what is detachment? What does it mean to you? I will share a story of my experience. About five years ago my partner and I decided to save our money and buy a camper van or small RV. Well after working for a number of months we felt we had enough saved to be able to get what we needed. We had been living completely off the grid with no running water or electricity for some time, so an RV would be an upgrade. We decided to drive into town to use the phone and make some calls on a few vehicles we saw in the paper. Arriving at the pay phone in the small RV park in town, we found ourselves waiting, as someone was using the phone. I could overhear this mans conversation, and he was inquiring about a bus ticket. He seemed kinda familiar. While waiting I noticed a nice small RV in the parking lot and commented to my partner " I'd like to find one just like that one". About that time the man on the phone hung up and started up a conversation. I told him we were looking to buy an RV. He said you must be the folks I brought this RV down from Washington for. It turned out to be the father of a friend from the land we have been staying on. His daughter told him about us and he brought the RV for us to use. He told us not to worry about anything, that it was fully insured and we could use it all summer if we liked. What a blessing. It had stickers that said "Guided by spirit" and "Protected by Angels". It was fully equipped with everything right down to the dish soap. Well we took off for the first rainbow gathering of the trip and headed to southern Colorado to set up a library. It was an amazing gathering with a great talent show at the library and one morning a full circle rainbow around the sun. We left the gathering in full spirit and went to Denver to meet up with friends that were all going to caravan to the nationals in Arizona. We spent a couple of days at my friends and the day before we were to leave we took the RV into town to fill up the gas and propane, wash clothes and get supplies. I remember meeting a Christian family at the laundry mat and gave them some money because they had just gotten back in the country and didn't have any resources at the time. We left the laundry and headed back up to Denver. Now this RV was kinda slow going uphill and would tend to run a little warm so I had to keep an eye on the temperature. I noticed that it was running warm, not hot but it was starting to smoke a little. I pulled off the side of the interstate right in front of the house where they filmed Woody Allen's movie Sleeper. I set there for a moment and decided that maybe I ought to check under the hood an make sure everything is OK. When I got to the front flames were coming out through the grill. OH SHIT!! I tried to open the hood and burned the tips of my fingers pretty good. I then remembered gloves and a small fire extinguisher under the seat and went to grab them. With the gloves on i figured I could get the hood open and put out the fire, but the hood still wouldn't open. Looking inside the RV I saw a small door that opened into the engine compartment. I popped it open and stuck the fire extinguisher in the hole and phissst. the extinguisher was empty. I started to get frantic then. My partner was just sitting there. "Get out" I yelled. I went to the back to start getting stuff out. I started throwing everything that was laying ion the bed. Sleeping bags, Cd's, clothes etc. The smoke was getting so thick I couldn't see. I was gaging and choking. I went back in the third time trying to get the hanging clothes we had just washed . They were packed so tight in the closet that they wouldn't come loose from the hangers. About that time I had a vision of a newspaper headline that said "Man Blows Up Saving Underwear". I bailed. I'm standing there looking at the flames, now coming through the roof and this inventory is running in my head. everything we owned was in there. I began to cry thinking I'd pretty much lost everything when a hawk comes flying up. Now there aren't any trees around anywhere except a small one on the hill behind me. This hawk flies up and circles the smoke and fire three times and stops and hovers right above me so low that I can see the Iris of his eyes. At that moment I surrendered and stretched out my arms and said " So whats the message" Immediately I heard "DETACHMENT, THESE ARE JUST THINGS". the hawk then flew to the small tree behind me and sat watching as people began to stop and help. The fire department went wailing down the other side of the interstate looking for a place to turn around. Several people had small extinguishers, but they were no help. One man removed all the camping equipment off the back while another came up to me and reached out his hand and handed me some money saying "This is all I have on me". I didn't even look to see how much till later. It was a ten and three ones,$13 .I had to laugh. My lesson, you don't own anything and everything in this plane is temporal. Being attached drains your energy and distracts us from the very reason we are here. It was a valuable lesson and I wouldn't trade it for anything. The rest of that summer was just as, how would you say , exciting and it just got crazier, but that is another story for another time.