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.