Biking in the Bosque

Julia Cameron, author of The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity, is personally facilitating a twelve-week workshop on her book Sunday afternoons in Santa Fe, where she now lives. It is a course on discovering and recovering your creative self. Along with forty other painters, poets, graphic designers, musicians, photographers and writers, I am privileged and honored to be participating. Julia has expressed her creativity as an award-winning journalist writing for the Washington Post, New York Times, Rolling Stone and Vogue. She has been a film and television writer, director and producer of independent features and documentaries, a novelist, playwright, songwriter and poet. She has published over thirty books.

So, what does this have to do with biking in the bosque (forest along the banks of the Rio Grande)? This is the way women often talk, think and write, spiraling around the topic, exploring adjunct nuances, instead of just making their point. My topic this week is guidance, and I’m getting there.

Julia assigns homework each week including two twenty-minute walks on your own without a dog. Forty minutes of weekly walking isn’t the best match for a person using a walker and scheduled for hip replacement surgery May 14th. I substituted feeding blue corn to the cranes for several weeks until they migrated north ten days ago. This week I decided to substitute biking in the bosque. That may sound simple until one realizes one side of my body is not working as well as the other, and I haven’t been on a bicycle in 40 or 50 years. A bit daunting. My painter neighbor loaned me her bike since she isn’t using it. She fell off it, broke her hand and had surgery in December. Even more daunting. She is quick to point out that didn’t stop her from laying down a 6’ x 12’ brick paver patio this week. “You’ve got to push yourself,” she said. “Not bad for someone in her sixties.”

Mindful of her biking experience, I wondered about my own. Could I do it? Could I do it safely? Could I do it without injuring myself? So I asked for guidance, which some people call knowing or intuition, to provide the answers. Whom did I ask? Universal Mind, Spirit, the Force, God, whatever you want to call it. How? By muscle checking for a yes or no answer to my questions. Muscle checking can be done several ways.* The body doesn’t lie. It tells the truth. I have friends whose guidance comes as goosebumps in the presence of truth, or the hair on the back of their arms standing up, a warm feeling in the chest, tingling along the neck, spine, shoulders. Signs of guidance are probably as varied as people. I have been listening to guidance for 25-30 years now. I distinguish between hearing and listening to guidance. To me, hearing it means receiving the information. It can actually come in the form of internally “hearing” an answer (clairaudience), which I have experienced. But listening to guidance not only involves receiving the information, it involves acting on it. This can require courage since it may not seem the logical thing to do. Counterintuitive at times, acting on information received can require trust or faith, at least initially, until one is confident with the validity of the process. Faith and trust can be built. Confidence comes from direct, personal experience. Start small.

Some people start with a pendulum. It can be as simple as a washer on a string or as fancy as a crystal on a chain purchased at a metaphysical bookstore. The first step is establishing the movement that determines a “yes” or “no” response. The pendulum may move north/south for a “yes” and east/west for a “no.” Ask it which is which. My response is a circle to the left for “no” and to the right for “yes.” If you are worried you are making the pendulum move by not holding it perfectly still, hang it up so you are not touching it. In either case, focus your intention on receiving a response to your question.

It can be a long way from a washer on a string to trusting your body to tell you whether or not to firewalk across coals hot enough to melt the metal poured to form the engine of your car. On different occasions, I’ve been guided to walk or not walk, and I listened (acted on the guidance) each time. My firewalk experiences were part of sacred spiritual ceremony with Unity minister Edwene Gaines. She has walked on fire countless times and was burned only once – when she didn’t listen to guidance. She received second-degree burns when she willfully decided to walk, listening to her ego rather than her guidance. She emphasized to us, “You MUST listen to your guidance, for your own safety and that of others.”

Start small. I received bike riding guidance to take my time, go slowly, stop as needed, use the street by the nature preserve with very little traffic, put my left foot (bad hip foot) on a pedal first. I received guidance I could do it safely without injuring myself. So I did. I plan to continue practicing on the street until I can realize my dream of riding on the bike path along the Rio Grande. Guidance will let me know when I’m ready. And I will listen to it.

Synchronistically, Rob Brezsny’s recent Free Will Astrology column just featured a fascinating description of an ancient form of guidance: “How did the Vikings navigate their ships through rough northern seas on cloudy and foggy days? Medieval texts speak of the mysterious ‘sunstone,’ a ‘Viking compass’ used to detect the hidden sun. Modern theories suggest that this technology may have been Iceland spar, a mineral that polarizes light, making it useful in plotting a course under overcast skies. Do you have anything like that, Libra? A navigational aid that guides your decisions when the sun’s not out, metaphorically speaking? Now would be an excellent time to enhance your connection with whatever it is that can provide such power.” I’m glad to say I do have my own navigational aid.

*(See google)

Movin’ On Up….to the Bosque

The Universe is conspiring to get me moving again – literally and figuratively, mentally, emotionally and physically, spiritually. Today, I left the orthopedic appointment with a patient education brochure that has the phrase “Returning to Movement” (sometimes the Universe is so subtle!) printed on the front, along with the words hip and replacement. The doctor and I looked at the x-rays together, saw the cartilage between bones is gone, then shared the examination room with the word inevitable. During the next few months, a combination of techniques will be used to ameliorate the condition. He said if it were he or his family member, that’s what he would do.

What a week. It’s been emotional and centered on movement. The same day I received a notice to move in thirty days, I received an email letting me know a rarely-available, single-story, one-bedroom, one-bath, old adobe is for rent in the bosque near the Rio Grande Nature Center. Additionally, a single-story, two-bedroom condo would be coming on the market nearby. It has a long-term, fixed-rate, private-party loan requiring no approval for assumption. With less than 20% down, it would “break even,” or rent for more than the monthly payment - virtually unheard of in California, especially in Santa Barbara. When I stepped in the front door, I knew it would work for me without even seeing the whole house. I felt a sense of expansiveness at the possibility of living in the bosque neighborhood I love, surrounded by nature, near the river. I felt a sense of elation about finally having my own space after a year sharing it and soaked in the aesthetics: high ceilings, skylights, brick floors, kiva fireplace, walled courtyard off the dining area, inside laundry, backyard garden, garage and east-facing master bedroom to greet the rising sun. For more than twenty years, in my last three homes, I’ve had and loved east-facing bedrooms. It’s so great to awake with the coming of light – in every way!

There were just a few minor complications. The owner would sell only if she could remain in the same neighborhood. Her move into the old adobe rental and my close of escrow all had to happen in ten days, by January 15th. The devil’s in the details…inspections? Homeowner association documents? Roof repair estimate? It had never occurred to me I might purchase an investment property I could live in before finding a house, but I opened my mind to the possibility. It was exciting. In discussing the homeowners’ association, it became clear I wasn’t Dorothy, and it wasn’t Kansas anymore. Requesting standard documents to review (for California), I learned there was no association budget. “No budget?” I repeated, mouth dropping and remaining open. No homeowner association minutes for the past year. No minutes? “No, we haven’t met for the past year. We meant to, but everyone just got busy.” Oh. A reviewed reserve analysis was not even on the radar screen. “I think you may have a hard time practicing real estate in New Mexico – things are really different here.” Movement. Movement from the old to the new. Adapt to your surroundings. Let go of your business practices of 33 years. Let go?

Here it seems appropriate to quote my blog post of two weeks ago (“The Invitation of a White Christmas”): "Looking ahead this week to a Burning Bowl Ceremony at the Unity Church, I am considering what I will write down, burn up and release from my life. Previous selections have included 'the past,' or, (eeek!) 'the known.' Caveat lector, be careful what you ask for!! There can be unintended consequences…." One of the things I released in the burning bowl was that which no longer serves me. Yep. That would be about right. California business practices of 33 years do not serve me in New Mexico. Caveat lector applies also to me!

The property manager for the old adobe really liked us. His name is Bravo! (I added the punctuation when I entered him in my cell phone. It matches the gold earring in his left ear. And I’m cheering myself for creating a new home in the bosque). When it became apparent to the condo owner and me that a 10-day escrow was too much too fast and she decided not to move ahead, I submitted an application on the old adobe. Bravo just called to say it’s been accepted. I’ll have a place of my own next weekend. Just no furniture. It’s still in storage in Ventura, CA. Bravo said, when I asked, he would work with the two of us and include a provision in the year’s lease that the condo seller could be a substitute tenant, with owner and manager approval. This is a critical benefit since she will only sell, should she change her mind, if she can stay in the same neighborhood, and this is the first rental in the area in five years. They rent quickly. Bravo’s call, saying he wanted to work with me, came while I was on the phone with a Ventura friend who has been praying for my “right and perfect place to live.” Moving to the bosque is the right thing. I know it. My soul connection with the Rio Grande and surrounding forest will nourish me as I live there.

Blurbs from the Burque
Sign on the roped-off wine section of Trader Joe's yesterday: Whoa Partner! State law prohibits the sale of alcohol before 12 p.m. on Sundays. So you'll have to wait until HIGH NOON to visit our "saloon."