Prayers, Prostitutes,
and Participatory Consciousness

by Tom Callanan

  

On July 8, 2009 I had a brainstorm about riding my bicycle from Michigan to Boston to visit my daughter and my friend Sheryl who was in the hospital. With just a two-week window off work, I threw the trip together quickly and departed just four days later.  The quick departure didn't allow me the time to plan every contingency, or to gather all the necessary equipment. I went, for instance, with a 20-year old steel bike pulling a small trailer with my camping gear behind. Like Thoreau, I aimed to strip my existence down to the bare essentials, to take only that which was absolutely necessary. This seemed to be a wise approach as it made me lighter and easier to move faster and more efficiently. Things wouldn't be as convenient, and I'd perhaps be more dependent on others, but I learned very early on that that's when the adventure and the joy really begins.

 

During the third day of my trip, for instance, I'm facing one of my most challenging days yet, negotiating the busy, inner city streets of Cleveland, Ohio during morning rush hour.  I do well on the ride into the heart of the city, but then at 11:20 am, as I'm headed down a hill into the heart of downtown, I have to stop quickly for a red light. Caught off guard, I can't disengage my bike shoes in time from the clips that lock them firmly to the pedals. So, right there at a traffic light surrounded by vehicles, I go down. I tuck my body close to my bike and absorb the fall with my hip, knee and shoulder. My helmet just grazes the front tire of the car beside me. I'm spooked and embarrassed, and my hip and shoulder feel numb. I notice that blood is running from my left knee down my calf and onto my white socks.

I stop to regain my composure at a walking mall in the center of the city overlooking Lake Erie.

I catch the eye of a guy sitting on the bench across from me who's dressed in the dirty, tattered clothing of a homeless person. He's got a mountain bike that's attached to a trailer that two people can sit inside like an Asian rickshaw. A cardboard sign on its side says: "Tours - $10."  "Nice looking ride," I say to him.  "How much to take me to Boston?"  His face breaks immediately into a wide, toothy grin. "Clyde," he says as he approaches me and offers his hand. He checks out my bike and the suspension system on my trailer. I take his rig for a spin, although I return it quickly as it's so rickety I'm afraid it will break apart. Clyde rummages through his bag and pulls out a little foil package. "For your knee," he says as he hands me an antiseptic towelette. Respectfully, he doesn't ask me how it happened. I give him a banana and tell him a bit about my trip. He then meticulously draws a map on my Starbucks bag of how to string together a series of walking trails, bike paths, and a "secret" airport service road that will take me virtually traffic-free from the city center east..."for as far as I've been," he says.

Clyde's Map of a path through downtown Cleveland

Clyde's map is amazingly accurate and includes notations for points of interest such as "fishing," "view" and "wild dogs."  Near the airport, I pass under four intersecting highway overpasses marked on the map as "camp." I see only two people asleep in the shade, but there are literally dozens of old mattresses, blankets, tarps, shopping carts and 55-gallon burning drums strewn over a quarter mile area indicating that dozens of people, maybe more, sleep here at night.

My experience with Clyde highlights an experience that I have over and over again during the trip. I initially imagined that I could only accomplish the trip through a combination of strength, will and determination. And yet, it was my experience that it was at those times when I was most open and vulnerable that assistance, energy, and resources would appear from surprising directions. And that made all the difference.

Here's an example: Mid-afternoon, Day 6 outside Canandaigua, New York, I crest a small hill in Amish country. There's a farmhouse ahead with maybe six or seven men and boys re-shingling the roof. A man working on the chimney spots me first and calls out to his son, "Hey, Jacob."  As I pass by a stand of trees and come into full view of the house, everyone has stopped. They're arranged on the roof (some standing, some sitting, some squatting), frozen in time as if in some Andrew Wyeth painting.  Silent as crows. I think about waving or saying something, but nothing comes to mind. So I just keep pedaling and watch them as they're watching me. From what I know about the Amish, I imagine and hope that they're looking at me with approval. But maybe they're just laughing at my tights.  The truth is, I have no idea what they're thinking. But the moment feels sacred and charged with a kind of reverence. Whether I'm right or not, I decide that the men are paying me their silent respect, and they're blessing me.  And I'm doing the same back to them. And for the remainder of my trip and beyond, I feel inspired and fueled by their blessing.

The Amish roofers wake me up to the fact that my success on the trip thus far can perhaps be explained by the fact that I'm not accomplishing it solely through instrumental means alone.  I'm tapping into multiple states of consciousness and being sustained by multiple sources of energy. To explain, there are three basic ways of thinking, acting, and being (states of consciousness). These states, namely "instrumental," "receptive" and "participatory," are available to us in every moment. And yet, most of us limit ourselves to just one or two states at any given time. Tap into two or three states simultaneously, and you'll be more successful, not just with biking but in all things.  

Tom on his bike in Indiana

Here's a brief run-down of the tree types of consciousness:
 
"Instrumental consciousness" is the most common way of thinking/acting for achieving success. Most of us operate from this type of consciousness 90% of our lives, as we set intentions, establish priorities, and move toward our goals with clarity, focus and will. From this state, we see ourselves as separate from our environment and acting on that environment. We evaluate things as either "instruments of" or "distractions from" achieving our goals. It's this state that we use most of the time, and it's this state that I'm using on my trip as I eat calories, burn those calories as fuel for my legs, and pedal down the road.

"Receptive consciousness" is the state where, rather than "acting on" our environment, we  "receive it." We experience receptive consciousness when we step into a hot bath after a hectic day and our muscles relax - Ahhhh. To fully enjoy and be nourished by the bath, we can't "act on it" as instrumental consciousness would dictate. We need to relax our control and our sense of separateness and open to allow it to effect and nourish us. This state can open us to being nourished by sources far beyond the bathtub. I realize, for instance, that I'm fed on my trip on different levels by something - everything.  Herds of cows that I ride by and have long conversations with, miles and miles of wind-swept corn and wheat fields that mesmerize me across entire states, a homeless man in Cleveland, and the silent regard of Amish roofers. I can't measure the calories that I'm receiving from these sources of energy in the way that I might with food, but I can indeed feel that I'm using them as very real fuel and inspiration for my journey.

"Participatory consciousness" is a way of being where we're not so much acting on or receiving our environment-we're engaging with it. Athletes such as big wave surfers or artists describe the experience of interacting with the wave, the music, or the canvas in such a way that something is mutually unfolding between them. There's a conversation or a play that we're participating in - a spontaneous, creative and exuberant give-and-take. Like the experience of our most luminous moments making love, we feel totally connected and interdependent. Each person is contributing to the experience, and no one is controlling it.  

The difference between instrumental or receptive actions and participatory ones often has to do with intention.  If our intention is to accomplish something or control a situation, we're in instrumental. If we're looking to receive or get something, we're in receptive. If we're open to being influenced and guided by what's happening, we're participating. When I was engaged with Clyde in Cleveland, for instance, I was participating. I got first aid and a map from him, which might indicate a receptive or instrumental mode, but I didn't go into the interaction with the intention of looking for those things. Participatory encounters sometimes yield larger returns than instrumental ones, we just enter the encounters without specific agendas or goals. Whatever the results, participatory states are often the most fun.  

Here's an example:  Early morning, Day 7 headed toward Seneca Falls, NY. The road is quiet and peaceful, and I see maybe five cars in my first hour of pedaling. As I pass a grassy embankment, I hear a rustling noise. There's a groundhog - a really huge groundhog, and he's (I imagine it's a "he" because he's so huge) running along the top of the embankment parallel to me - just fifteen feet away. His little legs beneath his furry body are flying, just flying.  He's going as fast as I am - maybe 14 miles an hour. At first, I don't think he sees me, but then he looks over for a second. His glance almost throws him into a tumble, so he looks down again, catches his balance and re-doubles his efforts - in the same direction. I don't believe this, I think. He's racing me. He's frickin' racing me! A few seconds later, with him still churning out a frantic pace, and with me now settled down onto my lower handlebars for extra speed, he glances over at me again. The embankment then closes out, and he cuts away and is gone... just like that.  

For the rest of the day, and for the remaining days of the trip, I find myself laughing and uplifted each time I think about him. In the groundhog's honor, I adopt him as my trip's official mascot. The experience reminds me that my trip is indeed a participatory one, and I begin to look for every opportunity to engage with my environment in such a way.

Early morning day nine, I climb a long hill out of the Mohawk river valley. A train is coming up behind me on the track that I've been running parallel to for almost two days. It almost catches me as I'm cresting the hill.  Because the majority of the train, which has to be a full quarter-mile long, is still pulling most of itself uphill, I've got a chance at a race.  

I stand and start pedaling as fast as I can, which at this stage of the game is still a bit like a wounded hummingbird. I gain ground on the engine: ten yards, twenty, then thirty. The conductor, who must see what I'm doing, pulls on the big air horn, Waaaaaaa. "Game on!" he seems to be saying. And then again, twice this time. Waaaaaa. Waaaaa. "Bring it!"  

I'm bringin' it buster, I think. I'm pedaling as fast as my little rooster legs can spin, right to the edge of losing control. I gain more advantage... maybe forty yards. But the further down the incline we go, the more train he's got on this side of the hill, and the faster he begins to go. Soon the gap closes and he's alongside me. I look over quickly trying not to lose my balance and the guy.... no, there're two guys... they're hanging out the engine-house window and they're yelling. I look back at the road. Now is not the time, I think, to hit a pot hole and wipe out. Are they cheering me on or taunting me, or both?  Whatever they're doing, they're yelling and one guy's got his hat in his hand and he's waving it at me. The other guy's pulling on the horn continuously now. Waaaaa... Waaaaa... Waaaaaaa....

Soon the train's picking up major speed and momentum, and I'm getting crushed. The cars begin flying by - Whoooosh-whooosh-whoosh-whosh.  I look down at my speedometer and see that I'm still going at my top speed of 32 mph, but I'm barely working. What's going on? I must be getting pulled along in the train's wash. The engineer gives me one last blast on the horn and soon the last freight car passes me by. As my heart rate and breathing begin to settle back down, I wonder whether those guys were looking at me (as I engaged in my furious dash against the inevitable), much like I'd looked at the groundhog.  

Day 12, my last day of the trip before reaching Boston (I've averaged 87 miles/day), I'm carbo-loading on watered down orange juice and cheap pastries at a Howard Johnson's Motel that I stayed at the night before in a seedy section of Springfield, MA to escape a rain storm.

Much as I did with Clyde in Cleveland, I befriend a young woman named Christine (who's eight months pregnant), and a group of five of her friends who appear to be prostitutes along with their pimp (named Richard).

Christine and Richard outside the Motel

Christine and her friends, who are having breakfast at a nearby table, don't believe me when I tell them what I'm doing. They begin peppering me with questions about the trip. How many days have I been going? Where do I stay at night? How many miles a day?  Finding it hard to believe that anyone would do such a thing, their questions are more like an interrogation.  In particular, they can't understand why I'm doing the trip.  I explain that I'm headed to see my daughter and my friend.  I'm taking a different kind of vacation. I'm on an adventure. They don't buy any of it. Finally, I offer weakly, "And, it's also a great way to get into shape."

"Baby doll!!" Christine cries extending both hands toward me.  "Look at you. I think you've achieved your goal. Take a break!"  
"It's also been a time," I counter, now looking down at my biking shoes, "for me to contemplate. You know, to think about my life and all." 

"Sweetheart!" Christine quips as she leans back in her chair. "We're all thinkin' and contemplatin' just fine right here in these chairs. Is it really that much better on a bike?"

When Christine sees that I'm unable to offer any rational reason for my trip, she relaxes. "You're just nuts," she says, "totally nuts. Just like the rest of us."

"Yea," I say smiling, knowing that the interrogation is now over. "I'm nuts."

"Here, Tom," says one of the girls as she brings over another Styrofoam plate of apple danish and powdered donuts. "Eat-up, honey. You've got a long day ahead of you."  

When I've eaten so much I'm feeling sick, Christine says, "Before you leave, I was wondering, well, ...can we pray?"

One of the girls gets up and leaves the table muttering, "Come on Christine, give me a break!" But the rest stay and soon six of us are sitting around my little table holding hands. "Dear lord, Jesus Christ," Christine begins. "You already know how this day will turn out. You're the one who's guiding our every action and our every word. Thank you for your guidance and your blessings. Thank you for bringing brother Tom into our lives. We ask that you surround him and protect him and guide him on his journey today, and always. Bless him so that he can visit his dear daughter and his friend in the hospital. In your name we pray. Amen." With that everyone squeezes hands in silence. Richard gets up and says, "Well, it's been a long time since I've done that!"  

Fifteen minutes later, as I'm preparing to depart by the motel's front entrance, Christine and Richard come out. I take their picture with my cell phone and we hug like old friends. As I'm riding away across the parking lot, Christine calls out, "Hey Tom."  As I look back over my shoulder, she motions with her hands in the air.  "I see angels," she yells. "I see angels over your bike."
 

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April 2013

Tom Callanan is an author, facilitator, coach, philanthropic advisor and founder of the Wisdom Funder's Circle. He is co-founder of the Powers of Place Initiative and a regular contributor to Perspectives. For 16 years Tom served as Program Officer at the Fetzer Institute, a private operating foundation located in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Tom is currently Senior Advisor at the 1440 Foundation, a new family foundation in the Silicon Valley. The foundation is near the center of a small but growing group of spiritually-oriented philanthropists and foundations who Tom is pulling together as part of the Wisdom Funders Circle. Tom is a former magazine and newspaper journalist and co-author of "The Power of Collective Wisdom and the Trap of Collective Folly" (Sept. 2009, Berrett-Koehler). Tom has three grown children and lives in Santa Cruz, CA. He can be reached at [email protected].