"Jennifer embraces the re-emergence of the feminine divine as the siren-call for conscious living. This book is the new Zen & The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance for our times. It’s a simple process and a light-hearted adventure; a motocyclist’s litany of how to get on and out into your personal open road." Steve Simon,renowned clinical psychologist & motorcycle enthusiast "When you’re ready to toss your GPS out the window, pick up Bair’s book. Raw road wisdom for the wman who dares to dive deep, it’s soul geography from the biker’s eye view. Don your chaps and helmet, pack lightly, and prepare for the ride of your life." Amara Rose,author of What Shines: Practical Wisdom for Unleashing Your Inner Brilliance, and LiveYourLight.com Please try the companion Audio CD or MP3 downloadOPEN ROAD SERIES PresentsThe Goddess Sings:An Audio Workbook & MusicAvailable through www.jenniferbairpresents.comask for it in fine book/CD sellers in the USA, Canada & UKJoin the conversation www.facebook.com/openroadseries

Open Road: A Goddess-Biker Guidebook

Find Your True Self, Create a Bold & Soulful LifeBy Jennifer Bair

AuthorHouse

Copyright © 2010 Jennifer Bair
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4520-2158-4

Contents

Part One: Know Your Bike Message of The Spiritual Age.........................................Page 1Part Two: Learning To Ride - Becoming A Seeker of Personal Truth..............................Page 37Part Three: On The Road - Holding The New Vision..............................................Page 59Part Four: The Swap Meet - Shadow Journey with Your Spirit Animal Helpers.....................Page 89Part Five: The Women's-Only Run - Discoveries At The Fork In The Road.........................Page 137

Chapter One

PART ONE

Know Your Bike - Message of the Spiritual Age

"We're seeing an accelerating change in our collective consciousness that will change the way we walk on the earth." Ram Dass

You are curious. You are in pursuit of happiness. You like motorcycles. You may even be obsessed, overwhelmed by the nuances of biker-babedom and the longings that seem fulfilled and carried like the plethora of dirty patches sewn onto these men and women's leather and denim. Perhaps you ride your own bike, after years of waiting on the sidelines, at the curb-waiting for some guy's eye to fall upon you and give the signal for entrance into this clich-demonized testosterone-driven domain of motorcycle mamma lifestyle. You stand on the sidewalk, secretly hoping to straddle your own steaming, revving, shiny icon of power and lust and freedom of the road and every tight-assed convention you've ever had the pain and pleasure of breaking.

Even if you've never ridden, never had a motorcycle in your family, you'll dig this adventure of self-discovery dressed in sexy chrome and leather. Let go of all the preconceived notions about truth and enlightenment and who the hell you want to be after you've impressed the guru of the month. And, get down to the question that haunts us all. How do we recognize and nurture our true nature without catching the flue of convention and closed-mindedness of a tried and true new age chick! Don't get me wrong, I like the fact that you may have already found your inner Goddess and swell with pride at every women's group meeting and new book signing at the local feminist mysticism and Wicca shoppe. But this book is about riding over all this with the pedal down, stroking through the hard surfaces of scientism and believing that you too can take on this chrome and leather beast, strap it on and ride, baby, ride.

Like any good rider of life, you want to be prepared. Part of that preparation is paying attention to your journey inside. Then you can check out what people are riding and saying about choosing the right bike. Your journey inside begins with a brief history of how spirituality has been part of humanity's journey. So, have a seat, open your heart, and begin!

Every age is the spiritual age. Humankind has revealed to each other the idea of our interconnectiveness to something bigger than ourselves from the first cave paintings dating from the early Paleolithic era to present day. Spirit can be defined simply has the breath, the thinking, motivating part of human courage, vigor and purpose. It also implies an energetic life force that is distinguishable from the body or material matters. This is referred to in all major religions as the soul, the inner body, spiritual path above the survival instincts of life sustenance and procreation. In a nutshell, the soul moves us from inanimate to animate and beyond.

SNAPSHOT Meet an Old-School Goddess-Biker

SUNSHINE

Two hundred shiny big-ass motorcycles were now gathered in the dealership parking lot and even more kept thundering down the street to join the Harley dealer sponsored mystery run. The quarter-acre parking lot now had twenty thousand-dollar motorcycles parked three rows deep, an army of kindred spirits in black leather jackets. My riding partner saw Sunshine drive her Harley into the lot, nudged me in the ribs and said that if I didn't interview her, I was a dumb-ass. Then he walked away laughing about how he writes novels, doesn't have to interview any damn body, and I was the writer on assignment here so get to it.

People stood still, some just staring, others waving hello and a nod of approval as Sunshine pulled into the parking lot and swiftly, skillfully, backed her steel steed into a tight slot between the other bikes. The vanilla and red striped paint job on her bodacious, full-dressed Harley wasn't the only thing of unique beauty and wild biker essence about her. The bike was decorated like a single woman's boudoir: A teddy bear wearing a tattered black lace top, Mardi Gras beads of green, yellow, red and silver, bailing twine and time straddled the tombstone taillight. More beads, hair accessories and clothing wound around the handlebars and hanging out from the saddlebags, like a typical messy bedroom.

The crowd around her bike thickened as she took off the tiniest peapod helmet I had ever seen, her flowing silver hair dashing like a waving mane onto the seat of the bike as the ox blood fringes mingled with strays from her handlebars and saddlebags. She smiled with an air of confidence and danger tasted and spit out like a cheap cigar.

Everyone had to either respect her trip or get out of her way as Sunshine dismounted in her silver lame cardigan jacket, purple leather pants that ended with matching purple boots adorned with silver and once black ankle bracelets and a harness strap with a gleaming silver spur on her right side. Other women made a path around her and men looked with a mixture of pride, respect and a little fear as she barreled her way down the middle of the lot, waving to familiar waves, a walk of someone on a mission with a wildness of spirit assured with time and experience. She took off the jacket and threw it carelessly over the seat, helmet on top. She had neither sunglasses nor gloves on. Her bare arms were stories in faded colored ink tattoos that barely registered but told a powerful history nonetheless.

I thought to myself, I will never be able to get an interview-she's intimidating. She's a queen of the road and I'm just another wanna-be. But my passion for the story untold was bigger than my petty insecurities about my own shit. Unwavering belief and bravado turned her eye. I caught up with her and continued to walk side by side as I spoke. "Hey, how's it going? How long have you been riding?"

"57 years" she said in a loud voice, stopping in the middle of her mission, legs spread, hands on hips. "Who are you? I've seen you taking pictures and asking questions. You a cop or something?"

I had my legs planted as firmly as possible as I replied, "I'm writing a book about women and bikes and life experience. It's called OPEN ROAD: A Biker Goddess Guidebook."

I felt the moment turn from suspicion to acceptance. With a grin, she threw her head back, swishing her long mane from side to side. She motioned for me to continue walking with her. We did. No one interrupted us. She looked sideways at me with an accustomed squint. Then this leathery mistress broke into a raucous laugh, revealing two rows of brown weathered choppers-not quite up to the massive tri-tip barbecue planned for the crowd today. But her story, now that was the main course!

"40 years on the back, 17 years on my own bike," Sunshine said with a gleam in her eye. We began walking again, back toward her bike. "I've done some easy ridin' and I've done some hard ridin'," she went on. "I left a man I loved and divorced one I didn't." She didn't look back or over her shoulder or anywhere else but straight into my eyes as she spoke. "I've lived in just about every state in the country, and spent some time in Puerto Rico." She raised as eyebrow and smiled like that was the hot one for her. "You know what? The Latinos got it over a lot of these guys!"

She didn't miss a beat, didn't wait for me to ask her anything. For a moment I couldn't remember who was interviewing whom. She just talked and I listened as people gawked and whispered at our strange coupling. "I'm a psychiatric nurse. Been nursing even before the modern-day care system. My patients think I'm crazy. I tell em' 'don't tell the staff I need this job'. How else am I going to keep my bike and my body on the road?"

I asked if she would mind if I shot some film of her. "With my scoot?" she asked.

I laughed and waved her onward. "Shoot yes, awesome," I replied honestly. "You're hot, you know that lady?" We laughed, the camera clicking away. She laid across the bike, caressed the fringes, petted the bear, and straightened out her top.

"Now get a shot with new belt," she said as she leaned over the bike, showing off her black leather and silver rhinestone belt, the buckle reading in big bold letters DIVA. It totally completed her whimsical, balls-out fashion statement. I took the shot then she stood up. A small wiry character of a man waved hello to her from across the line of bikes as she dismounted. I knew I wouldn't have much more time with her.

"How'd you get your name?" I asked as I put another role of film into the camera.

She spun around, a new wave of energy rising, swinging her hair to one side with a wild swipe of her hand over her leathered features. "Summer of Love `67, the summer of sunshine." She gave me one final look up and down with a wry assessing grin and then just drifted away without saying another word.

Sometimes the nuance of goddesses goes beyond language ...

Roadside Rambling - A Brief History of Spirituality

History reminds us of the hairpin turns and long, dry dusty roads we have ridden in order to understand our place in the universe. Looking back at a longer historical framework humankind has pondered spirituality as early as 850 BC when Earth-Based spirituality became the Pagan way of life, utilizing the five elements available to us: Air, Fire, Water, Earth, and Spirit and the divine powers of the feminine; the mother deity.

"Although they are only breath, words which I command are immortal." Sappho, gal-loving Greek poet

We know from the Middle Ages that the new church followers of the teachings of Jesus Christ, were opposed to this context of self discovery and nearly wiped out Paganism because they held onto their belief systems so tightly that nothing could move inwardly forward. As the renaissance years put form and beauty back into the human landscape, the idea of spirituality was split yet again. This time it included the new age of science and the church's dogmatic adherence to empirical and scientifically disproved facts.

In this battle with the medieval church, an unspoken agreement was reached. Science could have the freedom to explore worldly phenomena without interference, if it refrained from investigating aspects of the universe considered the domain of religion. This included humanity's relationship with God, angels, miracles, or anything that could seen as supernatural phenomena. So the physical world was delved into with vigor and we began to map the world and nature we found all around us. At the same time new technologies were invented and energy sources were developed.

The industrial revolution came as this new scientific methodology was recreating our world in concrete terms and physical causes. As people were beginning to think about upward movement, inward movement would surely follow if their dreams of a better lifestyle, more food, better shelter, and longer life spans were assured through the use of technology.

By the beginning of the eighteenth century the church wielded much less influence. A new worldview based on scientific materialism began to replace the old church-ruled ideas concerning everyday life. This created a swell of optimism. Science felt, with their tools now in hand, they could nail down the answers to all the questions of humanity's relationship with God and the universe. With these insights scientifically proven, we could overcome our hardships and create a more comfortable lifestyle; a new secular security. But with the advent of scientific methodology, we discovered that we had no proof for the basis of understanding God and our relationship to the soul or the unknown forces that create coincidence, intuition, and forgiveness.

The idea of progress came into being. This meant that with hard work and ingenuity as well as our developing technologies, we could take life into our own hands. We could exploit the resources on the planet to provide a more secure place for ourselves because we had certainly lost our place in the universe that the medieval church had provided. We had to replace the public's unquestioned belief system with a faith in science and the new work ethic.

And, now we come to modern times. Throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries this new modern worldview expanded and instituted itself in our collective psyche. The world we lived in had to be mapped, explained and made predictable-even to the point of ordinary and mundane. However, in order to keep this vision tightly engrained in the civilized mindset, we had to narrow our awareness of life to be screening and repressing anything that reminded us of the mystery of life. By the middle of the twentieth century, we had reduced our universe to a secular, completely explained world that assumed a techno-tunnel vision from which we dismissed out of hand any notion of the mysterious, supernatural or miraculous.

Now comes the good part! At the same time, the sciences-including the development of quantum physics, transpersonal psychology, and new mathematics, revised this materialistic view. Go ahead and apply these concepts in this revised viewpoint and see what comes up for you:

* Acknowledge that there is a single source of all that is or may ever be and that you are a part of the matrix of universal energy. * Trust in the process of life; there is a pattern and specific timing which are coincidental in nature but not accidental. * Believe that your life mirrors your quest to know yourself in all ways and find your balance. * Truly believe that your life essence is eternal.

The new accepted viewpoint stated that everything was connected by an interwoven pattern of energy systems. This effected time and space as it was proven by the likes of Albert Einstein and his colleagues thereafter.

Einstein correctly calculated in his general theory of relativity that the interaction of bodies in motion, which previously had been attributed to gravitational forces, are really the influence of bodies on the geometry of space-time. Sounds like over-cooked spaghetti, but read on! This would be a four dimensional space, a mathematical abstraction, having the three dimensions from Euclidean space and time as the fourth dimension. In the physical world, Einstein's theory works out correctly as was determined in the celebrated and paradoxical feature of quantum mechanics known as the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen effect.

It was discovered that time could speed up and slow down. That meant that elementary particles could appear in two places at once, and that space was curved and finite yet multidimensional in depth and size. According to Gregg Braden, renowned physicist/futurist and spiritual researcher, the connections are so engrained that he has discovered and proven interrelationships between emotion, space time continuum and the ancient sciences of compassion and blessing recorded by the Essenes-documented authors of the Dead Sea scrolls and many other documents that have become the trademark of the new shift in spiritual philosophy. Gregg Braden's authored work; Walking Between the Worlds, gives a thorough account of how these interrelationships influence us on cellular levels and how we can use this blessing to take more conscious control over our bodies and our planet.

Okay. So, we are headed into the fifties and pushing our curious minds into the sixties amid social upheaval. Revolutionary thoughts spilled onto our streets like broken water mains and change was happening everywhere around us. Of course we were affected. This was the beginning of our virtual awakening-the dawning of the Age of Aquarius. A dress rehearsal for the big show that is happening right now!

SNAPSHOT - Meet a New-Age Goddess-Biker

Bohemian Muse

I walked carefully up the steep path-broken slate steps placed long ago, and tiny piles of shiny confetti enticed me onward. My gaze steadied into a three-foot circle around my footfalls. I could hear laughter and tinkling, edgy strains of picnic basket entries, mixing with the smells of pine, lilac and sweet coconut-oiled sunglaze. There must have been over three hundred people there by 2 pm for this all day-all night celebration. Bright colors adorned everyone as they gathered in sweet clusters on the terraced mountainside retreat.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from Open Road: A Goddess-Biker Guidebookby Jennifer Bair Copyright © 2010 by Jennifer Bair. Excerpted by permission.
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