"From the introduction to Tripping in America"

We didn't consult the stars, the cards or the tea leaves for an auspicious day to begin the journey recorded in this book--we simply picked up and left when the moment was right, which happened to be March 12, 1981. The fact that Jack Kerouac was born on March 12, 1922, and that Charlie Parker died on March 12, 1955, is one of those impressive coincidences that people often associate with fate, destiny and the alignment of the stars.

This is how I feel about destiny: destiny will take care of itself and has nothing to do with our interpretations of it. Destiny is the culmination of the myriad, intense moments that we stack up on by one, stack up billions of them until we've got a lifetime's worth; like slave labor, rolling the stones of the pyramids into place. I'm not concerned with how the stars align. The message and the magic are everywhere--in the stars, the soil, the blood. When something is aligned with something else, and something needs to be done, it will be done.