iahklu (k)nights

I've been reading the Lathe of Heaven lately. And insomniac. But not in a bad way - I can't sleep because I'm so excited about life!
Wierd..

To lay in bed at three am and read a book about a guy whose dreams make new realities, when you can't get to sleep and dream, because you're excited about making your dreams reality - is kind of surreal. And wonderful.

An alien in the book calls him, a person who does this: creates reality, or shifts us all to an alternate reality, or a new paradigm - an "iahklu."

We are all iahklu's by nature.

But we must choose to be dream warriors. Or not.
To be Warriors. And Dreamers.

We know we can create our reality, but a Warrior does so consciously.

I read Robert Moss's latest blog today - "knights of dreaming"  (http://mossdreams.blogspot.com/2011/11/knights-of-dreaming.html). It's about a group of men who are aware, awake, capable, educated, empowered in the world - warriors, Knights. Trying to wake up to their dreams (I think both night-dreams and 'hopes'), and also to help others to do so.

He found it inspiring, and so do I. He opens the blog with;

I am with a group of gentle but fiercely dedicated people whose cause is the Earth and the other species with which humans share life on the planet.

Hm, where is my Group? I think we are rounding each other up, as we complete our individual preparations and tasks. Synchroniciously - I was a given a vision at Robert Moss's session on dreaming and visioning for others, last May in Vancouver, by my partner Asi-klu (as I mentioned in sharp-shinned Pat/Texada Project).
His vision for me was in three parts, he said: You are with a group of men riding camels in the desert, there are about a dozen of you, you are not talking, you are serious but not grim, and you are riding with a clear destination and a single unified purpose.
The next was similar, I was part of a group of men in a boat, all rowing/paddling in perfect unison. We had a single unified purpose, and did not speak. He drew a picture of the boat, which he described as 'like a viking ship,' but the picture looked more like the Tla-oh-qui-aht ocean-going dugout canoes used here on the west coast of Vancouver Island. I wasn't living here then.
The third was of an eagle, flying above these things, and he (Asi-klu) was in it's head. The air was rushing through its feathers, a strong wind, loud in its ears, and it said to him; "when you hear this - you are on the right path."

I hear it when I stand on the beach in front of my home in the middle of the night, gazing at the stars, or when I run on these beaches alone in the day in the wind and rain. I am looking for those men consciously now, and I think one or two may be here.

Again Robert Moss seems to be acting as a Guide for me, reminding and fine-tuning.  - to find my brothers-in-arms, and continue to do the work that I am here to do. Thank you, Dux.

May we all be conscious and awake and empowered in creating our dreams. And may we all find our soul group and ride out to do battle.

Just remember... to make love, not war :)

Pick the star you aim for carefully, and maybe the stars, by drawing us to them, will draw us together...

insomniacs of the World - goodnight.

stars

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.

I'm quoting myself. And Vincent Van Gogh.. Stars. Stars are things we navigate by. Things we dream about, waking dreams. Stars are things we wonder at. Stars, to us - are light.

Writing Joy. If I could say anything I've been doing with this blog, over the last year and a month and a half - it's that: writing my joy.

I could feel my old heart beatin out the simple joy 'a livin'

I can see a time coming when I don't have a blog anymore. Maybe. And I also know I will publish it at some point, at least enough to give copies to friends and family. It will be what you see here plus doodles, pictures, reflections.

At the same time - I'm stunned at times by how happy I am that I've done this - sitting down and reading things (not that I do it a lot), that you've written online, in moments of passion, at emotional and personal highs (and lows) - has a binding effect. Not in a bad way, but you can't get away from your own truths when you have put them out in the world, beyond your reckoning. Like children after you're dead.

It was a wierd summer. People who know me know that. Not the electric highs of supertravelpat, but instead, they felt like lows at times, despite good companionship and beautiful places. Felt like lows, but were not. When I re-read those three entries from August - rabbit hole, surprise trampolines, and luminous world - there are truths about myself underlying them which are simply inescapable. I've kept a journal for years. It's not the same.

This feels like a Promise. A promise to the Universe, to my Self, and to all the World - to let my light shine. A light we all have, and are. To outwardly be the person I inwardly know.

And on tough days, or at times when I'm tempted to make decisions which would not take me towards that Star - it's here, on the internet - the simple truths about who I am, and why I'm here.
In fact, in those hard, strangely lonely, and doubt-ridden days of summer - there was a deep river flowing. And I guess, as I wished in forecasts for Deliverance - I must have blown the dam.

In that time, in the rabbit-hole in Pemberton, and before and after - I remembered.. a dream. And remembering it again seemed like waking from a dream.

One day I will tell that story here, what that dream is - to make this blog complete.

I walked on Mackenzie Beach tonight, after I got home from a dual book-launch, where I thought, (as I did in a law school many years ago (before I went to law school)) - "I could do that."

And I'm not gonna take it back
And I'm not gonna say, "I don't mean that"
You're the target that I'm aiming at

I walked on the beach, and no - I still haven't learned to stand somewhere that waves won't go over my tall rubber boots. Just like many nights in the last two summers when I had sneakers on and went to hang out at Chesterman's Beach in the middle of the night (without a flashlight) or on Frank Island(where I got caught by the tide numerous times and had to wade back) - I always seemed to have to get my feet wet. Now that I have rubber boots I just get to go out a little further. The thing is - you can see the stars better the farther out you go.

So here I am, walking on the beach on a gorgeous, not-too-cool late Fall evening, with rubber boots and wet feet, staring up at the sky. Wonder of wonders. How old will I be before it loses it's marvel?
If that ever happens - will someone (my brother) - please take me for a 'walk in the woods'?

And, staring up at the stars, in the dark - I was overwhelmed with thanks. For my life, the wonders in it, the people in it, but most of all for Clarity - and for having put it somewhere I can't forget it.
It shines like a star in my life, pointing the way..

There I will find a river flowing,
green through the trees and swift in the sun:
to that bright cove of my enduring
all my dark ways run.

My Hometown (Tofino)

I didn't know I'd travel all that way - just to land here.

And boy, do I feel like I've travelled a lot lately. Drove to Vancouver, flew to Montreal where I spent a night when the Air Canada strike was being declared, then onto Halifax (no strike), five days there, reconnected with King Arthur, a mermaid, family, friends, then flew to Saskatoon, got the bus into town and did some work at a cafe by the river, my friend Kris Kristofferson picked me up and we drove to his place in Saltcoats, just outside Yorkton, I spent two nights there with him and his family, they dropped me off at the highway where I was almost devoured by rabid coyotes, then West Wind and A-Man picked me up, enroute from Calgary and Sakatoon, we drove to Winnipeg and got in late, stayed at West Wind's Mom's place - got three hours sleep and went fishing the next day, caught a pickerel and a friend, got settled in our hotel downtown and went to a Winnipeg Jets game that night, went to the farm the next night, the next day drove back to Sakatoon with West Wind in the rental, went out for dinner and watched Trailer Park Boyo's, flew to Vancouver the next day, went to the Sunshine Coast for three nights, then back to Vancouver for Jesse James's man-baby-shower, then (finally) - home. Where my music's playin'..

A shocking lack of punctuation.

And where is home in all that?
It's funny, maybe I'm just getting old, I feel like I've travelled this country so much  - when I stood on the side of the road, the Yellowhead at Saltcoats, in the dark, I felt like "I've been here so many times before, this is my place.."
Then the coyotes started...
Perfectly at home in the Montreal airport finding a place to sleep and a beer, and a friend named Pat, not in that order.
Halifax - when I went back to you this time it was the first time since 2007 (or before?) that I felt I could live there again someday. Mostly I just want the license plate (it is the coolest in Canada, esp now that the Yukon has made their polar bear cartoonish) - for an intercontinental road trip. But also (I suppose ;) to spend time with friends and family and to once again have time to wander the woods and forests where I am more at ease (at home?) than probably anywhere else on earth.

Vancouver - to wander the streets of Kitsilano, get my mail, some sushi, an organic, wheat, milk and sugar free cookie. After almost a year there I feel comfortable and confident in the big V.

And then the Sunshine Coast - my community is this country, it's lovely how the last year has tied all my hitchiking and wandering experiences of youth into a tapestry of area-knowledge and freindships that allows me to feel like, even when I manage to find some place in Canada I haven't been before, -  I've been there before.

There was a little town on the prairies, not sure if it was in Manitoba or Sask, but it was an idyllic Stephen-King-esque tiny town where West Wind and I got some lunch on the road. We pulled in because we saw a sign for food, and it was three in the afternoon. The place was SMALL!
A school seemed like the only non-house structure. We drove around the three gridded streets and found a little pub at the back, They were decked out for rough-riders games, and two old farmers sat over coffee.

We got lunch, with the inescapable french-fries, and chatted with the waitress a bit. The town had fallen out of the sky from 1982, and as we left school was getting out - kids ran accross the streets in front of us and you could see seven year olds walking home alone, safe. Paradise.
"Why would anyone want to live here?" one may have thought as they drove in.
There's your answer.

I stood in the woods at the back of West Winds family farm house, just outside Winnipeg, and looked out over the Prairie, felt the cold wind, and the chill of change from the dead coyote shoulder-blade on the ground at my feet.

I just moved to Tofino. I didn't feel like travelling (theres a first for everything!) - I just wanted to stay home and get settled in. But I'm grateful for the travel, and all the clarity it brought about who I am and where I belong. I may think of myself a s a citizen of the world - but Canada is my hometown.

When ever I get a ferry to or from anywhere you can often find me, standing in the cold and not dressed for it, on the front deck, facing into the wind. I think of Tofino that way.
As close as I can get to leaping into the sea and swimming out all my passion until my lover enfolds me in her dark embrace.

O the king's tidy acre is under the sea,
And the royal rose in the bull's belly,
And the bull on the king's highway.

I live in Tofino. Halifax is my hometown, but Canada feels like it now. Home? The place I came from and will go? I'm always there, it's everywhere, in me, and you, the eagles and trees and crimes and saviours.