Back in 1966, there was a civil rights march from Memphis to Jackson where one person was shot so more joined the march, even Dr. King. An uprising against fear and violence. I thought about that march a lot as we took off from Memphis on the highway 51, the same highway the march took back then. The people in their graves seemed to be calling out to me from their cemeteries lining the highway. They were talkin' about that march and about us and our uprising. It was cool.

Back at home, (read: side of the road), we cook for one another, help each other with bike maintenance and fixing flats, we sleep together in the oddest and not so odd of places (people invite us to stay on their lawns and even build fires in their yards) and we are learning how to live peacefully, yet not in denial of our differences.

Some of the moments we have had with locals on the back roads of Mississippi are hard for me to describe because they have been so powerful, rich, and full of potentials to bridge gaps between worlds. One of these chance encounters stands out for me when we were in Halls. All six of us were there (sometimes we have a first and second wave because people get up and get ready at different times in the morning) and we were just leaving a gas station after filling our water bottles.

An old loaded pick-up truck pulled up and the two black folks (male) inside the cab of the truck spotted us and practically barked an order at us to stop because they wanted to talk to us so much. a bunch of crazy-looking circus kids on bikes apparently don't come through halls, Mississippi that often.

his teeth were yellowing and his hair was graying and he told us we needed to know self-defense if we were going to keep riding in this area, like a lot of locals do when they talk to us.

but he was jovial and youthful, delighted really, to talk with us, tickled real good, in a place deep inside. he got out of his truck and hugged me before we parted ways.

"Ten miles from here there are people who would kill you just to watch you die" one of our hosts tells us as we stay luxuriously in his beautiful home, eat his food, shower in his bathroom and get showered with the love and appreciation of strangers that so blesses this tour as we ride on.

Do they not see? They ARE that person who would kill us just to watch us die. We are all that person, somewhere inside. This is something I am learning on the cycles of uprising tour. We live in a world of strangers and we are strange even to ourselves sometimes, because of what we do, what we say, mass mobility and the disaster of the 500+ years of conquest and slavery we resist. We resist with our love, passion and desire for a world our children's children can live in without the sun burning our crops so bad, that we just don't have food and water like we used to way back in the day.

Climate change, it is both physical and social. As our global climate shifts due to human activity, so do our most intimate of relationships.

It feels refreshing, beyond belief, to trust the kindness of strangers, including the trust we are developing in our group dynamic on this tour. For those of you reading from the mythical magical land of northern California, the place I call home for now, we have drawn the ace of pentacles as the outcome for our day on October 23rd and as the outcome for this tour, which ends on November 7th with a celebration in Baton Rouge. Thank you for thinking of us on that day. I can feel your good will and thoughts you are sending us. Sending me emails is awesome too! Thank you!!!! I love it.

We are a well-oiled machine, a humyn-byke-machine, as we roll in, all slicked up and beautiful to our destination of New Orleans just in time for Halloween. What joy, seriously, I am bursting with the dew of life as we take another rain day here in Jackson with our amazing hosts, Kim, Al and their kids who are being home-schooled by a black parent and a white parent in Mississippi. That really means something here. more than where I come from. Racial barriers, tensions and domestic violence are not abstract concepts in the worlds we travel in. 

I am in love with every person on this ride, with Daphne, our fire twirling logo artist, with Alyssa, representing the stripes and spirals of life, with Arthur, our polyamorous enthusiast, with Shannon, our feisty feminist and route planner extraordinaire, and with Adhamh, our handyman and stellar comrade from way back.

And I am learning to love myself in the midst of social and environmental devastation and disaster. A lot of why I can do this, is because of the love that I feel from people reading this and from our larger collective bike tribes.

peace out, thistle