And you got to change
And that’s not easy
Dragon shining with all values known
Dazzling you-keeping you from your own
Where is the lion in you to defy him
When you’re this weak
And this spacey...
I went for a walk on the beach last night around dusk, after finishing work around eight. As the last blurrings of light withered beyond the horizon, and the darkness came out, I reflected on how comfortable I've become with darkness.
A Mountain (my mountain (one of the five that rings Clayoquot Sound (it's a long story))) gave me a gift years ago of being able to see in the dark. The ability faded about five years later, but I kept doing it anyway, walking around in the dark, as if I could see.
All my friends still think I can see in the dark, they say things to me like, "how did you get here without a flashlight?.." I've fostered that illusion. It's more glamorous than the truth: I just put my foot out, and if I don't try to see, and I don't really worry about it - it always seems to land on something...
Sitting by the sea on the rocks last night I felt like I finally understood, because I saw it. The Mountain didn't give me some superpower which later faded, it just let me relax into what we can all do, because: everything has its own radiance. Every rock, and blade of grass, and star, and person, we are all our own light source. I could see it shining out of everything around me. Maybe that's why I've always been comfortable with darkness. Maybe that's what it means to come out of "the cave," or a rabbit-hole.
I wasn't sure if I'd actually find any answers when I went into hiding a few weeks ago. I guess you really can figure things out about yourself, after all! Or maybe the stars just needed to be aligned... I realized that; a) I've got it pretty good, and b) the path I set out on a while ago was a good one, and worth following with all my heart.
I guess I sat in the darkness of the unknown long enough that light just started seeping out of everything, pouring out like rivers. The Path is clear to me now - I'm going to get my licence sorted and drum up more contract work. That will leave me free to do the environmental work I came here for, without any strings attached. Sure, it leaves me on the road a little longer, a 'spy out in the cold,' but that's ok, as Kerouac said "there's nothing nobler than to put up with a few inconveniences like snakes and dust for the sake of absolute freedom." I'm not sure about the 'nothing nobler' part, but it works for me. It's just "nuthin left to lose."
Nothing left to lose and I may as well live my life. Up on Mt. Shasta the seeds were planted for lots of the changes I've made over the last year, and I remember thinking that if I really wanted to do this: to be a lawyer with ideals, a writer, to make movies, to be creative, to 'make a difference,' to have the life of my dreams - I'd have to work hard and have a lot of discipline.
I wrote this down last night as the first line of this blog: Lion in Robert Moss dream said to him - "humans are the only animals that choose to live in cages."
Today I wanted to hear Joni Mitchell's California, and as I was hooking my laptop up to the stereo I turned the radio on, and there on CBC radio one was Joni in all her sexy-voiced-loveliness, singing some wierd song I'd never heard. The lyrics are at the top...
How does this knight defy the dragon? Add up the two lions = don't choose to live in a cage. If I have to work hard, that's great, I've got nothing left to lose, and for the first time in a long time - I know where I'm going.
Walking by the light of everything...
Let's go tonight,
let the beast run a mile
with the dogs and the cattle, let's go
Monday, August 29, 2011
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Surprise Trampolines and Endless Stars...
Just got back from a few days in Powell River and on Savary Island. I've been very introspecitve lately, and going over the last 6 months/ 38 years of my life, as I head up to another birthday and more changes. And I guess I must've been a little down because the Universe kept sending me huge reminders - that life is not just what it is and has been - but the future is simply unknown, and holds all kinds of marvellous marvels to splash around in, jump on, and gaze at... things you could never have imagined.
Went up the Sunshine Coast with a great friend, a brother from another mother, and met my other BFAM, and met a whole bunch of new awesome people too. Gatlin ranted to me on the phone about - GodzBallz - before I went up, some punk band that he said is his favourite band on earth. I thought he'd seem them a dozen times.. so I was surprised to find out that it was only their third show.
We went to this little pub in the old part of Powell River, and hung around waiting for the band (whom we had met three members of the night before at Blackberry Festival), and then they started to trickle in. Gatlin had his Godzballz shirt on, which he had specially made and says "Crew" on the back... so - we were in like Flynn. :)
And he's right - Godzballz rock! And I saw them for only five bucks!! They are all late 30's and early 40's, and they don't know that many songs, but they are friggin great - not the negative stuff you've come to expect from some punk bands, but fun, just pure fun. People up there having fun, expecting you to have fun too. So afterwards (of course, when Gatlin's around:) we went and partied with the band and a bunch of other people we didn't know - it was a great time, unexpectedly great.
Sunday it was too windy for all of us to go to Savary Island in Gatlin's little boat so we got a water-taxi and he took his boat alone. We went there and partied a little bit, and I explored, and we barbqued pork chops, yum. It rained that night and we all woke up bleary, a little hung over, and damp and dirty. Monday morning. One of our crew had to go back to town, and again it was too windy and crappy for the boat, so we walked her to the watertaxi. The island is long and narrow. We were camped on the beach on the sheltered side of the island, and crossed it to walk along the beach on the unsheltered side, in the blustering wind and spattering rain.
It was lovely - it reminded me of Nova Scotia, and everything I love about it, and I was singing Farewell to Nova Scotia to myself as I hopped along from log to log, rock to rock, climbing things and generally enjoying myself. But still part of my mind was far away, in the past, and the future, regrets, hopes, mullings..
I spotted it from the top of this big rock I had clambered up onto - it was a big purple and green thing up ahead. I clambered back down and hopped along towards it, mildly curious about what the storm of the night before had washed up. As I got closer my whole world took on an unreal tone, it was a cold windy hungover day, easy to be cranky, and here was the most amazing thing - I started running towards it, skimming over the tops of wet rocks and splashing waves - it was a TRAMPOLINE!, a goddam trampoline - on a giant rubber floating frame, like a fifteen foot wide, four foot high, inner-tube with a drum stretched over it.
It had torn away from someone's property in the storm the night before and ended up here - I leaped the four feet up onto it and immediately started bouncing, saying "whee, can you believe it, it's a friggin trampoline!" over the howling wind and crashing waves - I was transformed into an eleven -year old boy again, the dissappointments of the recent past instantly dissappeared.. I could see the waves under it, crashing, as I jumped and bounced and yelled at my friends to come up and join me, or take pictures, or something - a giant purple rubber trampoline had been dropped out of the sky in the most preposterous of conditions and places - to yell in my ear - "You never know what wonders the future holds!... "
Later, back at the beach campsite, the weather calmed and I went swimming. The clouds started to break by evening, and the wind changed direction to bring us clear air. We made another fire of hand-smashed cedar, and everyone went to bed early except me. As the fire died down low I watched the last of the clouds melt away, and a million, billion, guhzillion stars come out...
That does not keep me from having a terrible need of - shall I say the word - religion. Then I go out at night to paint the stars. - Van Gogh
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
Went up the Sunshine Coast with a great friend, a brother from another mother, and met my other BFAM, and met a whole bunch of new awesome people too. Gatlin ranted to me on the phone about - GodzBallz - before I went up, some punk band that he said is his favourite band on earth. I thought he'd seem them a dozen times.. so I was surprised to find out that it was only their third show.
We went to this little pub in the old part of Powell River, and hung around waiting for the band (whom we had met three members of the night before at Blackberry Festival), and then they started to trickle in. Gatlin had his Godzballz shirt on, which he had specially made and says "Crew" on the back... so - we were in like Flynn. :)
And he's right - Godzballz rock! And I saw them for only five bucks!! They are all late 30's and early 40's, and they don't know that many songs, but they are friggin great - not the negative stuff you've come to expect from some punk bands, but fun, just pure fun. People up there having fun, expecting you to have fun too. So afterwards (of course, when Gatlin's around:) we went and partied with the band and a bunch of other people we didn't know - it was a great time, unexpectedly great.
Sunday it was too windy for all of us to go to Savary Island in Gatlin's little boat so we got a water-taxi and he took his boat alone. We went there and partied a little bit, and I explored, and we barbqued pork chops, yum. It rained that night and we all woke up bleary, a little hung over, and damp and dirty. Monday morning. One of our crew had to go back to town, and again it was too windy and crappy for the boat, so we walked her to the watertaxi. The island is long and narrow. We were camped on the beach on the sheltered side of the island, and crossed it to walk along the beach on the unsheltered side, in the blustering wind and spattering rain.
It was lovely - it reminded me of Nova Scotia, and everything I love about it, and I was singing Farewell to Nova Scotia to myself as I hopped along from log to log, rock to rock, climbing things and generally enjoying myself. But still part of my mind was far away, in the past, and the future, regrets, hopes, mullings..
I spotted it from the top of this big rock I had clambered up onto - it was a big purple and green thing up ahead. I clambered back down and hopped along towards it, mildly curious about what the storm of the night before had washed up. As I got closer my whole world took on an unreal tone, it was a cold windy hungover day, easy to be cranky, and here was the most amazing thing - I started running towards it, skimming over the tops of wet rocks and splashing waves - it was a TRAMPOLINE!, a goddam trampoline - on a giant rubber floating frame, like a fifteen foot wide, four foot high, inner-tube with a drum stretched over it.
It had torn away from someone's property in the storm the night before and ended up here - I leaped the four feet up onto it and immediately started bouncing, saying "whee, can you believe it, it's a friggin trampoline!" over the howling wind and crashing waves - I was transformed into an eleven -year old boy again, the dissappointments of the recent past instantly dissappeared.. I could see the waves under it, crashing, as I jumped and bounced and yelled at my friends to come up and join me, or take pictures, or something - a giant purple rubber trampoline had been dropped out of the sky in the most preposterous of conditions and places - to yell in my ear - "You never know what wonders the future holds!... "
Later, back at the beach campsite, the weather calmed and I went swimming. The clouds started to break by evening, and the wind changed direction to bring us clear air. We made another fire of hand-smashed cedar, and everyone went to bed early except me. As the fire died down low I watched the last of the clouds melt away, and a million, billion, guhzillion stars come out...
That does not keep me from having a terrible need of - shall I say the word - religion. Then I go out at night to paint the stars. - Van Gogh
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Notes from the Rabbit-Hole..
Ah, shit - here I go again...
Listening to the Hip and writing - escape is at hand for the travellin man.. is it though? Maybe temporarily.. :)
I said in my last entry or two I was looking for some solitude, "men go crazy in congregations, they only get better one by one" - and therefore when I walked into a little hostel in Pemberton, half an hour north of Whistler, at the end of a country road, with white-capped mountains towering overhead and a frisbee-loving boxer in the yard, and saw a little room like a monk's cell - called "The Rabbit Hole" - I knew I had found what I was looking for.
Even though I still haven't found what I'm looking for.
Came here to work, but it's not like when I'm done work I'm out there meeting people and hiking - I'm in my little room, on a cot, reading a book. Like Lee-Harvey Oswald in his little room in JFK, when the lady comes in and asks him if he wants anything, to watch tv maybe? He says, no, no, goes back to reading Trotsky, or maybe "how to be a patsy, for dummies." This quiet time was well worth the wait.
I have a good tan, and I've taught myself to swim pretty friggin well in the last two months, so no, I don't need more time outdoors right now, or to watch tv. I'm reading The Writing Warrior, a gift from my bro, The Glass Castle, and Intimacy: Trusting Oneself and the Other. The last one is by OSHO. OSHO is.. the Bhagwan, and from the pictures I've seen he was pretty good at trusting himself and the other..
And no, I'm not going to stop making fun of him, even though his thought has shaped mine more than anyones in the last year of my liff (inasmuch as my thought can be 'shaped' and doesn't just run in the same patterns over and over).
It feels like a monks cell, a warrior monk, who either got too carried away and nutso-killer on the battlefield, or else got all sensitive and started bawling, "I just stabbed someone.." and had his boss tell him - "you need a break - go sit in that little room and think things over."
Reminds me of the four of swords in the tarot - waiting. Not for anything in particular. Thinking. Part of what got me on this theme is I found a new blog to read, this episode's about the Knights Templar and Jedi's - http://secretsun.blogspot.com/2011/08/another-history-of-knights-templar-part_15.html
Pretty cool shit.
Why is this imagery so powerful and full of meaning for us? Don't we all want to be knights, in some way - to fight for what is right, to hone and perfect ourselves in the service of something that is greater than us, and the company of those that are equal?
I do.
For now I love my little room. I'll leave tomorrow or the next day, and may never return. But you can say that about anywhere.. What did she find, anyway, down in that rabbit-hole?
It's a nice space to meditate, but I remember thinking about meditation, as I was driving up the I5 in Northen California last year - peace doesn't come from meditation, but from keeping your life clean (which also means living your life - fully, so your energy doesn't get bottled up) - I meditated a lot when my marriage was breaking down, and I was a stressed out shithead. But it can help you get in touch with things that need changing. I can see some things in my life that need changing, but not yet.. in time.
Soon I'll go spend some time with friends (humans) and old lovers (mountains, beaches, and the Sea (the holy sea)) in my sacred places. I remember my friend Micheal, after his second marriage broke up, holding a nearly empty 26ouncer of something in his hand and saying, "you never gave up on me..(to it)" (don't worry - he got better) - sometimes I feel like that about nature - the place I always turn to, except maybe it's more like - "I never gave up on you."
The pursuit of a sacred life, a good life; art, nature, the environment: Service. For me, these things are all part of the same thing. Yet, I think it's become unclear, I've become unclear, about what exactly is the ideal greater than myself which I am serving.
There's a lot in popular media today, over the last 30-40 years, about "warriorship", and I've quoted some of it here, from Carlos Castenada to Trogyam Chungpa to Dan Millman, and I think that ideal is a good one, I think these days I'm envisioning something new, that 'peaceful warrior-yness', set in service of something, as a kind of modern day knighthood, like the samurai, who served their master, who served some idea of order and culture...
Probably not everyone's path. Again, as I said in my first entry - this is the lifestyle I've chosen. Not really sure how relationships, love, homes, homelessness, fit into that, although nature's role is fairly obvious ;)
I've become unclear about what that ideal is, undefined. I think that's the only answer I need, and from there all the other answers will be obvious (or the questions irrelevant)...
It's funny how we forget ourselves, life may be forgetting, but it's good to take some time to remember, sometimes. And to forget. Soon, back to nature! For now - I'm down the rabbit hole. What did she find down there?
The day you feel you do not know, you will begin to know.
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
forecasts for Deliverance (back to the drawing board)
Here’s my horoscope this week – “Virgo,” (that's me - the virgin, pure as the driven snow, just a bit of mercury, some dirt, and maybe a splash of dog pee..) – “ your Soul will be searching a little deeper down those dark inner corridors in search for an angel or two. Your focus will not be on what’s working or not working out there, it will be more about working on accessing some inner guidance from some of those invisible realms. The focus this week is about the heart, the Soul and the timeless energy that binds you to this universal current. It’s a wake up call leading to an awareness that at the end of the day this connection is all that ultimately matters, as well as serving this broken down planet – making your mark and making a significant difference.”
The Song of Amergin
I am the wind which breathes upon the sea,
I am the wave of the ocean,
I am the murmur of the billows,
I am the ox of the seven combats,
I am the vulture upon the rocks,
I am a beam of the sun,
I am the fairest of plants,
I am a wild boar in valor,
I am a salmon in the water,
I am a lake in the plain,
I am a word of science,
I am the point of the lance in battle,
I am the God who created the fire in the head.
Who is it who throws light into the meeting on the mountain?
Who announces the ages of the moon?
Who teaches the place where couches the sun?
(If not I)
This entry is a mish-mash of quotes and thoughts. I'm just enjoying writing again, and ... being alone. Although it will be fun to chainsaw logs on the beach with Jesse James this evening, and then probably swim and have a beer. (a note from later - we didn't do any of those things, instead we roasted hotdogs over hand-smashed cedar, and chatted for hours by moon and firelight...)
I picked this quote up from a local artiste today, "Some people say they haven't yet found themselves, but the self is not something one finds, It is something one creates." Thomas Szasz
Our greatest work of art may be our lives; our selves. Why not take some time now and then and think it over? Where do we all come from? Who has created us, our 'fire in the head' (if not I..)?
I guess this time is not about finding myself, but (in keeping with my 2011 pledge) - deciding which self I want to become.. is that the same as - which self I am? Not sure. Not sure if we have a deep-down core. Probably.
'There is a life force, an energy, a quickening, that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and will be lost' Martha Graham
'There is a life force, an energy, a quickening, that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and will be lost' Martha Graham
Be Yourself. In figuring out who you are, and how to express that, day-to-day, maybe one could ask - what is the biggest river in Me? And then, if it’s not flowing - blow the dam! Deliverance is a great movie, about the damming of a big river in the south, where have we done that in ourselves?
I guess I'm just swimming my rivers right now, inspecting my dams, and which one’s are open, “swimming that dark river to discover it’s source.” And, nicely, swimming the light clear stream again as well, to discover its source..
Creeping around in the night, laying caches of dynamite.
The more we let go, the more we are.
The Song of Amergin
I am the wind which breathes upon the sea,
I am the wave of the ocean,
I am the murmur of the billows,
I am the ox of the seven combats,
I am the vulture upon the rocks,
I am a beam of the sun,
I am the fairest of plants,
I am a wild boar in valor,
I am a salmon in the water,
I am a lake in the plain,
I am a word of science,
I am the point of the lance in battle,
I am the God who created the fire in the head.
Who is it who throws light into the meeting on the mountain?
Who announces the ages of the moon?
Who teaches the place where couches the sun?
(If not I)
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
Silence
Sitting here at a friends place on the beach, listening to "Some guys have all the luck" by Robert Palmer, I'm also "working" (taking a break), and staring out the window at the waves. They just keep coming in.
The sunlight on them, each one; so unique, so the same. It's a coolish day, with a nice breeze.
the cars hiss by my window, like the waves down on the beach
Each wave is like a child, or an old man. Being born, and dying, in an instant. And there are millions of them, forever.
As I think that, about to write it, a family walks through my view pane, a little girl hops up on a log and walks along it, like I tend to, an older lady - probably her grandmother, steps up on it to 'follow the leader', and then steps back down and walks along the beach.
I'm reflecting on the value of being alone.
Hello darkness, my old friend, I've come with talk with you again
...
And the vision that was planted in my brain, still remains
Within the sound of silence
I guess I've been listening to "four Minutes, thirty-three-seconds", by John Cage(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7zBG2p8g94&feature=related), but the extended version. You know, those moments where your mind just gives up on listening to anything in particular, and you can hear everything at once.. I call that peace.
Is this how we wake to our lives?
Listening to the movement of the grass in the wind that I can only see through the window, listening to the logs lying on the beach, the constant rhythym of the waves, the cadence of the wind in the trees, the fan in my laptop, like its breath, the depression of keys as I write, my thoughts, sometimes moments before being written, sometimes never written, the sound of the inside curl of a wave.. and its momentous mystery.. silence.
You say my name, I dissappear, who am I? How long will I swim in this silence? Till I am myself again.
In random movie selections, watched alone and with friends, I think four in a row recently were about writers. Wrestling with following their dreams, getting over blocks. "One Week", already mentioned, a cool little Canadian flick - the main character, in his search for Grumps - quoted Ulysses, by Tennyson, a lot. I have too, in this blog, over the last year.
I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life to the lees: all times I have enjoyed
Greatly, have suffered greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone...
And the sign said the words of the prophets are written on the subway walls
And tenement halls, and whispered in the sounds of silence
The sunlight on them, each one; so unique, so the same. It's a coolish day, with a nice breeze.
the cars hiss by my window, like the waves down on the beach
Each wave is like a child, or an old man. Being born, and dying, in an instant. And there are millions of them, forever.
As I think that, about to write it, a family walks through my view pane, a little girl hops up on a log and walks along it, like I tend to, an older lady - probably her grandmother, steps up on it to 'follow the leader', and then steps back down and walks along the beach.
I'm reflecting on the value of being alone.
Hello darkness, my old friend, I've come with talk with you again
...
And the vision that was planted in my brain, still remains
Within the sound of silence
I guess I've been listening to "four Minutes, thirty-three-seconds", by John Cage(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7zBG2p8g94&feature=related), but the extended version. You know, those moments where your mind just gives up on listening to anything in particular, and you can hear everything at once.. I call that peace.
Is this how we wake to our lives?
Listening to the movement of the grass in the wind that I can only see through the window, listening to the logs lying on the beach, the constant rhythym of the waves, the cadence of the wind in the trees, the fan in my laptop, like its breath, the depression of keys as I write, my thoughts, sometimes moments before being written, sometimes never written, the sound of the inside curl of a wave.. and its momentous mystery.. silence.
You say my name, I dissappear, who am I? How long will I swim in this silence? Till I am myself again.
In random movie selections, watched alone and with friends, I think four in a row recently were about writers. Wrestling with following their dreams, getting over blocks. "One Week", already mentioned, a cool little Canadian flick - the main character, in his search for Grumps - quoted Ulysses, by Tennyson, a lot. I have too, in this blog, over the last year.
I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life to the lees: all times I have enjoyed
Greatly, have suffered greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone...
And the sign said the words of the prophets are written on the subway walls
And tenement halls, and whispered in the sounds of silence
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
Swimming the great stream, drinking from a spring
Robert Moss has sure been influential in my writing lately. Here I go again. My ex-wife bought his first book for me, Conscious Dreaming, back in 2004 or 5. It was a thoughtful gift, since I'm sure my spending half an hour every morning writing down my dreams was a source of annoyance to her at times.
I've decided to take some time out of the normal grind. Not like I really had a 'grind' so to speak - but being in Vancouver, working, looking for more work, trying to meet people and build friendships and build a life there. Of some sort, in my fashion. I said years ago that job-hunting comes at a direct cost in self-esteem. Let's consider this a re-fill.
The month of August opened up as a time where I didn't have to have a place to live, so I decided not to - but instead to hit the road. My real travel is going to be though, crossing the great stream within that divides our inner and outer lives, selves; the River of Life. It's also the Lethe, the river of forgetting - and I need to swim it both ways, I think.
So I'm on the Sunshine Coast again. Staying with great friends on the beach.. I know, life is rough. In a way I'm doing the same thing I did at this time last year - a wandering vagabond lawyer with car and a collection of feathers, and a collection of dreams..
This time the dreams are a bit different. Last year was so clear - I was on a spiritual journey of getting in touch with my enjoyment of life again. This year - it's not as clear if I just fell here, or if I actually have a reason for being here. So I'm going to take some time to re-examine the last year or more of my life, and let my compass reset itself.
Write. Robert Moss says. Yes, I'll probably do that too. I can't see healing or finding any clarity otherwise. He says to write in blood (my own(luckily, I've got lots;)). In some ways, that's exactly what I've been avoiding, and it has cost this blog, and my life - some numinosity: some vital power. Like a flower without sap. I've done this because - my romantic life has been a disaster and I was shy and embarrassed about it, and someone else didn't want to be mentioned here either, which is totally understandable.
Now I'm totally single and can feel moments of pure happiness returning. Pure dumb happiness. What is it? Good 'ole Guy Finley says in his monumental book - The Secret of Letting Go - nothing can make you happy. But some things can keep you from being happy, block the flow. Happiness is our natural state, and bubbles up like water from a spring - all on its own. One of the things I'm examining is what really makes me happy - and what does not. Do the times I've been happiest, in my adult life, fit with my ideas about what makes me happy?
Unclear.
As I review the past I'll just keep taking mouthfuls from that spring when I can. And see where that leads me..
As far as writing goes I haven't felt like I could write about this (but Robert Moss apparently does):
... the time in the war-torn city
when your heart was a quivering bird in your palm
and the blood pool kept filling, and you knew
no doctor could heal this wound
though the world would end if you failed
to keep the wounded lover alive for three days more.
and I certainly didn't want to write about this,
Write from the night you could not keep those promises
and had to hold the young lover in you by force,
rough as a jailer's armlock, soft as lambskin,
The "her" the person in the poem made promises to - is their own heart, I think. I've certainly made lots of promises to mine I couldn't keep. But then again, as I've said before - I don't really know my own heart (but damn, I'm trying!).
If I was my heart I'd rather be restless...
And yes- over the past few months I have held my heart in - exactly like that. My heart is naive and young, and I like it that way. But that means - it does need a jailer at times - someone to hold it in. And I think the jailer sheds a tear every time he does, but he does it out of love.
And I haven't even wanted to think about this:
And when your heart
breaks again, hold her fast, willing a greater power
to embrace and join you, and write from that.
Really not sure if I can do that one. And he finishes;
Dip your pen in the blood pool. This is the time for red ink.
Can I just use the blood from my shin where I fell on some rocks? Probably not, I know. .. I'm not sure I can do that one either. I'll try.
It reminds me again of the Open Letter to the World, which I quoted two blogs ago - "But something unexpected is happening. We have begun telling each other our own stories. Sharing our lives, our hopes, our dreams, our demons.
Every second, day in day out, into all hours of the night the gritty details of life on this earth are streaming around the world."
I'm taking some time to walk around my inner world, I'll see what I bring back and if I have the guts to write it down. I found six eagle feathers yesterday - it reminded me and helped me see, with the help of another Robert Moss blog I just read ( http://mossdreams.blogspot.com/2011/07/tarot-confirms-courage-is-fear.html ) - that the wind horse of Buddhism is not something outside of us, but - "the wind beneath our wings" that comes from living from our soul - following our bliss - when you hear the wind whipping by your ears - then you know you're doing it right. Scary. I'm scared.
Courage, it couldn't come at a worse time
I guess I'll just keep swimming these dark waters, like in Motorcylce Diaries, when Che Guevara swims the river at night to get to the leper colony on the other side - where he was forbidden to go - I'll go visit my own inner leper colony, and see what they have to teach me.
I've decided to take some time out of the normal grind. Not like I really had a 'grind' so to speak - but being in Vancouver, working, looking for more work, trying to meet people and build friendships and build a life there. Of some sort, in my fashion. I said years ago that job-hunting comes at a direct cost in self-esteem. Let's consider this a re-fill.
The month of August opened up as a time where I didn't have to have a place to live, so I decided not to - but instead to hit the road. My real travel is going to be though, crossing the great stream within that divides our inner and outer lives, selves; the River of Life. It's also the Lethe, the river of forgetting - and I need to swim it both ways, I think.
So I'm on the Sunshine Coast again. Staying with great friends on the beach.. I know, life is rough. In a way I'm doing the same thing I did at this time last year - a wandering vagabond lawyer with car and a collection of feathers, and a collection of dreams..
This time the dreams are a bit different. Last year was so clear - I was on a spiritual journey of getting in touch with my enjoyment of life again. This year - it's not as clear if I just fell here, or if I actually have a reason for being here. So I'm going to take some time to re-examine the last year or more of my life, and let my compass reset itself.
Write. Robert Moss says. Yes, I'll probably do that too. I can't see healing or finding any clarity otherwise. He says to write in blood (my own(luckily, I've got lots;)). In some ways, that's exactly what I've been avoiding, and it has cost this blog, and my life - some numinosity: some vital power. Like a flower without sap. I've done this because - my romantic life has been a disaster and I was shy and embarrassed about it, and someone else didn't want to be mentioned here either, which is totally understandable.
Now I'm totally single and can feel moments of pure happiness returning. Pure dumb happiness. What is it? Good 'ole Guy Finley says in his monumental book - The Secret of Letting Go - nothing can make you happy. But some things can keep you from being happy, block the flow. Happiness is our natural state, and bubbles up like water from a spring - all on its own. One of the things I'm examining is what really makes me happy - and what does not. Do the times I've been happiest, in my adult life, fit with my ideas about what makes me happy?
Unclear.
As I review the past I'll just keep taking mouthfuls from that spring when I can. And see where that leads me..
As far as writing goes I haven't felt like I could write about this (but Robert Moss apparently does):
... the time in the war-torn city
when your heart was a quivering bird in your palm
and the blood pool kept filling, and you knew
no doctor could heal this wound
though the world would end if you failed
to keep the wounded lover alive for three days more.
and I certainly didn't want to write about this,
Remember the promises you made her:
"You'll never be hurt again." "Every day you'll make poetry."Write from the night you could not keep those promises
and had to hold the young lover in you by force,
rough as a jailer's armlock, soft as lambskin,
The "her" the person in the poem made promises to - is their own heart, I think. I've certainly made lots of promises to mine I couldn't keep. But then again, as I've said before - I don't really know my own heart (but damn, I'm trying!).
If I was my heart I'd rather be restless...
And yes- over the past few months I have held my heart in - exactly like that. My heart is naive and young, and I like it that way. But that means - it does need a jailer at times - someone to hold it in. And I think the jailer sheds a tear every time he does, but he does it out of love.
And I haven't even wanted to think about this:
And when your heart
breaks again, hold her fast, willing a greater power
to embrace and join you, and write from that.
Really not sure if I can do that one. And he finishes;
Dip your pen in the blood pool. This is the time for red ink.
Can I just use the blood from my shin where I fell on some rocks? Probably not, I know. .. I'm not sure I can do that one either. I'll try.
It reminds me again of the Open Letter to the World, which I quoted two blogs ago - "But something unexpected is happening. We have begun telling each other our own stories. Sharing our lives, our hopes, our dreams, our demons.
Every second, day in day out, into all hours of the night the gritty details of life on this earth are streaming around the world."
I'm taking some time to walk around my inner world, I'll see what I bring back and if I have the guts to write it down. I found six eagle feathers yesterday - it reminded me and helped me see, with the help of another Robert Moss blog I just read ( http://mossdreams.blogspot.com/2011/07/tarot-confirms-courage-is-fear.html ) - that the wind horse of Buddhism is not something outside of us, but - "the wind beneath our wings" that comes from living from our soul - following our bliss - when you hear the wind whipping by your ears - then you know you're doing it right. Scary. I'm scared.
Courage, it couldn't come at a worse time
I guess I'll just keep swimming these dark waters, like in Motorcylce Diaries, when Che Guevara swims the river at night to get to the leper colony on the other side - where he was forbidden to go - I'll go visit my own inner leper colony, and see what they have to teach me.
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