It’s summer which is vacation time, and since I haven’t been on the subway a lot lately I thought I’d share some old travel pieces from years back. Enjoy.

So, if Rumi says there are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground, then one of them is surely to shake your ass like a crazy person on top of a rock, high in the Andes Mountains. Let me explain:

I went to Machu Picchu this weekend. A spiritual journey to the sacred lost city of the Inka. But I will tell you, day one was anything but spiritual, and my pilgrimage was a pain in the butt. To get to this sacred place, first must you fly to Lima, Peru. Then you must fly to the mountain town of Cusco. Then after a few days of chewing coca leaves to adjust to the high altitude, you must get on a train at 6:00am which moves at the pace of a snail through the sacred valley – past slums and streams, past oxen and rock throwing children and snow peaked mountains and even past gaggles of back packing trekkers – to a dingy tourist town where you exit the train and shuffle across a bridge with what seems like a million German tourists to get in queue for a bus, which will drive switch-backs on a dirt road up an unbelievable mountain, to drop you in a parking lot to get in queue with another million German tourists to buy a ticket to get in line behind even more tourists to enter the sacred place of the Inkas. All this to try to find God. I felt more like a lemming at Disneyland at Christmas, and it was very upsetting. How in the hell can I find God here with all these shuffling tourists? I decided I needed a guide, but the only one I could find who spoke English was in charge of two New York socialites who were tiptoeing across the architecture of the Inkas in Manolo Blaniks and carrying Prada bags. I ended up touring with them, and their designer shoes, and their fake boobs, and I’m sure someone has found God in a pair of plastic tits, but it didn’t work for me that day. I retreated to the dingy village that night to soak in the rancid hot springs they are famous for, and drown my failed pilgrim sorrows in a bottle of Peruvian wine and the conversation of a 19 year old German girl. I know, yes, of course, German.

Looking for God, day two: Armed with my best spiritual armor, a.k.a. an iPod loaded with U2 and an arrival of 6:00am, I entered the holy city of Machu Picchu. Okay, so walking through empty terraces and mist filled mountains, sharing the pathways with only llamas and the ghosts of civilizations past, oh, and Bono, this was better. Surely God will be here today. After softly traversing Machu Picchu proper, I arrived at the gate to Wynapicchu, which is the tall thumb of a mountain that frames the Inka city in the back. Only a limited number of nimble hikers are allowed access to this pinnacle each day. I sign my name in the entry book, and begin climbing. All I can see are Andean Mountains, mist, lush green leaves and vines, and stone carved steps; a lot of them. I mean, a lot of steps. Thank God for hours of squats in the gym because this pilgrimage is requiring a lot of my glutes though I would take the steps worn smooth by the feet of those spiritual pilgrims before me over the Stairmaster any day. Finally, hours later, sweaty with quivering quads, I make it to the top, and because I am blessed with long legs and an absence of caution, I get the highest rock, on the very tippy top of the mountain. All I can see for 360 degrees are mountain tops, jungle, mist, blue sky, and air forever. And all I can hear is my music. Seriously, it was as if I was standing on the top of the world, and as high as the mountains were, was the exact depth I could feel the magnitude reflecting in my soul.

At this point I had exhausted Bono and moved onto Seal. There is a song he sings, Love’s Divine, you may know it, it starts out a little slow and broken, and picks up, and then sort of lets loose with the chorus, “love is what I need to help me know my name,” and I’m standing, on top of a rock, high in the mountains, high above a lost sacred city, looking for God, at the end of my pilgrimage, and all I want to do is dance. Like really dance, to this song, on top of my rock. And I do. I turned my back to the other tourists splayed out on their trophy rocks like lizards in the sun after the long hike, and I just dance my ass off because at that moment, I completely and totally know my name and I feel something so great I can’t help but dance it to the mountains, and the sky, and the mist, and the red headed condor that decided to fly in circles around me. When the song was done I quickly scrambled down from my rock and walked into the jungle to hike for two more hours and hopefully not see any of the people who just witnessed the silent spectacle of my holy dance.

Later that evening, with the luck of a single seat, I had to ride the snail train backwards back through the sacred valley – past corn fields and pigs, barefoot children and women shooing chickens from doorways with brooms – away from the lost city of the Inka, away from the mountains and the mist and the condor. I was worried I would get train sick, but as I sat there I sort of enjoyed my backwards retreat, like when you see something so amazing you want to slowly back away and keep the vision of it in sight as long as possible. And as I thought about my weekend, and my pilgrimage, and the amazing sights I saw, the image I kept returning to was myself dancing like a fool on top of a rock, high in the Peruvian mountains. I went there looking for God, and what I found was a sacred space deep inside my soul that’s magnificence eclipsed the beauty of all the other things I saw. And just for a second, or a three minute song, on top of that rock, I completely and totally knew my name. And I think it was one of the names of God.

Love’s Divine
Then the rainstorm came over me
And I felt my spirit break
I had lost all of my belief you see
And realize my mistake
My time threw a prayer to me
And all around me became still
I need love, love’s divine
Please forgive me now I see that I’ve been blind
Give me love; love is what I need to help me know my name
Through the windstorm came sanctuary
And I felt my spirit fly
I have found all of my reality
I realize what it takes
Cause I need love, love’s divine
Please forgive me now I see that I’ve been blind
Give me love; love is what I need to help me know my name
Oh I don’t bend, don’t pray, show me how to live and promise me you won’t forsake
Cause love can help me know my name
Well I’ve tried to say there’s nothing wrong, but inside I felt me lying all along
But the message here was plain to see; Believe me
Cause I need love, love’s divine
Please forgive me now I see that I’ve been blind
Give me love; love is what I need to help me know my name
Oh I don’t bend, don’t pray, show me how to live and promise me you won’t forsake
Cause love can help me know my name
Love can help me know my name

I tend to be a happy drunk which I consider a good thing, because if I ever go crazy, then hopefully I will be a happy crazy person, which I am starting to think might be, quite nice.

Cub and I were on our daily train a few weeks back, and it seemed like another humdrum uneventful commute. People coming, people going, Cub holding a nearby pole from her stroller doing an exaggerated side-to-side sway, essentially riding the subway like a big girl, like the rest of us. It’s a real crowd pleaser when she does this. Anyway, at a stop about mid-ride, a young guy got into our car. He was lean and tan, thin in the way yoga teachers or raw diet enthusiasts are thin and all sinewy muscle and flexible looking with a healthy “high-pro” glow. He seemed to be southeast Asian, which conjured more yoga vibes, khaki pants rolled at the cuff, oversized sweatshirt, flip flops… and a stuffed animal type lizard perched carefully on his left shoulder. Now this was no typical stuffed animal lizard, it was more like a velveteen rabbit stuffed animal lizard, made from mis-matched fabrics – maroon corduroy on half and woolly plaid on the other with some purple floral print on the tail, one dangly button eye and the other socket just a thread x where it looked like the button had fallen off and left the defunct threads there looking like a cartoon black eye. Now a stuffed animal velveteen lizard on someone’s shoulder is a little strange, but the thing that pushed this over the top of the strange-o-meter was the Home Depot grade chain around the lizard’s neck, draping down over the yoga boy’s shoulder, wrapped numerous times around his khaki belt loop, and then padlocked in place for safe keeping. This was not a pocket watch gauge chain, or even a dog walking grade leash, but full-on industrial thick chain. Possibly when traveling with lizards – real or velveteen – on the NYC subway it is good to make sure they are properly tethered, for their safety as well as the safety of the other passengers. But in my mind this was the clue that this guy was a little crazy.

Yoga boy and his velveteen lizard ended up in a seat across from Cub and I, and after a few minutes I could see Cub notice the lizard, begin to ponder the lizard, or at least just realize that this was new and different, this shoulder riding, motley fabricked, eye-missing lizard. Her wide-eyed gaze was all that was needed for yoga boy to look at me, lean forward, and say, “She is beautiful” and break into a wonderful high-pro glow smile. Of course this made me smile, and we rode along like that for awhile, Cub holding the pole doing her exaggerated “riding the subway sway” while staring curiously at the velveteen lizard; yoga boy in a peaceful commuter shavasana; and me taking it all in. When we neared our stop and I started to do the impending departure rustle, he leaned in again and asked me her name. “Cub,” I replied. He then bent down in front of Cub, leaned in a little and said directly and intently to her wide open eyes, “Cub. Welcome to this world. You are in, for a beautiful, ride.”

Now of all the crazy things a person can say to you on the subway, I have to admit this was not what I expected. And as we walked away from the train I couldn’t stop smiling, like we had just received an unexpected blessing from an unlikely sage. And then I started to think that maybe being crazy, if it happened in a certain way, could be a really pleasant thing. Like if all the crap and worry and stress just melted out of our brains, and we were left with only the good, where velveteen lizards on our shoulders brought joy, and our words of wisdom to a toddler on the subway are that life will be wonderful, if this was all that was left in our minds, then crazy could be good. Actually this is what many of us strive for in our spiritual practices, to see the good, to see the beauty, to approach the world filled with awe and wonder. And maybe this yoga boy with his shoulder lizard was crazy, or maybe he was evolved. And possibly those things could be the same and we just don’t know it. And maybe because I’m a happy drunk, I will be happy crazy if I ever go crazy, and that seems sort of beautiful and maybe okay. And maybe I will evolve, and all my hard spiritual work will pay off, and I shouldn’t worry about things so much, and how I’m doing, and if I’m evolving, and simply remember that this can be, that this is, at its core, a beautiful ride.

Tip of the day: Keep an eye out for elderly people and pregnant ladies entering your subway car. If you spot one and offer your seat first it makes you feel like a champ. If you don’t notice and someone next to you offers first it makes you feel like a gump.