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this is about exploration

This is about exploration. This is about regeneration. This is about constant change. This is about fear as fuel.

In the interest of anonymity, I’ll call myself Palomita (a name given to me during my stay in the Ecuadorian Amazon two and a half weeks ago because my birth name proved to difficult to pronounce).

I resigned from my profession as a Civil Servant for the State of California just over six months ago. My reasoning: a burning need to travel; that and a harrowing fear of becoming fixed in a mold of routine, commercialized contentment.

So. What else could I do but cash out my savings and buy a one way ticket to Guatemala City, Guatemala?

This blog is about this journey…one that will hopefully never end. This blog is about embracing fears, challenging convention, discovering the creativity within yourself (and others), challenging EVERYTHING, discounting nothing. It is about the beauty, magic, and wonder in life as perceived by the individual.

Mostly it is about trusting in yourself and the direction of the wind. To be physical with life. To be bruised by experience, and kissed by exaltation. To take in what the world is sending you, apply your essence, and send it back out as art.

 

 

 

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moon-rises to come

Since January of 2015 (around the time of my first post) I lived in my tent on Isla Mujeres, Mexico and became a PADI Advanced Certified Scuba Diver; got lost in the streets of Sevilla, free-camped in Granada, and volunteered on a tiny farm in the mountains of Orgiva, Spain. I lived with the Rainbow Family in Portugal, took a 64 hour bus ride to Romania, spent time in Bulgaria and Greece, stopped off in Hawaii, and flew home to my birthplace of Sacramento, California, USA sometime in May 2015. Including my time in Central and South America, I was away for 11 months. I was a rapidly changing human. And I was broke.

My father opened his home to me for 3 recuperative months before I set off for Orcas Island, Washington in late August. I volunteered at Indralaya (a Sanskrit word loosely translated to “home for the spiritual forces in nature”), a Theosophical retreat that will forever remain close to my heart.  In October I ferried back to the mainland to make my home at the Green Tortoise Hostel on 1st and Pike in Seattle. Seattle is one of the fastest growing cities in the United States, and with a $15.00 an hour minimum wage it seemed a good place to make what I need in order to get where I need to be (where that was, I had no idea at the time). My job at the hostel is to work in the kitchen. I work there 3 days a week in exchange for a free bed in a room with 7 other trade-workers. In my off-time, I am a cheesemaker. I began working there around the first of January. A vegan cheesemaker.

Ten hours a day to culture, and cook, and pack, and mill, and salt, and press, and break-out and package 60 lb blocks of cheddar. It is the hardest I have ever worked. Well worth it. I will continue on, 7 days a week until May 2, 2016 when I will board a plane for San Diego.

On May 3rd 2016, “at first-light”, I will start the first mile of my 2,660 mile solo journey from Mexico to Canada along the Pacific Crest Trail.

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Pacific Northwest Trail; mile 658.8

Tuesday September 10, 2019; day 52

Devin stoked the last of the glowing embers for a morning fire. I hung my damp socks directly over the stove, for one last shot at drying.

Water was boiled and I was told I could use as much as I liked. Thrilled at the notion of hot coffee in the morning, I was only slightly phased when my peanut butter container began to melt. I watched as it sadly sank into itself. Folds of plastic and a newly rounded bottom left it unble to stand on its own. I sipped slowly and with delight. I enjoyed two cups.

Soon Devin and Doug departed. I set out shortly after.

I wear my rain skirt as a cape. My spirits are lifted by the haunting beauty of the fog and cold.

The climb towards Cathedral Pass was beautiful .

I continued long the Boundary Trail.

I made the fording of Ashnola River before night fall. The water level was quite manageable. I retained a bit wetness through the fabric bunched around my knees.

In just under a mile after fording, the trail dropped into a ravine and crossed a creek. The bridge had been destroyed and laid in shambles upstream. I followed a path that crosses downstream, and hugged the steep muddy banks as I belly-climbed back to the trail.

The night is clear, but presents a heavy chill.

Many trails branch off in the grassy brush. I take the clearest one, they alleventually head west.

I move along the alpine meadow of Sandy Ridge and collect water from a stream.

Then, the trail disappears within areas of burn. By the light of my headlamp, I struggled to continue. Knowing that water follows the path of least resistance, I tried following faint impressions of water streams in the mud. Concerned that I may venture too far off track, I hiked back to wear I lost the trail, and tried once more.

Unable to move forward with confidence, I determined it best to set up camp. I moved back and forth along the trail in search of a tent-site. The region was full of either dead and hazardous trees, or delicate alpine meadow.

I found a flat spot, just before the trail became unclear. I set up amongst the sturdiest of dead trees I could find. It is not ideal, but I am not left with much choice.

It is very cold, but I am dry. My sleeping bag is a fluffy pleasure. I snuggle within the fabric and quickly drift into sleep.