Hello, friends. I’m writing to you on this full moon from the Spring Mountains just north of Las Vegas, Nevada, after a week in the Mojave National Preserve.

I’ve moved to higher elevations as the lower desert valleys have been warming.

Before the heat hit, I was camped near the Algodones Dunes Wilderness west of Yuma, Arizona, and at the Salton Sea in California. I met other travelers in both places which I’ll write about soon.

I’ll also begin posting shorter Field Notes in between. There is so much to share…

The Mojave National Preserve is a remote desert wilderness filled with vast bajadas, rugged mountains, and Joshua Tree forests that stretch for miles, larger, even, than in Joshua Tree National Park. With hotter, drier weather, and less rainfall due to climate change, many Joshua Trees have been dying at lower elevations as they rely on specific moisture levels and cold temperatures for their life cycle. So, in their infinite wisdom, the trees are slowly migrating north, seed by seed.

As artist-researcher Juniper Harrower cautions, however, their survival is still fragile and uncertain; the trees are mutually dependent on a single species of yucca moth for pollination, and the moths are not as active in the upper regions of the Mojave Desert.

The desert is named for the Mojave Indian Tribe, or Pipa Aha Macav, “The People By The River,” original stewards of this land.

Like the Joshua Trees, the Pipa Aha Macav were also displaced by changing conditions due to colonialism, and faced cultural erasure by the US government. Today, the Tribal Nation is healing and creating opportunities for families to thrive on reservation land spanning Arizona, California, and Nevada on the banks of the Colorado River.1

Rough Roads May Exist

While hiking into Cedar Canyon in the Preserve, I came across this sign:

Indeed.

As a friend said wryly when I showed her, “No Doubt.”

In the wilderness, though, it’s an important warning, a vital heads up.

It means: Slow Down. Pay Attention. Take Good Care.

This is not to be taken lightly. There’s no cell signal in this part of the Mojave Desert. Getting stranded due to a broken axle or blown tire is more than inconvenient – the combination of heat and solitude can be life-threatening.

When I’m driving and see a sign like this, I automatically do a safety check:

Does the bus have high enough clearance? Are my tires in good shape? How much fuel is in the tank? If I get stuck, do I have what I need to get unstuck? Do I have enough food and water in case I’m stranded awhile? Does my emergency contact know where I am?

Even when walking, it’s a reminder of the risk. During my hike, another traveler in a pickup truck stopped to make sure I was ok. He peered at my pack and asked if I had enough water. It’s rare to see someone walking alone here and often signals a vehicle breakdown.

I had plenty of water with me and other emergency gear, though I was grateful for his care.

Desert dwellers look out for each other.

As I walked further into the Joshua Trees and brittle bush, I thought about another interpretation of the sign:

Rough Roads May Exist

May. As in maybe. But maybe not.

We won’t really know until we get there.

How many of us, anticipating a rough road, a rough day, a rough conversation, automatically brace ourselves or start to worry out of fear of how things might go.

Or we catastrophize, predicting it’s going to be awful. Or, at least, not fun.

As we’ve likely all discovered, this just makes things worse, before we even get there. Which also makes us less resilient and less able to respond well to whatever may come. Or to help others. The story we tell ourselves about the road ahead changes our experience of the road itself.

It’s a variation on what physicist John Wheeler called “the participatory universe,” following Niels Bohr and Max Planck’s work in quantum mechanics. “We weave the fabric of the universe,” Wheeler said, “out of billions upon billions of acts of observer-participancy.”

Is the road actually rough, or is it us?

In Zen, we call this the second arrow. There’s what’s happening – we read a sign that says “Rough Roads May Exist” – and then there’s the feedback loop with all the feelings, preferences, ideas, and judgments that arise in us about what is happening. I did a drawing once of all the extra arrows I was adding to a situation – well over 40 arrows! None were based in reality.

This is where meditation and mindfulness practice can be very practical. It helps me do what the sign tells me to do: Slow Down. Pay Attention. Take Good Care.

As in, take good care of my mind. I’ve realized if I don’t take care of my mind on a regular basis, it quickly goes sideways and starts making up all kinds of things.

But when I slow down and pay attention to whatever I’m experiencing – including fear – I’m not caught by the feedback loop as much. I can stay open to whatever arises and respond as needed. As the saying goes, I don’t make a mountain out of a molehill.

So, Rough Roads May Exist.
But maybe not.

Then again…

Maybe so.

Some roads are, indeed, rough.

No spiritual bypassing here. Sometimes a mountain is actually a mountain. And we have to make our way over the rocks and through the pass.

Life is going to be rough for all of us - humans, Joshua trees, yucca moths - at some point. It may be for you right now.

A dear friend of mine is going through cancer treatment. Every day, she and her husband drive an hour to the Cancer Center for radiation, tests, and consultations with the docs and then back home. Only to return the next day to do it all over again. Although the treatment seems to be helping, it is painful and all-consuming.

Another friend in Minneapolis-St. Paul shared with me today how exhausted and frayed everyone is there. They have been living through months of vigilance, community organizing, and safety patrols to protect immigrants, school children, and each other from unlawful ICE detentions and violence during Operation Metro Surge and in the weeks afterward.2

For many, rough is a privileged understatement. Especially those who are unsheltered, hungry, or at risk of being displaced or killed, or have experienced abuse or trauma in their life.

The world is also becoming increasingly more unstable and unpredictable. From forests dying to war and violent conflict on the rise to the everyday trials of being human and being alive, this sign is a vital reminder for all of us:

Slow down. Pay Attention. Take Good Care. Look out for one another.

The truth is, we don’t ever know what the road ahead will bring.

Some roads we think are going to be fine, aren’t.

Two weeks ago, as I was driving on I-15 toward Las Vegas on a beautiful sunny Nevada morning — BANG!!!, a huge blast suddenly rocked the bus. I grabbed the steering wheel as a tire tread flew down the highway in my rearview mirror. I was able to pull off safely at an exit ramp into a Chevron station and took a look at the damage.

Fortunately, it was one of the rear tires and the Elephant is a dually (double rear wheels). If it had been one on the front, things might have gone a lot differently. But still… scary!

Within a few hours, Giovanni with LV Road Tec Semi Truck Repair came to the rescue with a new tire, and I had enough in my emergency fund to take care of what was needed.

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The cats and I were back on the road later that afternoon. But it certainly wasn’t the day I expected.

I had hoped to get through Las Vegas and into the mountains before the temperature got too hot. Instead, we ended up stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic downtown at 4pm next to the Mandalay Bay Casino. With no AC in the Elephant, it was well above 100°F inside. I poured water over my head and soaked Mieko’s fur to cool us both off (he rides on my lap). Thomas tucked himself in the shoe closet where he was more protected from the heat.

We made it to a camp spot just as the sun set; “rode hard and put up wet” as they say in Texas. It was quite the wild ride, to say the least.

Throughout my pilgrimage, I’ve learned things can change at any moment. To let go of any expectations. And to find the excitement in the uncertainty. I wonder what’s going to happen next?!

Some days I’m better at that than others.

My mother lived in fear of uncertainty her whole life. She would collapse into tears or rage if something felt out of her control or went wrong. Not surprising, as she was often abused by her mother as a child and felt little safety in her early life. Sadly, she never had the opportunity to heal from this trauma, though she did find some comfort in being with animals. It was much easier for her to relate with them than with people, I think.

In her later years, she rarely went out of the house to keep things as safe and predictable as possible.

Rough roads in life are inevitable, though. Personally, collectively, globally.

I’ve learned through her life and my own that if I try to avoid it, brace against it, get angry, suppress my feelings, or catastrophize, I’m just making things harder on myself and others.

There’s only so long we can argue with reality.

Reality always wins.

And the road is still the road.

Where might it take us? What might it have to show us?

One of my closest friends went through a difficult break up recently with her long-term partner. She knew she needed to end the relationship for awhile but couldn’t bring herself to do it – she cares for him deeply and didn’t want to hurt him. She was also afraid of how he might react and didn’t know if she would be ok living on her own.

In the meantime, despite seeing counselors and trying to work through things, they grew more stagnant, impatient, and resentful with each other. Feeling stuck, my friend was unable to sleep at night. And started isolating at home in despair during the day.

Eventually, out of desperation, she had the hard conversation she needed to have. Afterward, she called me, sobbing. And is now facing the painful logistics of disentangling two lives deeply entwined with each other.

Amidst the difficulty, though, there is healing.

For both of them, who I love dearly.

They are each moving forward in ways they couldn’t manage to figure out together. And, though weepy and wobbly, as she puts it, my friend sees how resisting out of fear had blocked her energy and created her despair. By accepting the change that felt inevitable, she is now experiencing more spaciousness and freedom in her heart, with gratitude for all that life has to offer. She has been meeting up with friends, playing music, mulching the garden, and just landed a new client project.

Although what comes next is still uncertain, she feels hopeful, lighter and more at peace. The path she dreaded turned out to be the greatest gift.

How often do we make the road rougher than it needs to be?

Or avoid it altogether and miss out on where it might lead?

Down the many rough roads I’ve been on in the White Elephant, I’ve found the most sacred places. Secret soaking pools above Sitting Bull Falls. The Needle at the crest of Gold Canyon in the Superstition Mountains.

And now, the Joshua Trees of the Mojave Desert, on a pilgrimage of their own.

A sign of wisdom

There is a famous Zen koan, “How do you go straight on a road with 99 curves?”

When working with koans, the practice is to “become the koan.” When on a road with 99 curves, be on a road with 99 curves. Fully. What’s that like? How does that feel?

Wisdom is meeting the road that is, just as it is. Not the road that we think will be. Or another road we wish we were on instead.

Compassion is accepting, wholeheartedly, that right now, it’s like this, and taking care of whatever is needed.

Last Thursday, a devastating fire destroyed the historic wooden meditation hall at Tassajara in Big Sur, California, one of the oldest Zen Buddhist monasteries in the US. The zendo collapsed and burned to the ground along with a 2000-year-old Buddha statue that survived a previous fire and other irreplaceable relics. Monks and residents fought the flames but were unable to extinguish them in time.

After an initial post on social media by the Sangha about the terrible loss, the Abbot shared this message on Tuesday:

Good morning. Tassajara practice continues uninterrupted. The Sangha is resilient. Monks sit zazen now in the Retreat Hall. Canyon wrens sing on the Kaisando roof in the morning, frogs chant along Carvaga Creek at night. Gratitude to the Buddhas and Ancestors, the mountains and waters, for this liberative Way of life.

As the Irish Blessing goes, may the road rise up to meet you.

And, like the wise Joshua Trees, the Pipa Aha Macav, the monks… may we meet the road that is, together.

♥️

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—
Images by Sam Sokyo.

Warm greetings friends, and welcome to everyone who subscribed recently.

I’m currently camped near the Algodones Dunes Wilderness just west of Yuma, AZ, following a stop in El Centro, CA for resupply and repair of a broken strut on the bus tailpipe.

In this first moon cycle of the New Year, with the escalation of imperialism, violence, turmoil, and suffering in the US and throughout the world, I feel called to write about a different pilgrimage.

Many of you have likely heard by now of the monks and their Walk for Peace from their temple in Fort Worth, Texas to Washington, DC. They are walking 20-30 miles per day on a 120-day 2300-mile pilgrimage, led by the Venerable Bhikkhu Pannakara and loyal Peace Dog, Aloka. For much of the route, the monks are following the Freedom Riders Trail, offering prayers and compassion to honor the sacrifices in the ongoing civil rights movement. Today, Day 80, the monks will walk from Great Falls, South Carolina to Rock Hill. They are due to arrive in the nation’s capital around February 11^th.

Alongside the (male) monks are equally dedicated lay women practitioners cooking, feeding, and tending to the monks at every stop and to the many people who greet them along the way. Taking care of whatever is needed.

The crowds along their route have been growing as more people hear of the monks’ walk. Some bow deeply in reverence when they come into view while others cheer. Many have tears on their faces as the monks pass by.

Over 1.1 million people are now following the walk on social media, which is filled with comments on the monks’ compassion, perseverance, and humility, and messages of hope for change and transformation.

There is a deep longing for peace in every one of us.

Peace for ourselves. Peace for our world.

At every stop along the way, the monks offer a peace sharing on loving-kindness, forgiveness, and the basics of mindfulness. The talk is wonderful. Simple stories in everyday language with gentle humor and practices that all ages can hear and receive. They’ve shared this talk with hundreds of people in packed high school gymnasiums, in city parks, on the steps of state courthouses, in recreation centers and public plazas.

Each time, quietly and clearly, offering the same simple message at the end:

Studies suggest that after 64 days, a new habit can be established. Yet we often return to old patterns. Every day, we must commit ourselves to peace.

Every morning, try this: take out a piece of paper and write “today is going to be my peaceful day.” Read this out loud after you write it and hold it in your heart throughout the day. At night review your day and see where you were or weren’t peaceful. And then take care of your peace even more the next day.

The weather is so cold, tomorrow will be colder. The monks are walking toward Washington under harsh conditions and deeply need your companionship. If you cannot walk in person, please walk in your heart with us, every day.

Can you do that?

May you and all beings be well, happy and peaceful. 🙏

- excerpt from a peace sharing by Bhikkhu Pannakara, Day 64, December 28

The Embodiment of Peace

In larger cities, the monks are welcomed like rockstars. People run and jostle each other to get a look, cell phones held high. The monks have been almost overrun by crowds at times, so a police escort has formed with flashing lights in surreal contrast to the monks’ steady, silent, persistent walk for peace.

While some have been disturbed by the frenetic energy and desire to follow and “capture” the monks for videos, selfies and live-streams, the monks themselves offer a different approach:

The Loud and The Silence -

We have been greeted in quiet woods where only birdsong broke the silence, and along roadsides where the hum of passing cars became part of the blessing. We have been welcomed by small gatherings of a few gentle souls, and by crowds of thousands whose voices rose like a wave—recently, magnificently, unforgettably.

Sometimes the greeting arrives in whispers. Sometimes it arrives in joyful noise that fills the air and shakes the ground beneath our feet.

And we have come to understand something beautiful: there is no single way to express love, no prescribed form for peace to take when it moves through a human heart seeking connection….

While we gently encourage a more mindful and quieter way of greeting when possible, we deeply appreciate every welcome we receive. What matters most is that we come together—however that looks, however that sounds—because peace has called us, and love has made us brave enough to answer.

We cherish every welcome, in all its many forms. Thank you all so much for walking with us on this path of peace.

May you and all beings be well, happy, and at peace. 🙏

Walk for Peace December 30, 2025

They continue to give gentle guidance each day on how to welcome the monks with care but do not criticize or turn anyone away.

They meet us and welcome us just as we are.

In doing so, they have united all walks of life. Black and white. Young and old. Left and Right. Law enforcement and social activists stand peacefully side by side, instead of turned against each other.

When I see those police officers embracing the monks and quietly protecting them, I see their longing for real peace, too.

Unfortunately, we don’t all agree on what it means to be peaceful.

Pacifism is not Passivism

The illusion of peace is currently being weaponized by our government leaders and federal agents who demand obedience and compliance, as it has been used for centuries in the US to silence and oppress Black and brown people. Martin Luther King Jr. called this “a negative peace.”

Peace isn’t passive. What is it, then?

Zen teacher and writer Eve Marko wrote recently about Steven Miller’s comments in an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper: “We live in a world, in the real world, Jake, that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world since the beginning of time.”

In other words, peace through strength.

But we don’t all agree on what strength is either. Or force. Or power.

And the “iron laws of the world since the beginning of time” denies the reality that nothing is fixed. Iron itself rusts and disintegrates.

What about the strength and power of compassion?

One of my favorite books is Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time. In the story, a teen girl, Meg, her friend Calvin, and her younger brother Charles-Wallace travel through space and time to try to rescue their father from a destructive, all-encompassing force known as “IT.” When Charles-Wallace also succumbs to IT, Meg is almost blinded by hatred and rage. But then she realizes this is what IT wants – that IT knows all about hate. As she finds the strength of clarity in her anger, she discovers a power greater than anything that IT might have:

“Suddenly she knew. She knew!

Love.

That was what she had that IT did not have.

She had Mrs. Whatsit’s love, and her father’s, and her mother’s, and the real Charles Wallace’s love, and the twins’, and Aunt Beast’s.

And she had her love for them.

It is the radical, fierce, unconditional power of love – imperfect, human, messy, embodied love – that enables Meg to overcome the seemingly insurmountable force of IT. (I’ll leave it to you to read the book to find out what happens if you haven’t yet.)

Now, I’m not naïve. Love can’t stop a bullet or end all the violence in the world. The monks themselves teach this. The practice of love and peace doesn’t get rid of all our difficulties. But it does make them less difficult.

And love can tip the balance of power toward peace.

It helps me listen more. To see the good in others, no matter what. To care. To speak up. To stand up for others. To keep going.

Love is what has moved abolitionists and civil rights activists throughout time to act. Love is at the root of the people's uprising underway right now in Iran. And love is in the hearts of everyone in cities across the US today putting themselves at risk to protect and support those who are vulnerable, while scores of lawyers and advocates work to affirm the rights and safety of all people, undocumented immigrants and citizens alike.

Love changes how we show up in the world. Which does, in fact, change the world.

What kind of world do we want to live in?

I’m reminded of the story of A. J. Muste, a Dutch-born American minister, leader of the American labor movement, and life-long pacifist.

After a lifetime of pastoral care and union organizing, he stood in front of the White House night after night for years during the Vietnam War, holding a lighted candle in a one-person vigil.

One very rainy night, a reporter asked him, “Mr. Muste, do you really think you are going to change the policies of this country by standing out here alone at night with a candle?”

He replied softly: “Oh I don’t do this to change the country. I do this so the country won’t change me.”

We’re Going to Need More Monks

In the first week of January, with the US President threatening aggression against our communities as well as several countries, and ICE agents forcefully abducting people and shooting others in the streets, several people on social media wrote “We’re gonna need more monks.”

At first I chuckled. Indeed. Then I realized this is entirely the monks’ message:

Some people may doubt that our walk can bring peace to the world—and we understand that doubt completely. But everything that has ever mattered began with something impossibly small. A single seed. A first mindful breath. A quiet decision to take one step, then another.

Our walking itself cannot create peace. But when someone encounters us—whether by the roadside, online, or through a friend — when our message touches something deep within them, when it awakens the peace that has always lived quietly in their own heart — something sacred begins to unfold.

One step becomes two. Two become a thousand. A thousand become countless. And slowly, gently, persistently—not through grand gestures but through ten thousand small acts of love—we can help make the world more peaceful.

This is our hope. This is our offering. This is why we walk.

May you and all beings be well, happy, and at peace.

Walk for Peace Jan 4, 2026

Norman Fischer encourages us that the world could be otherwise. But “to go beyond the possible to the impossible, we need to imagine it.”

The monks have the courage and audacity to show us what is possible, embodying peace, no matter what, in a world driven by greed, hatred, and delusion, so we can imagine it, too.

They are walking thousands of miles to offer peace to everyone without fail, in freezing temperatures, under blazing sun, in the darkness, on hard asphalt and cold ground. Three of the monks have chosen to walk barefoot and now have tape on their toes and soles wrapped in bandages. The meal crews wash pots in the rain and set up tables to feed the crowds while bundled against the cold with boots caked in mud.

One of the monks was severely injured after a car on the highway ran into their support vehicle which then struck the monks as they were walking by the roadside in Texas. His leg was eventually amputated. He said he considers this an offering for peace as news of the accident helped bring more awareness about their walk.

The fatigue shows on their faces. More and more, every day. Their bodies are becoming thinner with every mile, their steps more labored.

Yet, amid tremendous stress and sacrifice, they keep going.

And they invite us to join them in walking for peace in our hearts and minds and lives so we can bring a different world into being, together.

The seeds of peace aren’t going to plant themselves.

Thanissara, a Dharma teacher in the Thai Forest tradition, wrote recently that “we are, in truth, the immune response of the Earth, rising.”

How strong is our immune response?

When I set out on pilgrimage, I made a vow to meet everyone and everything with an open heart. That means everyone. (Read Kaira Jewel Lingo’s Love Letter to an Ice Agent for a powerful example of this.) And yet, there are still many times when I’m lazy, preferring my bed over the meditation cushion, or I avoid organizing for change because it feels too difficult and I am too comfortable.

But then I remember, peace isn’t passive. And love gives us the courage, strength, and power to keep going.

The monks are showing us: to cultivate peace within ourselves and the world, to activate the immune response that is so needed, we have to walk the walk.

What is it that we are willing sacrifice – to offer, to dedicate, to set forth as sacred – to create the kind of world we want to live in?

Taking even one breath when we feel angry or upset can feel impossible. And it can make all the difference.

Whatever it is that is yours and mine and each of ours to do, whether it is taking a breath for peace, writing for peace, feeding people for peace, organizing for peace, running for office for peace, joining a mutual-aid effort for peace or taking to the streets for peace and putting our bodies and lives on the line — how far are we willing to go for peace?

The monks are watering the seeds of peace in all of us.

What we do with those seeds – whether we continue to water them, feed them, grow them in ourselves and others, and in our world – is up to us.

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How to follow and support the Walk for Peace:

• dhammacetiya.com/walk-for-peace/

• walkforpeace.short.gy/overview-map

• live map - today’s walk
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• facebook.com/walkforpeaceusa/

• instagram.com/walkforpeace.usa/

• tiktok.com/@walkforpeaceusa

• Quang Đạo is the lay devotee who handles the Walk of Peace social channels, and writes the tender and honest reflections for each post.
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• facebook.com/alokathepeacedog/

• instagram.com/alokathepeacedog/
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• zeffy.com/en-US/donation-form/support-the-walk-for-peace-2300-miles-of-hope

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For much of the Walk for Peace, the monks are following the Freedom Riders Trail where Zen Peacemakers also pilgrimage every year to bear witness to racism in America. The next one is April 23-27, if you are called and able to join.

“No wo/man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and s/he’s not the same wo/man.”

– Heraclitus (as paraphrased by others) c. 500 BC

12.21.2025 / Winter Solstice

Thanks for your patience while I’ve been off radar for a bit.

The cats and I are currently camped on a ridge in the Anza Borrego Desert in California overlooking the Coyote Mountains Wilderness, a half-hour from the southern US border.

The short days, long nights, and low angle of the Solstice sun are palpable in the hermitage. I’ve had to ration power lately with much less intake from the solar panels. Last night was also the new moon, so I’ve been extra steeped in darkness.

During the past few months of travels, I’ve been creating a new website for Bread Loaf Mountain Zen Community in Vermont. Their practice of Community Zen is deeply inspiring, and so needed (read Buddha Bows to Buddha by Sensei Joshin Byrnes to learn more).

I’m excited to begin writing and sharing with you more regularly now.

Look for my Field Notes in your inbox on the new and full moon of each month, and others in between.

Right Now It’s Like This

For most of October, I was camped in Utah on a plateau above the Black Ridge Canyons Wilderness just west of Grand Junction and the Colorado state line.

There were several weeks with torrential downpours – rare in Utah. I moved to a rocky outcropping so the bus wouldn’t sink into the mud and settled in for the soggy days.

Overnight the canyons and juniper trees that had been filled with sunshine were shrouded in mist and fog straight out of a Chinese painting (see Shen Zhou’s Poet on a Mountain Top for a great example). One morning, the clouds parted briefly and a brilliant rainbow stretched beyond belief across the dark sky. The valley below gleamed gold for an instant until the brooding gray returned once more. Everything felt dream-like. Ancient. Prehistoric.

Once the rains cleared and the road dried out, I headed south to Butler Wash in Bears Ears National Monument, with a short detour in Moab to get a tire fixed and hang out with the full moon over Elephant Butte in Arches National Park.

From there, it was on to Valley of the Gods in southern Utah, mid-November.

And then, Kofa National Wildlife Refuge in western Arizona for most of December, a little south of the Valley of Fire in eastern Nevada.

Life is a little like that, isn’t it?

From the Valley of the Gods to the Valley of Fire — one day we’re in heaven, the next in hell. Sometimes both at once. One moment I’m rolling down the road, the next, I’m stranded with a flat tire. Rainy days and rainbows.

On so-called “ordinary” days, it can be easy to be lulled by the routine of life. Each day seems like every other day. When it is anything but.

In Zen, we practice noticing and experiencing the aliveness and freshness of each moment, no matter what is happening.

Living in the wild, it’s impossible to miss. Every place that I camp, the morning sun shines through a different window; the moon rises over a new mountain ridge. Even when I’m in one spot for a while, everything is always changing — the shadows move across the canyon through the day; the temperature drops at dusk; the sudden dampness signals an incoming storm; a gust of wind whips my blanket across the rocks.

Every day, every moment, unlike any other.

—

I’m reminded of Funes the Memorious, a famous short story by Jorge Luis Borges I read in my early 20’s.

After falling off a horse and hitting his head, Funes suddenly gained the ability to perceive and remember everything in perfect detail.

“…before that rainy afternoon when the blue-gray horse threw him, he had been what all humans are: blind, deaf, addle-brained, absent minded. For nineteen years he had lived as one in a dream: he looked without seeing, listened without hearing, forgetting everything, almost everything.

When he fell, he became unconscious; when he came to, the present was almost intolerable in its richness and sharpness.”

Every experience became vivid, each moment unforgettably unique — words and concepts were meaningless abstractions.

“Not only was it difficult for him to understand that the generic term ‘dog’ could embrace so many disparate individuals of diverse size and shapes, it bothered him that the dog seen in profile at three-fourteen would be called the same dog at three-fifteen seen from the front.

His own face in the mirror, his own hands surprised him every time he saw them.”

Now, as the story says, this was “almost intolerable.” Funes was lost in a life of never-ending detail. Borges himself called it “one long metaphor for his own (dreaded) insomnia”.

But, as a young person, the possibility that I could experience life like Funes was liberating.

Is the dog at 3:14 the same as the dog at 3:15?

Am I?

The closer I look, the more I can see, like Funes, that I’m not. My body, my emotions, my very sense of self. It’s all changing, all the time.

The sunlight on my skin. The flush in my face. The pain in my hip. The tears on my cheek. The butterflies in my stomach. The weight of my head on the pillow. Longing, boredom, joy, fear, anger, awe.

Each moment arising and passing away.
Over and over and over again.

Right now - and only now - it’s like this.

Last night, making my way in the darkness to dig a cathole to pee before sleep, I stop to gape at the stars, and see my friend, the Big Dipper. The ladle is vertical now, pouring itself out to the earth below. The other night it was arched sideways across the horizon holding its cup up to the moon.

I turn back to the earth to continue digging, then squat. My urine streams below me into the dirt. I feel the chill of the night air on my bare skin and the cool desert rocks beneath my fingers. They were warm to the touch just two hours before.

Each moment, alive and fresh, unlike any other. It’s astonishing, really.

Right now, its like this.
meh

Right now, it’s like this.
rrrrrrggggggghh!!!!!!

Right now, it’s like this.
aaahhhhhh!

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—
images by Sam Sokyo

In 2022, I set out on wandering retreat in a hermitage-on-wheels called the White Elephant with my two cats, Mieko and Thomas. So far, I’ve traveled over 19,000 miles throughout the North American West and have met people from all walks of life along the way.

We share meals and water, coffee and card games. Songs on the ukulele. Directions to the soup kitchen. Longing. Love. And loss.

Being alive, being human, together.

In the wake of the Full Sturgeon Moon, I’m happy to begin sharing my pilgrimage with you here and also launching my website sokyo.life.

To be a pilgrim is to meet every day, every person, every place, every moment for the first time. To step into the vastness of life — unpredictable, undefined, unfamiliar. With all of its joy and pain.

On this retreat into the world, I have made a vow to meet everyone and everything with an open heart — including myself. Easier said than done!

Fortunately, the practice of pilgrimage has a way of cracking us wide open.

While you may not be called to become a wanderer like me, you can meet your life with this same spirit. Moment by moment. Step by step. Breath by breath. In doing so, you may discover the vast intimacy of your own life.

Realizing our aliveness is a process of deep love, healing, and liberation, and a powerful antidote for the collective overwhelm and cultural dissociation that many are experiencing.

I hope what I share here encourages your aliveness and contributes to your life in a meaningful way.

In Clouds and Water, I’ll post field notes from my travels — journal entries, sound recordings, videos, photography, art, and poetry — and writings on the art of being and the practice of pilgrimage. I’ll also offer meditation and mindfulness practices and reflections on my experiences with Zen Buddhist practice. And, of course, stories about the cats and their adventures in the wild!

I’d love to hear about the pilgrimage of your life, too. Write to me in Dear Pilgrim and I’ll reply when I am able. If something emerges in our conversation that feels worth sharing, I may feature it in future posts.

Thank you to everyone who has subscribed already. For those visiting for the first time, I hope you enjoy what you find here and invite you to subscribe so you can receive my posts in your inbox and updates on my travels.

You can learn more about me and my other offerings at sokyo.life, and follow my travels on instagram @samsokyo as well.

According to the Farmer’s Almanac, the Sturgeon Moon symbolizes abundance, late summer, and the wisdom, intuition and perseverance of the sturgeon, an ancient and resilient fish. The August moon is also known as the Flying Up Moon, a Nêhiyawak (Cree) term describing the time when young birds are finally ready to take the leap and learn to fly, and the Ricing Moon (Anishinaabe) signifying that this is the time to gather maturing crops.

An auspicious time for taking this leap.

In the coming days, I’ll share a few more posts to give you a feel for what’s to come. Ongoing, I’ll post on the Full Moon and New Moon of each month, with shorter dispatches in-between.

Alms for the People

I offer everything freely by donation as part of my vows. If you feel moved to support my pilgrimage, you can become a paid subscriber, or offer a donation on my website at any time, or make a contribution for one of my artworks.

By contributing, you also support the many people I meet along the way — fellow travelers, many with far less resources or opportunities than I have. I offer what I can for whatever is needed. Friendship. Connection. A hot meal. A warm blanket. A ride to the next town. Propane. Water. Oranges from my basket. Money, when I am able.

I am deeply grateful for all contributions so I may continue my travels and service, and for all the ways my life is supported by so many. May all be nourished equally.

Most of all, thank you for reading and being here. I look forward to connecting with you in the comments and chat, and bringing you along with me into the wilderness of being.

with love,
Sam Sokyo ❤️

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photos
˄ Freemont Gorge Wilderness Study Area, Torrey, Utah / NW of Capitol Reef
˯ Butler Wash, Bears Ears National Monument