Excursions

The paradox is that in true interior ways, the only path to deep safety, that sea of inner peace, is through the shifting sands of risk. Risk opens safety. It doesn't shut it down. Only through the risk to open can we inhabit and receive the strength and fullness of what is whole.  This raises the very profound question of how to define self-protection. Is it hiding who you are or is it being who you are? Is it guarding yourself with all that you see or is it clearing yourself to let light in? Is it preparing yourself against all that can hurt you or is it opening yourself to all that can heal you? Nepo, Mark. The Book of Awakening: Having the Life You Want by Being Present to the Life You Have (20th Anniversary Edition) (p. 250). Red Wheel Weiser. Kindle Edition. 

Deer on Ride the Hurricane Hello!  Some time ago, I emailed you my very brief account of my crash on the 2022 Ride the Hurricane. Someone replied asking pertinent questions, but I lost the email.  Here it is again, in a little more detail.  About 11:50, riding back down from Hurricane Ridge, pretty much alone on this stretch of the road as my buddy K-Love was already down the hill. I saw a deer about 50 feet ahead of me, coming from the left crossing the road. She was a beautiful full-sized doe. She was walking at a decent pace. I intuited she would cross the road just before me. I pressed the brakes with medium force. She must have heard the whir of my bike tires for, as deer do when they hear sound, she stopped. Unfortunately for me, she stopped directly in my lane, about 5 to 10 feet in front of me. I squeezed the brakes hard, stopping the bike but not the rider. I flipped over the handlebars, bike still clipped on. The bike went up wheels to the sky and came crashing down on the pa