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

Rebirth of the Earth / The Burren and the Hare

The benefits of travelling in the off-season: you've got the whole place to yourself, and if there's magic to be had - it's yours.

We were driving through the Burren, south of Galway in the west of Ireland, the first day of the world, after visiting my Mom's grave in Spiddal on the last. We pulled over randomley, shocked and lured by the stark raw beauty of a hillside, and we got out and wandered.

Ireland welcomed us into a sacred landscape. There was a snippet of a poem on a brochure with a great map, which we mysteriously lost, which summed it up;.. "in the west, I find my soul.." or something like that. It is apparently un-google-able (and I know from experience that some of the poems I've quoted here are only available online in this blog, because people come to me by them, and so I assume there are lots of poems not yet online). A Quest, it is..

The rain and mist, raw rocks, fractured soul of Ireland: all one piece underneath. It is a landscape of limestone karst - fields of limestone, flat, and broken into rectangles and decorated by the hands of man with a web of one-stone-wide stone walls..

And - monuments. To what? Unknown. We saw a Hare close to a Dolmen (the Poulnabroun) and it hopped off towards a pit. The pit had apparently been a cave system, associated with the Dolmen, which collapsed in the past. We found a little hole that clearly was part of a still-existent cave (because you could feel air moving within).

Down the rabbit-hole.. into another world. When I looked it up - the Hare is associated with Dolmens in Druidry, as both are representative of rebirth.

The trip spelled rebirth for me - I didn't realize how much I was drowning - in worries and stresses and misaligned dreams. In the time away the sun rose on a new day, and the future is again sparkling with possibility and the faerie-dust of the unknown...

Thank you, Ireland.

the end is near

this blog has no clear subject matter or order.

This is the end
My only friend, the end

Driver, where you taken' us 

God speaks to each of us when he makes us,
then walks with us silently out of the night.

These are the words we dimly hear:

You, sent out beyond your recall,
go to the limits of your longing.
Embody me.

Flare up like a flame
and make big shadows I can move in.

Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final.
Don't let yourself lose me.

Nearby is the country they call life.
You will know it by its seriousness.

Give me your hand.,

Rilke

I'm realizing that what I refer to as my 'wildness' - the need/desire to always be on the move, challenged, travelling - is a sort of biological drive-depression, and many of my close friends suffer/are blessed from it as well.

It is a kind of depression, and I remember this really sweet, hot, brilliant woman (I loved before) saying - "you and me are the same, but I take drugs for it, and you don't." It's true. Instead - I live in four provinces and 8 towns/cities in a five year period, have three careers in that time, and fall in love almost every day. 

"our heartbeat".

A friend told me about some dudes he knew years ago on the waterfront in Calgary, they said, broken-toothed and black-eyed - "we like to get drunk and fight." He said, "no shit." It's not that I think I'm going to save the world, it's that I like it. I like to fight. And this fight is the prettiest with the worst odds. So it seemed like a good way to spend my life. Life is fundamentally meaningless, but yet - I have not forgotten you.

"I don't give a fuck about hockey."

Considering: A - I am flying to Ireland on Friday, and B - the world is ending (and a new world of sharing/"communitarianism" is coming into being) only six days later (Dec. 21, 2012), I will quote the hot English chick from Snatch (at the bookey's) = "All. Bets. Are. Off."

Life requires a certain mercilessness, always. To throw out the old, or "going-to-be-old-any-day-now" and make room for the new. 

Every day, I'm dumpin' the bodies.


“The twenty-first of December 2012 is the end of selfishness, of division. The twenty-first of December has to be the end of Coca-Cola and the beginning of mocochinche (a local peach-flavored soft drink). “The planets will line up after 26,000 years. It is the end of capitalism and the beginning of communitarianism.”

Life on Earth (the cloud people)

In the autumn night
when there's no wind blowin'
I could hear the stars falling in the dark

... when confronted with a decision, or a fork in the road in life, sometimes I get tangled up in what's around me - a person, a place, a job. But sometimes - I fly up, way up, among the clouds, and look down on the world, and think - why am I here - what is the purpose of my life here on Earth? From that view, everything is clear..

Lately I've been encountering the most beautiful people, truly exceptional human beings, just so clear - like mountain streams in spring. I'm not talking physically beautiful (although often) and I'm not talking worldly-successful (although, again - often - at what they've chosen), but I'm talking CLEAR - people who seem more like spirits, just walking around in skins - they are kind, warm, open, patient, understanding, gracious - and 'of their own'. Humble.

Supposedly the things you notice in others - that make you angry, or attract you - are things in yourself that you are either denying exist, or are moving towards. I started noticing clarity in others a few years ago, and find I'm more and more drawn to it.

I was going to go to Mexico/Gautemala.. for the "end of the world" (not that I really think it's going to end, but I'm kinda hoping it might begin..) this is the trip I was contemplating in The Wanderer. It just started to feel wrong - there was an element of ego to it, and it was stressing me financially, and I've again had to re-contemplate my role in life and where I am, and why. So I dropped it, "let go."

I was just getting busy creating plans and accepting that I'd be home for the Holidays, and then something new came to fill the space - turns out I'll be in Ireland for the 'end of the world'. As I said to my brother, I "will go see Mom, and celebrate the turning of the ages where our ancestors did 2600 years ago." In fact, it's 2460 years. It is the end of an age and the beginning of another. No big deal - but a fucking awesome time to be alive. I feel like this is the most amazing period of flux and change and opportunity to shape the future - that we have seen in a long time..

We all have our chance to be part of it.. And I guess that's the sixth way I could define why I live the life I do - to be "part of it."

One of these cloud people reminded me lately that .. we are the total investment of all of our ancestors. Why would I go to Mexico, other than 'it's cool' - when I can be with my blood - a place where my blood runs in the ground? Where my ancestors fought, died, and made me (the fun way)?

I keep writing this blog because I assume there are other people out there going through the same shit I'm going through: reaching for the stars, lookin for a place to stand, taking a stand, hoping for a break, always - an eye on a distant star. Otherwise known as the Rainbow Warriors - one by one, through the mists - you are revealing yourselves. To those who haven't yet - I am looking for you.

Talk to the spirits
Talk to the wind

Ceremony 

Ceremony ..

.. of the Cloud People

the Wanderer

Rob's grandfather stormed in and grabbed the little boat out of my hands, "Jesus, mumble, boy, you're gonna cut your hands off.. "

It was the most words I had ever heard Mr. H string together. I'll admit to having been intimidated. I was probably seven years old. I had gone into his workshop to make myself a wooden boat, and had nailed two pieces of wood together - a flat one with a block on top. When he came in I was busily chopping a prow into the front of the flat piece with a hatchet.

I held firm despite my fear, and made it clear that I was going to make my own boat, thank you very much. I think he helped a bit, but I was being so stubborn and difficult he eventually left, with a grumble, to let me cut my hand off if I really wanted to.

I later took the boat to Long Pond with my brother and Mother, and floated it around with a little string tied to it.

Later that summer, at the Dingle one day, a little park on the edge of Halifax, we were at the beach, and I ran to the car to get my boat. Not sure when I named it "the Wanderer," and I think it was my brother's idea, but I know it had been christened by this point.

Aug (what I called my brother back then) floated some proper toy boat, and I floated the Wanderer around. On a string, at first. And then - not.

Mom warned me - "you're gonna lose your boat, Paddy." But I said it would be fine. The Dingle is on "the Arm", a small harbour on the other side of the Halifax peninsula. It opens into the North Atlantic. The tide went out. I could see my boat going, and I ran to get it, but ultimately all I could do was watch it float away. I'm sure Mom thought I'd get over it (and never dreamed I'd be writing a blog about it thirty-three years later).

Two years later, when I was eight or nine, I was walking on the other side of the Arm with my brother and Dad, at dusk one night, at the seashore property of one of Dad's customers (Mrs. Read?), and there, tangled in the seaweed and flotsam, was my boat. It was a little battered, but otherwise fine. The Wanderer.

I took it home, and it turned up now and again over the years, here and there. Each reappearance was meaningful to me, like no matter how far I strayed, I would always return 'home.'

I dreamed about it last night - that I found it again.

I started a comic/graphic novel years ago, in my teens, about a character called the Wanderer - sort of a less personal version of what this blog has become.

I'm preparing for a trip soon - to somewhere I've never been. Not a long one, but it always freaks me out a bit how I seem to come alive once travel is on the docket, like a dog that just loves the car - I don't really care where I'm going or for how long - as soon as someone says "road trip" - I say, "I'm ready." And everything in my life starts to align, like metal filings around an electro-magnet, which has just been turned on.

That character, I always draw him the same, has a particular jacket. I found it two weeks ago at a second hand store in Port A, for $4.50. Finding it kinda freaked me out a bit.

It's funny though, to have a back door. Hiking Sulphur Mountain, near Banff, in 2008 with an Ozzy pal, I said I always kept my passport on me, in case I decided to bail out. He stopped, in the snow, and looked back at me and said "dark."  Is it? I never felt that way. Every darkness has a seed of light, and light the seed of darkness - sometimes I can't tell them apart anymore.

All you've found is another back door
...
Take the heart of the travelling band
You'll never understand that
All they know ... is the yellow line

Dreaming about the Wanderer last night kinda freaked me out a bit - what part of myself am I finding or about to find?

For ancient and indigenous shamans, the chief cause of many of our complaints – fatigue, low energy, excessive vulnerability to illness and allergies – is soul loss. The understanding is that in any human life, we may lose part of our vital energy and identity through pain or grief, shame or abuse or wrenching life choices. The cure is to try to find that missing piece and bring it back and put it where it belongs. 
     For me, soul recovery is central to healing. In order to be whole and able to operate with the best and brightest parts of our beings, we may need to recover parts of ourselves that have gone missing. While we can look to a shamanic practitioner – if we can find a reliable and responsible one – to assist us through the operation known as soul retrieval, it may be safer and more empowering to learn the techniques that will enable us to be self-healers and shamans for our own family of selves.
    Our dreams offer us roads to soul recovery.
  ...
    Soul recovery, in the fullest sense, is not only about reclaiming our younger selves. It is about meeting and integrating all our personality aspects, including as much of the energy and insight of the larger or higher Self as we can manage to contain at this stage in our life journey.

I've mentioned before that I've always felt like, when it was time to travel, part of my soul would go wait by the road, for me to catch up with it. And until then - I was not whole. I've made him wait for years, at times. Or not.. ;) The character that I drew, with the jacket - is my image of that layer of my soul.

That force, the "Wanderer" energy, I both love and fear, because while I can call on it - it can also call on me, simply by walking out to the road. The "home" that I knew the Wanderer would always come back to, and this is what reassured me about its reappearances through my youth, and even into my twenties, although I couldn't have articulated it this way - is me.

Yeah I left with nothing
But the thought you'd be there too
Looking for you

Yeah I left with nothing
Nothing but the thought of you

I went wandering