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“The goal of the curriculum, regardless of the teacher you choose, is to ‘Know thyself’. There is nothing else to seek.” (ACIM, T142)

 Got us a shiny new Harley Davidson.  Feel kinda like Janny Joplin – Oh Lord, won’t you buy me, a har-lee-dav-i-son – except I ended up on the receiving end of the request.  Wow!  My life has changed since the week before the new motorcycle! 

I’m a little confused this week about who I am.  I thought I was pretty in tune with myself.  I am a spiritual being having a human experience.  I love living the deep and rich mystical life.  But who is this biker babe looking back at me in the mirror?  Where did all this leather in my closet come from?  (And how will I explain that to my PETA friends?)  

The ironic part of this story is that for at least a year, I have been consciously working to integrate into my wholeness.  I can’t tell you how shocked I am that my wholeness includes a bad-to-the-bone-gramma-biker. This integration stuff is scary:  “Know thyself, for there is nothing else to seek.”  This one is a tough one to embrace.  I can’t tell you exactly how it happened.  But I can tell you what it feels like to be on the back of that bike.

We picked the bike up in May.  The jacarandas were in full bloom, and on the back of the bike, I was fully exposed to their glory.  There is no better way to be in the present moment than being on a motorcycle.  We were riding east on Bonita Avenue in LaVerne, late afternoon sunshine warming us from behind.  The temperature was perfect, still in the mid 80’s as the day tried to cool. Life all around us seemed more intense and real as we proceeded through the color-rich tunnel, purple petals floating continuously like a ticker tape parade God threw just for us. “Hooray!!  Hugh and Karen got a bike!!  Welcome to your new Life!!”

I simply couldn’t quit smiling. I just kept chanting, “Life is a prayer. Thank you God.”  It wasn’t about thanking God for the Harley Davidson, although it does create a pretty intense sense of appreciation for all that is and might be.  But the gratefulness in my heart is for the ability to step into, and honor, another aspect of who I am, and to express Divinity in this strange yet genuine new way.  

So it appears that the goal of my curriculum this summer, has to do with Harley Davidson-itis and the teacher I have chosen wears leather. (And she is me!)  A Course in Miracles tells us that we come to this world in a body to experience life so that we might encounter situations that will move us to understand the lessons that are more real.  It states “Every situation, properly perceived, becomes an opportunity to heal.”  (Text, 398)  All the years I denied that rowdy, harsher side of my human nature, I left unloved a genuine part of me.  For me, at least for one summer, putting on leather will be part of my healing. Somehow, I know in my heart it is a way to more boldly claim another aspect of the truest me.  It becomes another avenue to experience love.  I’m learning to see Christ in the big bad bikers, and lemme tell ya…. I like what I’m seeing.  Born to be wild? Then I bless you on your journey, for here too is God!  Have a bitchin summer!  Namaste’

KAREN RICE facilitates “A Course in Miracles” study group on Mon eves at Kindred Spirits in Claremont & Tues afternoons at the East San Gabriel Valley Church in Covina.   For info: 626-339-6336.