Signs along the way

Some of the signs we've seen lately...


The car this sticker was on is from the Golden Rule car dealership.




Tiles outside the Peace & Justice center of Albuquerque.




"Your Spirit is Free," proclaims this dancing deer outside Santa Fe.




Don't tell my brother the cattle rancher this...




Saw this one at a local coffee shop in Taos...

Healing

Today, we filled three empty film canisters with holy dirt, and then went to a house made of garbage.

Santuario de Chimayo is a sacred miracle place for healing. Eileen, who I met in Santa Fe because of a dream I had, told me about it. She said that when they decided to build a church there, they put a cross in the ground where they wanted to build a church, and they woke up the next day and it was in a different place.


So they put it back. And then the next day it was moved again. And so it went. Until they finally realized they needed to build the church in the place where the cross kept moving to. So almost 200 hundred years ago they built this beautiful little chapel. The altar is wooden, and there's a little room off to the side filled with crutches and pictures of Jesus and statues of saints.
Then, off that room, is the place with the sacred dirt. Apparently, it heals people. In addition to filling the three vials, I put the sand on my hands and heart and head. I'm going for the full on healing thing. Chimayo, the surrounding town, has a ancient, happy, beautiful spirit to it, which radiates from the chapel. It was a place of great peace. I left a cross on the fence in memory of my mother.


Earthship is a new kind of sustainable housing. There's a whole community of people a few miles north of Taos who live in houses that collect their own energy and water and grow their own food. Plus they're made of old tires and bottles and cans. The man who started the whole thing has built houses all over the world. And they're nice, pretty houses.

Today, I believe that anything is possible. That even if we cannot save ourselves, the universe might save us anyway, and that for every person who has lost hope there is at least one who is bringing hope to the world.

And I can't wait to go back to Tucson and build a church out of old tires and put a little magic dirt in a shrine to all those who seek healing.

Grab bag

Today is a clean and organize the camper and writing sort of day. Later we are going to check out some houses that are totally self-sustaining with water/solar/everything.

It's crazy cold here in northern New Mexico. Which means it's 70 degrees and we have to wear socks in the shade. I don't know what we are going to do. At night it's like 50. Why didn't we bring that other sleeping bag! Just some ridiculous whining from a desert dweller.

We finally saw some pics from our wedding back on August 9 on Mt. Lemmon. Here's one of Kate looking very fabulous.

If you didn't hear or see it. One of the Tucson news stations did a story about our trip before we left last week. This link will take you to a page where you can read a story and click on the tiny tv camera to watch the video.

Fullness

A quick update.

On Monday we made it Albuquerque where we lunched with the Rev. Carole McGowan, a progressive priest. That afternoon we sat in silence with the folks at the Center for Action and Contemplation, and were invited to supper with the six work interns there.

We were privileged to get to hear the heart longings of what made them leave their lives as they knew it to travel there and live for a while with daily silence and intentional spiritual formation.

On Tuesday in Santa Fe, Kate met a woman who literally came to her in a dream a few weeks ago.

On Wednesday morning we sang chants at 5:30 in the morning with Joan and Jeff, two very devout yoga practitioners.

And we sabbathed (rested with great intention and gratefulness) yesterday at a communal Japanese inspired bath/spa with naked women laying around in the sun like lizards.

We are running on biodiesel that we pumped in Santa Fe.

We haven't been able to collect waste veggie oil yet due to a crack in our main collection barrel on the roof. We are on the lookout for a new one.

Tonight we are at a friendly RV camp between Santa Fe and Taos. Tomorrow we go to look at Earthships.

Two miracles for today

Today two miracles occurred:

1) We left Tucson! (a feat I had begun to believe was impossible)

2) We drove all the way to our first destination on veggie oil (which we had believed would be equally impossible)

Hooray for today!

Begin. The rest is easy.

Not long ago one of us got a fortune cookie that said, "Begin, the rest is easy." Whew. How true. It takes more time and energy to do things out of the box.

While we have no idea what adventures will come. So far, waking up to the sunrise, and the joy of being on this pilgrimage, are far easier than getting ready to begin.

Yesterday we checked in one last time with our cat Perry at his new foster home. Thanks to Alicia and Mark for taking him in.

All of our stuff fit into storage. Barely. It is freeing to live without much in the camper.

The gospel reading for this morning ends with Jesus saying, "So therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions."

I'm not sure how Jesus would feel about storage units. Maybe our trip will teach us to live with less and to let more go. I hope so.

One last shot in front of the first house that Kate and I lived in together.

And then a shot of the second house we will live in together.

We drove out of town on veggie oil and even got up to around 60 miles per hour.

It's nice rambling peacefully along at an easy pace. Judith of St. Hildegard's writes that perhaps we are like 21st Century pioneers using veggie oil instead of horses.

It's a word picture that goes well with our pilgrimage. Tony Jones, a guy who is the point person for Emergent Village right now, used a similar image to describe the new incarnations of faith communities and cultural shifts of our day. We heard him speak at the national cathedral in May for a church for the 21st Century conference.

Many have already gone before us to set up posts in the frontier. We'll send dispatches as we discover them.

Friday Take Off

It is nearing midnight.

We are just back from picking up the truck at the veggie mechanic near Phoenix. $598 later it has better electrical wiring. The mechanic said it could use a new veggie fuel pump. Which may explain why it now doesn't seem to run on veggie oil at speeds over 40 miles per hour.

We are planing to drive out on diesel on Friday and get a new fuel pump down the road. Our first stop is Elephant Butte Lake in New Mexico, on our way to a retreat center to interview some young adults who are working/interning there.

Tomorrow we'll clean the camper, stuff our things in. Maybe give it some paint. Take the rest of our stuff to storage. Try to finish up final changes for a freelance client on an annual report. Try to do some last minute phone calls and paper shuffling to get our health insurance in place. We currently don't have any. We started applying for it way over a month ago.

We also don't have a place for the pets. There's one more possible home for Perry the cat to check out. And we can only hope Kate's dad will let the dogs stay in Colorado for a while.

What's done is done. What's left undone is left undone. This day is over. It is time to rest.