Car

Well, shit, I been meaning to write this one for a long time, and I promised it to a friend a while ago, and repeated that promise since then.. that I'd do an entry about my car. I love my car. The friend I made that promise to... Car.

I named my car Car, and also Cat, and Sister, as in - "let's go, Sister."

I bought it on Feb 29, 2008, an eclipse. It only has a birthday every four years, but man, it's a good one. We made a deal when we got together - "I have fun in you, and you run like a top." So far, so good. 2002 Honda Civic. Four door, easier to get stuff in and out. Sport front end handling. No shit. I could list some speed records here, in BC and Ontario, but that would not protect the guilty...

Car has been a constant companion through what has turned out to be one of the biggest periods of transformation of my whole life. Car is always ready to go, always ready to hit the road.

Car and I have had some wild times, from commuting to my 12-14 hour a day job in TO from Port Hope, in winter, ripping up the 401 in snow tires and machine-revving tension, to the great drive across Canada, to California. California. The best of all the driving days (so far) was the day I entered Cali the night before. I camped beneath the silent redwoods, got up early and set out for the little place I'd rented in Berkeley. I had time, so I decided to take highway 1, which splits off from the 101 and follows the coast, starting at drive-through-tree Park, through Fort Bragg, and rejoining the 101 at Cloverdale. This is one of the best pieces of road in the world.

It was a weekday, no idea which one. A middle one. Roads were pretty empty. I'd learned to really enjoy driving winding mountain roads, and I was single with no dependents. My only family, my brother, I knew would prefer I live my life than save it up for some vague later thing.. so, I said to myself (and this road is nothing but turns, with yellow caution / "slow" signs..),  "I'm going to push it on every single corner, and if, at the end of this road, I've slid at least a foot or two on every single one - I know I've done it right."

Let me explain a bit. I had cooper tires on. They have hard walls. I know, I know.. they are not a high-end tire. I get it. But I have Pirelli's now, and I think I liked the Coopers better. The rubber is harder, and I just developed the habit of sliding around corners. It's fun. When I first bought them they had sharp edges. I was then living in Trenton, ON (shithole), and working in Peterborough (yup), and those little country roads - sheesh.. I had some fun. Scared the bejeesus outta some farmers, that's for sure.

There was a 60 degree corner I took every day, with a little gravel on it, and that was the first time I got a foot or two of drift on a corner. Pretty thrilling. After that I drove on gravel roads a bunch to take the sharp edges off.

So, two years later, those tires were perfect for corner-sliding. And I actually found them safer cause you could feel the slide, there was nothing sudden about it, there were no edges left on 'em at all.  So I pulled over at the junction of Highway 101 and highway 1, and that's where I said it.

I've never been a big drug user, but that must be what hard drugs feel like - your whole brain's lit up - for six hours straight I drove without pause, motor revving, downshifting, accelerating into the turns. Fuck. It felt good. Car.

Thank you. I couldn't take this down until I had honoured you.

For the times, they are a changin.

Or..  we're a stolen Cadillac, racin' for a road block in the distance..

Car. Thanks for the adventures, those I've told, and those I will never tell. More to come. xo

The Island Trilogy II - Bowen and self-love (a life of adventure)

Winding up another weekend of adventure. Came into Vancouver for a course on Friday and went out to Bowen Island that night to hang with a friend and make some new ones.

Had a fun night of mild partying - a few drinks, some music and conversation. The next day we went out for breakfast, then went for a walk in the park. I talked to Doc Holliday (my law school pal) about life, practice, business, and art. We're on a similar trajectory of seeing some changes coming, wanting to exercise our creativity more, and still being children in the world of 'following your dreams and actually making a living'.

Then we all did the requisite skinny dip, I was first in. Yay. Life is to be lived, it is a great buffet, why say, "oh, just water please."? Nope, give me a big bite of skinny dipping with friends at every chance, please.

Saturday aft I came into Van. When I was leaving Bowen I missed the ferry. Doc H. was with me, and as I was running for it some dude's dog came out chasing me and barking. I was a bit sneery about it, but also found it funny, and it took about two seconds for the funny side to get the sneery laughing as well. A sure sign.

Dog-Dude said, "you missed your ferry, was it important that you get there right away?"

"No, not really ..  (confused inner expression)"

"So, was it important, do you need to get there.. ?"

"(slowly clueing in..) Yeah, yeah.. I kinda need to get there.."

"Oh, want a lift?"

"(What planet am I on?) .. Sure, I'd love one!"

It turned out Doc H knew Dog-Dude, so he came along for the ride, and, after a quick tour of Dog-Dude's sail-boat that he lives on, we skipped over the wave-tops in a tiny white zodiac with a 20hp outboard, and beat the ferry there by 30 seconds or so.

I remember when I was living in Ontario in 2008-9. I met this awesome Elder, and I realized, through some tough times, that I had some serious healing to do, and was not so happy with life. I asked him to be my counsellor, and it turned out he was a pretty important guy, who gives his time selflessly to causes bigger than mine. But he said yes anyway. Just that kinda guy. We never really connected for a session, but we talked on the phone a few times very briefly. He asked me my story, and I told him. He said, "Paddy Mc-aloon (not what he really said), I just have one question for you to think about - do you really love yourself?" That's what he really said.

I still think about it, but very differently than I did. Today I'm writing about it. In five words he summed up all the therapy I needed, and gave me food for thought for years and a door to step through that I wouldn't even begin to understand until long after I'd done it.

So, I got to Vancouver, and later last night went to a little party of a bunch of radical activists who are most certainly high on any 'enemy-of-the-state' lists. And my 'very-good, sweet-young-people' list. Good time.

Over the last two years I've allowed myself to slip back into suffer-mode. And when it's suffer-for-a-cause-mode, it's not any better. Ridiculous.

When I left Ontario three years ago and went on my Great Road Trip # X out of a Zillion, I didn't realize why I did it until much later. Again, the clarity came in that critical time in Northern California three or so months into it. I've written about it before: I saw that in my process of healing I had come to love myself, I had made choices that reflected self-love, and I was happy.

Chatting with a friend this morning who was gracious enough to sit and listen to my story, I heard it again and got a new lesson from it: you can write I Love You on your bathroom mirror every day for a year, give yourself notes in your lunch box, and really feel it too. It doesn't go that far. If you make choices that are fundamentally abusive, if you constantly seek to change yourself in a way that implies that your current 'you' isn't good enough - that's not love. It's a juvenile crush. You need real, mature love from yourself, and that is: Acceptance.

Once you've accepted your Self - everything flows from that - you can (and will) make choices that are in acceptance and recognition of the real you.

Heading back to my tuff little town this afternoon, slightly transformed by travel and joy. Slightly awakened, perhaps, again, not to something, but by it; by my choice to take a few weekends of my September, and enjoy myself. No "I love you's" needed. The writing is on the wall.

But now - what choices flow from that?

his foot (Splashing into the beautiful unknown / silver and gold)

"One night years ago I came upon my boyfriend passionately embracing another woman. We were in the house of a friend who had a priceless collection of pottery. I was furious and looking for something to throw. Everything I picked up I had to put back down because it was worth at least ten thousand dollars. I was completely enraged and I couldn’t find an outlet! There were no exits from experiencing my own energy. The absurdity of the situation totally cut through my rage. I went outside and looked at the sky and laughed until I cried. 

In vagrayana Buddhism it is said that wisdom is inherent in emotions. 

When we struggle against our energy we reject the source of wisdom. Anger without the fixation is none other than clear-seeing wisdom. Pride without fixation is experienced as equanimity. The energy of passion when it’s free of grasping is wisdom that sees all the angles." Pema Chodron (my other girlfriend) (From her book, Places That Scare You) 

"I was listening to a John Lee Hooker track and I asked, 'Who's playing the drums?' 'That's his foot,' Keith [Richards] said. 'He was just kicking at the floorboards.' I was blown out of it. I left with my head in a spin and I went back to my hotel room on my own and wrote 'Silver And Gold' and tried to apply what I'd just heard to the project at hand, which was an anti-apartheid record. I called Keith the next day and said, 'Can I come round, I've got a song I'd like to play for you? Maybe you'd like to play on it?' Keith said, 'Sure.' So I recorded an acoustic version of this, my first blues song, with Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood." - Bono, U2 By U2 2006

In the shithouse a shotgun
Praying hands hold me down
Only the hunter was hunted
In this tin can town
Tin can town

This entry, I am writing (ahem, quoting), on the day where my reason for being where I am has ended. Every minute is like a Littlest Hobo episode gone past the hour. Or am I just being dramatic? My "errand," or a part of it, that I came here to do, is done. My part, anyway.

Bullet the blue sky.

Sarah Connor, "The future, always so clear to me, had become like a black highway at night. We were in uncharted territory now, making up history as we went along."

Me, "Sarah, surely you know, there is no fate, no fate but what we make."

Ok, that's no exactly how the conversation went..
It's weird, like when I was in Ontario and my boss told me the work I'd been hired for two years to do (after 11 months) was done. There's some sadness to it, like a relationship that's ending, "One day I may lose you, lose you like I lose my sight, day falling into endless night.." where you cease to be welcomed into the mystery any longer, and like "the falling yellow leaves of our hundred other lives", a new mystery beckons, a new choice.

The temperature is rising
The fever white hot
Mister, I ain't got nothing
But it's more than you got
Chains no longer bind me
Not the shackles at my feet
Outside are the prisoners
Inside the free

Set them free

And to what next purpose shall I be summoned? Today, I just feel. Sadness. Joy. Release. Fear. Excitement. Sadness. Joy. Like a slave with no master, that stunned feeling that just makes you stare off into the stars and, and..

Ok Edge, play the blues.

Heronesque Confessions / patient pathfinding

- Whatever magic it was I had, of 'travel' or wandering-power, or maybe just joy, it's gone. Not meaning to sound negative, but somehow I've slipped into some dull dreary routine I thought I had escaped forever. It comes in many guises.

- I recently discovered that a group of seven or eight Herons flies over town at about 9:30 every night. I assume it'll get earlier as the evening shifts.

- I haven't posted for a while, for a number of reasons. Kinda self-conscious about it. And, not much to say, I guess. Those phrases are interchangeable.

and disappointing you, is getting me down

- I'm definitely not feeling 'ahead by a century'.

*Hasn't this become an August theme for me? : Go within.

- Herons hunt with single-minded focus, patience. I think Herons are nocturnal, and no-one's figured that out yet. Sounds Ridiculous, I know (that I could figure something out about Herons that is not in books). I saw one at night once, hunting. It was on the sun-shine-co-ast, with my bro Jesse James.

- Change is 'a comin'. Don't know what yet. I can feel like it like a line of hidden CIA explosives in a twin tower..

I run like a river, run to the sea...

- Was in Bamfield a few weekends ago. Started an entry about it. Deleted it. Remarked to Diana the Huntress, as a big beauty Heron flew by, out the harbour, faster than Herons fly, ridin' the wind; "Funny, for all the time I spend outdoors, I've never found a Heron feather, they're a beautiful blue-grey, as big almost as eagle feathers.."

- We walked off the dock where we had fish burgers and I had a beer, and there one was, in the weeds, in the sea. I hopped the fence and splashed knee-deep to get it. Hunting. Patience.

- I am lost. Can't find my path. I spent a lot 'a time in the woods when I was a kid (and an adult): blessed time. I learned that those moments come, especially when you're rushing, when you lose your path. Running around trying to find it = you are fucked. Stop.

Breathe.

Relax, look around.

Enjoy the woods. "Oh, hey - there it is!"    ;)

HHhhhhhhh.. (the sound of me trying to breathe)

three.

Three years of Liberty. Thank God!

Freedom stretches only as far as the limits of our consciousness.

3 years since.. I left job, home, stability, 'normalcy' ... three years since I committed to completely living my life (I've definitely forgotten the commitment on lotsa days). And what that means has changed over time.. what the hell does it mean?

I sought freedom, and to yoke myself to only one thing - what I saw as my highest purpose. I wanted to be free of constraints, to do what I love. I still struggle for the balance. I travelled for almost a year, then settled here and have been working (way too much) since then. Some of my work is kind of mundane, some - I never dreamed I'd have the privilege of doing. Still, I have days where I wonder if I was/am a better 'self' when I was homeless and wandering.

Liberty, she pirouettes, when I think that I am free

I did the Radar-Schooner hike again yesterday, at high tide - took a long time.. With Diana the huntress.  It was a beautiful sunny day. Walked past some of those same dreams as two-and-a-half years ago (http://errandknight.blogspot.ca/2010/10/sea-its-warm-and-its-safe-here.html), this time - many have come true. Saw my eagle brother-father, for the first time in a year or so. He said again, just like he did when he first got my attention twenty years ago - "Grab your things, I've come to take you home."

And today, again, I commit to saying, "you can keep my things, they've come to take me home."

Something extraordinary is about to happen..

I was just about to say this to my girlfriend, Diana the Huntress, and then thought better of making crazy pronouncements. We walked about another ten steps along Long Beach when an eagle flew past us by the woods. It perched, and another swept down out of the trees onto the beach right right in front of us, maybe 50 metres away.

I later posted this on facebook;

Saw an eagle feeding on a dead sea lion yesterday. Was pretty cool to watch. The female went down to feed and her partner stayed in a tree high above. If other birds approached her, they had to be below him, giving him air superiority. First he chased off a big juvenile eagle, then a male about his size, and then that male went off and got his mate and the two of them came back, and he chased them off too - with a full-fledged aerial battle with barrel rolls and screeches and everything. All this time his mate was feeding, and they were in communication both with looks and sounds. He never, even facing a pair of eagles, asked for her help, but let her eat. Lessons in teamwork from Nature. Gratitude.

Indeed. Sat there for two hours and watched them. Went back the next evening, alone, and the male came down and circled around me while his wife was feeding hungrily before night enveloped them and sent them to their roost. Wolf tracks in the sand. Waves crashing

Seconds, falling off the map..

This time I will say it out loud, "Something extraordinary is about to happen.."

Are you Ready?

Pentecost II - Go Ask Alice (again)...

So, this Sunday is Pentecost again. Why would I note such a thing? I just like it.

Pentecost is both a Christian and Jewish holy-day, and because of that I feel like it has deeper roots in the origins of Christianity and Judaism - Grove-based religions, or something simpler. And, more importantly - it's when King Arthur's knights left for their great mission, their PURPOSE - to seek the holy grail.

A friend sent me a great book referral lately - Finding Your Way in a Wild New World, by Martha Beck, a Wayfinder. Honestly, I've been feeling like giving up lately. I set out on this course in 2010 and although I've made great progress, I still face frustrating obstacles that make me think I'm barking up the wrong path altogether.

So I've been reading inspiring books. Because, being inspired, I will either renew strength on this path, or chuck it and find one more true. And that will happen on its own (mostly). Also reading Instructions for Happiness and Success, by Susan Pearl, Synchronicity: the Inner Path of Leadership, by Joseph Jaworski (mentioned previously), and Eye of the I, by David Hawkins (yeah, still - I'm taking my time, alright?!).

The wild, fluid world of the twenty-first century means that you not only can free yourself from your iron cage, but that you must.

This became our central focus: finding a way to dissolve the perception of separateness... once they have experienced the shift to wholeness, they cannot deny the insight that results. Relatively few individuals working together in this way could have a profound effect on society because, according to Bohm, their consciousness is already woven into all consciousness.

A strong sense that the mission, whatever it is, is getting closer in time.

When we stop to assist a helpless beetle with a twig so it can turn over off its back and resume life, the entire universe knows it and responds.

Simply to wake to your life...

I did my first "Pentecost" entry at roughly this time last year. I didn't end up doing the ceremony I was envisioning. This year I am blessed with a sweat lodge the day before, to make me clean. We'll see what happens. I first marked Pentecost in 2010; I committed on that day to my highest purpose and expression in this life. I didn't know it was Pentecost, a friend later told me.

This will be my commitment:

I commit to living my highest purpose in this life, and I commit to figuring out what that is, and I commit to living it relentlessly until I figure out what it is.

What is it? Go ask Alice.

"Whatever it is, we move at dawn."

Cathedrals - all the commitment you can muster..

The other night I was reading Synchronicity: The Inner Path of Leadership, by Joseph Jaworski, my girlfriend loaned it to me.

I came across this passage, after he talked about his marriage breaking up and seeking something more.. real.. out of life, taking his first spontaneous trip ever;

As I was travelling in France, I found myself drawn to the cathedrals there, most particularly the great cathedral at Chartres, the small medieval town lying just southwest of Paris. This cathedral was built in the mid-thirteenth century when high gothic architecture was at its purest, and it possesses a unique symmetry and unity. Being near and in it, I felt unity with all that was around me, a complete openness to the entire world. I intended to visit the cathedral for an hour or so, but ended up spending the entire day there, first sitting quietly and then later reflectively walking all around the vast cathedral, both inside and out.

He goes on to talk about how he felt a ringing, and like he was in a different energy field, and how he'd only ever felt that feeling outdoors before, in the wilderness.

It brought him to the realization that he was developing a new notion of 'freedom', and he says it so well:

...the freedom to follow my life's purpose with all the commitment I could muster, while at the same time, allowing life's creative forces to move through me without my control, without 'making it happen.'

I sighed and looked off into space.

Then I picked up the other book I was nibbling, The Eye of the I. This was the passage I read, from where I left off last night;

If the essential dynamic of one's spiritual seeking is not spiritual ambition (to get somewhere) but the progressive surrender of the obstacles to Love, then that which is called 'spiritual ego' does not arise as an obstacle. A given calibrated level of consciousness is not better than another but merely represents the level that is being worked on. It is the basic building blocks which enable a structure to ascend, and it is the dedication which ensures the completion of a cathedral.

The freedom to make a cathedral of your life - we all have it. It is our birthright. The cathedral already exists.

It was funny to me, the common themes in both of these short passages - the 'cathedral' and... dedication/commitment.

These giants in Cathedral Grove, on Vancouver Island - how did they get this way? Certainly not by choosing to live small - but by giving everything they had to reaching for the sky.

Each time you remove an obstacle to Love, or let go of a notion of who you are or where you are going, or commit to your highest expression - you let another block come into being, another new shoot unfold and reach higher.

Wild at heart

I started this entry last weekend, forgive me if I don't get it right..

There is nothing we fear more than ourselves.

come in, come in, 

come in

This entry started as a long diatribe about why people clear-cut. They do it because they're afraid. Afraid of the wildness. They want to 'break' it, like people break a dog. I had a dog once who wouldn't break. And I'll never have another until he comes along again.

They fear the wildness, and so they clear-cut. Kill. Strip-mine. But really - we all fear it. It is us. Ever walk in the forest alone at night? I went swimming recently, in a little stream in the rain-forest. I was alone, it was dusk. I stood in the river, with the closing darkness all around me, the trees looming overhead in harsh kindness, the icy muddy water swirling about my hips, and I heard wolves - a pack of wolves, in a semi-circle in the woods around me, just beyond my sight. They just made little noises, yips and barks, to let me know they were there. I dove into the muddy water, swam under through a hole in a giant still living tree, got out, dried myself in the rain, and walked further into the forest, wolves, and gathering darkness.

I wanted to know that I belonged to the forest, to go past my own fear. It's not the wildness we fear outside ourselves, it's the wildness within us, the wildness in our hearts.

It's fundamental to being alive. We are all wild (but some more than others (I love those people)).

We fear the wildness in ourselves because we want to stay in whatever comfortable place we're in, in life, where we've shut off our ambition, our passions, our dream, but our wildness wants us to run. And risk.

And the worst thing is; we can't shut it up. We can't kill it, we can't make it go away - it is part of us. All we can do is wall it off, and hope it gets tired of scratching at the door.

And to silence that scratching - we go out and try to silence it in the world. We try to break others who are wild and free and beautiful (at our worst) and even at our best we rarely truly embrace it in ourselves, we rarely just let it run.

Go out in the wildest place you can find, alone - that's one tenth of the courage it takes to truly live your life. But when you really do - this is the flipside - you will (or so I've heard), be blessed, loved, and maybe one day taken, by all living, wild, free, and beautiful things.

Come into yourself, it's wild in here..

the beautiful wind

It's Spring.  The wind was beautiful today.  Strong.  The power was out, but not the power in our hearts.  Spring.  It wasn't a hard winter (yeah, right), but I'm glad to have it blown away anyway..

Went out on the beach with a friend.  Wind howled.  Winter ended.

Blew away all the reasons, all the brakes.  Left only motor.

"Our heartbeat, our heartbeat, our heartbeat.."

"the magic" / Sightings / Carl Jung's mistake

The world is fundamentally magical - miraculous. I've said this before, I will add - we create it. All the time.

We create our worlds. Friends point it out to me, how these simple, yet totally unlikely things I ask for, just show up, the very next day. Like in "the Secret". At the same time I sometimes can't seem to get basic things together. Last year was really tough financially, setting up a new business and getting a career off the ground in a little town know as "Tuff City". No shit. I just couldn't seem to get the money part together for the first year, despite asking "the Gods." They were silent and still.

In retrospect, though - it was me blocking things from working. 

A few days ago (March 12th), in Cowichan, I saw a golden eagle in a tree with a big fresh kill. My last golden eagle sighting was on March 11, 2012, the one before that March 13, 2011, and then, working backwards, there were two on other dates, and (of five total in my whole life) - the first = March 13, 2006. The basic order of the Universe is the sideways connections between things that we cannot see - Synchronicity is "an acausal connecting principal" - but Jung himself didn't go far enough, or rather - allowed his western mind to cling to: "but there must be some connection (we just don't understand yet.)" Whereas the physicist, Wolfgang Pauli, wanted him to just come out and say the truth - there are some things which are simply connected, without cause. They just are. Such is the nature of reality. 

The mind reels at this, rails against it - "there must be some connection!!!"- Jung even went with astrology.. hey, I read my horoscope - I'm not kicking it, but if that's the "cause" - then we're not dealing with "acausal."

Tonight's opposing Truths are: you will (one way or another) do the will of "the magic"; the power you have invited: Fate... And: life is a dark highway, there is no fate but what we make. Perhaps coincidences / synchonicities - are simply sightings, glimpses - of our path, our destiny, our next step as we grope in the dark..

We strive, strain - reach - for meaning in our lives, for life to have some purpose. In our jobs, our loves, our days, we catch glimpses - occasionally, at best. No matter how dedicated we are - to the path we are one with. A friend mentioned the book Sightings recently, I had brought up Point Reyes, in California, I thought that's where the book had taken place. It was. Last week I had a little professional disappointment, and afterward went out for a long walk in the rain-forest, in the rain. Saw a large freshly gnawed bone on the trail, and heard wolves yipping in the forest around me. Got wet. Asked nature, "you called me here - what the f*** do you want?"

Maybe, like the eagle, I simply have to go get it.. if you act, as you think..

Golden Eagle with Prey

Tall dead maple

awkward feathers jut

I eye my world in knowledge

Lazarus Owl and the death of the dead

They said you were the best
But then they were only kids
     Then you would recall the deadly houses you grew up in

I still haven't dropped this owl shit.. you don't have to read it. I've been thinking about it - the owls, and dead swan = death. = transformation. It was two owls, I've come to think of it as the 'Lazarus Owl' - the first one, I thought I killed, the second, showed himself to show I had not. In between was a dead swan. Symbol of sacred love, the mysteries, poetry.. perhaps I should think of it as the Christ Owl. Is that blasphemous? ;)

It was about the end of my Self here - the 'me' I had come to know and identify with, and the requirement to let go of that .. before I can again re-create myself in a new image. Seen in its most simple - death must come first, then acceptance of universal love - the 'mystery' - then (and only then) - rebirth. It said, sitting on the branch, "look, look - I am here alive in the woods, I cannot end, I sacrificed my Self so you could see."

I grew up in a deadly house. People died in it, before I was there. My grandmother killed herself there in 1956 or so. She haunted it. Now, sometimes, she haunts me. Because you cannot run from yourself. (But can you walk?)

In my house I was the pet-burier. I wanted to be a good son, I never raised a fuss. It was natural for me to serve, and that can be good or bad. 

Funny, only as I write this do I see  - I had thought the thing I needed to let go of was my image of myself as a small-town professional, doing some environmental work, being part of a community, which has been really hard (to make work) and really rewarding. To embrace the next step. And it may be so. 

But moreso - it may be time to leave an old family pattern behind; of self-sabotage, self-destruction (sometimes literal), self-limiting. Errand Knight. This blog is, at least partly, about being a warrior in the world. In a little piece I wrote years ago I said, "the greatest battle we can ever face is with ourselves, battles on the outside don't matter and are not real - the only thing that counts is the battle with our selves."

We don't need to relive the patterns of our past, and yet we do - like echo's. And they are so hard to change.

Sometimes the only way to win a battle is to give up. One can only have the rebirth after the death, after the surrender and the mystery... 

my memory is muddy

what's this river that I'm in?

New Orleans is sinkin', man

and I don't wanna swim..

Swan and something new

When you clear things out, you make room for something new. When you let go, you are free to embrace. When you leave - you arrive.

We all pray for release of one kind or another, for liberty - from the chains that bind us.

Something I haven't mentioned, I don't think, from one of my favorite books - The Secret of Letting Go, is where he says, "just because you've failed at something a thousand times, doesn't mean you shouldn't try again, doesn't mean you the 1001nth try won't be the one that gets you over the hump.."

He goes on to say that sometimes you just need to change your strategy.

Can you live a life of your dreams? What if you have it all, but one piece - should you chuck it and start again, or make do?

2012 was a hard year for me, a good year, but I was trying to serve, and not serving my self. I had a dream life but couldn't enjoy it, I was caught up in "the struggle."

A friend of mine said, "environmentalists talk about protecting nature, but they never go to it, and ask what it wants, ask for its help, support, and guidance." I have since then, and I have received. Ask, and it shall be granted unto you.

Swan people have the ability to see the future,

and to accept the healing and transformation 

that is beginning in their lives.

I stopped trying to heal the world, and started trying healing my self. I asked for guidance and renewal, and a Lazarus owl came to me, and a dead swan. Let go = Receive.

Ask. Ask for your prayers to be answered, ask for help, ask for a world where you can naively give.

I see the future. Transformation is coming to us all.

Owl and the ROYAL ORDER

Two Wednesday's ago I was heading to Vancouver for a trial. It was pre-dusk as I left for my three-hour drive, and I thought, "I bet I'm gonna see an owl tonight." Not that it's a common occurrence, it was just a feeling. On the highway down to Nanaimo, and the stretch where you can go 110 km/h, it was about 7:30 and pouring rain, pitch black, I looked across at some jerk who had his high beams on, and - bam! Or rather - Thud! I leaped, thinking the window was going to crash in on me - whatever hit it right in front of my face left a circle of uncracked glass a bit smaller than the palm of my hand, a spiral of cracks around it - and a beak mark in the middle.

I thought: "Fuck, I killed, an owl." "What kinda bad omen is that?" "I'm a terrible person." I felt bad. Really bad. I almost felt like I had summoned it up with my prediction, and .. that it was all my fault.

I was distraught in Van, at Di's, and she gave me some cards to see if I could find any answers. The one that stood out was - The ROYAL ORDER. We aid each other on the journey to ascension  But we can't help others unless we first help ourselves.

On Friday, on my way back, I swung around and walked that stretch of road = no dead owl. No feathers. Nothing. It coulda been dragged off by a scavenger, a dog, or a driving-by taxidermist/feather-picker. Or - it may have lived. I went home Friday and watched animal snuff-films - you know 'cat vs. owl' - on youtube .. for a whole hour. 

Birds of prey are amazingly resilient. I started to wonder if maybe I had not killed the owl after all. [Check this out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkW7r-rgeBQ  .. this is tenacity on the level of my brother - do not fuck with this bird! A goose can break your arm, you could run that gyrfalcon over repeatedly and he'd still get up and choke the crap out of you.]

Nonetheless - the whole sordid tale threw a pall over me and my life for a few days. I was an owl-killer, curséd by owls, whom I love and adore.

Saturday, Diana and I went down to Grice Bay for a walk on the mud-flats. On the drive back at dusk, half-way up the Grice Bay road, an owl dropped out of the trees to our left, swooped in front of the car, opening his wings wide right in front of us, and then cresting and landing in a tree on the other side of the road. 

I was shocked, but managed to stop the car and back up. There he was, just sitting there. What the heck!? I got out, stood under the tree, took a few pictures, talked to him. I thanked him for his visit, and for assuring me I hadn't killed him. But it was about more than that. He sat, turned away, rotated his head, and turned back to look directly at me - over and over. I have never had an encounter with an animal that seemed so... intentional. He was so all-knowing, wise, simple, straight-forward: a living mystery. An alien.

Another friend put it differently (than the royal order), more gently - the beauty path. We must stay on it. That could be another name for this blog; The Beauty Path: weird nature encounters as road-signs to self. Do we choose the path, or does the path choose us? Is there any difference?

I'm not sure what he wanted, this owl who wanted to get into my car, and my life. I told him I'd do what he asked. There's a quote from a book I'm reading, but I can't find it. The book is Forest Mage, by Robin Hobb. Very enjoyable light fantasy-adventure. Or so I thought. The parallels to my life since I started it are a bit creepy.

The main character is a young man, who is destined to serve as a soldier. He becomes possessed by forest magic, as his people encounter a forest-dwelling people, who believe in magic instead of rational steel. The forest magic is his destiny.

The quote is where his teacher and lover says to him, "foolish boy, you will do what the magic wants, one way or another - it is your path." He sees that every time he has resisted his destiny what he clung to was taken away from him.

Carlos Castaneda's teacher, Don Juan, said that once you took the path of personal power - you had no control over where it would guide you. Joseph Campbell said that once you accept "The Call" - you don't know where the path will lead you.

But follow it, you must. As Cpt. Willard said, "never get outta the boat - not unless you're gonna go all the way.."

We run from our fates: nothing is more terrifying. We try to hide, we lie to ourselves; "this isn't real," "it was only a dream," "that promise didn't mean anything.."

.. but it did. Oh, it did.

Owl is absolute mercilessness, with absolute love, and truth-to-nature .. when life asked you, and you said Yes, you didn't say, "yes, but only if so-and-so says it's ok," or "yes, but only if it doesn't take me off The Program.." Fuck the program. 

Maybe you didn't say yes. This blog's not for you.

Obey the ROYAL ORDER.

Follow your Destiny, you chose it.

Make it a beautiful path.

Snatch it.

Empty Spaces, March (Prologue)

Talking with a friend tonight about some time she'd taken off, and seeing how her life had changed in that time, I said, "it's amazing what happens when you create an empty space." People are so afraid to leave something - job, relationship, home - they want the space filled first, before they'll agree with the Universe to empty it.

I'm committing long-accustomed blog crime as I write (although I have immunity to kill) - I have another drafted - one about owls. But the owls and the swan may have been about this - creating empty spaces - places to be filled.

I have the life I do now because I threw what I had away, and now, when I want more.. well, someone once said to me, "you always want more, it's never enough.."

Yeah, pretty much.

Last year I wrote March and the Human Spring. In 13 minutes it's March. Fuck, I love March. Last year was the human spring - this one's mine.

maybe death isn't darkness, after all,

but so much light wrapping itself around us —

as soft as feathers —

Let go.

Letting go doesn't mean giving up - but surrendering to who you are.

Have no regrets.

Wolf

Saw three wolves on Saturday, at Combers beach. They saw us, and were running the other way. Out of fear or ravening hunger for our little dog, I knew not. That's the way they would have had to go to get around the pond/river between us, and "get" us. Or, now that they had gotten our attention - were they intending to lead us somewhere?

Did they?

I freaked out a bit, and even threw away the last of my favorite power bar in favour of getting our shit together and scramming. "Wolves" was all I said. They were beautiful. Big, long-legged and gangly, almost like teenagers. Almost like four-legged faeries skipping across the land without quite touching it.. almost like water splashing down a brook, where seeing us was a rock it dashed against, making a commotion; so natural.

Diana, my partner, said she would have stayed to watch. We left. In my role as This Protector. Who do I protect from, other than marauding images of ravening beasts, in my mind, in my depths?

"300 people livin down in west Virginia, have no idea of all these thoughts that lie within ya"

We love and fear nature as reflections of ourselves. In the tarot I consider the ninth card the most telling - it is both your wish, and your fear. After some time reading the cards you come to see it repeated many times - what you most deeply wish for - you most deeply fear: they are one and the same.

We all long to be wild. And there is something in us, no matter who we are, deep down, which runs wild and free, in a primeval forest, forever.

Wolf is the pathfinder, the forerunner of new ideas who returns to the clan to teach and share medicine. Wolf takes one mate for life and is loyal like Dog. If you were to keep company with Wolves, you would find an enormous sense of family within the pack, as well as a strong individualistic urge.
The senses of Wolf are very keen, and the moon is its power ally. The moon is the symbol for psychic energy, or the unconscious that holds the secrets of knowledge and wisdom. Baying at the moon may be an indication of Wolf's desire to connect with new ideas which are just below the surface of consciousness. Wolf medicine empowers the teacher within us all to come forth and aid the children of Earth in understanding the Great Mystery and Life.
As you feel Wolf coming alive within you, you may wish to share your knowledge by writing or lecturing on information that will help others better understand their uniqueness or path in life. It is in sharing of great truths that the consciousness of humanity will attain new heights.

What ideas are just below the surface? Do I have something to offer in my unique path? I've also been thinking, in fear and frustration and desire, lately, that I want to start being all of me - out there in the world; spiritual, at times superstitious, philosophical, professional. Someone that sees ghosts, can write a mean commercial lease, likes to have fun, loves nature, and has a non-negotiable sense of purpose.

We all have a unique path - let a bit more of your wildness out, to follow it. You may fear that, but you also long for it.

Follow your wolf.

Sometimes they howl to locate their pack. 

They find each other when another howls back.

Airports

On my last trip I spent a lot of time in Airports. Vancouver, San Francisco, Frankfurt, Dublin, Newark, Montreal. I slept in Vancouver airport Christmas eve, on my return, because I got in so late I didn't want to wake anyone up. I found a nice little dark bench by the fountain, made a nice little bed for myself, and had a good sleep. Woke up, and it was still dark out, I felt rested and figured it must be six am, and I packed my stuff to go get the sky train and bus to the ferry so I could drive home. After packing everything I looked at my cell - it was 2am. I'd slept for 2 hours. Sigh.

A friend drove me from Kilkenny to the Dublin airport the morning before, to get there for 7:40 for my 9:40 flight. Flight was delayed, so I had a final Guinness and wrote in my journal. Meditated and slept on the planes, was pretty tired, no-one seemed to wanna talk. On my way to Europe had an hour and fifteen minute stop in Frankfurt. But my flight was late getting in, so it was more like 50 minutes to get through security and to my next take-off. A very helpful little older lady with a thick African accent (who worked there) instructed me to open the gate, jump the que, and run. I did, it was kinda fun to sprint through an airport, I felt like I was in a movie! And it was the only moment in the whole trip when I was glad I had worn running sneakers, otherwise I felt like a hick.

Newark airport was cool - everyone had New York accents, and was friendly and gruff. No bullshit there. As close as I've come to being in New York City. One day, one day..

Life is about airports, a series of airports. Heaven may smell like the airport. Although I may never get that proven...

Everything that begins, ends. Our lives and every association, project, dream, we ever have. We get on a plane and leave it one day, and that plane lands somewhere else. Somewhere previously unknown to us.

Dublin was my favourite - it's small and simple and smells a bit funny, like airports used to be, instead of the huge corporate well-oiled machine they are now, where we are smoothly and seamlessly herded from one destination to another, and sold lots of stuff on the way. Vancouver isn't bad. I had an awesome smoked meat sandwich in Montreal airport though - a high point in that day and a half of flat-out travel.

Come. Go. Life is a series of airports. I love them because I love the change they represent - leaving things behind, and embracing new things; the unknown.

Connemara

If you should ask then maybe they'd
Tell you what I would say
True colors fly in blue and black
Blue silken sky and burning flag

Connemara.

Is an area of Ireland, in the west. It is "a district in the west of Ireland of which the boundaries are not well defined." It is mostly seen as being north of Galway. We were south of Galway. It was a beautiful area. So - not sure if I was really in 'Connemara' or not.. 
We drove in at night, stayed in a little B&B. Sat and drank tea in the sitting room that evening, and pondered the great spinning void of fate, under our minds, and our feet, as we chatted about life and love. After going to Spiddal that day, to see my Mom's grave by the sea. 

We awoke to swirling mist, little birds outside the window at breakfast. It was Dec 21, 2012 - the end of the World.

The boys of the NYPD choir
Were singing "Galway Bay"

Meditating tonight, lying in the dark - I stepped into that golden zone where; I could hear my neighbours in the room below, talking, my room-mate come in and talk to the dog, close the door, and the silence, under and through it all - they weren't at odds, instead all part of one song. I thought, 'Connemara' is a good name for that.. phenomenon. When you're there - there is a river of life, the music in a pub in Galway, the wind across the scattered fractured rocks of the Burren, the bird songs, the people's jibes and laughing eyes, even through sorrow - the music a mystery under it all, the mystery a music. What ended, with the World, and what began?..

On the way back from Spiddal we stopped at a restaurant/hotel called Twelve, in Barna, just north of Galway. Great food, great service, awesome vibe. A shelf of books on Irish history and other rebelliousness. When an errand knight needs a break from his mid-evil wanderings, Twelve is a great spot to have a pint, maybe take a lady out. I was lucky to do so. Well, she took me out, I think. It was a great time in a magical few days.

I've again renewed my commitment to follow my path, wherever it may lead me. Will go back to school. When this trip came up I had a weird moment of being afraid, and I later defined it as; "wanting to stay in my hidey-hole." I live in a really great place, truly great, but - no hidey-holes. I have an errand to do.

The fortunate
      Is he whose earnest purpose never swerves,
      Whose slightest action or inaction serves
The one great aim.

The Irish know how to live. In more ways than one. Enjoy your life, laugh, love, laugh some more. But be free at any cost. 

I brought home a bottle of Connemara Irish Whiskey, and the poem I mentioned in the last entry, that my travelling companion (I'll call her "Diana", after the huntress) and I couldn't find - is called Connemara. 

In the west of Ireland I was reminded to enjoy life..

... and of the One Great Aim.

There's something sleeping in my breast

That wakes only in the west;
There's something in the core of me
That needs the West to set it free.

Kent (let's talk)

This blog is largely about my brother, although he may not be mentioned in it again.

I went to school in England in 2006 for a bit, finishing my degree. It was at a castle. Which is kind of like a cathedral, to a blind man.

Castles were military and social structures - mundane, about survival. Those architects, who learned those skills, spiritualized them - and hence - Cathedrals.

In England in those days, I was going thought a lot, marriage breakdown, health problems; 'a crisis of faith'. And yet - I recalled you.

"And then there was another way home"

lemme out

I had a dream when I got back, and people always said you should follow your dreams, that there was a place for me. I sniffed it on the wind, when I was there.

In Ireland I sniffed it again, and this time - it had a name. And an angel came and opened the door in my head.

Castles architects spiritualized their skills, and made tributes to the human spirit. Can we do the same?

The answer my, friend, is blowin' in the wind