the pursuit of Happiness (Merry Christmas)

On my way to Victoria tomorrow, then back here for a Tofino Christmas! Pretty happy about it. Pretty happy about living here..
Pretty happy about life. Pretty happy.

My brother's name is Arthur. We share a destiny in some way. I always wondered as a kid if I was Merlin. Not sure if I'm wise or powerful. But I was a very somber serious kid in many ways. Merlin aged backwards. That's one way we're alike. As I go on I seem to get simpler and take more joy out of life.

I love living here!
This is the most beautiful place I've ever been, and my spiritual home. I click with the people here. And the land. And the Sea.

Nothing is guaranteed in life, but for now I am grateful for the glories I have.

I remember hearing on cbc radio years ago - I was driving south down Hollis St, almost at the end of it, in my 1997 four door toyota tercel (I still love you), and someone quoted Carl Jung as having said, "happiness does not make people happy, meaning makes people happy."
Clearly - I've never forgotten it.

I saw it again this evening
black sail on a pale yellow sky
and just as before in a moment
it was gone where the gray gulls fly

Happiness is elusive. As meaning. What has meaning for us today may not tomorrow. And what we seek for tomorrow as our source of meaning - may not have it when we get there.

So I'm thrice blessed. I guess I could say again at this juncture- I write this blog for a reason. My life is not always easy. But it's good.

"One with your solar and lunar positions can achieve happiness by channeling your diverse interests and enthusiasm into service for others."


That's a quote from my "free-online-astrological-profile." Clearly (or not) I post it because I think it describes me. But I know not everyone will find meaning the same way I do. And that lots will. I wear a cape (see my 1st entry - http://errandknight.blogspot.com/2010/10/my-blog-my-chosen-lifestyle.html) so it's easier for others to too. I know lots already do, better than I ever will.

This is my backyard:

My cup overfloweth...

This place is so rich with meaning, and I am here for love. Am I still a traveller, why do I have what started as a travel blog? Yes, and - because we are all travellers, from our cages to our destinies, from birth till death. I have friends and a lovely person coming out to visit me. I won't have to count my blessings this year - they will count me.

Peace on Earth.

Goodwill to All.

through the Owl-Gate...

It was night-time when I drove back to Tofino last week, after a few days in Vancouver. The moon was bright. My one headlight wouldn't go on high-beam, so I drove by the moon.
My stereo wasn't working either. But if it was - I guess it woulda been playing - when the world is runnin down - you make the best of what's still around...

You think more without the stereo. I do anyway.

It wasn't "the pass", long past that - but a pass. And the point when I feel like you enter the Tofino-realm, where the rest of the world no longer holds as much sway. Like a Gate-Way. And I blessed this gate as I crossed. It's some mountains around Kennedy Lake that mark it for me. I felt, driving by the moon, tired, like it was the door to my house, and I was coming home. And as I stepped over the threshold I looked up, and said thanks.

I remember a few years ago noticing how people have quiet superstitions about passing through those little triangles by electric poles. You know - where a cable with a yellow plastic tube around it comes down on an angle. They're often in places on corners that make it more convenient to pass through, yet people go around. Why?

Once I thought about it I started seeing it a lot - people avoid anything that seems, psychologically - like a gateway. I eventually concluded, rightly or wrongly - that it's because portals represent change, irreversible change.
I started walking through them all. Bring it on, I figured, and have walked through yellow-plastic-wrapped triangles, crawled through holes under fallen logs in the woods, and certainly passed through any formal gateways at castles I've gone to school at.

Driving through that mountain pass the other night felt that way. I am making a life here in Tofino. It's irreversible.

There was an eclipse the other night -the 10th. I set my alarm for 5:50 am and went out in the yard in my underwear to see that it was raining and I could go back to bed. I saw instead, hanging in front of me - a twisted moon - an orange globe with a slice of silver. I went and watched it on Chestermans Beach with Gord Downie. It was at full eclipse when a shooting star blasted by next to it, cutting the last stitch holding me to any sense of "only what is possible, please".

Sunday afternoon I was walking in town to get my car and a snowy owl flew over and past - down Niel St., past the hospital and left out to Tonquin beach area.. I was ... floored?
Totally unsurprised?
It was pure white, the span of the largest gull, but muscular, with two cotton balls for feet. I drove to the end of Niel St. and scrambled down through the scrub to a little gravel beach, to find him (small for a snowy = male), but didn't. Didn't matter = message delivered.

I saw one last April. After dreaming about them two nights in a row. I know - let's not cling to outdated notions of reality here. They both reminded me of Mt. Shasta. Not sure why, except that it's also called  - The White Mountain. And it was where I saw a vision of the future. How many me's do I need to let go of to get there?

"...so I thought: maybe death isn't darkness, after all, but so much light wrapping itself around us - as soft as feathers - that we are instantly weary of looking, and looking, and shut our eyes, not without amazement, and let ourselves be carried, as through the translucence of mica, to the river that is without the least dapple or shadow - that is nothing but light - scalding, aortal light - in which we are washed and washed out of our bones."
- White Owl Flies Into and Out of the Field - Mary Oliver

People don't like Gateways because they represent permanent change. You can only bring through a gateway certain things, and other things cannot pass through. You can't control which is which.

I felt that way driving through that mountain pass. I felt that way when I saw the owl. I felt that way with the shooting star. Life is irreversible. Resisting permanent change is resisting the essence of what it is to be alive, to exist.

Let the owl take you. Fall through the Gate into the unknown future, and meet a self you never knew...

I come from downtown

born ready for You...

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.

51

This is my 51st entry. I've been doing this for over a year now, the first - my blog, my chosen lifestyle , was Oct. 4th, 2010.

In some ways I didn't realize when I set out on this journey in June 2010, what I was getting into. It's been scary and tough at times (and absolutely wonderful, and the smartest thing I've ever done..), but I'm really thankful that I'm where I am right now. Hell, as my Boss said in a recent online chat:

"so, when do you want more work?

fuck, that sounds good. You live in the most beautiful spot on earth, and someone sends you work remotely."

Yeah, it's pretty good. I live in Tofino, and am slowly carving out a role as a nomadic lawyer/artist/writer. What people don't see is what it's taken to get here, and I have had moments when I've been sick, or wet, cold and alone, and thought, "jesus Pat, you gave up (insert item here - home/job/girlfriend) for this? - you're an idiot"
And I wonder sometimes if I am just a 'pilgrim' - someone looking for a shrine he's never found.

He's a poet, he's a picker--
He's a prophet, he's a pusher--
He's a pilgrim and a preacher, and a problem when he's stoned--

But then I think of the other things people don't see: the support and the love. My brother is chief in that realm (although maybe he is seen.. ;). But I don't think he knows, every time I stray a little farther from shore - that I couldn't do it without him, that every time I'm ready to break, or throw in the towel - he suddenly appears. And my awesome friends, Jesse James and his lovely Queen, the angel Gabriel, Button, An'K, Laura Dern, Gordie Howe - all support me in ways I'm not sure they realize.

I still feel like a charioteer - trying to master two opposing forces in my life - one is that Pilgrim, a wanderer from start to finish, in youth a perfect gypsy, loved and untouchable, in old age -a toothless madman, gibbering prophecy and dispensing wisdom, pissing in people's bushes. The other is a hero, a knight, with the highest of hopes and ideals- trying to save the damsel, slay the dragon, and find the holy grail. Somewhere in between there's a guy who has bills to pay and likes to have a warm bath occassionally.

And where does love fit into all this? Some people are fine without it, but I'm still looking for my giant-souled warrior woman / partner in sectret love and bold enterprise. Yet one would think that I was trying to set up a life where love was pretty much an impossibility. Maybe I'm just scared.

But the fact is, through all the self-doubt - I am getting closer to what I want: yoking all these opposing forces to a direction they can all abide by - a life of travel and adventure, of yes - slaying dragons (even little ones), speaking for those with no voice, protecting the weak, being a lawyer, artist, writer, wanderer - an errand knight. To me "err" and "knight" mean - admit your imperfections, but still shoot for the stars.

I write this blog to let others know that they are not alone in striving for a good life, their dreams, and to find meaning through action in this swirling, great, mysterious world. I feel connected to the occupiers of Wall St, youth in Syria, indigenous people all over the world throwing off the yoke of colonialism - to strive for freedom and justice is to be alive - and that includes kicking off social and cultural norms to create a new way of living.
The one I'm trying to create is one where we openly seek to be our best, to do our best - to show our love and gratitude for all of creation - through action. And where we're honest and open about who we are, our pleasures, needs, and shortcomings. And where we are accepting of those things in others. I believe in every moment we are creating our world, for better or worse - and this is one of the ways I hope to make it better.

Will I ever find my warrior princess? I assume she'll show up when she's ready. If not I'll go live on Mt. Shasta one day, and take her as my lover.
I invite fate, or nature, to decide...

... when white morning
Runs with a shout along the jagged mountains
Strength of a cotton thread draws out to Ariadne
The Bravest Soldier, The Wisest Judge,
The Mightiest King!

In the meantime I have an awesome life - walking this path alone, but not alone:

treading it with (happy) feet
until it meets some larger way
where many paths and errands meet..

Soul is Freedom. Love is Power. Hope is Love. Dreams are Revolutions...

Bedwell Sound, the river's source

"Swimming up that dark river to discover it's source... "

.. kept going through my mind today as we paddled (ok, I sat in the middle) a canoe up ___ river in Bedwell Sound, an arm of Clayoquot Sound.
We were scoping out some forestry work, to see if old-growth was being cut, and had a long hike ahead of us after our short paddle, which came after being dropped off by a water taxi, which came after a half hour boat ride from Tofino.

It's a place most people never get to see, I felt priveleged. We saw a bear on the path ahead of us at one point, it wandered off. Peaceful. Art the bear.

The loggers we were scoping out picked us up and drove us back down the hill in the rain, in the back of their pick-up truck. Not the first ride I've had in the back of a pick-up, in the rain, in 'end-of-the-road-country,' and not the best. But there's nothin on earth like riding in the back of a pick-up truck.
We saw heron's, they got up and flew to another spot, a hundred feet off, as we paddled by. Peaceful.

A blue preacher
flew toward the swamp
in slow motion

Out here there are          ... no chuches,
where God is imprisoned and lamented,
like a trapped and wounded animal.

Not trapped. And neither are we.

Swimming up this river, as we walked we talked about sasquatches, dentistry, and talking about dentistry. But also - about finding purpose in life. So casual, when it comes. Like a bear standing in the road in front of you, shrugs, and wanders off into the bush, like a heron flying by, croaking out holy dictates, unintelligable,

no yearning for an afterlife, no looking beyond,
no belittleing of death
but only longing for what belongs to us
and serving earth, lest we remain unused.

I guess that's why I'm here. This is my church. I said a while ago (four or five entries ago) - that I (we) had to figure out which ideal we serve, and then - everything's easy, most questions are answered (or irrelevent) and all we have to do is do it. Serve the earth, lest we remain unused. I guess I, and we - are getting closer to that.

It wasn't a glorious mission, we didn't succeed and get the photos or info we were looking for. We didn't kill Captain Kurtz. We had lunch on a log. I picked up rocks. We saw an eagle, salmon jumped out of the sea,

One is a long time coming to the point
where the enchanted may be free
all charms be neutralized, and everything
be what it, shining, seems to be.