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,

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.