Needles, California
Sunday, March 28, 2011
3:13 p.m.
I sing because I’m happy
I sing because I’m free.
His eye is on the sparrow and
I know He watches me.
-- words from a gospel song
Let’s step back just a bit:
We began our sojourn on Mardi Gras -- Tuesday, March 8, 2011. To many in the Christian world that is not just the occasion of Carnival in Rio and gala celebrations of parades and dancing in the streets in New Orleans, it is the beginning of the 40-day lenten season of fasting leading up to Easter, which comes this year on April 24, 2011.
Another way of looking at Mardi Gras (which means “fat Tuesday” in French -- a time to indulge) is the more somber version, “Shrove Tuesday,” which is a day of purification, in which one is “shriven” which can mean one of two things: either penance is imposed, or pardon is granted.
So, as the enterprise known as “sole2soulwalk,” consisting of 6 souls and 2 RVs headed out into the desert, I was aware that it would be a stretch of time in a wilderness area, and expected that it would carry with it some opportunities for deep reflection. The number 40 is significant in Judeo-Christian symbolism as a time of trial and testing. For example, the Israelites spent 40 years and Jesus spent 40 days in the wilderness preparing for the new roles they would play in the history of humanity. Might I / we not be facing a similar period of trial and testing? Little did I know. . .
Some deep reflection has already taken place
First, when we received the news that the two teams were now officially separate.
Second, in the past four days as a result of a blowout in the RV on the way to Needles, California, we have been stopped in our tracks. A strip of tread tore free from the tire, which, in its violent spinning destroyed the wheel well, and in turn ripped out a large portion of the wiring system of the RV. Our “Rocinante” -- the affectionate name we have given to the RV (after Don Quixote’s beloved white nag) is therefore, in a manner of speaking, suffering from both a broken leg and severe spinal cord injury.
Were it not for Smitty, our driver, and his redoubtable skills as mechanic and electrician, we would have to put old Rocinante down, I’m afraid, and that would be a very serious twist to our plot line. Smitty has worked most diligently on the problem for four days straight, rebuilding the wheel well from scratch, and rewiring the entire vehicle, and believes he can have us going again tomorrow. It will be a miracle, for sure, when we are allowed to continue our pilgrimage. Meanwhile, we reflect while awaiting further instruction.
Third, having also undergone several weeks of digital withdrawal from lack of phone coverage and internet for so long, I now feel officially “unplugged.” On reflection it has been such a surprising feeling of freedom that I may never want to go back to that addicted state again.
So, in terms of the “Why Am I Walking?” conversation you may recall that from the beginning I have had many different answers to this question, but some new thoughts have come through recently as a result of the jostling of reality and necessity occasioned by our circumstances.
In the past few days, Viveka and I have become aware how our role had shifted from linear walkers on a horizontal plane -- since that function is being handled by RV1 -- to spiraling walkers on a vertical plane. It has occurred to us -- through prayer, meditation and reflection -- that we are not supposed to be covering ground from West to East, Instead, we are to be following clues in search of the Divine Feminine, each time seeking to elevate the conversation with those whom we meet along the way. We are coming to see ourselves as sacred activists following the signs we are being shown by Spirit.
Some people may have a hard time understanding this -- especially if our purpose is couched in terms of the “Divine” and the “Sacred,” words that find resistance in many, but it is plain to us that we are on a kind of inspired “scavenger hunt,” picking up clues here and there from people we meet. Many people are more comfortable with the idea of the “feminine principle” or “female values.” Be that as it may, we do consider ourselves guided and inspired by a unique energy, call it what you will.
Following these clues, we have interviewed a tribal representative from the Mohave people who has shared deeply with us some of his people’s ways borne through language and custom. We have spent two days at the Needles Museum interviewing a woman who was born here, who knows practically everyone and everything about this town. Viveka is dutifully documenting these interviews, and we are aware that they very well could turn into a series of programs, rather than a single documentary about our walk.
Yesterday, fulfilling our commitment to walk 11.1 miles a day (55.5 miles per week) we were making our way back toward the sunset to Needles, California from Oatman, Arizona. Oatman is a little mining ghost town in the hills on Route 66 where burros roam the streets, and costumed personalities stage rollicking gunfights at regular intervals in the main street on weekends. We had been told that we shouldn’t miss Oatman, but for all of its local color, I wouldn’t exactly call it a “spiritually fulfilling” experience. Still, I was hopeful that I would be given the blessing I have been promised every time I walk. As the sun was dampering down in front of us, I began to hear in my mind the gospel song, “His Eye is On the Sparrow,” a bit of which I have quoted at the front of this entry. But I heard it come through this way: “I walk because I’m happy; I walk because I’m free. Her eye is on the sparrow, and I know she watches me.”
Suddenly I am aware that I am not walking “in order” to do or be anything. I walk BECAUSE I’m happy. I walk BECAUSE I’m free. As Plato said, “The just man justices, the lover loves.” What a liberating thought, a being has a nature. When I am walking, walking is my nature -- “the walker walks.” In that moment there is no past, no future. There is only the white line on the side of the road my feet are straddling, and the punctuation of the walking stick turning my two-step into a waltz.
And I carry on in that vein of happiness and contentment until the night sky swallows up my thoughts.
By then it was too dark to see well. I started thinking about hitchhiking but wasn’t sure it was legal.* After trying unsuccessfully a half-dozen times to flag a car down, eventually a Sheriff’s vehicle pulled up beside me.
“I’m walking across America, Officer, and I’m harmless,” I said. “I’m unarmed and 72 years old,” I added, as I fitted my walking stick into the very limited leg room.
“Oh, I know. You must be the one they called in about. They were afraid you would be run over.”
The thought embarrassed me. “I have some companions up ahead on the other side of the road. Would you pick them up, too?” (A free-lance journalist had joined us for the day to get the story first hand, from the ground up.)
I was very moved and very grateful to the person who had phoned, and thanked officer Ross for dropping us safely at the Mobil station on I-95, where Smitty, after a long day of tedious electrical wiring, could come for us in his Jeep Cherokee.
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*Footnote regarding hitchhiking: It is legal to thumb a ride if you are walking in the direction of traffic on a sidewalk, but if you stop moving and stick out your thumb it is not legal. (Go figure!) It is also illegal to walk on the side of the road in the direction of traffic if there is no sidewalk -- but then how can you attract help if you need it? Clearly I had been in a catch #22, and “someone” had been watching over me.
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