Casa Robino

Until some days ago, Tamara and I were vagabonding around Galicia, with no clear plans but to go somewhere East one day soon. After "rescuing" Robin in Oporto and leaving him with Valentina, direction South, we decided to follow Robin's steps backwards into Viana do Castelo and Galicia, and let us inspire by the wonderful people that took such good care of him in the previous days.

Viana was not as nice as we expected though, the festivity was loud and full of gross churrascos. A huge line of stands occupied the whole coastline at the docks, with people selling all sort of crap. A caravan bearing the header Pop Musik was playing loud, fake music while a surreal crowd of people of all ages and sexes stared stupefied in the blinding spotlights at two screens that showed scenes of drunk girls at some mass concert showing their breasts on camera. Tamara asked for leftovers and we dined on free rice, chicken and olives. That night, I left my phone in the car that brought us there from Oporto, but I didn't care. Exceptionally, it was legal to camp inside the city, so we found a nice park next to the river beach and crashed there. When we woke up he next morning, we were hungry. Suddenly, a huge bus with dozens of passengers all wearing the same t-shirt arrived, and they set up a huge camp kitchen, a beer tab, and started eating copiously. While I was staring at them, Tamara got up and introduced herself to her with a big smile. They looked at her with suspicion, but eventually she came back with a plate full of deep-fried crab claws and other things. We still had some bread we got for free the previous night, and olives. That was probably the best breakfast we'd had in a long time.

We hadn't really clicked with Viana and its people, and the beach was too windy, rocky and cold. Leftover fruit and greens at the market were not great. So the next day we set off shortly before sunset. We hadn't really agreed on a destination, but it was clear that eventually we would have had to cross the border somehow, so I just wrote Vigo on the sign and nobody complained. We walked up the hill into the setting sun, wondering if we'd have ever got anywhere that night. I caught up speed, reached the designated gas station, and put down my sailor sack to wait for Tamara to reach me. The sack was leaning against a street light pole, and the sign with it, so Vigo was basically almost completely hidden by the pole... so I started jumping like a monkey, with my t-shirt over my head, to cheer up my travel buddy, when suddenly a car pulls over, and stopped right next to my sack, without driving further into the gas station. A guy came out, smiling, saying, in Spanish with a French accent, something like I have to move some things to the trunk, you guys can sit in the back. I stared at him astonished, and Tamara, that was still many meters away, probably too. It was very unlikely that anyone would read the sign, since it was half hidden, but not only did they see it, they also stopped while we were not hitchhiking (and I was jumping like a drunk monkey)! We jumped in. His Galician girlfriend was driving, and they met while he was hitchhiking to a festival in Andalucia; I always pick up hitchhikers, she said proudly, and he said that that was the first time he picked up people rather than being picked up himself, and passed us a joint. I love this kind of rides, karma, connection. They knew exactly where we could spend the night in Vigo, and dropped us off at a huge park in the centre.

Still, we were hungry. So we walked into town looking for dumpsters. We checked some, and a pizzeria for mistake pizzas and such, but we could find nothing. It was 11 p.m., cold and the city was desert. We sat around for a while around the entrance of an underground mall, until we heard some voices. A couple with dreadlocks and a dog were working on a dumpster just down the huge stairway, where we hadn't been. I went down and went like hola! hay algo de interesante aquí?, that was immediately counteracted by the girl with a stupefying sei italiano?, which sounded a lot more like a statement than a question. She told me she had a van and was going to drive to Italy soon. I started fantasizing about getting a 2000km ride from there to Milan, and parted from them with a bag full of packaged tuna sandwiches fresh from the day, perfect apples, and orange juice. We ate and crashed in a corner of the park that looked like a huge bed of fallen leaves, where we slept like babies.

The next day, we ate some more sandwiches and hitched to the beach with a guy that lived most of his life in Argentina, Calabria and India. He was a fisherman there, a boat mechanic here, and a drummer in India. One of those short encounters that can inspire you for weeks. The sea was as clear as spring water, the sand was white. A lady from a frutería gave us a big bag of ripen fruit. We ate some more tuna sandwiches, met the rasta couple again, I was not going to get a ride to Italy, alas. We crashed again in the park.

Some days later, after mixing with pilgrims in Santiago de Compostela, after getting introduced to a whole village during a Queimada in the middle of nowhere, and meeting with Ana, my former flatmate in Reykjavík, and her Icelandic boyfriend Óttar, and receiving outstanding hospitality from her and her family, we ended up at a road restaurant outside Foz. Hitching was slow and boring, and it was already quite late in the day, after long time waiting in the morning to get out of the middle of nowhere where we were. We found a ride for one on a truck to Oviedo, Tamara went. I was alone, somewhere in Northern Spain, and little traffic. I walked to the highway and found another hitchhiker, a local, that was going to Basque Country to look for a job. He offered me to hitch with him, which would have been fun, but I decided to go back to the restaurant and ask more people. Almost immediately, I asked a couple for a ride to Oviedo. The lady threw me a glance that I really liked - she then threw the same glance to her husband, who consented. She crawled in the back seat and fell asleep, while I was condemned to an endless conversation spacing from travelling, cold vs. hot countries, politics, health, psychedelic mushrooms, alternative agriculture and ethnobotany, all the way to Bilbao. I got off the car that I was completely exhausted, but also happy about the 400km ride. I tried to hitch a ride to Vitoria-Gasteiz, without success, try to find a place to sleep in a thorny orchard where there was no flat ground, and eventually fell asleep somewhere quiet, until the rain woke me up at maybe 5 am.

The plan was to find a ride to Barcelona, and either spend there one night or take the ferry to Italy, that was leaving that same day at midnight. The ferry was expensive though (50€), impossible to hitch, and I knew quite well that I would've never made it to be back on time in Amsterdam if I had gone via Italy. I tried from 7 in the morning until 2 in the afternoon, from multiple spots, always with a sign and my thumb, to hitch a ride to Miranda de Ebro. I could find none. I grew very tired and demotivated. When I reached my last hitching spot, a gas station in Etxebarri, I realized I had to accept my fate, instead of fighting it, and give up my plans about Italy. After 20 min from this realization, I asked a car that was indeed going to Catalunya. It was 3 in the afternoon, I could have made it to the ferry. That was a big temptation, but I didn't betray what I had just realized, so I turned down the ride. The next people I asked were a nice old French couple and they gave me a stupendous 150km ride into France, until the perfect service area. It was there that, while I was looking around, my ride arrived and parked right in front of me. It was a Belgian van bearing the weird xerography L'origine du prénom du nom de familie. I walked to meet the driver. He was alone, the van was really full, but I saw there was some space in the front. I opened my arms wide, with my last forces I exhibited the best trustworthy smile I was able of, and said bonsoir monsieur! vous allez en diréction de Bordeaux?

We talked and drove for long hours, in my broken French, and then in English, until we stopped at a cold service area before Paris, and slept until 7:30 the next morning. I didn't want to cross France again, that's why I preferred going to Italy instead, but fate provided me with an amazing ride across all of it. The driver and I connected very well, and the next afternoon I was in Bruxelles. Two more rides, the last one with a crazy Indian driver that checked my passport and asked what was in my bag before taking me, and I was in Amsterdam. I still couldn't believe it. My crazy driver drove me to a coffieshop to celebrate with me my fortunate and unexpected comeback, and got me incredibly stoned. All this had to be.

Until some days ago, Tamara and I were vagabonding around Galicia, with no clear plans but to go somewhere East one day soon. After "rescuing" Robin in Oporto and leaving him with Valentina, direction South, we decided to follow Robin's steps backwards into Viana do Castelo and Galicia, and let us inspire by the wonderful people that took such good care of him in the previous days.

Viana was not as nice as we expected though, the festivity was loud and full of gross churrascos. A huge line of stands occupied the whole coastline at the docks, with people selling all sort of crap. A caravan bearing the header Pop Musik was playing loud, fake music while a surreal crowd of people of all ages and sexes stared stupefied in the blinding spotlights at two screens that showed scenes of drunk girls at some mass concert showing their breasts on camera. Tamara asked for leftovers and we dined on free rice, chicken and olives. That night, I left my phone in the car that brought us there from Oporto, but I didn't care. Exceptionally, it was legal to camp inside the city, so we found a nice park next to the river beach and crashed there. When we woke up he next morning, we were hungry. Suddenly, a huge bus with dozens of passengers all wearing the same t-shirt arrived, and they set up a huge camp kitchen, a beer tab, and started eating copiously. While I was staring at them, Tamara got up and introduced herself to her with a big smile. They looked at her with suspicion, but eventually she came back with a plate full of deep-fried crab claws and other things. We still had some bread we got for free the previous night, and olives. That was probably the best breakfast we'd had in a long time.

We hadn't really clicked with Viana and its people, and the beach was too windy, rocky and cold. Leftover fruit and greens at the market were not great. So the next day we set off shortly before sunset. We hadn't really agreed on a destination, but it was clear that eventually we would have had to cross the border somehow, so I just wrote Vigo on the sign and nobody complained. We walked up the hill into the setting sun, wondering if we'd have ever got anywhere that night. I caught up speed, reached the designated gas station, and put down my sailor sack to wait for Tamara to reach me. The sack was leaning against a street light pole, and the sign with it, so Vigo was basically almost completely hidden by the pole... so I started jumping like a monkey, with my t-shirt over my head, to cheer up my travel buddy, when suddenly a car pulls over, and stopped right next to my sack, without driving further into the gas station. A guy came out, smiling, saying, in Spanish with a French accent, something like I have to move some things to the trunk, you guys can sit in the back. I stared at him astonished, and Tamara, that was still many meters away, probably too. It was very unlikely that anyone would read the sign, since it was half hidden, but not only did they see it, they also stopped while we were not hitchhiking (and I was jumping like a drunk monkey)! We jumped in. His Galician girlfriend was driving, and they met while he was hitchhiking to a festival in Andalucia; I always pick up hitchhikers, she said proudly, and he said that that was the first time he picked up people rather than being picked up himself, and passed us a joint. I love this kind of rides, karma, connection. They knew exactly where we could spend the night in Vigo, and dropped us off at a huge park in the centre.

Still, we were hungry. So we walked into town looking for dumpsters. We checked some, and a pizzeria for mistake pizzas and such, but we could find nothing. It was 11 p.m., cold and the city was desert. We sat around for a while around the entrance of an underground mall, until we heard some voices. A couple with dreadlocks and a dog were working on a dumpster just down the huge stairway, where we hadn't been. I went down and went like hola! hay algo de interesante aquí?, that was immediately counteracted by the girl with a stupefying sei italiano?, which sounded a lot more like a statement than a question. She told me she had a van and was going to drive to Italy soon. I started fantasizing about getting a 2000km ride from there to Milan, and parted from them with a bag full of packaged tuna sandwiches fresh from the day, perfect apples, and orange juice. We ate and crashed in a corner of the park that looked like a huge bed of fallen leaves, where we slept like babies.

The next day, we ate some more sandwiches and hitched to the beach with a guy that lived most of his life in Argentina, Calabria and India. He was a fisherman there, a boat mechanic here, and a drummer in India. One of those short encounters that can inspire you for weeks. The sea was as clear as spring water, the sand was white. A lady from a frutería gave us a big bag of ripen fruit. We ate some more tuna sandwiches, met the rasta couple again, I was not going to get a ride to Italy, alas. We crashed again in the park.

Some days later, after mixing with pilgrims in Santiago de Compostela, after getting introduced to a whole village during a Queimada in the middle of nowhere, and meeting with Ana, my former flatmate in Reykjavík, and her Icelandic boyfriend Óttar, and receiving outstanding hospitality from her and her family, we ended up at a road restaurant outside Foz. Hitching was slow and boring, and it was already quite late in the day, after long time waiting in the morning to get out of the middle of nowhere where we were. We found a ride for one on a truck to Oviedo, Tamara went. I was alone, somewhere in Northern Spain, and little traffic. I walked to the highway and found another hitchhiker, a local, that was going to Basque Country to look for a job. He offered me to hitch with him, which would have been fun, but I decided to go back to the restaurant and ask more people. Almost immediately, I asked a couple for a ride to Oviedo. The lady threw me a glance that I really liked - she then threw the same glance to her husband, who consented. She crawled in the back seat and fell asleep, while I was condemned to an endless conversation spacing from travelling, cold vs. hot countries, politics, health, psychedelic mushrooms, alternative agriculture and ethnobotany, all the way to Bilbao. I got off the car that I was completely exhausted, but also happy about the 400km ride. I tried to hitch a ride to Vitoria-Gasteiz, without success, try to find a place to sleep in a thorny orchard where there was no flat ground, and eventually fell asleep somewhere quiet, until the rain woke me up at maybe 5 am.

The plan was to find a ride to Barcelona, and either spend there one night or take the ferry to Italy, that was leaving that same day at midnight. The ferry was expensive though (50€), impossible to hitch, and I knew quite well that I would've never made it to be back on time in Amsterdam if I had gone via Italy. I tried from 7 in the morning until 2 in the afternoon, from multiple spots, always with a sign and my thumb, to hitch a ride to Miranda de Ebro. I could find none. I grew very tired and demotivated. When I reached my last hitching spot, a gas station in Etxebarri, I realized I had to accept my fate, instead of fighting it, and give up my plans about Italy. After 20 min from this realization, I asked a car that was indeed going to Catalunya. It was 3 in the afternoon, I could have made it to the ferry. That was a big temptation, but I didn't betray what I had just realized, so I turned down the ride. The next people I asked were a nice old French couple and they gave me a stupendous 150km ride into France, until the perfect service area. It was there that, while I was looking around, my ride arrived and parked right in front of me. It was a Belgian van bearing the weird xerography L'origine du prénom du nom de familie. I walked to meet the driver. He was alone, the van was really full, but I saw there was some space in the front. I opened my arms wide, with my last forces I exhibited the best trustworthy smile I was able of, and said bonsoir monsieur! vous allez en diréction de Bordeaux?

We talked and drove for long hours, in my broken French, and then in English, until we stopped at a cold service area before Paris, and slept until 7:30 the next morning. I didn't want to cross France again, that's why I preferred going to Italy instead, but fate provided me with an amazing ride across all of it. The driver and I connected very well, and the next afternoon I was in Bruxelles. Two more rides, the last one with a crazy Indian driver that checked my passport and asked what was in my bag before taking me, and I was in Amsterdam. I still couldn't believe it. My crazy driver drove me to a coffieshop to celebrate with me my fortunate and unexpected comeback, and got me incredibly stoned. All this had to be.

[I keep secret in myself an Egypt
that doesn't exist.
Is that good or bad? I don't know]
-Rumi

Every time I read these lines something is pulled inside of me, a string with a little man attached. He is the caretaker of all my dreams; hopes, mysteries, madness, poetry, creativity, words, wanderlust, ideas of friendships, instinct, magic, intuition and love.
For if it didn't exist, my life would be nothing.
I would cease to exist.
I fear, sometimes, more than sometimes, that I give so much meaning and worth to everything, and there is an unbalance with those around me. Oh, help me.
But what difference does it make? Meaning is everything, why must others have the same intensity? Afraid to be terribly, utterly alone with this knowing, snuffkin?

yes.

But there are words, husky and willful that mutter in my ear,
This we have now
is not imagination

I cling to these words as if they were the last left on earth.

part of a mail I sent to a friend :

strongly feel I want to accelerate the current networking of brothers and sisters wanting to manifest intention in an emergent way.

Starting by staying open to recognize each other.

Connecting with cultural creative memetics is not too difficult, as many (bourgeois and non bourgeois bohemians) already seem to converge in certain places. (Some neighbourhoods in big cosmopolitan cities such as Berlin,Brussels,etc)

But finding connection while listening,learning together,overcoming fear,being playful,
While staying together, is less easy to find,share,and then build on long term.

Somehow,I feel my close friends either move a lot,either are spread.

(Places / temporary autonomous zones like ecotopia are great to converge and reconnect)

Finding people searching for meditative peace,within cultural creatives,is accessible,

But finding individuals with whom to maintain this inner presence and peace in every moment,while moving into shared intention,through chaos of unknown, collaboratively,sharing evolving meaning, is not easy to find or maintain within current systems.

So somehow I am focusing on the development of tools that could make collaborative intentional individualist shared dynamics easier,
enabling certain flows.

Emergent flow is already there,
Yet I am interested in having a better overview through tools,as to further empower its distributedness into all aspects of life,beyond artificial bottlenecks from artificial scarcities.

This feels clear,and much of the other parts of my life get organized around such meta manifestation,
even though it may be difficult for many to recognize or identify with.

A challenge is to create easily understandable and identifiable chunks which may corresponds to needs at a material realm level, creating an entry point that converges people and resources from there on, liberating further potential for cultural experimentation,
and the individual spiritual perceptions such cultural space may accept or facilitate.

—

Other then that, staying in Brussels as it currently seems easier to access resources here,
but still wanting to open up to several places.

I feel happy when friends meet me.
I want to live with people I feel I share love with.

I can not live in a flat alone,as in the past half year. I also do not want to return to a free fall Nomad life without place to feel home and return to.

I also want such living convergence space for our brothers and sisters that meet with each other and share resonnance.

A non collectivist space.
A cheap place ( central bank money wise),where I feel I can listen to myself and others more easily,share,co create,and welcome new creative influences and initiatives,

In a festivalist shared lifestyle:

http://p2pfoundation.net/Festivalism

Some places in Europe where this happens, but not as much at post industrial,post capitalist, urban or semi urban approach.

It’s networked.
I like to expand and empower the festivalist memes further

Green,yellow,turquoise… to refer to spiral dynamics and integral “theory”.
(sending you links on next message)

I also want to consider going back “on tour”, but after already having prototypes… (?)

–

How are you and how do you sense your experience?

Section 6 Criminal Law Act 1977, as amended by Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 (United Kingdom, applies to England and Wales)

Take notice

• That we live in this property, it is our home and we intend to stay here.
• That at all times there is at least one person in this property.
• That any entry or attempt to enter into this property without our permission is a criminal offence as any one of us who is in physical possession is opposed to entry without our permission.
• That if you attempt to enter by violence or by threatening violence we will prosecute you. You may receive a sentence of up to six months imprisonment and/or a fine of up to £5,000.
• That if you want to get us out you will have to issue a claim in the County Court or in the High Court, or produce to us a written statement or certificate in terms of S.12A Criminal Law Act, 1977 (as inserted by Criminal Justice and Public Order Act, 1994).
• That it is an offence under S.12A (8) Criminal Law Act 1977 (as amended) to knowingly make a false statement to obtain a written statement for the purposes of S. 12A. A person guilty of such an offence may receive a sentence of up to six months imprisonment and/or a fine of up to £5,000.

Signed

The Occupiers

(To be posted at the entrance of a squatted property, also valid if not signed by name)

This states the current squatter’s rights in England and Wales and basically means that the owner or landlady/landlord of a property can not evict you from your squat without going through court, proving that they have plans to actually use the property again. Court procedures usually take weeks or months, so once you are in you will have a home for a while. If they try to evict illegally they can end up in prison for 6 months and having to pay £5,000 (currently around €6000) in fines. This makes squatting more or less legal in England and Wales. Sweet.

We have an upcoming court case for one flat in our squat on 3 September 2010. Visiting the Advisory Service For Squatters (ASS) office at Whitechapel today should allow us to get a good defense going. We suspect that the owner (council) wants to save some paperwork by getting an eviction warrant for one flat and evict the other flat while they are at it on eviction day. Which, of course, is not legal..

Until then we will continue to take good care of the building: keep it clean, fix little damages, trim plants in the garden, prevent decay and be good neighbours – while enjoying a free home with a garden in Brixton. :)

This is a long list. Let it stand as an answer to the question I’m so often asked: “Did you run into any trouble?” The road will always provide, and people always seem to be there when you need them most. Thank you so so much, from the core of my being, for all of your love, help, and selflessness – I couldn’t have cycled a continent without you.

For their hospitality, a vital ingredient:

• Recycle-a-Bicycle – Dan and Patrick – for having Juno and making her into the best bike she could be!
• Brad in NYC for a comfy couch
• James in Nyack, for a warm shower when it was truly needed, and an even warmer welcome in Vancouver.
• Albany Abe and his vegan baking housemate Ashley
• Chris and Emma in Ithaca for taking me in off the street and for all the Bike/Madison geeking.
• Marvin in Ithaca for a delicious meal and a happy roof
• Joe in Ithaca for the vegan carrot cake!
• To all at Plankton in Buffalo for showing me the beauty of a depressed city.
• Steve in Niagara
• Ruben and family in Hamilton
• All at the S.H.A.H for just existing so awesomely
• Jackie and Tom in Ontario for giving 2 strangers everything they could need, and for hunting with a bow and arrow!
• Troy, Dayna and Porter in Sarnia.
• Handsome Mike and Pickleball Sally for restoring faith in Michigan
• Scott in Grand Rapids for the beer, the laughs, the couch
• Nathaniel and Sean in Milwaukee
• Doug in Chicago for a last minute couch and a long lasting story
• Pam, for more than I could say. For the first home in a long time, for the mothering and the friendship
• Johanna and Raven for all the knowledge and lightness
• Charley III for loving me already and for the photography inspiration
• Jim and Maxine for the house, the interview, the garden
• Megan in Winona
• Everyone at the Crockhouse, especially Will and Alicia for so much space to recuperate, and for all the laughs.
• To the family on the Missippi who took us in – I lost Luke’s address and feel terrible! Please send it to me again!?
• Gerardo in Fargo for taking us in at the last minute and being super chill
• Kate and Lisa in Minot
• Tracey and Donovan in Poplar for proving there are good people even in “StabCity”
• The two hikers who gave us their camping spot in Glacier
• Tyson in Bonner’s Ferry for the lawn
• Dollores and Jack Fountain in Locke for being grandparents for a night and all the lost stories
• The Bicycle Camping Barn for existing and the couple I interviewed there for their energy (please contact me!)
• To Beth, Guisepi’s mother, for being the end I so needed, for the great conversations and delicious meals.

For the Company and Love:

• Jon in Albany for being my first bad-ass bike company
• Jon Watts the Quaker for inspiring in so many different ways, for the love, the bikes, the faith
• Leon for being the best Irishman ever, and providing motivation to pedal on - then, now, always.
• Lalo and Emily in Toronto for living and breathing wanderlust
• The Madison Bicycle Caravan who I met on the bike path for spreading such joy
• Alan for picking mulberries and for a day’s company
• Paul for all the High-line Bicycle Gang laughs and staying true to his dreams
• Stephanie for being another solo rider with zest, and humbly living dreams
• Oak for inspiring and pushing me when I most needed it, and for being the damn coolest bike brother ever. Oh and for the morning wake up songs.
• Kristy- my moldy sweat back sister – for just being so fucking awesome, for riding her bike and pushing herself
• Matt for the laughs and the best bike gang ever
• Reinhard for being so well-rounded, sensible and silly
• Christian and Caleb for sharing stories and creating that special day in the park
• The 3 dutch guys, Han, Hans and Robert for living their 30yr old dream and for the ice-cream!

For help on the Road:

• The lovely co-op worker in Milwaukee who bought me free food, just because
• Day, for her welcoming postcard and unwavering love and concern
• Derek and Machinery Row for the bike work and free stuff
• John Statz for the incredible music
• Tim in Wisconsin who rescued me when I needed to be rescued
• Noel, for riding a long way and for the honest chat
• The three cyclists in West Salem for the pizza and reminding me to follow my heart, not my ego
• Josh Ritter and Management for the free ticket and amazing show!
• Jay in Devil’s Lake for the swim and best buffet meal ever
• All at the Fargo Bike Co-op for their admirable energy

For Lightfoot:

• To Amanda in NYC for encouragment and documentation
• Emma for writing and supporting
• Dan for the “Sketch” box and actively participating
• Angel for instantly dropping and writing a letter – spontaneous instant participation!
• George, who wrote just to write, and brightened my mailbox
• John and Mother Fools Coffee House for such energetic support and the box space
• The Crockhouse for the box and being in on the project
• All those lovelies who wrote/shared/delivered – thanks for the ACTION – it’s the only way to change the world!

And finally – special heartfelt thanks so my steadfast support crew, who’s thought and words echo through every mile, and who will always allow me to be myself, be strong and to be true:

• Charlie
• Mum
• Ella
• Ange
• Rosie

this post is just a placeholder for the time being. I made it to Paris, am staying with Nessa and Jerome, visiting friends and unwinding after a LOT of adventure. I'll write more later, but for now, I'm alive, well, and in good company. Things are good.

Why live some soberer way and feel you ebbing out?
I won't do it.
-Rumi

 In the far distance, there was an old woman bending down in prayer amongst the ferns and rabbit holes. She was praying to the rabbits and out they would come giving her signs that they were listening to her. This is what we always desire - signs that we are not alone. 
I gaze out at her, the rain coming down upon us, regardless.
Every now and again, she stands up and moves slightly forward. A moving prayer.
Moving closer, I see that her hands are not in prayer but instead in search. Her hands were old, dusty and torn maps, veins protruding out of the back of her palms like silver worms. In one hand, a knife, in the other, a basket which she clung to as if it were a large weight. She was five hundred and seven years old and knew the passing of time well. Her fingers were pilgrims, mountain climbers, artists, travellers. Searching, searching. So absorbed in her search that she doesn't see me watching her. As I often am, searching, always.
Every so often, when she stops, she gazes down into her basket and smiles, stopping and allowing rain droplets to fall, sliding down from leaves hanging above her and into her eyes, trickling down her cheeks. Stopping for moments of pleasure is the silent quality of a deep search...I forget and lose this so often.
Soon, an orange mountain arises from her basket. They were Chanterelles, a mushroom that looks like an upraised hand clenching for the sky. It has stripped gills can can be eaten alone after frying it a little in oil or butter. 

Thus ignited a great passion of mine - mushroom hunting and the quality of search.
& rabbit prayer.

Just over 2 years after the last post, I’ve archived the Alaska blog. It’s now a static HTML site. No WordPress to update, no more comments or trackbacks. I’ve left the content for posterity. Oh, and this is post id 666, freaky!

Among those who succeed in resisting madness, their intense inner life brings them to a higher conception of life, to a deeper consciousness of the self, its value, its strength. [...] You sense that if this torture has not broken you, nothing will ever be able to break you. In silence you struggle against the huge prison machine with the firmness and its stoic intelligence of a man who is stronger than the suffering of his flesh and stronger than madness… And, when a broad ray of sunlight inundates the barred window, when good news comes in from the outside, when you have succeeded in filling the dismal day with useful work, an inexpressible joy may ascend within you like a hymn.
-Victor Serge

These are vitally necessary times. You may not know it, but you are in midsts of a great transformation, of an old skin falling away.

Mystical.
Drinking juice and only juice for days on end. fast on everything. There is a certain joy in abstaining from food when there is choice. Crazed thoughts, compulsions. Cravings, a headache of great storms and then a particular clarity arising. Forget how much I would reach for food as a way of comfort. Comfort must come from the stomach, not what's put into it, I tell myself. But asceticism is not my way. Pleasure is joy and joy is life. Just, the seperation between need and want is a new breath, sometimes.
A way to the madhouse too.  Potato and carrot juice is the worst and the idea of it induces great laughter. Truly a modern day construction.
The wind outside roars. Writing in bursts and then abrupt ends. Pine for hot chocolate.
Deep longing, deeper than ever before. September 7th, 2645km.
Three months are three deserts. But what has arisen within these months has been the certain belief in the illogical, instinct and guts. Nothing else matters in this world.

The only thing that has kept the race of men from the mad extremes of the convent and the pirate-galley, the night-club and the lethal chamber, has been mysticism—the belief that logic is misleading, and that things are not what they seem.
-G.K. Chesterton

(dream harder)

your real country is where you're heading,
not where you are.
Don't misread that hadith.
-Rumi

All I can do is sit by the tide coming at me, for me. Drink steaming hot fruit tea as the sun sinks down into the sea, into me.
Tell me there are still mountains, for I lose it all, I lose it all at the bottom of the sea.
And all there is here is the rain. Rain and the sea and the lost people. The lost people who will never ever find their way. This place was never for us. Just the birds. I wonder how you would take in these lands.

Mean what you say and do what you say and we will all be true.

As much as the ruins of another life have clung to me, moments of astonishing clarity have broken through. Here, the night is the only time I begin to live, all my life, or anti life climaxes in this time. The day is a dead time, a waiting, a legless horse gazing out at me telling me, 'so, this is who you are? you're still alive after all my greatest efforts to trample you? don't you remember the past, my boy?' I call out at him, I'm not your boy, I'm no horse, but I look down at my legs and they're full of hair and hooves.

Simon returned on monday from wiltshire. Last night we dragged a bottle of grapes on down to the sea. It was from the basque region, where we'd travelled two years ago together. The bottle had a torro attached to it. Figured to be drunk and laughing at the little bull wouldn't be a bad thing. Just before we got there, the clouds opened up and it began to pour. For the first time since I arrived, I grinned at the rain and let it fill me as the ducks flipped and dived away to avoid our bicycles along the path.
We sheltered in the bird hide. Inside was a man with eyes like tea. He tells us about a concentration camp here for prisoners of war. They made puppets and dolls. There has something that has always been unnerving about the explicitly joyful.
We break the bottle open on the beach and play the same stone throwing game we played just outside o' barcelona. He wins. My aim is all off tonight.
I tell him the story of how you and I met as the sun sinks burning orange into the water. Each time I retell it, I relive it. New details sing out each time.
We haul the bottle like an ox back into the hive to shelter from the wind. His legs were bare upto the thighs. Madman, I tell him, but he just grins.
We cycle back into the night, pitchblack. The journey is long and rabbits scatter. Cycle faster and faster. If anything terrible awaits, I'll be ready. Don't escape. Brother, stand the pain, Rumi murmurs.
& you go on, regardless.

Juno’s kickstand rests in the sand, her dusty handlebars (once pink) grinning to the setting sun. My musky shoes (once pink) rest next to her, socks strewn near by.  I take a deep breath, dive, swim, break the surface. My skin is salty sweat, my tears are salty droplets, and this water, this sweet water, is salty too. Im back in the Pacific.

Denny Ray is one of the saints around here. Perhaps it was the mid 80s he was a member here and was the equipment maintenance manager. It is a bit hard to describe how much of a headache this job is. We have a huge campus, with all kinds of dishwashers and compressors and refrigerators and generators and food processing equipment and gas and electric systems.  We also have dozens of people trying to operate equipment that they are unfamiliar with, sometimes with insufficient (or no) training.  Something is broken all the time.

Because Denny is so good with all of these different machines he has saved the community a fortune. Not just because he does not charge us half the time and when he does charge us he bills half what he should. Not just because he basically forced us to shift gas companies which saved us over $10K in the first year.  No you can’t just be handy or thrifty to get saint status in community land, it is a much higher bar.

One of the ways Denny also helps is by watching the neighborhood. By doing the networking and community relations work which Twin Oaks ought to make labor creditable, but largely does not.  Sometimes this appears in the form of a go cart or rocking horse, delivered triumphantly by a guy who looks like Santa on a diet. Most recently it has shown up as pears.

Our courtyard has a beautiful pear tree that Hildegard has organized with a bucket for fallen or eaten pears and two different length bamboo grabber sticks. These sticks are so simple, yet very effective at grabbing high pears with minimal impact on the area the pear was in before grabbing. You may need to let them ripen a bit after falling, but they are pretty tasty pears.

Micha's wonderful picture of Pears in the ZK basement

Denny saw the sister trees to our on land right off W. Old Mountain Road which is our back door to the conference site. They were full of pears and Denny knew that the woman who owned the house had died. So Denny started walking down the street trying to find out who the caretaker for that house was and ultimately discovered that it was Tommy Mullins.

Tommy i perhaps sixty, small stature, bad teeth and a charming personality. Denny escorts us in to his compact home which is bursting with his hospitality. And this is in part clear because he has felt great generosity from the community over the years. Last year i knew that Keenan took surplus watermelons and gave them to our neighbors. Tommy got a couple. That was a big hit.

But an even bigger hit was apparently at some point, some enterprising member gave and installed a hammock for Tommy. We beat out god for the top spot in Tommy’s favorite things list.  So Tommy is all about giving Twin Oaks the pears from these handful of  trees.

New member Tony honched a crew of a dozen or so Oakers and guests who descended on these trees like the proverbial locust.  We were climbing and shaking trees, picking and gathering and in the end we had boxes upon boxes of pears.  Which we are cleaning and processing and will no doubt end up as a couple of pies each for our generous neighbors, Mr Mullins and Saint Denny Ray.

Saint Denny Ray at Twin Oaks 2010 - photo by Micha Engelhardt

I am still in Portugal, so this blog's title is getting increasingly more inappropriate. Wondering if I should change it into something else, wondering who is really reading it.
The Hitchgathering was a complete success for me. I met stupendous drivers, took the right routes, met randomly with amazing people at random gas stations in the middle of nowhere. Crossing France was a success, hitching in Spain was not so bad after all, and Portugal is really beautiful. We managed to gather around 80 people in Sines, all with amazing stories to tell. The locals were great, we went to the market to dumpster dive and people started giving us boxes full of stuff. We fed everyone with nearly no money, and with very poor facilities, Amilyn, I and other volunteers cooked food for the masses in a big pot on a barbeque grill. But the best part was the post-gathering, when a group of 15-20 people got together and continued South along the Alentejo coast and reached a cave on a beach near Porto Covo. We stayed there 3 days, partying, swimming, exchanging stories, cooking on a bonfire. I didn't want to leave, but now I am in beautiful Coimbra, in a "república", i.e. a students' commune where people pay almost no rent, and being CouchSurfing in the summer so hard, here you can just knock on a door to experience the renowned Portuguese hospitality. Heading somewhere North tomorrow looking for Robin, who didn't make it to Sines, and then somewhere East across Spain, maybe to Italy. Valentina and I will probably have to drop the idea to go to Serbia for the Guca festival, due to lack of time.

I am still in Portugal, so this blog's title is getting increasingly more inappropriate. Wondering if I should change it into something else, wondering who is really reading it.
The Hitchgathering was a complete success for me. I met stupendous drivers, took the right routes, met randomly with amazing people at random gas stations in the middle of nowhere. Crossing France was a success, hitching in Spain was not so bad after all, and Portugal is really beautiful. We managed to gather around 80 people in Sines, all with amazing stories to tell. The locals were great, we went to the market to dumpster dive and people started giving us boxes full of stuff. We fed everyone with nearly no money, and with very poor facilities, Amilyn, I and other volunteers cooked food for the masses in a big pot on a barbeque grill. But the best part was the post-gathering, when a group of 15-20 people got together and continued South along the Alentejo coast and reached a cave on a beach near Porto Covo. We stayed there 3 days, partying, swimming, exchanging stories, cooking on a bonfire. I didn't want to leave, but now I am in beautiful Coimbra, in a "república", i.e. a students' commune where people pay almost no rent, and being CouchSurfing in the summer so hard, here you can just knock on a door to experience the renowned Portuguese hospitality. Heading somewhere North tomorrow looking for Robin, who didn't make it to Sines, and then somewhere East across Spain, maybe to Italy. Valentina and I will probably have to drop the idea to go to Serbia for the Guca festival, due to lack of time.

I don't believe anyone reading this website would not know about the filmmaker Michael Moore. His being a Unitedstater Socialist doesn't mean much to anyone outside the United States. What is considered socialist in the USA is likely to fall in the category of "not completely fascist" in the civilised world. See in particular the big debate that happened there after the Abu Ghraib scandal about whether torture is acceptable or not on someone suspected of terrorist acts. Patriots supported it, Socialists opposed it ; whether it was OK to torture someone suspected of terrorism, yep. That will remind my German friends of the good old times for sure.

What I mean to say is that I agree 100% with his opposition to what the civilised world would call Capitalist Barbarism. I'm having more issues with the tools used.

Deception, lies, manipulation, intentional misrepresentation, misleading... Check. On both sides, left and right. What kind of truth requires such methods to be delivered? The movies of Michael Moore always gave me the impression that they were causing more harm than good to the cause they were defending because of the unethical means used and the lack of transparent ways to crosscheck the "facts" presented.

I like more the approach of the Yes Men to the issue. They do answer to the lies with more lies but in a way that is unmistakably recognised as such. They never claim to tell the truth. I found their latest movie extremely non-manipulative AND extremely good.

You can buy it at... guess where... You can't buy it. They are so fucking cool that they have released it under a (pretty restrictive) Creative Commons licence on Bittorrent. So many people are seeding it, it takes a mere few seconds to download it. If you like it, you're invited to help them make more with a financial donation through the same website you used to find the torrent file.

Which is: http://vodo.net/yesmen

So 100% of what you pay goes to them, instead of 5% in the case of buying a DVD.

You can of course stream it from the web, but when the download is so quick, I don't see the point really.

 

 

 

 

If you liked it and you have a job, do donate something. It matters a great deal.

here, suddenly, the smallest journey (halfway across this small island) has become more daunting than crossing the continent for days, weeks, months, lifetimes. It's all inside. Distance is just a map, and the time it takes to get across it is just a breath or two. Hold your breath 'til the sun goes down, si, vamos! I forget all the time that strength comes and goes, that the details are most important and vital, to gaze at everything closely, that a blink will have you falling.
The danger of disappearing before human sight, everytime I return.
but it is good and necessary to return, regardless.

A voice inside the beat says
'I know you're tired,
but come. This is the way'.
-Rumi

&
I create and I believe. I create because I believe, and believe because I create. Whoever believes, creates. Whoever creates, believes. Fingers in the clay. I believe. I create because I believe in the clay. I create with the clay.
-Miguel Angel Asturias
and o', how good it is to create in these days!
follow the blossom. everything else will come, soon.

It’s been a while since i last wrote something on the site.. Since Salzburg we haven’t had many internet oppurtunities; either no internet cafe’s were to be found or they were simply way too expensive (along the coastline of Croatia they ask a staggering 6EUR per hr) All too soon however we will enter the world of el cheapo internet cafe’s so by then we will try to update a bit more frequently (especially the picture part has seen a bit of  a delay.. mainly due to our digital clumsiness how to get them uploaded on our site)

Finally we have arrived in Greece where we allow ourselves a little time off.. Our 2 wheeled beauties are safely parked at a sweet couchsurfer’s garage in Thessaloniki, Shaun is soon going to relax a bit on the island Samothraki and i’m hanging out with some old friends in Athens (hence the title of this post, i am feeling like a roasted turkey) I am enjoying however to not be on a bike for a while.. There is a feeling of being impatient for something, itchy legs and an appetite for new impressions, but its only a matter of time for that feeling to disappear and become a lazy dog again…..

Since my last update in Salzburg quite a lot has passed. After Salzburg we had a very enjoyable yet very tough going through the Austrian Alps.  Till the Alps we hadn’t yet experienced any serious climbing (apart from a few hills in Germany but that was peanuts really) so it took a bit of adjustment to tackle them monsters. Going up with an average of 5km/hr and cruising down with 60km/hr.. It’s worth the struggle! I experienced Austria as a pleasant country to cycle around. Plenty of amazing sceneries and an abundance of nice small country backroads with hardly any nasty traffic (except for the roads thru the Alps which need to be shared with cars ‘n trucks)

After Austria we got to what would become our favorite country so far; Slovenia! Its a small ‘n cozy country with a beautiful nature, mellow cities and most importantly; some of the most friendliest people we have come across on our trip so far. Unfortunately we only got to see a little bit of Slovenia (Maribor, Ljubljana and some spots in between) but we are both sure about returning one day to taste a little more.. From Slovenia we rolled into Croatia and surprisingly enough no harrassing at the customs as usually is the case (we met some Belgians who were less fortunate.. they got catched because they found a tiny dot of weed in a guitarcase.. most hilarious was when they asked them what a condom was for and if it had been used before..) It was all pretty much downhill all the way to Rijeka on the Adriatic Sea. We cycled to the island of Krk (manouvred ourselves over a bridge) where we experienced our first night of thunderstorms and refreshing showers. As Shaun mentioned already in his post, we love to have clean bodies and undies so we took the oppurtunity to take a shower in the rain and have our undies washed.. From Krk we went to the island of Cres where we spent a few days to cycle from North to South and took the ferry from Malin Losinj to Zadar. We enjoyed having seen some islands but the downside is that the prices are in general more expensive and the tourism is so densely concentrated that it becomes a bit obnoxious.

Zadar to Dubrovnik in the very South left me with mixed feelings; some of the coastline sceneries are jaw-droppingly beautiful and worth a visit without doubt. What left me a bit annoyed is the package-deal tourism on the way (dull looking families and everything focussed on getting pennies out of the tourists.. which does not say i necessarily blame them for doing so) and the aggressive traffic on the narrow roads that need to be shared along the coast.

After Dubrovnik we finally crossed into another country: Montenegro. This little mountain state only recently gained independence from Serbia but has had it’s eyes fixed on the West for quite some time already. Shortly after the collapse of Yugoslavia, Montenegro wanted to be free from it’s bigger brother Serbia and among some of it’s deeds was to abandon the Serbian currency (Dinar) and adopting the German Mark. Nowadays the official currency is the Euro although Montenegro is by no means included in the Eurozone. Anyway, just like Croatia there are some amazing sceneries to be spotted and the tourism is also of quite another degree.. Whereas Croatia is mainly catering to Western tourists, Montenegro is mainly focused on local tourism. Local tourism means that it’s gotta be done the Balkan way. What’s the Balkan way? Make it very noisy, very kitsch and add cheap booze to it and you got some of the main ingredients. I observed that many people, also the oldies,  rather go and sit on a cramped polluted little beach right next to some megaspeakers with hardcore techno, than to find a quiet spot somewhere where they can enjoy calm and peace. I recall how on one night i was lying in my hammock and far far away i saw a little boat with a couple on it.. They were enjoying the romantic view of a sunset.. as well as the loudest version of “a total eclips of the heart” i have ever heard.. I’d say that’s quite a Balkan way to do it……. (as well as the rounds of fire of a Kalashnikov we heard from our hammocks at some far away wedding party)

From Crna Gora into Shqiperie or from Montenegro into Albania. Finally leaving the slavic countries behind us for a few days to explore the homeland of the Illyrians. I have been in Albania a couple of times and each visit the country seems to be making some progress although not in all fields and it certainly doesn’t apply to all regions. My first 2 visits mainly involved visiting the capital Tirana which nowadays seem to have become a flourishing city nowadays with a vibrant nightlife and the mayor Edi Rama, a former artist, who did an amazing job turning boring ugly looking flats into true pieces of art (google his name for more info and great pics of some of the flats) Back in the days when i was there there were potholes in the road everywhere and enormous heaps of garbage pretty much on every corner of the street. This is something which nowadays fortunately belongs to the past for Tirana. Unfortunately that can’t be said for most of Albania. Its hard actually to get a grip on Albania at all. On the one hand one can see a vast amount of luxuruous cars, enormous villa’s and booming entrepeneurship, but on the other hand the infrastructure of the country still seems to be of that when i first visitited in early 2000. Old roads with deep potholes (they seem to be working on some of them though) in most little towns open garbage belts right next to living quartiers, for those who can’t afford a villa the living conditions in old Socialist era houses appear to me as far below acceptable, no future for Albanian youth cause there are hardly any jobs etc. To me it seems that Albania is artificially being kept alive by the money that comes in thru emigrated Albanians (most of them live in Greece, Italy, Switzerland and the US) For sure the people of Albania are better of nowadays than when they were suffering under the harsh regime of Enver Hoxha (the onetime crazy dictator of Albania who ruled from the fifties up till the eighties) but they still have a long way to go.. A less corrupt government, less braindrain so that intellectuals stay at home and invest in the knowledge industry, creating a secure environment for foreign investors etc.

I almost forget to mention that Albania is a fairly pleasant country for the somewhat more adventurous bikers among us. People usually go out of their way in order to make you feel at home and it happens more than once that we got free drinks from shopkeepers and strangers.  I think what attracted me a lot is that Albania, on the countryside at least, is still very pure, raw and genuine. We crossed through the very heart of Albania and although the mountains will show no mercy on poor bikers, its something you won’t quickly forget nor regret.

Oh, and what really bothered me the most.. The rampant growth of mountains of plastic everywhere. Shaun mentioned it in his blog and i mention it again. Fucking plastic and the ease with which it is used and thrown away.. The government doesn’t really seem to care about it too much and most of the people aren’t aware of the emergency situation we are in regarding our climate (and i think most of them don’t give a fuck about the fact that a pile of plastics looks nasty but i can be wrong about that)

Finally after Albania we cycled for 3 days through Macedonia (or FYROM as the Greeks would like to have it..) to finally arrive at Thessaloniki where we could finally get off and have our well deserved shower..

So far so good and secretly i can’t wait to be back on the bike again for more contemplative moments through deserted landscapes, torture myself going uphill, ecstatic moments when going down.. The ‘what’s behind the next corner’ feeling.. Love it!

Maarten