Autumn - A tale from the trail

The trail in Autumn is my favorite thing. Spring is nice, new and warm, but can be muddy and it rains often.  There have been whole months of Spring lost to rain...Summer is ok, but the heat and bugs can be a real downer.  Wearing light clothes is a plus, though.  But Autumn is just perfect.  Cool, dry and scenic all at once.

A new bike to add to the season doesn't hurt either!

Fall color in MI is simply divine:

As the bigger trees lose their leaves, smaller open areas are exposed.  The beauty of the season comes in layers.  These reminded me aspens in CO (a sight to behold in their own right!)

Golden maple leaves shine despite the cloudy day.  They simply radiate!

This trail I know, like an old lover, every curve, every up and down.  Somedays I don't need to see it to even ride, I feel it undulate beneath me, drop away and rise. Speed, power, sometimes soft gentle flow, this trail offers every subtlety of the best ones ever made.  The terrain is comprised of dirt, rock, roots, sand and clay.  But in Fall, these items become covered in a rich blanket of oak, maple, and cottonwood leaves, with some fragrant sections of pine and open grasslands.  When you can't see the obstacles, you ride faster, free to flow over those things your bike says yes, but your brain says no.

Fast, churning efforts rewarded with exuberant speed through candy coated woods.

Too few stop to see the wonderful creatures that inhabit this area.  All manner of birds, from jays, cardinals, vultures, hawks and woodpeckers, to deer, squirrels, chipmunks, snakes and turtles.  And there was this serene swan just waiting for his cameo.  Often in the summer, beautiful lotus flowers bloom here.

Trees carry large quantities of healing energy forth from deep witinh the ground.  We are children of Gaia and through her calm, constant resonant frequency, we can heal all manner of things.  We can transmute the pain of living, the sickness and anxiety.  One cannot help but match the frequency of Earth if you just let it take over.  Reaching for the heavens, yet rooting in the ground is a spiritual principle called Extension, as described in the great book "The Invisible Garment", by Connie Kaplan.  I think this well describes our human existence.

I've left this trail stain in blood, sweat and tears.  I've met a vulture who cleaned the dead scars from my heart, a hawk who inspired me to ride fast through the chaos, snakes who brought messages of transformation and creativity.  I've laughed with good friends, hollered off jumps and drops, and crashed hard when I lived recklessly and without concern for the most precious things in my life.  Every journey here is new, every ride a joy.

But it has never broken me, though I have not mastered it, I have become one with it.  Like other trails since, I long to be here often.  But this one was my first and it's my home trial, and I love it!

What Dreams May Come

This analysis starts with two dreams. 

 

The first dream begins with Chantal and I in an apartment.  She receives a phone call and then proceeds to scurry about the room cleaning.  She looks at me and I know we have to go.  I don't know who's on the phone, it's either her Mom or ex-boyfiend.  Either way, I need to leave before that person arrives or she needs to leave when they do.  There's a need to keep my presence a secret, however.  In real life, this scenario played out several different times.  Often, it made me feel uneasy, anxious or urgent at best.

 

In the next dream, I'm in a home/apt and I'm cleaning it out, moving.  It looks like a hotel, everything is in a single room, divided by a bar and kitchen area.  The door is open and I can see out into the front yard. I see a sidewalk, a car (mine maybe) and a clothesline?  There's been violence (root word "violate") there.  I'm folding women's underwear, several colorful pairs - they're Crystal's and Chantal's.  I'm packing up their things.  I turn to the fridge, inside are empty beer bottles, some food, not rotten, but nothing nutritious.  I get the meaning that everything inside is "used up" and no longer of value to "feed" me, spiritually.  Above the fridge are cabinets.  Inside the cabinet, I see some foam heads with wigs on them.  The heads are my face, the wigs my older hair styles, curly, brown hair.  Everything in here is very dusty.  I get the sense that this is macabre, like trophies a serial killer would keep in a cabinet.  To the left of that is old stuff of mine, boxes, a hockey bag, equipment.  In between are various books.  I try to read the titles but I wake.  I sense there were some Tolkien, spiritual things.

 

More about the front yard:  On March 17th 2011, Chantal and I had gone to her friend's house for St Patrick's day.  It was low key and she was having a birthday party for her son the following Sunday, so we wanted to be home and rested for that, the next day.  On this night, I decided that I would park in her driveway, overnight.  I think that was the first time.  Generally, I parked away from her house.  We felt it was best to hide the fact I was sleeping over from her ex-boyfriend.  But honestly, I wanted more than that. I wanted to establish myself, have a firm hold in her life and be free of secrecy.  The next morning, I found both front tires slashed.  I had backed the car in.  To this day, I don't know why, except it seemed like opening the front of my body, my heart to the "outside".  It was symbolic, for sure.  This "violation" put strain on Chantal and I.  We worked it out, but it was never the same.  I wonder if she felt that she could never be truly free of the other.  I know she felt this reflected poorly on her.  I did not think so, nor do I believe that even today.  The actions of others are their own.  When it happened again, while parked away from her home, I felt anger.  Funny enough, I didn't realize it until I went and got the car and parked in her driveway, so actually, same circumstance.  For me, the front of her house, and indeed even inside, hold many, many negative feelings and emotions.  They were present in my dream.  Both a psychic and an astrologer asked me what happened between us in April.  I think this is the event they are referring to.  It was a violation of both of us, though in different ways.

 

Throughout the dream sequence, I got the sense that I was "cleaning" my psyche.  I knew that during the dream.  It was pretty linear and symbolic.  Hard to miss!