Breaking the Ropes

So I am on my way . . .  here is a little window into my trip for you.  I had visions of it being well written, perhaps even profound.  For now, it will be stream of conscience:

After just one day of driving my left arm is darker than my right, and I am sure I will be piebald by the end of the trip. 

I think I am going to start a worse road competition, so far Ohio wins.

The path along the C & O Canal somewhere along the way. 

Driving from Maryland to Ohio to visit my sister Marjorie and my friends Josh and Brook and their delightful children went smoothly.  The picture I took of Marjorie and I was taken at 6 am, so I will spare you and me.  I love Marge's kitchen.

At  Josh and Brook's the children introduced me to their kittens.

Virginia with Everest.

Yesterday, I drove to my brother Bill's in Avon Lake, OH and have spent the day with his wife Carrie and my lovely nieces Ava and Audrey.  We played at a great library, went to the park, ate ice cream, went out to dinner, read books, and giggled.

Audrey playing at the library.

Ava and I at the park.

Audrey at the park.

And finally a poem:

The Time Before Death
by Kabir

Friend, hope for the Guest while you are alive.
Jump into experience while you are alive.
What you call "salvation" belongs to the time before death.

It you don't break your ropes while you're alive,
do you think
ghosts will do it after?

The idea that the soul will rejoin with the ecstatic
just because the body is rotten--
that is all fantasy.
What is found now is found then.
If you find nothing now,
you will simply end up with an apartment in the City of Death.

If you make love with the divine now, in the next
life you will have the face of satisfied desire.

So plunge into the truth, find out who the Teacher is,
Believe in the Great Sound!

Kabir says this: When the Guest is being searched for,
it is the intensity of the longing for the Guest that does all the work.
Look at me, and you will see a slave of that intensity.