This MUST Be What They Meant When They Said, "Adventure"! Another Greyhound Horror Story! Part 2 of 2

Ok, so I left off where I was walking the highway out into the desert. My feet were blistered and bleeding and I couldn't walk more than a mile without having to stop and rest. I had no tent, home, bedroll or most of my clothes. I was wearing a pair of shorts and a short sleeved shirt. I'd spent nearly all of my cash trying to find out where my bag was and when I could get it with no luck.

Since I left Cortez so late in the day, night came on fairly quickly. It was only then that I discovered that all my flashlights were in my backpack as well, which had decided to take it's own separate vacation. As the sun was going down I was walking through a low lying area, it had sort of a swampish feel to it, hills and high plants kept the breeze from reaching me and some kind of bug began to swarm... and bite. I couldn't see them but the weight of them on my arms and legs told me they were much larger than mosquitoes and their bites were certainly larger. Because of the condition of my feet, I couldn't move fast enough to keep them off me and flailing my arms around had almost no effect. I started to panic, then spirit suggested I meditate. I stopped, I put my hands over my mouth and nose so I could take a couple of deep breaths without sucking up a pound of bugs, and I imagined that I was light, in the vague shape of a person floating of the shoulder of the road, then I began to walk. I didn't even try to keep the bugs out of my eyes or nose, I just walked and imagined.

I could still feel the bugs biting me, but it no longer bothered me. I had chosen another realm to walk in. I was amazed that I was not getting angry or feeling pitiful. I was exhilarated, I laughed out long and loud. But then when I breathed in again I sucked up and swallowed, like, four bugs so I spent the next pretty good distance hacking, coughing and spitting. But, after about another fifteen minutes began climbing out of the lowland and out of the bugs.

I can't tell you how many miles I walked, cars were passing me by but I didn't bother to try to hitchhike. I mean, I was me, but if I had seen me in the middle of the desert on a moonless night, I wouldn't have stopped... even if I new I was me... that would just be too scary. Sagebrush, juniper and pinion pine on both sides of the road were so thick that I could not see anything in them so I didn't try to get off the road to find a place to bed down. I could not have seen if there was a fence, snake or bear in any of those clumps. So I just kept trudging forward. The number of cars that passed me dwindled to almost nothing, it seemed like I walked for hours.

Every time I stopped to rest, which was often, I faced a brilliant Cassiopeia and a monstrously huge Big Dipper hung low over the distant town of Cortez, off to my left. After awhile, I noticed the sky getting lighter, I realized the moon was beginning to rise and even though I couldn't yet see it, I was beginning to be able to see the surrounding landscape better. After what seemed like a few more miles, the moon was over the mountains enough that I spotted a clearing that I could get to away from the road, so I limped, stumbled and staggered into the brush. I had my coats tied to the outside of one of my bags and I lay two of them on the ground then covered up with the third and was asleep almost immediately.

I awoke sometime later, shivering uncontrollably, a cold wind was blowing. I dug into my one bag with clothes in it and dug out the two bath towels and covered myself with them as best as I could. My biggest fear was that I would camp someplace where rattle snakes hunted and fed, but by the time I'd bedded down it was too cold for snakes. I worried for only a minute before I was out.

I awoke just as day was breaking, I gathered my towels and clothes and shook them all out and packed them away again. When I walked back to the highway, I noticed that I had camped in an old prairie dog town. The dried bodies of prairie dogs lay all around where I had slept. I suspect they had been poisoned.

I returned to the road and limped another three or four miles, then I gave up and stuck out my thumb. I was picked up by three Indians in a pickup. Two of them had been drinking pretty heavily and one was testing me with insults to see if he could get me riled. I was too tired to get riled so we ended up laughing a lot. They took me all the way to Durango.

I was let out near the visitors center where I limped in and gathered information on where to go and what to do in Durango. The Greyhound bus station was still a couple of miles away, too far to hobble, so I found a park bench in the shade by the Animas River and began looking over the maps and literature that I had gotten from the visitors center. After a couple of hours another traveler came by and we sat and talked for a while. He told me about a shelter in town. I've never stayed in a shelter, all of them I'd seen were too dirty and filled with a lot of really drunk people, I preferred to camp in the woods. But here I was without any of my camping gear and very few clothes and the traveler had told me that the staff at the shelter give breath tests every night... so I began hobbling toward the shelter.

It turned out that the shelter was at the top of a very steep, long, tall hill. I stashed my bags in what looked like a safe area, I didn't want to carry them up there in case they wouldn't let me stay, then I went up the hill to the shelter. As I hobbled across the parking lot of the shelter, I was looking down at my feet, and there lay another pearl... I picked it up and hobbled up the stairs to the office.

...To be continued...

This MUST Be What They Meant When They Said, "Adventure"! Another Greyhound Horror Story! Part 1 of 2

Ok, so, I'm posting these next entries in both Obi en and The Greysage Journey.

Well, as all of you know, (because I sent letters and made phone calls to tell everyone, expressing my fear and disappointment, ((thank you all for listening)), ), that I left The Next Evolution, these are the events that followed.

I decided that I was going to go back to the forest for a sabbatical, meditation and for increasing my understanding of primitive living, then I would blog about it. And, I decided, New Mexico would be a good place to start.

I reduced my belongings down from four bags to two. I kept a minimum of clothing, my flutes, my computer (of course), some personal papers, the smallest gifts that I acquired over the years (I must have three pounds of stones {:-{) ), my camping gear, my books and various other items. The backpack and bag were still pretty heavy, "but", I reasoned, "I could walk at whatever pace was comfortable in the forest, I am in no hurry. It wouldn't matter if I only made a half mile a week", once I got to the forest.

So Frank went online and bought me a bus ticket to New Mexico. As he drove me to the Greyhound bus station we talked about the situation. As best as I could tell, we were both hurt, angry and disappointed, but eventually we agreed that my leaving was for the best. And though we were still disappointed by the time we got to the bus station we were both doing OK.

Frank got the tickets but my backpack was more than fifty pounds, so I had to try to reduce it's weight which resulted, with Frank's help, in my having a third bag/ bundle. But we got the backpack to pass so I would check it and carry on two bags. It's all good. The bus was scheduled to leave, I think, at seven in the evening. I had about three hours to wait. Frank gave me some money for expenses. This was the first evening.

My route would take me from Pittsburgh through Indianapolis, St. Louis, Denver to Grand Junction Colorado where I would turn south to go through Durango and disembark in Cortez, where I would walk into the forest. There, I would ponder on things, eat wild plants, run through the trees playing with the deer and feed and pet the furry little chipmunks as they sat in the palm of my hand and I nuzzled their little noses. And by the end of the month I will have resolved all my own issues and will have come up with viable solutions for most of the worlds problems. Simple!

Well, there were so many people heading in the same direction that we ended up having to take two buses. I don't like standing around so I sat and waited until the line was almost gone before I got in. The first bus was packed to capacity then those of us who were left boarded another bus that was less than half full. Brilliant! I was able to stretch out over two tightly packed seats. It was great. We were only twenty minutes late into Indianapolis.

In Indianapolis our driver refused to drive anymore, he said he'd been on too many hours all ready, then left. The staff in Indianapolis didn't seem know that two buses were coming from Pittsburgh and seemed to be panicking to figure out what to do. One bus was loaded and left and, again I was at the end of the line, so we waited for over an hour before we got another bus and driver. Some passengers were upset, but I was quite calm, after all, I had no schedule to keep. I spent the time pacing and meditating. I think it was about midnight when we left Indianapolis. Let me just say here that I'm terrible at keeping track of time, so I won't be accurate at time keeping, but the core of the story is there. That morning and evening were the first day.

Anyway, we drove and drove, and every stop that wasn't at a bus station was at a McDonalds. Here I discovered that Greyhound has an agreement with McDonalds. Greyhound brings McDonalds fifty or sixty imprisoned passengers, several times a day and night, to stores all over the country. When you ride Greyhound, you must either eat exorbitantly priced junk food from a vending machine or buy exorbitantly priced junk food from McDonalds. Unless you bring your own of course, or fast.

So, anyway, we arrived in St Louis way up in the night, like two or three in the morning. We looked like a bunch of survivors from the Titanic. We were gaunt and hollow eyed, some of us were shivering, some were screaming in pain and frustration because we missed our connecting buses and would have to wait for another day for the next bus. My head was thick and confused from lack of sleep and subsisting on chemically laden garbage for two days. As I was heading into the station one of the passengers that had gotten his luggage and gone to the ticket counter yelled out that the next bus for Kansas City was six hours away at gate ten, so we all followed him and sat down. No one said anything for a long time. Then, after awhile, species recognition began to kick in and we began to occasionally glance at one another, that evolved into grunts and mumbles, and eventually into words, then sentences, then conversations. And the St Louis smog began to glow a dull reddish-orange as a new dawn broke. And that morning and evening were the second day.

A couple hours later, one of my bus-ty companions, came and showed me that he had gotten a food coupon from the lady at the ticket counter who redid his schedule. I asked him to watch my bags and I streaked off to the counter to get my food coupon, the lady was gone, a hand written sign said, "back in 15 mins".

I went back in forty five minutes, but there was a long line, so I waited another hour then got to see her. I told her what bus I had come in on and showed her my ticket. She began punching buttons on a computer, her fingers seem to race in all directions and as she punched buttons she talked, "I thought I already did all these! You were supposed to bring this to me when you came in! How come you didn't bring this to me? I thought I was finished with these. There won't be another bus for Denver until tomorrow but I can reroute you through Oklahoma City if you want. There is a six hour layover in Grand Junction, Colorado or a ten hour layover in Albuquerque. Which way do you want to go?"

After about two minutes I started and jumped, I realized she was waiting for input. "Huuhhm", I said, "I'd have to stay here until tomorrow if I went through Denver?"

The lady gave an exasperated sigh, "Yes!", she said.

"Uuhhm, OK," I said, feeling like I was in the early stages of recovery from some brain injury, "I'll go through Oklahoma City".

She punched a bunch more buttons, printed out a ticket, wrote me out a meal voucher for eight dollars and said, "Ok, you'll be going through Oklahoma City, Amarillo and Albuquerque, then to Cortez.You'll be responsible for making sure your luggage is transferred from one bus to the next. And next time bring your ticket to the counter as soon as you come in and don't wait around", she said all this again, very fast.

"Shouldn't we change the label on my bag, too?" I asked.

"You won't need it," she said, "it won't make any difference".

I walked back to gate ten where my backpack and bags were, my new gate was gate four. There was a guy sweeping the floor, when I bent down to pick up my bags I saw a little plastic pearl from some child's broken pearl necklace. I picked it up and dropped it in one of the pockets of my backpack.

I moved everything to gate four. Eight hours later I was on a bus going through Springfield, Missouri to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma then through Amarillo, Texas to Albuquerque, New Mexico. The ride took two more days to get to Albuquerque.

I saw my bag in the hold in Oklahoma City. In Amarillo, they wouldn't let us on the tarmac where they were transferring bags around, so I never got to see where my bag was in Amarillo. I realized that we would be going through Tucumcari, which is then a straight shot to Taos and the mountains, via hitchhiking. So I told the bus driver that I wanted disembark in Tucumcari.

In Tucumcari, we stopped at a truck stop. The driver opened the luggage bay doors, we looked through all the bags, my pack was not there. I was crest fallen. The driver said the bags would probably go to Albuquerque. So, I went to Albuquerque.

We arrived in Albuquerque, I think, at around eleven a m, my connecting bus wasn't due until one thirty a m the next morning. During the next fourteen hours I called every number I could find to call, I talked to every official that I could find to talk to, (using up most of the cash I had left), everyone said the same thing, "Your pack is in Amarillo and there is nothing we can do about it".

"How do you know it's in Amarillo?"

"Because it's always Amarillo and nobody cares. You can file a report but it probably won't do any good. You should go on to Cortez and wait for your pack to come, it probably won't take more than four weeks, or six at the most."

"But I don't have any place to live, my house was on the backpack and I don't have any money left."

Every driver and every attendant and every person I talked to on the phone said the same thing, "There is nothing we can do, we are not allowed to call around and the company, (presumably Greyhound) doesn't care."

I called the number for baggage tracking, they told me that they sent out a notice to all stations that if they find the bag with that tracking number to let us know. No one has ever called.

The next morning I went on to Cortez. We pulled into the lot of a gas station at about nine a m. The bus pulled away and left me standing there with one bag full of dirty socks, shorts, tee shirts and two bath towels and the other bag had my netbook, some personal papers and some odds and ends. I had no tent, no bed roll, no place to go and not enough money to even rent a room for the night.

I thought of what might be the best use of what money I had left. After much deliberation I walked to Walmart and bought a prepaid cell phone and two days worth of granola bars. Then I walked, carrying my two bags, to the visitors center to look at maps and get more information. As I walked I, again, called every number I could find for Greyhound. It made absolutely no difference. Everyone said the same thing, fill out a report and you might get your bag back sometime.

I found a great book on local plants and their uses at the visitors center, I bought it, I figured it would make it easier to find food if I had to go into the mountains without anything. I went and did my laundry and that pretty much took care of my funds.Blister were already growing on my feet.

After walking around town and learning where things were for most of the day, I sat on a curb in the gas station parking lot to wait on the bus from Grand Junction, hoping that my bag would be on it. When I looked to my right I saw another plastic pearl just beside the curb. I looked at it for a moment then I picked it up and stuck it in my pocket.

The last bus arrived about nine thirty at night, no bag, so I gathered up the two bags I had and on blistered and bleeding feet, began walking down the highway, into the desert looking for a safe place to sleep.

...to be continued.

Sorry Folks, False Alarm

I feel the need to elaborate more, now that I have the time, on my leaving "The Next Evolution".

When we make a whole life changes, as Frank is now in the process of making, we often make false starts, change directions or fall back on to familiar habits as we walk the new path. Frank and I did have time to talk before I left and we parted on amiable terms. In fact, Frank was quite generous in considering my needs when I left.

I would like everyone to know, which if you spend time with him you will know, that Frank is a brilliant and beautiful man. I wish him all luck and love as he continues to build the ecovillage called "The Next Evolution".

I, myself, have been living and working in and for different communities for the last several years. As a result, I own very little, so I am stepping on to the path of building Obi en with a backpack, intention and a bunch of experience. I expect that this is going to be an amazing adventure.

Does Sustainability Mean Sacrificing Comfort?

January 20th, 2010 by Danielle Barmash
Published in New Voices

Each morning, I wake up to the playful sound of “RooCoo!” The crowing alerts the group of Americans and our madrich, or counselor, that breakfast is ready. I emerge from my cocoon of blankets and sleeping bag and peel off one of my several layers. I stumble from my geodesic dome and step out into air, which is slightly warmer than the temperature inside. Our group files into a large dome, still cold and hungry to honor a moment of silence before delving into our breakfast.

I am part of an intentional Jewish community at Chava v’ Adam. In Hebrew, Chava refers both to Eve and is the Hebrew word for farm. It is more customary, however, to say Adam v’ Chava in conversation, which places the male before the female. Thus, the farm is already revolutionary. It is a small piece of land located near the city of Modi’in. Modi’in is known as the city of the future, while the farm is of the past. It rests on all the principles of permaculture, or permanent agricultural living, which involves using all parts of the whole, sustainability, a re-examination of local resources and minimizing or eliminating waste products.
There are nine Americans who live here and choose to be part of this community for five months. We all came for various goals, but we are united through our interest in permaculture. I had no idea what to expect. Sure the application asked about my position on group living, but I had assumed that I would be dealing with a bunch of roommates living in one big house; rather, we are clustered tightly in eight vinyl domes on the higher portion of the farm. We do everything together. Our daily schedule consists of morning tea, chores or nature meditation, which is then followed by a group breakfast. At the beginning of the course, we had classes for about four hours, which would be followed by a group lunch under a large tree. What happens next we never know: maybe a group sharing circle, Jewish studies or working on our dome gardens. In between all these times, there is a lot of music and laughter.

So how does intentional community living link to sustainable living? Can’t one practice permaculture as an individual? Sure, an individual could incorporate these principles into all their daily practices. However, permaculture is about the sustainability of the community, not just an individual’s needs and wants. This translates into many aspects of farm living.

The farm’s energy is derived from several large solar panels. If more energy is required, a generator is often used. However, during these colder months, we have less and less energy. This means often, and sadly less and less showers. It also means there is not enough power to charge our telephones or our computers. At night, the dimly light LED light bulbs make reading, or other projects a challenge. We inevitably choose to go to bed early most nights.

As we near the end of our program, several of our projects are due. Last night, I walked an hour to the mall in Modi’in, in order to research a plant project. I then walked an hour back. I choose not to use limited farm energy for my personal use.

I ask you: is this sustainable? In many ways, it is. Walking is not a personal sacrifice for me; it is something that I enjoy doing and I inevitably get some exercise. In many more ways, it is not. I wonder if is there a way that our needs can be met through this lifestyle. Or do our needs need to be realigned?

A fellow participant pointed out to me that this farm is still growing. It has not yet reached its full potential as a sustainable community. It is merely an educational experiment, a place for learning practical applications of sustainable living.

Danielle Barmash is a Masa participant participating in Eco Israel, one of Masa Israel’s 160 programs.

Cedar Mountain Drums Donates New Netbook

Patrick Pinson, owner of Cedar Mountain Drums and current community mate, has purchased a new Samsung Netbook which he then donated to Obi en as a Christmas present, and which I am blogging on now, literally as we speak.

I am extremely grateful to Patrick and Cedar Mountain Drums for their donation and support of Obi en, and to Patrick for taking on the often uneasy task of being a teacher for me and for sharing his space and property with me.

Thank you, Patrick.