Set a direction, even an intended destination, but only as a guide for your movement. As soon as you have identified it, let go of the thought of what awaits you there.
The Art is to return your attention to this moment of journeying, where discoveries actually unfold.
I tell people I’m riding from Colorado to California, out to a gathering by the ocean.
Somewhere west of Green River, Utah, my attention expands out to the horizons, soaking into the rock formations like the heat of the sun, merging with the landscape, awareness looping back, returning to support the wheels of this motorcycle with one small woman perched on top. I discover a moment of divine union.
I stop in a small town café for some coffee and the local knitting circle is having show and tell. As I wait for my cup to cool, I walk back in full armored gear with my helmet under my arm. Sharing my admiration for a woman’s fine pink blanket for her seventh grandbaby, I mention that my sticks and string are in my saddle bags. Immediately I’m invited to bring ‘em in and join the circle. I discover a moment of divine union.
Enduring the freeway through Las Vegas, the enormous magnitude and diversity of the dramas unfolding here touches me. Anonymously plodding along with the traffic, my inner landscape sparkles with the pathos of dreaming of wealth and love, the striving, the imitations and judgments, and every now and again even in this land of facades, a chink where someone recognizes reality straight through it all. The entire emotional soup in this kitchen. I discover a moment of divine union.
I am filled with such tenderness as I tour. I’ve told people I’m riding to California. They create images of visiting the ocean. The Art of Adventure is knowing California isn’t my destination. This moment IS my destination. The direction I ride is always toward Now.
What is your apparent destination today?
What are you really open to discovering along the way?