On the road

Just some photos from the bike ride, Portland -> Rainbow Gathering -> Eugene -> Portland.

The whole route

 Some of our bikes in Portland right before leaving

 A beautiful field of purple flowers on our way to Mt Hood

 Our breakfast spot on the second day

 Eating salmonberries!

 Beautiful country

 Approaching the pass around Mt Hood


Dusk near Mt Hood

Past Mt Hood, riding through the Warm Springs reservation.  We had a wonderful tailwind here.

 Looking south toward Mt Jefferson and Sisters, from Rt. 26 in the Warm Springs reservation.  When we got to the town of Warm Springs, some people were very kind and welcomed us to camp in their school park right in the middle of town, which we did.

 Climbing out of the Deschutes river valley where Warm Springs is

 We stopped at the Organic Earthly Delights farmstand just outside Madras and had a feast of mostly very-local produce.  That apple is not local!

Rolling out of Madras

 Coming down into Prineville it was very cool and mostly downhill

 Beautiful scenery on the approach to Prineville

Next day, two of us split off to continue riding while the others hitched to the gathering.

Climbing up out of Prineville we got our last view of the cascades

 We stopped to pick currants many times, and ate at least three pounds of them.

 We rode right past a couple small rattlesnakes in the road, who rattled at us.  I wasn't in front so it wasn't my fault!  There were many roadkill rattlesnakes along this stretch.

 One of the many beautiful sunsets

A lovely camping spot on soft dirt right by the road.  The guard rail was making these crazy noises probably due to the change in temperature once it got dark, and at first we thought it was a bunch of animals somewhere in the distance, it was pretty funny.

 Rolling out the next morning.  Sadly almost all the land along the road for this 100+ miles was barbed-wired off as cow pasture, and there were a lot of cows, so we were afraid to drink the creek water even through a filter.

 We saw a lot of cool old houses and contemplated how we might settle down and eke out a living in them.

 Fresh orange, red, and black currants from the roadside, and cherries we'd picked in Prineville.  The cherry tree is one block west of Good Bikes bike shop, on the main street.  We picked a lot of cherries and tried to give them away to people in the park, but everyone refused.  Happily, we filled our water at a starbucks on the way out of town and someone working there was glad to take them.

An attempt at shade for a siesta.  The day after we left Prineville was the hottest, and had the longest stretch without water of 40 miles.  Happily, two people stopped to see if we needed anything, and gave us water.  This siesta idea may have been good, but it was still too hot for me to sleep, so I basically sat or lay in the heat for four hours waiting for things to cool down.

 Weather!  Sometimes there was a cloud shadow on the road up ahead and we'd try to race toward it to get shade, but then it would move :p

  

 The final climb into the mountains of the Malheur national forest

 Rolling in to the rainbow gathering on NF-24

We went all the way to the back of the gathering up a hill, and camped on the most beautiful open hillside with tall purple flowers everywhere, and a gorgeous view of the sky.  This was the last photo before turning off my phone.  I was camped up here for about two weeks, waking up laying in the grass surrounded by chipmunks and dragonflies and all other creeping things.  By the time we left, the purple flowers had faded and orange and yellow ones were starting to bloom.

*     *     *

Two weeks later we rode back...

 The evening we left the gathering, we were greeted by a beautiful and refreshing storm at sunset, with a double rainbow, light rain, and lots of big lightning bolts.

 We stopped to take it in, and also watch the semi-wild horses running around, and eat currants which were now ripe at higher elevations.

 Camped for our third night just outside Prineville

 Riding toward Sisters

 At a farm stand in Sisters we bought and rescued various fruits and vegetables.  We ate most of this in one sitting.

 Going up the east side of the Cascades on 242.  There was almost no traffic.  A forest service guy said it is completely packed on weekends, but we were there tuesday and wednesday.

At Windy Point it looked like Mordor with piles of igneous rock everywhere

 
Hammocked just up the hill from Windy Point.  One guy who stopped there had his car make a loud beep and told his companion he thought there was "a bum" camped up there, whom he wanted to scare off.

 Mordor by day

 A beautiful lake on the way down the west side of the cascades.  At lakes, I like to make a raft and float out on it.  There were lots of dragonflies by the shore, who would fly way out on the lake and sit on this tall grass that was growing out there.


Another lake we hiked to


The Willamette river in Eugene

 Delivering Food Not Bombs in Eugene

We parted ways in Eugene, and I rode back up to Portland alone.  Now blackberries were in season, and I ate a ton of them every day.  Also shared a gallon of berries with people in the park in Corvallis.

 Soaked oats and blackberries make a delicious meal.  Yes I ate all those blackberries at one breakfast.  They're probably good for you.

 
Last sunrise on the road.

Getting on bart with my bike

 Passing Mt Shasta on the train

First place I stopped in Portland to figure out where I was going, I got fresh raspberries

 Climbing cherry trees in Portland

 This is a small quantity of cherries; large quantities were picked and eaten

Picking cherries after midnight just for fun

Reflection, June 18, 2017

In 2016-2017 I was part of a "discipleship group" at my church, First Mennonite Church of San Francisco. Basically we gathered to share a meal, share what we are struggling with, do some reading, reflecting, etc. This is a short reflection I shared at FMCSF on June 18, 2017 at the close of this period.

Our first discipleship group was the day after the election.  This was a month after I shared a reflection here in October.  At that time I had no idea how my world was about to be shook around, and no idea of the beauty that I would witness through that shaking.  Nor did I know the beauty I would be find on the other side.

For about three months after the election, which is when our group first met, I got embarrassingly caught up in following the news and trying to make sense of the world situation.  Some of my deeply conditioned assumptions about how our global society works were shattered and I didn't know what to replace them with.  While our politics drew me in initially, I ended up seeing beneath the politics an ongoing pattern of non-partisan for-profit exploitation and destruction of people and life in every part of the world, that deeply disturbed me.  I was also disturbed to be in an environment at work where the connection between our business and this destruction was basically ignored.  The cognitive dissonance was painful.  I quickly felt that I needed to fight this evil by exposing what I could.  But I despaired, because mostly people seemed to seemed to believe it wasn’t really that bad, or that it was pointless to try to do anything about it.  And the consequences for others who had publicly taken this on looked grim.

Through this difficult time, at discipleship group I could leave the internet behind for a few hours and release some of the pressure that was building up.  I could remember the deeper truth of belonging, beneath this chaos of clinging and struggle for control.  

In February, doing preparatory reading for our next meeting, I found someone who had seen everything I’d seen, and was not despairing!  I was shown another path forward.  I don't have time to go into great detail here, but as springtime burst forth in bloom around me, I felt springtime inside, beckoning me out of the cold dark place I was in.  Maybe I don’t need to defeat the powers of evil from the top.  Maybe I don’t need to control everything.  Maybe there’s a better way: a slower, mysterious way.  A mustard seed.  A way that "the powers that be" would laugh at, but a way that would survive even death.

Admittedly, I say this from a place of extreme extreme privilege, far from the war zones and sweatshops and mines and plantations and prisons.  I can only point to Jesus, who spoke of the mustard seed on the way to the cross.

I began to be freed from the idea that I needed to take part in the war of control.  So I quit most forms of media for a while, and was given time to ponder.  I knew that my own way of life and my work were part of the pattern of exploitation and destruction, and I could see that more clearly now.  Maybe my own clinging to money and reputation and comfort is one thread in a great fabric of clinging that casts this grim shadow over the world.  Maybe I am only free to the extent that I let go of that clinging.  Maybe I could live joyfully in a way that would not require me to exploit or harm the earth or other beings.

I could not impose this beauty on the world,  But I could live in it myself, spending my time in community or contemplation -- growing and collecting and sharing food here in the city, listening to others, or walking barefoot on the hills drinking in sunshine and silence and green trees.  I could look deeply at each thing I consume or possess or participate in, and question whether it is worth the harm that it entails. I could pay attention to and question my habits.  The more I live in this place, the less I need the things I am conditioned to cling to.  Months passed as I grappled with this vision and its implications for me, and this continues.  Discipleship group has been a mirror to help me see what was happening to me.  A circle of trust to hold me with love, so that I could allow it to happen despite my fears.  And a source of encouragement as I witness transformation in others.

So things are getting more interesting.  As some of you know, I’ve left work at least for the summer, and moved out of my room.  Tonight I’m taking the train to Oregon, with the intent, at least for a time, to practice simplicity and presence with some people there.  I don’t know what’s coming and I don’t know what I’m doing.  I expect whatever comes will be painful for some parts of me.  I can feel that, when I wake up in the middle of the night thinking “what the heck are you doing”.  But in my clearer moments, I remember that if I would truly know beauty, I must respond to the deepest call I can feel.  And maybe there’s an even deeper call underneath this one.  So I cry out, free me from my delusions.  Grant me the courage to be still, so I can feel your call daily.  And grant me the ability to respond, with all that I am.

Our earth

Our earth is beautiful. I love her how she is now, and I will love her with tears in my eyes even when her ice caps are gone, her coasts are flooded, and we’re migrating north. It seems we humans get to decide what we want to do with earth. For example, we could pump the oil out of the ground, knowing that a lot of it will spill in the water, so that lots of the animals and birds will die and more people won’t have clean water to drink. We decide. Is this worth it, just so that we can have some measure of stuff, comfort, and freedom that we can get more easily by doing this?
We all breathe the same air. We are part of the earth. In everything we do, we are participating in this decision, of what to do to her, what to do to ourselves. There is no way to not participate. Each time I buy a product made of plastic I’m participating; and I just bought plastic today — I’m guilty with everyone else. We are all in a dialogue, through our words and our actions, deciding what to do to our earth, what to do to ourself.

Today, this dialogue is most visible at Standing Rock where ten thousand people are gathered, with the support of millions more of us around the world, to say “No” to another oil pipeline. Now this is an extreme case, where the “benefit” of building the pipeline is mainly that certain companies, their investors, and the politicians paid by them will get more money/power if we build it. The rest of us might get slightly cheaper gas prices so we can melt those ice caps a little sooner. And then if the pipeline breaks, the Missouri river will turn black with oil all the way down to New Orleans. This is not new — we already did it in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010 and that’s still a mess, just as one example. I will still love earth even if we do this to her as well, but we don't have to.

What we see at Standing Rock is that collectively we value the profits of companies, the wealthy, and their politicians, more than we value the health of the earth and its inhabitants. We will even use excessive violence and cruelty against our fellow humans to maximize these profits. I say “we” because our elected government is doing this and we are all supporting them in it through taxes, votes, our excessive consumption of everything that requires oil, and our silence in the face of violence. Standing Rock is the tip of an iceberg. I cannot concisely describe the violence we are doing to other people around the world for the same cause.

So, my friends, I’m asking you: be conscious of what causes you are supporting. And if, like me, you find that your actions are not in harmony with what you really love, pay attention to that, and take the time to figure out what to do about it. It won't be simple but that's okay. For me, it's changed my entire life, how I think, and what I do with my time and money. I’m willing to talk about this, without bringing blame and shame into it. It is worth it, to live a life where your actions and your heart are consciously aligned. Everything becomes even more beautiful.