Magnifico Pasta con Stefano

I have made no secret of the fact that one of my main reasons for cycling through Italy is for the pasta. Its only been a few days and already been pastantically blessed!

Yesterday Stefano cooked up an amazing pasta meal using some unlikely ingredients. Stefano is both American and Italian. And, it seems that as long as you've got Italian in you, you can do pretty much anything with pasta and it turns out magnifico!

Grazie Stefano for the wonderful time in Monfalcone!

Slovenia?

Today I find myself in Slovenia.

Yep. I am just as surprised as you. If you happen to come from Northern Canada, Slovenia is perhaps just as distant as and mysterious as Timbuktu! Imagine my delight then, to be invited to stay the night at a mountain spiritual retreat in the hills of Slovenia.

I arrived by train in Monfalcone Italy with my bike in a box. I was in need some place to get it back together. Monfalcone is right beside Trieste. Trieste is on the border between Italy and Slovenia. Steve know Stefano. Stefano is the caretaker of this retreat-- an old Balkan army post in the hills. He invited me to visit! The Zeleni centre is now a place for yoga, meditation and peace.

And... Reiki! This weekend a Reiki retreat was going on and I was introduced to all the marvelous folks. They were eager to contribute to 1Mandala project. After a weekend of Reiki learning they were filled with some seriously good energy and some great peace portraits were the result.

This peace portrait of them all was taken yesterday as well as today's peace portrait of the day.

Now I just need to get my bike fixed!

The 1Mandala project is now live in Italian! Perché Siamo Tutti Uno

Perché Siamo Tutti Uno! Because we are all One!

http://www.1mandala.org

Cheers to Unità, Pace e Amore!

I have arrived in Italy!

Buenisimo! I am so excited to be here. My new friend Stefano met me at the train station in his home of Malfacone, Italy. He took me out to the most amazing lunch at his favorite restaurant.

The whole meal I was joyfully ecstatic-- until this particular movie was shot and I had just put a bun in my mouth as they brought the food out and all the attention of the restraunt turned to me! Aside from these twenty seconds I have had a big smile on my face all day!

It has been a dream of mine to visit Italy for a long time. I can't quite beleive I am actually here. I love everything about Italy already. From the pasta to the people, to the language to the landscape.

I have the feeling I am going to have a fantastico time here.

Love is Beautiful

This is my last painting from my Berlin Simple Series. I post this on my last night in Berlin. It is an a propos post for this conclusive night. The painting's title is a reflection of both my feeling and experience here in Berlin: "Love is Beautiful".

I won't write anything about this one tonight. I'll just let it speak for itself.

That said, there's soooo much thought, intention and love behind this piece. Its a whisper from my soul. Its been six months in the making-- or perhaps "finding" would be a better word. You can see some sketchs and read my thoughts in this blog post on triadic love.

Peace Portrait of the Day: Scourmont Abbey, Chimany, Belgium

Everyday, we send out a Peace Portrait of the Day from the 1Mandala project.

Today's peace portrait comes from Pere Jaques and myself.

There's a bit of a story to this one. Pere Jaques is a Trapiste monk that I met on my journey through Belgium to Berlin.

This was a particularily special connection for me. I ended up staying more than two weeks at the monastery.

The monks took me in during a Winter blizzard. They insisted I stay and wait it out. In the weeks that I was there pure magic manifested itself. A group of 50 mentally handicaps let me take their dazzling peace portraits and a group of Flemish teenagers helped me translated the project into Dutch, not to mention the Abbey's help resolving some major dental problems that begining to seriously ail me (blog: Thank God for the Pain).

Out of my immense grattitude for the help of the monks with my teeth this week I finalized the donation of a 2000 euro 1.5 x 1.5 metre painting for their monastery. I am proud and overjoyed to say that the painting, "Avec Grattitude No. 2" is now on its way to Belgium.

In another burst of beauty, what would have cost hundreds in shipping for such a big painting, manifested itself in a day or two: The Monks make their reknown Chimay beer at the monastery, and their Berlin distributer, Bierlinie GmbH has offered to take the painting to Belgium for us!

The smaller version of the painting "Avec Grattitude No.1" will now, fittingly go to the Dentist.

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Camping out with Death on the River

I have only shared the story about almost dying in a lightning storm to a few people.

Of these few people I have only told one or two the full, full story. My friends have been encouraging me to share also the "bad" experiences of my journey. Its not easy to share this stuff. Its far easier to tell about the sun shinning moments.

Why? I think I am afraid of people seeing past a certain persona I put up. To see my weaknesses and folly. To be vulnerable. There's alot of people reading my blog these days. I need to be honest about it all-- to myself first. So, I am going to tackle this fear head on. Thank you Brenda, Mark and Vaughn for the encouragement.

This particular story goes right to the heart of several towering fears of mine. Its taken me months to write and post this. But here we go.

Its not all blue sky cycling around the world. Sometimes there are storms. Literally.

I had been cycling for several days along a beautiful forested trail in rural Pensilvania. I had been camping easily at ready-made forest campsites for several days. The camping was getting a little too easy. As dusk fell, I was feeling up for something a little more, well, adventurous.

From out of the forest the trail emerged onto a long suspension bridge that spanned a gorgeous river coursing through the hills. Down below I spotted a beautiful shoreline. Perfect! I found a trail that the kayakers used and followed it down to the river's edge.

And, there it was!

A flat rock about the size of my tent, three or four feet out into the flow of the river. Wow! I thought: "I can camp in the river! Now that would be adventurous!"

Indeed, the rock was the perfect size for the footprint of my tent. As I went about setting my tent up however, my intuition began to buzz: "Russell! This is a BAAAADDD idea!" I remember to this day my uncanny sense of unease.

Yet, it was a gorgeous evening: The sun was setting. The river flowed peacefully beside me. I had the coolest camp spot ever. What could go wrong?

Once my tent was up, I cracked opened a beer and got my dinner cooking. It was then, that I felt the first drop of rain.

And then the next. And the next. The drops began to fall faster and faster. The breeze turned into a wind. Before I I could finish my beer I was in a storm.

I dashed into the sanctuary of my tent as the rain increased. Thunder rumbled nearby. Massive black clouds moved in, the evening sunset was extinguished, an ominous darkness reigned.

I could do nothing but huddle in my sleeping bag as the river began to rage around my little island rock. The wind into a gale. Lightning began to flicker all around me. Thunder crashed everywhere. My unpegged tent, an eery bubble of fragile comfort, was being assaulted on all sides. I was in a full out torrential downpour.

As I lay there I counted the ways that I could die: First, there was the lightning-- there was more blue light outside than darkness now. Second, the wind would cast my tent into the water-- the sides were billowing madly. And third, a flash surge would plummet me into the water hopelessly wrapped up in my tent-- the river, which had once been so calm was now raging.

The inevitable question arose: "Russell, my friend, are you ready to die?"

Looking back on this rather intense moment in the face of death I feel convinced that the first thoughts that hit me, I need to deeply honour. I felt I wasn't ready to go. I felt I needed to complete my 1Mandala project. And, I felt I needed to experience love in triadic open and loving relationship. This is what came to my mind! A relationship that totally busted the old morals and ideas of love. I asked the universe to help me get through this.

As you can tell by me blogging about this, the storm blew over, and the Universe helped me out indeed.

A little too much actually! A kayaker passing on the bridge had spotted me. He called the state park rangers. After the storm was settling down, just as my heart rate was returning to normal, there was a voice outside. The rangers ticketed me for dangerous camping! I couldn't beleive it. I still can't. I also still have a ticket outstanding given the impossibility of paying it at the time. Bummer!

Yet, far more importantly, in my little campout with Death, I cut right through all the clutter and distractions of life, to the core of what my heart is calling me to.

Death had gift for me.

What to live.