In May 2024 I bought a new car, a Toyota Rav4 Prime (2024), I think it had about 68 miles on it when I picked it out up on May 8, 2024. Today, Sept 1, I have 10,222 miles on this car.
I decided on this vehicle after I had finally decided to get a Ford Transit Connect … but when I started pricing them, and considering the cost (and effort) for adding power and other build out needs, I decided that I’d prefer to go with something that was pretty much travel ready, and, if I decide I don’t like this way of traveling, I can revert it back to being just a car rather than having a vehicle for which I would no longer have a use.
I have outfitted my car as a micro mini camper …. the climate control of the vehicle has kept me comfortable traveling through summer temps in excess of 100 degrees in the height of summer. This vehicle is equipped with an 1800 watt inverter and a 120 electrical outlet. I have added a power station (EcoFLow River 2 Pro) which I charge through the AC outlet while driving (will eventually add solar panels) and then it powers my refrigerator when the car is turned off. This has been working without any difficulty and has sufficiently fulfilled all of my electrical needs.
I had also purchased (and my son-in-law graciously installed) a custom system that gives me both storage and a sleeping platform. On the sleeping platform I have a blow up pad with a 1” foam pad on top of it. I have surprised even myself in finding this to be adequately comfortable. Of course, it helps that when I sleep I hardly ever move at all so I require little space. Also, I am quite short, so that helps as well! The whole system has been working well for me.
I have to admit I really do appreciate the electrical aspects of this car. I like that it is a hybrid and a plug in which gives me about 40 miles of all electric travel with each charge. Because I run the car almost constantly (for both the climate control and the internet hotspot when I am not driving) I really do not have a good idea as to what my mpg is. When I really want to know, I can figure it out manually. Or wait until I get back to NY and am not camping in it.
The first trip I took in May 2024 was from western NY to Nova Scotia, Canada. It was sort of a “shake down” trip where I could learn about this vehicle which feels more like a very big computer on wheels than just an everyday automobile. I actually slept with the vehicle’s manual and from time to time had to pull over to look up how something worked or how to change some setting. I chose Nova Scotia as I was able to meet up with a friend from my PhD school days but on the way I visited my niece and her family in Syracuse NY, and met up with two “online” friends in the Boston area. On the way back to western NY I met up with yet another online friend in Toronto, Canada.
At the end of June (2024) I left the home of my daughter, son-in-law and granddaughter (I had been there for 7 months). I took off on something I have wanted to do for at least about 2 decades … a road trip across (and around) the country while car camping.
The initial part of this journey was spent visiting family and then meeting up with friends I have made online but not yet met in person. I left Rochester, NY and stopped in Girard, PA to spend some time with an aunt and then on to Pittsburgh, PA to visit for a few days with a cousin and her family. From there I went to Maryland to meet up with an online friend and had the time/opportunity to spend an afternoon doing touristy stuff in our nation’s capitol. Next up was meeting another online friend in Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina where I enjoyed one of the best taco salads I have ever had … and as I have lived in southern CA for the past decade, that was impressive! The next online friend I met up with was on July 5th in Indiana.
Next stop was to meet up with another PhD program friend in Boulder, CO. While I was in Boulder, CO, I added a cargo box on top for the car … this has turned out to be a good decision! Before heading back to NY I plan to have a hitch installed and then add a cargo carrier on that hitch. (I have stuff to take back to NY that is now in storage in CA)
From Boulder I went north to meet in person another “online” friend in the Estes Park area. She was kind enough to invite a friend to visit one morning … an Elk grazing the day lilies right next to the parked cars!!! The bears that were invited never showed up ….. hmmmmm.
From here I would make my final stop before landing in Santa Barbara, CA. ( I have lived in this area from 2014 until the end of 2023. Now I am transitioning to being between this place and Rochester, NY.) I met up with another PhD program friend in Santa Fe, New Mexico. At this point, I completed the round of people I had wanted to meet up with as I traveled across the country. In a sense, my “outer journey” was complete, and now my attention turned to my “inner journey”.
I was talking with a friend of mine as we walked on a beach here in CA about my traveling and its trials, tribulations and wonders. She said to me that it reminded her of the Camino de Santiago ….. The Way of St. James (a network of pilgrimages leading to the shrine of the apostle James). The more we discussed this, the more it resonated with me … not in the outer world of places traveled, but of the inner transformation that comes from being “On the Way”.
Later I thought, “She ‘gets’ me.” How nice it is when one’s friends understand what is underneath one’s words and actions. I am grateful for her.
I have considered naming my vehicle “Rolling Bollingen” in reference to the tower in Switzerland where Carl Jung retreated when wanting to do more introspective work. A place with no modern conveniences such as plumbing and electricity, but a place where he lived more in tune with the earth, its rhythms, and the need to pay attention more closely to the activities of one’s daily life while being distanced from the many claims on his time and attention in his professional life. But, I have never been one to name inanimate things such as vehicles … still, the thought remains.
So – I AM on a sort of a pilgrimage, but rather than being in service to a religion, it is in service to my soul …. that aspect of me that arises as I embrace the marriage of my body and my spirit. This is a concept that became important in the work of Carl Jung, this idea that we would term “The Transcendent Function”, or, “the holding of the tension of the opposites.” Some also reference it as “the marriage of opposites”. The idea being that when we can hold the tension of two opposing things, ideas, situations, then we may eventually see a “third thing arise”. That “third thing” is a combination of the two opposites. Think in terms of when a man and a woman give birth to a child. It may also be considered the alchemical “philosopher’s stone”. In my experience, it turns out that this holding the tension of opposites is not as easy as it might first seem. We live in societies and in a historical time that are steeped in avoiding tension and seek quick fixes. It is rather counter-cultural to advocate for the idea of holding tension for however long it might take for that “third thing” to arise.
It is this holding of opposites, especially as it is applied to humanity’s eschewing of the world of spirit while preferencing the world of physicality, which has resulted in a call for the re-unification of the body (matter) and spirit (energy) as posited in Jungian (or “Analytical”) psychology that has become central to my academic pursuits. It may seem, at first glance, as a rather simple concept, but I have come to experience it as foundational to our very existence and has applications in just about every aspect of life of both individuals and the collective.
And so it is that I have started out on this pilgrimage, of sorts, in order to listen and tend to the reunification of body and spirit, which is how I have come to define soul.
As I am beginning this particular pilgrimage, I thought it would be a good idea to pick up, once again, this blog which seems to lapse into silence for years at a time. It is in those lapses into silence which the soul work is preparing for the next round of blog posts.
You are welcome to join along this journey. I look forward to any comments/thoughts you might care to share.
May all be well.
Soul Tending 