in response to Phreelosophy's comment on Practice

*bows deep*
only a truly enlightened being could see how awesome i am (without wearing a Mindfold)

But for the real practice, it fell into me more than I into it. This recent trend certainly grew deep roots in the bloody mess of my broken heart - my ex-wife suggested taking a class again when I called her crying one morning during our Separating. As it turns out heartblood spilt is a verdant compost for growing Qi. The moment I tasted it I was home.

So when I was on the road without a space of my own and needed a way to center that did not involve possessions, a routine (such as shower or shave because those were not always available) or a bedroom, etc. this found its place in my mo(u)rning.

Of course, I have been fostering an image of non-conformity for years so doing weird spirit-summoning gestations or whatever it might look like to the uninformed only really helps to paint a picture of my's elf that keeps me malleable within others' eyeballs. So there's no hesitation on how i am perceived that might get in the way of a practice.
And verily, I say unto you, when you are doing crazy headstands because you have put a year of Chi into your centre, well, the practice suddenly becomes real.

But even that is not the payoff. The real thing that keeps me motivated to do this every day is the more in my body I am. Now as I connect that subtle movement to a sitting, breathing meditation...the mind and the body are aligning that the soul may more fully incarnate.

The Financier

I have been working on my metamorphosis into The Financier, and in doing so I have been getting to see my contrarian nature shining through. In the land of the freaky side of freedom, my bandannas and slipshod have been sinking - as if being beckoned back underconscious after wandering past their necessary bounds. My mind is bubbling like a wet mogwai and out of the muck is arising the keen and dapper logician. The change in outward attitude of people towards me is affirming of my intents; dressed as this


receives a
very different
reaction than this








where people (keep in mind this is societally and culturally dependent) are more apt to engage on a particular level of manners to you, depending on their perceived class relation to yours. For instance, in the bandanna, etc. the Nascar fan at the mall doesn't look at me twice and expects me to step out of his way, which I must as he is larger and will probably hurt me with impact. But in the professional get-up he doesn't look me in the eye once and is nudging against his girlfriend to leave me the slight room I need to pass.


But I have known this, and tried to use it to my advantage in all circumstances (that I care a whit about). Its been an age old dilemma of mine having to gauge whether going covert and using disguises to accomplish a mission (like getting into a Masters in Finance program with an undergrad degree in Invironment) is the more likely to succeed,











Or if the situation calls for the full-frontal assault.














Either way I can oblige.

As for the recent past, I had no interest in keeping score. I had had enough of the numbers business and the way they often try to define value. But now I am feeling a bit more competitive, ready to jump back into the fray. And what a fray the economy is! I wonder if it isn't that giving me the most interest, to see something from the inside when it is not working, as opposed to bandwagoning to the top of the Dow with the rest of the would be capitoligarchs.

Manta in the Morning

[Insert gratuitous awesome photo of self El Capitan took in Quito at the International Phenomenon called Shooters.]

El Capitan and I are on the bus to Bahia waiting for it to leave the gate. We've been here for 1/2 hour between buses and i'm strung out from riding the sharkbus all night without even knowing we had gotten on it.

It all started at the Quito station when I was concerned my big bag would not make it into the luggage storage so I kept pestering the employees for to stow my luggage. It was finally time and as retribution for me being a worried gringo making their midnight shift that much more buggy, they had me carry my own bag from where they had set it down earlier and stow it myself. Fine, so long as it is on the same bus as I am.

We all clamored on the bus and organized into assigned seats. El Capitan is saying "this is the nicest bus i've been on in Ecuador, i feel funny," as he is maneuvering his carry-on bag so the juice in one mesh pocket and the vodka in the other side's mesh pocket won't slide out over the 9 hour ride. I got the window this time, and since we are driving all night, its not for the scenery, but to lean up against while sleeping; we try the seats reclining and they lie almost completely flat, so sleeping appears it will be much easier to achieve than i had first feared.
[I am in a place called the Surf Shack, where i can get both coffee & whiskey and internet along with breakfast. There are a couple townies working the place, cooking my sausage and eggs, and smoking and singing with the Beatles; one gringo just walked in with a waterproof ipod and grabbed his surf board that was sitting against the wall behind me. Almost unplugged my laptop with one of the fins. He turned to apologize and saw my face below the bandanna and realized that I was pretty easygoing. His smile turned to a laugh as he saw the half-finished whiskey shot yet to be poured into the coffee. Pretty neat town. Let's get back on the bus...]

I get to situating ipod, in the left pocket, thread the phones under the warming shirt and up to the ear holes, bandanna off-gulp-because the knot presses into the back of my head so i can't lay back, Mindfold onto the forehead, 2.5mg of Melatonin sublingual under the tongue and curl up El Capitan's sweater into a tube to be my neck pillow so the head doesn't roll with every bump and turn, I slip my earplugs into my right pocket, next to the change purse, for ease of access if the ipod doesn't work its minimagic.

Selecting the pre-made Chill playlist of Eno's smoothest, The Habibiyya, Moby's Ambient and the like, I find that the most relaxing of these sounds have no way to drown out the roar of the bus engine which, even though these windows don't open, roars and rumbles into my ears past the phones and garbling the fragile ambient musics of my favorites. So I crank up the volume, which is a paradox to the floaty sounds drifting among my ears.

This is working for the first short while until we pass the city toll booth and exit Quito, where the television comes on and without lifting my fold I determine it is some sort of Knight Riderish action flick that contains untold thrilling car chase scenes judging by the routine tire squeals and minimal dialogue I can't make out, or truly, don't want to pay any attention to; focusing the slivers of my mind that are still awake towards the magic album "If Man but Knew" which I have moved onto infinite looping. The mideastern acoustic has enough waves of sound to pierce thru the surrounding rumbles enough to make it followable thru the night's churning sonic juttings from the beast's engine, brakes and televised inanity. I settle into the slow groove they are digging out of the communal psyche's malleable thoughtstuff; I let my eyes weigh heavier and heavier.

But the action flick is stunning me at intermittent blasts and I am forced to turn the tunes up again. El Capitan is back from trying to take the empty pair of seats behind us when we stop outside of town for the last batch of riders. So we're back to bumping elbows and knees. I can tell we leave the paved road when the bus - heavier than my last mental image of God - is hopping along the riveted road as if we were on the moguled slopes of the Andes, not the muddy roads. Its all downhill from Quito's 9500' to the port city. The momentum behind us makes the curves around the mountain sides full with gravitation. With the switchbacks hidden from us riders by the driver's cabwall, the movements occur as sudden jerks and we are all swaying in our varieties of sleep. I am teetering with a feather's smoothness on the edge of dreamdom so i don't want to tense to fight the convoluted spirals we take around these mountainsides. I suggest to the mind awake that we are on a roller coaster and letting my body go limp around the center of my being is the interest gathered from all the Chi work i've invested into me.

The melatonin is kicking in and my brain thinks my brain is telling my brain its time for my brain's thoughtwaves to settle into sleep sinking synchronization into the spaces of time being taken to arrive each swerve of the bus at its condition of physicality, the feelings become less and thicker, slower. Adjusting the ipod brought a second trickle of sense into curve with the bus' swervature helping to line mind with the body's predicament.

Walking the line between waking and sleep for 7 clock hours means i have been absorbing the Habibiyya's one album something like ten times through. A fleeting connection between this notion and the time mother walked in on her teenage son lying asleepish on his bedroom floor with White Rabbit on repeat, and her illustrating confusion at my preferences and my confusion from being roused by the outside world from my inner respite merged into that oddness where one can't follow another into Life -- swings the line i'm walking like a tightrope into awareness. Sensations come rushing in to fill the higher crest of brainwareness amplitude with swimming, swaying sensations, but overall the total darkness held deeper sway. Changing from The Habibiyya to Songs of Green Pheasant (as introduced to me by the Illuminated Mar-Mar), though it lasted only a single listen through after the sweet sublimation of drone of the lasting night that Man almost Knew settled the curves into the brain's creases. I needed an album that was entrancing enough to drift sleep along this rocky road but sharp enough to cut through the myriad of busship noises as we rolled thru the moon's night. The answer came from the Deep Forest. First of the glorious albums of my musical youth. My original Morpheus.

Awakening in a foreign town after an entire night of off-road bussing up and down the Andes just short of the ocean was one of the least noticeable most extreme experiences i've had.

Living Routines

So for over 7 months I have been on the road now. In that time I have spent a great deal of time in a variety of living situations and been immersed in others lives for days or weeks, sharing space, weaving around others routines, being as unobtrusive as I can into others hospitality, etc.

For the last three or four months no one has been closer to my humanness than Sleg. A major reason that such a relationship has worked is because our routines and lifestyles are so very well matched that we are close to ideal partners in, well, whatever we partner up for, living included. In fact we knew this early on when we were the first duo in history to run for, and lose, Co-Class President of the senior class of our high school. Its not just anyone you can live in an abandoned truck stop with.


On that note, El Capitan and I had a heart-to-heart in the Magic Bean, a Western culture catered-to-steraunt, about our living styles, communication processes and the foundational assumptions that shape our understandings of what the other says or does (anything from body language to full-blown activities that confuse the tenuous grasp on reality either of us has at any given moment), methods of encountering a variety of sticky situations


Variety of sticky situations:
Traffic
Avoiding accostment in the street
Purchase of items not sold in stores

Another element of this mix is that he has spent most of the last few years living alone, while I was married then Slegged. One element of this is that sometimes El Capitan talks to himself and I assume he is speaking to me – eaves-dropping is applied retroactively once he verifies he was talking to himself.

The altitude has not affected me with nausea and headaches but it has dried out my sinuses which was good when I first arrived with a clog in that area, but now my nasal system is very dry and a touch raw. I am drinking a minimum of 64 ounces of water, often fortified with fizzy vitamins, per day but still feel dried out.

The sun is as bright here as on ski slopes or in the desert. When it comes out you squint or shade your eyes. I am listening to a couple of podcasts on learning Spanish, each are 10 or 15 minute blocks and are a good way to shake the dust off my unused decade old study of the language. I am guessing we will stay here a few more days at least while I get comfortable with the speed of life, conversation and driving before venturing off the beaten path. I am already looking forward to trying to find some whitewater rafting. I am also wondering why I didn’t bring my hiking boots. I was trying to pack light, but that might have been going too far.

I am traveling with an REI bag set. And let me take a minute to tell great story about REI and why you too should shop there. I shopped for two hours trying out every bag in the size range I was looking for, for my car-living days. Bought one. Enjoyed it thoroughly but it revealed itself as too small. Took it back after 6 months of use, and believe you me it wasn’t in resalable condition, sans receipt or even my membership card and got a complete refund which I put towards this bag [link, nope i looked forever for this link and its not around]. I am curious to see if it is too large for taking with me everywhere or whether I will leave it here at the Harley Hostel with Pablo who is an adopted father of El Capitan, or whether I will take it on our travels around the rest of Ecuador (and wish I hadn’t).

Ecuador

So, El Capitan y mi have made the leap. We Mindfolded (I am suggesting the Spanish term for this to be "Plegarmente" but anyone with more knowledge than me should help me refine this; my best translation for that made up word is: To Convolute the Mind) the first class flight where El Capitan actually ate a 5 course meal with a folded mind!!! Super Rock. The stewardesses asked after our escapades in the psychologiscape and we definitely made at least one convert. ROGUE THERAPY.

Then El Capitan performed a bit of Rogue Therapy on me when he had to talk his way into the country as a previous deportation showed up on the Immagration computers. It was a graceful performance combining straight face, fake lack of knowledge of Espanol and me posing as the helpless amigo. To round it off, once we got in, he thanked the lady by saying "Arrigato." Priceless.

So I was not able to take advantage of the privileged drinking in the Business Class cabin as I feared the altitude of Quito (its pretty near Breckenridge where I required a tank of oxygen delivered after altitude sickness demanded an excruciating toll on my lowlands southern body). But the second day here we found a Shark in a casino and Rode it all the way to this morning's retribution. For those of you who don't know (and Sleg, will you please forward this to our Rockford Connection?) Shark Riding is the extreme of urban adventuring; because, as everyone knows, when you encounter a shark, the only option is to grab a hold and not get eaten.

We had a routine set up at the blackjack table where we each went in with US$20 and took the US$2 minimum table by storm. We would rotate hands sitting out so that we could maximize our time and 'free' food and drinks. We lasted more than 3 hours (with El Capitan giving me a late boost of cash-winnings-inflow so we could keep playing until our last round of drinks came around the table). The pit bosses made weird clicking noises every once in a while and I could not discern the meanings, if anyone knows what they are all about please let me know. We intend on returning and playing a hand mindfolded. I know, I know.

Alright so moving on from that, the spanish language is slowly falling back into the front of my thinking, but its very humbling to not have a clue what people are talking about. We are in a hostel in Quito that is named after Harley-Davidson motorcycles and are hanging out at Shooters somewhere in the New town section of Ecuador. I have yet to get a decent map in my mind of the city.

The altitude has interesting effects on the climate (at least I am hypothesizing it is the altitude and its thin air that leaves the temperature at the mercy of the sun in the sky or lacking such....) where the days are hot and the nights cold. We are stocking up on supplies and settling into the culture before moving from Quito into the rest of Ecuador. I stil have to find a cord for the camera that Robbiedog lent me before I can start downloading pics, but swing by again in a bit and you can see what I am talking about.