How to win bets with Spiritual Mojo And a tribute to the 1903 Winton Horseless Carriage Cynthia Winton-Henry The Winton was the first horseless carriage driven cross-country. The Challenge? No roads.
San Francisco. 1903. Dr. Horatio Nelson bet 50 bucks that he could drive a car to the East Coast before there were roads. Wow. Why would he make a bet like that?
Reminds me of my dad, Hal Winton, retired engineer, Holy Spirit guy, endurance athlete and Park Service Volunteer. Dad collects feats –the annual Catalina Island fifty miler, the John Muir trail, and traversing the Grand Canyon back and forth. He leads an annual Angeles Crest 100 mile Endurance Run and wields a chain saw to keep trails open in LA’s San Gabriel Mountains and around Palos Verdes Peninsula, site of his first marathon decades ago. I feel awe and pride at dad’s accomplishments but you won’t catch me running! Running makes my thighs itch! Endurance runners are rare athletes who move through pain and ridicule. Horatio was a kind of endurance athlete. He had to love adventurous physicality to confront… •
A fuel leak that drained out his gas and caused him to rent a bicycle, ride 25 miles, fix a flat tire on the bike, return to the car with fuel, and drive back the same 25 miles to fill er up.
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The time he lost his coat in Idaho that contained most of his money but said it was not missed, and arrived in New York City July 26, 1903, two months after beginning.
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Being called too old when the 1st World War broke out he contacted President Roosevelt to get commissioned as an officer.
Mojo. Perseverance is credited as the single most important characteristic for success. To persist means to stand through, to keep going, to willingly stand in discomfort long enough to reap rewards. But there must be something more underneath, some unquenchable curiosity, devotion to accomplishment, or Something Greater coded into ones DNA or spiritual lineage. Dad attempted the five mountains Hard Rock 100 on a sprained knee. Doctors told him to stop but he didn’t see it that way. Is that a bad case of stick-to-it-
iveness? He knew something about his desire and his capacity. He is also in a constant conversation with Spirit. I plunge ahead and take on big projects like Art and Social Change Program for Millennials, The Race Dance Project, and the Parliament of World Religions Performance. I am not alone. Colleagues want this too. I credit Phil Porter’s work ethic and my “Winton energy” for day-to-day support of InterPlay, the creative method that is helping people play well with others. Add love, the kind parents have hang in there with offspring.
Then add the possibility of an evolutionary response. “The 1903 Winton trip "was a pivotal moment in American automotive history," said Roger White, curator of the Smithsonian National Museum of American History exhibit "America on the Move." "At the time they made the trip, there was a perception that the American frontier was closed. The Jackson-Crocker trip excited people across the nation. It got people thinking about long-distance highways." Passion can trump pain and fear. A run through wild country is dad’s way of drinking the nectar of life. Isn’t wildness something that we need in the machine age? And Spirit? And adventure? And a way to dance with chaos? The more we tame and conquer life, the more we need mystery. When Horatio Jackson left Oakland, California he blew a tire after 15 miles. He replaced it with the only right-sized tire in all of San Francisco. Then he went on. So did dad. With that sprained knee dad ran the first 29 miles of the 2007 Hard Rock 100 with the mindfulness of a Buddhist monk, two walking sticks, and walked backwards downhill to manage the pain. At ten years old I followed dad on backpacks, motorcycle excursions, and Jeep trips in the California deserts. He’d get a look in his eye and say, “I’ll be back.” I
sat and waited learning to track my surroundings and heed the landmarks in case I got lost. I earned a healthy respect for danger and fear yet always wanted to go again. To do inexplicable things is a mystery to all but the one doing it. A Chinese proverb says, “Those who say it cannot be done should not interrupt the person doing it.” Passion. Perseverance. Love. Tracking an Evolutionary Pull. Spiritual mojo. InterPlay moves me. When I simultaneously move, think, create and engage spirit my life falls into place. I find uncharted resources, ideas, and energy and so do others. Long relationships form. We find ourselves in caravan, crossing insane distances, applauding each other as pioneers of a way that is delightfully human, wildly beautiful, and compassionate. Dad is still “on track” at 80. At 60 I am still placing my $50 bet on the secret of Creative Joy and Play. I wish my pursuit wasn’t like crossing the US without roads, but no matter. That’s where I am headed. http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Long-before-the-interstates-there-was-aWinton-2608886.php#photo-2095810http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Longbefore-the-interstates-there-was-a-Winton-2608886.ph