That's my favourite Christmas song. It has been since I was 17 or 18; 1989.
They're singin deck the halls,
but it's not like Christmas at all
I remember when you were here
and all the fun we had last year
I spent most of my Christmas on planes this year. Funny, most people would whine about that, I thought it was the nicest gift I could give myself. And it was, that, and the result - getting back to Halifax to see my bro and friends and family.
(In case any readers haven't figured this out yet - I'm kinda like one of those dogs that just likes to go places - in the car, walks, trips, wherever, just mention "road trip," and, like putting your hand up to catch a ball that someone throws to you, I say, "I'm ready.")
And heaven will smell like the airport,
but I may never get that proven
...
You're an animal too
I made my first friend at 6am when I got on the subway/skytrain in Vancouver - Mark, I think - cool guy, little younger than me - getting on the same flight to Toronto. No friends on the flight, just time to read. Ah, time to read.
On the second flight I sat next to a lovely woman - Angel - indeed. Tons of stuff in common, chatted away and read and napped. Ok, I was meditating.
I find planes, buses and trains a great place to do that and arrive refreshed and clear. The steward, who looked like the jedi knight Mace Windu, had come by a few times already, commenting on my Joseph Campbell book - Pathways to Bliss (my other Christmas present to myself). Published posthumously, which I normally avoid, but since I have a bumper sticker that says "Follow Your Bliss" on my journal, I thought I'd try it.
It's great so far. At times I think Campbel-worship has gotten in the way and they should have edited certain things, but then - I like the open quality of it. More on that later, once I'm farther into the book.
Angel, a Hindu, was reading a book on Buddhism. As I was finishing up meditating he came by and asked her/us if we meditate. Hilarious. We were like the secret guru threesome. Fun, fun flight. Perfect for Christmas.
But then, traveling on Christmas isn't only about the joy of it. It's also "walking to slay the ghost." For me anyway.
For someone who's lost people in life, holidays have a funny taint. Strangely, out of everyone, the one I think of most often at Christmas is an ex-girlfriend, Laura, who passed away a few years ago. Ok, ten years ago. She was 27ish. She was never actually my girlfriend, but 'just a friend.' We met in grade 11. I was certainly in love with her. I always thought, one day, older, we'd run into each other in a hotel bar in Cairo, or Chicago, and talk - really talk about what had happened and what we had meant to each other.
In 2000 when she died we hadn't talked in years, we were both married and in our late twenties, she lived down in the states. She had health problems when I knew her, so I wasn't surprised as much as saddened.
We had always talked about travel; one day being photographers for national geographic, or such things. It was a reminder to me, in a long season of death - to live my life, that those things you put off till later, you may never get to do.
We had a great Christmas holiday together back then, I guess the first of my life with love's bloom, and Arthur and I played that song by U2 over and over.
I gotta say, now - after almost 6 months of travel - is the closest I've ever felt to the being the person I was back then, in some ways I am more 'me'. Strange.
Arthur gave me two books for Christmas - The Writing Warrior, by Laraine Herring, and Film Production Management 101: The Ultimate Guide for Film and Television Production Management and Coordination, by Deborah S. Patz. The one I (and I think all men) ask to come home is - not Laura, but my own divine feminine (although I wouldn't complain). Here are two books taking me further into creativity, written by women, about warriorship and laying out paths to action. In all knight tales the knight gets lost, and women guide him. Of course the books would be meaningless if they weren't blissful for me, if they didn't resonate - but I clearly love to write, and I woke up at 3:45 am last night to read the book on film production. Incidentally, I also posted my thanks on facebook earlier today, not thinking of this blog entry - to all the wonderful women in my life, and there are many. I'm really blessed. Maybe I'm getting closer to some sort of unity with the archetypal feminine. I don't know.
Last week a girlfriend of mine fb messaged me - "Happy Blissmas," and I started repeating it. It goes with the book, and my life these days. This journey I'm on is about just that - finding my path. And old JC has reminded me of it.
This quote from the bliss book is Joseph Campbell re-telling a key part of La Queste del Saint Graal in his own words, with some interpretation too:
There's a moment in King Arthur's banquet hall when all the knights are assembled around the Round Table. Arthur would not let anyone start to eat until an adventure had occurred. Well, in those days adventures were rather normal, so people didn't go hungry for long.
They were waiting for this day's adventure, and it did indeed occur. The Holy Grail itself showed itself to the assembled knights - not in its full glory but covered with a great, radiant cloth. Then it withdrew. All were left ravished, sitting there in awe.
Finally, Gawain, Arthur's nephew, stood up and said, "I propose a vow to this company, that we should all go in quest of that Grail to behold it unveiled."
Now we come to the text that interested me. The text reads, "They thought it would be a disgrace to go forth in a group. Each entered the Forest Adventurous at that point which he himself had chosen, where it was darkest and there was no way or path."
You enter the forest at the darkest point, where there is no path. Where there's a way or path, it is someone else's path; each human being is a unique phenomenon.
The idea is to find your own pathway to bliss.
Happy Blissmas to All.
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
Sunday, December 19, 2010
Life's Grand Adventure...
"I hate adventure collectors" I said to Clyf as we drove across Northern Ontario in early July. What I meant was - people who, everything they do outdoors, has to be bigger, faster, better. But really - who am I to judge? If that's your thing - go for it! Clyf and I talked about a lot of stuff rolling through Ontario - it's so big, so beautiful, endless rock, river, forest, rock, river, forest, rock, river, forest...
"Let's go bungy jumping" I said to Clyf as I woke him up - in a hostel in Whistler a few weeks later, both of us hung over from the night before...
He laughed, "Awesome! But I thought you hated adventure collecting.." he said in his late-morning-so-deep it's-almost-below-human-hearing-range voice.
"This is not 'adventure-collecting' - it's fun, there's a difference!
"whatever, lets go -"
Let's go.
I finally dug out my copy of Shambala: Sacred path of the Warrior, by Chogyam Trungpa, and started reading it again. It seemed so on-point for my journey, for this: my 22nd entry.
Some people might say this world is the work of a divine principle, but the Shambala teachings are not concerned with divine origins. The point of warriorship is to work personally with our situation now, as it is. - Chogyam Trungpa
As it is. Today. To be enjoyed or not enjoyed. To be savoured or not savoured. This entry might be about the secret of letting go. Something about the magic and wonder of life. I jumped off a cliff in taking this trip, and every time I've wanted to veer in and grab on a branch - I have resisted that temptation. Thankfully.
That is the sixty-four-thousand dollar question: how much have you connected with yourself at all in your whole life? - Chogyam Trungpa
And in falling, in the beauty of falling - I remember the 'high,' they call it - it's this beautiful peace that seems like a taste of forever. As I plummeted on the end of a rope, after I panicked and then realized there was no going back, and then gave up, and resigned myself to it (yes, there's time for all that, and more - to pass through your mind), and then, bouncing on the rope, swinging, I wanted it to never end - in that moment you can know yourself. And that moment can last a lot longer in real life - if you don't panic and run for the first safe harbour. Instead - you get time with yourself, so uncomfortable, so amazingly comfortable. I can't imagine going back. It has been such a pleasure getting to know me over the past five months, 20 days.
"For me there is only the traveling on paths that have heart, on any path that may have heart, and the only worthwhile challenge is to traverse its full length--and there I travel looking, looking breathlessly." - Carlos Castaneda
The fool is both 1 and 22 in the major arcana of the tarot, end and beginning of the archetypal "Hero's Journey." Why? Well, really, most people either say it's # 0, or 22. I say it's both. Each cycle of self-realization, personal growth - the archetypal inner journey - is begun by taking a leap of faith, and then, after all the trials and phases that go with that process, after ending with the World - completion of your self and your place in the Universe - you leap off a cliff again into the unknown - take a step in your inner and/or outer life beyond everything you've learned - in faith, hope, and naiveté.
Last Saturday night I came back to my friends place that I was staying at, and she said, "I have a question for you, you should have a drink first." I said "shoot, I don't need a drink," and she said (we were going to what promised to be a quite fun but reasonably civilized non-dress-up party) "let's dress up as superhero's!"
What can you say to that: "cha-ching!" I think I said, "I'd wear a cape every day if I could get away with it..." [check the last para. of my first blog entry]. I went as Robin, she went as Wonder-Woman, and the other two hero's went as Green Lantern and Superman. It was awesome.
Once we got to the party, or maybe before, I said "we should go out on the town!!" I mean, hey - why have half a fun night? So we did. We were in Tofino, where there's only two options: the Legion or the Maquinna (commonly referred to as the devil bar, although I've had some good times there). We tried the Legion because a lovely young lady I know was there, but it was way too tame for superhero's, so we went to the devil bar. Probably fitting :)
As we walked in this dude came up to me, kinda tough looking, biggish, we had psyched ourselves up that everyone was going to hate/make fun of us, leading to beatings. I, being detached and accompanied by my inner observer, kinda shrugged - curious as to where this was going. He pointed at me and said, "you're the Robin from the Teen Titans, you're out on your own, you don't need Batman anymore.. " The rest of the night followed that, it was fun to feel cool for once. That's not self-pity, but like the kid in Almost Famous - I'm not cool.
Being the Fool is about letting go of yourself - who you think you are, who you want to be, and there is an element of the clown to it too - mocking yourself. In humour there is freedom. And magic in enjoying life.
"The Chinese use two brush strokes to write the word 'crisis.' One brush stroke stands for danger; the other for opportunity. In a crisis, be aware of the danger - but recognize the opportunity." - JFK
Jumping off a cliff is a way of creating a crisis for yourself. To feel alive, induce change and growth. If there's no danger, there's no opportunity.
I guess I'm still in danger, considering I have no home, and a fixed (rapidly decreasing) amount of money, and no job (yet). But I don't really feel it - I actually feel fairly secure, in travel - surfing through life. January 1st will mark six months of homelessness, and I feel like it will come with a sense of completion for that stage of my errand. What cliff will I jump off of then?
God only knows.
The truth is that life is hard and dangerous; that those who seek their own happiness do not find it; that those who are weak must suffer; that those who demand love will be dissapointed; that those who are greedy will not be fed; that those who seek peace will find strife; that truth is only for the brave; that joy is only for those that do not fear to be alone; that life is only for the one who is not afraid to die. - Joyce Cary
Remember, you cannot abandon what you do not know. To go beyond yourself, you must know yourself.
- Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
My journey so far has been about going beyond the self I knew before, and getting to know myself all over again. It's certainly got me in touch with new dreams, new hopes, new opportunities, and a new vision, based on just watching me enjoy life, take risks, laugh, love, stumble, try, not-try.
Life's grand adventure - I've never embraced it more fully. And while it's true that life is hard and dangerous, it is also so stunningly gorgeous, so fabulously miraculous, and utterly simple and complex at the same time, I do travel it breathlessly, in awe and wonder.
I know so many people are feeling this way these days; stepping out and making big changes in their lives, based on seeing the pointlessness of collecting more stuff/jobs/biggerhouses/more money, and feeling a longing for something deeper, inside ourselves and between all of us.
I feel like it must be astrological, or part of a great rising tide: of a refusal to live anymore in the way we were told; but to value instead the experience, each other, find some meaning, maybe even - (am I on a rant here?) - as we refuse to do anything other than flower as individuals - a flowering of society, based on love, self-realization, honesty, sharing, service? Hope..? Adventurousness of spirit...?
You may say I'm a dreamer, but I know I'm not the only one.
"Let's go bungy jumping" I said to Clyf as I woke him up - in a hostel in Whistler a few weeks later, both of us hung over from the night before...
He laughed, "Awesome! But I thought you hated adventure collecting.." he said in his late-morning-so-deep it's-almost-below-human-hearing-range voice.
"This is not 'adventure-collecting' - it's fun, there's a difference!
"whatever, lets go -"
Let's go.
I finally dug out my copy of Shambala: Sacred path of the Warrior, by Chogyam Trungpa, and started reading it again. It seemed so on-point for my journey, for this: my 22nd entry.
Some people might say this world is the work of a divine principle, but the Shambala teachings are not concerned with divine origins. The point of warriorship is to work personally with our situation now, as it is. - Chogyam Trungpa
As it is. Today. To be enjoyed or not enjoyed. To be savoured or not savoured. This entry might be about the secret of letting go. Something about the magic and wonder of life. I jumped off a cliff in taking this trip, and every time I've wanted to veer in and grab on a branch - I have resisted that temptation. Thankfully.
That is the sixty-four-thousand dollar question: how much have you connected with yourself at all in your whole life? - Chogyam Trungpa
And in falling, in the beauty of falling - I remember the 'high,' they call it - it's this beautiful peace that seems like a taste of forever. As I plummeted on the end of a rope, after I panicked and then realized there was no going back, and then gave up, and resigned myself to it (yes, there's time for all that, and more - to pass through your mind), and then, bouncing on the rope, swinging, I wanted it to never end - in that moment you can know yourself. And that moment can last a lot longer in real life - if you don't panic and run for the first safe harbour. Instead - you get time with yourself, so uncomfortable, so amazingly comfortable. I can't imagine going back. It has been such a pleasure getting to know me over the past five months, 20 days.
"For me there is only the traveling on paths that have heart, on any path that may have heart, and the only worthwhile challenge is to traverse its full length--and there I travel looking, looking breathlessly." - Carlos Castaneda
The fool is both 1 and 22 in the major arcana of the tarot, end and beginning of the archetypal "Hero's Journey." Why? Well, really, most people either say it's # 0, or 22. I say it's both. Each cycle of self-realization, personal growth - the archetypal inner journey - is begun by taking a leap of faith, and then, after all the trials and phases that go with that process, after ending with the World - completion of your self and your place in the Universe - you leap off a cliff again into the unknown - take a step in your inner and/or outer life beyond everything you've learned - in faith, hope, and naiveté.
Last Saturday night I came back to my friends place that I was staying at, and she said, "I have a question for you, you should have a drink first." I said "shoot, I don't need a drink," and she said (we were going to what promised to be a quite fun but reasonably civilized non-dress-up party) "let's dress up as superhero's!"
What can you say to that: "cha-ching!" I think I said, "I'd wear a cape every day if I could get away with it..." [check the last para. of my first blog entry]. I went as Robin, she went as Wonder-Woman, and the other two hero's went as Green Lantern and Superman. It was awesome.
Once we got to the party, or maybe before, I said "we should go out on the town!!" I mean, hey - why have half a fun night? So we did. We were in Tofino, where there's only two options: the Legion or the Maquinna (commonly referred to as the devil bar, although I've had some good times there). We tried the Legion because a lovely young lady I know was there, but it was way too tame for superhero's, so we went to the devil bar. Probably fitting :)
As we walked in this dude came up to me, kinda tough looking, biggish, we had psyched ourselves up that everyone was going to hate/make fun of us, leading to beatings. I, being detached and accompanied by my inner observer, kinda shrugged - curious as to where this was going. He pointed at me and said, "you're the Robin from the Teen Titans, you're out on your own, you don't need Batman anymore.. " The rest of the night followed that, it was fun to feel cool for once. That's not self-pity, but like the kid in Almost Famous - I'm not cool.
Being the Fool is about letting go of yourself - who you think you are, who you want to be, and there is an element of the clown to it too - mocking yourself. In humour there is freedom. And magic in enjoying life.
"The Chinese use two brush strokes to write the word 'crisis.' One brush stroke stands for danger; the other for opportunity. In a crisis, be aware of the danger - but recognize the opportunity." - JFK
Jumping off a cliff is a way of creating a crisis for yourself. To feel alive, induce change and growth. If there's no danger, there's no opportunity.
I guess I'm still in danger, considering I have no home, and a fixed (rapidly decreasing) amount of money, and no job (yet). But I don't really feel it - I actually feel fairly secure, in travel - surfing through life. January 1st will mark six months of homelessness, and I feel like it will come with a sense of completion for that stage of my errand. What cliff will I jump off of then?
God only knows.
The truth is that life is hard and dangerous; that those who seek their own happiness do not find it; that those who are weak must suffer; that those who demand love will be dissapointed; that those who are greedy will not be fed; that those who seek peace will find strife; that truth is only for the brave; that joy is only for those that do not fear to be alone; that life is only for the one who is not afraid to die. - Joyce Cary
Remember, you cannot abandon what you do not know. To go beyond yourself, you must know yourself.
- Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
My journey so far has been about going beyond the self I knew before, and getting to know myself all over again. It's certainly got me in touch with new dreams, new hopes, new opportunities, and a new vision, based on just watching me enjoy life, take risks, laugh, love, stumble, try, not-try.
Life's grand adventure - I've never embraced it more fully. And while it's true that life is hard and dangerous, it is also so stunningly gorgeous, so fabulously miraculous, and utterly simple and complex at the same time, I do travel it breathlessly, in awe and wonder.
I know so many people are feeling this way these days; stepping out and making big changes in their lives, based on seeing the pointlessness of collecting more stuff/jobs/biggerhouses/more money, and feeling a longing for something deeper, inside ourselves and between all of us.
I feel like it must be astrological, or part of a great rising tide: of a refusal to live anymore in the way we were told; but to value instead the experience, each other, find some meaning, maybe even - (am I on a rant here?) - as we refuse to do anything other than flower as individuals - a flowering of society, based on love, self-realization, honesty, sharing, service? Hope..? Adventurousness of spirit...?
You may say I'm a dreamer, but I know I'm not the only one.
Sunday, December 12, 2010
Homelessness and the Heart (the World)
"Home is where you hang your hat" - Mike
"Home is the place where, when you need to go there - they have to take you in." - Hemmingway
"Home is where your heart is" - Charlene
For starters - I don't. We are all the same. I've never felt that separation between me and poor people. At times there has hardly been one. My Dad used to pick up hitchhikers, and hire guys that were practically homeless for his contracting / house-painting business. Everyone talked. Those guys talked about the same things everyone else did, being all men: women, politics, money, cars/trucks, and women.
"You can't save the whole world, Pat." "they'll drain you dry in a big city like this.." That was said to me in Vancouver - no criticism, but the speaker knew I had lived in Toronto for a year as well...
I went out for coffee with a friend in Van the other day, we ended up having beers and dinner instead, and he insisted on paying - because he's employed and I'm a mendicant vagabond. I had forty bucks in my pocket for the coffee and whatever else might come up, so the next day - I still had forty bucks.
I stopped to chat with a dude outside Capers on West 4th Ave - he was around my age, said he had just gotten out of detox a few days ago - I asked for what. Heroine. I didn't blink, but I did inside.
Inside I said, "Thank fxxk, God, and everything else that I never went there, that I've never fallen down that rabbit-hole.." We chatted some more, I had given him two bucks when I came up, then he said he'd been sleeping outside since he got out. We could both tell it was gonna be a cold night.
He mentioned that the shelter he liked would cost 20 bucks. I changed the topic and thought for a minute while talking about other stuff - then switched to lawyer mode, stopped smiling, looked him in the eyes and said, "if I give you 20 bucks are you going to go there?" He said yes - that's what he wanted, a warm bed and to try to get his life on track. I heard those voices of friends and past co-workers - "They'll just spend it on drugs." "Don't give them money.." And I heard another voice - one that said, "there, but for the grace of God - go I."
He said the people coming out of Capers all ignored him - that he'd only gotten 2-3 bucks all afternoon - which pisses me off to no end. We live in such a place of privelege - to walk into this store and buy all the healthy, raw, organic, fresh, delicious food we want -to support health and happiness. Anyway - that's their path.
My path was to give that guy twenty bucks.
I remember back in those days as a kid, watching my Dad talk to people, he talked to everybody, King and pauper - the same way - open and warm - and I remember observing: that all people really wanted was human contact, to be understood.
When I don't have money I still stop and talk, when I have money I can give - I do. Being single and footloose - "I pretty much do what I want." Because internally that is what's legitimate for me - I haven't tried to enforce any rule on myself - I approach the people I meet every day as my equals and brothers/sisters. Sometimes tough love is right - sometimes people just need a hand.
Homelessness has been an interesting discussion point along this journey, and honestly - I am both homeless and with a home. As I mentioned before - I've had a lot of fun with people by saying "I'm homeless," and been surprised by people's reaction to it - as if I couldn't fit into that 'class' reserved for the poor, drug-addicted and homeless - people who beg, and steal, and would borrow too if anyone would loan them anything. My point is - that I am part of that class - they are actually simply people who don't have homes. Other than that they are diverse, like me, and like you. Alcoholic, or bad spellers, or selfish, or self-sacrificing, hurt, hoping, somewhere between birth and death, heaven and hell.
I'm in Tofino today, not many homeless people - it's too rainy and cold at this time of year. Luckily, I have some nice couches to surf. I stayed with friends at a beautiful house on the hill overlooking Clayoquot Sound last night - we chatted this morning over breakfast about Ken Wilbur and integral theory - I am one of the luckiest homeless guys in the world, I must say.
But I'm also very lucky these days, and I appreciate it deeply - because of the home I do have, one that many people don't, whether they have a place to live or not: my home is my Self, being with who I really am - and I can be there any time. I am there all the time, if I choose.
And - my home is also the World: this planet Earth / nature, which I love every inch of so much. And the World in the sense of 'what is outside of me' - I realized years ago that for many people what is most important for them is home; their house, family etc, and for me it's not - it's my role in the world - this is ultimately where I find redemption, expansion, answer, me.
And the World in the sense of - all the places I haven't been yet: China, Singapore, Laos, Madagsacar, Gautemala, Bolivia, Argentina, Tuktuyaktuk, the River Ob, the MacKenzie River, Japan, Mongolia, Hawaii, Philipines, Ethiopia, Lebanon, Turkey, Spain, Australia - you get the picture.. = Travel. The World.
Home is where your heart is. A friend painted that on the back of a little gift she gave me years ago, I've mentioned it before - a prized possession. I am who I am. My heart is in myself in the world. I love being "homeless."
Home is where you hang your heart.
Saturday, December 11, 2010
Travels with the Objective Observer
"Why am I so damn happy?" I kept asking myself. I think I first realized it as a strange phenomenon in Northern California, on my way back to Canada, somewhere around Mt. Shasta. As I stated in a previous entry - I should have been lonely. I had been travelling alone for days, speaking to no-one but the hotel clerks. I was soo happy! Bursting with joy.
Why?
I couldn't figure it out. Then I started to. Then I observed myself for a while - to see if I was right.
I may be.
I was happy (aside from the fact that I love to travel) because my 'objective observer' was intact. A part of myself that, no matter what I did, did not get involved - but just observed. "Shall I call Lou and stop at his place or not?" "Shall I stay at Karachi's and go out with all the yoga girls or not?" At each crossroads I had emotional, psychological attachments to each road, each possible way, but the objective observer - he just watched, and could say, 'well, yes, if that, this might happen - and if this, that might happen.."
Nothing was relevant, or irrelevant - it just was. And so - I was freed, free to be myself, simply do what I wanted.
I got a lovely life lesson from an Irish girl I met in a hostel in Toronto in 2006, she stood in the kitchen, leaned back against the sink, and said, "I pretty much do what I want." As if it was a life policy. A damn fine idea, I says.
I might want to do something for someone else, I might want to give my life in service to others, lets not pretend I do it for any other reason than that I want to.
So here I am, driving up the I5, suddenly realizing that I am not lonely because I am not alone - I am with my Self.
I picked up a great book in Edmonton on Sept 11 2007 at a little shop just off Whyte Ave - The Secret of Letting Go, by Guy Finley. He recommends that you never try to change anything about yourself - just observe. It's so empowering. Chicken out every time your boss yells at you? Lie about being attracted to other people? Don't try to change it - just watch yourself, from inside. Slowly things change on their own. It's like meditation in life.
In meditation - you have thoughts, you neither embrace them nor push them away - you just let them happen and keep meditating. Life can be like that - things happen, you fall in love, climb a mountain, get a speeding ticket, trip and scrape your knee, you can live it fully - be passionate and engaged, but part of you just observes.
Observes you be passionate, or not, do unwise things, or wise things. Then you don't get lost in the experience. Just like in meditation, part of you just watches it go by, and doesn't get involved.
I used to think the Buddhist idea of detachment was cold, would make life passionless, but maybe this is more what it's about - if this inner character, the inner observer - is healthy and doing her/his thing - you can be totally passionate and engaged with what's going on around you, but not get lost, not lose perspective. Then you are happy. It's weird, I'm not sure why that is, but I think it is.
For instance - just after I came off the raw food cleanse of about 21/2 weeks - I went out last Saturday night with some friends - we started with a tame but fun delicious dinner of salmon, roast potatoes, salad, wine, then not so tame - ended up at a little private bar in Gibsons, and there I am - half drunk, up on the dance floor screaming woo-hoo and leading the charge - inciting people a lot younger than me to let it all go and dance their asses off!
I didn't let myself have fun for years, and I'm still catching up ;) My physical energy, after the raw food - was fantastic. I highly recommend it. But certainly - no matter how much I yelled, boogied, flirted, or consumed - there all along was my inner observer, probably smiling, simply observing.
I had a long conversation about this with a friend in North Vancouver the other night, this and many other topics - we talked about warriorship and carrying the meditative state into life. He, a quite informed and spiritually well-read person, hadn't really heard of the concept of warriorship as an individual path, an expression of 'the Hero's Journey' a la Joseph Campbell. I wonder how much of my current ideas I've read, and how much are just my own theories.
As I've said before, it's not really about being 'good' it's about being whole, being who you are. The observer doesn't care if you're good or not, but will give a little 'ahem' every time you stray from being authentic. I'm not sure how all this fits together - should you be yourself if you're an evil bastard? I strangely suspect that people become evil bastards by not being themselves. But what do I know? I've got it easy - it is my nature to be good (most of the time), which is pretty socially acceptable.
Considering the title of my blog it might be timely to think about Spiritual Warriorship (along the lines of the Buddhist ideal / Carlos Castaneda / Samurai's), Knighthood (or some modern reinterpretation of that) service, meditation, self-realization, and the objective observer. But I think I'll follow it up in a subsequent entry - it deserves some space.
"He will do all the actions of the world but remain deep down unmoved." So said the Bhagwan on the topic of having learned meditation early in life, seeing the depths it can open,and then returning to the world.
I just got a letter from a good friend, a lawyer who's just turned 60, is at the top of his profession, and facing the problems of aging - health issues etc. Sometimes I feel so arrogant for the life I'm living; wandering around, purely indulging myself, thinking and writing about all these things. But I just can't change it. I know that if I'm going to be of any value in this world, or to myself - I have to grow as it comes up. Like a plant - the leaves, flowers, fruit: unfurl, and ripen, and fall - each in their season.
I hope these thoughts are useful to someone, maybe entertaining, maybe they're thinking about the same things. I know for a fact - it is part of my unfolding as a human being.
Mr. Objective n I are on our way back to Tofino - the promised land. In the last five months I've changed my vison of myself - or rather, it has been changed. As I invited - by taking a fool's leap. I feel pretty energized and ready to get back to work - but at what? I think what I've been writing about is pretty indicative of what I really care about - which is where I should be putting my energy and drive. To really "follow my bliss."
I may try some pretty radical professional moves in the next year, or few months - win or lose, I know my companion will be with me. The value of simply observing: observing myself as a traveller, as a lover of life, in nature, in a professional sense, watching my passions, my follies, has been a blessing. In some ways this entry is subsequent to my third entry - "Riding two horses: some initial thoughts on service." Guy was right, it has been a potent force for change in my life.
I'll end (almost) with another quote from the Bhagwan -
"Again let me remind you of the metaphor of the wheel and the axle: the axle remains unmoving; it is because of the unmoving axle that the wheel moves. ... By remaining unmoving it is supporting the wheel to move."
All this time off, revisioning - has allowed me to become peaceful inside, even in action. And because of that - I can feel the wheel start to turn again, as if of its own accord - because of the stillness of the inner core.
I've written this blog from a shamelessly self-centered perspective. There's a reason for that - when I talk to people I find they often identify with my experiences, so I figured I'd tell my story and thoughts, and let people get what they want out of it.
God speaks to each of us when he makes us,
then walks with us silently out of the night.
These are the words we dimly hear:
You, sent out beyond your recall,
go to the limits of your longing.
Embody me.
Flare up like a flame
and make big shadows I can move in.
Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final.
Don't let yourself lose me.
Nearby is the country they call life.
You will know it by its seriousness.
Give me your hand.
Why?
I couldn't figure it out. Then I started to. Then I observed myself for a while - to see if I was right.
I may be.
I was happy (aside from the fact that I love to travel) because my 'objective observer' was intact. A part of myself that, no matter what I did, did not get involved - but just observed. "Shall I call Lou and stop at his place or not?" "Shall I stay at Karachi's and go out with all the yoga girls or not?" At each crossroads I had emotional, psychological attachments to each road, each possible way, but the objective observer - he just watched, and could say, 'well, yes, if that, this might happen - and if this, that might happen.."
Nothing was relevant, or irrelevant - it just was. And so - I was freed, free to be myself, simply do what I wanted.
I got a lovely life lesson from an Irish girl I met in a hostel in Toronto in 2006, she stood in the kitchen, leaned back against the sink, and said, "I pretty much do what I want." As if it was a life policy. A damn fine idea, I says.
I might want to do something for someone else, I might want to give my life in service to others, lets not pretend I do it for any other reason than that I want to.
So here I am, driving up the I5, suddenly realizing that I am not lonely because I am not alone - I am with my Self.
I picked up a great book in Edmonton on Sept 11 2007 at a little shop just off Whyte Ave - The Secret of Letting Go, by Guy Finley. He recommends that you never try to change anything about yourself - just observe. It's so empowering. Chicken out every time your boss yells at you? Lie about being attracted to other people? Don't try to change it - just watch yourself, from inside. Slowly things change on their own. It's like meditation in life.
In meditation - you have thoughts, you neither embrace them nor push them away - you just let them happen and keep meditating. Life can be like that - things happen, you fall in love, climb a mountain, get a speeding ticket, trip and scrape your knee, you can live it fully - be passionate and engaged, but part of you just observes.
Observes you be passionate, or not, do unwise things, or wise things. Then you don't get lost in the experience. Just like in meditation, part of you just watches it go by, and doesn't get involved.
I used to think the Buddhist idea of detachment was cold, would make life passionless, but maybe this is more what it's about - if this inner character, the inner observer - is healthy and doing her/his thing - you can be totally passionate and engaged with what's going on around you, but not get lost, not lose perspective. Then you are happy. It's weird, I'm not sure why that is, but I think it is.
For instance - just after I came off the raw food cleanse of about 21/2 weeks - I went out last Saturday night with some friends - we started with a tame but fun delicious dinner of salmon, roast potatoes, salad, wine, then not so tame - ended up at a little private bar in Gibsons, and there I am - half drunk, up on the dance floor screaming woo-hoo and leading the charge - inciting people a lot younger than me to let it all go and dance their asses off!
I didn't let myself have fun for years, and I'm still catching up ;) My physical energy, after the raw food - was fantastic. I highly recommend it. But certainly - no matter how much I yelled, boogied, flirted, or consumed - there all along was my inner observer, probably smiling, simply observing.
I had a long conversation about this with a friend in North Vancouver the other night, this and many other topics - we talked about warriorship and carrying the meditative state into life. He, a quite informed and spiritually well-read person, hadn't really heard of the concept of warriorship as an individual path, an expression of 'the Hero's Journey' a la Joseph Campbell. I wonder how much of my current ideas I've read, and how much are just my own theories.
As I've said before, it's not really about being 'good' it's about being whole, being who you are. The observer doesn't care if you're good or not, but will give a little 'ahem' every time you stray from being authentic. I'm not sure how all this fits together - should you be yourself if you're an evil bastard? I strangely suspect that people become evil bastards by not being themselves. But what do I know? I've got it easy - it is my nature to be good (most of the time), which is pretty socially acceptable.
Considering the title of my blog it might be timely to think about Spiritual Warriorship (along the lines of the Buddhist ideal / Carlos Castaneda / Samurai's), Knighthood (or some modern reinterpretation of that) service, meditation, self-realization, and the objective observer. But I think I'll follow it up in a subsequent entry - it deserves some space.
"He will do all the actions of the world but remain deep down unmoved." So said the Bhagwan on the topic of having learned meditation early in life, seeing the depths it can open,and then returning to the world.
I just got a letter from a good friend, a lawyer who's just turned 60, is at the top of his profession, and facing the problems of aging - health issues etc. Sometimes I feel so arrogant for the life I'm living; wandering around, purely indulging myself, thinking and writing about all these things. But I just can't change it. I know that if I'm going to be of any value in this world, or to myself - I have to grow as it comes up. Like a plant - the leaves, flowers, fruit: unfurl, and ripen, and fall - each in their season.
I hope these thoughts are useful to someone, maybe entertaining, maybe they're thinking about the same things. I know for a fact - it is part of my unfolding as a human being.
Mr. Objective n I are on our way back to Tofino - the promised land. In the last five months I've changed my vison of myself - or rather, it has been changed. As I invited - by taking a fool's leap. I feel pretty energized and ready to get back to work - but at what? I think what I've been writing about is pretty indicative of what I really care about - which is where I should be putting my energy and drive. To really "follow my bliss."
I may try some pretty radical professional moves in the next year, or few months - win or lose, I know my companion will be with me. The value of simply observing: observing myself as a traveller, as a lover of life, in nature, in a professional sense, watching my passions, my follies, has been a blessing. In some ways this entry is subsequent to my third entry - "Riding two horses: some initial thoughts on service." Guy was right, it has been a potent force for change in my life.
I'll end (almost) with another quote from the Bhagwan -
"Again let me remind you of the metaphor of the wheel and the axle: the axle remains unmoving; it is because of the unmoving axle that the wheel moves. ... By remaining unmoving it is supporting the wheel to move."
All this time off, revisioning - has allowed me to become peaceful inside, even in action. And because of that - I can feel the wheel start to turn again, as if of its own accord - because of the stillness of the inner core.
I've written this blog from a shamelessly self-centered perspective. There's a reason for that - when I talk to people I find they often identify with my experiences, so I figured I'd tell my story and thoughts, and let people get what they want out of it.
God speaks to each of us when he makes us,
then walks with us silently out of the night.
These are the words we dimly hear:
You, sent out beyond your recall,
go to the limits of your longing.
Embody me.
Flare up like a flame
and make big shadows I can move in.
Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final.
Don't let yourself lose me.
Nearby is the country they call life.
You will know it by its seriousness.
Give me your hand.
Saturday, December 4, 2010
Further to fly...
I'm committing blog-crime as I write this. My blogs are now out of order. I started one last night, "Travels with the objective observer" which is not done yet, and now I'm already starting a new one. I promised myself I wouldn't do that. Sorry self. ;)
I just have to.
"The open palm of desire wants everything, wants everything.. "
I am home alone, listening to itunes and surfing the net before I get to bed for 7am yoga. Kinda spaced out and relaxed. I walked by the sea in Sechelt this afternoon for hours, and only got up from a nap/meditation a little while ago.
I said "home"? Anyone catch that? I've been renting a room with a great new friend the past two weeks- a partner in the yoga/raw food challenge (I have fallen pathetically off the raw wagon, but am still doing 11/2 hours of yoga a day - small victories). Another entry on the 'home' concept is coming soon..
I thought I'd start looking at other travel blogs a bit, see what people are up to, and boy, did I find a winner! Gary Arndt's "Everything Everywhere", and the entry I first came to is called "The Lost Girls": http://everything-everywhere.com/2010/11/28/traveler-sunday-the-lost-girls/#more-9507. In this one he is starting to address other people's travel stories every Sunday, so I got two really great stories for the price of one.
The Lost Girls is about three bright young women from New York who spent a year travelling around the world, then kept their website going for other travel writers etc., and wrote a book which is being optioned for a TV pilot. Very inspiring. It's a great story.
I was thinking of that Paul Simon song yesterday (Further to fly), and it's a little apt right now; about moving on - from a relationship, a place, because you simply have further to go, in the words of the Tragically Hip - "It's not a deal nor a test nor a love of something fated." I always heard that as "nor something fated". And for me it's tinged with sadness, full of joy, and relief.
I started, here on the Sunshine Coast, to put down some roots of some kind - or feel like I was. All the time with a sort of trepidation, did I really want to do that? Luckily, I had some quiet time to myself to think about life and where I'm going, and saw that no - I don't. And the Universe agreed with me - the love interest didn't work out, the job I have been working on putting together hasn't worked out yet - still might, but in working out or not has openend my eyes to other fabulous possibilities. But that's one of the points here, and of travel generally - to open your eyes and your mind.
I was so into reading his blog that once I started the little two minute youtube video at the end I kept wondering why I couldn't hear it properly - it was only as it ended and "Further to Fly" came on my itunes, randomly selected out of 6386 songs - that I realized I was listening to two things at once. It doesn't matter - I was just thinking about how inspiring these stories are so that as the song came on, the message got through - I've got further to fly.
Reading others stories also reminded me that I sometimes feel different from some travellers - in that I have no home to return to. I have my brother, but he's as mobile as I am, and I am going back to Halifax - the place I grew up, for Christmas, (which you'll hear all about). But my parents are not there (any more than anywhere else) and I've lived in so many other cities that it's hard to put the label 'home' on anything.
On the other hand - I'm exactly the same as all other travellers - my idols Joshua Slocum and Beryl Markham - the Lost Girls, Gary - we are all putting ourselves at the mercy of the world around us, asking it to change us in ways that we can't imagine for ourselves.
And it always does so.
For now I think I do have further to go, in the world and in my inner journey. I'll leave the Sunshine Coast on Sunday - back to Vancouver, then Tofino, maybe a revisit to Quadra Island, then back to Halifax for the Holiday and to catch up with old friends and family, then back here?
"Whither then, I do not know"
The Sunshine Coast has been fabulous to me - I've formed the most wonderful friendships, with lovely, strong, wise and happy people - that I know I'll have all of my life, and I'll revisit here many times, like December 19th! But other things started to happen here, then did not.
Sometimes I'll be walking down
The street and I'll be thinking
Am I crazy
Or is this some morbid little lie?
What I wonder to be a lie, and I wonder if other travellers whose destinations are unknown to them feel the same way - is that I do have further to fly. I guess, because I have no destination, no timeline, no time or place to stop travelling, because I haven't saved money for this, but rather have to make it work as I go - there is a part of me, the safety seeking (which is perfectly ok) part, that finds a place it likes (I like) and says, "oh, can we stay here??.." And I really don't know what to say, because although I have intended to travel forever in a way - does Fate have something else in store for me? I am just a little sailor, all I can do is read the wind. And set my course. And watch the stars. And hope.
And the stars are beautiful tonight, by the way.
In the mountain village
The wind rustles the leaves.
Deep in the night, the deer
Cry out beyond the edge of dreams.
- Minamoto No Morotada (In Written on the Sky, trans. Kenneth Rexroth)
I hear those deer. I hear the wind rustle the leaves. I smell dreams I can't see yet.
If I could put in the lyrics to the Gypsy, by Charlie Parker, I'd do so.
Just lie back and listen;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cy8FgocF3yQ
I just have to.
"The open palm of desire wants everything, wants everything.. "
I am home alone, listening to itunes and surfing the net before I get to bed for 7am yoga. Kinda spaced out and relaxed. I walked by the sea in Sechelt this afternoon for hours, and only got up from a nap/meditation a little while ago.
I said "home"? Anyone catch that? I've been renting a room with a great new friend the past two weeks- a partner in the yoga/raw food challenge (I have fallen pathetically off the raw wagon, but am still doing 11/2 hours of yoga a day - small victories). Another entry on the 'home' concept is coming soon..
I thought I'd start looking at other travel blogs a bit, see what people are up to, and boy, did I find a winner! Gary Arndt's "Everything Everywhere", and the entry I first came to is called "The Lost Girls": http://everything-everywhere.com/2010/11/28/traveler-sunday-the-lost-girls/#more-9507. In this one he is starting to address other people's travel stories every Sunday, so I got two really great stories for the price of one.
The Lost Girls is about three bright young women from New York who spent a year travelling around the world, then kept their website going for other travel writers etc., and wrote a book which is being optioned for a TV pilot. Very inspiring. It's a great story.
I was thinking of that Paul Simon song yesterday (Further to fly), and it's a little apt right now; about moving on - from a relationship, a place, because you simply have further to go, in the words of the Tragically Hip - "It's not a deal nor a test nor a love of something fated." I always heard that as "nor something fated". And for me it's tinged with sadness, full of joy, and relief.
I started, here on the Sunshine Coast, to put down some roots of some kind - or feel like I was. All the time with a sort of trepidation, did I really want to do that? Luckily, I had some quiet time to myself to think about life and where I'm going, and saw that no - I don't. And the Universe agreed with me - the love interest didn't work out, the job I have been working on putting together hasn't worked out yet - still might, but in working out or not has openend my eyes to other fabulous possibilities. But that's one of the points here, and of travel generally - to open your eyes and your mind.
I was so into reading his blog that once I started the little two minute youtube video at the end I kept wondering why I couldn't hear it properly - it was only as it ended and "Further to Fly" came on my itunes, randomly selected out of 6386 songs - that I realized I was listening to two things at once. It doesn't matter - I was just thinking about how inspiring these stories are so that as the song came on, the message got through - I've got further to fly.
Reading others stories also reminded me that I sometimes feel different from some travellers - in that I have no home to return to. I have my brother, but he's as mobile as I am, and I am going back to Halifax - the place I grew up, for Christmas, (which you'll hear all about). But my parents are not there (any more than anywhere else) and I've lived in so many other cities that it's hard to put the label 'home' on anything.
On the other hand - I'm exactly the same as all other travellers - my idols Joshua Slocum and Beryl Markham - the Lost Girls, Gary - we are all putting ourselves at the mercy of the world around us, asking it to change us in ways that we can't imagine for ourselves.
And it always does so.
For now I think I do have further to go, in the world and in my inner journey. I'll leave the Sunshine Coast on Sunday - back to Vancouver, then Tofino, maybe a revisit to Quadra Island, then back to Halifax for the Holiday and to catch up with old friends and family, then back here?
"Whither then, I do not know"
The Sunshine Coast has been fabulous to me - I've formed the most wonderful friendships, with lovely, strong, wise and happy people - that I know I'll have all of my life, and I'll revisit here many times, like December 19th! But other things started to happen here, then did not.
Sometimes I'll be walking down
The street and I'll be thinking
Am I crazy
Or is this some morbid little lie?
What I wonder to be a lie, and I wonder if other travellers whose destinations are unknown to them feel the same way - is that I do have further to fly. I guess, because I have no destination, no timeline, no time or place to stop travelling, because I haven't saved money for this, but rather have to make it work as I go - there is a part of me, the safety seeking (which is perfectly ok) part, that finds a place it likes (I like) and says, "oh, can we stay here??.." And I really don't know what to say, because although I have intended to travel forever in a way - does Fate have something else in store for me? I am just a little sailor, all I can do is read the wind. And set my course. And watch the stars. And hope.
And the stars are beautiful tonight, by the way.
In the mountain village
The wind rustles the leaves.
Deep in the night, the deer
Cry out beyond the edge of dreams.
- Minamoto No Morotada (In Written on the Sky, trans. Kenneth Rexroth)
I hear those deer. I hear the wind rustle the leaves. I smell dreams I can't see yet.
If I could put in the lyrics to the Gypsy, by Charlie Parker, I'd do so.
Just lie back and listen;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cy8FgocF3yQ
Thursday, November 25, 2010
Waiting for an Irish Faerie...
I have no sword: I make absence of self my sword.
It's snowing today. I started this raw food thing, which has been great (day 11), hoping to get more clarity while I'm on hiatus here on the Coast. The raw food is grand - I feel good, look good ;) and most importantly - my head is clear.
That's what I was really hoping for. I remembered when I fasted in 1997, how I felt like I could see for miles - into my past and future, and how I set my life course for the decade to follow. Not that I followed it, but it lead me where I was meant to go.
Now I'm enjoying the poetry of peace - it's winter, and I seem to making a life here on the Sunshine Coast. Chatting about Ireland and travel the other day, I recalled how I left there in '95, and thought about what that means to me now.
I figured I'd be taking a trip that summer; I had the previous three, since I was 19. But I hadn't decided where yet. I had been to Europe the year before and loved it, but wanted to go farther afield. One morning my friend Mike called from Germany at six am - "Patman, you gotta come be my best man, I'm getting married.." "uhhnn, when?" "Three weeks from now." "What, that's impossible, I'm not ready, no money.." "You gotta, I know you will, call me later." Click.
Called him later, "Of course I'll be there." And I was. I worked my balls off for three weeks and cobbled together about 600 bucks.
Went to Mike's, was best man, ate and drank a lot, had fun. Then I realized I had about a week left and could make it to Ireland if I wanted to. I had always wanted to, and I wanted to at that moment, so I went.
Three days straight hitchhiking, hardly any sleep, no bathing, wet from the rain, little food, sleeping outside or in strange places, strip-searched in France, and I made it. I could spend two nights in Ireland and then had to boot it back to London for my flight home.
I was raised Irish, in my house St. Patricks day was 'my day'. But none of my immediate family had ever been there, and not for many generations. It was 'a sort of homecoming.' I felt like it was the promised land in a way.
I got there in the afternoon and decided to hitch south to try to get to Cork. A few people picked me up, not fast hitching, contemplative waits between rides, I watched the green. It is a green green place, factories in fields and babbling brooks and you could smell the green everywhere.
A dude picked me up coming into New Ross, he was then about my age now. It was suppertime. He said "why don't you drop into the pub and have a bite, maybe you'll meet some people.." I said "no, no, I gotta keep moving, can't stop here - places to go!" We chatted about other things. He said it again. I replied with my line, but wondering if some greater force was at work. What did he know that I didn't?
He was going the other way, and despite the fact that I was continuing on because I had very important places to be - he told me there was a hostel in the hills above town, and gave me directions. The town center was small, with a road going straight on along our side of the river (his road) and one crossing a little bridge to go my way - to my planned destiny.
He, being my divine guide for the moment, let me off exactly in front of the pub he had recommended I go into. I stood there with my backpack, readying my gear for the next charge, looked at the pub, which seemed friendly and warm, and thought, "Jeez Canning, are you ever uptight today." So I went in. I never thought of this before, but I hope he saw that in his rear-view mirror. Or maybe he got the news from the small-town-Irish-gossip-pipeline...
I walked in past the only patron - an absolutley stunning young woman, a little older than me though, and got a Guinness at the bar. I walked back and pulled out a chair at her table, asking if I could join her while I did so. May as well give in to destiny completely, I figured.
She was Welsh, and had what I have come to see as a classic Welsh beauty - very white skin, black hair, blue eyes, high cheekbones, a big smile with perfect strong teeth. I forget her name. She was 25, a wanderer like me, and put me onto the book called Autobiography of a Supertramp, about a young Englishman who travelled all over the states in the 20's and 30's. A great book, I later tracked down two copies and mailed one to her, but never heard from her. I still have mine, in storage back in Halifax. She also foreshadowed my future wife (now ex), who looked very similar to her and is also a lovely human being.
Welsh girl and I hit it off, had a drink or two, and made plans to meet later. I walked up the hill to the hostel, which was in a 900 year old farm-house, and got a bed for the night. Went back to the pub later and it was a perfect Irish experience - we met up with her cousin, who was a schoolteacher, and some of his friends. It was all ages: 5 - 500(;) and they locked the doors at 11pm with the only two town cops inside, sauced.
They broke out the instruments and passed around a big cup like a Stanley cup on top, full of whiskey, and everyone in the place sipped from it. We said our goodnights and I stumbled home.
The next day we met for a late lunch, her cousin gave us a lift to Dublin, and I got a room at the hostel there while she stayed with her Aunt. We went out for supper, had a beer or two, told more stories and laughed our heads off, and then I walked her to her train station. I wanted to kiss her goodnight, but was too shy and still flabbergatsed by her utter beauty and coolness.
Before that however, she had been encouraging me to stay in Ireland, she'd be there a while yet, and then Wales, which was not far off. So I stopped to make a phonecall. My earned-on-a-week-or-two-of-work plane ticket was non-negotiable. Either be on it, or forget it. It's a no-brainer, any young man in my position would have stayed, stayed in Ireland, made friends, found a job under the table, spent time with the beautiful Welsh girl.
But I was a young man who's Mother was dying of cancer. In Canada.
I called her from a payphone on our walk to the station in the rain. She could half hear what I said to my Mom, "I met this girl - she's so beautiful, and super-cool, and I'm meeting people, and I might stay here, how would you feel about that?.."
I didn't know how I felt about it. To my Mom - I was not just her son sounding happy and like she always wants me to sound - I was in the homeland - sacred Ireland, and I could tell she'd almost prefer I stay and miss her last days, and be there. And in retrospect she must have been considering the kind of life I would have after her death, and how she had come to know me and how much more I thrived away from home, and what my future might be if I was there when she died, if I made a life there.
She said, "well Paddy, you have to do what's right for you, don't worry about it, if you stay we'll sort out some way to get you back later, have fun, I love you."
Melanie? Was that her name? I went back to her, she was smiling, having heard her good review, and having some idea of the import of the conversation.
I wasn't clear - what should I do?
I walked her to the station, I'd been released from duty imposed by another, but not by me. I didn't want to miss my Mom's last days, I wanted to spend time with her before that. I also wanted to stay here.
God would decide. I slept. I hadn't thought of this - I just knew - I'd get up in the morning and go to the ferry and I'd know if I wanted to get it or not, or I'd know something, or I'd figure it out somehow.
I went to the ferry terminal in Dun Laoghair, which I had first pronounced "Dun Log-hair" to the amusment of the natives. Dun Leary. I bought my ticket around 10:30 am, the Ferry was due to leave at 2.
I walked up the hill to the square and spotted an older Irish guy who looked like he'd know where to get the best Guinness in town. You see, it's all about the pour, how you clean the taps and pipes, etc. It's not simple to make the best Guinness. That's part of the beauty.
He knew alright - and seemed pretty flattered I asked. "John Walter's Pub, it's a bit of a hike, but it's worth it." Thanks, old-timer. :)
I made my way to John Walter's Pub, walked in about 11, and got a Guinness. Chatted with John, a fine older fellow. He said, "I got a guy out back, a Canadian, he hates it when I do this with Canadian customers, but this is different.." I heard him go out back - "mumble, mumble," "AW JESUS JOHN, I TOLD YA NOT TA DO THAT... curse, curse.." I shrugged. I was already "into the shorts" as John commented, meaning I was already having a "Paddy's Irish Whiskey".
The Canadian guy came out with his best unfriendly expression on, to chat for a minute and get back to work. He was from Calgary, Irish family, and went there for a trip when he was 19, twelve years before, and didn't get back to Canada until recently. He did his obligatory chat, then a little more. Next thing you know, he's pulling up a stool and ordering a Guinness too.
They bring out some old labels from the basement, from when every pub bottled their own Guinness, and gave me a few. They didn't know what year they were from, but they were old. And a black John Walters lighter, my only souvenirs from that trip.
We chatted, he asked John for the day off, and we went to another pub. Then another. You see, my plan was - I'd leave it up to God. To go home or not. I'd be late for the ferry, or whatever, get loaded and see if the ferry was still there, or if I even made it.
At four thirty or so we were at a dual bookie-pub, drinking and betting on stuff, stuff on tv, whatever we could find. One of his friends offered me a job, another a place to stay, he was gone home, loaded and with a pissed off wife, but wishing me well and hoping I'd stick around.
About then one of the guys, who was a little more sober-minded, if not bodied, said, knowing my story - "shouldn't you go get your ferry??" I slurred - "when I finsh my drink..."
I went.
The ferry was still there, almost three hours late. I got on it and went home.
That's how I've resolved my little quandary about what to do next - since I have to work it depends on where I work, so I'm just applying for a bunch of jobs all over the world, in my current backyard, and anywhere else that might interest me. We'll see what God has to say about it.
I was surprised by all the feelings writing this brought up about my Mom and her passing - I miss her deeply, and still hear her laughter and lessons. I'm glad I went home to spend that time with her before she left. She is my Irish Faerie, or Queen among them. You are one of the reasons I live my dreams.
And you know it's time to go
Through the sleet and driving snow
Across the fields of mourning
Lights in the distance
Their deaths have been a light to me - in the distance - a constant reminder to live my life fully, to be human, to follow my dreams and my passions, for how short it is. And how full of wonder.
The intellect of man is forced to choose
Perfection of the life, or of the work,
And if it take the second must refuse
A heavenly mansion, raging in the dark,
And when the story's finished, what's the news?
In luck or out the toil has left its mark:
That old perplexity an empty purse,
Or the day's vanity, the nights remorse.
It's snowing today. I started this raw food thing, which has been great (day 11), hoping to get more clarity while I'm on hiatus here on the Coast. The raw food is grand - I feel good, look good ;) and most importantly - my head is clear.
That's what I was really hoping for. I remembered when I fasted in 1997, how I felt like I could see for miles - into my past and future, and how I set my life course for the decade to follow. Not that I followed it, but it lead me where I was meant to go.
Now I'm enjoying the poetry of peace - it's winter, and I seem to making a life here on the Sunshine Coast. Chatting about Ireland and travel the other day, I recalled how I left there in '95, and thought about what that means to me now.
I figured I'd be taking a trip that summer; I had the previous three, since I was 19. But I hadn't decided where yet. I had been to Europe the year before and loved it, but wanted to go farther afield. One morning my friend Mike called from Germany at six am - "Patman, you gotta come be my best man, I'm getting married.." "uhhnn, when?" "Three weeks from now." "What, that's impossible, I'm not ready, no money.." "You gotta, I know you will, call me later." Click.
Called him later, "Of course I'll be there." And I was. I worked my balls off for three weeks and cobbled together about 600 bucks.
Went to Mike's, was best man, ate and drank a lot, had fun. Then I realized I had about a week left and could make it to Ireland if I wanted to. I had always wanted to, and I wanted to at that moment, so I went.
Three days straight hitchhiking, hardly any sleep, no bathing, wet from the rain, little food, sleeping outside or in strange places, strip-searched in France, and I made it. I could spend two nights in Ireland and then had to boot it back to London for my flight home.
I was raised Irish, in my house St. Patricks day was 'my day'. But none of my immediate family had ever been there, and not for many generations. It was 'a sort of homecoming.' I felt like it was the promised land in a way.
I got there in the afternoon and decided to hitch south to try to get to Cork. A few people picked me up, not fast hitching, contemplative waits between rides, I watched the green. It is a green green place, factories in fields and babbling brooks and you could smell the green everywhere.
A dude picked me up coming into New Ross, he was then about my age now. It was suppertime. He said "why don't you drop into the pub and have a bite, maybe you'll meet some people.." I said "no, no, I gotta keep moving, can't stop here - places to go!" We chatted about other things. He said it again. I replied with my line, but wondering if some greater force was at work. What did he know that I didn't?
He was going the other way, and despite the fact that I was continuing on because I had very important places to be - he told me there was a hostel in the hills above town, and gave me directions. The town center was small, with a road going straight on along our side of the river (his road) and one crossing a little bridge to go my way - to my planned destiny.
He, being my divine guide for the moment, let me off exactly in front of the pub he had recommended I go into. I stood there with my backpack, readying my gear for the next charge, looked at the pub, which seemed friendly and warm, and thought, "Jeez Canning, are you ever uptight today." So I went in. I never thought of this before, but I hope he saw that in his rear-view mirror. Or maybe he got the news from the small-town-Irish-gossip-pipeline...
I walked in past the only patron - an absolutley stunning young woman, a little older than me though, and got a Guinness at the bar. I walked back and pulled out a chair at her table, asking if I could join her while I did so. May as well give in to destiny completely, I figured.
She was Welsh, and had what I have come to see as a classic Welsh beauty - very white skin, black hair, blue eyes, high cheekbones, a big smile with perfect strong teeth. I forget her name. She was 25, a wanderer like me, and put me onto the book called Autobiography of a Supertramp, about a young Englishman who travelled all over the states in the 20's and 30's. A great book, I later tracked down two copies and mailed one to her, but never heard from her. I still have mine, in storage back in Halifax. She also foreshadowed my future wife (now ex), who looked very similar to her and is also a lovely human being.
Welsh girl and I hit it off, had a drink or two, and made plans to meet later. I walked up the hill to the hostel, which was in a 900 year old farm-house, and got a bed for the night. Went back to the pub later and it was a perfect Irish experience - we met up with her cousin, who was a schoolteacher, and some of his friends. It was all ages: 5 - 500(;) and they locked the doors at 11pm with the only two town cops inside, sauced.
They broke out the instruments and passed around a big cup like a Stanley cup on top, full of whiskey, and everyone in the place sipped from it. We said our goodnights and I stumbled home.
The next day we met for a late lunch, her cousin gave us a lift to Dublin, and I got a room at the hostel there while she stayed with her Aunt. We went out for supper, had a beer or two, told more stories and laughed our heads off, and then I walked her to her train station. I wanted to kiss her goodnight, but was too shy and still flabbergatsed by her utter beauty and coolness.
Before that however, she had been encouraging me to stay in Ireland, she'd be there a while yet, and then Wales, which was not far off. So I stopped to make a phonecall. My earned-on-a-week-or-two-of-work plane ticket was non-negotiable. Either be on it, or forget it. It's a no-brainer, any young man in my position would have stayed, stayed in Ireland, made friends, found a job under the table, spent time with the beautiful Welsh girl.
But I was a young man who's Mother was dying of cancer. In Canada.
I called her from a payphone on our walk to the station in the rain. She could half hear what I said to my Mom, "I met this girl - she's so beautiful, and super-cool, and I'm meeting people, and I might stay here, how would you feel about that?.."
I didn't know how I felt about it. To my Mom - I was not just her son sounding happy and like she always wants me to sound - I was in the homeland - sacred Ireland, and I could tell she'd almost prefer I stay and miss her last days, and be there. And in retrospect she must have been considering the kind of life I would have after her death, and how she had come to know me and how much more I thrived away from home, and what my future might be if I was there when she died, if I made a life there.
She said, "well Paddy, you have to do what's right for you, don't worry about it, if you stay we'll sort out some way to get you back later, have fun, I love you."
Melanie? Was that her name? I went back to her, she was smiling, having heard her good review, and having some idea of the import of the conversation.
I wasn't clear - what should I do?
I walked her to the station, I'd been released from duty imposed by another, but not by me. I didn't want to miss my Mom's last days, I wanted to spend time with her before that. I also wanted to stay here.
God would decide. I slept. I hadn't thought of this - I just knew - I'd get up in the morning and go to the ferry and I'd know if I wanted to get it or not, or I'd know something, or I'd figure it out somehow.
I went to the ferry terminal in Dun Laoghair, which I had first pronounced "Dun Log-hair" to the amusment of the natives. Dun Leary. I bought my ticket around 10:30 am, the Ferry was due to leave at 2.
I walked up the hill to the square and spotted an older Irish guy who looked like he'd know where to get the best Guinness in town. You see, it's all about the pour, how you clean the taps and pipes, etc. It's not simple to make the best Guinness. That's part of the beauty.
He knew alright - and seemed pretty flattered I asked. "John Walter's Pub, it's a bit of a hike, but it's worth it." Thanks, old-timer. :)
I made my way to John Walter's Pub, walked in about 11, and got a Guinness. Chatted with John, a fine older fellow. He said, "I got a guy out back, a Canadian, he hates it when I do this with Canadian customers, but this is different.." I heard him go out back - "mumble, mumble," "AW JESUS JOHN, I TOLD YA NOT TA DO THAT... curse, curse.." I shrugged. I was already "into the shorts" as John commented, meaning I was already having a "Paddy's Irish Whiskey".
The Canadian guy came out with his best unfriendly expression on, to chat for a minute and get back to work. He was from Calgary, Irish family, and went there for a trip when he was 19, twelve years before, and didn't get back to Canada until recently. He did his obligatory chat, then a little more. Next thing you know, he's pulling up a stool and ordering a Guinness too.
They bring out some old labels from the basement, from when every pub bottled their own Guinness, and gave me a few. They didn't know what year they were from, but they were old. And a black John Walters lighter, my only souvenirs from that trip.
We chatted, he asked John for the day off, and we went to another pub. Then another. You see, my plan was - I'd leave it up to God. To go home or not. I'd be late for the ferry, or whatever, get loaded and see if the ferry was still there, or if I even made it.
At four thirty or so we were at a dual bookie-pub, drinking and betting on stuff, stuff on tv, whatever we could find. One of his friends offered me a job, another a place to stay, he was gone home, loaded and with a pissed off wife, but wishing me well and hoping I'd stick around.
About then one of the guys, who was a little more sober-minded, if not bodied, said, knowing my story - "shouldn't you go get your ferry??" I slurred - "when I finsh my drink..."
I went.
The ferry was still there, almost three hours late. I got on it and went home.
That's how I've resolved my little quandary about what to do next - since I have to work it depends on where I work, so I'm just applying for a bunch of jobs all over the world, in my current backyard, and anywhere else that might interest me. We'll see what God has to say about it.
I was surprised by all the feelings writing this brought up about my Mom and her passing - I miss her deeply, and still hear her laughter and lessons. I'm glad I went home to spend that time with her before she left. She is my Irish Faerie, or Queen among them. You are one of the reasons I live my dreams.
And you know it's time to go
Through the sleet and driving snow
Across the fields of mourning
Lights in the distance
Their deaths have been a light to me - in the distance - a constant reminder to live my life fully, to be human, to follow my dreams and my passions, for how short it is. And how full of wonder.
The intellect of man is forced to choose
Perfection of the life, or of the work,
And if it take the second must refuse
A heavenly mansion, raging in the dark,
And when the story's finished, what's the news?
In luck or out the toil has left its mark:
That old perplexity an empty purse,
Or the day's vanity, the nights remorse.
John Cage / Berkeley / Waking to your Life
This trip hasn't just been composed of lollygagging about, as much as that's the face I've enjoyed portraying. When I was in California in August the plan was to finish a paper from law school on depleted uranium munitions. I discussed this a bit in my "California" entry - but not what it means. It was the biggest expense for the trip - to book some space of my own in Berekely so I could do my research at the library there and get the paper finished to send out for publication. In doing research I found - my paper! - someone else wrote and published it already! And did a fine job. Maybe not the way I would have done it, but that's ok. It made mine redundant regardless. And that's ok too. Dissapointing though.
I had worked hard on it; many many hours.
It was a moment of awakening: that time passes, and whatever you want to do - you have to do it now, in the never-ending present. It inspired me to start this blog.
I sent a link to a friend the other day for John Cage's 4'33'' - one of my favorite pieces of music. I found out about him from the Tragically Hip song 'Tiger the Lion,' I was entranced by the line, "Simply to wake to your life...", as that was what I was trying to do - this step out in life - leaving what was ostensibly my home, living without a net - all in pursuit of that.
I think waking to your life happens in many ways, that point in Berkeley where I realized all that work was for nothing but my own education - I saw that no matter what else I do, my old habits of procrastination and delay - not that I'm lazy, I work hard, I'm just not good at finsihing stuff sometimes - saw that I'll never achieve my dreams without becoming more effective.
My last few blogs have mentoned the search for clarity about what to do next - where there is none. Can I just admit that I don't know? One thing I do know - I've learned some things about myself over the last few months - things that have to shape all my future decisions, or else I'd be turning my back on myself - my faithful travelling companion. Jesus, I've done that before. Left that poor fker waiting by the side of the road for years...
So, now it's time to blend travel and work, and see if that part of my "me-as-an-experiment" experiment works out like I hoped. ;)
I think it's safe to say that follow-through is another point of personal power - things started and not finished hang out there in the ethers, draining it.
In truth, every moment is a struggle to wake to our lives, I wonder if the best way is to not try.
Here's a John Cage quote, not the one I was looking for, but potentially appropriate,
"The highest purpose is to have no purpose at all. This puts one in accord with nature, in her manner of operation."
If we stop trying to wake up to our lives, stop treating them as if our real lfe is something outside, beyond what we see and experience every day - what will happen? I'll tell you if I manage to let go of trying.
This was not what I had planned to learn in Berkeley, but I'll take the lesson and be thankful for it.
Slowly, bit by bit, I am waking to my life, as we all are.
Now? - I'm living on raw food, yoga and friendship on the Sunshine Coast. It's snowing, it's beautiful outside. The Universe and I are getting along fine. I still wait at these crossroads, knowing I won't be here forever, happy to be here today.
I got a giftbox from my brother in the mail yesterday, there were many cool things in it, one of which was a little stuffed pelican named 'Mully' - to fly high and far. Another, a photocopied page with A Warrior's Creed on it, about 18 lines from an anonymous samurai, written in the fourteenth century, on it is this:
I have no designs: I make "seizing opportunity by the forelock" my design.
I had worked hard on it; many many hours.
It was a moment of awakening: that time passes, and whatever you want to do - you have to do it now, in the never-ending present. It inspired me to start this blog.
I sent a link to a friend the other day for John Cage's 4'33'' - one of my favorite pieces of music. I found out about him from the Tragically Hip song 'Tiger the Lion,' I was entranced by the line, "Simply to wake to your life...", as that was what I was trying to do - this step out in life - leaving what was ostensibly my home, living without a net - all in pursuit of that.
I think waking to your life happens in many ways, that point in Berkeley where I realized all that work was for nothing but my own education - I saw that no matter what else I do, my old habits of procrastination and delay - not that I'm lazy, I work hard, I'm just not good at finsihing stuff sometimes - saw that I'll never achieve my dreams without becoming more effective.
My last few blogs have mentoned the search for clarity about what to do next - where there is none. Can I just admit that I don't know? One thing I do know - I've learned some things about myself over the last few months - things that have to shape all my future decisions, or else I'd be turning my back on myself - my faithful travelling companion. Jesus, I've done that before. Left that poor fker waiting by the side of the road for years...
So, now it's time to blend travel and work, and see if that part of my "me-as-an-experiment" experiment works out like I hoped. ;)
I think it's safe to say that follow-through is another point of personal power - things started and not finished hang out there in the ethers, draining it.
In truth, every moment is a struggle to wake to our lives, I wonder if the best way is to not try.
Here's a John Cage quote, not the one I was looking for, but potentially appropriate,
"The highest purpose is to have no purpose at all. This puts one in accord with nature, in her manner of operation."
If we stop trying to wake up to our lives, stop treating them as if our real lfe is something outside, beyond what we see and experience every day - what will happen? I'll tell you if I manage to let go of trying.
This was not what I had planned to learn in Berkeley, but I'll take the lesson and be thankful for it.
Slowly, bit by bit, I am waking to my life, as we all are.
Now? - I'm living on raw food, yoga and friendship on the Sunshine Coast. It's snowing, it's beautiful outside. The Universe and I are getting along fine. I still wait at these crossroads, knowing I won't be here forever, happy to be here today.
I got a giftbox from my brother in the mail yesterday, there were many cool things in it, one of which was a little stuffed pelican named 'Mully' - to fly high and far. Another, a photocopied page with A Warrior's Creed on it, about 18 lines from an anonymous samurai, written in the fourteenth century, on it is this:
I have no designs: I make "seizing opportunity by the forelock" my design.
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
in the Sunshine of my Love (wild horses)
Spent the last week or two on the Sunshine Coast, went to Vancouver for a few days - and couldn't wait to come back. Now I am here again, at Roberts Creek, staying with some great friends.
It's the first time I've felt that in my travels - the desire to go back to a place I've just been.
"Thoughts on travel, love, service, healthfood, homelessness"...
Home.
This is the sixteenth entry on this journey. I don't think there's any resolution to the questions I've been posing - that's not the point. How do we best serve? How do we balance fullfilling ourselves with fulfilling our role in the world? Is there even any difference between the two?
How drastically my plans, thoughts, aims, have changed in ten days. I'm glad, and I'm happy. The road goes ever on and on.
High in Nepal, the lock sprang at last:
There Vishnu lies entrancd upon his pool,
And there I was touched deeply and held fast
Home is where the heart is. A friend, my roommate in my first apartment after leaving a more stable life in Halifax in 2007, wrote that on a small gift she gave me years ago. It's a more complex cliche than it initially sounds. Really embracing it means - embracing uncertainty. Not to be a butterfly in a storm - blown hither and thither by the whims of what 'my heart wants' but to be a butterfly emerging from a coccoon - into a new sense of reality and the possibilities of life. Where is one's heart? What is our deepest passion? Herein lies, I think, the answer to the question of how we balance our role in the world with our personal needs.
So, here I am on the Sunshine Coast. The other day, in a dreamy moment, I had a vision of wild horses over my heart - a herd of them, galloping across the plain - free, running, simply for the joy of life.
My heart wants to be here now, for the friends I've made, the love all around me, will I ultimately stay or go? I don't know. Can I find work here? I don't know. Today, I am simply running, niether to nor away, but for the joy of it.
The horses - represent that feeling, it can (theoretically) be found anywhere - I have found it (again) through travel. Now I recognize it more clearly than when I was young: the vital power of life / the Universe, expressing itself through your passions and dreams. If it's here, I'll stay here, if it's in Vancouver, LA, Dubai, or Halifax - I'll go there. Ultimately - it's just in me. But I tried telling myself that while living in Peterborough - man, it was a hard road to hoe (no offence to anyone).
Nothing takes priority over being alive - the great lesson from one of my favorite characters in literature - the mother from The Virgin and the Gypsy, by D.H. Lawrence. She's not even in the book, just mentioned a few times - she leaves, her family and everything - to be alive. Not to say you can't have it in a relationship, but simply to say that it always takes precedence, always.
For me, as a horse-hearted person, I need someone who also wants to run, run, run. Not necessarily literally - but to live a life of passion.
I promised something on health food too, so here it is: I've put on weight. For those who don't know me, that's a challenge - I'm chronically slim. Strange, while travelling. And I eat less. Smaller meals, I'm more easily satisfied. I see, that through the things I've faced in life to get to this point, deaths of my parents, divorce, going back to school at a later age, all to get me here - as a homeless wanderer, a hobo, a 'wandering knight' - I am fullfilled. All those years, all that food I used to eat, was to satisfy a deeper hunger: a hunger for myself.
It reminds me of one of my favorite quotes from The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ; "man is not made pure by what goes in his mouth, but by what comes out." Indeed.
But it's still fun to eat healthy and feel strong and energetic.
I started a raw food/yoga thirty day challenge yesterday, with some friends, and was up at 4:30 am for an hour and a half of yoga - it felt great. Good to be fulfilled in my spirit, heart and body.
In the last few weeks on the SSC, I've solidified some wonderful relationships, friendships, some very light but meaningful romance, and made new friends as well. All very welcoming and inviting - of me into their lives. I have been honoured by some wonderful people lately - wanting to be my friend, wanting to share.
There is so much love here - for/from one person, many, myself. I am still on the hinge of deciding, (finding out?) what to do next, and know what to follow - it's that beautiful feeling I have managed to find on this trip: of being me, and following my heart.
I'll be with the wild horses, wherever they are...
It's the first time I've felt that in my travels - the desire to go back to a place I've just been.
"Thoughts on travel, love, service, healthfood, homelessness"...
Home.
This is the sixteenth entry on this journey. I don't think there's any resolution to the questions I've been posing - that's not the point. How do we best serve? How do we balance fullfilling ourselves with fulfilling our role in the world? Is there even any difference between the two?
How drastically my plans, thoughts, aims, have changed in ten days. I'm glad, and I'm happy. The road goes ever on and on.
High in Nepal, the lock sprang at last:
There Vishnu lies entrancd upon his pool,
And there I was touched deeply and held fast
Home is where the heart is. A friend, my roommate in my first apartment after leaving a more stable life in Halifax in 2007, wrote that on a small gift she gave me years ago. It's a more complex cliche than it initially sounds. Really embracing it means - embracing uncertainty. Not to be a butterfly in a storm - blown hither and thither by the whims of what 'my heart wants' but to be a butterfly emerging from a coccoon - into a new sense of reality and the possibilities of life. Where is one's heart? What is our deepest passion? Herein lies, I think, the answer to the question of how we balance our role in the world with our personal needs.
So, here I am on the Sunshine Coast. The other day, in a dreamy moment, I had a vision of wild horses over my heart - a herd of them, galloping across the plain - free, running, simply for the joy of life.
My heart wants to be here now, for the friends I've made, the love all around me, will I ultimately stay or go? I don't know. Can I find work here? I don't know. Today, I am simply running, niether to nor away, but for the joy of it.
The horses - represent that feeling, it can (theoretically) be found anywhere - I have found it (again) through travel. Now I recognize it more clearly than when I was young: the vital power of life / the Universe, expressing itself through your passions and dreams. If it's here, I'll stay here, if it's in Vancouver, LA, Dubai, or Halifax - I'll go there. Ultimately - it's just in me. But I tried telling myself that while living in Peterborough - man, it was a hard road to hoe (no offence to anyone).
Nothing takes priority over being alive - the great lesson from one of my favorite characters in literature - the mother from The Virgin and the Gypsy, by D.H. Lawrence. She's not even in the book, just mentioned a few times - she leaves, her family and everything - to be alive. Not to say you can't have it in a relationship, but simply to say that it always takes precedence, always.
For me, as a horse-hearted person, I need someone who also wants to run, run, run. Not necessarily literally - but to live a life of passion.
I promised something on health food too, so here it is: I've put on weight. For those who don't know me, that's a challenge - I'm chronically slim. Strange, while travelling. And I eat less. Smaller meals, I'm more easily satisfied. I see, that through the things I've faced in life to get to this point, deaths of my parents, divorce, going back to school at a later age, all to get me here - as a homeless wanderer, a hobo, a 'wandering knight' - I am fullfilled. All those years, all that food I used to eat, was to satisfy a deeper hunger: a hunger for myself.
It would be easier to roll up the entire sky into
a small cloth than it would be to obtain true happiness
without knowing the Self.
Conclusion (though I promised none): the best health food is to live your life fully, to be who you are, and to follow yor heart. It reminds me of one of my favorite quotes from The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ; "man is not made pure by what goes in his mouth, but by what comes out." Indeed.
But it's still fun to eat healthy and feel strong and energetic.
I started a raw food/yoga thirty day challenge yesterday, with some friends, and was up at 4:30 am for an hour and a half of yoga - it felt great. Good to be fulfilled in my spirit, heart and body.
In the last few weeks on the SSC, I've solidified some wonderful relationships, friendships, some very light but meaningful romance, and made new friends as well. All very welcoming and inviting - of me into their lives. I have been honoured by some wonderful people lately - wanting to be my friend, wanting to share.
There is so much love here - for/from one person, many, myself. I am still on the hinge of deciding, (finding out?) what to do next, and know what to follow - it's that beautiful feeling I have managed to find on this trip: of being me, and following my heart.
I'll be with the wild horses, wherever they are...
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
California
I think this'll be a long one. Winding and curvy like Hwy 1 along the coast north of Fort Bragg.
California.
My brother suggested I read The Talisman by Steven King, before leaving, back in the spring. It's about a quest - but for what? A thing called the Talisman, which could unite two worlds, cure a sick woman, help a boy become himself. And more.
I suppose I am trying to unite two worlds as well, or I have, or I am seeing I don't need to because it's already done.
As I mentioned in my last Captain's log - I recently came across a journal entry from May or so - "I WANT TO GO TO CALIFORNIA".
I did.
I loved it there. I didn't want to stay any longer. Didn't need to live there. I thought that was why I was going - to scope it out for masters programs, maybe stick around for a year or two, but no. I miss it, in the way you miss a lover that you didn't part from badly, or well - you just parted.
California I'm coming home
I'm going to see the folks I dig
I'll even kiss a Sunset pig
California I'm coming home
Indeed, it is home, for a dreamer. But I don't need to be there, it is in my heart.
Funny, so many people said great things about it, but many also scorned it - the big cities, the class divisons, the violence - all true.
But it is the land of dreams. I spent a month and a week there, it changed my life.
I drove in on Hwy 101 from Oregon in mid August, crossed the bridge with the golden bears on it, took a picture of myself riding one, and another pic in front of the sign - 'You have entered California.' A dream come true. Simple dreams - it's not a hard place to get to, but you never know in life - I tend to enter the satisfaction of a dream with childlike joy. Thankfully ;)
I camped in the redwoods, under California stars, hiked amongst them, talked to them, talked to people around. But only in a superficial way, I was not looking for any connection - just to be. That song, by Billy Bragg - I had been listening to for a month or two by this time,
I'd like to rest my heavy head tonight
On a bed of California stars
There's some words to relate to California - 'like to..', 'going to..' - future-oriented, looking to a place soon ahead. I am in California in my heart, I hope I always will be.
The first time I went there was six months ago - I went to a conference in Tofino in May - on Ethnobiology - it was filled with Indiana Jonses and real life Shamans. I only had a week off, which I resented, and resolved to do all the things I wanted to do anyway. I wanted to go to California, I'd been to BC already, I love it, but my soul was yearning for someplace new. I flew into LA, at one am on a Friday, rented a car and drove to Surf City Hostel at Hermosa Beach. Went out and walked around with the drunk teenagers and ate a wrap, laughed at the whole thing - the fact that I should have been nervous in such a setting. It wasn't bravery - it was joy. At being alive and someplace new, on an adventure!
Drove up the coast to San Fran the next day, and took a train from there the following night - the Starlight Express to Seattle, and a bus to Canada.
Everyone in the world dreams of going there, being there, living there. Wealth, and beautiful weather, 'perfect people,' gorgeous landscape; just the energy.
In the Talisman there was another world, a parallel reality - "The Territories". I could certaianly feel it in Califonria. I spent a lot of time alone out doors. I went to Berkely to finish and publish a paper on depleted uranuim munitions - bomb and tank shells tipped with uranium left over from the nuclear power generation process. My paper argued that they are illegal according to international law, and that states could, in the future, be held responsible for their use. I went to Berekely for their library, since I am no longer a student or employed, I don't have access to great online datatbaes etc. What I found there was - my paper! Someone else published it already!! Ha, a minor setback, a fleshowound! I cut yor bloody leg off..
Enough Monty Python (for anyone who didn't pick that up..). I had put a lot of work into it, and hung some hopes on it too. It left me in Berkeley with some time on my hands, and the need to think. I spent a day in Tilden Park. I started reading, in Oregon the night before entering Cali and going to Berkeley, The Way of the Peaceful Warrior. What had restrained me so long from starting it? Everyone wanted me to ;)
The main character, on the first page, is also going to Berkeley, mind you - as a student. Funny coincidence.
I spent an afternoon and evening at Point Reyes - it was cool and the wind was cutting, the sun was bright like one of those lamps in the post office that shines through everything, shining through me. I felt transparent; the wind and sun and sand all passing through me. I walked into the setting sun along the beach with the wind in my face trying to push me back. I was lost in the beauty of it all.
Two young women rode by on horses, galloping, then walking. They stopped and chatted later, pretty and bright, making fun of each other because one fell off her horse. I walked out to the end of the beach, a long walk. A cove lay before me, inland, with huge cliffs on the other side. Outland - the sea, the holy sea.
That first time I came, back in May, on my drive up from LA to San Fran I stopped at a place I later named Talisman Break, a bit of park with a river and gravelly beach at the bottom of some cliffs. It was my only real nature stop in a 14 hr driving day. Well, that and the elephant seal beach - but who could miss giant animals laying on each other and farting?
Talisman Break is a magical place, I have learned they are scattered throughout California. Like gates to another world, but it is inside - it is choosing to live our dreams, living in the world of our dreams.
Will you take me as I am,
strung out on another man?
California comin home...
Yes, yes it will.
It was a sunny day, as I drove in I got a random text message from an old girlfriend back home, and said sorry, I'm in California. I parked, met some nice Mexican people and we took each other's pictures. Then I walked around the bend in the rock, over the stream/river, and - pow! I was a child again, and the adult I want to be. I walked, in awe, dug the loose rock in the cliff face, touched the sea, picked up some pebbles and had a leak, and thought, 'here I am.'
I played a bit and ran around, at one with nature, forgetting. I walked back around the corner, crossing the river, I jumped from rock to rock, probably talking to myself and the river, and God, I squatted down, and in baptism of the beauty splashed water on my face and head, pushed my hair back, laughed, stood. I started springing again, then, startled, came up and kind of snapped back to reality - a person! Wtf? (Ah yes, this is a public park, not 'Pat's Playground':) A hippy guy sitting by the river was looking at me, I said, 'beautiful place huh?' He said, 'ookedike oo wwer iiggninit' I said "what?" He said, carefully - "looked like you were digging it." I laughed quietly, thought, I am home. Said, "yep, I guess I got a little lost in my own world," he smiled, I went my way.
On my second visit - Aug/Sept - I made a friend in Berkeley - a street artist, a really good artist, an older English guy full of piss n vinegar, and piercing intelligence. I helped him with his tables and we talked about girls, art, politics.
I spent a few days in Santa Cruz with a new friend - what did I call him in a previous blog?.. Karachi! We swam and talked about spiritual stuff and the law, he introduced me to the Bhagwan. That's where I got poison oak (he warned me) which changed my course a bit, keeping me in California past my birthday, which was not really the plan. But clearly was the plan.
It was good, I went to Long Beach, south of LA, and stayed with an old friend. He was great, a champion host - on my worst poison oak suffering days, he'd get up in the morning say, "do your stuff, take a shower, coat yourself in ointment etc - then we'll figure out what we're going to do today for Fun!" And we would. It was a lot of fun.
I stayed with him over two weeks, partied, healed, danced, met a lot of great people. Learned - I learned a lot from Mike - another 'silver fox' on my journey. Also met his friend Lou - who travelled the world for 10 years straight, his passports from 1965-75 have glued in extra pages for all the stamps - from countries that don't even exist anymore. Pretty inspiring.
Then it was time to move on, I had a friend in Canada I had to come back and help move, so I packed up and took the cool (temperature-wise) roads, for my rash. Stopped again at Talisman Break, Mt. Shasta, stayed in little cheap hotels - 30$ a night, clean and with showers. I don't know where they were, I got in after dark, left as soon as I woke up. But they treated me well.
There was a ridge on that Mountain, sharp and straight. At 8 or 9,000 ft I found a 100' length of new climbing rope (as I mentioned in a previous blog), I hadn't seen this connection before:
Throw me a line, if I reach it in time
Meet you up there where the path runs straight and high
This journey, ever more so - is full of meaningful coincidences. I keep naming different starting points to it - how about this one? - reading Synchronicity by Carl Jung three times when I was thirteen - which lead to my moment of clarity about my life, which has lead me here.
I said to a friend the other night - "I started this blog about my outer journey, but it turned out to be more about my inner journey." She said, "that's really what is always is, isn't it?"
That was my time in California, what was it all for? Everyone on Earth dreams about it, and rightly so. It is a place of giant landscapes, breathtaking natural beauty, and young culture, which has its disadvantages, but - never looks back, disregards the past, indeed, watch out. When "the children of the sun begin to awake."
I got what I went for - woken up - to my own dreams, to being who I am - the point of this whole process.
Like BC, and the summer I spent there 17 years ago - it's in me now, and I will return to it many times.
Like that summer in BC on the beach, it has revealed to me: the limitlessness of life, and ourselves.
Find a queen without a king
They say she plays guitar and cries and sings, la-la-la-la
Ride a white mare in the footsteps of dawn
Tryin' to find a woman who's never, never, never been born
Standin' on a hill in the mountain of dreams
Tellin' myself it's not as hard, hard, hard as it seems
California.
My brother suggested I read The Talisman by Steven King, before leaving, back in the spring. It's about a quest - but for what? A thing called the Talisman, which could unite two worlds, cure a sick woman, help a boy become himself. And more.
I suppose I am trying to unite two worlds as well, or I have, or I am seeing I don't need to because it's already done.
As I mentioned in my last Captain's log - I recently came across a journal entry from May or so - "I WANT TO GO TO CALIFORNIA".
I did.
I loved it there. I didn't want to stay any longer. Didn't need to live there. I thought that was why I was going - to scope it out for masters programs, maybe stick around for a year or two, but no. I miss it, in the way you miss a lover that you didn't part from badly, or well - you just parted.
California I'm coming home
I'm going to see the folks I dig
I'll even kiss a Sunset pig
California I'm coming home
Indeed, it is home, for a dreamer. But I don't need to be there, it is in my heart.
Funny, so many people said great things about it, but many also scorned it - the big cities, the class divisons, the violence - all true.
But it is the land of dreams. I spent a month and a week there, it changed my life.
I drove in on Hwy 101 from Oregon in mid August, crossed the bridge with the golden bears on it, took a picture of myself riding one, and another pic in front of the sign - 'You have entered California.' A dream come true. Simple dreams - it's not a hard place to get to, but you never know in life - I tend to enter the satisfaction of a dream with childlike joy. Thankfully ;)
I camped in the redwoods, under California stars, hiked amongst them, talked to them, talked to people around. But only in a superficial way, I was not looking for any connection - just to be. That song, by Billy Bragg - I had been listening to for a month or two by this time,
I'd like to rest my heavy head tonight
On a bed of California stars
There's some words to relate to California - 'like to..', 'going to..' - future-oriented, looking to a place soon ahead. I am in California in my heart, I hope I always will be.
The first time I went there was six months ago - I went to a conference in Tofino in May - on Ethnobiology - it was filled with Indiana Jonses and real life Shamans. I only had a week off, which I resented, and resolved to do all the things I wanted to do anyway. I wanted to go to California, I'd been to BC already, I love it, but my soul was yearning for someplace new. I flew into LA, at one am on a Friday, rented a car and drove to Surf City Hostel at Hermosa Beach. Went out and walked around with the drunk teenagers and ate a wrap, laughed at the whole thing - the fact that I should have been nervous in such a setting. It wasn't bravery - it was joy. At being alive and someplace new, on an adventure!
Drove up the coast to San Fran the next day, and took a train from there the following night - the Starlight Express to Seattle, and a bus to Canada.
Everyone in the world dreams of going there, being there, living there. Wealth, and beautiful weather, 'perfect people,' gorgeous landscape; just the energy.
In the Talisman there was another world, a parallel reality - "The Territories". I could certaianly feel it in Califonria. I spent a lot of time alone out doors. I went to Berkely to finish and publish a paper on depleted uranuim munitions - bomb and tank shells tipped with uranium left over from the nuclear power generation process. My paper argued that they are illegal according to international law, and that states could, in the future, be held responsible for their use. I went to Berekely for their library, since I am no longer a student or employed, I don't have access to great online datatbaes etc. What I found there was - my paper! Someone else published it already!! Ha, a minor setback, a fleshowound! I cut yor bloody leg off..
Enough Monty Python (for anyone who didn't pick that up..). I had put a lot of work into it, and hung some hopes on it too. It left me in Berkeley with some time on my hands, and the need to think. I spent a day in Tilden Park. I started reading, in Oregon the night before entering Cali and going to Berkeley, The Way of the Peaceful Warrior. What had restrained me so long from starting it? Everyone wanted me to ;)
The main character, on the first page, is also going to Berkeley, mind you - as a student. Funny coincidence.
I spent an afternoon and evening at Point Reyes - it was cool and the wind was cutting, the sun was bright like one of those lamps in the post office that shines through everything, shining through me. I felt transparent; the wind and sun and sand all passing through me. I walked into the setting sun along the beach with the wind in my face trying to push me back. I was lost in the beauty of it all.
Two young women rode by on horses, galloping, then walking. They stopped and chatted later, pretty and bright, making fun of each other because one fell off her horse. I walked out to the end of the beach, a long walk. A cove lay before me, inland, with huge cliffs on the other side. Outland - the sea, the holy sea.
That first time I came, back in May, on my drive up from LA to San Fran I stopped at a place I later named Talisman Break, a bit of park with a river and gravelly beach at the bottom of some cliffs. It was my only real nature stop in a 14 hr driving day. Well, that and the elephant seal beach - but who could miss giant animals laying on each other and farting?
Talisman Break is a magical place, I have learned they are scattered throughout California. Like gates to another world, but it is inside - it is choosing to live our dreams, living in the world of our dreams.
Will you take me as I am,
strung out on another man?
California comin home...
Yes, yes it will.
It was a sunny day, as I drove in I got a random text message from an old girlfriend back home, and said sorry, I'm in California. I parked, met some nice Mexican people and we took each other's pictures. Then I walked around the bend in the rock, over the stream/river, and - pow! I was a child again, and the adult I want to be. I walked, in awe, dug the loose rock in the cliff face, touched the sea, picked up some pebbles and had a leak, and thought, 'here I am.'
I played a bit and ran around, at one with nature, forgetting. I walked back around the corner, crossing the river, I jumped from rock to rock, probably talking to myself and the river, and God, I squatted down, and in baptism of the beauty splashed water on my face and head, pushed my hair back, laughed, stood. I started springing again, then, startled, came up and kind of snapped back to reality - a person! Wtf? (Ah yes, this is a public park, not 'Pat's Playground':) A hippy guy sitting by the river was looking at me, I said, 'beautiful place huh?' He said, 'ookedike oo wwer iiggninit' I said "what?" He said, carefully - "looked like you were digging it." I laughed quietly, thought, I am home. Said, "yep, I guess I got a little lost in my own world," he smiled, I went my way.
On my second visit - Aug/Sept - I made a friend in Berkeley - a street artist, a really good artist, an older English guy full of piss n vinegar, and piercing intelligence. I helped him with his tables and we talked about girls, art, politics.
I spent a few days in Santa Cruz with a new friend - what did I call him in a previous blog?.. Karachi! We swam and talked about spiritual stuff and the law, he introduced me to the Bhagwan. That's where I got poison oak (he warned me) which changed my course a bit, keeping me in California past my birthday, which was not really the plan. But clearly was the plan.
It was good, I went to Long Beach, south of LA, and stayed with an old friend. He was great, a champion host - on my worst poison oak suffering days, he'd get up in the morning say, "do your stuff, take a shower, coat yourself in ointment etc - then we'll figure out what we're going to do today for Fun!" And we would. It was a lot of fun.
I stayed with him over two weeks, partied, healed, danced, met a lot of great people. Learned - I learned a lot from Mike - another 'silver fox' on my journey. Also met his friend Lou - who travelled the world for 10 years straight, his passports from 1965-75 have glued in extra pages for all the stamps - from countries that don't even exist anymore. Pretty inspiring.
Then it was time to move on, I had a friend in Canada I had to come back and help move, so I packed up and took the cool (temperature-wise) roads, for my rash. Stopped again at Talisman Break, Mt. Shasta, stayed in little cheap hotels - 30$ a night, clean and with showers. I don't know where they were, I got in after dark, left as soon as I woke up. But they treated me well.
There was a ridge on that Mountain, sharp and straight. At 8 or 9,000 ft I found a 100' length of new climbing rope (as I mentioned in a previous blog), I hadn't seen this connection before:
Throw me a line, if I reach it in time
Meet you up there where the path runs straight and high
This journey, ever more so - is full of meaningful coincidences. I keep naming different starting points to it - how about this one? - reading Synchronicity by Carl Jung three times when I was thirteen - which lead to my moment of clarity about my life, which has lead me here.
I said to a friend the other night - "I started this blog about my outer journey, but it turned out to be more about my inner journey." She said, "that's really what is always is, isn't it?"
That was my time in California, what was it all for? Everyone on Earth dreams about it, and rightly so. It is a place of giant landscapes, breathtaking natural beauty, and young culture, which has its disadvantages, but - never looks back, disregards the past, indeed, watch out. When "the children of the sun begin to awake."
I got what I went for - woken up - to my own dreams, to being who I am - the point of this whole process.
Like BC, and the summer I spent there 17 years ago - it's in me now, and I will return to it many times.
Like that summer in BC on the beach, it has revealed to me: the limitlessness of life, and ourselves.
Find a queen without a king
They say she plays guitar and cries and sings, la-la-la-la
Ride a white mare in the footsteps of dawn
Tryin' to find a woman who's never, never, never been born
Standin' on a hill in the mountain of dreams
Tellin' myself it's not as hard, hard, hard as it seems
Friday, November 5, 2010
Pressing Pause in Vancouver (2 of swords)
Here I am in Vancouver, I thought my next step was clear - but now it's not. It's November, but still feels like summer to me in some ways, since I was in Peterborough last November (brrr), and since I'm still not working, but just wandering around, goofing off ;)
In looking for answers, I figure if I want to go deeper I should just keep digging in the same hole. I've been wondering about the whole 'knight' concept - as I have apparently attached myself to it.
I realized today that it's not an answer, but a question. How do we live a life of passion in this world - which so readily disarms us, baffles us from our path, distracts us from anything relevant; dulls our flame?
I've been reading 'Knight' books, I guess it just seemed appropriate, some old and some new; Percival and the Presence of God, The Quest of the Holy Grail... although enjoyable, they haven't yielded much in the way of answers.
Until now.
Chretien de Troyes Ywain: The Knight of the Lion, written betwen 1160 and 1180 AD gave me the clue I have been looking for to understanding this quest of mine. I've been trying to figure out how to live a life of passion - but within boundaries. Not of propriety or stuffy morality, but to have the limits cordoned off by, as with the path, some higher ideal. Something that embraced, allowed, understood, the flame of life,
The force that through the green fuse drives the flower
Drives my green age
And mine, Dylan.
Today I walked through East Hastings, all over downtown, contemplating my role on earth, my fathers (again) - the fact that my grandfather lived on the streets in Vancouver in 1924 is not lost on me, I reflected today on the wisdom of that for him - that he had served in WWI from when he was 15 until he was 18, and I can only imagine a lot of wandering was needed to clear that slate. Thanks Slim, for not passing those horrors onto me.
So I know my time is not wasted. I'm not working, but I'm learning about myself. He went back to Nova Scotia eventually, was a good man, had a family, became known alternately as "Slim" and "the Enforcer of Herring Cove." He was apparently a sweet gentle man, soft spoken, but with a strong sense of justice and a short temper, and years spent on the prairies in the 1920's as a "take-all-comers bareknuckle boxer" to back him up. From the stories I've heard he dissuaded many bullies from their wayward path. Violence isn't really our tool anymore, but I know - there is a distant goal, and at the same time now is always it.
So here I am in Vancouver, pressing pause.
These words are on the first page of this book, the earliest of the King Arthur stories:
The good King Arthur of Britain, whose knighthood inspires us to be valiant and courteous, held a noble court as befits a king on that lavish feast day which men are accustomed to call Pentecost. The King was then at Carduel in Wales.
Having dined in the hall, the knights gathered at the invitation of the ladies and damsels. Some of them told adventure stories and others spoke about love, its pangs and sorrows and also its joys, which are the lot of the disciples of the order of love, still at that time vigorous and honorable even though it has few followers nowadays.
Coincidentally, it was on Pentecost that my journey also started, in a way - when I made my decision to not only go, but to make these life changes that I'm in the midst of. I find this knight story much more reassuring (also coincidentally - my grandfather's name was Arthur, as my father and brother).
This is a very different vision of knighthood, not the chaste and perfect vision of the later books, but one of men and women driven by passion, at times violent, prone to error, broken-heartedness, reaching for something beyond their grasp, both as individuals and more broadly. But it is this striving which brings them to the best expression of themselves as human beings.
In setting out to be something you can never achieve one is only making themselves the same as any other 'knight.' Here the knight and the Bhagwan meet - seeking wholeness, with love as the ideal, accepting one's imperfections.
And what does this mean for me, here, today? I'm not sure where I'm going next. Leafing through a journal from six months ago, I found a page with big bold letters - I WANT TO GO TO CALIFORNIA!
I did that.
I've done the things I set out to do, except - figuring out what to do next.
The second time I hitchhiked across Canada I set out for Alaska. Still haven't been there. In Northern Alberta, on the "Alaska Highway," I was almost robbed and killed one night. The next morning, resolve in hand (but having had no sleep) I walked back onto the highway and continued. Again I was threatened, in a serious way, before 8am! I turned an eye to the sky and said, what's up? Was the Universe just putting roadblocks in front of me to test my resolve? Or was it trying to tell me I was on the wrong path? The answer lay within.
Once I really looked at myself I realized I wanted to go to Alaska for ego, not for me, not because I had a burning passion to be there. A friend later said, "I would have died sooner than give up on my goal." I said, "Mmhm, that's for you."
I crossed the highway, turned my sign around, wrote 'Jasper' on the back, and headed straight for Schooner Cove/Long Beach, south of Tofino - where I spent the next two moths, probably the most important and formative of my life.
The knights in this book (Ywain) tell of their defeats. And their best moves are made for Love.
It doesn't really matter if I go to the Mideast or somewhere else, I am travelling to my Self - to the best expression of me I can come up with in a few short decades on Earth.
I have a Tarot deck I lost a card from years ago. I lost the 9 of coins in 2006 - 'self-worth', sadly appropriate at that point in my life. Now I pick the cards out, give them away or carry them around and then leave them somewhere; a bankmachine, tucked in a book in a bookstore - for someone else's knock of destiny. They're little so they fit in your wallet. Yesterday I randomly picked out, for me - the two of swords. It shows a woman in white robes, kneeling, blindfolded, with a sword in each hand crossed over her shoulders. Armed and ready to fight, but waiting for her sacred order(s). Pause.
Wait.
I'll take my mixed messages from myself and the Universe and wait, as a traveller there are worse places to be in to take a breath. This weekend I will continue pressing pause on the Sunshine Coast. :) Life is hard for an errand knight...
Men there have lived who wrestled with the ocean;
I was afraid - the polyp was their shroud.
I was afraid. That shore of your decision
Awaits beyond this street where in the crowd
Your face is blown, an apparition, past.
Renounce the night as I, and we must meet
As weary nomads in this desert at last,
Borne in the lost procession of these feet.
In looking for answers, I figure if I want to go deeper I should just keep digging in the same hole. I've been wondering about the whole 'knight' concept - as I have apparently attached myself to it.
I realized today that it's not an answer, but a question. How do we live a life of passion in this world - which so readily disarms us, baffles us from our path, distracts us from anything relevant; dulls our flame?
I've been reading 'Knight' books, I guess it just seemed appropriate, some old and some new; Percival and the Presence of God, The Quest of the Holy Grail... although enjoyable, they haven't yielded much in the way of answers.
Until now.
Chretien de Troyes Ywain: The Knight of the Lion, written betwen 1160 and 1180 AD gave me the clue I have been looking for to understanding this quest of mine. I've been trying to figure out how to live a life of passion - but within boundaries. Not of propriety or stuffy morality, but to have the limits cordoned off by, as with the path, some higher ideal. Something that embraced, allowed, understood, the flame of life,
The force that through the green fuse drives the flower
Drives my green age
And mine, Dylan.
Today I walked through East Hastings, all over downtown, contemplating my role on earth, my fathers (again) - the fact that my grandfather lived on the streets in Vancouver in 1924 is not lost on me, I reflected today on the wisdom of that for him - that he had served in WWI from when he was 15 until he was 18, and I can only imagine a lot of wandering was needed to clear that slate. Thanks Slim, for not passing those horrors onto me.
So I know my time is not wasted. I'm not working, but I'm learning about myself. He went back to Nova Scotia eventually, was a good man, had a family, became known alternately as "Slim" and "the Enforcer of Herring Cove." He was apparently a sweet gentle man, soft spoken, but with a strong sense of justice and a short temper, and years spent on the prairies in the 1920's as a "take-all-comers bareknuckle boxer" to back him up. From the stories I've heard he dissuaded many bullies from their wayward path. Violence isn't really our tool anymore, but I know - there is a distant goal, and at the same time now is always it.
So here I am in Vancouver, pressing pause.
These words are on the first page of this book, the earliest of the King Arthur stories:
The good King Arthur of Britain, whose knighthood inspires us to be valiant and courteous, held a noble court as befits a king on that lavish feast day which men are accustomed to call Pentecost. The King was then at Carduel in Wales.
Having dined in the hall, the knights gathered at the invitation of the ladies and damsels. Some of them told adventure stories and others spoke about love, its pangs and sorrows and also its joys, which are the lot of the disciples of the order of love, still at that time vigorous and honorable even though it has few followers nowadays.
Coincidentally, it was on Pentecost that my journey also started, in a way - when I made my decision to not only go, but to make these life changes that I'm in the midst of. I find this knight story much more reassuring (also coincidentally - my grandfather's name was Arthur, as my father and brother).
This is a very different vision of knighthood, not the chaste and perfect vision of the later books, but one of men and women driven by passion, at times violent, prone to error, broken-heartedness, reaching for something beyond their grasp, both as individuals and more broadly. But it is this striving which brings them to the best expression of themselves as human beings.
In setting out to be something you can never achieve one is only making themselves the same as any other 'knight.' Here the knight and the Bhagwan meet - seeking wholeness, with love as the ideal, accepting one's imperfections.
And what does this mean for me, here, today? I'm not sure where I'm going next. Leafing through a journal from six months ago, I found a page with big bold letters - I WANT TO GO TO CALIFORNIA!
I did that.
I've done the things I set out to do, except - figuring out what to do next.
The second time I hitchhiked across Canada I set out for Alaska. Still haven't been there. In Northern Alberta, on the "Alaska Highway," I was almost robbed and killed one night. The next morning, resolve in hand (but having had no sleep) I walked back onto the highway and continued. Again I was threatened, in a serious way, before 8am! I turned an eye to the sky and said, what's up? Was the Universe just putting roadblocks in front of me to test my resolve? Or was it trying to tell me I was on the wrong path? The answer lay within.
Once I really looked at myself I realized I wanted to go to Alaska for ego, not for me, not because I had a burning passion to be there. A friend later said, "I would have died sooner than give up on my goal." I said, "Mmhm, that's for you."
I crossed the highway, turned my sign around, wrote 'Jasper' on the back, and headed straight for Schooner Cove/Long Beach, south of Tofino - where I spent the next two moths, probably the most important and formative of my life.
The knights in this book (Ywain) tell of their defeats. And their best moves are made for Love.
It doesn't really matter if I go to the Mideast or somewhere else, I am travelling to my Self - to the best expression of me I can come up with in a few short decades on Earth.
I have a Tarot deck I lost a card from years ago. I lost the 9 of coins in 2006 - 'self-worth', sadly appropriate at that point in my life. Now I pick the cards out, give them away or carry them around and then leave them somewhere; a bankmachine, tucked in a book in a bookstore - for someone else's knock of destiny. They're little so they fit in your wallet. Yesterday I randomly picked out, for me - the two of swords. It shows a woman in white robes, kneeling, blindfolded, with a sword in each hand crossed over her shoulders. Armed and ready to fight, but waiting for her sacred order(s). Pause.
Wait.
I'll take my mixed messages from myself and the Universe and wait, as a traveller there are worse places to be in to take a breath. This weekend I will continue pressing pause on the Sunshine Coast. :) Life is hard for an errand knight...
Men there have lived who wrestled with the ocean;
I was afraid - the polyp was their shroud.
I was afraid. That shore of your decision
Awaits beyond this street where in the crowd
Your face is blown, an apparition, past.
Renounce the night as I, and we must meet
As weary nomads in this desert at last,
Borne in the lost procession of these feet.
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Death on Quadra Island
Now in Vancouver, after a week on Quadra Island, I have had to revise this blog, since I revised my mind. I've never taken a week to write an entry before - please excuse the strange tenses!
It originally said:
"My friend Lamont said in an email today, "Carroll ("Julie's" husband said to me that there is a french saying (I wish I could remember the french) - "To choose is to refuse.""
Yet we must choose.
Ultimately.
Death is rebirth is Transformation. You cannot open one door without closing others. As I said in my last blog - I've decided to go to the Middle East. That means - not taking all the other roads that lay before me, some of them quite nice. The "Not's" are a huge source of personal power. We must have them, at times; so I says.
Quadra Island is a pretty laid back place, I'm staying with a friend who's housesitting a rental with lots of bedrooms, have my own bath, an island with an eagle's nest in front of us, otters, seals, boats and gulls. Lots of time to think.
Another friend, Argyle, is coming up from Vancouver to go to the Halloween Party at the legion here, should be fun. Sometimes I wonder - if the reason I'm so happy about travelling is because I have so many good friends and so much fun here on the west coast? Maybe I'll fall on my face if I go to the Middle-East. Oh well, if we burn, we burn.
Breathe in the sweet fire of love / I'm not afraid anymore
Sweet, sweet fire / I'm not alone
Which reminds me of something - I was afraid I'd feel alone on this trip, lonely. I certainly felt lonely a lot living in Peterborough, thought I'd be moreso here at times. Not so, very little lonely time. The least lonely has been (when I was alone) at Mt. Shasta in Northern California. I got there alone, after driving/ travelling by myself a few days, booked a cheap hotel and stayed there two nights. Never felt lonely. Especially the day up on the mountain. There's something about being in your right place, something magical.
Which also reminds me, a sub-theme - I keep falling in love with natural places - mountains, beaches, seas, trees. Maybe that's part of the reason I am never lonely. That, and I am with my own spirit, who's pretty friggin happy these days..
Halloween on Quadra Island rocked. I did not go as death, but a cowboy. Had a blast, Greg, Argyle, and I went to a local barn party, then got a taxi across-island in a rainstorm to the Legion. We danced our asses off, almost got in a fight, met some great women, and they couldn't make the debit machine work to charge us for our last round of beer - so it was free. I met a girl named "Virginia", now that's a name. Wow. Makes me think of green rolling hills, rivers, trees, and blue skies. Knowing my proclivity to fall in love with natural places, I should probably not call her.
The next day we took Greg's boat out, "the Strange Animal" for the afternoon - putted around with some friends, watched a pair of eagles tag-team a flock of seagulls - sheer brilliance, and a reminder of the value of two.
I drafted this blog on Friday, now it's Wednesday and I'm finishing it, the weekend left me thinking; do I really want to leave here, or am I just blowing smoke?
You say "I believe" or say without shame "I can't tell"
It originally said:
"My friend Lamont said in an email today, "Carroll ("Julie's" husband said to me that there is a french saying (I wish I could remember the french) - "To choose is to refuse.""
Yet we must choose.
Ultimately.
Death is rebirth is Transformation. You cannot open one door without closing others. As I said in my last blog - I've decided to go to the Middle East. That means - not taking all the other roads that lay before me, some of them quite nice. The "Not's" are a huge source of personal power. We must have them, at times; so I says.
Quadra Island is a pretty laid back place, I'm staying with a friend who's housesitting a rental with lots of bedrooms, have my own bath, an island with an eagle's nest in front of us, otters, seals, boats and gulls. Lots of time to think.
Another friend, Argyle, is coming up from Vancouver to go to the Halloween Party at the legion here, should be fun. Sometimes I wonder - if the reason I'm so happy about travelling is because I have so many good friends and so much fun here on the west coast? Maybe I'll fall on my face if I go to the Middle-East. Oh well, if we burn, we burn.
Breathe in the sweet fire of love / I'm not afraid anymore
Sweet, sweet fire / I'm not alone
Which reminds me of something - I was afraid I'd feel alone on this trip, lonely. I certainly felt lonely a lot living in Peterborough, thought I'd be moreso here at times. Not so, very little lonely time. The least lonely has been (when I was alone) at Mt. Shasta in Northern California. I got there alone, after driving/ travelling by myself a few days, booked a cheap hotel and stayed there two nights. Never felt lonely. Especially the day up on the mountain. There's something about being in your right place, something magical.
Which also reminds me, a sub-theme - I keep falling in love with natural places - mountains, beaches, seas, trees. Maybe that's part of the reason I am never lonely. That, and I am with my own spirit, who's pretty friggin happy these days..
Halloween on Quadra Island rocked. I did not go as death, but a cowboy. Had a blast, Greg, Argyle, and I went to a local barn party, then got a taxi across-island in a rainstorm to the Legion. We danced our asses off, almost got in a fight, met some great women, and they couldn't make the debit machine work to charge us for our last round of beer - so it was free. I met a girl named "Virginia", now that's a name. Wow. Makes me think of green rolling hills, rivers, trees, and blue skies. Knowing my proclivity to fall in love with natural places, I should probably not call her.
The next day we took Greg's boat out, "the Strange Animal" for the afternoon - putted around with some friends, watched a pair of eagles tag-team a flock of seagulls - sheer brilliance, and a reminder of the value of two.
I drafted this blog on Friday, now it's Wednesday and I'm finishing it, the weekend left me thinking; do I really want to leave here, or am I just blowing smoke?
You say "I believe" or say without shame "I can't tell"
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Beyond the Pillars, "Bodhisattva"!!
Well, what the hell.
I've pretty much decided to keep on going and have started the process of looking for work in the Middle East. I have turned down a 3-4 week house-sitting gig in Tofino. Funny, I could stay here in this place that many people would kill to live in, and do meaningful work at the same time. As I said in a previous blog - I'm riding two horses, I suppose the way Bono put it is one way of saying it, "between the horses of love and lust" - we all have spiritual needs, we all have physical needs.
I've often, over the years, thought of myself as a Bodhisattva, in a teasing way, and with some humility. People have said it to me a few times over the years, but not all reliable sources ;) The highest compliment was, "bodhisattva-warrior" - I wish I could claim that title, it sounds cool!
I've read / been told that you're a Bodhisattva if you have already reached enlightenment and you have returned to earth to serve, instead of hanging out in Nirvanna. I don't feel particularly enlightened, I keep having to learn some pretty basic stuff, over and over. But ever since I was a kid, particularly since a calm clear moment when I was 13, I've wanted to help others, above all else.
This is what Wikipedia has to say about what a Bodhisattva is;
The Sanskrit term Bodhisattva is the name given to anyone who, motivated by great compassion, has generated bodhichitta, which is a spontaneous wish to attain Buddhahood for the benefit of all sentient beings. What makes someone a Bodhisattva is her or his dedication to the ultimate welfare of other beings, as expressed in the prayer:
May I attain Buddahood for the benefit of all sentient beings.
That definition is easier to sit with - 'still learning'!
If that is true, I guess it explains why I can walk away from a place where I could do good stuff, and go somewhere I may do work of questionable value. Riding two horses takes personal power, takes deep energy.
I have to get my finances straight, and my energy is in travelling right now - all paths point towards keeping travelling. The wave I'm surfing right now is washing me out to sea - to the mid-east or ... somewhere.
My 'service', whatever it is, lies out there - beyond the tried and true of what I know or what others think. It'd be easy, and I do it sometimes, to say: 'you want to help people and yet you...?' or - 'one should be a pure-bred eco-warrior, not wandering around driving a car - become king or dedicate yourself 24/7 to your passion...' Maybe.
Maybe I'm just justifying self-indulgence. Dunno. This is all I got. Maybe travelling and getting my debts straight is my path to Buddahood today, my way to sharpen my sword and make myself ready for the next thing that needs to be done.
A friend quoted one of my earlier blogs this morning - that if you turn away from someone before you who needs you, in pursuit of a distant goal, you will surely fail. Or something like that. I've worked on this project off and on over the summer, I've done what I can here, like my job in Ontario - it doesn't feel like my destiny to stay for every detail. I will continue to work on protecting Catface Mountain while here, and then via the internet / phone etc. I know myself this well - if I am untrue to me - I become useless pretty quickly.
Do I care about Buddahood? Not in the least. But if learning and growing, like money, helps me help others - great. Travel - is an accumulation of a different kind of money. Inside wealth.
I went to the beach the other morning, Florencia Beach, for an 'hour'. I ended up staying all day. It was cold and rainy and sunny at times, I had a fire, meditated, wrote in my journal, wrote a letter to God/the Universe. Relinquished some old vows, so I could move into the future unhindered. Realized that they have been pillars that have shaped my life/lives and that in giving them up I am, like with my travels - moving beyond the known. I siezed that day as mine, knowing I'll live in places again that are not beautiful, work long days, be under stress, this is the life I've embraced - moving, travelling, taking on new challenges. Those days, long days alone at the beach, they go inside your heart and they stay there, like gas in a tank, to get you through times that are not as glorious.
Go beyond the pillars, the moon and stars say to me - 'we know you and your passions, your answer lies out there, beyond what you know, beyond your safe zone where you can call yourself a "_______" or whatever else you choose as your identity. Go out there, beyond the pillars, into the desert, serve all of Creation by being who you are. A yellow flower that tries to make itself a red one is neither, and never complete.'
Are there others out there?
I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'
Gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move.
I have struggled with this blog, with how people see how I see myself. But I had some inspiration today too - friends who have said I've inspired them on their paths, to speak more openly, and to be productive in their creative ventures, in the pursuit of their highest ideals. I love writing this blog. Thank you for reading.
May the road rise up to meet you.
I've pretty much decided to keep on going and have started the process of looking for work in the Middle East. I have turned down a 3-4 week house-sitting gig in Tofino. Funny, I could stay here in this place that many people would kill to live in, and do meaningful work at the same time. As I said in a previous blog - I'm riding two horses, I suppose the way Bono put it is one way of saying it, "between the horses of love and lust" - we all have spiritual needs, we all have physical needs.
I've often, over the years, thought of myself as a Bodhisattva, in a teasing way, and with some humility. People have said it to me a few times over the years, but not all reliable sources ;) The highest compliment was, "bodhisattva-warrior" - I wish I could claim that title, it sounds cool!
I've read / been told that you're a Bodhisattva if you have already reached enlightenment and you have returned to earth to serve, instead of hanging out in Nirvanna. I don't feel particularly enlightened, I keep having to learn some pretty basic stuff, over and over. But ever since I was a kid, particularly since a calm clear moment when I was 13, I've wanted to help others, above all else.
This is what Wikipedia has to say about what a Bodhisattva is;
The Sanskrit term Bodhisattva is the name given to anyone who, motivated by great compassion, has generated bodhichitta, which is a spontaneous wish to attain Buddhahood for the benefit of all sentient beings. What makes someone a Bodhisattva is her or his dedication to the ultimate welfare of other beings, as expressed in the prayer:
May I attain Buddahood for the benefit of all sentient beings.
That definition is easier to sit with - 'still learning'!
If that is true, I guess it explains why I can walk away from a place where I could do good stuff, and go somewhere I may do work of questionable value. Riding two horses takes personal power, takes deep energy.
I have to get my finances straight, and my energy is in travelling right now - all paths point towards keeping travelling. The wave I'm surfing right now is washing me out to sea - to the mid-east or ... somewhere.
My 'service', whatever it is, lies out there - beyond the tried and true of what I know or what others think. It'd be easy, and I do it sometimes, to say: 'you want to help people and yet you...?' or - 'one should be a pure-bred eco-warrior, not wandering around driving a car - become king or dedicate yourself 24/7 to your passion...' Maybe.
Maybe I'm just justifying self-indulgence. Dunno. This is all I got. Maybe travelling and getting my debts straight is my path to Buddahood today, my way to sharpen my sword and make myself ready for the next thing that needs to be done.
A friend quoted one of my earlier blogs this morning - that if you turn away from someone before you who needs you, in pursuit of a distant goal, you will surely fail. Or something like that. I've worked on this project off and on over the summer, I've done what I can here, like my job in Ontario - it doesn't feel like my destiny to stay for every detail. I will continue to work on protecting Catface Mountain while here, and then via the internet / phone etc. I know myself this well - if I am untrue to me - I become useless pretty quickly.
Do I care about Buddahood? Not in the least. But if learning and growing, like money, helps me help others - great. Travel - is an accumulation of a different kind of money. Inside wealth.
I went to the beach the other morning, Florencia Beach, for an 'hour'. I ended up staying all day. It was cold and rainy and sunny at times, I had a fire, meditated, wrote in my journal, wrote a letter to God/the Universe. Relinquished some old vows, so I could move into the future unhindered. Realized that they have been pillars that have shaped my life/lives and that in giving them up I am, like with my travels - moving beyond the known. I siezed that day as mine, knowing I'll live in places again that are not beautiful, work long days, be under stress, this is the life I've embraced - moving, travelling, taking on new challenges. Those days, long days alone at the beach, they go inside your heart and they stay there, like gas in a tank, to get you through times that are not as glorious.
Go beyond the pillars, the moon and stars say to me - 'we know you and your passions, your answer lies out there, beyond what you know, beyond your safe zone where you can call yourself a "_______" or whatever else you choose as your identity. Go out there, beyond the pillars, into the desert, serve all of Creation by being who you are. A yellow flower that tries to make itself a red one is neither, and never complete.'
Are there others out there?
I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'
Gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move.
I have struggled with this blog, with how people see how I see myself. But I had some inspiration today too - friends who have said I've inspired them on their paths, to speak more openly, and to be productive in their creative ventures, in the pursuit of their highest ideals. I love writing this blog. Thank you for reading.
May the road rise up to meet you.
Friday, October 22, 2010
Ahousat / Singing up the hills
I've found this trip, the last few months, has taken on a musical, nay - 'lyrical' quality. How has poetry become such a huge part of my writing? For those who know me, it hasn't been that important in my life before now. People always said my Dad had a lilting quality when he talked, almost musical. Maybe it's the Irishness. He wrote beautiful poetry. I find that in myself sometimes these days, as days and days creep into a magical quality for me - things like "sunday", "the seventeenth" - all become irrelevant. Instead, my days are concerned with, "sunny" "down the road" and "wow, isn't that beautiful?"
I remember a show I saw on televison when I was young, it was about the Aborigines of Australia. It said that when they travelled, they would "sing up the hills" - sing about what they would find over the next hill, and thereby create it. They believed, the program said, that if they didn't sing, there would be nothing there. And they were always right - they always found the beautiful land they sang of; the creatures, nights, days, and community.
I thought, "yeah, that sounds right", and I always practiced it. When I have travelled, I have always sung songs that were meaningful to me, songs I knew and had grown up with. I think music is an amazing source of energy, you put it in, and it turns around and comes out as more, and better.
I read about a man's trip to Ireland years ago, he was at a pub in a small town and ended up talking to an old man. The old man recited a poem for him, didn't know any modern music at all. He knew a handful of old poems, and had sung them to himself all his days; out working in the fields, cutting peat, labouring, it brought light to his life, reminded him of the ones he loved, of the blood of his fathers in the ground beneath him, and the stars in the sky above.
I went yesterday to Ahousat. I didn't practice my singing; I thought nothing. I didn't know what to expect, but despite what people said, deep down I looked forward to the meeting. And instead, maybe having created a gravitational attraction by long habit - the music rose up to meet me.
Ahousat is supposed to be one the poorer reservations in Canada - third world conditions, people said. Well, they're making progress. There was an air of looking-forward, people are busy. We were honoured to attend an elders luncheon, and were well-fed. It is 45 minutes by boat from Tofino, and I was there with the Friends of Clayoquot Sound, in relation to the possible copper mine on Catface Mountain. This is a place of new ideas, of leadership for Canada, in forestry, and from First Nations. Maybe there is a potential here for new ways of doing things, new ways of recognizing First Nations special place in Canada, new kinds of relationships between First Nations and environmentalists. Hope springs eternal? It does in me. For hope -"is only the love of life". How can we ever get to the stars if we don't adore them?
There was no music. It was in the voices, the river of culture and history, wrinkled smiling eyes, warm, unsure about me and who I am, all I could do was smile back. And there it was - the same music I grew up with, a lilting warm current underneath everything, of love and family, hardship and history. I felt more at home on the Ahousat Reservation, 45 minutes by boat from Tofino, than I do in town, any town. Strange, what is this music I hear?
I remember a show I saw on televison when I was young, it was about the Aborigines of Australia. It said that when they travelled, they would "sing up the hills" - sing about what they would find over the next hill, and thereby create it. They believed, the program said, that if they didn't sing, there would be nothing there. And they were always right - they always found the beautiful land they sang of; the creatures, nights, days, and community.
I thought, "yeah, that sounds right", and I always practiced it. When I have travelled, I have always sung songs that were meaningful to me, songs I knew and had grown up with. I think music is an amazing source of energy, you put it in, and it turns around and comes out as more, and better.
I read about a man's trip to Ireland years ago, he was at a pub in a small town and ended up talking to an old man. The old man recited a poem for him, didn't know any modern music at all. He knew a handful of old poems, and had sung them to himself all his days; out working in the fields, cutting peat, labouring, it brought light to his life, reminded him of the ones he loved, of the blood of his fathers in the ground beneath him, and the stars in the sky above.
I went yesterday to Ahousat. I didn't practice my singing; I thought nothing. I didn't know what to expect, but despite what people said, deep down I looked forward to the meeting. And instead, maybe having created a gravitational attraction by long habit - the music rose up to meet me.
Ahousat is supposed to be one the poorer reservations in Canada - third world conditions, people said. Well, they're making progress. There was an air of looking-forward, people are busy. We were honoured to attend an elders luncheon, and were well-fed. It is 45 minutes by boat from Tofino, and I was there with the Friends of Clayoquot Sound, in relation to the possible copper mine on Catface Mountain. This is a place of new ideas, of leadership for Canada, in forestry, and from First Nations. Maybe there is a potential here for new ways of doing things, new ways of recognizing First Nations special place in Canada, new kinds of relationships between First Nations and environmentalists. Hope springs eternal? It does in me. For hope -"is only the love of life". How can we ever get to the stars if we don't adore them?
There was no music. It was in the voices, the river of culture and history, wrinkled smiling eyes, warm, unsure about me and who I am, all I could do was smile back. And there it was - the same music I grew up with, a lilting warm current underneath everything, of love and family, hardship and history. I felt more at home on the Ahousat Reservation, 45 minutes by boat from Tofino, than I do in town, any town. Strange, what is this music I hear?
Thursday, October 21, 2010
10.) Guy LaFleur and the Wheel of Fortune
My tenth posting. I didn't really expect this blog to take off, either in the way of my being inspired to do it, or in people reading it. Turns out I was wrong.
These are happy days for me, simple days. I have decisions to make, theoretically, but don't feel any pressure to do so, or any sense of time closing in. It's more like it's opening up. Every time I refuse to be panicked, about money, work, or my next move, time seems to open up a little more. I keep meeting great, interesting people, and getting interesting offers, good work, places to stay, friendship.
Catface Mountain is proceeding well, although it's like two blind trains heading towards an intersection, neither knows which will get there first, and the slower may not be able to stop for the faster. For anyone who doesn't know what I'm talking about, it's the proposed copper mine on Catface Mountain in Clayoquot Sound. See my earlier posting "Tofino and the Thunderbird" for more info.
I was at a party last Saturday night and someone said they thought the best solution was to get the highest level of environmental assessment (EA). I said, "really?" He said, "yeah, what do you think?"
I said, "a - help the Ahousat see that it's not in their interests so they withdraw support, and b - Imperial Metals does not apply for a permit at all." He said, "wow, that's an aggresive stance." I said "really?" ;)
'Tis the gift to be simple,
'tis the gift to be free,
'tis the gift to come down where you ought to be,
And when we find ourselves in the place just right,
It will be in the valley of love and delight.
What new world are we making? As a homeless person, who is wandering around, making people laugh, helping them out, doing what I can to protect the green world that we come from, not just at birth, but that every day remakes us through our food, air and water, and trying to take care of my own needs at the same time (they are few, the biggest one right now seems to be to write and to travel and to experience) part of the deep peace I feel many days seems to be attached to some sense that the world I'm contributing to is a good one. One where people have time for each other, where money's not so important, where some friends, laughter and a bit to eat are the most complex needs that have to be met, where creativity and passion are valued.
Maybe all of our number's are coming up. In the lotto. Some days I feel like I've already won.
The moon is full
The night is very still
My heart beats
Like a bell.
I always knew that I would step out and travel, wander, not lost, and that it would be part of 'becoming me'. I remember taking a vacation with my Mom, her friend Barb, and Barb's son Jason, who was a few years younger than me. I was fifteen or so, had already seen what I think of as my life purpose, and being young and free in spirit, saw it clearly. We stopped at a store somewhere in Nova Scotia, it was an early or late summer afternoon. They were in the store. I was with Jason. He went in the store too. I was alone. In the car, I got out. Stood around a few seconds, could hear a voice, not a voice, but a pull - from within and without. I turned and walked toward the road, down from the store. It must have been late spring I guess, the deciduous trees hung over the road with a wet weightiness in their leaves, full of moisture, moving in the light breeze, creating dappled shadows. I stood in the dirt and gravel by the side of the road, the cars dissappeared. I stepped out onto it, looked one way, and then the other, slowly, off into the distance. I knew.
I knew that one day it would be part of my destiny, and that it would be the only way to really be the person I am. And I knew that it may not, that I could choose otherwise.
I have always known
That at last I would
Take this road, but yesterday
I did not know that it would be today.
As I mentioned in a previous blog - this point came around before; I was 21, very different, and ready to travel the world. I didn't. I am so very deeply thankful that the Wheel of Fortune(10th card in the tarot) has come around again to this point. Instead of the eight or nine which I chose to be before, let me be a ten this time - a Guy LaFleur of 'living my own life'.
I still struggle at times with what to do next, to stay here and serve, do good work, or to go further abroad. Both have risks. I trust that I will make the right decision. The greatest risk, of course, is turning away from myself, the greatest path - that which is true to my heart.
An eagle flew overhead this morning as I chatted with a friend in his backyard, about work, debt, life. A reminder - "keep your eyes to the sky."
Upon his shoulders
he places boulders,
upon his eye
the high wide sky.
These are happy days for me, simple days. I have decisions to make, theoretically, but don't feel any pressure to do so, or any sense of time closing in. It's more like it's opening up. Every time I refuse to be panicked, about money, work, or my next move, time seems to open up a little more. I keep meeting great, interesting people, and getting interesting offers, good work, places to stay, friendship.
Catface Mountain is proceeding well, although it's like two blind trains heading towards an intersection, neither knows which will get there first, and the slower may not be able to stop for the faster. For anyone who doesn't know what I'm talking about, it's the proposed copper mine on Catface Mountain in Clayoquot Sound. See my earlier posting "Tofino and the Thunderbird" for more info.
I was at a party last Saturday night and someone said they thought the best solution was to get the highest level of environmental assessment (EA). I said, "really?" He said, "yeah, what do you think?"
I said, "a - help the Ahousat see that it's not in their interests so they withdraw support, and b - Imperial Metals does not apply for a permit at all." He said, "wow, that's an aggresive stance." I said "really?" ;)
'Tis the gift to be simple,
'tis the gift to be free,
'tis the gift to come down where you ought to be,
And when we find ourselves in the place just right,
It will be in the valley of love and delight.
What new world are we making? As a homeless person, who is wandering around, making people laugh, helping them out, doing what I can to protect the green world that we come from, not just at birth, but that every day remakes us through our food, air and water, and trying to take care of my own needs at the same time (they are few, the biggest one right now seems to be to write and to travel and to experience) part of the deep peace I feel many days seems to be attached to some sense that the world I'm contributing to is a good one. One where people have time for each other, where money's not so important, where some friends, laughter and a bit to eat are the most complex needs that have to be met, where creativity and passion are valued.
Maybe all of our number's are coming up. In the lotto. Some days I feel like I've already won.
The moon is full
The night is very still
My heart beats
Like a bell.
I always knew that I would step out and travel, wander, not lost, and that it would be part of 'becoming me'. I remember taking a vacation with my Mom, her friend Barb, and Barb's son Jason, who was a few years younger than me. I was fifteen or so, had already seen what I think of as my life purpose, and being young and free in spirit, saw it clearly. We stopped at a store somewhere in Nova Scotia, it was an early or late summer afternoon. They were in the store. I was with Jason. He went in the store too. I was alone. In the car, I got out. Stood around a few seconds, could hear a voice, not a voice, but a pull - from within and without. I turned and walked toward the road, down from the store. It must have been late spring I guess, the deciduous trees hung over the road with a wet weightiness in their leaves, full of moisture, moving in the light breeze, creating dappled shadows. I stood in the dirt and gravel by the side of the road, the cars dissappeared. I stepped out onto it, looked one way, and then the other, slowly, off into the distance. I knew.
I knew that one day it would be part of my destiny, and that it would be the only way to really be the person I am. And I knew that it may not, that I could choose otherwise.
I have always known
That at last I would
Take this road, but yesterday
I did not know that it would be today.
As I mentioned in a previous blog - this point came around before; I was 21, very different, and ready to travel the world. I didn't. I am so very deeply thankful that the Wheel of Fortune(10th card in the tarot) has come around again to this point. Instead of the eight or nine which I chose to be before, let me be a ten this time - a Guy LaFleur of 'living my own life'.
I still struggle at times with what to do next, to stay here and serve, do good work, or to go further abroad. Both have risks. I trust that I will make the right decision. The greatest risk, of course, is turning away from myself, the greatest path - that which is true to my heart.
An eagle flew overhead this morning as I chatted with a friend in his backyard, about work, debt, life. A reminder - "keep your eyes to the sky."
Upon his shoulders
he places boulders,
upon his eye
the high wide sky.
Saturday, October 16, 2010
The Sea. (it's warm and it's safe here)
Hiked all day. Drinking beer and listening to the Tragically Hip. The greatest loss in America - they have no idea who the Hip are. I drove to Radar Hill, south of Tofino, about 15k. Parked illegally. I always do. I don't have to pay park fees - that would violate my constitutional rights; it's my religion.
I hiked down the trail to the sea, half an hour, very steep and wet. Kinda like Dagobah, but wetter, and with cougars. I was alone, so I strapped on my hunting knife. I might be a hippie, but if something tries to kill me, I will kill it first. Or at least wave my foot around menacingly...
Got some nice clay, about halfway down the hike, it's supposed to be special. I used to have some runes I made with it, 18 yrs ago, with a 'friend'; a loveley 42 yr old disney cartoonist. Of all the women I've had crushes on, I think we had the most fun (no offense to anyone). Hung out for about a week; swam, hopped in puddles, explored, skinny dipped at night in bioluminescence, made a lot of dumb jokes, laughed and acted like little kids.
As if the wolves of Northumberland themselves (were rumoured to be enroute). Or maybe a green star. I got to the beach and it is gorgeous!! Absolutley XY, Z fabulous! Picture a nice sand beach in Tahiti, except surrounded by old growth temperate rainforest, and - you're the only one there. Peace.
Miles of beach and shoreline all to yourself. No cell service, so don't 'break a leg'. But cripes, a person's gotta have fun.
I called my friend Maya tonight. She said she's bleeding like a stuck pig ( having her period) - painful, but healthy. How do men get that? For the most part, in our culture, they don't. I risked my life about 5 times today. Cut and scraped my arms and legs a lot. Bleeding is good. The risks were - jumping over things, chasms of sharp volcanic rock with a thirty foot drop to crashing waves and ice-cold water. Why? Because it was fun. I reserve the right to risk my life. Tonight, how do I feel? Alive, Fantastic. Rushing by the machine revving tension. Maybe that's a bad reference. ;)
So, the hike - must be done at low tide, or it's virtually impossible. East coaster's can't concieve of this. It's not your fault, I couldn't either. The first time I set out on this hike, in 1994, and failed, I had thought - I'll just go into the woods and crash through if I have to. Nuh-uh. It's just really not possible. Thorns and thick brush, with sudden drops, muck, and more thorns. Do it at low tide. So, I was rushing, being alone, and having slid down the muck slope from Radar Hill, the last thing I wanted was to get cut off and have to go back, and climb it.
There are two sea-caves. I couldn't get down, even at this low tide, but it would be worth it. There's a 10-15ft sheer wall on either side, waves coming in, and then the cave goes into the rock face out of sight. Too cool. Next time I go I'd like to take a companion and 50 feet of rope - to clamber down into there and check it out.
Ok, really: next time I go I'd like to take a lover and spend the whole summer, so we could have a week on each gorgeous private beach to frolic, sunbathe, read, drink wine, and eat fresh fish. An adventurous lover that wouldn't mind scaling into the mercy of the sea.
Siren,
Well, well, Ulysses, then I see
I shall not have thee here;
And therefore I will come to thee,
And make my fortune there.
I must be won, that cannot win,
Yet lost were I not won;
For beauty hath created bin
To undo, or be undone.
Hope springs eternal. There's nothin dead down here. I'm not sure Persephone would agree. I walked, I talked. To the eagles, the sea, the imaginary cougars. I jumped. I walked across fallen logs over the rocks. I prayed to my God, in my church. I forgot my camera.
I saw Schooner Cove - the north part of Long Beach, a ways away yet. Stopped and ate a peanut butter and jam sandwhich, a swig of water, some grapes. Hopped along. Over rocks and seaweed, past joy, hope, rebuilding, smelling the salt, the sea, the kelp, hearing the waves, the rhythym of my breath and blood. The thoughts in my head; memories, forgotten hopes, voices, people, the myriad pictures of the great unknown of the future.
It was in Tofino, on Long Beach, at Schooner Cove, where I saw the constellations reveal themselves one star at a time. I was 20, 21. 19. Formative time for me, life-changing. I had (as I've mentioned) hitchhiked across Canada, both summers. These were coming of age rituals in the modern mythic tradition. I don't know what possessed me to do that. I guess I did.
On the last point, of course, I hit a cliff. No way around but in. Entered the jungle. With great fanfare and dissapointment. I didn't get far before turning back also sucked as an option. I did it anyway, thankfully. I got out and saw - it would have taken me a long time to travel that 300m stretch of bush. Backtracked, took a shortcut, on the beach.
My beach. Where a seal once invited me to swim. Where a kid from Nova Scotia ran every morning for two months, skinnydipped alone, and ran back to camp, started to see that the world is limitless; that he could do anything, absolutley anything - he put his mind to, started to see the stars reveal themselves, the awesomeness of nature, the tinyness of me, and the power that lies in that; the gift shop of life.
I got to the beach, took off my shoes and socks. Walked, splashed, sat down. Ate lunch. Terry came along, from Esowista. A nice young guy. He carried a golf club. In the other Long Beach(LA) there's a pretty clear use for that. There is here too. I had already put my knife away and was just carrying a solid stick. We chatted a bit. He was cool. He mosied on.
I finished my snack and mosied on too. I said, "whatever I find is for my brother". I immediately found an eagle feather. In the mail. It was neatly nestled between parallel sets of bear and wolf tracks. The wolf was alone, or so it seemed, and had been by recently. His tracks dug in deep, after the water had been out of the sand from the receding tide for a few hours. The bear tracks, no bigger than the wolfs, barely imprinted. He had walked along right after the tide had left that stretch of sand, when it was still hard like pavement. I saw his poop later, lotsa berries!
Why wasn't he salmon fishing right now with everyone else? Because he's young, stupid, and young. And he'd get the crap beat out of himself. So when everyone's fattening up for the winter on rich fish, he's eating berries and scouring the beach I'm on.
Sketchy. But fine. He was already by and I kept moving. Stopped and read for a while, saw a person in the distance, approached. Not a person, just a peice of wood.
Climbed French Girl Island - the little grass covered island with no trees on north Long Beach. Good view. Stopped at Dingo Cove, walked through the sacred rainforest and hitched back to my car. Rob picked me up in a 1972 triumph. My year. Drove me right to my car. Asked me if I'd help him tomorrow take his soft top off and put the hard top on. I said sure. Yes to everything.
I spent the day with the sea, the holy sea.
Being set on the idea
Of getting to Atlantis,
You have discovered of course
Only the Ship of Fools is
Making the voyage this year,
As gales of abnormal force
Are predicted, and that you
Must therefore be ready to
Behave absurdly enough
To pass for one of the Boys,
At least appearing to love
Hard liquor, horseplay, and noise.
Two buckets of chicken and a drive to the liquor store?
Deal.
This was a dream, Ah
This was a dream.
And her mouth
Was not your mouth nor her eyes,
But the rivers were four and I knew
As a secret between us, the way
Hands touch, it was you.
I hiked down the trail to the sea, half an hour, very steep and wet. Kinda like Dagobah, but wetter, and with cougars. I was alone, so I strapped on my hunting knife. I might be a hippie, but if something tries to kill me, I will kill it first. Or at least wave my foot around menacingly...
Got some nice clay, about halfway down the hike, it's supposed to be special. I used to have some runes I made with it, 18 yrs ago, with a 'friend'; a loveley 42 yr old disney cartoonist. Of all the women I've had crushes on, I think we had the most fun (no offense to anyone). Hung out for about a week; swam, hopped in puddles, explored, skinny dipped at night in bioluminescence, made a lot of dumb jokes, laughed and acted like little kids.
As if the wolves of Northumberland themselves (were rumoured to be enroute). Or maybe a green star. I got to the beach and it is gorgeous!! Absolutley XY, Z fabulous! Picture a nice sand beach in Tahiti, except surrounded by old growth temperate rainforest, and - you're the only one there. Peace.
Miles of beach and shoreline all to yourself. No cell service, so don't 'break a leg'. But cripes, a person's gotta have fun.
I called my friend Maya tonight. She said she's bleeding like a stuck pig ( having her period) - painful, but healthy. How do men get that? For the most part, in our culture, they don't. I risked my life about 5 times today. Cut and scraped my arms and legs a lot. Bleeding is good. The risks were - jumping over things, chasms of sharp volcanic rock with a thirty foot drop to crashing waves and ice-cold water. Why? Because it was fun. I reserve the right to risk my life. Tonight, how do I feel? Alive, Fantastic. Rushing by the machine revving tension. Maybe that's a bad reference. ;)
So, the hike - must be done at low tide, or it's virtually impossible. East coaster's can't concieve of this. It's not your fault, I couldn't either. The first time I set out on this hike, in 1994, and failed, I had thought - I'll just go into the woods and crash through if I have to. Nuh-uh. It's just really not possible. Thorns and thick brush, with sudden drops, muck, and more thorns. Do it at low tide. So, I was rushing, being alone, and having slid down the muck slope from Radar Hill, the last thing I wanted was to get cut off and have to go back, and climb it.
There are two sea-caves. I couldn't get down, even at this low tide, but it would be worth it. There's a 10-15ft sheer wall on either side, waves coming in, and then the cave goes into the rock face out of sight. Too cool. Next time I go I'd like to take a companion and 50 feet of rope - to clamber down into there and check it out.
Ok, really: next time I go I'd like to take a lover and spend the whole summer, so we could have a week on each gorgeous private beach to frolic, sunbathe, read, drink wine, and eat fresh fish. An adventurous lover that wouldn't mind scaling into the mercy of the sea.
Siren,
Well, well, Ulysses, then I see
I shall not have thee here;
And therefore I will come to thee,
And make my fortune there.
I must be won, that cannot win,
Yet lost were I not won;
For beauty hath created bin
To undo, or be undone.
Hope springs eternal. There's nothin dead down here. I'm not sure Persephone would agree. I walked, I talked. To the eagles, the sea, the imaginary cougars. I jumped. I walked across fallen logs over the rocks. I prayed to my God, in my church. I forgot my camera.
I saw Schooner Cove - the north part of Long Beach, a ways away yet. Stopped and ate a peanut butter and jam sandwhich, a swig of water, some grapes. Hopped along. Over rocks and seaweed, past joy, hope, rebuilding, smelling the salt, the sea, the kelp, hearing the waves, the rhythym of my breath and blood. The thoughts in my head; memories, forgotten hopes, voices, people, the myriad pictures of the great unknown of the future.
It was in Tofino, on Long Beach, at Schooner Cove, where I saw the constellations reveal themselves one star at a time. I was 20, 21. 19. Formative time for me, life-changing. I had (as I've mentioned) hitchhiked across Canada, both summers. These were coming of age rituals in the modern mythic tradition. I don't know what possessed me to do that. I guess I did.
On the last point, of course, I hit a cliff. No way around but in. Entered the jungle. With great fanfare and dissapointment. I didn't get far before turning back also sucked as an option. I did it anyway, thankfully. I got out and saw - it would have taken me a long time to travel that 300m stretch of bush. Backtracked, took a shortcut, on the beach.
My beach. Where a seal once invited me to swim. Where a kid from Nova Scotia ran every morning for two months, skinnydipped alone, and ran back to camp, started to see that the world is limitless; that he could do anything, absolutley anything - he put his mind to, started to see the stars reveal themselves, the awesomeness of nature, the tinyness of me, and the power that lies in that; the gift shop of life.
I got to the beach, took off my shoes and socks. Walked, splashed, sat down. Ate lunch. Terry came along, from Esowista. A nice young guy. He carried a golf club. In the other Long Beach(LA) there's a pretty clear use for that. There is here too. I had already put my knife away and was just carrying a solid stick. We chatted a bit. He was cool. He mosied on.
I finished my snack and mosied on too. I said, "whatever I find is for my brother". I immediately found an eagle feather. In the mail. It was neatly nestled between parallel sets of bear and wolf tracks. The wolf was alone, or so it seemed, and had been by recently. His tracks dug in deep, after the water had been out of the sand from the receding tide for a few hours. The bear tracks, no bigger than the wolfs, barely imprinted. He had walked along right after the tide had left that stretch of sand, when it was still hard like pavement. I saw his poop later, lotsa berries!
Why wasn't he salmon fishing right now with everyone else? Because he's young, stupid, and young. And he'd get the crap beat out of himself. So when everyone's fattening up for the winter on rich fish, he's eating berries and scouring the beach I'm on.
Sketchy. But fine. He was already by and I kept moving. Stopped and read for a while, saw a person in the distance, approached. Not a person, just a peice of wood.
Climbed French Girl Island - the little grass covered island with no trees on north Long Beach. Good view. Stopped at Dingo Cove, walked through the sacred rainforest and hitched back to my car. Rob picked me up in a 1972 triumph. My year. Drove me right to my car. Asked me if I'd help him tomorrow take his soft top off and put the hard top on. I said sure. Yes to everything.
I spent the day with the sea, the holy sea.
Being set on the idea
Of getting to Atlantis,
You have discovered of course
Only the Ship of Fools is
Making the voyage this year,
As gales of abnormal force
Are predicted, and that you
Must therefore be ready to
Behave absurdly enough
To pass for one of the Boys,
At least appearing to love
Hard liquor, horseplay, and noise.
Two buckets of chicken and a drive to the liquor store?
Deal.
This was a dream, Ah
This was a dream.
And her mouth
Was not your mouth nor her eyes,
But the rivers were four and I knew
As a secret between us, the way
Hands touch, it was you.
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