the ride alongside Kootney Lake, but failed to mention the killer hill at the end near the ferry. He did offer me a ride, but agreed tha this was my victory ride, the last leg of the journey, and I needed to do it alone and under my own power. I waved at them and rode north into the wilds of Canada.

The roads are different in Canada, smoother in most places, but up and down, up and down. I was actually able to make it to the top of some hills just on the momentum and steam from the last hill. It was a wondrous ride with many spectacular views of gigantic mountains looming over the placid waters of the most beautiful lake. It was a hard ride adjusting to the Canadian roads, but in the end I made it to the last hill leading up and then down to the ferry. I stopped at the base of the intimidating slope next to a handcrafted Broom Shop, and took a picture for my mom. The problem was the going up part, as it was the most intense hill I'd climbed, even more intense than the hill leading out of Ennis, but luckily I had no wind to fight. But I also baked in the hot sun, often stopping to drink water in the shade.

Eventually I made it to the Ferry just as it was offloading the cars from the other side. They let me roll Magellan onto the vessel and I locked him against the side so he wouldn't tip over during passage. I met some more cool Canadians and told them about my profession and my journey and they offered to take some pictures of me on the ferry, which I welcomed. The views of the surrounding countryside were breathtaking and mystical. I like riding on ferries. It reminds me of ancient times where ferrymen would take adventurers over to the beginnings of lands of high adventure, either that or the skeletal ferry man in mythology that took you across the river Styx for a gold coin. I always wondered if I had any coins on me just in case. This time I remembered I had a special quarter with Colorado on its back side. That would get me across, a coin engraved with the land of my soul.

Eventually we reached the other side, and I had 15 exciting miles to go to get to Nelson. I put my music on and rode with the wind. My legs were exhausted due to the up and down of the Canadian roads, but I just kept plugging forward anxious to see Nelson and meet Alisha and set up camp. She had emailed me that morning and asked if I could stay at the local campground in Nelson because she was moving and her house situation was in flux and chaotic and there were problems with the landlord. Sounded like she was still in the throes of Pluto conjunct her Capricorn Moon.

On the last few miles in, my legs were burning and my tears were flowing, both tears of anguish and physical pain and teas of the excitement of arrival. The song called "This is War" came on at a perfect moment when I was working my way up a huge hill, and it really fought me up the hill. I pedaled and pedaled as hard as I could, and I quoted Truman out loud to the Universe, "You're going to have to kill me!" The pain was so fierce after riding for four days straight breaking mor ethan 80 miles every day. My body was vibrating, my legs were shaking, the muscles were sore beyond belief, the sunburn was intense, the clothes I wore were beyond dirty, covered in layers of salt and dripping in sweat. For a moment I didn't think I'd make it, but just as I came around a corner I saw the Entering Nelson city limit signs and stopped to take a picture. It was intense, but I didn't really feel like I was there until the victory ride across the bridge into Nelson's downtown area. I wondered what song would be playing when I crossed the bridge. I stopped in awe before the bridge gazing on this emerald city built into the side of a mountain. I couldn't believe its green beauty. It reminded me of the White City of Gondor from Lord of the Rings, built into the side of the mountain. From looking at flat maps you don' get the perspective of the city or the steep angles of the roads. It was fascinating. I looked down at Magellan and gave him a pat on the TREK symbol and said, "We made it" through the tears in my eyes. As I urged my faithful mount forward we rolled onto the bridge to Tears For Fears singing Shout! Shout! Let it all out! But all I could manage was a quiet awestruck exhaustion.

I had set out to reach this unique mountain city hoping to complete many projects and meet a woman worthy of my love. When I left home, I was certain of the old cliche that the "journey was the destination." I will never say that again. Whoever wrote that has never taken an arduous journey like this and suffered so immensely. I mean I get it and all, sure, what happens on the journey shapes the person you become as you show up at the destination. But the statement neglects to honor the journey for being a complete adventure nor the feeling I had when I rolled slowly across that last high bridge overlooking an emerald harbor. When I left, I was certain the Journey was the Destination. As I traveled I realized that the Journey was the Journey, whole unto itself. When I arrived I realized that the Destination was the Destination, whole and complete, shining like a jewel atop an ancient mountain overlooking precious waters. I rode my bike through town realizing I was completely out of water and feeling dehydrated, but I managed to find the campground and secure a site in a crowded area. I alerted Alisha through email that I had arrived and headed toward the showers with razor in hand. I was rough looking and I knew it. Part of me wanted here to see me in this broken spent dirty state, but I wouldn't feel right hugging her. So I surrendered to the warmth of a calming shower with shaking legs, peeling the salty clothes from my form. In a few hours I would come face to face with this mysterious astrologer named Alisha. I didn't know where to begin with her. Should I hug her should I kiss her? SHould I keep it conversational? I didn't know where we stood. I don't think she fully realized that I had ridden all the way to Nelson to see her, to be with her, hoping she was HER, but ready for my hopes to be dashed against the walls, especially given her recent tumultuous life change. The shower felt serene and I felt clean for the first time in days. After a shave, I was looking good, and I put on my town hang out clothes, a jersey and some black shorts to await her appearance. I got an email saying she was on her way. I knew her heart,her mind, her spirit, but nothing of her physical form beyond pictures and video Skype sessions. I hoped with the innocence of a child looking for the right flavor of ice cream that I would dig her and she would dig me. Time would tell. But ultimately the Traveling Magi had some humanity o serve and some great projects to complete. With Saturn the planet of accomplishment crossing my Midheaven soon, the Life Calling line in the chart, it was high tide to complete life-chaning magus opuses. I was ready to write my Magi Opus....

Arriving in Rivendale...Hamilton MT

2010-07-21T13:26:00.000-07:00

As it turns out, Iris, Alex, and I were not the only ones to face adversity on that long hot, waterless trek from Dillon to Wisdom, Montana. Just as we rehydrated and set off down the road to cover the last 20 miles to attain Wisdom, Tony's other tire blew a hole and he could not go on. Iris and I rode ahead while Alex stayed back to help him try and patch it up. The tire was beyond repair! A while later, Tony went by with his bike in the back of a pick-up truck, and was transported over Chief Joseph Pass the whole 77 miles to Hamilton. Iris and I described him as a "Lucky Bum!" So Tony technically did go through Wisdom, but then turned left and West and went straight up the mountain pass and down into Hamilton where he was put up for the night by a millionaire at a mansion! Lucky Bum!

Meanwhile, back in the farmlands, Alex, Iris and I attained our destination of Wisdom, but the place was swarming with mosquitos. So we retreated into a restaurant where they refused to close their front doors. These people were either crazy or tough, or they just wanted travelers to suffer the wrath of the quarter-sized Wisdom mosquito! As we ate a hot dinner, I uploaded my request for funds or chart orders to my Facebook page mainly because its hard to make it to Canada on nine bucks! Within minutes of posting it, donations began pouring in... a dollar here, 20 dollars there, a chart order here, a payment there...by the end of dinner I had 300 bucks and felt better about not starving on this quest and filled with gratitude that the readers of this blog value the experience and the story. So thank you dear readers!

These three British cyclists rolled into town headed east and we watched them across the street at the gas station battling swarms of mosquitos. After they came and talked to us, they decided they were going in on a hotel room for $54. The three of us decided to brave the mosquito infested campground a half a mile West of town. I had to put all my bug armor back on just to set up my tent. We decided to place our tents extremely close together so we could make hot chai from within the tents and pass them to each other. I decided to boil the water in my tent, and I had them hand over their mugs and quickly zip the tent back up. After boiling the water and dropping the chai tea bag in, I unzipped the bottom of my tent door and placed the chai outside and quickly re-zipped my tent door so no mosquitos got in. Then Iris opened her tent, quickly reached out to grab her chai, and then re-zipped it. Within ten minutes we were all sucking down hot chai teas inside our tents laughing about the days events and wondering where Tony was staying at, unaware of his plush lodgings.

The next morning the mosquitos were in grand attendance when I woke up, stuck to the screens of my tent yearning for a crack at my skin and my blood. I reached up from my sleeping bag and started thumping them away with my fingers. That was a fun game for a time. After I got bored with thumping mosquitos, I donned my bug armor rain gear and ventured out into the wild campground, wondering how fantasy characters in novels ever dealt with the bugs, and making a mental note to always describe the bugs in future novels. I located the bathroom and it was a horrendous building with a non-flushing port-a-potty swarming with mosquitos. As I peed, I kept dancing in place because the foul beasts were attempting to make a landing on my privates, and that was not happening! Had to cut it short and run for my tent!

I quickly packed up my tent and informed the Ninja Prince and the Wise Princess that I'd meet them in town at that crappy diner for hash browns. I attached my saddlebags to Magellan (I like taking everything into my tent at night in case I need anything) and rode back to town for some hot tea and hash browns, about the only thing a vegan can order off a Western diner's breakfast menu. I found the three British guys eating there and asked to join them and we shared fantastic stories over hot tea and breakfast. Alex and Iris showed up just as the Englishmen were departing for Dillon. I decided to ride out first to try and get some distance since I'm the slowest with all my gear. We had a humongous pass to cross called the Chief Joseph Pass. I thought of my good friend and musician Jozef, who did the marvelous music for Return of the Magi, and thought I'd take a picture of the sign if I saw one.

As I suspected, the going was tough because the bugs were in high feeding frenzy and bees joined the massive horseflies and unreal mosquitos. I could see the forested mountains in the distance, and in full bug armor, with water bottles topped off with awful tasting well water, I rode like a mad man toward the summit. Alex finally passed me about an hour and a half later, as I found myself ascending the longest slowest curviest road yet. It just kept ascending and curving, and just when you thought you were approaching the top and would round a curve, there would be another curve way off in the distance uphill! The slope was not that intense, but the Wind was blowing now, and the bugs had renewed their attacks. I finally had to stop and take off some bug armor because the heat and sweat became unbearable. I just hoped I didn't break another spoke, and resolved to give the TREK dealer in Missoula a piece of my mind if I ever made it down there. The big surprise was that, although I saw Iris approaching from behind at the bottom of one of those crazy curves, I managed to stay ahead and beat her to the top of Chief Joseph Pass, where I proudly took a picture of the sign for Jozef. Then it was all downhill to the 93 Junction and a cool rest area. I flew down that hill like a madman on caffeine and met Alex at the rest area.

When I rolled up, Alex was off his bike swatting the heck out of horseflies. But he refused to kill any bees. He said they were peaceful and that although they would land on you, they wouldn't bite, as they just needed some salt. I caught his wrath later when I "accidentally" smacked a bee on Iris' arm. We broke out our cook stoves and made some lunch and tea and were enjoying ourselves thoroughly (except for the horseflies), when an athletic couple pulled up on their touring bikes just emerging into Montana from Idaho.

We made the usual introductions and all talked about our origins and destinations and the whys, wheres, hows, and who's of our individual stories. They were from California and were heading up through Idaho and Montana to Glacier and then going to visit her family in Minnesota, where Tony was from. The woman reminded me of a superhero, with amazing Wonder Woman legs that I could not stop staring at. Her thigh muscles alone were supremely impressive. Turns out that they were both Triathletes where you run, bike, and swim extreme distances as part of a race. The guy looked like my best friend and yogi Brett from Hawaii, and I told him so. They were a pleasant couple and we looked forward to seeing them along our path north.

We got going and I took the lead excited to charge Magellan down this great hill we had been hearing about. It was still another 38 miles to Hamilton, but we were determined to make it the full 77 miles, especially when we had just conquered the hard part, the first 39 miles uphill! The downslope was exhilarating as usual, but dangerous, as lots of fallen rocks littered the shoulder, so you had to keep weaving into the road around fist sized rocks to avoid crashing! It was a hair-raising ordeal, but exciting, and after a couple of more near-death experiences with a several families waving at me from inside cars, I made it to the flatlands after 11 concentrated, tiring miles! And of course, right when I hit the flats, the headwinds swept in to ruin the day, so I stopped at a gas station in Sula, bought a juice drink, pulled up a chair on the wooden covered deck, and propped up my feet to await my slower companions. My extra weight had to win out sometimes! After Alex showed up he got himself an ice cream for a dollar and propped his feet up too. After many minutes went by we wondered if Iris was still braking down the mountain (she's terrified of going too fast - her Capricorn Sun keeps it cautious)...but eventually her bike came rolling down the hill, followed by the triathletes that we had met at the rest area.

The Triathletes were so tired from the day of travel that they decided to camp in Sula and rented a tent site for 15 bucks and tried to entice us to stay with them by buying a six pack of Coors beer. But I didn't drink and Alex and Iris, although enchanted by the offer, were more interested in making our destination. The local clerk, an elderly woman with one of those deep voices that sounded like she had to push one of those buttons installed in her throat (but she sounded that way naturally), warned us that there would be a ton of traffic in Darby ahead due to the annual "Redneck Olympics". She said that a bunch of rednecks got crowded together in a stadium to watch all kinds of competitive feats like who could saw logs the fastest and swing a sledgehammer hardest, etc. It sounded fascinating so we thought we'd hurry on ahead to check it out, joking that Tony would be amongst the crowd cheering for some farmer climbing a greased pole or something equally idiotic and crazy. But then again most people thought we were the idiots or crazies for riding our bikes across the country!.

Even though the headwinds were fierce, the gentle downslope made up for it and you could go pretty fast. I had to stop and pee at this weird restaurant called the Naughty Moose. I wondered what went on there after hours, wink wink... As I came out of the bathroom, I saw this stuffed mountain lion growling at this stuffed wolf, a locally famous re-enactment of the primitive territorial squabbles of beasts. Once I was back on the bike, Alex and Iris were long gone and I vowed to overtake them, but didn't. I rolled passed a stadium full of cheering people watching the Games, but I couldn't hear much with my I-pad blaring in my ears. When I rolled into town I found my friends lounging in a city park in the shade listening to live country music. The mostly older people in attendance looked thrilled to be there (not!). And the band was singing songs about how they didn't need marijuana and long hair to be free, just guns, god, and a bunch of other culturally indoctrinated Fox-News related desires. I joked around saying to my companions, "That's right, you New Yorkers need to sit here and get cultured!"

I crossed the street and went into a gas station where an entire family of five or six greeted me enthusiastically and said they had waved at me going down the pass. They wanted to hear all about my adventure so I gave them the cliff notes version and they were highly impressed. When I found the drink section, I saw a Monster drink and remembered that it had saved my life on a trip across the country where I almost fell asleep at the wheel driving. I remembered the intense rush of energy that it gave me and kept me up screaming and yelling exciting things and thinking grand thoughts through the night. It was just the potion i needed at the end of the day to beat my friends the last twenty miles to Hamilton. I walked back across the street and sat under a tree and drank the Mega Monster drink and told Iris and Alex that they were going to taste my dust, but they just laughed and didn't believe it. I felt like I had a secret I was going to pop on them as we rode. I was excited!

The gurgling, sparkling crazy liquid flowed down my throat and burned into my stomach to begin working its magic while they sat sucking on frozen milk that would make a solid thud in their bellies and hopefully slow them down. I knew I was going to be wired! They were both going down, and I knew it, as long as I could catch one or two hills and jam ahead. But I had made my bold prediction and I was ready to put the Monster rush to work! My phone beeped and I had a voice mail from Tony saying he was in Darby. We wondered if we should ride around town looking for him, but figured since the sun was going down, he'd be making his way to Hamilton too. So we just blasted forward finding ourselves in a race with the mighty sun again.

I got ahead and won the first ten miles as the Monster potion fueled my legs and pounded my brain with excitement. I had to stop atop a rise as I saw an amazing vision of the Sun sinking into a bowl carved into the top of a mountain. Just when I snapped the picture and uploaded it to Facebook, I glanced back and saw Alex and Iris barreling up the hill threatening to pass me. I got so excited that I kicked Magellan into motion and sped ahead in low gear screaming with excitement. Little did I know, but Tony was waiting at the next gas station and I was so focused on riding hard that I didn't even hear him screaming my name as I sped by with the wind and fury flowing over my soul. Alex stopped to greet him and gave up the race with my wild horsey self, but Iris knew she could easily pass me on the flats, so she charged ahead and began to close the distance.

She says she wasn't racing now, but in my heart I knew she was giving it her all, trying to pass me on multiple occasions. But the traffic was intense and my bike was too thick on the narrow shoulder of the flats for her to pass. I knew she would catch me given the opportunity but I looked down at my odometer and was going 20 MPH! I vowed not to let it slip beneath 20 MPH. Luckily the drink masked my fatigue, because it takes a lot of energy to maintain that speed with that much weight with a crazy ambitious Capricorn on your tail! And I knew we would get plenty of rest in Hamilton so I gave it every last ounce of strength. She was not winning this race!

Five miles to go! I knew she didn't know where my friends lived, and she thought we had 8 miles to go. I just had to keep up my pace. I kept looking back and she was gaining on me when I was fortunate enough to hit a hill. I turned back and waved at her as I sped ahead. I got ahead but we hit the flats again and she began catching me! I glanced down and my odometer had fallen to 19 MPH, and I got excited and mad and stood up and pedaled hard to get back up to 20 MPH. I was literally screaming at Magellan to go faster! She was putting her full court press on and I needed one more hill if I was going to keep her behind me, but there were no declines in sight. So I just kept pedaling like a madman knowing I had to get to mile marker 45, after passing 43. Two more miles! My Monster drink overcame her as I saw her falling behind. I could tell she had given up and I cruised through the last three miles and turned on Golf Course Road to find my friend and fellow astrologer, Lisa Allen's house on the corner of Daly street. Her house was surrounded by a moat of plant life with a few openings in it for going through. Iris never made it, as she missed the turn and they all ended up downtown, but managed to find their way over later.

Meanwhile, Lisa came running out of her house and hugged my neck. I also met her super cool triple Earth Sign daughter with Jupiter Rising, named Chrissy, an enthusiastic girl who is devoting her life to the archetype of Beauty in beauty school. When the others finally rode around the corner I had already had a tour of the premises and was inside the house discussing dinner options. It turns out that Lisa had made a fantastic vegan soup for our arrival and we all sat down to a wondrous feast, surrounded by Lisa, her 18-year old daughter, and several of her young pretty friends, including Haley a healer druid herbalist who was also interested in astrology and a few other odd and interesting characters that kept going and coming. They're house was more of a communal pad for the emerging youth than a regular home, and when the man of the house, Lisa'a eccentric husband Ray came through the door, things got really fascinating fast. As it turns out, we are both gamer geeks with a passion for fantasy adventure. He is also a musician about to start back up the band he had back in the day, and was at an amazing turning point in life when we all looked at his chart. He was a very cool guy and loved astrology as well. It was great to see the whole family and their friends talking about astrology so excitedly. Chrissy was especially knowledgable about astrology pulling facts about her friend's charts from her brain like a file with her Virgo rising self. She obviously respected and learned from her amazing mother, rather than resenting her and being embarrassed by her magical craft. Lisa was also a healer, with her recent addition of herbalism and dowsing to her gifts.

Ray had such a rush connecting with me (A gentle Pisces who could barely get a word in edgewise with the two talkative women of the house, but Aries rising himself, so he had his moments of heroic conversation. At one point he said, "Dude, I feel so connected with your soul that I bet you could guess the Dungeons and Dragons book I have in my bathroom right now! I'll give you 5 bucks if you can guess it!" His gaze turned intense as he began beaming the image right at me. At first my logical mind started thinking off all the possible books it could be and it was overwhelming, so I switched it off and opened up my right brain to feeling the force. The first thing I felt was the psychic power emanating from Lisa by the sink, feeling that she was confident I could guess it. I hated trying to guess people's signs when they find out I'm an astrologer. It betrays there lack of knowledge about what true life-changing insights they could actually gain from astrology. I often felt a surge of anger over the mediocrity of humans when I heard those excited but mysterious words, "Oh! Oh! Try to guess my sign?" I understood why they liked to do that, but it was sad that our culture so devalued such a mystic art, science, and spiritual path. When I looked into Ray's eyes, I felt a force coming from him and I closed my eyes and the powerful and evocative image of an old Second Edition Dungeons and Dragons book from the 80's popped sharply into my mind called Fiend Folio. So I just said it simply, "Fiend Folio?"

He was blown out of his rocker, if he ever had a rocker, because I had guessed the exact book he had in the bathroom, and he was flabbergasted as he grabbed my shirt and guided me into the bathroom to reveal that my guess was indeed correct! As he wandered about the house collecting a dollar here and a quarter there to come up with my five bucks talking to himself in disbelief, the others were listening to Lisa and her daughter Chrissy rattle on about astrology. It was great to see Iris, a potential astrologer herself, experience people her age talking astrology like it was second nature to know this language. I hoped it inspired her to learn more!

Ray came around the corner and handed over the five bucks, three dollar bills and eight quarters, and had to give me a big bear hug, and said, "You have irrevocably altered my existence dude. I had a lot of faith before but now...whew!" He just stared at me with large eyes that said the universe had been restored to whole.

All in all we had an amazing time in Hamilton for a few days, staying at Lisa and Ray's for three nights sharing meals, stories, insights, etc. Tony and Chrissy even struck up a light romance as her Mars (which shows what a woman is attracted to) was in Aries and he was an adventurous Aries. Tony was smart and kept it light, because he knew being a gentleman was the way to go since he had no intention of cutting his trip short to fall in love nor of insulting our hosts. Tony and Alex hiked the canyon into the amazing mountains the next day seeing crystal clear streams reminding them of Rivendale from Lord of the Rings. Iris and I focused on resting and I updated the blog and did some astrology charts. On the second day, our elven hostess Lisa took us on an hour tour through her garden introducing us to a wide variety of plant life, showing us the difference between the healing plantain type plants and the dandelions, and pointing out the herbal properties of as many as 15 amazing plants like Yellow Dock, St. John's Wort, and Mullen. By the end of the herbal educational tour, I felt like I knew a slice of what Christina, my ex, knew and had learned and loved about the plant kingdom. It was indeed eye-opening to glimpse the plant realms through the instructive eyes of an elven magi-druid! Check out her Blog at http://aartiana.wordpress.com/

Later that day we all sat down to watch the Matrix, and rooted for Neo against the evil machines. By the end of the day we realized that our journeys, like the Truman Show, were about breaking out of our own self- and culturally-imposed matrices that imprisoned us in a way of life bound by rules and control. We were all excitedly quoting the movie saying things like, "There is no spoon!" "Try not to bend the spoon. Instead, realize that there is no spoon. It is the self that bends." "Now you realize the difference between knowing the path and walking the path." "Mr. Anderson!" And so on. After doing laundry and getting ready to go it was already 4 PM so we asked if we could stay another day and Lisa said we could, even though her nerves were pretty frazzled from having all her daughter's friends and us in the house. The dishes alone were enough to make one pull one's hair out. So I went off to the coffee shop to record an astrology chart and the others decided they were going to do something nice for Lisa and Ray, and offered to cook a gourmet meal.

That was when they showed up at Perkins (all the cool coffee shops had closed), where I was sequestering myself to the quiet room, and asked me for ideas and monetary contributions. I taught Tony how to make an amazing stir fry with a special grill marinade sauce and had them buy some large tomato tortilla wraps and gave them ten bucks to help it happen. I told them to save me a big one for when I returned. They didn't! When I rolled through the door hours later the dishes were stacked high again, and every pan was empty. The meal turned out to be so delicious that they couldn't help themselves, even though all seven or eight people had healthy seconds too. I was disappointed but also glad that my recipe sparked so much joy. So I cooked something even more grand and used Lisa's kitchen spice rack to create food art. I boiled some noodles and poured the delectable sauce and stir fry over it, and proclaimed that it was delicious. We all went to bed with full bellies in Rivendale, and went to sleep excited about the journey to Missoula in the morning. Unfortunately for Tony, he got little sleep after staying up till 6 Am frolicking with Chrissy and talking about life, the universe, and everything.

When morning came, I popped up, collected the laundry we had done, packed my panniers, strapped them on the bike and rode downtown for a chai before departing. I really wanted to check out this coffee shop called Liaisons, and was glad I did. It was the only coffee shop that had a child care room in the back! Where was this place when I was raising my little boy? After the crew assembled and had a drink, we all set off on the next leg of our journey to the big city of Missoula with a population of 60,000. We hoped our friend Julia from the Bike Camp would make good on her offer to host us while there, because we each had business to attend to in the largest city we had seen in a while.

I did finally get to do mini-interpretations of both Tony and Alex's charts in Hamilton. Just as I felt, these guys are my spiritual homeys. Alex is a rebellious 11th house Leo born under a Full Moon in Aquarius, and his Aquarian moon is right on my Sun sign! He also has Virgo Rising with Venus and Mars in Virgo in the house of visionary artistry, no wonder he's so detailed, quick, and into visual arts as a major in college. He's got Saturn and Mars crossing his Ascendant so I warned him about channeling frustration into action and to meditate on getting disciplined about getting his true authentic act together. Tony is an Aries, but his Moon in in Sagittarius, so he has the soul of an explorer and scholar like Albert Einstein. He also has his Mars (Male force) in Aquarius the sign of the great humanitarian and inventor and his Venus feminine essence in Pisces, the sign of its exaltation and the source of his dreamy oceanic eyes. Turns out that his Sag Moon is sitting right on my Sagittarian Ascendant, so we are like spirit brothers. Very cool to have such Universe-picked companions!

Broken Spokes and the Truman Show

2010-07-18T18:06:00.000-07:00

A Strange Awakening

"Hello Kelly, are you in there?" a compassionate soft voice asked from outside my tent. I was startled awake but still on that strange bridge between worlds where you have no clue what's really happening. Oh yeah, the bike mechanic had called before I fell asleep saying he'd be by at 5:15 AM and it was time to go out and meet him and try to get Magellan back in riding shape after throwing a couple of shoes, I mean spokes. I rubbed sleep from my eyes and said, "Hey! I'll be right out."

I slipped out of my sleeping bag and the bitter cold of morning chilled my naked body, but I quickly slipped into my padded cycling shorts, a t-shirt, my rain jacket and put on my shoes to go meet this guy named Nick Pairitz. He worked for the government in environmental studies and had to be at work by 7 AM, which gave us a few hours to tinker with Magellan.

I got out of my tent and shook his hand. He stood medium height with an average build, but his eyes were indeed compassionate and his aura friendly. His sideburns were Elvis long and he had a goofy smirk that said he knew more than he was letting on. I later found out that he had a degree in engineering from Cornell, from the local citizenry.

We pulled Magellan into the Bike Camp main building away from the sleeping three wise women, but I knew we would not be able to avoid waking them up with our repair noises and conversations, so I hoped they were early risers like most elder cyclists. From the looks on their faces later, they would have liked to have about 30 more minutes of sleep but they understood that I wasn't going anywhere without this repair.

Nick turned the bike upside down and went straight to work like a master, but patiently explaining each step after I said I wanted to watch and learn. I told him about Jackson and my first broken spoke, and now that I had two more, I really wanted to learn to fix it myself. He showed me the right tools to get and I watched him work quickly, efficiently, and patiently, with explanations like a good teacher would give. He even brought along a portable tire truing machine where he tightened or loosened the spokes with special spoke wenches and showed me how to do it. You have to turn them in the opposite direction of Righty-Tighty-Lefty-Loosey!

Once we finished our work, I shook his hand and payed him $25 and he went off to work. The three wise women were already packed and gone too,leaving me at Bike Camp all alone. I crawled back into my tent and kept sleeping until the greenhouse effect began cooking me, and forced me to wake up and take a free shower.

It turns out that the Town Council voted on an agenda that a man named Bill White brought up to use $10,000 of his personal wealth to build a cycling camp for all the numerous cyclists that come through Twin Bridges. The town had slumped into the woes of the economic depression and even the local grocery store had closed down. A year after building the free cyclists camp (they accept donations to pay for upkeep and to pay back Bill over time) the grocery store reopened along with a few other businesses like the JUmping Rainbow Espresso business started by a young couple in their front yard. They imported a coffee bar stand about the size of a caboose and set it up right in their side yard with a doorbell that rings inside their house. When someone walks or drives up to order a drink, they just pop out of their house and make an amazing drink. I rode over there and ordered a soy vanilla chai and retreated into their netted siting area where they have a table surrounded by chairs. I was so groggy still that I ended up spilling two-thirds of my drink all over the table. They were quick to help me clean up and also made me a new drink to replace the one I had lost. I took a deep breath and was glad to be having a rest day in Twin Bridges, wondering when Alex and Iris, and Tony would show up. After writing and checking email for a few hours I went over to the local grocery store to check on food and not only Alex and Iris, and Tony showed up, the ACA group rode through town as well, and I hugged Bryn and Amber. Unfortunately they were on a schedule and had to make it to Dillon before nightfall with their ACA (Adventure Cycling Association) group leader. Apparently people pay $4000 to join a cycling group with an experienced guide to do the famous journeys across America. So I bid them safe journey and showed Alex and Iris the amazing and FREE Bike Camp. We ended up having dinner with Tony over at The Shack, which was recommended by some motorcyclists at the top of that Ennis overlook, in fact the former owner of the restaurant, Patti was the one to mention it. I had a medium no-cheese vegan pizza and it was delicious.

After dinner, we cycled back over to Bike Camp and wished that every town had a cool bike friendly attitude like Twin Bridges. Apparently other towns in the region along the famous TransAmerican Trail are thinking of doing the same thing, so Bill WHite may have started a legendary trend, as cyclists bring lots of money into these small western towns on a daily basis to stimulate their economies. I had downloaded the Truman Show on my I-pad but we wanted to wait for our Unicyclist friend Sky to catch up but decided to head back to the General Store and purchase popcorn and watch it anyway inside the Bike Camp main screened-in building. It was a pleasant break to be resting the legs, have Magellan back to full mechanical health, and be accompanied by friends again.

In addition, two German cyclists, an older wily Taoist old man who talked about going with the flow of wherever their hearts lead them and his wife/traveling partner a beautiful woman with a slight impairment to her voice box who you really had to strain to understand showed up. I could tell they both really enjoyed listening to my Soulful playlist when I played it on the I-pad. And in addition to them, a guy rolled up to camp going east named Dean who was about 43 and his wife just left him. He was interested in changing his life and living a life of raw adventure as well as online dating. When he first rolled up, he had his shirt open and you could see hair on his chest and he seemed like a player, with his website called crazyguyonabike.com As it turns out, he has joined an online dating community site and when he's approaching a new town he arranges a date or two and meets up with cool woman he likes on the road. I thought it was a fascinating way to meet people who would be interested in dating a recently single long-term adventurous traveler. Most dating sites where people list their interests are sometimes silly in their descriptions of what they like because everyone seems to have the same cardboard desires: going on walks, reading, working out, long walks, sharing meals, going to movies. But when Dean put down that he was into cycling and travel, he really meant it and could prove it by his bike and his bob cart and his pictures. As it turns out he had met a really cool nurse/healer named Julia in Missoula and she decided to join him in his travels by car as she drove all the way from Missoula to spend the night with him at Bike Camp. So we had quite the crew there visiting and talking, and interacting and Julia was really into astrology and I did a mini interpretation for both Dean and her and they enjoyed it. As a result of our friendly interactions Julia invited the four of us to stay with her in Missoula when we came through next week! This would give me a chance to go to REI to replace my tent and a TREK dealer to see if I could get a better rim!

It was so good to watch the Truman Show with Alex, and Iris, and Tony. I had watched it at my mom's in Loveland so the scenes were fresh in my mind but always hilarious. I love Jim Carey as we both share that wacky, witty, comedic Gemini Moon!
I discussed with them afterward the idea that we are all in our own sort of Truman Show, where we've accepted the reality we've been presented with, but that there were other dimensions of emotion, and mind, and archetypes and the spiritual realm which most people utilized but also ignored. The physical world and its needs took precedence and we out here on bikes had a special opportunity to minimize our worldly needs so we could refocus on these other grand dimensions. I mean, of course you could totally make your travels about seeing and visiting physical sites but that when you also cultivated an awareness of symbols and watched your heart and mind, and as my good friend Peter always says, learn to trust and follow your heart in all things, then the adventure took on a magical component beyond just mere travel. We talked about that into the late night hours and then finally all retreated to our little tent huts.

In the morning I went to the Jumping Rainbow Espresso to have another amazing soy chai and they even had an employee working for them, how cool! I sat down to write a blog post and waited for Alex and Iris and Tony to come and get me so we could ride down to the next town called Dillon, just 28 miles to the southwest. Tony had tire trouble with flats and had to hitch a ride to Dillon to get to that other bike store I had contacted while Alex and Iris forgot to come get me because Iris had taken so long waking up, that they thought I had left without them. So I hopped on Magellan and proceeded to travel against some mild headwinds over ten miles of construction on a gravel-laden shoulder that seemed to only let you go at about 8 MPH, very slow going. I rolled past the Beaverhead National Monument and then the terrain became hilly, but just up and down small hills for the last ten miles into Dillon.

When I rolled into Dillon, Alex sped up beside me and then everyone showed up. It seemed that they had the bead on a good FREE campsite down by a river. So we went on into town and found that Dillon was quite large. We hit the local Safeway grocery store up for groceries and charged our cell phones and devices before exploring the town on our bikes. There were many cool cafes and unique shops but they were all closed as we had arrived late after sleeping in at the cozy Bike Camp. We stumbled upon a couple outside the Courthouse and the man was supposedly on the City Council so I asked him where we could camp for free, because we were traveling across country and were on a budget and didn't want to pay for an expensive KOA site. He directed us out to a campsite down by the river too and said even though it was technically illegal to camp overnight there, that no one would bother us, so we did! We rode out there and had to set up our tents among a swarm of mosquitos by a river. I wondered how the ancients dealt with the pests. Once Alex got the fire going they seemed to become less of a nuisance. So we set up our tents, except Tony who was waiting patiently for the sun to go down to see if the law would come along and kick us out, but they never did.

I cooked my Taste of Thai Oriental rice noodles and spiced them with some dried Shitake mushrooms, stir fried tofu, and Thai peanut sauce and it was beyond delicious. Alex and Iris went with the cheaper Ramen Noodles and hated every bite after I let them taste my vegan cuisine. Tony went with the spaghetti and tomato sauce favorite fallback and cooked way too many noodles. After eating and hanging out we had hot chai tea and retreated to our tents for some good sleep, hoping not to be woken up in the night with police shining flashlights in our eyes! They never came, even though a police car did drive by while we were cooking and the officer noted our fire. The City Councilor probably told the to leave us alone in such a small town.

The next morning I popped up first with my rooster alarm, packed up my tent and gear and was on my way into town to check out the Sweetwater Coffee Shop. I wanted to go to the other more dangerous sounding Bad Ass Coffee Shop, but when I rode by Sweetwater, I saw several cyclist bikes that looked like the ones camped at KOA when we had driven by the night before, so I stopped to talk cycling shop. There were three cyclists in there, and two were riding tandem, a young couple, while an older guy in his forties named Mark, who was riding with a cause of raising money to help stop de-finning and wonton slaying of sharks in asia through his site endfinning.com They couldn't believe I was carrying four panniers plus my huge backpack!

The Chai was indeed sweet and I added a shot of espresso because we had a very challenging 65 mile ride ahead to Jackson MT and Wisdom MT. I didn't know if we would make it because it was uphill over two very large passes. Something deep down sensed trouble ahead, but I didn't know what to make of this feeling. I just knew it would be challenging. When the crew showed up we filled our water bottles and we visited the local health food store. I was really wanting to buy some soy vanilla creamer so I could treat them to some amazing chai around the fire later that night. I distinctly remember wanting to buy a six pack of healthy ginger ales, but I opted for Almond Dream vegan ice cream instead to give me a nice kick in the early going. Later I would regret this decision deeply.

The ride started off great and we found the frontage road that would lead us down to the highway that turned back Northwest toward Jackson and Wisdom. I remembered coming to this area to attend a National Rainbow Gathering back in the summer of 2001 which occurred in the mountains up above Jackson. It would be nice to visit that little town again with a different mission this time. Before I packed in two boxes of my astrology book Celestial Renaissance: A Revolution of Astrology, and I was determined to set up my epic astrology circle again and teach whoever came the ancient wisdom of the stars. This time I was passing through as the Traveling Magi en route to a new life of Locational Independence and to meet Alisha, who might just be the true love of my life, if only I could learn to love and honor my deeper visionary self first and foremost. It was fascinating to reflect on how my life had changed so dramatically since those early days in Asheville NC. I had hitched a ride from other rainbow folks from NC all the way to Jackson WY to attend the gathering. I remember standing by the bonfire of the Jerusalem Camp at 3 AM with my good friend and spiritual brother David Alexander English and we watched the Northern Lights in amazement.

The Wind started off great that morning with 42 miles uphill to Jackson, a hard day ahead. I was grateful for the cooperation of my new nemesis, the WIND! However, I soon learned to respect and yearn for the Wind when all kinds of mosquitos and horseflies started harassing me. It was so intense that I almost crashed Magellan into a ditch trying to swat at them! And the Sun was blazing down as if it meant to melt us into butter patches. Tony shot ahead and left everyone eating his dust, while Alex and Iris blasted ahead when I stopped to take my first picture of the scenery, as usual. I couldn't upload it to Facebook with no service in the desolate area. I decided that I'd rather be hot than a meal for the bugs, so I put on my heavy rain jacket and my synthetic rain pants so that I had full armor against the pests. Even though it hurt me to do so, I began silently praying for the Wind to return, realizing the good side of a nice breeze, but not wanting a malicious headwind either.

As a result of being so hot and sweaty under all that rain gear, I was sucking down water at an accelerated rate. The others had long disappeared over the horizon and I was struggling up the first of two gigantic climbs. Unfortunately, on the downslope of the first climb when I was supposed to be enjoying a rushing easy ride, the headwinds kicked in slowing my descent hard. I had to pedal just to go 8 MPH on the downslope which is never fun, and my camel back full of water was exhausted. I still had my two water bottles full, but I started scanning the horizon in search of a cafe or gas station, worrying about possible dehydration if my water stores ran dry. When the Adventure Cycling Map that Alex carried said NO SERVICES, and warned us to stock up well, I realized they were serious. There were no services anywhere in sight, not even farm houses. My lips were chapped and dry from the beating wind and I was down to my last water bottle with over 18 miles to go. My throat was dry and the wind turned against me as I began my ascent up the largest climb of the day, wondering how I could possibly make it. I had reached that point in the ride where everything was beginning to ache and there was nothing you could do about it but ride hard and pray for good winds and currents. After several applications of lip balm, and another hour of trying to conserve my last water bottle's contents, I truly learned how to drink and enjoy a good gulp of water. I would squirt the nourishing liquid into my mouth and just hold it there over the course of a mile or so and just swallow little by little as the highway swooped underneath my tires, truly enjoying the water trickling down my parched throat.

The whole ride I was listening to Alan Watts lectures on Taoism, Zen, and Hinduism. My brain began hallucinating in the sheer heat and I saw Indian Gods like Brahmin and Vishnu with their multiple arms rising out of the road before me. I realized that the Indian religion of Hinduism started with the conception that the universe was not a creation that had been constructed as in our Western theologies, but rather, a drama that is enacted over thousands and thousands of years during enormous ages called Kalpas with smaller subdivisions called Yugas. They thought of the supreme being as a magical child who got bored with being one unified infinite field of consciousness and began playing hide and go seek with himself/herself and that we are all manifestations of the divine all trying to wake up and realize the game, to seek ourselves in the hidden positions we've gotten ourselves into. I realized I was on my last gulp of water with 17 miles to go to Jackson and began to worry. Then I realized that on some divine level, I had tricked myself into this position, in getting way out here with no water and seeing how I would react when placed in a survival situation.

Would I be too proud to hitch a ride and stubbornly force myself to cover those 17 miles with no water? I started going through my food inventory in my mind wondering what items had high water content: I had some leftover dried shitake mushrooms, some peanut sauce, and my Braggs amino liquids (but it was salty and would make me more thirsty). So I thought dry might meet dry and stopped to chew on a dried shitake mushroom, and it worked! My thirst went a way for a while. But it wasn't long before I had to eat another, and another. My water bottle was dwindled down to the last gulp and still 16 miles to go. It was sweltering hot and I wondered if it was my destiny to feed this tired body to the bugs and be done with this mad struggle. I thought about lying down in the ditch and letting the bugs have at it so I could wake up in eternity, but my rational self refused to give in. The wind returned harsh and biting and I had to push the bike up the next pass with the top nowhere in sight. I stopped and stripped off my bug armor rain gear just to be cool and realized my undershirt was extremely wet. I had been sweating violently all day. I was wondering if I could squeeze my shirt into a water bottle and drink it, when up ahead, I heard the sound of flowing water!

I pushed my bike ahead and saw a small creek flowing right under the road through a drainage pipe. I knew the water was contaminated with giardia from all the farm animals I had seen on the land, but there were no farms in sight that I could ask for water. I stood there looking at the water with my thirst glands salivating, weighing the options of intense sickness versus dying of thirst and I forced myself to turn Magellan away slowly and begrudgingly and keep trudging up the pass, too weak to ride in the harsh wind. I was furious for sending my water purification tablets off to Canada, thinking there was no way I'd need them. How wrong I was. I weighed the option of hitchhiking against the egotistical goal of saying I rode my bike all the way to Canada. There were not too many vehicles coming down the road anyway, and I would need a pickup truck for myself and Magellan.

I slowly squeezed the last gulp of water into my mouth and held it there for a good mile, just letting it trickle ever so slowly down my throat. I thought of Alisha and how she would feel if I died out here on the road on the way to meet her and that picked up my spirit. I hopped back on my trusty steed and pedaled hard toward what I thought was the summit. But another summit appeared in the distance and the Wind came ripping down hard. I took the Buddhist approach and thanked it for cooling my skin and blessed it for keeping the bugs away, even though it impeded my progress to that little town of Jackson, which I remembered had a tiny general store and a hot springs. The last thing I would want at that moment was to wallow in a hot springs. I wanted cool nourishing water desperately, and I began chewing on another dried mushroom. I was determined to fight and alternate between pushing the bike in harsh winds and rolling down the occasional slopes. But in the end I surrendered and begrudgingly stuck out my thumb as a pickup truck had already gone by. I don't think they saw me out of their rear view mirror trying to beg for a ride, begging to stay alive in that fierce wind and sweltering heat. My mouth was dry and my lips were burning so I just kept applying lip balm. I wish I'd a bought that 6 pack of ginger ale instead of that damn almond ice cream that morning! I vowed to always buy an extra can or bottle of liquid if I made it through this.

As a few more vehicles went by, I got brave with the trucks and stuck out my thumb before they got to me, but no one seemed interested in stopping to help me now. I wondered how the others faired ahead and sent them a desperate text, saying that I was 15 miles out with no water and dying of thirst, hoping they would ride me out some awful tasting well water from Jackson. But there was no Verizon service out there in the middle of nowhere. So I trudged along wondering if this was it, wondering what effect dehydration would have on me as I stumbled into Jackson 15 miles from now. I knew I could make it 15 miles with no water because I'm stubborn that way, but it would be a long and painful unnecessary journey. So I stuck my thumb out again at the next pickup truck and they sped by as if to say, "You made you're bed and now you've got to sleep in it you damn cyclist!"

Then I had an idea. What if I held my water bottle out as if to say, "Hey I'm out of water and could use some more. Could you help a lone traveler dying of thirst?" I tried it with the next pickup truck that sped by about ten minutes later and the little black truck went on by and I bowed my head in dismay. But then as I slowly looked up I saw the driver stop ahead and turn around. It was an older man and woman, and they offered me what was left of a small water bottle and said they could transport me to Jackson. I thanked them profusely and the man named John (my dad's name is John) helped me lift Magellan into the back where they had a cooler. The lady whose name was Maryella (my stepmom is Mary), pointed to the cooler and told me it was full of ice! Oh my God! I downed the water first and then as the truck picked up speed and the howling wind rushed over my face, I watched the landscape ascend to impossible heights, and I was so glad I surrendered and took some help. I thanked the Hindu Gods of dramatic enactment for making me realize the essence of my true nature, my immortal timeless spirit that is having this amazing adventure in a body, and sucked on ice cube after ice cube, like they were the teats of eternity, rubbing their cold blocky melting forms over my lips slowly, savoring their stored coolness. I imagined the state of the universe before the Big Bang inflationary period being smaller than a dot, and pretended their frozen quality poured from the time before that primeval explosion.

John and Maryella dropped me off at their turnoff about a half a mile from Jackson. When we came over the last rise, I was grateful to the nth degree. I would have never made it over that pass and my friends would be worried sick. I thanked them from the deepest abyss of my heart and looked John right in the eyes. I told him my dad and step mom were named John and Mary, and that today they had saved their son's life. Good karma was in store for them indeed. I got on Magellan and took my short victorious ride down the hill into Jackson and found my friends sitting on a bench outside the general store, looking about as bad as myself. As i turned out, Iris had a flat about a mile ahead of me and needed the patch kit that Alex had (I had one too). The same ride that picked her up, picked Alex up as well and delivered them to Jackson. Tony alone made it all the way with no help after buying a new back tire in Dillon at the bike shop and powering ahead with the true gusto of an Aries. I felt a true kinship with both he and Alex and was anxious to see their charts.

The water in Jackson was terrible well water, but not as bad as the stuff you get in Tularosa, New Mexico. The calcium deposits run thick and you wonder how anyone lives on the stuff. But after almost dying out there in the wilds, I filled those bottles with honor and slowly drank down a few bottles of it, ignoring the taste for its life giving qualities. Today I learned how to truly drink a drink of water, to truly savor its essence, and I thanked the Universe for the lesson. After a quick meal of all kinds of random items from the store I realized that my Pay Pal debit card was down to it's last nine bucks. Soon I wouldn't be able to buy any food either. I had faith things would work out. Iris said that they would never let me starve. I wanted to hurry up and get to Nelson so I could finish writing my next epic astrology book and complete the editing of my next documentary film on chart interpretation, so I could earn some money the good old fashioned way, not begging for donations from inspired readers or selling collections on E-bay.

For some reason, clients have not been ordering astrology charts, probably sensing that I'm out here struggling to survive between internet cafes, but I've still been able to record charts and send them off digitally. I knew I could make it to Nelson, but I also heard the guards at the Canadian border would not let you enter Canada penniless. Maybe I should have sold my HD camera? Maybe my friend Melissa would start sending me money for the lap top I sold her, my loaded Dell Inspiron? When was my spiritual tithe coming from my good friend and client Lane? Maybe I should ask all my Facebook friends (802 of them) to donate a dollar on my http://www.travelingmagi.com website. Even if only 10% sent aid, that would give me 80 bucks for seeds, and nuts, and chai and noodles. I was used to getting at least 3-5 chart orders per week, and now they had dwindled to one per week after I had fully redesigned my website, which was disappointing.

I figured the economic depression had everyone down. No one needed cosmic wisdom about their character or cycles during these rough times when people just wanted to survive. After almost dying in the mosquito-infested high plains of Montana I knew their desperation. Things would pick up when I got settled in. I hoped Nick's magical repair of my two spokes would last. being woken up in the dark hours of sunrise by that engineering Saint Nick had to come with some magic! I prayed for magic as we hopped on our bikes and headed for Wisdom, Montana. I told Alex and Tony that no matter what, in 20 miles when we got to Wisdom, that I was going to interpret their charts. I was burning with curiosity now. But in fact, as it turns out, Tony would never make it to Wisdom at all!