Hot, hotter.

Okee.

So I rolled into Portland 3 days ago and have barely seen anything because it's too hot to leave the house. No really. Yesterday and today it's been 106 fahrenheit. Your face melts off when you go outside.

I've been hiding out with an ex South African, a woman called Temma who has taken me in even though she's never met me before. We have a friend in common though, back home. We eat, watch tv, take her dogs for a walk. She has decided to take me down to San Francisco herself, and we'll be making a turn at her sister's house in Carmel for a couple of days before she drops me off at my next hostel. How amazing is that.

One thing that really becomes very valuable when you travel: the kindness of others and their ability to give freely without having any major expectations of getting anything (except friendship and doing the dishes and helping to buy food and a couple of beers) back.

Portland seems to be Seattle without the edge and with more homeless people. If you live here you seem to fall clearly into one of two categories: either you are a

(a) health/nature/save the earth freak, or you are a

(b) crystal meth addict.

Whether you fall into category a or b, everyone in Portland is frugal as all hell. Asking them to spend money is like spitting in their face. Hilarious.

Temma has a porta-pool in the backyard and we spend alot of time lounging in it and eating watermelon or drinking beer. Last nite we had dinner with the neighbours, a sweet couple made up of half Hawaiin and half Californian. Spent some time with the Hawaiin today, she is too lovely. Her name is Milea and she gave me a traditional Lomu massage. I didn't fight back.

Off to the coast of Portland this weekend to attend a shamanistic Reunion of sorts, and then off to Carmel on Tuesday.

I definitely prefer the West Coast, no doubt about it.

Hostel Seattle, where I'm staying.

There's no place like home.

Transformation completed.

In one month I have gone from a predictable (and by default boring) existence to World Traveler Extroadinare. How fabulous! Not the most painless process, but definitely worth the effort... Highly recommended folks.

I have made the next big step and flown from the arms of me darlin cousin Jana and her hubby Patrick in NY, to the fabulous new frontier of the West Coast. I love it already. I got off the plane and thought: "Hell yes! I could live here." And by "here" I mean Seattle.

Also called the Emerald City (there's no place like home) and famous for grunge and Nirvana, it's a haven for alternative thinkers and the severely laid back. Seattle is known as one of the most forward-thinking and sustainable cities in the world, and it's easy to see why. It's the first American city I've encountered where there are ample cyclists and walkers, and there are little shops toting their local goods on every second corner.

Most notable is the amount of tattoos in this town... I mean EVERYONE here is tattooed! Even the old ladies sport them proudly. Men have beards, weird sunglasses are very in. There are alot of second hand shops selling the really authentic 70's gear. The grunge is definitely still alive and kicking in this town.

I'm staying in a great little hostel in Ballard Locks with a view of the water and some fabulous other World Travelers. The shower smells a bit funny but that's forgivable. And the teenage boys in my dorm say dispicable and nasty things about their girlfriends, but that's ok: they're from Jersey. Made a good friend in Matt: an undercover Southerner. He hails from Birmingham, Alabama, and taught himself to speak proper "American" before he started out so as to avoid being put in a box. Damn! I love that accent. Last night we went for some pints at Kiss Cafe and after a couple of tokes the accent slowly slid into the room wearing it's favorite pair of cowboy boots. I laughed.

Seattle is comfortable, like an old friend I haven't seen in awhile. Step out of the city and nature envelopes you immediately. She's like a big overweight mermaid lazing about the coast, a giggle in her hair. I am planning on sticking around here for a couple more days and then heading down to Portland. Planning on attending a 3 day festival organised by the people at the Blue Deer Centre, and hope to meet many more folk from their tradition and to figure out what they are all about. I just finished "Plant Spirit Medicine" by Eliot Cowan who is their Head Honcho, and thought it was beautiful and inspirational. I will go and find the shamans on the coast the last weekend of July, and after that head down to Sacramento I think.

Who knows.

I sure as hell don't. And I love it.

I am blessed, there's no denying it.

I have landed up at a place called the Blue Deer Centre in upstate New York (close to Woodstock) and have been taken in by the people who live and work here, all riding on the back of my teachers, Colin and Nial Campbell who came to visit and work at this place a couple of years ago. I happened to arrive at an auspicious time. On the weekend of the 4th of July they have their yearly celebration and members of their community arrive from cross country. The point? I now have places to stay all over the show, people who are willing to connect me with other community members and a whole new group of friends. There are few things as meaningful as when you are completely accepted by people who don't know you. I am staying here for free, and I can stay as long as I want. THANK YOU NIAL AND COLIN CAMPBELL, you made this possible. And thanks to the people of the Blue Deer Centre, you make it easy to trust that everything will be just fine. Thokoza.

Trust and let go.

In Feb 2008 I went on a vision quest. It was a facilitated event and took place on a farm close to Monteque in the Western Cape. There were 7 of us, all there with the intention to spend time alone in the wild with the minimum of gear: no tent, no food, lots of water (and Rehidrat). The days were hot as hell and the nights freezing. Most of the water on the farm had dried up and there was little shade - the trees of that region are small and don't give much shade. The word "lush" definitely doesn't come to mind. It was one of the most eye-opening experiences of my life, I don't think there is a quicker way to find out what lies at the core of your being. Now when I say "quick" don't get confused here. The 4 days spent in the wild were insanely long. Time can't possibly pass slower when you have nothing to do, no one to talk to, nothing to read. Just being with yourself, marooned, alone. (It definitely helps knowing that there are 6 other people going through the same pain you are going through in the area, even though you can't see them or hear them, you know they are there.) It was during that experience that I realised how fearful I had become. In the bush I was scared out of my mind: a leopard is going to eat me; a crocodile, a lion. Don't ask me where they were supposed to have come from. I realised that when I'm in town I feel the same way. I'm afraid someone will break into my house, or that I will be hijacked again. I live in a constant state of super-alertness that takes an enormous amount of energy to uphold and has ensured that my life has progressively gotten smaller and smaller over the last couple of years. In the wilderness I am scared, at home I am scared. All the time this fear I carry in me. This trip feels like an extension of that vision quest. I'm not marooned in the wilderness (thank god) but on another continent, and even though I'm not alone and not isolated, no one here knows me and I am an outsider. The same fear that I felt so deeply on that quest is in me, but this process is gentler and kinder. I have choice. I can go into it or leave if I want to, and because I know that I can choose I choose to stay for now and to play with the fear, to stretch it a bit and see what happens. I feel it in my body most of the day. It pulls me up by my neck and carries me around stiffly, a smile cut into my face. I watch the people around me, trying to assess situations and sum up places. It's no use. I have to trust and let go. I have to trust and let go.

i do it for the joy it brings

because i'm a joyful girl

because the world owes me nothing

and we owe each other the world

i do it because it's the least i can do

i do it because i learned it from you

i do it just because i want to

because I want to

Joyful Girl - Ani Difranco

Trust

In 2002 I was hijacked when I parked outside of my house. It took me awhile to realise that I absolutely HAD to go for some kind of counseling, which I did, albeit 6 years later. Counseling definitely helped me to digest some of the sticky issues surrounding what happened, but it didn't heal the broken trust in the world. We are all born with an innate sense of trust that the world will support us. Any kind of trauma completely destroys that. It's like being privy to information you weren't supposed to know about. But now you do. You know that the world is unpredictable, that you aren't special, that we all die, that you need to watch your own back because no one else is going to do it for you. Maybe this is the most important reason why I had to come on this trip. To learn to trust the world again. Because the reverse is also always true - you are safe, supported and loved at any given time. There are two sides to everything and the trick is not to lean too much in the direction of either. The Middle way, as the buddhists say. I hope to learn to walk in the middle way by the end of this trip. For now it's stressful being here, feeling unprotected and insecure. I go into the fear to conquer it. I refuse to spend the rest of my life living a sheltered and safe existence - I might as well be dead then. And so I will march on. I hope you are marching with me.

A couple of notable things:

Two things that are really standing out: 1. If, as an American, you do work for your community/country, people respect you. That means if you are a bus driver/teacher/garbage man/waiter/(the list continues), you are treated with respect and dignity. You have great self esteem. You are successful! In fact the guy who is my bus driver is a highly educated man and proud to do what he does. A difficult thing to get my head around as a South African. There is no judgement, no looking down upon here. I'm sure if I lived in Beverley Hills it would be different, but I'm speaking about the general ethos of the place. People are happy and proud to serve. 2. People drive within all given limitations here. Why I hear you ask? Because if you don't there are consequences:

• If you are caught driving without a license your car gets taken away and SOLD. That's right. No asking nicely and getting it back. They sell the damn thing.
• When you receive your drivers license you start off with 11 points to your name. This is good. You want points. No points means license gets revoked and that's the end of the line. Different amounts of points get deducted for different offences. I mean they take off like 2 points for tailgating... If they did that in SA no one would be driving anymore!
• If you get caught driving drunk they take like 5 points off your license and you get a red mark put on your license. This makes it difficult to get insurance at a reasonable rate, and can make it difficult to get a bank to help you finance a car. There is also a website with a "wall of shame" where your photo gets published for all to see.

3. Contrary to what we see on tv, New York City is one of the safest big cities in the world. No morning newspaper stories stuck to every telephone pole you see telling you about the latest gruesome and sticky ending of so-and-so. Nope. That doesn't mean that there aren't shootings and the like, but nowhere near what we have in Jozi or Cape Town. I think I might be starting to relax a little.