Much of the road that runs along the Clackamas river was sprinkled with little waterfalls flowing down the canyon walls. The river waters rushed passed us, shimmering with an intense crystalline turquoise color. I think I read somewhere that Highway 224 from the town of Estacada up into the Cascade mountains is one of the most scenic drives in the country. Maybe that wasn’t actually written anywhere, but now it is!

It’s about a 90 minute drive from Portland to the trailhead of Bagby hot springs. From there, you walk about 1.5 miles or 45 minutes, whichever comes first, along an easy trail that parallels Shower Creek. Supposedly another half a mile will take you to Shower Falls, but I’ve never been there to verify it’s existence. It’s so beautiful out there in the woods. With all the rain that falls, verdant plants and moss are everywhere, and the trees rise majestically high into the sky. Even now in April, there’s still lots of snow on the ground, which makes the downhill parts of the trail a whole lot of fun when you run and slide on them!

You know you’ve reached the hot springs area when you see a bunch of wood buildings on the side of the path. The first soaking area you come to is a platform with private stalls and dugout logs which act as bathtubs that can comfortably fit 2-3 people. Then there is a communal area with three large round tubs fitting either 4 or 6 people each.

The thermal water source flows out of a hillside and is channeled into an aqueduct. This aqueduct runs along the backside of the stalls and you simply open the floodgate to let the water into your tub.

Normally the water is super hot, so you need to cool it down using cold spring water with 3 gallon buckets that sit in the stalls. But the temperature up there in the mountains was in the low 40′s which cooled the hot waters just enough so you could just relax in the tub for hours without moving a finger. All in all it was a wonderful, relaxing weekend!

Just to be clear, I ripped all these photos from Flickr. Not a single one of them belongs to me. Click here to see a ton more great pictures of the hot springs and nearby areas.

I saw her a couple days later, and offered to give her a massage to try to relax her muscles and aid the healing process. Shortly after I put my hands on her, she started visibly relaxing and the tightness in her muscles began dissolving. She then told me that my hands felt really warm, and that was a sure sign that I was a healer — she would know since she was a masseuse too and worked with shamanic energies to heal people. She commented on the heat in my hands a few times throughout the massage. When we finished, some of her vibrancy had returned and much of the pain was gone from her face.

I’ve given massages to friends in the past, but only a few, and mostly just to lovers who normally say sweet things to you regardless. But to get compliments from a bodyworker and see a visible change in the person was totally new to me. I guess I shouldn’t really be surprised since both my parents are healers, and I even considered it as a career change when I was 24. Still, hearing the feedback from my friend helped to wake up something inside me that I’ve known for a long time but had forgotten.

Today was one of the most beautiful days in a long time! The sun was finally out for a change, and the temperature made its way into the low 60′s. I went out on a hike into the beautiful Columbia gorge to celebrate. After getting home and taking a nap this evening, I woke up and did a yoga set called Sahibi Kriya, Mastering Your Domain. It gives you command to act from the center of your being. You feel more capable of focusing your mind to control your thoughts and projections. On a physical level, it promotes blood flow towards the outlying limbs and glands to feed the body with oxygen and nutrients while flushing the body of toxins. (If you are going to do this set yourself, don’t forget to Tune In!)

For the last exercise in the yoga set, you lie on your back with your legs crossed at the ankles and hands crossed at the heart, and rest in this position for 5 minutes. I found that my hands were intensely hot during this entire repose. So at the end of the 5 minutes, I decided focus on my second chakra to do some healing there. The second chakra, also called the Sacral Chakra, corresponds to the sex organs, basic emotional needs, pleasure, and more. I crossed my hands over this spot and focused on the intention of healing. Pretty soon my mind began racing with old memories of past lovers. I allowed myself to go deep into the feelings of sadness and pain that were associated with those old encounters. Eventually the turmoil subsided and a calm came over me. Soon after, I began feeling energetic waves of orgasm wash over me, and my body shook with pleasure and bliss. These waves lasted for a couple minutes and I came back to a state of peace, and then this process repeated once more. Eventually my body relaxed into a total space of tranquility as I integrated all the energy and changes that had just taken place.

I hadn’t ever thought of using the healing energy in my hands on my own body until that moment. Now I’m really curious to know what else this energy can do. And I’m looking forward to more chances to practice on friends to see how much deeper this healing energy can go.

But it’s easy to get windblown when you spend too much time coasting on these earthly winds. Even most nomadic tribes have periods of putting down roots in order to reconnect with the natural rhythm of earth around them and begin projects that take time to incubate in a familiar space. So it was that I found myself longing for a place to call home.

Exactly two days before the two year anniversary of when I originally left New Mexico, I arrived in Portland, OR with the intention of staying for at least a few months. I wanted to give myself the time to be a part of something much greater than myself. I wanted well-aged friendships, and the connectedness of community. I wanted a loving, lasting relationship. I wanted to start doing creative projects like painting, food carving, yoga and meditation, and healing my body. Both my head and heart were full of great aspirations!

But shortly after I landed, I started noticing how my interactions with people were very temporary. I had grown into a habit of expecting to move on in a few days or a couple weeks, so most of my conversations with people never lasted more than 5 or 10 minutes. The feeling inside of me had become, “If I’m just going to move on in a few days, why bother trying to create friendships.” I had become disconnected from the human connection. This depressed feeling, coupled with the continual lack of sunshine and almost daily rain, caused me to turn inward and start doing some excavation on the inside. I began questioning everything that normally made me happy or brought a smile to my face. I decided it was time to let go of all the frivolity and surface-level happiness in my being, and grind it all away so I was left with a blank slate.

At the end of December, I took a three week trip to Las Vegas to house sit and spend time with my dear friend Priti. It was so good for my soul to be back in the sunny desert, and spend lots of time with someone who makes me laugh till I cry. My heart started to open up, I began meditating every day, and I came back to Portland renewed and ready to start letting people in again.

The last couple months have been a gradual process of connecting in friendship and community. I’ve been partaking in lots of yoga, exercise, massages, energy work, and healthy food. There have been a surprising number of people who I’ve been opening up to in the last two months, and all of them are uniquely beautiful and special!

In the words of Christopher “Supertramp” McCandless: “Happiness is only real when shared.”

Most recently I’ve been working on matters of the heart, asking the universe for vulnerability and affection in a big way! So it was with such perfect timing that a friend shared a video with me yesterday on this very subject. Wow, being vulnerable is sooo necessary!

Brené Brown: The power of vulnerability

Here’s a few beautiful pictures near sunset as we drove from Ouray along Highway 90 into Utah. These pictures were mainly taken between the towns of Naturita and Paradox in the Paradox Valley. You can kind of see how we were entering a massive canyon/basin, and then finally climbed up the side to reach the plateau above. The moon was rising to the northeast, and the skies were shaded in the most incredible hues of colors. The final picture is (I think) the San Juan mountain range. I had stopped at the edge of one of the canyon switchbacks to take pictures of nature’s dusky light show and the beautiful valley below us. When I looked back and saw that mountain range, I let out a deep sigh — this was our last view of the majestic mountains of Colorado, and it felt like I was saying goodbye to a dear friend for a long time to come…

[View Slideshow]

I visited this area a couple years ago on a camping trip further up into the mountains with some friends. We spent a day hiking up into Yankee Boy Basin and to the top of Mt. Sneffels. Although I didn’t make it to the top, I had one of the most incredible experiences of my life meditating next to a high mountain lake which overlooked a vast basin below. Whenever I need to recall the feeling of “infinity”, I think back on that experience.

Here are some pictures of our drive from Orvis into Ouray.

[View Slideshow]

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The song is “You Make Me Feel” by Archive which you can download here

Into the Wild — A true story about Christopher McCandless, a young man on an amazing journey to escape the confines of society’s social and capitalistic oppression and find peace, solace and the meaning of existence in the beautiful poetry of nature. One of my favorite movies, and one that I watched again in the first couple months of my journey to help me open my eyes more to the endless possibilities of what lies on the road.

The Art of Travel — High school grad. Conner Layne is about to marry his first love, but when wedding plans fail, he goes solo on his honeymoon to Central America, finding adventure with a ragtag group of foreigners who attempt to cross the Darien Gap in record time. Not a great movie, but still entertaining to watch.

The National Parks: America’s Best Idea — A six episode series documentary about the history of the U.S. National Parks system, including the initial ideas which led to the world’s first national parks and the expansion of the system over 150 years. Really fascinating stories and imagery! This series inspired me to make it a priority to visit national/state parks and other places of nature on my journey.

Baraka by Ron Fricke — While this film/documentary has no narration or dialogue, there are a vast number of themes that this movie touches on, and the cinematography takes the viewer on a journey around the world to view spectacular nature scenes and get a glimpse of generally primitive and ancient cultures. And as I witnessed each new way of life, it got me thinking about my own journey and all the places I’ve seen and people I’ve met, and how so much of what makes this life worth living is getting to interact with other people and share experiences, stories and culture. And that makes me ask myself … what am I sharing with other people? What is my culture?

Really fun concept!

Getting to spend some time alone is great for the soul when you create the intention of using the time to take care of yourself. I’ve spent a lot of quiet time doing yoga and meditating, taking walks in nature, and soaking in nearby hot springs. It’s so easy when traveling to focus your awareness on the outside world and neglect the inner being. So these activities have brought my attention back to the “self” where I’m now getting to feel all the tiny (or large) pains and imbalances in my physical body and stretch or heal them, hear the subtle voice of the heart and give it the attention it needs, and have time to reflect and integrate on all the recent changes (growth) in my life during the last few months of my travels.

Every day I’ve been reading or listening to the Sikh prayer of Japji: The Song of the Soul. This poem was written by Guru Nanak Dev, the first of the ten Sikh Gurus, and encompasses his entire philosophy and teachings. More than any other thing that I’ve been doing lately, these daily recitations have brought a deep sense of peace, calm and sweetness to my life, and is perhaps the most significant inspiration for my recent desire to do yoga and meditation again (something I’ve been resisting for a very long time).

Listen to Japji Sahib by Chardhi Kala Jatha (19:47 minutes)

Japji Sahib opens with a hymn called the Mool Mantra which is said to be the first composition uttered by Guru Nanak Dev upon enlightenment at the age of about 30. This hymn perfectly describes the infinite nature of God which exists beyond time and space and transcends any religious association (or perhaps is universal to all religions). SikhDharma.org has a brief description of the Mool Mantra with a line-by-line translation and various audio recordings, or you can also read a deeply philosophical breakdown of this hymn at SikhiWiki.org.

“Give because God gives to you. Love because that is your purpose in life. Shine because it is important. Share because it is demanded of you. How can you do it? In Japji, Guru Nanak gave you guidance, telling you the way he found liberation, ‘In the ambrosial hour, meditate on the True Identity. Your karma will be covered and you will see the door of liberation.’”
- Yogi Bhajan, May 2, 2000