Many years ago, when I first heard of tonglen, I thought it would take a brave person to offer it, because it is a giving, generous practice. I mean, you’re willing to breathe in pain and suffering of the worst sort, the creepiest, most frightening thoughts – breathe them in – and, what? breathe them out fresh and new? I tried it tentatively, and even reached a place where I was able to coach myself: “It’s only breath, it can’t hurt you.”

But last week, standing at a wall of windows, watching a full moon rise and light a huge swath of the Bay, we practised tonglen. It wasn’t a planned activity in our “Building a Compassionate Practice” gathering, but we had decided to meet even without Gillian, and I was wondering what was on everyone’s minds. Zoe talked about a book by Pema Chodron that she had happened upon in the library, and suddenly, tonglen seemed appropriate. Many of us were hurting from what seemed to be a run on death and misfortune at that time, and people wanted to do something to help.

So there we stood, in front of the big windows with the lights turned off, practising tonglen over the moonlit sea.

It’s humbling, feeling so small and insignificant in the face of so much suffering and pain, blowing a little air out into the atmosphere. Over time, each inhale was accompanied by another movie of gruesome proportions, each exhale, pure heart in the here and now. With each exhale, I wiped the story from the screen, to concentrate on purity of love. Ah, the ‘perceived’ is breathed in, the ‘now’ is breathed out, as a gift from inside, God, it is called, in some circles.

It was holy.

Yesterday, driving alone, I let my mind drift to ‘why’s’ – I asked myself: “why am I so fearful of my children’s pain?” I allowed myself to feel Taran’s pain and fear during a time that he was in trouble with a mean policeman. How difficult to send purity of spirit – God – into that scene.  So this is tonglen, I thought. As I imagined Taran’s suffering, so I suffered; I could revive suffering, just to think about it. Now breathe love…….It didn’t happen right away. I practised it over and over, continuing to focus on the clear eyed exhale. I could see fear melt, as, I knew, Taran had seen it melt, as it slowly dawned on him: “ I am loved!”

We live in the womb of the benevolence of the universe. There are so many people for whom daily joys do not exist.

Not breathing out an outcome,

Not breathing out an expectation, a wish, desire, a plea

Is only difficult insofar as it takes discipline to keep the exhale clean and clear

I practised yoga front and centre of driving rain, erratic, jagged lightning, sheets of startling brightness and sky ripping spears, and thunder that shook the Boathouse and rattled the windows. As I moved smoothly through the postures one after another, a rainbow appeared, then another, and then, it seemed, the east was all rainbow or reflections of rainbow colour. The waves whipped up and reflected the rainbows in its foaming crests. Seagulls were lit, the sky became orange, yellow, pinkish, with pieces of blue. The greens, so lush, were deepened, made impossibly rich, with the change of lens.

In this place, I felt bathed, soothed, absolved from the labours of the day on my battered soul.

Each breath nourished me, and the power of my body surprised  and delighted me. I was strong and steady, graceful, enlightened by colour and sound.

Sept. 12^th: full moon

Beauty is abundant, and for me, gratitude.

That thick shiny lapping of the sea

Rolling over dark granite,

Sometimes the sunlight is an even sheen on the water,

Filtered through gentle cloud, or as diffuse sparkles.

I do my pranayama here, getting more focused with the technique,

Eventually, reluctantly, closing my eyes, as I had been instructed to do by my teacher,

I stay with the breath, long enough to feel – it is time. I want to open my eyes!

And then, there it is, beauty flooding me again. Ahhh!

I was born to live my life, and all I can do, in my confusion

is play by the Big Rules to find a way to be with dark and light.

Was there a time when I had no fear of death?

When my sexual partners and good hunting colleagues and dear faces of offspring

were snuffed, and my reaction was as dispassionate as watching a leaf fall from a tree,

my own body stiffening and wrinkling with time…

Did I begin to experience strange sensations,

and put my hand to my heart,

the place where the lurches, and stabs, and stopping of time occurred.

I must have sung my pain, moaned it, hummed it, growled it,

and learned, suddenly, that I had a friend –

the one who speaks to me, and is always with me,

so that we resonate together in sound, word, and deed,

until the music, as it moves from slow to fast, stormy to calm,

lyrical to chaotic, and back to booming bass…

I understand

is the beating of my heart

and the blood moving in my veins

and tinkling and twinkling of all things.

My friend and I, in perfect harmony,

are part of a giant web of all our relations –

all my relations – past present future

Each with a purpose, each with an unfolding.

As fear creeps into our lives,

We choose our neighbours and friends carefully,

withholding trust until ‘earned’

living in the past and the future

until we are alone in our fear,

and lonely: we have seen so much.

Yogiji said: “Sometimes it is day, but you still think it’s night.”

Phlip said: “Why can’t it just be a story?”

Malidoma: “Each of us has an elemental mission: some are of the earth, others of water, fire, mineral, and nature, which is the element of change.”

David Swenson: “Asking the question is far more important that hearing the answer.”

In the face of uncertainty

Before the whirls and twirls of unevenness in constant motion

I love you, my friend.

In a rather confusing ‘yoga’ world, with people asking “what is yoga, anyway?” I offer this profound advice:  Just do it! The fact that yoga has come up for you as a consideration means, according to the sages, that you practised yoga in a previous lifetime. Whatever you think of that may be irrelevant, because if you are thinking of yoga, you are already hooked, and wondering how you can get some. It’s possible that you will try CDs, DVDs, books, and many classes, and not feel any ‘benefit’, though it is my belief that any minute you spend doing yoga is an investment in your ‘prana’ bank that grows exponentially.

I once read a book on how to mediate that suggested that smoking a cigarette could be a meditation, a kind of yoga practice. Yoga master, David Swenson, told us last week that as quickly as we fill our metaphorical buckets with prana, we may be allowing it to leak out through holes in the bottom. Cigarette smoking may be one of those unfortunate hole producing activities. But so is getting into a rage, or giving too much of yourself away, or drinking coca-cola. 

My guess is that the reason we are drawn to practice yoga is to feel better. We want to be well, live among wellness, and feel that not too much really gets us down.

“Yoga is gardening – tilling soil, making fertile ground,” said David. “It’s what you plant in it that counts, and if you plant the seed of your ego in that rich garden, it could become gigantic!”

Many of us are thinking of yoga as enriching for our bodies, not our minds. But it is through ‘yoking’ mind and body that ‘yoga’ occurs. Mind is key in yoga – it has to be involved, but must keep respectfully silent. We can be doing one hundred yoga poses back to back, and if our minds are chattering, we are only exercising our skin and bones. On the other hand, if we are quieting our minds, and say, smoking a cigarette, then, technically, we are doing yoga, sort of.

I say sort of because yoga is a many-limbed wonder – eight, to be exact. Ashtanga means eight limbs, and in this philosophical yogic view, yoga practice encompasses all eight aspects: how we are in the world (non-violent, honest, to name a few) and how we honour ourselves: yamas and niyamas – these are the first two. The third aspect is asana, or postures, that develop our lines of energy; next, pranayama – how we breathe into those lines; fifth: withdrawing the senses so we can hear our inner sounds- pratyahara; sixth: dharana – concentration or focus; dhyana – meditation; and finally, samadhi – assimilation. These limbs are guidelines, of course, and provide a lifetime of study and practice.

But our guru of Ashtanga, K. Pattabhi Jois, said: “You do!” over and over. His mantra: “Practice, and all is coming” is what gets us to “the mat” or to “the tree”, wherever it is that we string together the eight limbs and leave our mind chatter at the door.

The eight-limbed approach is not the only way to practice yoga, but it is the way we have been directed to practice by the sage, Patanjali, who, thousands of years ago, wrote down the teachings that he had learned, that had been passed down from teacher to student before him, in the time-honoured tradition of “parampara”. The teachings are called the ‘yoga sutras’, and they give us insight into how to practice, and what we might expect as we do. These sutras remind me of the aboriginal ‘songlines’ – Sanskrit is a language of vibration, and the transmissions of the sutras were recorded in this sing song way. Committed to paper, we look to scholars to translate the messages into words, into many languages. The interpretations of the words are vastly numbered, and as we seek to intellectualize the information and process it, we are already breaking the rules – there’s that pesky mind chatter again!

Pattabhi Jois was fond of saying: “Yoga is 99% practice, 1% theory!”

Still, for me, a lover of philosophy and religious study, each translation of the sutras speaks to me in the same universal language. The sutras tell me that God is within, that we teach by example, that discipline, courage, faith, joy and love are all components of good living, and that when we believe our hearts rule, we are talking about deep heartfelt knowing and not the often flighty emotional goulash.

This teacher (me!) says – pause. Ask yourself: Is this a good time to practice yoga? If you have at least five minutes, then it is a good time. Begin by sitting, standing, lying down, swimming, painting, gardening. Realize you are practising yoga by feeling your mind and body as one, by being attuned to your breath, by being present in the here and now.

Taking time to tune body and mind in synchronicity, you will want to explore the energy that comes, and will find yourself stretching and breathing more fully, freeing restrictions that you inevitably discover as you move. A prescribed set of postures can give us a starting point, so we begin to feel left side and right side, moving up and moving down, moving out, moving in. As we bend, stretch, and fold, the blood moves in our veins with more enthusiasm, the oxygenated cells enliven the flow, the squeezing and restricting and releasing encourages rushing in and out of the body’s fluids, and we can feel power in us as we witness our inner river’s flow.

In this ‘flow’ style of yoga, the teacher is the conductor, giving the beat of the breath as a metronome, to which we feel our own music unfold.

Number one rule: just go to “the mat” and begin. Make it a daily occurrence for you to meet yourself in joyous embrace and celebration. It may be that you will go to ‘the mat’ as you are driving to work, or as you wait in a government line up, or as you are walking with your dog in the park.

Coming to the mat takes faith and discipline. We may get excited, and then we plateau: nothing is happening. We practice daily for weeks, and months, and everything is ‘the same’. You have opened the door, but are not walking through it.

I know well the difficulties of staying present with each breath, one by one, especially when I know what is coming, like in the Primary Series, which I do many times a week, month after month, year after year…the practice is the goal, not the outcome, and each breath we take, mindfully, fully present, is the practice. Breath by breath, we walk through the door, to nowhere, everywhere, here.

All kids can benefit from yoga, whether they are naturally athletic or decidedly not. For kids who do a lot of sports, yoga provides tools for noticing balance in our bodies. For example, over years of doing specific activities, people may find that they are strong in their arms but not their legs, or have strong quadriceps, and weaker inner thighs and hamstrings. Imbalances show up eventually as pain, or sometimes, accidents. How many times have you heard some say: “It was only a little fall, and now my knee (ankle/shoulder/wrist/neck) hurts!”

It is never too late to start yoga (so kids, get your grandparents to come with you!) The benefits are immediate, instantaneous: wherever you are is a perfect place to begin. Children under age 12 are taught yoga for fun, as a way to express joy in movement. Tension is naturally released as the body feels free. After 12, the children can learn sequencing of postures, and be instructed in breath control and meditation.

Yoga helps us to prevent injury by giving us a checklist with each the posture, or asana. As we work through different ones, we notice that we like some, and don’t like others; some we’re good at, others not. If you dislike sitting still, breathing in and out quietly, with a relaxed smile on your face, chances are that this is the very posture you should practice every day. Many people say they don’t like back bending postures because they are afraid of injury. Instead of avoiding backbends, we can work on strengthening and empowering our backs with supportive core and leg strength. We can practice postures that open up our chests so that more breath can circulate in and around our hearts and lungs. One day, we may find that we want to throw our heads back, lift our arms to the sky, and let out a big yell: we are doing a backbend and loving it!

The real gift of yoga is to empower ourselves energetically on the inside. Quiet inner focus and even breathing help to balance our crowded thoughts by creating spaces between them, then resting in those spaces. Postures become more inviting when one’s first priority is safe grounding and even breath. Whatever the body does after that is an exploration of energy, from which we benefit in so many ways – better circulation, fluidity in our movements, ability to concentrate and focus, increased confidence, more joy, and a deeper feeling of vitality.

For kids who aren’t “athletic” and don’t consider themselves active, gentle yoga can beckon with the possibility of deep relaxation in a kind, supportive environment.  Quiet movements nourish our bodies, especially if we have chronic pain, or lack confidence in how we think others see us. As we become friends with ourselves on the inside, our wonder and joy of living returns.

It is best to learn some yoga from a teacher rather than from a tape or book. There are many yoga teachers around these days, even in rural areas, and you may feel overwhelmed by the choices of yoga available in your community. Try different teachers and let your own feelings guide you. Drop-ins are often welcome in ongoing yoga programs. For information about a teacher near you, you could check with your local community centre, community papers or flyers, or on-line with www.YogaAtlantic.ca to find qualified teachers. Many offer classes, as well as one-on-one opportunities. Again, discuss your needs with the teacher, and try yoga!

Cathy Guest teaches yoga on the Aspotogan Peninsula all year round. Drop-ins are welcome. Beginners, kids, grannies, skateboarders: try it for yourselves!

I stand at the top of the mountain

and breathe the cold clear air

as I survey

the mighty St. Lawrence River,

   its banks crowded with chunks of ice

  in a thick slush soup,

and the snowy mounds beyond

in an impossibly blue sky

I am dressed in a white ski suit, decorated

  with patterns of glitter

which fits my body perfectly, like it was made for me specially

by its famous designer, who named the suit ‘Camelot’.

I am a Rainbow Princess Warrior.

I own this mountain, as much as any human

  can own any piece of our earth.

The snow loves me, the ice, the glistening trees,

the ridiculously bright sun

As I fall into the arms of the mountain

and descend with gathering speed,

the bottoms of my feet slide in perfect  harmony,

I am in bliss.

From my lofty perch, I see my body responding

As it has been trained to do since childhood

I check my speed as necessary

and ride the mountain’s back and sides

and play among the sparkling trees.

Making these smooth curves with my skis,

Feeling the edges bite and glide

I create the foundation of the perfect yoga posture

by spreading my toes and pressing into

the four corners of each foot.

I feel the backs of my upper femurs

  move independently and strongly to create the

  rhythmic back and forth, side to side dance.

My torso is suspended with strength and lightness

with uddiyana bandha , my shoulders relaxed,

and I use my wide angle camera vision to pay attention

with a soft and steady focus – not too tight, not too loose.

As I ride up in the chairlift, my body is soothed

with the hum of the vibration of the machinery.

I float up up up…

My favourite ride is the glass walled gondola

in which I dangle on the top of the world.

As a horse and rider may, with excellent training and practice,

become one in  mind and body,

this is how I rode my windhorse.

Over these glorious mountain days,

I was lion, tiger, horse, dragon and garuda: a creature of mythical times,

a magical being in the glistening world

of white and blue and yellow.

My heart has regained strength.

I am invigorated to carry on my work.

Order of Ashe:

“…joins heaven and earth, or vision and practicality; the quality of bodhichitta or awakened heart and the fundamental quality of egolessness…”

Order of Shambhala:

“There are four qualities of warriorship: tiger-like meekness, or gentleness; lion-like perkiness, or energy; garuda-like outrageousness, or compassion beyond concept; dragon-like inscrutability, or egolessness beyond concepts.”

W indhorse – Lungta (definition by Chogham Trungpa Rinpoche):

“When we pay attention to everything around us, the overall effect is upliftedness. The Shambhalian term for this is windhorse. The wind principle is very airy and powerful. Horse means that the energy is rideable. That particular airy and sophisticated energy, so clean and full of decency, can be ridden. You don’t just have a bird flying by itself in the sky, but you have something to ride on. Such energy is fresh and exuberant, but, at the same time, rideable. Therefore, it is known as windhorse.”

Sidney Crosby: I am praying for you. – C

PS  Thank you, Hart Lazer, for helping me get my ski legs back.

Sri K. Pattabhi Jois, “Guruji”, considered the father of Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga, told us that if we are drawn to the practice of yoga, then we’d already experienced its benefits in a previous lifetime.

In one view, this is like saying that each of us has previously been a native – we have all lived on the land, in harmony with nature, or rather, adapting ourselves to nature, or dying quickly.

In another view of our past connections with yoga, it’s like saying that, in previous lives, we sang, painted pictures, walked, whistled, and comforted ourselves with deep breaths.

Then comes the age-old question of what, exactly, yoga is: How do we know if we’re ‘doing it’? Maybe we’re ‘doing it’ right now. And if we are doing it now, how is it helping, or not helping?

Confusion is the dark side, the shadow, in Ajna’s (third eye) power. On the light side, we believe in ourselves, in our intuition, in the stories we told ourselves, over many lifetimes, not to forget. So we remember love, and joy, peace, trust, clarity and friendship as deeply as we know that “bad” things will happen. We will die, everyone dies. We must also know, in some down deep way, that life is precious. It’s a journey. There is something about it that doesn’t seem to expire.

We are drinking the same water and breathing the same air that dinosaurs drank and breathed. Our bodies create new cells constantly, as other cells die. How do the cells re-form in exactly the same way, or form patterns depending on their environment, or even survive as cells?

Our minds are not thinking, directly, of how the newest cell is patterning itself. If it’s a cell near the heart, it already knows to make itself into a heart cell. Or a liver cell. Or a femur cell. Or a cell like any other, but attracted to a gang of heart cells because they are close, and calling…Can our minds talk to that cell and say: “Move away from there and get over to that lung section!”?

For me, yoga is a practice of working with individual cells. Yes, talking to them. Encouraging, nurturing, even redirecting them. If we tell ourselves that our lives are movies that we are happily watching, we often feel perfect balance within our bodies. If we are not too caught up in the movie (‘is it happy or sad?’ or ‘what is the outcome?’) we may notice sometimes a dissenting cell or two. Stepping away from the movie, reminding ourselves, ‘it’s just a movie’, we can watch our own lives unfold with wisdom relative to our seeking, our knowing, and our understanding. Sometimes, the cells fall back in line – they ‘behave’.

Our minds can cause untold stories to unfold constantly and vigorously, and can kill us with fear. We can learn to leave our bodies alone, letting them do what comes naturally, according to our nature, and tell our minds to ‘shhhh’. It was Buddha’s view that basic goodness is our true nature and our natural tendency is to embrace that this is so. Everything that has been written about how to live well – the Sutras, the commandments, the Golden Rule – these all show us our true nature, and it is our own view, our own minds, that judge, condemn, evaluate, and cause suffering. If we were to find our true natures, and live there, suffering would end, said Buddha.

Buddha did yoga. He practiced letting his true nature shine through, every day, with confidence, and then, it broke through. He stayed shiny.

In the view of basic goodness, one factor remains undeniable: our physical bodies die. Part of our journey is to learn adaptability, living in harmony with other creatures, and with nature itself.  We live and die on this land. There are views that are passed on through our ancestors about preservation, lengthening our time here, creating safety for our children and for our land to continue to nurture us. And if you know anything about your own ancestors, it’s that they were as human as you and me, and some of their theories were not correct, if not downright harmful.

Yet there are core teachings that all religions talk about as their essence, and that we all know ring true. It is these passed on views that yoga represents. It is “yug”-ing (yog-ing, yok-ing), maintaining our ancient partnership, or union, with the energies that cause wind to blow, and cells to re-form, and tears to well up in our eyes.

Pandit  Divyang Vakil related to me this wisdom from his vast background in eastern philosophical study, which I humbly interpret here and pass on, I hope, with the same intentions with which they were given:

The brain has four rooms, or compartments. The brain in each compartment does different things, and one cannot do the job of another. In one compartment, the brain forms an idea, like: I want a shirt. In another compartment, the brain asks: what kind of shirt do I need/want:  long sleeved, short sleeved, heavy, light, loose, tight? The next compartment’s concerns: How about cashmere? Or red silk? What is best to suit my view of how I see myself wearing this shirt? And finally, there is the brain that gets the shirt!

Where is the soul in this, the observer, the voice that is detached, shrugging its shoulders at the wayward child/mind? The soul and brain do not speak the same language. We know, loudly and clearly, what our soul is saying, and we know it doesn’t care about the shirt. Yet we are in unison, our four mind compartments, that the shirt is of the utmost importance.

The soul seems fine, shirtless. The soul just hangs around constantly, not caring much. But when the mind gets ‘off track’, working against our basic nature, too involved with the movie, too much of something or other, the soul, in its dronelike, steady way, lets us know. Usually, it’s the body that fails.  Too much, or not enough, the balance of the body is unfathomable, like the soul: It is what it is. If we starve the body, it will die. Circulate your fluids, ensure good drainage and oxygenation happens, chi happens.  The life force stays strong when the machine is oiled and cared for, and if the mind is not too consumed with thoughts of the shirt and nothing else. This is the theory.

Ashtanga yoga is an approach to a well-rounded view of living. As with all words, the soul doesn’t understand them much. The Ashtanga, or eight-limbed view, takes this into account. The balance of the Great Mystery is woven among the words in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. The Sutras themselves were written in Sanskrit, and previously, they were taught in the language of Sanskrit. This is a language of vibration, of sound, so the written Sanskrit words transform us with sound as they are spoken, vibrating our innards. We are reminded in an eons-old way of the yamas and niyamas: how to live among people, how to do the ‘right thing’, how to honour our sacred selves, and how to feel gratitude for the blessings, however miniscule for some,  that we receive. That is “yug”-ing on one level. On another level, we penetrate the body’s physical layers with movement – squish and release, acupressure, changing blood flow patterns with inversions, bending, stretching, opening. This is called asana practice. As we deepen in our strength and flexibility, we can, physically, go deeper into cells that are part of the liver, or underneath the scapulae, between our toes, and behind the third eye Ajna point that interfaces with the front brain.

We penetrate the cells with breath (pranayama). Oxygen enlivens the blood. As the blood moves more fluently, fluidly, cells can become nourished and continue to reinvent themselves in a healthy way. We can meticulously nourish ourselves with different breathing techniques, so different parts of the physical body benefit. And the mind, whose job it is to keep the body well, relaxes, in the nurturing hands of breath, the energy that brings well-being.

Meditation, dhyana, a limb, is also a learned discipline, as is pratyahara, withdrawing the senses to look inward. Dharana – one-pointed focus, one-pointed concentration, is an important skill to keep the brain from getting too noisy. Samadhi is an experience of harmony, of allowing harmony to permeate and transform our cells. We accept the bliss of non-suffering without punishment and judgement of why WE are so blessed, and not every single creature: these limbs help to round out our full view of what it means to live here and now.

The benefits of asana are a significant draw towards the study and practice of yoga these days. The ancient postures have known benefits, and a regular regimen is good for us physically. Yet, without the other ‘limbs’, we can fall prey to the movie again – believing we are well, or not well. The other limbs of the great tree of yoga, the tree of life, show us how to nourish our cells, and abide in our true nature.

Ashtanga yoga was brought to the west, with the best of intentions, as asana. Pattabhi Jois taught, reluctantly at first, postures that he had taught his own son for health benefits, postures he had learned from his master, Krishnamacharya, that had been of benefit to him. Jois was drawn to the postures in a certain order, which had for centuries been practiced in this way, so that one asana would unlock potential for the next, and so on. Practising daily, the aspirant could ward off sickness and could heal himself should an accident occur. Krishnamacharya himself healed his broken hip at age 96 in three months with his eight-limbed yoga practice, which was the way he lived his life daily. The danger in moving information between cultures is obvious, and consequently, the Ashtanga practice came to the ‘outside world’ without the full complement of limbs. It was Jois’s view that, if one were to practice the prescribed postures every day, “yug” would become evident. But a new phenomenon emerged – we were becoming attached to our view of ourselves as yogis because we could perform the postures. Instead of the asana practice being one of many tools towards health, it was THE tool. The view is lopsided (well, limbless).

Many yoga teachers show their students the full view of yoga, the complete toolbox. It is important to practice in this way. Sadly, we have begun to brand our views of yoga – this style is best, no, this style is best. With the help of a good teacher, we can learn to balance our view, whatever “style” is resonating with us. Renowned Canadian yoga teacher, Michael Stone, requires his would-be students to spend six months pondering why they are drawn to embark on the path of yoga before he will consent to teaching them. He reminds us that we were all drawn to yoga because we are suffering. By acknowledging our suffering, we can learn how to take responsibility for developing a full view. Anyone can do this through study and practice, though having a teacher is a big help for this huge subject.

If you are attracted to yoga, continue your journey into the full view with confidence that you will often come up against concepts that draw you in ways you just can’t explain. Take small steps. Ask questions. Believe that you know the answers already, and look for them in the way your body moves.

Ta Ho

Catherine Guest

November 2010

the path to nowhere in particular, the path to all places in my world.

The path could be going in circles, spiraling circles,

with no true direction, except everywhere

The outcome is death, the path is walked in life,

So perhaps it’s best to not get to my destination too quickly after all.

A path was fooling me, luring me, with temptations of tranquility and balance.

I liked it, I wanted it, I chose it, with all my might.

And all the time, I was talking about my heart leading the way.

Now, my heart has gone strongly forward in a new direction, with me hanging onto the reigns

    for dear life;

I can hardly say no to my heart, since I have already pledged myself to it.

Now, the windhorse has stopped for a cool drink from the stream, and I can look around,

examining my new surroundings.

Where am I, out in the world….among people and things,

far from “home”, yet my true home is carried with me;

Thinking on my feet, taking one step at a time, so to speak…

Hanging onto a persona doesn’t help people, I see that.

Therefore, it’s hardly gonna help me.

Flushing it…..

I have leapt.

Craig was a new guide, a local guy from New Glasgow: tall, lean, blond. He’d taught English in China, and cycled around there a lot: that was his recent big adventure. He felt it qualified him for being a Freewheeling guide, and we were willing to give him a shot. We liked him. He was sincere. He had some of the credentials. He was keen. Philip did a tour with him and pronounced him okay.

Craig and I set off for the Fundy Islands tour, an island hopping trip in New Brunswick. Neither he nor I had even been on these New Brunswick islands, but we had the guide notes, the route description, and a small group:  two young (late 20’s) women from the U.S. and a middle-aged (late 50’s) couple from BC. Everyone seemed great. A tall blonde from New York, a self-professed editor and writer, had fantastic wit, and her sarcasm had me laughing right away, and shivering in my boots.

The first leg of the journey involved a van transfer from Nova Scotia to New Brunswick, then a ferry transfer to Grand Manan Island. We arrived after hours of driving at the end of a long ferry line-up. It was doubtful that we would get on. We sat for awhile, then Craig suddenly pulled out to the left of the line-up, passed all the cars, and drove onto the ferry. No one stopped us. We sat in astonished silence: it was a great show of guts. I was impressed, and hoped he knew what he was doing. Ours was the only vehicle on the ferry. Craig parked. We all looked at each other. Cool. Hey. Way cool. We got out of the van.   Still cool. Grabbed our backpacks, and hit the bathrooms, high fiving, sedately, a bit awestruck.

While we were in our cubicles, an official voice dampened our enthusiastic banter. “All of you from that Freewheeling van, get off this ferry. Get off this ferry now!” It was a meek and quiet bunch that met in the ferry hold. We silently got in the van. Craig backed up the steeply sloping platform with great difficulty, capturing everyone’s attention, and we were directed to the back of the line-up. We did not make that ferry, and rode our bikes around for two hours waiting for the next one.  We ate wild blueberries by the side of the road until we were stuffed. It wasn’t so bad.

We arrived happily on Grand Manan Island having been entertained by dozens of noisy, frolicking whales during the crossing, and had time for an exploratory bike ride before dinner. Craig and I were scouting for a place to up our tent up for the night, and found a perfect spot on a high grassy bank overlooking the ocean. After we got our gang settled in their inn, just prior to eating supper, we erected the tent, and returned later in the dark to climb in for a good night’s sleep.  It had been a sunny day, but there was fog developing, a low mist.

PJ’s on, teeth brushed, we ducked into the tent, just getting comfortable…

Honk! The “honk” was long, and ripped our eardrums, and rattled our bones, and made our teeth hurt. We both knew instantly that we could not endure another sounding from the fog horn we were camped beside. There was no need for words; we ran out, grabbed our tent with all the belongings inside, and ran furiously and frantically away, down the street, who knows where, just putting distance between us and that next blow…

Lights appeared in the mist behind us, and a police car loomed. I imagine we were quite a sight -   t-shirts, bare legs and feet, eyes like startled deer.  “What’s going on?” said the cop. We told our story, feeling really dumb. “Come and stay at my house,” he said. He lived next door. We went in for tea, and met his wife, people who actually lived there beside a fog horn. With our earplugs in, we managed a fitful sleep.

The next day, we were on the prowl for new digs, and found a small, secluded beach on the edge of the harbour. There was a little dirt road that led to it, and as we drove down it in our trusty van, Cyclops, and along the beach, in the dark, I said to Craig, who was driving: “Let’s just stop here so we can get out ok in the morning.” “Naw,” said Craig, “the sand is hard, I can go further.”  I was firm (I’d had this experience before): “No, I think we should stop right now. I’m nervous about getting stuck in the sand.” “Don’t worry,” said Craig. “It’ll be no problem. The sand is hard. I’ve done this loads of times.”

I had a magical night there, lulled to sleep by the lap of the waves and the sound of whales talking and singing…In the morning, I woke up refreshed, and went for a run. I came back to the sound of Cyclops’ back wheels spinning, buried in sand to the bumper, Craig looking sheepish. Running back up to the village, I asked at the bakery for help (first I had to wake the neighbours up around the back by yelling). It was 8 a.m., but people were not moving in that sleepy place. By 8:45 a.m., a tractor was hauling good old Cyclops ignobly out of the sand, and we were on our way again, late.

The New York writer, Ade, her friend, Robin, and Burt and Nora from BC were all enjoying the stories of our escapades, and we were having a lot of laughs. I hoped we weren’t coming across as unprofessional…

That day, under blistering hot sun and blue sky, we rode our bikes blissfully down quiet      roads, until at one point in the late afternoon, we arrived at the end, where the road went no further, and we had no choice but to turn around and ride back. It was Craig’s day in the van, and he looked hot and a bit cross. “Hey Craig,” I said, “why don’t you hop on your bike and ride back to the village [about 30 miles]. We’ll just load up and meet you at the inn.” Craig was delighted, and was gone in seconds, sprinting away like a racehorse out of the gate. We all hung around and had a drink, loaded up the bikes, then got in the van. Yup, I thought, of course this had to happen. Craig has the keys.

Spare keys, you ask? These are the days before spare keys. This is the reason for spare keys. 

Well, here we are, I thought, in the middle of absolutely nowhere. No traffic. No people. Hot hot sun. Nothing for miles but a little cottage.

At this time let me qualify my state of mind: My spirits were not dampened! I was a guide extraordinaire! I could get us out of this little fix, no problem! After reassuring our somewhat disgruntled guests, I strode confidently to the little cottage and knocked on the door. A lovely little old man answered, and his eyes twinkled. Here was a gift indeed, a   hot, healthy, suntanned woman, wearing hardly any skin-tight lycra and standing on his front porch. Would he give me a lift to catch up to that wayward cyclist? You betcha! His wife popped her head up over his shoulder: “I’ll pack a lunch,” she said. In ten minutes, the elderly couple were sitting comfortably in the front seat of their roomy air-conditioned Buick, me in the back seat, with the missus passing me bologna sandwiches. “Isn’t this lovely,” she sighed. I believe they didn’t get out much.

By the time we caught up with Craig, he was already approaching the village. He must have been averaging about 35 miles an hour! “Key,” I called through the open car window. He passed it over. He didn’t say anything.

We were very late for supper, and had to eat in our sweaty cycling clothes at a full-to-capacity, “reservations only” restaurant that we had booked months ago. They offered only one sitting. They were mad at us. We were mad at them. Dinner, thankfully, was pretty good.

As our tour reached its end, Ade had relaxed into fluid biting sarcasm. Craig’s antics fueled her imaginative wit. I was certain she would return to New York and write a book about us immediately, though I wondered if, and doubted that, she would be kind. Traveling with her was hilarious.

Craig was okay through it all. Burt and Nora kind of babied him, and were really nice, giving him lots of slack. Occasionally Ade would pop off a line under her breath, and we’d roar. All in all, we were having a tremendous tour, enhanced by our exciting misadventures.

On the final day of cycling, before a long van transfer back to Nova Scotia, we explored Campobello Island, examining the map with gusto and deciding to go to a picturesque look-off point. The van was parked, and we were all riding. At a crossroads, we examined our options: the dirt road was boring but led to the look-off, well-signed, about eight miles. Another trail was also marked, rougher, more mountain bike style, well worn by hikers. A third trail was the most inviting: A wide grassy path bordered by large trees with shady branches rustling overhead looked lush. We examined our map: no mention of this trail. Craig had a “good feeling” about this path, and was very positive. Why did we believe him? Why did we trust him? I guess we wanted to believe he knew something instinctively that we did not. And it was sooooo inviting.

Burt and Nora said “See ya” and biked on the safe dirt road.

The rest of us took the road less traveled…

It took hours. Hours. It went up and down, through bogs, over rivers. The thorns! The mosquitoes! The exhaustion! We carried our bikes most of the way, and suffered chain ring digs in our soft, tired flesh. We tried to find the other trail. We tried lots of things. We were hungry. At one point, Ade lay on her back in mud and brush, panting: “This is so awful. I can’t believe it.” We trudged and trudged. We reached the look-off , and felt  the cool ocean breeze on our swollen, dirty, sweaty bodies. No one spoke much above a murmur. We took pictures, there were lots of people around. Then we cycled down the wide open dirt road fast, loving the wind in our faces, and the speed, and the well deserved thrill of it all. We jumped in the ocean at the road’s end.

Everyone seemed happy, driving back to Nova Scotia.

We never heard from anyone again, except Robin, who wrote us years later, a beautiful letter about a new man in her life.

Craig took another job as soon as we got back, cutting trees and clearing brush from the sides of Highway 102, around Truro. I wondered why he would leave such an exciting job with us to do that dull stuff…

[circa 1993, written by Cathy Guest. Names have not been changed to protect anyone]

We live in a paradise for bicycling, on a picturesque, coastal route that used to be regularly recommended as one of the nicest places to ride in the world. I know this because, way back in the day, I used to write the newsletter and answer the mail for Bicycle Nova Scotia, a volunteer group of devotees to the bike. It was one of the reasons I thought up the idea of operating a bicycle touring company: lots of people loved Nova Scotia!

As a resident here on the beautiful Aspotogan Peninsula for nearly 20 years (before that, we lived on the other side of St. Margaret’s Bay), we have noticed a significant change in the road usage. It used to be that people that we didn’t know were riding this route, coming from all over the place to cycle it. Now, people are going other places to ride, places where they can count on dedicated bike lanes, and a “bicyclists welcome!” ethic that feels safe for people travelling with children. Nova Scotia finally seems to be recognizing that bicycle people are wonderful people, and want them to come back and ride our beautiful coastlines once again.

Nowadays, after running Freewheeling Adventures for nearly 25 years, we are deeply involved in more of an educational process that begins, as it always should, with the kids. Just last week, many of us here at Freewheeling were trained by “Making Tracks”, a youth Mentor cycling program. The program is an initiative of “Active and Safe Routes to School”, which encourages more children, youth and their families to use active transportation.

We brought up two boys (now ages 19 and 20) in this area, and from a tender age, they were on the bike. Those baby/kid trailers made it easy and fun to bring the children on an adventure. I loved buckling them in, side by side, with their books, their juice and cheerios, and a few toys, and bringing them to a different place on the Loop (as the Aspotogan Loop is affectionately called by locals). We would stop for a beach outing, visit the local café for snacks or lunch, buy some groceries, visit friends. Mostly, they would doze off to sleep immediately, bumping happily along behind me.

I was a bit of a pioneer in this area, alas. Many people thought I was putting my children at risk by sharing a road with them and cars, trucks, motorbikes, tractors, and the other ‘usual suspects’ who use motor power to get around. As the boys got older, they would ride their trikes, then, eventually, bicycles, to play soccer or t-ball. I once heard one mother tell her two sons: “You’d better be good or I’ll make you bicycle to soccer practice like those Guest boys.”

I brought them on a Freewheeling Adventure when they were about twelve or so. There were two families on a Family Frolic in Prince Edward Island, so I thought I’d join the trip and see what it was like to be on one of my very own adventures. The boys loved it, and formed lasting friendships (as did I!) with the other participants, even at that young age! They surprised themselves, and me, by cycling on the Confederation Trail for more than 50 km one day. Mostly, the kids liked to ride for part of the day, then go to the beach, or explore their fantastic inns, all magnificently appointed. I had grown up spending two weeks every summer in P.E.I., loving Anne of Green Gables, horseback riding, beach combing, campfire singing, and so much more. Here were my children seeing the island from a different point of view, and loving it, just like me!

Two years ago, we had a family excursion to Cuba, a true adventure since we took our bikes with us, packed all our belongings in panniers, and set off cycling right from the airport in Varadero. I wrote about it (it’s published on my blog on our Freewheeling site). We thought we’d gone a little too far that time: there was no Freewheeling van support, no fancy inns in the little inland towns, no cafes to visit along the way. For the boys, it was more of an “educational trip”.

Last summer, during a visit I was having with my neighbour, Cameron, I was preparing to set off to nearby Hubbards by bike to get a few groceries in my now empty “baby trailer”, and she asked if she could come with me. Ruefully, I told her to go ask her mother (she was 12 years old), not expecting a positive response. But Michelle, bless her, said: “Go, and be careful, and listen to Cathy,” …she was given permission to ride 11 km, each way! over two big hills, each way! sharing the road with motorized vehicles. She did a great job. We stopped at the beach on the way home, and she met some friends there, unexpectedly. Now, it seems, there’s a group of almost-teenage girls that want to ride with me to Hubbards, or Bayswater Beach, or on the back trail.

In our neighbourhood, we formed a group about six years ago called The Route Enhancement Committee of the Aspotogan Peninsula (RECAP) after we learned, at a community meeting, that people didn’t know that cyclists had the same road rights as cars. When the RCMP told everyone, clearly, that this was so, there was a lot of headshaking and muttering. For cyclists, it was a sobering victory. Over the last few years, RECAP has been able to get “Share the Road “ signage along The Loop, and, with volunteer help and some grant money from local groups, have helped to equip many local businesses, community centres, schools, and other places of meeting with bike racks, bright yellow, and very sturdy.

It was a dream of mine to have a job in which I got to ride my bicycle, not wake up with an alarm clock, meet new people, travel, and be outside. You may not embrace, as I did, the idea of owning your own bike tour company, but you can still ride your bicycle, as a [grown-up] kid, or with your kids anywhere in the world, or in your own backyard.

Happy trails and tailwinds to you!