aug.18.03 Zlin,CZ this is not an update. rather lets call this a conversation a very slow conversation like a chess game through the newspaper. I don't like mass mail either but I don't have a choice. the internet here costs by the minute and I would rather eat than email so... I just have so many things I wish to share with you so many blessings I would love to give to you and also so many questions and things I could use your opinions and advise on. its hard to explain what its like here in czech. im definitely still an outsider I haven't worked to speak the language so much and some czechs feel almost offended that I don't speak more. but I didn't come here to speak and this life I have lived here in cz has been about stopping to wait and pray. what I have learned is that I am a very impatient man. I need the whole world now, and again now, and so on. meditation is like going to the dentist for me. music has been my only salvation since it delivers me to the place and then runs away from me like a dog in the park. its out of my control. I have learned to play hand drums to some level of proficiency or at least I tell myself that. it's a beautiful instrument because you can completely fly with it . you can let go more than ive ever experienced. there are times when my hands are doing things I have no idea how to do and I can barely hear them because im far away. don't know where I go but I know its cool there and it makes me laugh out loud and cry at the same time. speaking of things that make me laugh and cry at the same time, I am also leaving Czech behind for new lives in new places. if you're a wanderer you have to change your routes or it all gets old and you get lazy and lost. I don't want to be lost again now that im found. I would rather leave lives and loves behind with my heart in their hands than . its never easy to let go but only when the hand is open can you feel all the universe has to give you. this has been a good lifetime here in these woods. but I must go at the end of the month. rent is up and the root of all evil has dwindled once again to nothing. I don't care about having it so much but my landlord is more particular so I will give him back my beautiful forest cottage, which has been such an amazing hideaway and immense blessing in the life of this unworthy servant. I will of course do all I can to pass that on in some form or another to you at some point or another. what I have learned here I'm still figuring out, but I know that I was led here to remember things I had forgotten and cleanse myself of the impurities of  civilization. now as  im about to leave I find myself trying to hold on and let go at the same time. ive been taking some trips away to prepare myself. believe me motivating my 35 year old butt out into the wild open world with a plastic tarp and a sleeping bag and 20 bucks in my pocket is not as easy as it might have been in the past. I have to train myself for it now. tramping. no nice cars or hotels to sleep in or keep the bears and boogey men away. its just you, your thumb and faith that everything is going to be "pahoda". out again tomorrow with a few friends for a spelunking adventure. a quest for guano, the holy fertilizer. in other words were going looking for bat poop. its great for plants and it's a good excuse to get out. I sleep in the forest more than in my home these days it seems. it looks like im headed for more of that in the weeks to come. an adventure im planning will hopefully take me to first for meetings with allies in Prague then more hopefully across Czech through beloved Telc town across Bohemia to Munich and Stuttgart finally to the home of my mentor H.H. after a brief stay in the black forest I will continue south to Basel and Bern and Geneva  then I will drift west into south central France where a job as a handyman in a castle awaits me. living with a small Dutch family in a huge estate helping renovate the place into a b&b. we found each other on the internet through an ex-patriot sight. the castle is in a village of  2500 people in the least industrialized region of France. nowhere in other words. sounds right down my alley. we will see how and when I make it there but im planning on riding out the winter there. but first some other places to be and see along the way. Goldmund is in my blood right now so we will wander a bit and eat the ripe fruit that hangs on the trees and sleep amongst the animals while the moment is here, winter will come soon enough. …   ok our conversation ran long, sorry. hope your still hangin on out there. I wish you all into my best dreams. and wish you all your dreams as well.  I'll finish with a psalm "The Lord is my shepherd.   I shall not want.   He maketh me to lye down in green pastures.   He restoreth my soul." thankfully,