It's been wonderful transitioning back into my previous lifestyle and getting back in touch with family and friends. So yeah, lots of fun and light stuff, as evidenced by my last entry. And on another light note, my sister and I have reconciled our differences about my walkabout, mainly agreeing to disagree. We still value one another too much to let differences of opinion stand between us for long.

But, as always, with the light must come the dark. Lately, I've often been feeling a bit burned out, or even used up. Obviously, part of this is due to my transition back into my sped-up lifestyle. I haven't been meditating, yoga-ing, and tai-chi-ing very much, so it's no wonder that I have been feeling less centered while more scattered and tired. But there may also be a certain amount of bone-tired weariness from my walkabout finally catching up with me too. It's possible that since I'm no longer living on the edge, my defenses have relaxed and now I'm feeling the deeper fatigue of my monkabout. Or perhaps this hungry life of travel and adventure has left me jaded and a bit world-weary. Lately, I feel like I have been "On" so much and now I'm looking for the "Off" switch. Sometimes when I drive late at night, the city lights beckon, promising sweet anonymity.

And on a much darker note, there have been what feels like an inordinate amount of deaths.....again. A very dear friend of my mother's who long ago had once been our housekeeper passed away a couple of months ago. She was a pillar to her family and was beloved by so very many. She was a beautiful soul who always prayed for my well-being, sensing that my wandering ways could use a bit of divine vigilance. She was in her nineties, so her passing was not really a surprise, but a couple of other deaths came as quite a shock.

The daughter of another of my mother's good friends was recently diagnosed with cancer and then died two weeks later. But perhaps the most surprising death was that of one of my mother's former boarders, a young student from Japan. I had gotten to know him during my break from the walkabout to be with my family for my Aunt Rosie's funeral and the holidays over this past winter. He was a high-spirited and active guy, enjoying all sorts of sports like surfing, golf, tennis, and even skateboarding all over our neighborhood like I used to do when I was younger. He had only recently moved out of my mother's house to live with his girlfriend when he went skateboarding down a big hill and lost control. He fell and hit his head on a curb and died. Since he was an only child, his death came as an especially hard blow to his parents. And then just a couple of weeks ago, my newly married cousin's (see last entry) grandfather went for a walk on the beach and fell off a cliff and died. He had been in fine health, so it was quite a shock to their family.

And again, I'm not sure what to make of all these deaths. (See "Going Home" for my somewhat befuddled approach to multiple deaths.) I guess it makes sense that knowing a lot of people means experiencing a lot of deaths. And I've gotten to know so many people, especially over this past year of walkabout. Perhaps the lesson for me is that ultimately I can choose my response to death. Different people will take different lessons from the same experience. Two people might remark on the ephemeral nature of life and respond oppositely, one choosing to be more careful while the other tosses caution to the wind in a newly minted carpe diem approach to life. And of course, both responses are totally valid.

For me, the fleeting nature of life lends it a deliciously bittersweet beauty. So I choose to grieve as appropriate, but most of all, I choose to honor and celebrate both life and death. And I will try to remember to do these before those dear to me reach the end of the road. And despite Dylan Thomas' best exhortations, when my time comes, I hope to go gently into that good night, and not "Rage, rage against the dying of the light." I watched Carol fight to the bitter end, and her days were filled with frustration, anger, and pain until that final dark night descended upon her. And yes, that's totally valid too, but I wish to seek the peace and harmony within the light and the dark. Of course, that's easy for me to say now when I am not faced with my own imminent demise. We'll see what happens when it's my time to turn out the lights.

Personally, the most palpable manifestation of this latest sense of internal darkness has been an anxiety that has crept into my dreams and meditations. Dark visions filled with menace and conflict have invaded my sleep. This is nothing new of course, what with dreams being a primary processing plant for the unconscious, but the nightmares have been more frequent than usual. And during my meditations I have become aware of an underlying apprehension.

For the most part, I still feel pretty upbeat, if a bit tired, but I know better than to ignore these less-than-subtle messages from my unconscious. If I ignore them for too long, then a persistent unease can easily build to a very discernable stress, which in turn can grow into sickness and even disease. Again, it might be some repressed angst that I am finally releasing from my walkabout experiences. And it very well could be apprehension over my very unplanned future. Probably some of both of these, and it could be some other emotional issue(s) that I'm totally clueless of. (Hey, I'm a guy, after all.)

So I will explore these shadowy woods and do my best to embrace the spiky beasties that lurk within. Fears and sorrows and pains, oh my! And if I can learn to play nice with the beasties within, then maybe the beasties without won't seem so frightening either.

So what---beyond the clichéd psycho-babble---does it actually mean to me to "embrace the dark"? Well, for me, this means engaging so-called "negative" feelings as fully as possible, on mental, emotional, and even physical levels. (My psychic pains usually have a corresponding physical pain somewhere in my body. I tend to carry a lot of stress in my shoulders, but this time my discomfort resides mainly in my lower back and stomach.) To do this, I meditate deeply on my feelings, attempting to understand them, accept them, and, above all, feel them---emotionally and physically.

And often, just emoting my darkness is enough. (Intellectually understanding it is often not really necessary, though it can help to learn the root causes.) In this way my unconscious realizes that its communications of unease have been received and they can cease their urgency, even stop altogether. After all, my beasties are usually just messengers who have been kept in the dark too long.

It's important that I approach them with acceptance, not as an attempt to be rid of them or even "release them". For it is also a practice of becoming comfortable with the uncomfortable. And an opportunity for the paradox to reveal and reconcile itself: the less I need the light, the more the light becomes apparent. The less I need to feel better, the better I feel. The darkness is a doorway itself. For ultimately, the dark and the light are one.

One night as I walked the forest paths in my monastery, I had a revelation. I was thinking how much easier it was to make my way in the dark when the moon was full. And then it struck me like a thunderclap: the moon is always full.

Just like us.

Seize the night.




"One dervish to another: What was your vision of God's presence?
The other replied, I haven't seen anything. But for the sake of conversation,
I'll tell you a story:
God's presence is there in front of me,
fire on the left, a lovely stream on the right.
One group walks toward the fire, into the fire,
another toward the sweet flowing water.
No one knows which are blessed and which not.
Whoever walks into the fire appears suddenly in the stream.
A head goes under on the water surface,
that head pokes out of the fire.
Most people guard against going into the fire,
and so end up in it.
Those who love the water of pleasure and make it their devotion
are cheated with this reversal.
The trickery goes further.
The voice of the fire tells the truth, saying I am not fire,
I am fountainhead.
Come into me…..and don't mind the sparks."

---Rumi, "The Question" (translated by Coleman Barks)


"And for just a moment I had reached the point of ecstasy that I always wanted to reach, which was the complete step across chronological time into timeless shadows, and wonderment in the bleakness of the mortal realm, and the sensation of death kicking at my heels to move on, with a phantom dogging its own heels, and myself hurrying to a plank where all the angels dove off and flew into the radiances shining in bright Mind Essence, innumerable lotus-lands falling open in the magic mothswarm of heaven."
---Jack Kerouac, from On The Road


midnight crescent moon
whispers its divine secret:
I am always full

---a haiku I wrote at the monastery


"Brokenness is the Way." (among others)
---me, responding to a friend's insistence that I sum up my walkabout in a single sentence


“Hey, at least I’m alive!”
---a guy I met walking down an alley in Venice who recently suffered a stroke

It’s been a busy few weeks as I transition back to my life before robes.

I flew back to Los Angeles and it's been great to be back in the warm glow of family again. I finally fessed up to them about my walkabout activities over the past year, but they didn’t have much time to chew it over before we all headed down to San Diego for a cousin’s wedding and the big Takahashi family reunion with the relatives on my mother’s side.

My cousin’s wedding was a beautiful celebration near the beach on Coronado Island. The bride was lovely, the groom charming, and it was all a very sweet low-key ceremony, as evidenced by all the bare feet walking down the aisle.






It was great catching up with all of my relatives at the wedding reception and especially the next day at the reunion on the beach. Fun was had by all, tons of food was eaten, sports and games were played, and we finished the day off with a bonfire. We even had a watermelon eating contest and a donut eating contest with the donuts suspended on strings and the competitors not allowed to use their hands. After my past year with limited access to food, it was slightly strange to be a part of all this conspicuous consumption. I'm not judging it---cuz hey, watermelon eating contests are a fine slice of Americana---I'm just recounting my initial awkwardness. I played way too much volleyball and spent the next couple of days recovering from over-exertion and aches.




And of course I spent a lot of time trying to explain my walkabout. The most common questions dealt with my motivations, biggest challenges, and lessons learned. (I plan to write a future entry to try to sum up some conclusions.) I was pleasantly surprised---okay, extremely relieved!---that my mother took the news really well, and was actually looking forward to reading this blog. My sister, on the other hand, had the completely opposite reaction and was very angry with me for being dishonest with the family, especially when I was close by on the streets of Los Angeles.

Of course, her point is totally valid: it was very uncool of me to keep the family out of the loop. It was just a matter of being the lesser of two evils since I didn't want my mother to worry about me over the whole year. Not telling my family the truth during my walkabout was actually the most uncomfortable part of this whole monk experience. (Okay,  maybe "God" threatening to slaughter me was a little uncomfortable too.....and alright, the whole episode with Carol was pretty overwhelming...)

I returned to some of my "old" haunts in Venice and Santa Monica. I've only been away for a few months, but it feels like a lifetime ago. Well, perhaps a lifestyle ago. I drove around the roundabout that I shared with a sculpture of a nude female torso where I used to eat my Vienna sausage dinners while watching the surf movie projected on the wall of a nearby restaurant. I drove past my Venice alley nook and saw that someone had significantly upgraded it by placing a comfortable looking chair in it, though it must cut down on the limited sleeping space considerably.

I wandered the Venice boardwalk, taking in the comfortably familiar vibe and characters. I looked for Sean and Rebecca, my two homeless artist friends who were trying to carve out their survival selling their art along the boardwalk, but I couldn't find them anywhere. I did see Mr. Choeng Kim at his bike rental shop and he said that business is doing much better now that summer is in full swing. And as I drove to Santa Monica, I went past a fellow waving one of those advertising signs and then realized that it was Derrick, the Christian apologist who tried so hard to save my soul. I would have stopped to say hello, but I was already late to meet up with Rob.

I met Rob at Chess Park and it was great to catch up with him and some of the other guys I'd gotten to know over a chessboard. Kind Ronald, the homeless El Salvadoran illegal immigrant who had been so generous to me, was as congenial as ever. Gruff “Download” was showing his genuine sweet side, playing a game with a little boy and keeping his conspiracy theories under wraps. Sir Charles was trash-talking as much as ever as he chased Dwayne's pieces all over the board.

Dwayne is one of my more eloquent homeless friends. What he lacks in chess skills, he more than makes up for in street smarts from various life experiences. He is one of the few who have actually chosen to be homeless, seeing it as an opportunity for adventure and learning. Originally trained as an army engineer, Dwayne has held various jobs all over the country, including lumberjacking in the NorthWest and being a stockbroker on Wall Street. (Although he does admit to being a pretty lousy stockbroker.) He had run across a book a while back and had been holding it for me. It's called Practical Mysticism by David Samuel. It kinda looks like a typical New-Age/self-help distortion of Eastern traditions since it bills itself as a path to "...self-awakening, financial growth, and harmonious relationships", but I'll try to keep an open mind and give it the benefit of the doubt.

Of course Rob and I had arranged to bike down the beach along the bike path just like the "old days". He treated me to lunch at the Baja Cantina and then we headed off down the beach. I made it down to about Manhattan Beach and chose to be humbled in a game against his chess computer while Rob continued biking down to Redondo Beach. Besides being quite generous, Rob is also quite an excellent chess player. When he returned, he soon helped me with my humility practice by thumping me in a couple of quick games.

We got back to Chess Park too late to see if my zen buddy Gentle Gene had showed up. And I was a little disappointed that I had also missed both the skill of Duckworth and the antics of the Great Carlini. Jocular Shoma, the Russian immigrant who had been injured when he was hit by a car, was still not well enough to return to battle at Chess Park. And Wolf, the native Apache who turned his life around after prison, hasn't been seen since he moved from his apartment near the park.
 
Later that evening, I met up with Kevin and we had a nice conversation about his homeless status and his political blog at BTCnews.com. It was nice to hear that he's on track to get out of the homeless shelter and get his own housing. He's still looking after my bike, which is a win-win situation for both of us since it comes in handy for him when he needs to run errands. Seemingly contrary to his leftist leanings, Kevin has an interesting take on the presidential election. He actually believes that a McCain presidency would be better for the country in the long run. However, this is because Kevin thinks that McCain's Bush-style policies would further drive the country into the ground which would in turn provoke the radical will to turn this country around on a grass-roots level. Not quite a revolution perhaps, but a resolve to implement New Deal style changes birthed from a depression.
 
The next morning I met exuberant Ruben for some paddle tennis out on the courts at Venice beach. Ruben is a jovial friend who was living out of his car. He has since moved in with his girlfriend and is also enjoying bonding with her young son. The paddle tennis was a blast, especially since it was a lot easier to play than regular tennis. But again, I overdid it as we played for four hours and I ended up exhausted and well-cooked by the blazing summer sun. Except for a bit of biking, this monkabout year has left me fairly out of shape and I'm paying the price as I transition back into sports.

As expected, my life has sped up again. There are definitely less moments of calm comtemplation, especially as I bounce all over visiting friends and family. Distractions and activities abound and I'm pretty much back to my old scatter-brained ways. But then again, I was a pretty scatter-brained monk too, so no big difference really. I do seem to be maintaining a fair amount of self-awareness, and this helps me remember to relax into the unpredictable flux that is my life---an occasional calm in the eye of the storm.

I remain appreciative of beds, hot showers, plentiful food, and the roof over my head, among other things. Gratitude has been one of the big lessons on my monkabout and I definitely don't take these blessings for granted. At least for now. I'm very well aware of my propensity to get used to the status quo and start taking things for granted, so we'll see how long this lasts.

There are lots of little things I'm getting used to doing again, like using money (borrowed!) or wearing different clothes. I got so used to wearing my simple monk robes that it felt strange to choose shirts and pants to wear. I do miss my robes a little, but it's also nice not to be a walking sideshow freak. (The Amazing Homeless Kung-fu Janitor! Watch him sweep the street! Look at him run from the cops! And you can even feed him too!)

An example of not quite choosing appropriate clothes occurred when I visited some friends who live in the San Fernando Valley. To avoid the traffic, I had gone early and read in a park until they got home. I had forgotten how hot the Valley gets in the summer (upper 90s fahrenheit that day) and had dressed in long pants and a black shirt. It made for quite a sweltering wait.

Whenever the heat starts to get me down, I try to remember something I saw in the city of Lucknow in northern India. It was 117 degrees and I was slogging my way through the heat to a market to buy some fruit. As in other third world countries, Indian merchants and peddlers often set up tables along the sidewalks to hawk their wares and skills. I was bemoaning the oppressive heat when I looked over and saw a tailor happily working away at his sewing machine. He sat in the direct sunlight, right next to a large patch of shade. He could have easily moved his little table into the shade, but he seemed oblivious to the heat as he sewed away, humming a tune to himself. And he was wearing a black long-sleeve sweater.

On the other end of the spectrum, I remember seeing a picture of some very young Japanese schoolchildren walking to school through the snowfall, wearing only shoes and matching red shorts. The mind can be so powerful if we give it some room to flex by removing the constrictions of previously conceived notions and conditioning. When I remember to let go of my resistance to the heat, I definitely suffer much less. I've tried this with the cold too, but have gotten mixed results since I find it harder to relax into the cold.

Anyways, I ended up falling asleep in the park, so I guess I haven't given up all of my homeless ways just yet.

So what's my Plan? Well, I will soon be heading back to the Omega Institute in upstate New York. This will bring my walkabout full circle since Omega is where I first set off on this monky path a year ago. And, appropriately enough, "omega" is the last letter in the Greek alphabet. (The institute's name is derived from Teilhard de Chardin's concept of the "Omega Point": the endpoint of complexity and consciousness toward which the universe is evolving.)

And yet, I have another wedding to attend in San Diego in October! This time it's a couple of good friends who are operating under the delusion that the event is all about them and audaciously neglected my needs when they set the wedding date.

And at some point relatively soon, I will need to make some life decisions about what direction I want to head in, probably involving some form of employment since the jig is up regarding my monk gig.

But for now, this wandering boy with his wandering mind and wandering eye is on the move again. For the road is singing its siren song, the horizon is opening its arms wide, and marvels are blossoming on all sides, especially when I remember to keep an eye out for the miraculous in the mundane.

Ever stalking Wonder.



“Our battered suitcases were piled on the sidewalk again; we had longer ways to go. But no matter, the road is life.”
---Jack Kerouac, from On The Road


"So how's it being back home? Monk all gone, spastic boy back?"
---email from a friend


“I have come to accept and make peace with the way you live your life.”
---my mother


"I don't want to talk to you because it will probably end up in your blog."
---my sister

 
“You’ll end up in the street.”
---an aunt, predicting the fortune in my fortune cookie at a Chinese restaurant
 

“Next victim!”
---Sir Charles, exclaiming victory in his chess match against Dwayne


"I should note here that I’m not advocating individual or mob violence as a solution to financial difficulties; only the credible threat of it."
---Kevin, on his blog at BTCnews.com

Okay, not surprisingly, I am way behind in this blog again. Right now I am actually in Colorado, hanging out with friends in Boulder and Longmont. Yeah, really.

Again, I promise to write and backdate the entries for the rest of my Mexico trip with Shine and our final days together. I'll post notifications when I do so.

So how did I end up in Colorado? Well, after our trip to Mexico, Shine and I returned to Austin, Texas and I was soon preparing to travel again. With my family reunion looming on the not-so-distant horizon, I was anxious to hit the road again before I headed back to California to be with family. I finally decided to head north because I have some friends in Colorado and figured that it would be a shorter distance to get back to California than if I headed east.

I was getting ready to try hitchhiking north and was even planning to make some cardboard signs-----"Monk Needs Ride" and "Will Share Chocolate Chip Cookies!". (I've had great success in the past with the latter sign.) But then my friend Jim in Colorado got wind of my plans and generously offered to buy me a bus ticket instead!

Now I was truly torn between both options, for I was really curious to find out how this monkabout would play out on the highways and byways of America. But weighing in on the other side were the sizzling Texas heat (over 100 degrees daily) and the fact that a friend had told Shine that hitchhiking was illegal in Texas and Colorado. Neither of these factors would have eventually deterred me from at least trying to hitchhike, but the final kicker was that I didn't have a lot of time before my family reunion. If it took me a long time to hitchhike to Colorado (almost a thousand miles on the minor highways), then I would have very little time to visit with my friends there.

And hey, as well as embracing the challenges strewn across my path, my practice is also about accepting the largesse of the Universe, this time in the person of my friend Jimbo. As it turned out, the Greyhound bus ticket was quite exorbitant on such short notice, so he ended up buying me a cheaper flight instead. So it was time for an all-too-quick, yet sweet, farewell with Shine and she dropped me off at the airport. (A few days later she flew back to Israel for her summer break from the Ph.D. program.) I had packed much of my stuff into a box, including my long-handled dustpan, but my broom wouldn't fit. Arriving at the airport in my robes and carrying my broom, I looked like a reject from the Harry Potter Fan Club. I was tempted to tell the ticket agent that I had to fly by plane because my broom was broken.

It's been a nice soft landing here in Colorado. Jimbo is ever the generous host and it's been great catching up with old friends. The conversations have been deep, challenging, and meaningful. And they've kept me busy in other ways too. I've been playing tons of disc golf, as well as some tennis, basketball, and even some ping-pong and billiards. Jimbo also coaches a little league team, so I've attended several of their entertaining games. And then there was that exhilarating African dance class where I learned that it is logistically impossible for me to shake my butt like an African woman.

And of course Colorado is home to these gorgeous Rocky Mountains. I went with a couple of friends on a challenging hike straight up the Calypso Cascades to Finch Lake in Rocky Mountain National Park. And I even went on another beautiful hike in Roosevelt National Forest with someone who contacted me through this blog. I had to keep reminding myself of all the natural beauty along the trail (Ceran St. Vrain) since I was so easily distracted by all of the stimulating discussions on spirituality, philosophy, and politics. Except for my trip to Mexico, my walkabout has been pretty urban-heavy, so it was wonderfully refreshing to relax and breathe in all that glorious wilderness. I missed it more than I realized.

And all of my friends have been feeding me so very well. Jimbo often takes me out to dinner too despite my awkward objections about how much money he's spending on me. He's also treated me to a couple of action flicks. ("Wanted" and "Hancock", both entertaining, if a bit violent. Hey, I voted for "Wall E". Wandering through the theater lobby in my robes, I look like a man-child searching for the latest showing of "Kung-Fu Panda".) But the most interesting movie was a documentary that one of my friends helped film called “Hidden Sorrows: the Persecution of Romanian Gypsies During WWII”. It's a tragic and important testament to a side of the Holocaust that too few people know about.

Another friend re-introduced me to the Enneagram personality typing system. Apparently, I am a number seven, "The Enthusiast", the busy, variety-seeking type: spontaneous, versatile, acquisitive, and scattered. And supposedly I keep busy to avoid underlying pain and fear. Hmmm.....

With all this busy-ness and fun, there hasn't been much time for sweeping either. Of course, there isn't a whole lot for me to sweep up in uber-clean Boulder. But the fact remains that I haven't been very monkish here in Colorado. And in truth, this "walkabout" has been winding down.

July 13th marked the one year anniversary of my monk-a-thon. Granted, I took a long break from this monk shtik to be with my family for my Aunt's funeral and the winter holidays, but I feel that this experiment has gone on long enough. It's been a beautiful, mad year with many challenges and lessons, and I've decided that it's time to hang up my robes. As with most endings, it's a bittersweet decision for me. I will miss this gig and the carefree days and ways I've been cultivating.

So now I'm heading back to Southern California for my family reunion. I've borrowed some money for the flight and I've packed away my robes, begging bowl, and dustpan. Again, the broom remains free, reminding me of who I was (still am?). I'm still not sure how I'm going to tell my family about my shenanigans over this past year, but it should be interesting. I just hope it doesn't upset my mother too much. She's used to my wanderlust and crazy ideas, but this monkabout may be a bit much even for her legendary openness. But I'll cross my fingers and hope for the best. After all, it will be the return of the prodigal Zum.

And though much of this past year has been about facing my fears, perhaps I will now finally face my biggest fear (cue menacing music): Fear of the Ordinary!



"That's okay-----it's a magical broom. It can't be damaged."
---me, responding to the airline check-in agent who wanted me to sign a form releasing the airline from liability for any potential damage to my broom

"The monk is a bird who flies very fast, without knowing where he is going. And always arrives where he went, in peace, without knowing where he came from."
---Thomas Merton (This quote was recently sent to me by a friend.)

"Oh, by the way, you're going to be the only man."
---Nomali, informing me just before we walked in the door for her African dance class (approximately 15 women)

"Tear man out of his outward circumstances; and what he then is, that only is he."
---Johann Gottfried Seume

"My mother gave me the same advice about girlfriends."
---me, responding to Savitri's comment that she preferred to have a dog that she can overpower (Sorry Savitri! All that great conversation on spiritual philosophy and this is the best I can do!)

After Chichen Itza, Shine and I spent a couple of days in Merida, capital of the state of Yucatan. It's a great old town, and yet very modern too: lots of colonial architecture, public art, good museums, numerous cultural events, and, in typical conqueror fashion, many Catholic churches built over destroyed Mayan temples, often constructed from the very stones of the destroyed temples they replaced. It's a lively city with music and dancing all over the place, especially on weekends when they close off the town center for pedestrian traffic only and numerous bands play latin music (mainly salsa and mariachi ballads) in the parks and streets.



In an attempt to avoid going shopping with Shine, I got a haircut in a local mercado. I gave the hair stylist free rein to do as she pleased and I ended up with it buzzed pretty short on the sides with a poof of hair on top. Not bad really, but unfortunately I wasn't able to weasel my way out of shopping (Shine doesn't know Spanish) and we spent much of the next two days looking at clothes and jewelry. Ho hum.

Next we headed to the charming seaside city of Campeche, capital of the state of Campeche. This old colonial town on the Gulf of Mexico was a favorite pillaging target of pirates for hundreds of years, so the Spanish eventually secured the city by encircling it with a fortified wall and bastions. Most of the wall is now gone, but the bastions remain. It was fun to explore the old cobblestone streets lined with buildings painted in bright pastel colors.




Then we headed further south into the state of Chiapas to explore the Mayan ruins of Palenque and encounter the jungle proper. We stayed in an area called El Panchan located in a lush jungle setting not far from the ruins. The place was overrun with cute wild kittens.



And so the next day we explored the amazing ruins of Palenque. There were far fewer tourists than at Chichen Itza and we were allowed to climb on most of the pyramids, sometimes even being able to go inside some of their narrow, murky, dripping passageways. At the more obscure sites, we often had the place to ourselves and even managed a furtive dip in the Arroyo Otulum stream. I especially enjoyed exploring the dark catacombs within various structures by flashlight.








The most discernable difference between Chichen Itza and Palenque is the scope of the surrounding jungle. The jungles of the Yucatan are lower and sparser than the dense, sprawling jungles of Chiapas. The hills, trees, vines, and wildlife all merge into a huge profusion of surging Life. The plants climb all over one another, stretching for the high jungle canopy and the precious sunlight above.

The first structures we visited were a line of towering pyramids, and yet the hills and jungle still loomed over them, endeavoring to swallow them back up and reclaim their territory. At one area, I saw workers using machetes to cut the branches and vines back in an endless effort to keep the encroaching jungle at bay. I am still reading Kerouac's On the Road, and appropriately enough, he also headed into Mexico and appreciated the jungle's penchant to blur boundaries.




We spent a lot of time at El Palacio ("The Palace"), a fun labyrinthine complex of corridors and courtyards. Shine feverishly sketched even more complicated color patterns that she "saw" on the walls and other structures. And while she's still unsure what any of this has to do with her system of healing, she has learned to be patient and wait for answers to become clearer in the future.






We explored the structures in the Templo de la Cruz ("Temple of the Cross") area, climbing more pyramids and enjoying the vast views out over the ruins and the jungle. After investigating a couple of the more remote sites, we finally came to Los Banos de la Reina ("The Queen's Baths"), a picturesque waterfall pouring into perfect limestone pools. Unfortunately, no bathing was allowed, so I had to settle for scheming to sneak back in after hours.






That night Shine felt called to Agua Azul ("Blue Water") to perform her moonlight rituals. Agua Azul is a river area with a long series of gorgeous stepped limestone pools. Normally, the waters are a beautiful shade of turquoise, but during the rainy season they are a murky greenish brown. They were also about an hour's drive away on winding roads in the pouring rain through a notorious robbery zone (at night) at a cost of about $100 US for the roundtrip taxi fare. And of course the park would be closed to the public at night so we would have to sneak in again. We considered The Queen's Baths at Palenque as an alternative, but with the pouring rain and the fact that we were feeling pretty tired, Shine decided to hold off on any nighttime rituals.

A curious coincidence: Being back in the jungle and seeing a large spider, I was reminded of an incident I witnessed back in the jungle/forest of my monastery in Thailand. I described to Shine how I saw a large spider and what I thought was a fly rolling around on the ground. They separated and I thought that the "fly" had escaped the clutches of the spider as they both moved quickly in opposite directions. And then they came together again, rolling around a second time. And again they separated. And came together again.

Extremely curious, I went closer to try to figure out what was going on. The "fly" turned out to be a wasp that was continually stinging the hapless spider, which had finally succumbed to the onslaught. The wasp then methodically ripped off all of the spider's eight legs with its powerful mandibles. And then, to my wonderment, the wasp somehow pulled out the spider's own silk thread, wrapping it around both of them to strap the spider carcass to the underside of the wasp's body. Even with its legs removed, the spider's body was still bigger than it, so the wasp set off on foot through the forest. I followed it until it reached the base of a tree, whereupon it calmly climbed up and went into a hole about ten feet up the trunk. I imagined that it was probably going to lay eggs in the carcass so that the hatching larvae would have something to eat. (I was reminded of the movie "Alien".) In the jungle, the roles of hunter and hunted are often interchangeable.

Then, a little while after I relayed this story to Shine, we came across a bright blue wasp dragging a large spider across the jungle path. I grabbed Shine's camera, but only got one blurry picture before some people coming from the other direction scared the wasp away.



The next day we went to Agua Azul in a collectivo van that the locals use. The pools and falls were indeed beautiful, though a bit murky from all of the rainy-season run-off. We walked way up the river and swam near a small village and picnicked on the shore. On the way back, a generous woman gave Shine a beaded necklace and matching earrings.




The ruins of Palenque reminded me a lot of magnificent Tikal, located in the remote jungles of Guatemala. I went there almost twenty years ago with a girlfriend, a Brit named Carol. Like Palenque, the ruins at Tikal are set amongst a lush jungle setting. But being so remote, there were very few tourists and the wildlife was correspondingly quite abundant. Numerous monkeys scampered in the trees, including loud howler monkeys bellowing away. We also saw a gray fox walk straight up one of the ancient walls in the ruins. Colorful birds of all shapes and sizes squawked and chattered away in the foliage. (Toucans, quetzals, parrakeets, etc. There was even one strange bird that made a musically metallic sound as it repeatedly swung on its perch to hang upside-down!) It wasn't hard to imagine jaguars lurking in the shadows.

And of course the pyramids and other structures were awe-inspiring in their jungle milieu. We excitedly explored all the amazing complexes by day, and when night came it was easy to sneak off and enjoy the ruins after closing hours. From the top of a pyramid, we watched the moon rise and illuminate the ancient city in its magical light.

But when we headed back to our lodge, we got lost in the jungle. We were still on paths, so I wasn't too worried, but the jungle definitely shows its more menacing side at night. The thick foliage conspired to make all of the paths look the same and the shadows threatened at every turn. But despite the jungle's best efforts to swallow us up before daylight, we somehow managed to stumble back to our lodge.

For me, jungles are equal parts enticing and intimidating. So primal and visceral, they inspire both fascination and fear with all that sprawling nature humming, throbbing, chittering, twisting, breathing, consuming. All of this seething Life feeds on itself, and everything else too. Boundaries blur between plants, animals, the elements.....and me. If I listen too closely to the jungle writhing around me, I begin to understand its soft susurrations, murmuring that it is coming for me, whispering of my end, and dreaming of our inevitable reunion.

It's an interesting contrast, these "dead" ruins amidst this thriving jungle scheming to reclaim its ancient baubles. Will the jungle succeed some day? Will our cities be reclaimed by the wilderness in a thousand years too? A hundred thousand years? A hundred million? Will we have moved on to other planets or solar systems leaving a lonely (relieved?) Mother Earth behind? Will we have evolved into a new species? Will anyone even remember names like Confucius, Caesar, Cleopatra, Christ, Muhammad, Genghis, Shakespeare, Einstein, Picasso, Gandhi, Hasselhoff, or Bush? Will we mature past this critical threshold where our technological power seems to have outstripped our moral development? Or will we kill ourselves off? As it stands, we are mere children juggling hand grenades. (And yet I remain pretty optimistic cuz we're pretty dextrous children.)

But perhaps the Earth itself is impassive. Maybe it doesn't really care. After all, it will survive no matter what we do. (At least, until we develop enough power to threaten the existence of the Earth itself.)

But we are bio-centric. We favor life over non-life cuz that's what we are. Maybe someday we will come to realize that the line between life and non-life doesn't really exist. (Scientists still haven't quite figured out what viruses are. And even fire satisfies many of the criteria for a definition of "life".) All life is composed of the universal matter and energy building blocks that form the foundation of our being. Our sweet Sol warms us from without and within. Our lonely Luna tugs at the tides of our inner seas. The dust of dying stars mingles in the marrow of our ancient bones. And, just maybe, supernovas explode in our brains.

Ah, I have wandered far afield again, lost in the tangled jungles of my mind. And perhaps my machete isn't quite sharp enough for me to be straying so far from home, rambling on and over-stretching metaphors. So I will slice at these discursive vines, try to scrape the moss off of my memory, and rail against the shadows of my ignorance.

And as I shake my fist, the seething jungle hushes.....and Jupiter trembles.



"...I realized the jungle takes you over and you become it.....For the first time in my life the weather was not something that touched me, that caressed me, froze or sweated me, but became me. The atmosphere and I bacame the same.....I began to tingle all over and to smell of the rank, hot, and rotten jungle, all over from hair and face to feet and toes.....I didn't even know if branches or open sky were directly above me, and it made no difference. I opened my mouth to it and drew deep breaths of jungle atmosphere. It was not air, never air, but the palpable and living emanation of trees and swamp. I stayed awake. Roosters began to crow the dawn across the brakes somewhere. Still no air, no breeze, no dew, but the same Tropic of Cancer heaviness held us all pinned to earth, where we belonged and tingled."
---Jack Kerouac, from On the Road

"Maybe I'm just crazy and that's all there is to it."
---Shine, referring to the whole trip and her healing system

"Agua Lodo ('Mud Water')."
---our taxi driver, referring to Agua Azul during the rainy season

"I'm a student of life.....mainly cuz I don't know how to do anything else."
---me

The next day we were both sick, mainly from exhaustion (lack of sleep prior to the trip) and overheating in the hot sun at the Chichen Itza ruins, but Shine was also nauseous and weak. She decided to guide me through the process of trying to heal her with colors. First, she told me to "shield myself" so that I wouldn't take on any illness that she had. Then I placed my hands on her stomach and she told me to imagine that I was channelling healing colors into her, first yellow and green, then orange, then black briefly, and finally white.

Well, apparently I'm not much of an adept, so that afternoon we ended up taking her to see a doctor at the local clinic. Through my very mangled Spanish we got him to understand the situation and he prescribed Kaopectate, antibiotics, electrolyte solution packets, and anti-nausea tablets. She took the electrolytes and the anti-nausea tablets and was feeling better by the next morning.

Back during our first day at the ruins, Shine informed me that she felt called to perform a ritual at Chichen Itza at night when the ruins are closed to the public. Initially, I resisted the idea for various reasons-----respect for the wishes of the archaeologists, a desire to get a good night's sleep, an aversion to spending the night in a Mexican jail-----but  after about three seconds of deep deliberation I acquiesced, thinking how nice it would be to have the place to ourselves and be able to climb on those ancient pyramids. Okay, so it wouldn't be the greatest example of low-impact eco-tourism, but what the hey, all in the name of Shine's spiritual evolution, right? Good thing I don't have any vows against trespassing.

That day we went back to explore some more, including another water-filled cenote and some smaller, more obscure ruins in the jungle. I saw a lot of big bold iguanas lurking all over the place, especially on the ruins where they enjoyed commanding views of their territory. And we kept an eye out for good hiding spots and areas where we might be able to sneak back in after dark. There were tons of great places to hide---caves, the jungle, in the ruins themselves---but we decided to come back in the evening and try to sneak off during the nighttime light show.

Unfortunately, when we came back for the light show, there were very few people---maybe fifty in total---and we were all ushered into a small roped-off area with chairs set up in rows, watched closely by the guards. We initially tried to head toward the big Pyramid of Kukulcan, but were quickly intercepted by a guard and redirected toward the chairs. The light show was not all that impressive and the narration was naturally all in Spanish, so we didn't get much out of it, especially since we spent most of the time trying to figure out how we could sneak off into the jungle.

I sat there practicing what I would say if the guards caught us sneaking around the ruins that night. I didn't know how to say "healer" in Spanish, so all I could come up with was: "Ella es una bruja de la salud. Ella necessita hacer una ritual al Cenote Sagrado." ("She is a health witch. She needs to do a ritual at the Sacred Pool.") I finally settled on the simpler "Somos brujos del agua." ("We are water witches/wizards."----rain shamans?) because "brujos del agua" were mentioned a lot at the light show.

The show finally ended and everyone headed off for the exits. I pulled the old shoelace tying trick so that we could straggle behind everybody else and then, after a few tense moments trying to figure out where the guards were, we dashed off into the jungle when no one was looking. There was an especially nerve-wracking moment when I actually got stuck in a fence we were climbing through because the plastic water bottle on my backpack got caught on the wire, making a lot of noise.

So we hid on a jungle path for a little over an hour, hoping that there would be very few guards patrolling the grounds at night. Fireflies drifted through the evening, emitting bright white lights that often made us jump whenever we thought that they were a guard's flashlight off in the distance. Winding roots did their best to impersonate snakes as we tried not to imagine what other beasties might be lurking in the jungle shadows. The moon rose higher, lighting our little glade and making the leaves glisten in the moonlight.

And in our silence the jungle noises really came alive for us. Insects everywhere were buzzing, whirring, and clicking. We realized that what I had originally thought was a guard blowing a whistle was actually some kind of strange bird calling through the night. Heavy unseen wings flapped overhead, perhaps an owl or a large fruit bat. And then as we listened to some women chatting as they walked along the main path, they suddenly let loose with piercing screams. I expected to hear them laugh or scold a friend who had scared them, but there was nothing. Just chilling silence. That really increased the eerie tension. I guess I should have checked on them, but a motorcycle (a guard?) rode by on the main path a couple of times, so I assumed that if there had been a real problem he would have seen it. Those screams set a surreal tone for the night. And we were only just getting started.

We finally got up the courage to head back into the ruins and edged along the jungle next to the main path. We didn't come across any bodies, so that was a good start. But at one point we had to hit the ground and lie as still as possible as two bicyclists came out of the darkness and rode by us. I was actually more worried about being detected by the dogs that roam the site than by the guards.

We continued along and the forest opened up to reveal the main clearing with the majestic Piramide del Kukulcan dominating the milieu. Impressive by day, the pyramid is even more majestic when bathed in the magical glow of the moonlight. All of the ancient stone structures in the area radiated that pale light, making for an other-worldly dreamscape.

 

At first, Shine felt called to the Cenote Sagrado, but as we began to make our way across the courtyards of the Mercado ("Market"), she decided that the Tumba del Gran Sacerdote ("Tomb of the Great Priest") was another good alternative for the rituals she needed to perform. So we changed direction and headed west toward my favorite temple with its twin serpents adorning the stairways on all four sides of the pyramid. (We have since learned from a helpful Mayan fellow that snakes represent intelligence, jaguars symbolize power, and eagles signify freedom.)

We made it to the Tumba del Gran Sacerdote without any problems and circumambulated the base of the pyramid. I convinced Shine to accompany me to the top of the temple, so after making obeisances to the rain god Chac Mool and the plumed serpent god Quetzl Coatl, we climbed the steep stone stairs, walking up to the night sky. At the top, we were treated to a sublime view out over the jungle and ruins awash in that mystical moonlight.

Shine removed the darker clothes that were camouflaging her white clothes and performed her rituals in a walled central chamber. (She has asked me not to give any details about the rituals, but I can vouch that no animals or vegetables were harmed in the process.) I sat on a wall atop the pyramid and meditated, experiencing one of the deepest meditative states I've ever had. When Shine was finished, we climbed back down the Tomb and she repeated her rituals at the base of the pyramid. And again, I went into a deep meditation.

When she was done, Shine was ready to leave the ruins, but I convinced her that we should go to the Cenote Sagrado since she had felt so strongly called there earlier. We headed north, circumnavigating that magnificent Pirimide del Kukulcan one last time and threaded our way through the pillars at the Templo de los Guerreros ("Temple of the Warriors"). Having encountered no guards, we were pretty relaxed as we walked the long path to the Cenote Sagrado until we saw some lights on at the sacred gift shop near the Sacred Pool. We made our way quietly to the Pool and sat for a short midnight meditation.

Then when we moved to another area so that Shine could perform more rituals, some dogs finally detected us and unleashed a barking ruckus. I expected that we would soon be busted, but no guards came out. With the dogs still barking, we decided to call it a night and took another path north. We climbed under a barbed-wire fence and I deftly managed not to get stuck this time. We reached the highway and walked about two miles back to the small dusty town of Piste.

When we got back to our lodge, we discovered that Shine had accidentally left her jade necklace at the Cenote Sagrado. On reflection, she decided that it was an appropriate offering since the ancient Mayans had often offered jewelry and other belongings (besides virgins) to the Sacred Pool.

And then Shine told me that she needs to perform nighttime rituals at the Mayan ruins at Palenque and Tulum too!

 

"It would have convinced you to join me even faster."
---Shine, responding to my initial objection that she hadn't told me that the trip would involve breaking into the ruins at night

"I can see the headlines in Israel now: 'Israeli Woman Arrested at Sacred Mexican Ruins on Top of a Pyramid at Midnight with a Beggar Monk Because Voices Told Her To Perform a Ritual There'."
---Shine (she's Israeli)

"I wonder if there are still jaguars in the Yucatan?....Oops!"
---me, realizing that this line of thought would not really help ease the tension as we waited in the jungle

"Don't be afraid---you're with me. I'm not afraid. Of course, that's because I can run faster than you."
---me, reassuring Shine

"But it's all illegal, baby!"
---me, gesturing to all of the ruins after Shine objected that it was illegal to climb the pyramid

"Five more minutes and I might not have come back."
---me, referring to my meditation on top of the pyramid

"Everything is unfolding exactly as it is supposed to, exactly as it is."
---the answer I received in my meditation when I asked how I can be of service

"There's a limit to everything."
---Shine, after I asked her if she wanted to continue with the ritual even though the dogs were barking and we thought the guards were coming

"What gives you the idea that I'm unprofessional?! Maybe when I got stuck in the fence?"
---me, responding to Shine's comment that my stealth abilities don't measure up well with Israeli commandos

"Yeah, maybe an old, blind, fat cat!"
---me, responding to Shine's comment that she walked as silently as a cat

"And you walk like a rhino-corn-asaurus!.....How do you say it?"
---Shine, attempting to say "rhinoceros"

Rated: PG-13 for violence (mostly Mayan)

Snapshots from a mad lark to the Yucatan:

Why is it that I always exhaust myself right before a journey? Two nights before we left, I stayed up all night editing Shine´s 50 page prospectus for her rhetorics dissertation on "the ineffable". (Good stuff on aesthetics, pain, spirituality, and the limits of language.) Then the night before our flight we only got a few hours sleep as we packed our gear and cleaned the apartment for a young guy who is subletting her apartment for the duration of our trip.

We arrived at the Austin airport to find out that our budget airline, VivaAerobus, is the only one located on the other side of the airport, requiring a $30 taxi ride to get there. We took off at 8am in the morning and the flight went smoothly, but I was unable to sleep during the trip. We arrived in Cancun at about 11am and Shine decided that we should head directly to Chichen Itza. So after a quick lunch and changing some dollars to pesos, we jumped on a 4 1/2 hour bus ride to the small town of Piste located near the ruins.

So I'm back in Latin America after many years, and the visceral memories came flooding back. Sure, there are a lot of visual recollections-----the brightly colored clothes of the locals, especially the indegenas, the lush tropical greenery, tired buildings, beat-up vehicles, and cracked roads. But the strongest mnemonic triggers have been olfactory-----car exhaust in narrow streets, chickens cooking on roadside grills, garbage, smoke mixed with the smell of rain; and auditory-----the calls of the street vendors, the roar of trucks down narrow lanes, latin music pumping out of homes and restaurants, and jungle birds - raucous in sound and color.

 

During the bus ride, the skys opened up and a deluge came pounding down. I found myself wondering what the hell I was doing in the Yucatan during the rainy season. In the city of Vallodalid, our bus waded through streets turned to rushing rivers as shopkeepers haplessly squeegeed water out of their stores. After three hours, the rains finally stopped just as we arrived in Piste, totally exhausted.

The next morning we went to the ruins at Chichen Itza, the focal point of this whole trip. Shine made a bee-line for the imposing Pyramid of Kukulcan (another name for Quetzl-Coatl, the plumed serpent god of the Mayans), called El Castillo ("The Castle") by the Spanish, which dominates the main clearing. She saw colors in intricate patterns all over the pyramid and began sketching all of the color schemes into her notebook.

 

The pyramid is impressive, not only because of it's size and symmetry, but it is also a literal calendar: it's steps, levels, and stone "panels" mark days, seasons, and epochs. But I was disappointed when it soon became apparent that visitors are no longer allowed to climb up the pyramid. When I visited this place about fifteen years ago, there was a chain handrail which helped visitors mount the steep stone steps to the temple at the top.

Much has been made in New-Age circles of the fact that the Mayans predicted big changes at the end of this era, specifically December 21, 2012. I've heard all kinds of predictions, from gradual changes in human consciousness to massive cataclysms across the globe ending human civilization as we know it. The Toltec shaman Tlahuizcalpantecutli (or, more familiarly, "El Gorila") that we met in Austin (yeah, I'm sorry---I know I haven't written about my time in Austin before this trip) said that "the sixth sun" would come on this date. (I assumed he was speaking of a solar "sun", but in retrospect, he may have meant a divine child "son".)

I've lost count of all the doomsday predictions I've heard over the years. There was the supposed prediction by Nostradamus that the apocalypse would be triggered by a clash between the Eagle and the Bear (the U.S. and the U.S.S.R.). The Brahma Kumaris predicted the end of the Kali Yuga ("Age of Destruction") and the dawn of the Sat Yuga ("Golden Age of Truth") in the 1990s, then changed the date at least twice when their predictions were incorrect. The Harmonic Convergence came and went with a whimper. And Y2K created a lot of doomsday hysteria too. And there have been many other failed End-of-the-World prophecies-----too numerous to go into here. (But if you're really interested, check out http://www.religioustolerance.org/end_wrld.htm which compiles a pretty exhaustive list.)

While there is an understandable focus on the end of the Mayan calendar (a mere 3 1/2 years from now), the beginning of the calendar tends to be conveniently overlooked. According to the Mayans, the world was created on August 13, 3114 BCE. While interesting, this date doesn't jibe so well with our modern understanding that the Earth is about 4 1/2 billion years old, while the Universe itself clocks in at a spry 18 billion years.

Despite all my skepticism, I'm trying my best to maintain an open mind, and I must admit that I'm actually looking forward to 2012 with a certain degree of excited anticipation. After all, I'm always up for change-----heck, I'm addicted to it.

Anyhow, Shine went back to our lodge for a break at mid-day and in a matter of seconds the skys let loose with their daily deluge. I was soaked to the skin before I could even get my umbrella out of my backpack. But after an hour the clear blue skies returned and I headed off to explore more ruins along with throngs of other tourists who had been arriving in increasing numbers throughout the day, bussed in on package tours from Cancun and Merida.

 

El Templo de los Guerreros ("The Temple of the Warriors") and the nearby Mercado ("Market") with its numerous stone columns make up a sprawling complex that was fun to explore, but again, we weren't allowed to surmount the alluring temple. Another large complex contains the observatory El Caracol ("The Snail", named for its shape and its interior spiral staircase), a domed structure that aligned various constellations through windows on auspicious dates. My favorite site was the Tumba del Gran Sacerdote ("the Tomb of the Great Priest") adorned with twin serpents flanking the stairways on each of the pyramid's four sides.

Shine returned and we headed to the Cenote Sagrado ("Sacred Pool", one of many water-filled sinkholes occurring all over the Yucatan, apparently created by that big ol' asteroid that thumped the peninsula, possibly wiping out the dinosaurs). The Cenote was a huge round hole in the ground, very deep with dark murky water at the bottom. Despite seeing gold light everywhere, Shine still felt a "heavy darkness" over the whole area, mainly because of the human sacrifices that were made here, especially the young female virgins who were either shot with arrows or had their hearts cut out. Yikes.

One can't really talk about Chichen Itza without mentioning all the bloody rituals that occurred all over the place. The Mayans were already big on warfare and sacrifices, but things really got bumped up a notch when the Toltecs exerted their influence over the region. Chichen Itza has numerous artefacts commemorating their bloody lifestyle.

Besides the Cenote Sagrado, el Templo de los Guerreros also saw its fair share of human sacrifices. The Plataforma de los Craneos ("Platform of Skulls") is decorated with numerous skull glyphs that matched the real decapitated heads of sacrificial victims that were placed on the platform for display. It also features charming reliefs of eagles tearing open peoples' chests to eat their hearts. At the nearby Plataforma de las Aguilas y los Jaguares ("Platform of the Eagles and Jaguars") there are amazingly clear images of eagles and jaguars holding human hearts in their talons and claws.

The Gran Juego de Pelota ("Great Ball Court") features high walls with stone rings near the top for the Mayan game that was something of a cross between soccer, basketball, and hackeysack. And---cuz you just never know if the game will be entertaining enough---they apparently often decapitated the losing team! Imagine the Lakers and the Celtics playing for those stakes! (Though I read somewhere that they might have actually beheaded the winning team, sending them off to a glorious after-life in their version of heaven.)

Whenever I visit ruins, I try to imagine the daily life and rituals that took place hundreds or thousands of years ago. At the Sacred Pool I found myself imagining throwing tourists into the deep dark waters, their screams echoing off the impassive limestone walls. Hey, when in Rome.....

Maybe I was a Mayan priest in a past life?

"Ooh! We're over the ocean now! If we crash now, that means we're all gonna die!"
---little girl sitting in front of me on the plane

"You don't see the colors?"
---Shine to me, regarding the Pyramid of Kukulcan (No I didn't, not even after rubbing my eyes and hitting my forehead a few times.)

"What a waste of good virgins!.....Some monk, huh?"
---me, regarding the sacrifices at the Sacred Pool

"As you have seen, God did not appear on channel 18 and the end of the world did not occur last night. All of my predictions have turned out to be crap."
---Hoh-Ming Chen, leader of "God's Salvation Church", awaiting the end of the world in Texas in 1998

Okay, here's the deal:

I'm way behind in this blog and still have a number of entries that I will probably backdate in if I ever get around to writing them. (I'll make sure to post notifications of anything I backdate.)

But for now, my walkabout is taking a serious detour to the South. (How can anything be a detour when I don't have any destination?) South, as in Mexico.....specifically, the Yucatan. Yeah, really.

After quite a bit of wrangling, my friend "Shine" here in Austin has convinced me to accompany her to the ruins at Chichen Itza and probably some other ancient sites as well. You see, although she's working on her Ph.D. dissertation here at the University of Texas at Austin in the field of Rhetorics (say what?), she's also been developing some kind of crazy healing abilities over the past few years too. It's all quite complex, involving colors, shapes, pyramids, energy fields, visions, and a whole bunch of other stuff that goes over my head....or at least in one ear and out the other.

Last year Shine felt "called" to Oaxaca, Mexico where she spontaneously learned various aspects of her healing system at different ruins. Now she's feeling called to Chichen Itza and possibly further destinations that may be revealed as the trip unfolds. I've already been to the Yucatan and seen some of the ruins, but that was a long time ago, so I'm looking forward to the trip and the inevitable lessons along the journey.

And okay, so I'm a skeptic at heart, but I know that a good skeptic realizes that there are also times to be skeptical of skepticism. So I will do my best to maintain an open mind and an open heart.....and try to keep my snarky comments to a minimum.

We leave tomorrow morning! Adios, muchachos!
Woohoo!



"Ever notice how "What the hell!" is always the right answer?"
---a friend's refrigerator magnet

"Use the Force."
---my Burger King Star Wars Yoda action figure, responding to my query, "Should I go to Mexico?"

There turned out to be no pending warrants for my arrest, so the fine city of Santa Monica arranged for my one-way ticket to Austin, Texas, courtesy of their "Homecoming Program". Ironically, Los Angeles is probably the closest thing to a "home" for me since it's where I grew up and where my family still lives. I jokingly refer to the "Homecoming Program" as the "Get the Hell Out of Our City Program", but I am truly thankful for the blessing of being able to travel half-way across the country for free. (My caseworker at St. Joe's told me that they will call my Austin friend at approximately monthly intervals to "check up on me". I guess that's the "And Stay the Hell Out" portion of the program.)

So it was time to bid farewell to my friends, "old" and new. They're a transitory crowd (even the chess players), and I really haven't known them that long, but it still brought up some sadly sweet moments for me. I'd only barely gotten to know some of my newer friends. Sean and Rebecca are working hard to carve out their niche in the Venice boardwalk art scene. (The LA Times recently had an interesting audio-photo essay depicting the colorful ambience of the boardwalk.) And then there's cerebral Kevin with his incredibly incisive liberal blog at btcnews.com, written under the tasty pseudonym "Weldon Berger". And he's got a great new blog detailing his experiences being homeless at urbanrefugees.blogspot.com. His pseudonym on this site is the clever "P. Handling". (Golly, it makes you wonder how many of us homeless dudes are out here blogging about our experiences.) Not sure what to do with my bike, I finally left it with Ruben, an exuberant fellow with a permanent grin on his face who promised to take care of it until I returned.

Rob and I went for one last bike ride down to Palos Verdes and back, making stops for Subway sandwiches, ice cream, and women's volleyball. We even threw around a Frisbee disc on Palos Verdes beach, doing our best not to injure any of the hordes of sunbathers enjoying the gorgeous weather. As a kind parting gesture, Rob bought me packages of beef jerky and tuna for the road.

On my last day, I said goodbye to Ma Ocean and swung on the swings on the Santa Monica beach. A sign of the times: they sold the Santa Monica Pier ferris wheel on Ebay. I think they're gonna put up a new one, but it made me feel even more ready to hit the road.

So then it was time to go. My trip started off a bit inauspiciously as I took the wrong Metro bus downtown, thinking that Union Station was where the Greyhound bus station would be. Luckily, I had enough time and an extra bus token to get to the right place. Besides the usual funny looks at my gear and get-up, the folks at the ticket counter informed me that I wouldn't be able to take my broom and dustpan with me. But the bus driver didn't have a problem with them, so I was able to keep all my gear intact.

Snapshots from the one and a half day bus ride to Austin, Texas:

The bus is pretty full, stopping in dusty little towns to trickle passengers on and off. Most of my fellow travelers are lower to middle class, gruff, mainly male, of all major ethnicities. All of our transient lives are intersecting on this bus, some running away, others running to. Which am I?

At every stop, the smokers (most of the bus) herd off to puff away grumpily in (hot) outdoor smoking pens.

109 degrees in Phoenix, Arizona.

This is not the way I usually like to travel, but hey, beggars can't be choosers. (I'm still amazed at the free ticket.) But I tend to go pretty slow when I travel. My last road trip across the U.S. in 2005 took six months. But then I remember a faster trip I did in the early 90s: ten days from Miami to Los Angeles in a "drive-away" Volkswagon Jetta with two crazy Swiss women and their too-short skirts. (Thought I was gonna get killed at one Alabama truckstop...)

As usual, I haven't gotten enough sleep before the trip and I'm having trouble sleeping on the bus. I wake up from one nap with a sore neck that stays with me for most of the trip.

The guy sitting next to me is heading all the way back to Florida-----three and a half days on seven buses. That means he will spend a total of a week on buses for the round trip. He went to San Diego for his mother's funeral. His name is Scott and he used to work with the state lottery until his company lost the contract, so now he's out of a job. I mention that I think I read somewhere that studies have shown that lottery winners are not any happier than people who suffer debilitating injuries.

The vast fields of huge white windmills generating electricity in the deserts of California and Texas-----so graceful, so surreal.

We hit El Paso, Texas at 6am, but I won't get to Austin until 1am the next morning.

Appropriately enough, I'm finally digging into Jack Kerouac's On the Road. With the bus rolling across the night, I can feel myself getting the fever again as I read Kerouac's amped up prose. Despite the ironic fact that I am literally "on the road", I can feel the yearning growing in me, the yearning for the open road and the vast horizons that whisper of possibility and wonder. I remind myself that Wonder is wherever I am, in all places, at all times, but I can still feel the fever rising in me. His words pour down like late night jazz, building to sweaty frenzies and then crashing down in exhaustion. But always, the fever flows across the pages.....and into my veins.

I like to joke that I'm a "Jack of no trades, master of none", so like Kerouac, I like to put myself in interesting circumstances with interesting people, hoping that interesting things will happen around me. I'm such a chameleon that I'm not sure who I really am under this quicksilver skin. Maybe I'll peel it back and find nothing. I'm becoming more comfortable with that possibility.

I slowly begin to realize that Kerouac is writing my life more passionately and eloquently than I ever could. And then, in a sudden flash of insight, I realize that I am, quite literally, a "dharma bum".



"babe, what highway are you on now
 what direction?
 north, south, east
 how is the wind the sun the smell of earth?
 how does it feel under your shoes?
 have you eaten?"
---Wanda Coleman, engraved on the Venice Beach poetry walls

"My favorite color is yellow."
---Rob's less-than-inspiring attempt to talk to a young woman in a yellow bikini

"We're a bunch of educated fools standing in line. We don't want to work for anybody else. We want to run our own businesses. We are the leadership overflow of America!"
---Sir Charles, pontificating to the homeless crowd waiting outside of the Bread and Roses Cafe

"Will blog for Fame .....Food.....CASH!
 Immortalize your encounter with a mentally ill homeless person!
 urbanrefugees.blogspot.com"
---Kevin's idea for a panhandling sign

"You know what we should do? We should go to a strip club and keep all the receipts to claim as donations to charity on our taxes! You know how many girls we'd be putting through college?! 'Excuse me, Ma'am, can you give me a receipt for that lap dance you just gave me?!' And can you imagine all the one dollar receipts?!"
---phone conversation in the seat behind me on the bus


Jack Kerouac, from On the Road:

"But then they danced down the streets like dingledodies, and I shambled after as I've been doing all my life after people who interest me, because the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes 'Awww!'"

"...and as the river poured down from mid-America by starlight I knew, I knew like mad that everything I had ever known and would ever know was One."

"What is that feeling when you're driving away from people and they recede on the plain till you see their specks dispersing?---it's the too-huge world vaulting us, and it's good-by. But we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies."

Rated: PG-13 for nudity

Back in January when I was re-packing my backpack for the West Coast part of this monkabout, I fumbled through my socks looking for matching pairs. Then I realized that no one would really be able to see my socks under my samue pants and tennis shoes, and I laughed at my impulse to find matching pairs. And then I realized that I didn't have to care what other people thought about my socks at all. I'm still a long way from generalizing this liberating detachment to the rest of my appearance or to what others might think about my life in general, but it's a small step in the right direction. If I accomplish nothing else on this walkabout, I will at least have learned that my socks don't have to match.

But I've also gotten better at changing my pants in public. Before, I would find a bathroom or some surreptitious spot to add or subtract thermal layers as dictated by the changing temperatures throughout the day. Changing layers has become less necessary as the days have warmed up, but I got to the point where I could slip my pants off and on in public, mostly oblivious to the eyes of friends and strangers.

Again, I must tip my hat here to my hero Diogenes who happily flaunted many social mores. His habitual nudity often got him in trouble with the Greek authorities. And it seems appropriate to give a shout-out to UC Berkeley's modern-day Diogenes, the "Naked Guy", who often roamed about campus in the buff. (Unfortunately, his story ended tragically with his suicide two years ago after years struggling with mental illness. I'll knock on wood and hope that my form of "mental illness" leads to healthier pastures.)

I also went through a naked phase in college. Not as brave nor as brash as the Naked Guy, my nudity was constrained to drunken fits of streaking after parties with my radical student colleagues. Sometimes my friends would start chanting "Zum streak! Zum streak!". But I refused to bow to their peer pressure, choosing instead to sneak out later, shed my clothes, and dash off into the night. Once, at a progressive student conference (at UC Berkeley?), some friends found me passed out naked on a bike path. Another time I ran through the late night streets of Isla Vista (UC Santa Barbara's college town), trying my best to keep up with a pack of dogs who didn't quite know what to make of this strange naked human hounding their steps.

So what was it all about? Well, besides a penchant for exhibitionism, it was my strange way to express my rage against what I perceived were the limitations imposed on me by society.....as well as the limitations I imposed upon myself due to my fears. (It took me a long time---and some serious Buddhist introspection---to also realize that my hungers imposed a lot of limitations too. And that hunger and fear were flip sides of the same coin.) Stripping off my clothes was a symbolic way for me to tear away the constricting cultural codes that I felt were invalid because they were based on puritanism, commercialism, orthodoxy, elitism, repression, fear, greed, and/or ignorance. But more than just symbolic, it also felt so liberating to run naked through the night, not knowing where I was, not caring where I ended up. Amazingly, I was never arrested during these inebriated frenzies.

I have always been flabbergasted by the fact that---with the possible exception of turtles, most mollusks, and certain crabs---we humans are pretty much the only animals that are actually so ashamed of our bodies that we are afraid to show them in public. And yet we think that we are so superior to the rest of the animals! Sure, we tell ourselves that we need clothes because we don't have fur or feathers or scales to protect us from the sun, wind, rain, and cold, but this is just a rationalization, for there are plenty of times and locations when and where clothes are totally superfluous.

After all, nudity was apparently pretty hunky-dory until Adam and Eve took those fateful bites of the forbidden fruit. It wasn't until after they shared the fruit that they suddenly became ashamed of their nakedness. Which brings me to the progenitor of the fruit, that knotty Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. What a great symbol of our primary impulse to make dualistic judgments, to divide and separate reality into "good" and "bad".

Eastern traditions might interpret the Eden story this way: Adam and Eve fell from paradise when they began making dualistic judgments about paradise itself. This very act caused their schism with paradise when they began labeling things as "good" or "bad". In this way, they cast themselves out of Eden as they turned it into a world dominated by their dualistic opinions. (An Israeli friend recently told me that the original hebrew word that is translated in the Bible as "knowledge" can also be translated as "opinion". Perhaps it's really the Tree of Opinion of Good and Evil.) The key is that the Garden never changed-----it was only their perception of it that changed.

Remember, nudity was neither "good" nor "bad" until us humans labeled it so. So maybe there were other aspects of Eden that really weren't so "bad" to begin with too. After all, the snake was there in Eden too. Did its presence make the Garden any less a paradise before they tasted the fruit? Okay, so maybe I shouldn't try to argue the case for the snake---that could get pretty slippery---I'm just trying to say that if fangs and venom already existed in paradise, then what were they used for? And since God had already created "every beast of the field and every bird of the air" then there must have been a whole bunch of other critters with claws and other dangerous pointy bits too.

Okay, the real point is that maybe paradise can contain some pretty dark stuff too. Perhaps the Garden is big enough for some other nasty beasties lurking in the dark, or some other bitter fruit happily growing in the shadows of Eden, the Yin side of reality so essential to the balance and harmony of the way of the universe, the Tao.

Pain is a good example. I meet pain with resistance and fear, labeling it on a very fundamental level of my being as "bad". But if I stop to think about it, I will realize that I am actually designed to feel pain. In fact, pain is a very effective messenger of damage (or potential damage) to my body or psyche. It has helped me survive and my species evolve. Pain has been faithfully serving us all along in the most thankless job in history.

On the flip side, we tend to idealize "Nature", often equating it with a peaceful paradise where everything gets along in perfect harmony. But when I look closely at the plant and animal kingdoms I can see wars, murder, rape, pillaging, extinction-----injustices of the highest order. And yet they are harmonious and perfect. Chaotic, peaceful, bloody, friendly.....paradise. (By the way, just what is not "nature" anyways?)

Golleee, but I sure am sermonizing! It’s enough to make even Derrick blush…..especially since (from his point of view) I’m extolling the virtues of the dark side of the Force, those bad boys, the zen masters and Taoist sages, drunk on life. These last three blog entries were all supposed to be a single entry, but it got out of control. I’m sure I’ll look back on all this malarkey some day and be appalled. But for now I’ll give my ego free rein and thumb my nose at that future easily-appalled stick-in-the-mud Zum. Damn him and the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!

Where was I? Oh yeah.....

So in a very literal sense, "original sin" is the belief in dualism. The radical corollary then is that dualistic thinking is what keeps us from seeing paradise all around us, right before us, within us.

So maybe it's a big BIG Garden-----plenty of room for sunshine and shadows too. Big enough for lions lying with lambs.....and eating them too. After all, that's what lions do. That's who they are. And if they let the lions in, then the Garden has got to be big enough to include us with our pain and neuroses. (Of course, the great ironic paradox is that our neuroses stem from thinking that we fell from Eden in the first place: the belief that the world, especially ourselves, somehow isn't "good enough".) And maybe the Garden is even big enough for war, disease, hunger, greed, poverty, ignorance (this rant?), schizophrenia, mismatched socks, and nude dudes.

But we take sides, we label "good" and "bad", and our fortunes become tied to the vagaries of chance as we are blinded to the perfection right before us. And so we wait for heaven....as well as peace and happiness and love and freedom and Denny's Tuesday Grand Slam Breakfast Special. And the delicious irony is that all this judging and fear and craving and waiting and blindness is within the garden too. So it's fine and beautiful to pick sides. Go ahead and root for the Lakers. Sometimes we can even taste the divine in the ecstatic joys and bittersweet pains we experience on the rollercoaster of duality.

And there's no need to sit back and passively watch the shadows do their dark work. There are powerful ways to engage and transf