Week 1 - Back to the Beginning and Onward
/“I have lots of things to teach you now, in case we ever meet, concerning the message that was transmitted to me under a pine tree in North Carolina on a cold winter moonlit night. It said that Nothing Ever Happened, so don’t worry. It’s all like a dream. Everything is ecstasy, inside. We just don’t know it because of our thinking-minds. But in our true blissful essence of mind is known that everything is alright forever and forever and forever. Close your eyes, let your hands and nerve-ends drop, stop breathing for 3 seconds, listen to the silence inside the illusion of the world, and you will remember the lesson you forgot, which was taught in immense milky ways of cloudy innumerable worlds long ago and not even at all. It is all one vast awakened thing. I call it the golden eternity. It is perfect.
We were never really born, we will never really die. It has nothing to do with the imaginary idea of a personal self, other selves, many selves everywhere, or one universal self. Self is only an idea, a mortal idea. That which passes through everything, is one thing. It’s a dream already ended. I know this from staring at mountains months on end. They never show any expression, they are like empty space. Do you think the emptiness of space will ever crumble away? Mountains will crumble, but the emptiness of space, which is the one universal essence of mind, the one vast awakenerhood, empty and awake, will never crumble away because it was never born.
The world you see is just a movie in your mind.”
The past is a funny thing. Places change, people move on, and memories fade. Our recollections are a string of moments and we try to fill in the blanks. In the end you’re left more with a “feeling” or “an idea” of what was, with the recollection of discrete moments. You can’t hold on to time, but maybe you can take comfort in the journey and the experiences you’ve had along the way. My expectation heading back to Brooklyn and revisiting the places of my youth is that it would be an opportunity to provide context and comfort to me for a life well lived.
Change is the catalyst that creates your personal history and allows you to let go of your past. In plain English, letting go of my past means no regrets and nothing holding me back. I’m not resisting, there are no weights holding me down, and I’m open to evolve and grow as a human being. Holding on to my personal history is about embracing all that I’ve experienced in my life, my strengths and my flaws, and accepting myself for the soul that I am with respect and gratitude for the life I’ve lived and will live. I was back at the beginning and that’s propelling me forward on this continuing adventure.
Day 1 Boca Raton, FL to Sanford, FL and overnight on the Auto Train
Day 2 – Lorton, VA – The Auto Train, Washington D.C., Cape May Ferry, and the Jersey Shore
Lorton, VA disembarking from the Auto Train, heading to Washington D.C. to ride around the sites, then off to Lewes Delaware to catch the Cape May Ferry to New Jersey. Virginia, D.C., Maryland, Delaware, and New Jersey today. Visited some of the Jersey Shore, Wildwood, Point Pleasant and stayed west of Asbury Park for the night.
Day 3 – Back to the Beginning Brighton Beach Brooklyn! Traveling Through New Jersey, Staten Island, Brighton Beach, and Coney Island
Day 4 – Leaving Brooklyn - Sheepshead Bay Brooklyn to Brookfield, CT arriving at Max BMW for new motorcycle tires, then a scenic ride north through Connecticut Route 7, Massachusetts the Berkshires, and Vermont, the Green Mountains National Forest to Wilmington for the night.
Day 5 - Wilmington, VT to Jackson, NH. Green Mountains National Forest north on RT 100 in Vermont to New Hampshire and the White Mountains National Forest, RT 112 the Kancamagnus Highway, then onto the Mt. Washington Auto Road to the summit at 6,145 ft., Mount Washington the highest peak in the Northeastern U.S.A.
Day 6 - Jackson, NH to Portland, Maine for a 5.5-hour ferry ride to Yarmouth, Nova Scotia
Day 7 - Yarmouth, NS to Lunenburg, NS. Hugging the Atlantic Coast on and off Route 3, Lighthouse Route, explored coves, wharves, and harbour towns. Passed by the 1967 reported site of a UFO crashing in NS. Lunch in Shelburne at the Sea Dog Saloon, Carters Beach, a ride with the bike onto Crescent Beach, then Lunenburg for a double overnight.