Sound is sacrament,
Chrome is mirror,
Throttle is OM.
“Come along if you dare.” Amboy Dukes
In the morning at the Rocky Point Motorcycle Rally, I’m biking next to the Zen Sea. I look out to see dolphins cruising in low gear, operating on half a brain during the day. It’s not so different from bikers at night.
But early in the day, throttle therapy is easygoing, and the reliable stator delivers a steady current down under. The oil, also hidden beneath, is working like a black-robed, hooded priest.
Later, when buenos dias turns into buenos tardes, the big twin engines wake up and chrome takes center stage. Then it’s damned easy to get burned.
Puerto Penasco is vibrating under the weight of Harleys, Indians, Triumphs, Kawasakis, and Hondas; yet beneath the Sonoran sun, they merge as one language.
It’s the language of loud.
The sea, having seen it all before, hears the rabble and talks back in ancient truth: every biker’s a winner, and every biker’s a loser. It’s true, we HAVE all won and we HAVE all lost.
Puerto Peñasco, the seaside town hosting bikers, is always tuned into the clean rhythm of salt, wind, and sun. But it expands for three days during the rally to absorb another element into its ebb and flow.
Rocky Point Motorcycle Rally . . .
WHERE THE MOTORCYCLES forge a path on the high wall, low wall, and seawall. The air smells of tequila, fish, and gasoline and it’s like communion where believers gather. The faithful here are not bound by creed or language, but by motion.
And pana, the invisible energy force of life, is always surrounding us, but in this carnival-rally, prana becomes visible in each set of eyes and every skid-mark.
I wonder what’s up with las chicas wearing little lighted horns on their heads, and the young dudes laying their bikes down, holding them by the throttle at arm’s length, like modern day matadors with a fiery bull at hand. Their bikes spin and turn like wounded beasts marking a perfect circle in burned rubber.
Young and old nod to one another in a celebration of practicality over orthodoxy. It’s like this ninas y ninos: less preaching, more living; less sermon, more life.
In the mix of banging motorcycle pistons, the acoustic turns kinesthetic; and songs of commotion and commonality set the table for a party for and a party of thousands.
When riding, attention must be paid, and if we do pay attention:
the wrong turns,
the sleepless nights,
the mistakes we made,
all resolve into air like the coyote’s yips and yelps falling silent just before dawn. They go to sleep as bikers begin to stir in their beds. What remains is, as Ram Das said, silence and “the sound of the soul tuning itself.”
It’s not praying we do . . . it’s LISTENING. LISTENING to a choir of chrome and crazy. LISTENING past the saguaro fields and gas stations glowing in the distance like burning bushes waiting for Moses.
Every throttle turns the same way, but every tight corner challenges riders to flatten the curve with speed and the right lean. And on those curves, the slippery edges turn into confessionals.
And when night drops down like a dark purple velvet curtain, when dolphins wake up and use both sides of their brains, when stars tremble in the dark, and the rock bands pound one last rambling chord, one last stick smashing on the Zildjian, you can hear someone, somewhere, revving the engine one last time.
It’s his, her, or their barbaric yawp to the world. Their loud insistence of being, and no matter if they are a loser or winner, they say with their bike’s open throat that they are here, and here now.
At the Rocky Point Motorcycle Rally
The bikers roll by, twist the throttle, and look to see if you hear. They think you don’t, and ask, should I rev a little bit louder now
What did you notice here? I welcome your thoughts.