Ending a month on the road... a glimpse

So I'm home... well, back in the NW at least. After over a month on the road, it feels good to be in a place where 'being still' is really the only thing on the short term agenda. I'm in Lake Oswego currently, living with my parents in their new home... it's beautiful.

So real quick, for those of you who might be interested in the train of events i'm currently riding.. skip to next paragraph for more 'meat'. Anyway, the river season finished up well despite the low water... our season ended with the passing of Labor Day weekend and then the fun began (like working ON a river isn't fun enough??). Our company treated those who stayed to the end of the season with a four day float down the colorado river, the section is called Westwater and begins in CO, ending a short ways into Utah... it was beautiful. Three days of no bigger than class I, then a day of rowdy class IV, the river getting narrower as we carved deeper into the canyon... my first overnight trip, it was unreal. We finished that trip up, got our lives together, and it wasn't more than a day or two before my good buddy Mark (fellow river rat) and I hit the road to begin what we had planned would be two months through Tennessee and the east, hitting all sorts of rivers along the way, eventually finding work in East Tennessee on the Pigeon river working the late season on into November. Fate, as it turned out, had a different plan... the trip was condensed to almost exactly a month, and with the condensing of duration, the experiences of the trip it seems were reduced down to incredibly rich nuggets at each corner. Nashville, Knoxville, Hartford, Summersville, Roanoke, Asheville, Brevard... everywhere we went we were met with nothing but love, warmth, and kindness.. southern hospitality defining itself through our experience. I want to share each and every experience... but how? over blog? It just doesn't seem right... over coffee maybe:) but every day was perfect, every day I felt the Spirits hand in our moving 'blindly', the people we met, oh the many people, and the life-long friendships we made... Kt, hannah, willis, bob, barb, coco, michelle, gabe, caleb, salmon, clint, TENNESSEE LIZ, paul, and others.. people with spirits that stuck to ours like velcro, and within seconds of meeting these new people at these new places, we were home, with family... raft guides, UT hippies, Older couples, younger ones too.. providence was our guide, and lives were changed in the process.

My reasons initially for going to tennessee were very different than what I eventually got out of the experience... in fact the collapse of my original intentions, and the pain which followed, were quickly restored and a new vision for the trip was formed, one we lived out in color. It was a month of healing in many ways for both Mark and I. And as my cousin Amy put it, on my last day in knoxville, "fate" would gift me the closure I needed from the previous collapse, the perfect cap to the whole experience.. so obviously I'm alluding to a whole lot, and I hope to share more later on this.. it's just better that I wait.. the story's still being written i guess...

I've had about 20hrs of solo road time this past week, lots of time to think... and our experience i realized can be summed up into one day. Towards the end of our time in Tennessee, Mark and i took some time on the AT (app trail), and on day one of our trip we at one point found ourselves seriously lost in awe of all the beauty surrounding us... just staring at everything from the forest floor to the canopy mosaic above,, each leaf a different color contributing to the whole of the picture... we were overcome with feelings of contentment, feelings of being in a good 'way', of - during this month - finding our place among created, and for me at least, more and more faith in the Spirit as guide... see, to some we appeared lost, but to others we were anything but, and our trusting that at each corner we would be met with a purposed environment, led our open hearts & minds to people who - as it would turn out - were in need of the light we offered, as we were too in need of theirs... in faith that our journeys path was one paved with providence, lives were changed, lives were enriched...

My old roommate mimi and I are obsessed with the golden ratio.. ever heard of it? Other names for it are the golden mean, the Fibonacci numbers... Anyway, if not, watch this short clip and let your mind be blown (http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=U2bAlIK4KkE&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DU2bAlIK4KkE).. but basically the golden ratio is in everything, all creation it seems, from the way a flower blossoms to the way galaxies are formed, all exist according to this ratio... on the AT I felt the weight of this as I saw this perfect pattern everywhere, in nature and in myself... with much time on the road to think and give thanks, to sink deep into my experience, I saw life - life as I've grown to understand it - as one large picture, one that with the dimension of time extracted (so hard for us to do in flatland, but a very real thing.. eternity), our lives as a whole will offer beauty, color, and light to others, according to how we walk within each experience, within time. Living each day in love, each experience when looked at individually (like each new place we found ourselves) may not make a great deal of sense, but it just felt, it just feels right... and so zooming out, our experiences - if guided by love - create a whole picture which only makes sense to the one painting it, but shines its beauty to the world. Confused yet? me too... but back to the golden ratio, god's perfect number found throughout... I suppose I believe that in the spiritual world, if we allow ourselves to be led by love we are allowing God (God is love... thats it... if it's love, it's God) to design in and through us something more beautiful than is in our control, the golden ratio in existing in our lives... and because he who engineers this beauty is extracted from that dimension which binds us in the moment... time... only He can make sense of it and it's purpose. The past four years of my life, the past eight really, are fun to look at as a whole because of the evolution of my spirit as I've learned more and more to lean on these good things.. it's spiraled me into, well, this place.. a place of new understanding, of peace, each day a new journey, one that only He, only love can make sense of, a place that in the moment may seem confusing or difficult (i've negative $$$ to my name, and am back at my parents for the time being.. haha), but are filled with hope because of this understanding that our stories exist outside of time, and He, Love, wants to create something curiously beautiful in us for the world to experience and glean from, then in observing, learn to live in a way which makes sense of their lives outside of the day to day confusion, outside of time... the golden ratio, it's perfect.

Anyway, I go in thursday to the Doc to have my shoulder checked... may or may not need surgery... pray for this. Soon, depending on what my pt needs are, I'll be starting what seems to be a dream job, again working for Warm Blankets, but with water... Another beautiful story I plan on sharing more of as it unfolds in the coming weeks... More to come on this, but know it's good, all is good, life is beautiful, and love it seems is truly the only answer...

I plan on writing more into the fall... so many stories to tell... the past month has left me with pockets full of nuggets, and I feel led to share. Thanks for reading (supposing you made it this far.. haha)...

Be well, friends...

luke