I’m in De Carillon, an Oudenaarde café that sits in “two remaining 17th-century houses built on a former graveyard”.   My new friends here are enjoying their beer and coffee, getting ready for the biggest day in Belgium’s cycling calendar.

The Tour of Flanders has both a men’s and a women’s race.  The men have already started in Antwerp, on their 278-kilometre ride to Oudenaarde.

The women do a 164-kilometre loop away from and back to Oudenaarde, starting at 13:30.

At 11:30, I’ll be standing in front of the stage to see the twenty-two teams presented, and some of the famous riders interviewed.  So cool!

I thought I was plenty early this morning for the train from Gent to Oudenaarde.  The coach was beyond standing room only.  A young man kindly gave up his seat to a slightly older man.  And so I sat … and talked cycling to the fanatics across from me.  More cool.

The train company delayed our departure for a half hour or more, since there were too many people.  Many standers eventually volunteered to get off.  (Thank you!)  And we were off … in plenty of time for an Oudenaarde cappuccino.

***

Now it’s the next day.  I’m very tired.  Slept ten hours.

There is so much more to say about yesterday … wow’s all over the place.  But I don’t have much oomph to write.  So I’ll continue the journey tomorrow.

I’ll leave you with two photos:

The presentation before the women’s race – each team came to the stage.  Here’s Human Powered Health, with their leader Thalita de Jong waving to the crowd:

And now at the base of the Taaienberg, a half-kilometre cobbled climb with an average gradient of 6.8%, maximum 14.8% … here come the men!

Until tomorrow …

Many cello students of the Poel Music School had a concert this morning in a small blue chapel, with stained glass behind.

I forgot to take a photo, but this one from the Internet gives you a good idea:

One cellist at a time walks onstage, joined only by a pianist.  The small audience waits as the heart of the musician slowly rises up the throat.  My throat.

I did as I had asked myself to do … play with passion, no matter the sound.  (And the quality of the sound came and went)

My body swayed.  There were moments of being lost in the melody.  I believe I reached some in the audience.  And so I smile.

What thrilled me to bits was witnessing the flow of humanity stepping up … alone, naked.  Young, old, male and female, highly skilled and less so.  One young man played a fast piece brilliantly.  Afterwards I said that I was tempted to see him as a cello God, but I decided not to.  He was one member of a large cello family, we who cheer each other on.

Something else made me happy this morning.  I had brought a light for the music stand because the chapel lighting is pretty dim.  I knew immediately that I wanted all the players to use the lamp.  I knew it would be a contribution to many of them.  Voilà:

So my favourite memory was beyond the music.  Beyond the inspiring human performances.  Just simple kindness.  What a family deserves.

***

We were together

Applauding everyone

Feeling the glow

My friend died yesterday … my mentor, and an inspiration about what’s possible in life.

What’s true about Patricia Albere is that she leans into the future, with a vision of true human connection that will sweep the planet.

Patricia founded The Evolutionary Collective about fifteen years ago, after forty years of leading seminars and coaching individuals to be a sublime version of themselves.

She realized that enhancing the “me” is not our highest calling, that the “we” of deep contact with other human beings was beckoning her.

In the early years of this century, I was smitten with the work of Ken Wilber.  He has been described as “a visionary thinker of inspired genius, the developer of an integral ‘theory of everything’ that embraces the truths of all the world’s great spiritual, scientific and philosophical traditions.”  A very big life.

In December, 2017, Ken was hosting a conference in Colorado that brought together many of the world’s great thinkers.  I signed up to have the sessions beamed to my laptop.

I listened to really smart people from fields such as psychology, business, the arts, spirituality, etc.  After three days of this, I noticed a few things, such as all the speakers were men.  And then …

A woman came onstage.  I thought her name was Patricia Albert.  Never heard of her.

And so began my experience of someone who is different from all these “thought leaders”.  The “we” was unfolding before my eyes, outshining my efforts to be a better person.

Patricia has challenged me, from a space of love.  She has shown me an approach called “Mutual Awakening” that fosters an egoless unity showing up between two or more people.  A giving without being attached to a receiving.

***

Thank you, Patricia, dear one

You have opened my eyes … and my heart

Plus those of countless others

Yuh done good

I’ve never met anyone who has a comma in the middle of their name, and I still haven’t … but here comes Alfred, Lord Tennyson.  He was a British poet who died long before I showed up – 1892.

(No, I didn’t show up then.  That would make me very old.  Mom delivered me in 1949.)

Alfred wrote Ulysses – a classic.  Some of his lines speak to me over the years and miles …

Come, my friends
‘Tis not too late to seek a newer world
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew
Though much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are
One equal temper of heroic hearts
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield

***

How about if we go there together, sailing beyond the sunset?  We can touch the Happy Isles.  With all the ebbs and flows of life …

Much abides

The expanse of yesterday is gone.  For much of the time, my vision had been radiating out from a centre – embracing all and everyone … 360 degrees.

Vividly emitting, projecting or exhibiting a strong quality, emotion or energy (like joy, confidence or warmth) that is clearly noticeable to others

I didn’t experience the “noticeable to others” part.  But the flow outwards was vivid.

When something or someone goes, I ask myself whether it will come back.  It’s unknown.  If I try to grab on, it’s like smoke slipping through my fingers … gone.

As the poster says (the one which graced my wall decades ago):

If you love something, set it free

If it comes back, it’s yours

If it doesn’t, it never was

I’m smiling now in the not knowing.  People, places, moments of brightness … float away.  Bye bye.  I would love you to come back.  And you may not.

Some presence created the human body … the female ones and the males.  It’s a good design.  I’m glad I have one.

I’ve noticed that my eyes are on the front of my head.  They look forward, with the range of sharp focus being pretty narrow.  That’s fine, I guess.  I can concentrate on the object in front of me.

Yesterday something new showed up, although I figure it’s been bubbling under the surface for awhile.

I started feeling 360 degrees, with my vision heading out in all directions.  As if my eyes encircled my head.  Like this …

Of course my physical eyes still point only forward, but something has changed.  I’m literally centered.  In my best moments, I’m including everyone and everything.  Naturally I have many other moments of ordinary consciousness.  However …

Right now I am 360

I embrace the experience while it’s here

And will remember it fondly when it leaves

Yesterday I stood in Gent centrum and watched about 12,000 people pass by … at various speeds.  I was cheering on my friend Petra and my friend Tessi (mother and daughter).  Twenty-one kilometres of running is an achievement.  I’m proud of them both.

I scanned a lot of approaching faces as I searched for the two I know.  Woh!  That tired me out … and I was standing still.

But here they came … faces were full of delight as their hands slapped mine.  I was afraid I had missed the moment, but no fear.  We met.

And then there was the flow of humanity:

The elite athletes … slim and fast

The slow joggers … a few occasionally stumbling

The hordes of firefighters … oxygen tanks strapped to their backs

The grey-haired folks … looking stiff in the joints

The bright-eyed ones … as they spot a beloved in the crowd

The intense ones … their arms rigid and a bit high

The zen floaters … their feet seeming a few centimetres above the ground

The mothers and daughters, fathers and sons … family all

A young man pushing a handicapped fellow in an adult-sized stroller … happy to help

Everybody … 12,000 bodies and souls, flowing together

I’ve had many mentors in my life, as in “experienced and trusted advisors who provide guidance, support and knowledge to a less experienced person” … me.

Mrs. Hudson – Grade 8 teacher at Bedford Park Public School in Toronto

Michael Bliss – history teacher at Lawrence Park Collegiate in Toronto

Jim Bayly – professor in the Carleton University School of Social Work in Ottawa

Joel Brass – psychologist and personal development seminar leader in Lethbridge, Alberta

Gordon Campbell – professor in the University of Lethbridge Faculty of Education

Greg Scharf – teacher at the Insight Meditation Society in Massachusetts, USA

Patricia Albere – founder of the Evolutionary Collective, based in New York City

Some of these marvelous human beings are dead.  Some are alive.  They’ve all been my captain … a teacher in the true depth of the word.

And when they leave this planet, the poet Walt Whitman helps me grieve and honour:

O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done
The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red
Where on the deck my Captain lies
Fallen cold and dead

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells
Rise up – for you the flag is flung – for you the bugle trills
For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths – for you the shores a-crowding
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning
Here Captain! dear father!
This arm beneath your head!
It is some dream that on the deck
You’ve fallen cold and dead

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will
The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done
From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won
Exult O shores, and ring O bells!
But I with mournful tread
Walk the deck my Captain lies
Fallen cold and dead

***

Rest in peace, dear ones

Ten minutes ago (now thirty), as I sat in Lloyd Coffee Eatery enjoying my cheddar and bacon bun, a woman approached me with a big smile.  I didn’t know her but I smiled back.

Something was “off” about her face.  The smile was real but her eyes weren’t touching mine.  And then I realized … she was smiling at someone sitting at the table behind me.  (Sigh)  The yearning for contact denied.

Sometimes I wonder if other people see me as “off” when I’m looking at them.  In my less brave moments, I don’t look softly into the depths of their eyes.  It’s more like the bridge of their nose.  Hmm … that’s not how I want to be – a subtle fear being stronger than love.

In my better moments, the two of us are so together in the eyes.  It’s peace.

***

I’ve met a few famous people in my life.  One was Archbishop Desmond Tutu.  He was speaking in a Toronto cathedral.  Afterwards we were invited to line up down the centre aisle to say “Hi” to the great man.  It was a long line.

Closer, closer … and I didn’t know what to say.  Now I don’t remember what I said.

As Desmond and I talked for a few seconds, a sadness fell on me.  He was looking over my shoulder the whole time, gazing down the line of people waiting for him.  (Sigh again)

***

A heroic human being

Coping as well as he could with celebrity

And a lost moment for both of us

My eyes have been following my TV screen to Prague in the Czech Republic.  There is gliding to be seen.

The women’s single competition is fine.  So is the men’s.  One person leaping into the air and rotating three or even four times before gently returning to the ice.  Exquisite.  And it doesn’t deeply draw my heart.

It’s the pairs competition that holds me close.  And there’s something far beyond what the judges seem to be focusing on.  They allocate points for the man throwing the woman into the air, and for him lifting her high while he skates on.  Those moves interest me but they don’t take my breath away.

One thing that the judges and I agree upon is the synchronization of woman and man doing the same series of jumps, a few metres apart.  If the follow through is perfectly in time with each other, there is joy in my heart – one arm extended forward, one leg extended backward.

However …

All this skill and timing pale before the ineffable, which seems to be a very fine word:

Something too great, intense or sacred to be expressed in words

But words are all I have here (other than photos).

A highly skilled couple from Germany came first, became world champions.  But a pair from Japan touched my heart.  Yuna Nagaoka and Sumitada Moriguchi.  All I have are scattered words:

Flowing

Curving

Dancing

Smiling

Loving

Yuna and Sumitada were the stars of my show

They shone