August 22: Change of Plans

After a week of angst trying to plot a route out of South Dakota without crossing mountains on the way to visit a friend in Montana and an event in Oregon, I gave myself permission not to go. I am working on framing this not as a failure to achieve a desired goal, but as not forcing myself to continue doing something that is not enjoyable. I never much liked mountain driving, and now I find myself getting tense on steep grades, hairpin turns, mountain passes, switchbacks, and roads with drop-offs and no guardrails. (I’m getting better on bridges, though!) I found myself dreading the thought of dealing with those things challenging my Zen mile after mile and day after day. I resisted for days, but today I began plotting Plan B, pretty much going straight south from here to the Mexican border before turning right … with some zig zagging to accommodate boondocking sites and national/state parks/forests/monuments. I don’t want to arrive before November to avoid the heat, so I am looking for BLM and Army Corps of Engineers locations to camp on for 5-7 days at a time.  

I’m enjoying the week’s visit with skoolie friends Elaine and Richard in the Black Hills of South Dakota. He built a goodly portion of Karmalita and she took me to get tool chests, made me useful macrame home goods, and gave me the ottoman on which I am currently sitting. Richard fixed the couch legs, a warped closet door, and what was preventing the fridge from closing. He also repositioned the weatherstripping on my folding doors so they stay open without bungie cords. We visited the Crazy Horse Memorial and viewed animals in the wild on a drive through Custer State Park.

There are more stories to tell, but I want to go and gather up ingredients for new moon spells tomorrow – one for courage and strength for the resistance, and another to open the road and usher in a new world. I like the idea of working that one in the liminal space where the folding doors meet the stairs up into the bus. I have spent enough time in in-between spaces, transitioning “betwixt and between” what was and what is to be, to know it is ripe with possibilities as well as uncertainty. In addition, we’re dealing with the jangling of earth, sun, cosmos, and geo-political events and energies which is affecting my energy (and yours?) as well. There are two tarot readings I have been putting off because of how I’ve been feeling, but they will also get done tomorrow. Oh, and I want to write the first draft of my review of an oracle deck. All that. LoL. Right.