2011.1.1 - Six months of joy (feathers for tomorrow)

I'm sitting at Freeman's Little New York in Halifax. It's January first, 2011. I've been on the road, homeless and unemployed - for six months now. I feel like Che Guevara took over the helm in my life, and has lead a revolution.
I had a dream last night that I found three eagle feathers, I was walking along the beach (Tofino or Eastern Shore NS), and thought I would like to find some, and there three were in the sand at my feet. My friend Cat called just after noon and woke me up - did I want to go to the polar bear swim at Conrad's beach, as we had discussed last night? Yes, yes I did. Yes to everything, as a policy, has helped bring me one of the best years of my life, no - the best.
But I was shaky, it was a late night, and my dedication to walking two paths has not wavered so far. It is one path. Two horses. Clyf gave me Eat Pray Love today, I'm looking forward to reading it. He said she had a lot of similar thoughts to what I've been discussing here, including that image - of riding two horses, which continues to weave through my thoughts.
Getting to Dartmouth by 1pm was not working out, so it looked like I couldn't go, then she called back and had a ride for me. :) Went. Went swimming. It was cold and beautiful!
It was a warm day. Plus eight. There were thirty or so of us, all of them Catherine's family or friends of her family. She is a lovely young idealist I met in law school, who - like many of us -is trying to find her place in the world. As we all left the beach, of course I had my eyes open - would I find an eagle feather? There it was, a feather - in the washed up seaweed and debris from the sea. Washed up debris from the sea. It was small, didn't look right, I walked by.
Then I went back, picked it up: an eagle feather. I've come to know that cream melding into brown so well from having found and distributed so many over the past six months. I had nothing to say. This one was for me. As I write this it makes me feel like - I am debris from the sea. On an errand. Clay, with a breath of wind under it.
It's five or six inches long, from the inner wing. Carlos Castaneda said that at life's end the great eagle would devour our awareness. Perhaps the feather is signifying the past six months of my life, that I have acted from an awareness of death, at least a little bit.
Last night my cousin said she's been reading my blog, and we chatted about it. I wonder sometimes who reads it, if anyone I know does. I know I have some faithful readers in Russia, which is nice, I'd love to visit there one day!
Six months of swinging an axe at all the bullshit one confronts in life, of saying "NO" to "be afraid!" and YES to life. Hard to believe it's 2011. How long have we been waiting for this era, whether we believe or not, that anything will change - I believe that this is a time when we can make change. Crisis.
Crisis and opportunity. The world is changing, and it is an opportunity.
Clay lies still, but blood's a rover;
Breath's a ware that will not keep.
Up, lad; when the journey's over
There'll be time enough for sleep.
I'm a different person than I was a year ago. More natural, more comfortable with myself. I went out last night with my brother to the Economy Shoe Shop, we had a round table event - all were welcome, and lots of people came. Old and new friends and family - it was a fabulous time, brilliant, probably the best New Years Eve I've ever had. Art n I had a smoke afterwards on the sidewalk, and walked home. I kicked snowlumps, and jumped over stuff, and walked diagonally thru intersections. He laughed at me. I know Mom and Dad were smiling down, to see the two of us so... whole. So together. Have I ever mentioned how thankful I am for my brother? This seems like a good time.
When I was 11 and he was 13 our parents split up. He'd always picked on me, as older brothers usually do. I came home in the evening for some reason, it was dark. He was in the driveway, laying in the snow in his pcoat. It was snowing. He got up, he'd been crying. He said he was sorry for all that stuff, and he said it was over - that we needed to stick together, because, in a way, (no offence to Mom and Dad, who were great parents) we were on our own now, and he's been true to his word. Through every death, divorce, or kick in the nuts, we've only gotten closer and built a better relatonship. It's with my brother's support that I stray so far from shore.
And somehting Val asked me about yesterday - 'errand'? Why did I use that word? The proper term is 'knight-errant'. I modified it because I simply feel like I'm on an errand, for the universe, or myself (as if there's any difference), and it's a reminder to be humble.
The stars are so big,
the earth so small,
stay as you are
stay as you are
I had a vision a month or so ago - an image that flashed into my mind - it was a painting, a very good one, of black and clay-red wavy lines, vertical, like waves of vibration, and the black lines had symbols in them, squares and triangles. Someone (me) had penciled in, with a rough carpenters pencil, the front curve of a man, like a child's drawing on top of this beautiful, masterful painting. The illusion of separateness. I have spent the last six months erasing it.
"joy is energizing and misery is enervating" - I found this quote in my horoscope today, and this has been the story of my last six months, I've done what makes me happy and I feel alive because of it. Pretty simple recipe. I'm curious to see how it plays out in the next six months, thirty years.
I don't like talking about what I'm going to do in the future, but due to the date, I'm going to make a few wishes;
- to travel a lot this year
- to keep writing and being creative
- to, in my personal relations with others, serve the purpose of waking people up, and where I don't do that - to have them wake me up
- to follow my dreams, over the horizon and far away....
- to serve, to help, and to continue seeing how to do so.
I've seen so many friends and acqaintances go through big changes over the last year, it certainly is a time of change. And those who haven't - are about to - everyone's craving it. Let's go. Giddyup. LIFE - is waiting.
Over the past six months I have travelled across Canada, up and down the west coast of the States, lived out of my car, partied, meditated, fasted, written, danced, laughed, loved, made so many friends - started building the life I want. When people think of building a life they think of buying a house, a car, a promotion, having a baby, getting married. For me it has come to mean: making friends; laughing; following my dreams; learning; living each day as I choose; speaking my truth with clarity and compassion; taking leaps of faith.
The real benefit of the last six months - perspective. A birds-eye-view. This quiet, passionate, peaceful, reflective time: in the land that is Patrick I previously could only see each river on its own, now I see where they meet and flow as one.
Thank you; life, you, my friends, supporters, readers, all the eagles who keep donating feathers to the cause of my keeping my eyes to the sky, but mostly thank you to me - for that moment where I drove away.