I liked the movie All the Pretty Horses. It was really good. A good rendition of one of my favorite books. Except it left out my two favourite scenes. Like Lord of the Rings, without the Forest King dude, what's with that?
One of the favourite scenes they left out was when he was down in Mexico, his gf dumps him, and he goes into town and gets drunk and gets in fights, over and over, wakes up bloody and battered in an alley. He doesn't fight to win, just to fight. This scene expresses something essentially male.
The other is early in the book, he's walking up a dry riverbed in the morning, going to do some work for his Dad on their ranch. He comes up suddenly, startled, there's a First Nations dude (the author uses the word 'Indian') really close to him, squatting by the riverbank. When he looks at the First Nations dude, the First Nations dude looks at him. He's an alert young guy, and used to the outdoors, so he thinks, 'how did I not notice someone so close to me'?
He didn't notice because the First Nations dude wasn't looking at him. He was just squatting by the riverbank, staring off into the middle distance. But he was watching him, and that's how he was watching him: by not looking at him.
He sees from the experience: that's the way to hunt - you never look at your prey. All living things are aware of being watched. I would expand that to - one's destiny is a living thing.
I think I picked it up from a Steinbeck novel, but I certainly couldn't tell you which one, although I could narrow it down to one of the four I've read. Squatting, and maybe scratching in the dirt. With a stick or something. Staring off into the distance. I've done it for years. It's not about thinking, but contemplating.. sort of..
But I never really applied it to life until reading Pretty Horses. I guess the Steinbeck must have been Grapes of Wrath.
I did the hike from Radar Hill to Schooner Cove again the other day while in the Tofino area. That's the one I wrote about in The Sea (it's still warm, and still safe, here.) That's my favorite entry so far, although I love the Objective Observer too. If you want to know who I am (not saying you do ;) The Sea is it.
This time I did it with three friends; Jesse James, Gillian Anderson, and Jane Austen. I promised I'd change people's names. ;) It had been so personal last time, and this time - so social! I loved it, but a different experience.. we stopped and ate tu'cup - sea urchin - raw. Was delicious. Like life; sweet, unexpected, mysterious. Life is like a box of raw sea urchins...
To the land conduct the roamer,
To the open air conduct me,
To behold the moon in heaven,
And the splendour of the sunlight;
See the Great Bear's stars above me,
And the shining stars in heaven.
...
Headlong in the water falling,
With his hands the waves repelling,
Thus the man remained in ocean,
And the hero on the billows.
I suppose the last year (almost) of my life has been an act of faith, I read a thing a friend posted on fb today - the top five regrets people have on their deathbed. Leaping into the unknown too much will not be one of mine...
And then we went into the sea cave, and we went around the cliff, and took some cool shortcuts I would never have guessed about. Gillian knew about them, she grew up in the area. And in Schooner Cove I found a feather, from the daughter of my brother eagle, and put it aside for a new friend back in Van. It was the first time I'd been back to this sacred place in about 6 months, and I'd missed it.
One month is too long... as Jane said, "I'd like to do this hike every week!"
mmm - ok.
My second-first blog entry was subtitled, I Am That, yep, this period has been about being who I am. Regret number one was: I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
I may have risked trashing my career and finances, and I'm sure (know) some people think I'm nuts, but... I've spent the last year living life true to myself. I mentioned in The Sea how, all those years ago when I first came to this coast, and walked this shoreline - it was the first time I really saw the limitlessness, the "Gift Shop" of Life - the fact that you can do whatever the hell you want with your life - Anything!!
In squatting by the river, the sea, my path, I've been 'not thinking so much as abandoning thought,' I 'went through open country, over water meadows streams' - across this land, across my inner land, .. envisioning, digesting, fogging the mind, stirring my soul - "seeing" what comes next.. I've had time to think about all the future possible lives I could have, directions and choices I can take or make, like I said in The Sea - 'walking by the myriad images of the future', or something like that...
What does come next??
I always felt like I was a sailor in a past life, I've always said, when upon leaving for a sketchy journey, and friends were worried I'd die - "I will die, the old me will never return, and a new me will be born, out there somewhere, and... that will probably happen many times.."
I was a sailor. I was born upon the tide
And with the sea I did abide.
I sailed a schooner round the Horn of Mexico
I went aloft and furled the mainsail in a blow
And when the yards broke off they said that I got killed
But I am living still.
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Saturday, June 18, 2011
Mountain: "I Am."
I drafted this blog a few days ago, posted it, deposted it, and now am posting it again. The Tofino content hasn't changed, although I have more to add in the next entry or two. The personal content.. I remember a night with my friend Jim at "Joey's Place" in Toronto, about 13 months ago (christ, it seems like a lifetime), I was drunk and flirting with the waitress. It was late and I was telling Jim about how my marriage had ended and my subsequent wandering, and he said, "reminds me of Springsteen - 'like a river that don't know where it's going, I took a wrong turn and I just kept goin..' "
It's true, I said, everybody's got a hungry heart. That doesn't make anything I do right. It just is.
the old knot:
cleave to this,
though faithfulness, all faithfulness,
cuts at the heart
(that wreckage carved out by choice, the heart)
& cleave this -
whatever is split
will carry its shadow, that second road,
its yellow leaves falling and falling
in the steep woods of our hundred other lives
I'm not sure about the middle lines, the "wreckage" and "faithfulness" parts, but the end.. I know all too well. The steep woods of our hundred other lives.
I was recently faced with a choice of continuing to be in a relationship (maybe I had a choice..;) or with someone else. The second someone - was me.
Cleave to this, ... and cleave this...
The poem is called Doppleganger, by Jane Hirshfield. My friend Ula has a book of her poetry, it's kind of sexy and sometimes gory, both physically and emotionally. I randomly flipped to this poem when I first realized I had to make a choice.
It eventually became clear that it had already been made, because, as my brother said about me, after being on this adventure for so long - I'm addicted to being happy. So, I'm single again and 'free' on my path. Although after eleven months of itinerance I'm not really sure what freedom means. That is, clearly, to be addressed in another entry.
And headed back to Tofino this weekend. It always comes down to Tofino, doesn't it? Seems to for me. Not sure when I'll give in and just move there. A friend once suggested that maybe loving people wasn't my path, but places in nature. Maybe.
Tofino seems to be getting set up for some sort of showdown, sometime. The provincial government in BC has a pro-mining agenda. We have a conservative federal government. Imperial Metals has done exploratory drilling on Catface Mountain, for copper. They say it's because they want to help the Ahousat, of course, not out of greed. And now they've acquired another property in the area - Fandora, an old gold mine.
This is all in a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve. And one of the most sacred places on Earth.
But really, "nothing's as precious, as a hole in the ground."
I was thinking about how depleted our forests are, how rare and exciting it is to walk in old growth forests, but really - they should be everywhere!
And we think of ourselves as being so rich. And at the same time act like a family fallen on hard times and selling off the last of their heirlooms at the pawnshop - for enough money to buy a couple bigmacs and some cokes.
Cleave to this, ... and cleave this.
Who are we? Flipping through some Deepak Chopra the other day in the bookstore, he said something like; "we never ask ourselves; who am I?" So I did, regarding the decision I had to make. Did I want to be someone who stays in a place they no longer feel is quite where they belong, out of fear or insecurity, no matter how lovely it is?
It lead me to think - what do we want as a society? Because we can't have both. We have to choose one path, and cut the other away: we can liquidate every last place on Earth, for money, and spend it today too. Or we can count our riches differently.
Can we make it so that; the steep woods of Clayoquot Sound, and all the other places that are sacred to us, as a society and as individuals, are not "yellow leaves falling and falling, in the steep woods of our hundred other lives"?
Did they get you to trade
Your heroes for ghosts?
Hot ashes for trees?
Hot air for a cool breeze?
And cold comfort for change?
We don't have to make that trade. We can be our own heroes. We can have trees, a cool breeze. We can change. This place means a lot more to me than money, I've given up a lot to be here. I'll go to Tofino tomorrow and breathe the sweet, wild, cool air, listen to the mountains, the beaches, the birds, they don't say "gracias", but simply; "I am."
And so do I.
It's true, I said, everybody's got a hungry heart. That doesn't make anything I do right. It just is.
the old knot:
cleave to this,
though faithfulness, all faithfulness,
cuts at the heart
(that wreckage carved out by choice, the heart)
& cleave this -
whatever is split
will carry its shadow, that second road,
its yellow leaves falling and falling
in the steep woods of our hundred other lives
I'm not sure about the middle lines, the "wreckage" and "faithfulness" parts, but the end.. I know all too well. The steep woods of our hundred other lives.
I was recently faced with a choice of continuing to be in a relationship (maybe I had a choice..;) or with someone else. The second someone - was me.
Cleave to this, ... and cleave this...
The poem is called Doppleganger, by Jane Hirshfield. My friend Ula has a book of her poetry, it's kind of sexy and sometimes gory, both physically and emotionally. I randomly flipped to this poem when I first realized I had to make a choice.
It eventually became clear that it had already been made, because, as my brother said about me, after being on this adventure for so long - I'm addicted to being happy. So, I'm single again and 'free' on my path. Although after eleven months of itinerance I'm not really sure what freedom means. That is, clearly, to be addressed in another entry.
And headed back to Tofino this weekend. It always comes down to Tofino, doesn't it? Seems to for me. Not sure when I'll give in and just move there. A friend once suggested that maybe loving people wasn't my path, but places in nature. Maybe.
Tofino seems to be getting set up for some sort of showdown, sometime. The provincial government in BC has a pro-mining agenda. We have a conservative federal government. Imperial Metals has done exploratory drilling on Catface Mountain, for copper. They say it's because they want to help the Ahousat, of course, not out of greed. And now they've acquired another property in the area - Fandora, an old gold mine.
This is all in a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve. And one of the most sacred places on Earth.
But really, "nothing's as precious, as a hole in the ground."
I was thinking about how depleted our forests are, how rare and exciting it is to walk in old growth forests, but really - they should be everywhere!
And we think of ourselves as being so rich. And at the same time act like a family fallen on hard times and selling off the last of their heirlooms at the pawnshop - for enough money to buy a couple bigmacs and some cokes.
Cleave to this, ... and cleave this.
Who are we? Flipping through some Deepak Chopra the other day in the bookstore, he said something like; "we never ask ourselves; who am I?" So I did, regarding the decision I had to make. Did I want to be someone who stays in a place they no longer feel is quite where they belong, out of fear or insecurity, no matter how lovely it is?
It lead me to think - what do we want as a society? Because we can't have both. We have to choose one path, and cut the other away: we can liquidate every last place on Earth, for money, and spend it today too. Or we can count our riches differently.
Can we make it so that; the steep woods of Clayoquot Sound, and all the other places that are sacred to us, as a society and as individuals, are not "yellow leaves falling and falling, in the steep woods of our hundred other lives"?
Did they get you to trade
Your heroes for ghosts?
Hot ashes for trees?
Hot air for a cool breeze?
And cold comfort for change?
We don't have to make that trade. We can be our own heroes. We can have trees, a cool breeze. We can change. This place means a lot more to me than money, I've given up a lot to be here. I'll go to Tofino tomorrow and breathe the sweet, wild, cool air, listen to the mountains, the beaches, the birds, they don't say "gracias", but simply; "I am."
And so do I.
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