It's been 3 years since I was abducted.  I've struggled with it, slid easily through it, stumbled over it, and laughed at it.  There has been pain for sure, but more than that there has been peace and happiness.  Early on I learned how to be present, and how to sit with the discomfort, even during the abduction itself.  A switched flipped the moment they took me, and I knew there was no point in thinking of the past or wishing for the future, only the present mattered, especially because my life was on the line.
    When it was all said and done with, a sadness bubbled up within me where there had been extreme calm and focus.  Everything changed from extended clarity to a sticky black molasses ocean of discomfort that I couldn't swim out from.  Where was the shore?  Where was the feeling of the present?  Where was I, and why did it hurt so much?  I had felt so whole, so present, that even though it was during a moment of terror, I missed the clarity that I felt and the intensity that I had felt it.  It was a long road to healing and cultivating clarity on my own.
    Now, 3 years out, I don't miss it anymore.  I know how to find that feeling with ease and grace rather than forcing it into my life through tragedy and drama.  Did you know that things don't have to be hard?  That life can be easy and soft, and you can be soft in life even when life is showing it's fangs?  I learned this on the day that I was I was taken, and I've been practicing ever since then. I have recently come to yoga as one of my preferred ways of practice.  So here I am sitting and breathing, paying attention to my own inner world again.  It's a way for me to  check in with myself, find my sticky spots, angry, and sad spots and just sit with them.  I'm sure this sounds like it could drive a person crazy to just sit with something uncomfortable, but I find that when you do, you actually breathe life into that feeling and let it dance it's last steps.  It's like they are emotions and moments, frozen in mid tango just waiting for the music to start again, and the music is breath and stillness.
    I often find myself aware of a sticky spot that needs to speak.  I know that the more I relax, the more permission I am giving to that discomfort to just shake out and walk away.  Usually that's exactly what it does.  I'll feel an electric current rising up inside of me, reaching it's arms out like a lightning bolt to collect all of the stored emotion inside my bones and muscles, and then BAM!  Just like that it will all come pouring out, I'll shake, or scream, or cry, or laugh and it's gone.  It's a very similar experience to what would happen involuntarily during the first few months of recovery.  Over time I've learned to trust this feeling as an awesome healing gift of unstuckifying the emotional goo that gets deposited from trauma and life. 
    Back track five years, not really the total beginning of the lesson of calmness, but close enough to it.  I was feeling disjointed and unsure of myself in a way that drove me crazy.  I couldn't escape my discomfort, and I was only just beginning to learn to sit with it.  In a moment of clarity, I meditated on the matter and came to the realization that there are 3 distinct parts each person needs to nurture in order to be whole; the physical, mental, and spiritual.  It made such an impact on me that I tattooed 3 dots on my thumb to remind me to be kind to my three selves.
    After the abduction, I found myself coming back to those dots constantly.  I made sure to nurture each one carefully.  In the very beginning stages of recovery I recognized that I needed to reinvent myself to be the person I always dreamed of, because I had been stripped of so many of my ideas of who I was.  What do you do when your world crashes?  I figured I'd rebuild mine to be totally awesome.
    It's been 3 years since I was abducted.  Here I am, whole and healthy!  I'm still self reflecting, adventuring, and figuring out what of the old me gets to make a comeback, and what gets to take the back seat.  Fear is subsiding, adventurousness is on the rise, but I have a new found caution.  It's something that wasn't there before, but is becoming my friend rather than a perceived oppressor of fun.   I don't feel disjointed and unsure like I used to, and I don't feel terror and sadness like I did either.  It's not that those feelings will never reappear, because once they are yours they stay with you, but they won't have the same hold on me because I have found wholeness.  It's a state that loves and respects everything around it, and it's also a state that comes and goes like everything else.  The ebb and flow of life.  But for now I am here, and I will forever have this feeling to draw upon, even when I lose sight of the whole and return to nurturing my three selves.  Once it's yours, it's yours.  To  honor this insight, and the completion of my journey from 3 to 1, I have tattooed a single circle on my other thumb.

the post-spect

    It's been a month since I was abducted.  One month of looking at myself, looking at my edges and seeing where they are in relation to everything else.  When I took off for this trip I set out to be vulnerable, to be soft and loving, accepting and compassionate.  Balance was on my mind, harmony with my surroundings and a deep knowledge of myself.  Armor in the form of strength and stubborness wouldn't serve me, so I left it at home.  I set out to change myself, and that is exactly what I did.
   Thrashing, convulsing, twitching movements.  My head flings from side to side, eyes wide looking all around.  My jaw is locked open biting at something huge in the air, throat long, gurgling, grunting, sobbing, they all pour out without effort.  I gasp, I spit, I clench down and growl. There is an immensity to this, some kind of endless openness; raw, red, black, slimy, and sharp.  My ribs feel like they could crack open, shattering out of my body like they would prove the existence of my emotions. The ephemeral nature of emotions, their intangibility, is nullified in this experience.  Everything is visible.  Everything has weight and color.  My three selves, the physical, mental, and spiritual get dressed with me in the morning.  We are all here, taking up space, using three seats on the subway, using up more of your resources.  But we do it to unite.  We do it to heal.  We do it to teach.  And we do it with respect to ourselves. I breathe out deeply, letting my chest wheeze as it contracts to that point where there is nothing left.
  When I breathe in I get flooded with knowledge, flooded with lightness.  Everything makes sense and I feel giddy.  I drive down the road and pull over to stand in a puddle and look at the sun set.  I can feel my face curling up into a giant smile.  Laughing, head thrown back, hair whipping around in the wind, feet frozen in the cold spring water, I am experiencing the pureness of living.  The sun drops in the sky turning into that red-orange color tinged with gold.  It reflects in the water that has poured out into the field.  The swollen lake, full with the rain waters of the spring, glistens and mimics the setting sun.  We all reflect what we see.  We all mimic what's around us it tells me.  If you see the beauty and truth in yourself and act from that place, play with the world from that place, you will show someone the beauty and truth about themselves.  You will change the world.
    There's a muted thoomp thoomp thoomp in my ears. I listen to it and can suddenly feel it pulsing in every part of my body. It's the sound of my own blood pumping through my veins, the ebb and flow of my own inner world.  I feel the growing ball of desire exploding from my chest to let go, purge, create, transform, take back, and flow like a river through my soul. This is my journey.  This is my life. Swallowed up in flames, born again into the stars; into the light of the full moon rising over a desert in Mexico.

El Secuestro

I will write a short description in spanish first for all of my friends who have not been informed because it has all been in english.


   Primero, quiero que sepan que estoy bien de veras.  Hace unos dias yo fui secuestrada en Pozo de Gamboa, Zacatecas.  Me interceptaron dos hombres en un camioneta y se les echaron la bici detras y yo adentro.  Me cubrieron la cara con mi bufanda y me dijeron que iban a matar me y que querrian dinero.  Yo estuve tranquila, no llore, no grite, nada y eso me ayudo muchisimo.  Fuimos a un camino de terraceria y se prendieron una fogata y se les tiraron todas de mis cosas en el alumbre.  Se quemaron todo.  Me preguntaban por el nip de mi tarjeta de credito, y se les di.  Me quitaban de mis pants y uno intento a violar me, pero le dije que tengo sida (no es cierto) y me dejo.  Fuimos a un lugar en el desierto y quedo el alto con migo mientras se fue el chaparro para sacar dinero de un cajero automatico.  En el desierto el alto me dijo su nombre, donde vive, y que tiene 2 hijos y una esposa.  Es lo persona mas estupido que he encontrado.  Despues de una hora y media, el alto se prendio una fogata para el frio y me dejo.  No me dijo nada, solo se fue.  Yo pense, pues ahora es EL momento para irme, y yo fui caminando hasta pozo de gamboa para buscar ayuda.  Encontre algunas personas y una me presto su telefono para marcar a mis padres y un espacio en su casa.  En la mañana me llevo a la policia, y yo estuve con ellos y con migracion por mas que 30 horas.  Ahora estoy con unps amigos mientras espero para mi vuelo a los estados.  Y si tienes preguntas o quieres mas de la historia, manda me un mensaje y te cuento todo. 

   Ok, so here´s what happened:    First you all should know that I´m totally fine and that I´m also very safe.  A few days ago I was riding from Villa Santo Domingo in San Luis Potosi to the city of Zacatecas in the state of Zacatecas.  I was about 20 kilometers from the city and I had been riding all day, some 9 hours or so.  I stopped to take some photos at the bottom of a hill, Zacatecas is really fucking gorgeous, and a truck pulled up in front of my bike.  Two guys got out and grabbed my bike, threw it in the back of the truck, and threw me in the front.  I had managed to grab my gps and press the 911 button before they took me, which was a pretty lucky thing.  They covered my face with my scarf and shoved my head down so no one could see me in the truck.  They told me they wanted money, that they didn´t want me to say anything at all, and that they would kill me if I didn´t cooperate.  I stayed totally calm, I didn´t cry or scream and that helped me out a lot. One of the guys put the gps on the dashboard thinking it was a camera (what luck) until he inspected it further and figured out it was a satellite transmitter and that the cops were coming.  He threw it out the window and we headed down a dirt road.  They hopped out of the truck and searched me for money, asked me where my wallet was and how much money I had in it.  I had about 170 pesos, that´s like 15 dollars, not much.  They pulled off my shorts to rape me, but I told them I had aids (not true) and they decided it was a bad idea after a little while of arguing and my convincing them.  They lit a fire and threw all my stuff in it.  They burned everything except the bike and my wallet which had my passport, and bank cards in it.  I gave them my pin number and told them how to take money out of an atm, but they were the stupidest people I have ever met and weren´t able to do it.  We left the fire and they drove me into the desert where the tall one stayed with me and the short one went into town to try and get the money.  He led me through the desert by my hand while I was pantsless and running into every cactus that we went by.  We sat under a tree and I introduced myself, asked him who he was, talked about the stars, and smoked a cigarette.  He told me his name, where he lives, and that he has 2 kids and a wife.  Stupid fucker.  After an hour and a half or so of waiting for the other guy to get back, he asked me if I was cold and I said yes.  He lit a fire, and he walked away.  He didn´t say anything to me.  I waited and called out to him to make sure he was gone.  So after a few minutes I got up and started walking over the hill to see where I was.  I walked through a field and saw some lights of a town wich turned out to be Pozo de Gamboa.  I wandered into town half naked but wrapped in a blanket that the guy had left for me and started to knock on doors asking for help.  Everyone told me to go away, but I kept on walking and knocking.  Some people walked by and shined a flashlight in my face asking me what I was doing sitting on the doorstep of a house that wasn´t mine.  I told them to go away, it was a group of about 5 men and one woman.  I didn´t feel like dealing with any more men.  But they didn´t go away, and they softened up a bit so I told them my story and that I needed help.  One of them let me use his phone to call my parents, and then he offered me a spot in his house for the night.  He was a totally nice person and I stayed there with his daughter.  In the morning he brought me to the police station where I stayed filling out paperwork and being shoved around from one office to the other until I was brought to immigration.  I was in some stupid office for more than 30 hours and it was pretty frustrating and aweful to be stuck after being kidnapped.  They wouldn´t let me go outside, and really all I wanted to do was sit in the sun and relax.  Anyway, so after all of this I actually have a pretty positive outlook on the whole thing, and I´m staying with some incredible friends that are taking care of me.  This has been an amazing adventure and I have met some seriously awesome people and seen some incredible things.  It´s just too bad I can´t share the rest of my photos with you, Zacatecas is beautiful.  Take my word for it.  I have left out some details and some drama and if you´d like to know it send me a message and I´ll fill you in.  It makes a better verbal story than a written one, well really I just don´t have the energy to write it all.  Maybe some day. I´ll see you all in the coming week.  Adios.

Descend upon the desert

In crossing the mountains from Chamal to Tula I went from a pretty green place with rivers, and dropped out of the mountains into the desert.  It was as quick as that.  A few hundred feet and boom, sand, cactus, desert.  On my way from Tuña to Matehuala I stopped in a town called La Presa de Guadalupe where I was recieved by an extremely nice family who offered me a room in their house.  The next day I headed for Matehuala which is a good 120 km, most of which is on the autopista, a really big major highway.  It´s totally legal to ride your bike on the highway in Mexico.  Luckily there is also less traffic than a highway in the states, and the road is really wide.  I was pretty tired and thinking about finding a place to stay somewhere near town instead of pushing on, but I kept thinking that I should make it to km marker 180 for some reason.  And I did.  What did I find?  A white truck with 2 extremely nice people that offered me some water, took me out to dinner, and let me stay at their super nice ranch just outside of town.  I threw my bike in the back of the truck and we headed in to Matehuala for the last 20 km that remained.  Jorge, the person that let me stay at the ranch, turned out to be a bike enthusiast and bmx rider.  What luck!  I really can´t get over the amazing hospitality and warmth of the people that I meet here.  I am forever grateful for each and every one of the people that has helped me out along this trip.  It´s been amazing.  Today I made it to Real de Catorce, a ghost town in the mountains here in San Luis Potosi.  I´ll do some exploring tomorrow, and hopefully make it to Cerro El Quemado, but you have to walk or go on horse and I´m not too fond of horse tours.  We´ll see though.  After this I´´m off to Zacatecas.  I´ve had a cold for the last week, and I´m really hoping that it goes away soon.  It´s not really hindering my experience, but it annoying.  It´s sort of transformed into a sore throat today which is making my voice sound raspy and deeper than usual, which I secretly enjoy.  Maybe it will go away tomorrow.  Well, enjoy the photos and I´ll probably see you all in April.

Let`s start in El Naranjo, San Luis Potosi.  Here you will find las cascadas de meco y el salto de agua...sin agua.  There are carnicerias (meat stores, like a deli) all over the place making carnitas (little pieces of super fatty pork and fried fat) in giant tubs on the sidewalk.  Grease, salt, fatty meat.  It`s soooooo good.  Slap it on a tortilla or in a gordita with a salsa and some limon, oh gosh you`ve got heaven.  Ah, the sign that says Comedor Fatty is equivalent to a sign that says Diner, Fatty.  I don`t think they knew what fatty meant.  It`s the same as saying comedor grasosa.  Silly people.  I ate there though and had a really good mole.  This last week has been a good one, slower than I would have liked in terms of milage covered, but completly great otherwise.  I rolled into a town called Chamal a few days ago sin ganas to bike any more.  I was super tired and didn`t want to move my body one more inch.  I asked around for a place to put my tent and ended up at the house of the local pastor and his wife right next to the baptist church.  I put my tent down, climbed in and slept and slept.  I was planning on leaving the next day but I was still really tired and it was raining.  The family invited me to stay another day and they fed me and put me up in a room in their house.  I headed out to a nature reserve the next day to check out the views.  I got to the top, pitched my tent, ate some food, and went out looking for a way to get to the top of the mountain.  The road to the top is totally impassable by bike, and really far by foot, and really uncomfortable by vehicle.  A truck ride or 4 wheeler ride to the top is somewhere in the range of 1500 pesos.  Hell no I wasn`t going to pay that!!!  I ran into a cop while I was looking for an internet cafe and talked with him a while, he was on a 4 wheeler.  And what do you know but the next day I got a ride to the top with that same cop for free.  Oh what luck!   The next day I headed out again and stayed with the family in chamal again.  I wasn`t going to, but they spotted me on the road and we got to talking and they invited me to eat and then it was late and I stayed.  This morning I hit the road to Tula, the beginning of the desert.  I put in somewhere around 60 kilometers of straight mountain climbing and I`m pretty beat.  For the first time in over a week I`m staying in a hotel, but oh gosh is it awesome to take a shower!!!  So, here are the photos of the last while.  Tomorrow I`m headed to real de catorce...it will probably take me a few days to get there, but I will get there.

La ruta del agua

 I´ve been riding north for a while now, with the sun always on my back. I´ve got an even tan going on from right to left, none of that one sided tan for me. There are mountains that shoot up to the sky and rivers that wind through valleys. Looking at a map of where I am and then riding through it is fascinating. I know in my mind where all of the mountains are and I can picture myself pedaling along the valley headed towards the next pass. The landscape of the world is much like if someone put a piece of plastic wrap on a wet balloon and then scrunched it a little bit. Everything would rise in crinkly peaks leaving behind smooth valleys. Who is squished the landscape in the first place? There is always something to think about while I´m riding along, and sometimes I find myself in a completely meditative trance and I pedal along. Sometimes my legs scream at me, especially in the morning, but there´s a power that the mind has over the body that is most incredible. This power is on that we are all familiar with, it´s the easiest one to notice. You have to pee and there´s no bathroom, you hold it. You just want to get to your bed and sleep but you live on the fourth floor, you keep climbing the stairs. The power that the body has over the mind is a more subtle thing, and something that is really fun to learn. You go and you go and you go and all the sudden your body is the one that´s doing the thinking and your mind shuts up. Normally your brain chatters along right? But when you do a repetative action for long enough it gets quiet and you can listen more closely to the things around you. I could just go on pedaling for a long time. This last week I´ve been following a bunch of rivers, and camping out at the cascades along the way. It´s gorgeous and full of life and neat things to look at. The food is amazing and I find myself really glad that I´m always hungry because I just want to taste it all. The only part of my body that is consitantly sore are my hands. I think they have some deep tissue bruises that just won´t go away. But really it´s a small inconvenience. I have a thousand photos of the water around here, but I´ll only share the ones that are the best. I really love taking photos and I´m looking forward to learning more about it, but really I don´t like taking landscape photos. They don´t inspire me really and it´s too bad because that´s really all I have to share these days. I could shoot other photos, the kind that I like taking, but they require a more close inspection of where I´m at and since I´m going going going it´s hard to get that perspective. Maybe I´ll stop for a minute and hang out in another town. Tomorrow I head to the state of Tamaulipas (which boarders the US by the way) Maybe I´ll just bike home. No, I think not. I would like to see Real de Catorce in the desert and a few other places here before I leave. Enjoy the photos.