My bike route!

Hey everyone! In about a week I will be biking from Chillan, Chile to El Bolson, Argentina. The following is my bike route. It will be about 600 miles from start to finish. I don't really have an exact time-line but I would like to make it to El Bolson by Christmas. So about two weeks. Anywho, I hope this map brings you comfort and lessens your worries! I will be on the main highways the entire time and I have spoken to various friends that have driven along it and seen many other bicyclist. I feel my body so strong and healthy when I do these big trips. I intend to take it slowly, making sure to take care of my body.

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A Clever Melody

Riding on my bicycle, I move through the neighborhoods of my place. Children waving, mountains snow capped in the back ground, wondering smog, crowded buses in a hurry, bells ringing, school's out, father and sun doubled on a bicycle, an eerily still convalescent. Everyday I ride the same route, I notice changes with each day and the quiet still unmoving consistencies.
But the dogs always break into my thoughts. The stray dogs move so slowly from one place to the next, maybe giving me a glance as I glide by. Them, surviving day to day on the waste of others, skinny and sunken...yet free.
The dogs that bark remain behind criss-crossed fences, snarling at me and what ever else moves beyond their caged freedom. Them, fed and loved by their human companion. Fat and ensconced...yet angry and violent. Fearful of the freedom beyond the cage.
One day someone said: we can create a container of freedom. A container where the people believe in the illusion that they are free but move only to the clever clapping of our crafted melody.

When all nourish, all is nourished

The other day I watched a leaf fall from a tree. Shall I feel sorrow for that leaf, pricked from it's life source? As I ponder, the leaf continues to fall. It falls onto a hillside with many years of fallen leaves. I see the hillside covered in withered old, new and just fallen. I hear the wind gather strength, leaves in a symphony of falling all around me.
These leaves, they have gathered sunlight and given oxygen for many weeks now. Nourished by the roots of the tree, the sun and the air...they are ready. They fall to nourish and offer themselves to another living form. The form slowly withers, but the energy lives on.
All life, all things in nature offer their nourishment to the world, I simply follow that pattern. When all nourish, all is nourished. This is the beautiful harmony of our place.

Da Pacem Domine

The girl stands outside on the back patio, broom in hand. Sun lighting dancing particles, giving glow to leaves and casting shadows. She stares, eyes and mind occupied with the scene around her. A grown tree seemingly confined to a 4x4 square pot. Yet the surrounding squared tiles are warped by the motion beneath. Cracked Lifted Shifted. Green seed pods sprinkled on the red tiles, patio chairs and table. Hundreds more hanging above in the tree's many branches. Just waiting.
Broom in hand the young girl smiles, soul captured and charmed by the scene surrounding.

An Innocence Lost

When innocence is lost,
there is a hole before every step
a crack in every road.
When innocence is lost
you look both ways before crossing.

Tonight riding my bicycle I felt the world becoming to dangerous for the innocents. The illusion of solidarity taking over. Alone balancing on the momentum of my bicycle. Dogs barking behind every fence. Buses striking inches from my face. Lights out, a rock before every turn and a crack in every road. I remember the words of a fifteen year old girl, "I don't believe in God because so many bad things have happened to me." The face of six year old gone numb to the strike of a hand again and again. That hand, that hand so discontented with the world. Alone on my bicycle feeling the innocence of a child loosing.

This is something I had to vote for on my absentee ballot today:
"Standards for confining farm animals. Initiative statue.
Requires that certain farm animals be allowed, for the majority of everyday, to fully extend their limbs or wings, lie down, stand up and turn around. Limited exceptions apply. Fiscal impact: Potential unknown decrease in state and local tax revenues from farm businesses, possibly in the range of several million dollars annually. Potential minor local and state enforcement and prosecution costs, partly offset by increased fine revenue.
YES
or
NO"
I fear the world to dangerous for the extension of limb.

Beyond the Window

I am in my room. Yellow light fills the space, illuminating the matter surrounding me. The buzzing bulb, bringing light to a dark space. There are windows on two of the four walls within. The falling sun, turns day to night. Looking out my window, I see only my reflection and general shapes. As I too fall from day to night, I switch the bulb off. Darkness fills my room, now I see the light pouring in from the windows, caressing the surfaces of what lays inside. The blinds from my own light shed and give way to the infinite beyond the window.

Whispering Melodies

I had a dream last night. Day was slowing fading to night and my eyes deepening in sleep. I woke up and it was dark. I woke up in a large house with plenty of people. The creatures would be coming soon. We needed to lock the doors and board up the windows. Everyone was preparing for what was to come. Some people gathered together in one room. Some upstairs, some downstairs. Some alone in dark hiding spots. I looked for a place of my own. I heard a piano playing, playing like it was the last song of our lives. It wasn't melancholy or sad, but not terribly up beat. It was a simple and deep melody that everyone could feel. I followed my ears to a man sitting at a table full of flowers. The man had delicate thin metal instruments attached to the ends of each of his fingers. He stroked the petals, and was able to capture the song within the flower. It no longer sounded like a piano, it sounded like the supple voice of a singing heart. The notes long and gentle. Delicate and tranquil. Each note flowed into the next. And though the people carried on with movements and their objectives, there was a whispering melody entering their hearts.

The Azul Sky in a Beautiful Butterfly

One day a little girl sat along a hillside rolling in the grass and gazing at the skies. She saw a flutter in the air through the corner of her eye. A butterfly floating her way, bright azul wings like the sky she gazed at. Now floating upon the wings of this fluttering butterfly. Closer and closer swarming around her. The young girl reached out. The butterfly just escaping her grasp. Again reaching out, then chasing, running, diving, sprinting after the beautiful butterfly. Across the fields, into the forest, across a river, over a hill chasing chasing chasing far from home, panting without breath... Finally the butterfly settled upon a log atop the hill. The little girls eyes glistened with excitement. Slowly she crept to the resting butterfly. Step by step dreaming of capturing such a wonderful sight. She leaped, her hands stretched and reaching and clasped her hands together. She felt a slight flutter tickling her palms. She caught it! It was her's! She ran home, the beat of the wings becoming slower with every step she took. She dropped it in a box. The beautiful azul butterfly lay there still, unmoving. Every morning the girl looked at her beautiful butterfly. But with everyday she noticed the colors fading. The wings now brown and grey disentergrating to dust....A tear fell from the little girl's sky azul eyes.