I rode 5000 miles on The Bike last week. In my room. On my laptop.

All very demanding. Landscape shifting.

My bicycle, propped against the wall, witnessed my hunt through France, the USA, Switzerland, England, a tiny corner of New Zealand. Watched me investigate food, lead, horticulture, and where I might want to go to school; overheard a conversation where I startled to hear mention of draft horses. Along with me, she struggled with enervating milk-white grey, life sucking, morning into afternoon, maybe all day, skies.

The road kept on and on and on, day-in-day-out.

Then, I decided: Enough. I parked. Stopped looking. Resolutely.

That next day, the sun shone through by 10 a.m.

Coincidence, you say.

Fine. As you like. I offer no interpretation.

On Friday afternoon, when sun finally broke through the day, Bicycle and I pedaled to the library to get the book waiting for me, and then to the cafe. There, she usually gets admired, and I sip and read outdoors. Very satisfying.

On that day, she was glimmering, and I was slowly making my way through pages of plants, patterns and explanations of Goethean ‘exact sensorial imagination’ when friend Alla and her sweet fellow James strolled up, bustled about, decided to stay.

If ever in need of proof of life’s sense of humor and perfect timing, I will refer to this tale: After choosing to settle in together, the next choice was tea all around, and I declared “I’m buying; what will you have?”

Alla brightened: “Ding Dong.” I blinked.

Their favorite green tea at this cafe, I surrendered to silly, finding it sublime. It took me only four times of asking to make sure I got the name right. Oh me of so little faith, less trust, and so much judgment!

We chatted. I left my copy of Mr. Suchantke’s Eco-Geography to emanate on the table. By that night I had finished the introductory chapter, Ecology of the Imagination. (Norman Skillen) I fell asleep happy and woke up that way too.

Today, I will take time to find if the thrilling Chapter One title, Primeval Past as Living Present is fulfilled by thrilling content. It is about Ngorongoro, of which I really know nothing. Lots of ignorance, and a sunny day to boot! Even better, another bike ride somewhere to read this out-of-doors.

The Bicycle Ride unwinds through my life. Not knowing is an evolving presence. Before I left, I called the ride to LA a Victory Ride. I also commented over yet another tea with Alla and James that I really had no idea what I would do after riding to LA. The conversation rolled around to Alla saying, “Well, there’s the book to write: I Really Don’t Know.”

As is known, the ride daily was a ride of not knowing.

As to being a Victory Ride, it was. Sure. Of course. I ought to hold a contest:

Write In! Tell Christine What The Victory Was, Really!

A trip to empty out the last two years of ‘being injured’? Very funny, as only god, the universe, the whatever it is That Is, can be. “The last two years….”?? Oh please. Emptying out a lifetime, more like it.

It is feels good to feel emptied out, especially when combined with not knowing. Helps identify where I am not emptied at all. Oh my, laughin’ at myself. Softly chuckling, actually.

I wake most mornings in pain that could be identified as a result of the accident. I know better, though. I know if I be with it, do not interpret it, I change it. Just as in being with the ride. Just as being with life.

Having chosen to stop all looking, I did net realizing something I had not before.

I sleep at ‘alert’. I am not at rest. “Alert” does not make for a comfortable leg and pelvis. Legitimately, I could attribute this tension to the plain where neurological~brain aspects of the physicality and psychology of my life landscape, fashioned by soul and events, meet. Moments, particling, waving, patterning.

Hmmm.

Like Pee-Wee Herman, one of my daily practices is The Word for The Day. I get mine from breathing rather than a robot. Though, maybe if I did not sleep stiff as a robot, I would not find pain every morning. Hmmmm.

Whatever the Word, it evolves out of my meditation, and presents, instructs, unfolds exponentially through a day in the life. It tours me along, points out This, aligns That; sparks translate into vision, sensation, feeling, comprehension….maybe.

Last Friday something was shifted. Rather then a word, I received more of a hint, an experience: flow and relationship. Might call it angle, position or stance. My experiencing in relation to experience.

Not knowing as a place. No category of Not or Knowing. No categories. Pure. Freedom.

What to do with this? Not to do anything feels like the only thing to be done. Well, where is the new career in that?

Not doing such a good job of surrendering, I manufacture mental fol-de-rol. More ridiculous than silly, and not sublime at all.

Today I read something my friend James gave me. An interview with a woman, Neelam. Perhaps he is the interviewer. I do not know.

“The tremendous power…of being here. The moment you are willing to be here, something stops. You are actually resting here as you are.”

“Everything is attracted to that freedom, that space, because now there is some place to rest.”

Ah, I have a choice about sleeping at alert!

She says “you can be honest about what arises in consciousness and take absolute total responsibility for what is, no matter how much or little you know of it.”

Brain and life have, for two years, conspired so I had to find every difficulty was an offering to recover from the illusion of powerlessness. A choice of new position: the victory of being present. I equate this with taking responsibility. Eventually, I did come to hear it as a loving call to myself.

I just have to be willing to do it. Which requires that I remember to do it. Which requires a willingness to believe I can. From that moment of presence, the moment of breathing and being, veils fall away. Rich, fecund, deep unfoldings evolve.

Now, I just have to get the trick of being present in the midst of not knowing. What was it I said about faith, trust, and judgment?

I had said leaving LA was moving on, to see what I see.

The IS that IS is enjoying my plans, no doubt. Chuckling, really. I am a funny grrl, no doubt about that.

The Bicycle Rides On.