Liberalis

Act One: Seeing Yourself in Others
I took a little run-away to Salt Lake City two days ago and got back yesterday. Being in the big city has always made me a bit nervous and stressed out, as I'd soon remember. But in seeking to re-invent a more-positive attitude, I thought, "Ah, a great opportunity to learn to love and appreciate people better". And so it was. After donating plasma, I seek to return to my campsite via rail. I lug my bicycle up the train's stairs, and my guess (and attempt at positivity) was soon proven correct that I just missed the first train for a reason. Enter Cody Supertramp: A wild-haired, bold-minded, brave-heart with a road bicycle of his own too! We begin naturally at talking about each others' bicycles. I learn that he has ridden/walked his bicycle all the way from New Jersey. A young man stifled by the suburbanite culture of the east just like myself! He tells me of his bicycle breaking in Kentucky and him walking all the way to central Tennesse. What I read of his account echoed sweetly of the reverent awe that I found myself in my early travels -- namely that people are good, that they want to help, and that they hold a great capacity to love. I share an excerpt of his song

Culture shocked. The kindness of people out here is unreal. My family out here feeds me, clothes me, gives me rides. A guy at work gave me 20 dollars when funds were low. Another bought me my favorite flavor of Rockstar. Another gave me half a pack of cigarettes when I was out and yet another bought me a pack today cause he could see I was having a bad day. Even the cop who caught me hopping the train, let me off with a warning and thanked me for my cooperation. I love it here, finally surrounded by people who are as compassionate as I. I've lived here for 4 months, and feel more at home than 28 years in Jersey.

Cody found what was there all along, the road just brings it out of us, and out of others. He said essentially that by wandering, he found what he needed. He now knows a lot more of what he wants to do in life. Not all who are drifters are running away from something lesser. Some of us are running to something greater. 

Act Two: And Just What Do You Want?
Next morning, I wake up and descend the hill while my sleeping bag and materials dry. I didn't walk but three minutes but I see a school bus parked just outside the trail-head parking lot. I immediately realize what kind of person this bus belongs to. I see steam coming out of a vent fashioned into the roof. I see the bus's original district faded on the side. And what caught my heart the most: A "Little Tikes" brand step stool, fashioned to look like an oak tree. Children! Oh, how beautiful!! I come back an hour later and I see A man and three children outside the bus. I call to him, "Hello! I think the way you live is beautiful". He introduces himself as Charles Wallace, and I soon find out that his beautiful life was shared between him and his wife, and his seven children. . . and his two large dogs! We share spiritual conversations, iPod pictures, a bowl of chili, travelogues, how Christ said we should become like little children -- see life the way they see it -- and talking of finding that woman that I'll cherish through life and eternity. He says that his vision became impaired in one eye and he was not able to work for a year. Eventually they realized they were just bemoaning their misfortune and not living. I so admired their dedication to God, and their great children. He suggested a radical change in my life, and while I felt I was where I was supposed to be, I defintely understood the kind of woman I wanted to share my life with after that point. 

Act Three: Nirvana
Woke up before sunrise, wanted to wait until it was warmer. Plunged back inside, completely enveloped and sheltered. I was comforted by the light passing through my sleeping bag, bringing out the red and orange tones in my skin. Eventually poked my head out, it was mid morning and I was surrounded by sparkling white, I laid there on my back looking at the sky, the winter branches spread across big blue. If I live to be a thousand I should never forget those branches, which stood bravely overhead and with beautiful peace, mirroring my mood at that precise moment. But it was more than peace, it was freedom. It was a peace detached from anything and everything. I thought that maybe it was time to go home, even if just for a little while. 

--------------------

And as for Mr. Wallace, you can only guess what the bus'es faded letters read: 

Liberty School District 

Wild Inheritance

Instincts long dead became a live again. The domesticated generations fell from him. In vague ways he remembered back to the the youth of the breed, to the time where the wild dogs ranged in packs though the primeval forest, killing their meat as they ran it down. . . In this manner had fought forgotten ancestors. They quickened the old life within him and the tricks they stamped into the heredity of the breed were his tricks. They came to him without effort or discovery, as though they had been his always. And when, on still cold nights, he pointed his nose at a star and howled long and wolf-like, it was his ancestors, dead and dust, pointing nose at star and howling down through the centuries and through him. 

- Jack London, The Call of The Wild

(From October 15th) . . . Cooped up for two days, mostly inside. Feeling myself in a hibernation-like state where desire for food is faint and unrewarding, my body closed up in a patient waiting whilst my soul openly suffers. My sleep schedule disorients, I could sleep all the time or little. It would seem to make no difference. I step outside, not for but a moment. I do it with heart, with intent. I ride out in the afternoon sun past landfill mounds, truck stops, and railroad tracks. I pause and begin my re-connection. Bare feet in deep grass. No thoughts, no inward dialogue. Resonant peace flowing within, mirroring the landscape without. Midwestern winds rippled along tassels of marsh grass much like dancing water in a steady mountain stream, and the slow river sat, shining, placid. Bold Michigan winds poured through a willow tree opposite the marsh, not caring how or why the wind moved it, but bravely being and holding my affectionate gaze. Felt my body changing. Reawakening now that I was back among the living, the breathing, the being. . .

Not as stark as this, but there is these two existences, distinguishable always. As I re-connect with Nature, where I put my feet on raw earth, a kind of spiritual resonance begins to sing again -- as it always has with each return to what is good and sensible -- A genetic agreement with the experiences of ancestors, long passed, though alive still. These two beings: The life of recent man, and the life which bears the essence of ancient, or older, man. One carries an inconspicuous dissonance, the other a warm resonance, familiar and edifying. True, we often find ourselves in the life that is carved out for us, but sometimes fail to recognize the identity given us of our fore-bears. Be still, and find it instantly. Or, coming back (returning home) from an anesthetized and fallow reality, patience and persistence in wildness will bring it back ever-so-steadily, much as Buck in London's tale experienced. Harking back to older ways of living, thinking, exercising and eating bring us back to the vitality and hardiness that our ancestors enjoyed, even those a few generations back. I myself have Eastern European ancestors that were living a subsistence agrarian lifestyle as late as 1880, so the reflection in the pool is undisturbed, clear, not as muddied by the times of the Industrial Age as many of my peers. I have not forgotten the tricks and feelings they understood. Through a mindful state, it has been relatively easy for me to "remember back" and allow "domesticated generations," with their overemphasis on ease and capital, and an unfortunate disjointed-ness to fall away. Those who would teach us our culture and "our place," may help us become who we will be, but can never take into account who we once were. Thus cultural training -- or conditioning -- must always be viewed with cautious discernment, favoring our temporal (ancestors) and spiritual (The Great Spirit, the Creator) heritage as a moral point of departure and foundation: A wild inheritance. As I reconnect with the earth, plunging into soil, I feel my hands are their hands. Feeling the beauty of nature unimproved, my heart, their heart. My eyes, their eyes. I see what they saw: A thousand gifts, all pointing to God, from whom all flow: sight, smell, fruit, flower, animal, vegetable, earth, river, sky. 

Temperance

You are as a tiny flower in desert autumn
Late blooms in the warm coolness, beautiful and so perfect,
Formed by God -- petal and pistil
Yet. . . I cannot quite pluck it up and keep as my own
It gives inspiration, a tie to God, and I return it the gift
Of breath, gratitude.

Wasatch Valley, Utah