Discovering that a walk on Snow Mountain involves 10 hours of driving, there and back, I opted out of that plan. Instead I hit the road to Middletown again.... about 15 miles. Malcolm accompanied me and Coal for a few miles until about 7amI had a lot more resistance to doing this walk than any before today. But after about 90 minutes, down along the creek flats, I began breaking through the resistance as a new energy surfaced... I felt my resistance as the sense of chronic fear in my body, mind and life; fear of death. As I walked I was able to walk into that fear, and love it. Rather than resist it I found myself embracing it, loving it... not because I liked it and wanted to adore it, I simply had no choice but to accept it and release it... and as I walked I lived and consciously participated in each moment as a death, yet very alive. With each step the moment was shed, rather than held... each moment like water.
Later in the walk I
encountered the carcass of a massive black cow. The stink was thick and came down all around me, soaking the whole area for 100 yards around. I stood in the stench, flies swarming under a baking sun, by the carcass. The body was beautiful in a way, in its rotting stillness, life rushing to devour it. Another lesson begging understanding.Several hours into the walk I took a short break to sit and eat an orange. My friend, Coal, a big black lab gave me about three minutes before grinning, wriggling and jumping up and down like a Masai, eager to keep going. Later, with the sun high, and trees sparse, I had to slow my pace for the old boy as he padded out the last leg into town.
Why am I doing these walks each month? To be honest I have no idea. It feels necessary. The walking is about getting beyond any idea about it. The walks are an offering, a prayer and a breath for the flourishing of Adi Da's Fear-No-More Zoo, and for the advancement of His Vision of Fear-No-More out into the cells and patterns of every fear-living human on this planet, which is pretty much all of us. It's something I just feel compelled to do.
Whether others walk with me, here or in other places around the world, I'll walk anyway... every month now for the rest of my life.
Years ago Adi Da told me that whatever I ended up doing he wanted it to be done to la
st. So I intend that this Fear-No-More Zoo and Vision last beyond my lifetime, and that it go on and grow, deepening for generations to come... and I'll walk and do other things too, to effect whatever I can to ensure Fear-No-More exists and blossoms for a long time.I think this is the best thing I can do with my life and time... and I hope each of you will join me, each in your own way.
Another idea I got from the news today.... floating across California in a lawn chair suspended from a cluster of helium-filled party balloons...! That could be fun! I could drag a banner saying, "Fear-No-More Monkeys! "... Friends already banned me from wing-suiting!
Stuart
FNM
Gift
