Resplendent Providence

I haven't know quite what to say the last little while.

Despite my silence, I find myself in a beautiufl place.  Its an incredible summer day.  Green lushly abounds.  It is as if the many months of cold and cool seasons that I have banked up in the North are being cashed in.  In return I am receiving days so intensely summerful that even the memory of Winter is melting away.  I walk barefoot, and happily shed my shirt.  The river calls me-- twice yesterday I quenched myself by plunging into its cool waters.

I am now moving on from Pittsburgh to the east coast.  I picked up an old bike, have fixed it up and am cycling on.

It was a tortuous metropolitan exit.  I am attempting to take the Great Allegheny Trail-- supposedly a "complete bike trail to Washington DC".  The first miles however were plagued by traffic, construction, merciless drivers, confusing detours, dead ends, three lane highways with no cyclist alley and two flat tires. 

 It was a little like doing Dante's Hell by bike.  

Just when I was starting to doubt the wisdom of this so called "trail" and contemplating the Greyhound an angel appeared.  More precisely a nice guy in a yellow shirt who was one of the trail monitors.  He lead me through the complex trail meanderings of Versailles Pensilvania to the a much more appropriate begining of the Allegheny trail.

Just like Dante being led by Virgil out of the Inferno, I have emerged into el Paradiso.  

Wow.  In the space of one day I went from the worst cycling experience to the best cycling.  I am now on this amazing dedicated bike path following the river through forests and fields.  It is beautiful.  No cars, no roads or highways.  You just cruise through the country side.   When it gets too hot you jump into the river to cool off. 

Slowly, but surely, my momentum is returning.  So too is my focus.  In a past blog post I spoke of how leaving Smithers was a process of gradually moving from the known (my community, my  province, my country) into greater and greater unknown.  Leaving Pittsburgh is a major plunge.  I am in awe however of how the path is unfolding with resplendent providence.  Every time I think I have camped at the most beautiful spot ever, the next one trumps it.  I did not expect the trail to be so bad, nor so good!

I move steadily onward.  Europe beckons.  I plan to cycle to NYC then fly to London.  From there I will pick up another bike and continue towards Berlin.  

For those of you who have been following my blog and haven't heard, I didn't get al the funding together for my Austrian program.  Yes... it sucks.  But, I have discovered that my efforts over the last months put me in an amazing position:  I have money, bike equipment, tons of time, and a lucid focus on the art I wish to pursue.  

The whole reason I applied to that particular program was because of my dream to work from Berlin (the MA had a residency there).  It is one of the hottest art spots in the world right now.  

So... I am following... nay... living...  my dream.  I plunge forward on a path that is more and more feeling like a destination and I continue to work on my world oneness mandala project.  

More on that one later!