Grace

Grace

Under pressure. In the storm. In the face of awkwardness. This is my work, to embody grace. And yours perhaps.

Life is a walking, breathing meditation and we are asked daily, in every moment to exist in this constant state of change. To bring grace to the things that stick in our gut, make us uncomfortable; that feel as unpredictable as betrayal. To bring it to the feelings that we are not proud of. It is possible to meet ourselves in them with grace. Kindness. A light hand.

It is not about subsuming ourselves, or covering up, or being modest, or soft, or too quickly forgiving. (Sometimes it is about being a hard-ass.) Grace can be rough, uncut, audacious, angry, sullen, giddy.
Careful or careless; it can be bright eyed and cacophonous. It does not need to be polite. It can and does exist in the land of Fuck You.

Grace is about stillness. The stillness that sits in our centre even as we might swirl around it, keening, pining, grasping. Laughing wildly and shouting 'what the fuck!' into the wind. It is the calm eye of my storm and yours. Grace allows us to drop the facade of competence, wholeness, perfection.
We can be broken and weak and still have it.

"We must accept the gifts of what was in order to embrace and accept what is."

the Art of happy

I was reflecting this week that I am damn good at challenge. As a side note, I met a woman while paddling on Tuesday who told me that as a Capricorn, I have been gifted with a life that is not always easy. Apparently it goes with the astrological territory. She was happy to inform me though that my moon in Pisces makes me appear less mercurial on the outside than my Capricornian bones might dictate. Thank goodness for small miracles.

Memories of trees.

But anyway, back to my point. I may not have it mastered, but as a Capricornian fish-goat I am quite adept at processing, overcoming, and absorbing the hard stuff that life tosses in my path. I certainly don't do it alone, and maybe part of what makes me good at it is that I do sometimes ask for help. And I tend to come out of it all stronger, clearer, and more myself on the other side. Moreover, I do this with a certain messy and beautifully human grace that is all my own. I have depth and I don't suffer the shallows gladly.

I found myself wondering how I do with the not-so-difficult things. The downright gleeful and blindingly joyful experiences and events that also get thrown into my arena. Am I as good at those as I am at dealing with the impossible, painful and breathtakingly disappointing?

I cast my mind back to the last time I felt that something simply wonderful had landed in my lap. It was pretty splendid. And I doubted it and myself. I remember that. It was a big ticket item and my 'receive' valve seemed to be jammed. As the light would begin to shine in I would be overcome with fear in the form of 'what ifs' and attachment to outcome. There were moments in the beginning when I was filled with dread; a terror that I was just imagining it. It couldn't possibly be real or meant for me. Even though it was obviously, and exactly that.

The good news is that I am aware that I have a tendency this way, and I am able to let go of some of this stuff as it arises. I see it for the fear-based morass that it is, at least in moments. I understand that it is rooted in a non-present mind that is yelling at me about the possibility of deep disappointment down the road, or the (terrifying) possibility that I am simply delusional and have an untrustworthy intuitive sense. However of late I am tempted to do better than that. There have been a couple of great (though less big ticket) things that have come up for me recently. Maybe these, and the next delectable item that is passed in my direction are good training for practicing the art of happy.

I am hard wired to continue to rise to life's challenges. But I will also aspire to have the same grace in the face of the stunningly wonderful as I do in the midst of catastrophic shit-storms. That is my assignment.

Straight Lines

I notice that I am using words borrowed from friends in these posts sometimes. The title here comes from a conversation that I had with my friend Julie, who has talked and listened me through some rough patches in the past months. She's a good 'un and reminded me one day that healing is not a straight line. Although it happens sometimes, we rarely wake up 'all better' never to fall back into the abyss again.

Most often I find that things move in waves, sometimes better and more clear, sometimes not. I have moments and occasionally days of epiphany and clarity. Then on the nth day I find myself 'regressed' again, turning over the same stone as before, perhaps seeing another aspect of it, or maybe just seeing the same aspect with different eyes. I get fed up with myself then. The ego pulls up to the curb and smacks me around a bit and asks me what the hell I am doing here, back on this beach, with this endless supply of sea-worn stones. Wasting my time. Get over it, she says, move on, find a new stone or two. Better, go to a new beach. She never reminds me that I have already done that, already moved on, or that coming back here sometimes is ok, not the end of the world, and is part of the process. I take a step or two forward, maybe a step or three back, but the result is something new. The ego is not gentle or truthful. And we are not built for straight lines.

I actually found myself saying to someone the other day that I am happy. It just came out, very calmly and without fanfare or analysis. I have built, am building a good life. I felt it to be true in that moment, and the sense of it has remained with me. It is a quiet voice, and it is made of simple stuff. It is not wild and collaborative and perfect. It is a calm intensity (to borrow someone else's words), imperfect, purposeful and kind.

Online

It's a bit of a departure for me in terms of topic, but I have something to say on the matter, so here goes. This bit is about navigating the heart, head and soul through the art of being 'single'.

Being single is kind of awesome. And not in the way that popular media or society might define 'being single' as being someone who is able to swim in the dating pool. The search for a partner is a thing that we seem to expect people to do when not in a relationship. This suggests that to be without a partner is to have a lack, and a need for striving instead of being. Admittedly I might be missing something here, as I have certainly not always been able to relate to the fear people experience as a result of being alone. Part of this is my make-up and part of it has been my social environment. But I think we are missing out on something in our constant quest for partnership. I am not saying that it's bad to want to date someone, not at all. Just that it's not weird not to. In fact, it could be an invitation to become more conscious of my own triggers and internal landscape. It is an invitation to return to yourself.

This all comes on the heels of a recent revelation. Having been encouraged by a couple of friends, I signed myself up on an online dating site. What the hell, I thought. But I guess what I remembered is that I am not a 'what the hell' kind of person. I went through the motions though. I wrote a rather blasé profile and exchanged a few messages. I even met a guy and went for coffee and a walk. But after a few weeks I took myself off the site for a number of reasons that are not altogether made of reason and more made of intuition. The experience has made me reflect on our desperate aversion to time spent alone, as well as the fears and insecurities I have that arise in the face of what I believe is expected of me.
I actually know a great number of people, male and female, many of whom I deeply admire and respect, who have done the online dating thing. It works for them. But for me the experience brought on an intense and almost overwhelming resistance. Rising like a tsunami. There is something, probably many things in that for me to reflect on that that I will not go into here, but I knew 'getting out there' was not the way forward for me.

Last year I started a relationship with someone. When it began I was pretty fresh out of a long term partnership and not looking to be in another one. I was enjoying my time and space, my kitchen clean or dirty by my own hands. But what emerged was something incredible, beautiful, magical and really really joyful. And for a couple of months we were swept up in the swing of something deeply connected, synergistic, and fun. It was not without it's complications, which ultimately led to the loss of this person in my life, but he was, if ever anyone ever has been, a 'fit'. Now, 10 months later, having just entered and quickly exited the 'dating' scene I have some observations on the matter of being single.
Here it is, in no specific order...

1) Connection:
Societal wisdom dictates that it helps to 'get back in the dating pool' in order to get over it or move on. The point of this (I think) is to drive the wedge of some other person between you and the last experience. But in my case I had this feeling that not only was the wedge impossible at this time, it was also only serving to make me feel worse. It made me feel more disconnected rather than more connected.
The real wedge that I needed was myself, the becoming of all the feelings and gifts that arose with that other person. To recognize that these came as a result of the coming together of kindred souls, but emerged from within. They are and always have been part of me. Realizing that there is no 'other', and there is no loss. Connection is always there, whether or not we are willing or able to truly feel it. It arrived in order to remind me of that. And to teach me what is possible, and how high the bar really is. I should be rising to that and meeting myself there, not trying to fill a hole.
Very often we feel that when the object of that love disappears for whatever reason, good or bad, so does the flow of love and connection. We are plunged into all the stories of loss and abandonment that our busy little minds can dredge up. In my case, regardless of the actual story and circumstance, I battle the persistent belief that I am not enough. Although when I shut my ears to that external noise, and tune in to what lies beneath and all around, I am reminded that this is not the case. More so it is the opposite. And even if I am able to tune into this quiet truth for moments in a week, it is enough. This is as clear to me as anything can be.
I also remembered what it is that I really want. My heart's desire. Not a picket fence, or a friday night date, or the pride of knowing that someone I think is awesome and wonderful feels the same (although all those things are lovely and good). I want connection, depth, truth. And that comes on wings, and is not on call, and will surprise me, as it comes in many different forms.

2) Scarcity;
We live in a culture that tells us, beats us over the head, with the idea that men (or women), the good ones, are rare. It reeks of competition and fear. We are told from every angle...and we believe... that it is hard to find anyone, not to mention 'the one'. I notice how this idea, this feeling, rises up in me. Inadequacy plagues me in the wake of heartbreak. But really that is bunk and it's not because there are hordes of beautiful men out there jonesing to date me. It is bunk because it is a construct and a numbers game. Love and connection are not about statistics. Despite what the media (or your mother, or your friends, or anyone else) tell you. It is about connection, which happens organically, naturally and emerges in the best ways when we are engaged in living our truth and are being most fully ourselves. A recognition of the transience of things, and an ability to notice even the small things in life.
Scarcity begets scarcity.  Abundance begets abundance. And a knowing that 'this too shall pass' and one day, 5 minutes or 5 years down the road, I will find myself noticing that whatever wonderings I had that I would ever meet anyone again have evaporated, because that is a ridiculous and absurd thought. Life is fluid and is constantly shifting, it is not static. Whatever the mind is telling you to believe right now is a story. Scarcity is an illusion. Useful only to those who would like to create demand based in fear. True connection lies outside of this construct.

3) Attachment:
I seek connection, but work not to attach to the form it takes. It is a gift in any form. Friendship is as important as romantic love, in fact generally trumps it in the end and in the best cases is the foundation for it. Above all he was and is my friend, my partner in mischief and laughter, someone I respect and admire and care deeply about. Regardless of the earthly form it currently takes, this channel has been opened. I aspire to relinquish myself to this flow and care less about the material shape of things.
This is a difficult line to walk and maintain, but it is where truth resides.

4) The "10 mistakes men/women make in relationships" myth. You know this, you've probably read a few of these articles and blogs that recite fear-mongering, blamey and monstrously dehumanizing rhetoric directed at the hordes of single people out there in the world. These paradigms are flung towards those who seek an external answer to 'what did I do wrong'. It's what makes many people cling to bad relationships and abhor periods of alone time. Maniacally dating to avoid the emptiness that is part of being human. Most of the things on these lists revolve around a central theme - don't be a normal human being who experiences feelings and periods of loneliness, sadness or neediness. Certainly don't ask for what you need, or express yourself with an open heart (heaven forbid you tell someone you care about them when it's the truth - you might scare them away!). It is unethical fear based bullshit and it grasps at us with it's clammy paws like Gollum with a fish.

The real trick is to steep yourself in being human and having feelings and occasionally saying or doing the 'wrong' things. If someone runs away because you did then it may be hard and these feelings will arise again, but ultimately you have been called to move deeper into yourself. Learn to be the living art that you are. Love the fact that you spent yourself, and did not lock it in the vault to turn to dust.

Burst

It is energy

Rebellion

A charge of electrical sea-bent storm-powered 

Wildness.

Something that possesses me at the end

of a slow, painful, 

Wait.

It's what it’s all about now.

It always comes back to this.

Meet the vileness you have been waiting to beautify,

Purify.

Clean this gorgeous dead carcass

Teaming with life.

Meet me somewhere, anywhere.

And you will see this life force 

Unleashed.

Beaten.

And awash with tears and 

Saltwater

Tearing me apart at the seams.

And burning me together

With the slow flame

That I am.

Beauty

There are times when life brings us profound beauty. We become shockingly alive in these times and places and then something else happens and we lose touch with it again. It is either knocked out of our consciousness abruptly or it simply fades as other things, often more mundane patterns, habits or 'real' life crowd in to fill the space. We leave beauty floating out at sea, drifting with the tides and currents. Sometimes we are sailing so quickly away from it, that we forget it was there. It disappears so quickly and completely behind us.

Later though, it can be rediscovered. If we listen quietly and are still for even moments, it arises again in our path. Mine has done so now, in these days of October. I am revisiting what I thought was lost for good, or perhaps never existed, only to realize that it had never left.

Sight

There is a moment when things change. It is not sudden as much as it is like a dawning, a slow rising of the light. It creeps, inexorably, into the dark cracks of the world. My world. Fog lifts and things that were once obscured now come out of hiding. Clear and altered inside my awareness.
I now know more of how things were and are. Different than what I understood or told myself. Perhaps the details don't matter, because I would have chosen my own story anyway. Followed my own program of grief and longing and disillusionment.
I am always washed clean in these times on the sea. Beside it or on it. It wraps me up in it's rhythms. And now I know that here I am, and my path is what it is. To unfold as it will, separate from what I can imagine or predict. Different from what I might consciously conceive. Different from what appears in front of my mortal eyes.
Real sight lies underneath. In dark corners rarely exposed to the sun. In-sight. Is locked down under layers upon layers of un-peeling truth, each layer a newly shifted version of reality. Each more simple and less confused than the last.

Ready

It has been a good day. A good week all in all. I have decided not to rush. Not out of bed in the morning, not to yoga class or in it as I move through postures, not to work, not to walk a dog. Not rush anything, but to move at the internal pace of things.

This is not to say I am planning on being late for anything, simply that I am committed to moving mindfully through life. Like my paddle through the water, I move at a true pace, not forcing it only to create whirlpools in a slow sea.

I will forget and become mindless again of course. It is alright to be in the eddy, because even the water here is moving, inexorably, somewhere.

There is not much to complain about. Life is good. I have a nice place to live, enough money, good meaningful and fun work. People. Some are farther away than I would like, but even those are with me daily. I hang out with dogs, paddle boats, climb things and talk to and do fun things with people for a living. I am fit and my body is enlivened after a season of sea and river and mountain.

I am grateful.

There is no need for me to drive a wedge between myself and whatever sadness has engulfed me this year. I get to shift out of it when I am ready. I have shifted already. Profoundly. I am not so sad today. or this week.

I am ready. Being, not striving, not searching. Sitting squarely in place as the perfectly imperfect person that I am and always have been. I will be found here. Staying put but willow-like. Some days I will be grateful and others sad and displaced. Confused. Unsure. But above all I will be myself, forming and reforming and becoming more of that.

Time

It's short, I know that. Life is. Time is precious. All that is true. But it's important to give things, yourself, 'stuff' of all sorts enough of it.
Time.
It's about pausing. Not pushing.
Resting. Being in place. Waiting. Allowing. Forgiving.
Live a forgiving life.
Remember that below all the sadness, imagined betrayals, outrages, anger, despair, is love.
Love.
That's it. That's all. The root of it.
It doesn't matter whether it's 'deserved'. Because it always is. Everyone, everything is deserving of love. Your love. Mine.
This is not to say that you must be loving whether it is deserved or not. Or that you must be loving towards the world in general whether you feel it or not. What I am saying is that do not stop yourself from it.
Forgive yourself, quickly, and just let it happen.
Time is of the essence. Is essence. You must allow it to steep, yourself to steep, once in a while.
Feel it.
You are lucky if you do.
I feel it. And feel tortured, but also blessed to be landing here.

Faith

There is something in me that says it's time. Time to drop back into the thin air of things. Of life, of nothingness, of the unknown. I have clung for a long time to a flower that has opened and dropped it's seeds into the ground already. It was beautiful, perennial, but I'm not sure when or where the sprouts will rise. Though they will. I am sure of that. In this lifetime or the next; within my sight or hidden from me.
My body and mind cannot wait for this certainty. My soul can and will. Simply because it knows and sees what the mind cannot, and will stay put while also falling with me.
So I stand here poised, leaning backwards into this nothing. Trusting that when I fall and feel the winds rush past me there is a fresh landing somewhere; new gifts, new life, surprises and wonders that I cannot yet see or imagine. Perhaps I am falling already and simply do not know it, my eyes still focussed on what is above. Maybe it will be a while before I let go my grip on what is no longer here.  Either way is fine, neither better or more right.
This is the secret to life, to 'what's next'. To have faith in what appears as nothingness.

Getting Stuck

It is time to honour the great human endeavour of getting stuck. We all do it, and flagellate ourselves for it, no doubt. Beat up on ourselves for repeating some hamster-wheel thinking pattern. For being unable to simply let things go. Move on.

I think this habit of returning to the past might have something to do with being fearful of the unknown. What lies ahead in all it's mist and mystery. We can set a blind bearing into the fog, but we don't have a chart, or even if we do it does not accurately show time or distance. And then we are out there floating. If we're lucky we are following a true bearing. Some direction told to us by the still quiet voice of the soul.

It demands a lot of trust. Navigating in fog is profoundly disorienting, and if you don't trust the compass you will end up paddling in circles, or out to sea; wherever the current decides to take you.

It can be discouraging, exposing, so sometimes we simply return to shore, back to where we started to wait it out. Waiting for the fog to clear maybe. There is safety here, on this known shoreline, regardless of how lonely or lost we might have become here. We can explore it's familiar topography, dig our toes into the sand of it's beaches or sit with our backs to the sea. It is reassuring because it is known, though we may have already walked every inch of it, waded in every stream and and touched every tree. Rooted and re-rooted in the dirt of the interior. Turned it all inside out again and again. But no matter how long we stay here, or how many times we return, it is unlikely to show us the answers to the questions we are asking. If those answers exist, they are somewhere out to sea, beyond or perhaps hidden within the fog bank. Or perhaps only seen from some vantage point far off land.

In the meantime there is no shame in getting stuck, returning to the shore to check again. Looking perhaps under some unturned rock or shell.  That is the way of things until we are truly ready to leave the beach.

Dog gone wild

Admittedly I look around at the world today, the parts of it comprised of people close to me, that I care about and know or have known, as well as those far and distant to me and I understand that what I am writing about here is probably small potatoes in the realm of loss, grief and personal tragedy. I know that, but I will write it anyway. As there is often great beauty and solace to be found, even in things that are sad. And sadness of any kind is profoundly felt and universal, regardless of the worldly cause.

It was August 7th when I started writing this. One week off the year anniversary of Piper's death-day. I was in the company of 2 good dogs, neither mine, looking over Elk lake, surrounded by birds of all sorts. It is therapy, it is penance, it is me offering care in the hopes that things will go better for these two souls than it did for him.

Now it is the morning of August 14th, and one year ago I was having a busy day filled with the ins and outs of taking care of my two young dogs, working, basking in the afterglow of a great trip to Clayoquot with good friends.

In the aftermath of Piper's death, which was brutal and bloody at the hands of another human being, I was knocked flat. Another's tendency towards a quick trigger finger was unlocked by my part of the equation. A door left open. The temptation of another dog being walked down the driveway, Piper darted out as I looked the other way. Ran himself down the road and up the wrong driveway into oblivion. Minutes later I found myself covered in his blood, cradling his limp warm body. The exit wound a gaping hole where his heart had been.

I cried daily for 6 weeks. Shocked by it. Unwound. My grief interupted over the months that followed by other things that rose up and shook me, in both lovely then devastating ways.

I never shed the feeling that I could not keep the creature left to me, Jespah, safe from the world. Perhaps that I could not love her in the way I should. Maybe it was cowardice or something else, but in the spring I gave her up too, though to a home that loves her and knows her as equally as I did. And is probably better for her.

One turn around the sun of a Piperless world is complete. That smooth-coated little black wild thing of a dog. He drove me nuts, defied everything that I had learned from my old dog/old soul Tarka. Taught me everything anew. He was insensitive, blazon, endlessly hyperactive.
Reckless, if a dog can be that.
We had come a long way he and I, had figured out how to harness his erratic energy. His blinding speed and unpredictable ranging.

Not quite enough to survive this human world.

He was wild but unbearably sweet. He thrived on touch, trusted infinitely the hands of humans and flopped like a seal across any lap that would take him. As he lay blown open by a bullet in my arms I remember thinking that he seemed the same. Heavy, limp, relaxed. A dark image perhaps, but it's the truth.

He was named after a bird. Chosen on a whim at the end of a late night drive home to Tofino. Passing Sandpiper Road in the dark wet of a west coast winter, the name of the dog I had had for less than a week arrived.

Work in Progress

That's what they say about life.

I seem to bounce back and forth between things. Between phases of belief and disbelief. Unwavering faith and utter despair. Trust and suspicion.

I spoke to two artists today and we talked about the way one of them would approach the act of painting not knowing what the end result would be. Deciding along the process of slathering acrylic on canvas what exactly she was painting guided only by what images emerged. How things would change along the way from whatever the original intent or idea really was.

Roses tight in the bud painted with a hammer, mountain top fires, and other such images haunt me. Stolen kisses amongst the firs. Cold fall rains. Wet dogs on beaches. Couches and movies barely watched.

(Given freely at the time. Stolen only in retrospect.)

With writing I am the same as that painter, at times not knowing what I have come here to say, to talk about. It is just a process of noticing, of taking note.
Of spilling with some measure.

I noticed today that the little metal tag on the hat that I've been wearing sea kayaking has become green with the salt in the air and spray of the ocean. Oxidized. I notice the way my face feels slightly frozen like it is after a visit to the dentist when I drink a glass of wine. During even. White wine more than red. Sparkling more than still.

I have forgotten how to trust that things are how they are 'meant' to be. Whatever that means. Like there is some grand pattern tracing and tracking the way my life should go. "Design".
Instead it is
Divergent.

We are pushed by tides and currents and suddenly caught up in worlds; bays, inlets that we did not expect to find or explore. And how these set us off on trajectories we did not see from the last leg of the journey. That we sometimes take the river all the way to the sea and find ourselves in salty instead of fresh. Or the opposite. Or without water at all, wandering in some desert we now understand as a vivid colourful richness of sun baked landscape, but previously only saw as arid, empty.

Feeling my way through this time. It is one of those when I cling to the decaying branch behind me, knowing it's truth but understanding that in order to move at all, release from the current state of unclarity is necessary. Letting go is critical. But I face thin air. No platform in sight. No certainty.

Other than a heart-in-throat drop into the unknown. I have made a business of wandering. So this new thing,
this staying put is showing me more about the unknown than the wandering ever did.

Uncertainty

I am sitting in an airport. Reflecting on the uncertainty that seems to be what life is all about. I am wondering right now whether anything is ever truly 'certain'.
We humans seem to like order, sense, meaning. We like to catalogue and file and take the scattered shards of things and put them back together. If that doesn't work we sweep them up and throw them away. We just can't abide anything open-ended, unresolved or unresolvable sitting out in plain view.

I am not sure why this is so, but I certainly feel the urge to find order and meaning and closure in things. But I am resisting that urge. When the mind returns once again to 'figure it out', explain something that has no explanation at present, something that is not closed or clear, I am just working on staying put. Allowing the mind to have a visit, but sending it on it's way again, past this messy pile of fractured experience. Perhaps it is allowed to pick up a piece or two, examine it, put it back down or maybe fit two previously unmatched pieces together, like a jigsaw puzzle. But it is not allowed to linger or force the cardboard images together in frustrated organization. Not allowed to force sense and order into something that as yet has neither. Learning to accept that there may never be answers to some things, that letting go and passing the rubble with kindness and a light hand is the biggest work in life.

Betrayal

It is deep. And shallow.
This emoticon-laden world of who did what.
Who shook me to the bones and lurched wildly into the wide open maw
of my heart?
Who opened, who closed.
But it is all in the imaginings. The mind playing tricks.
The telling of stories. Repeat.
This months past dreary-eyed remindering of something that was
Real
Promised
and Believed.

But is no longer.
Things pass, moments
Truths so absolute they are blinding become faint shadows
Of nothingness and dust
We run hard towards something and retreat
Fearful of our own boldness, suddenly remembering ourselves
And the laundry list of whatever it is we believe to be important.
But really is made up of should, can't, and if only

And sometimes I pretend to know what is real and true
But really I understand that I know nothing but the contents of
myself
That all the wishes and wonderings are simple and extravagant imaginings
Filtered through a tainted mirror
And more the stuff of stardust
Than they are of what is.

Any betrayal exists only by my own creation.

The Brink

I found this picture from 2008 (?). It is of me and my friend Gail on the Hood River in the NWT. There is something that struck me about my posture…leaning towards what lies below. Which by the way is a massive, mist-spewing waterfall. This was a slippery place, full of the potential for sliding towards death by rocky impact and water-pummeling. The rocks were deadly slippery, wet, slick and sloping in all directions. 

But I lean towards it, this precipice. 

I aspire to be brave. Not just in the physical sense. I know I am that. I am relatively fearless, blessed or cursed with that youthful sense of invincibility. It’s somewhat tempered since my twenties, but not appreciably. 

It is possible we are our own best teachers, if we care to notice. Our past selves have messages for our present selves. Insights, leading questions, inspirations, truths, invitations.

There is something here that reminds me of courage of the spirit and heart. It is like my body, captured in this photograph, is a missive to my 6 years later self. The way I am standing speaks of a bravery that I was not aware I had at the time. My heart is forward, as they say in the yoga circles. I am daring something to come get me. Curious, and stretching to see what lies beyond, beneath. I have one foot forward, the weight perhaps more on my toes than my heels and another one stabilizing me on the wet stone. Perhaps ready to reel back if needed. I am inviting the spray, the raw power of that plummeting river to drench me. I am asking to be invited to the river.
I am arcing forward more than back.

There is also something here about keeping my feet on solid ground. Wanting to be touched and enveloped by things magical and powerful, but also to remain in place, grounded.

Pause

I pause here.
A moment on the western ocean edge of this continent.
Post conference gathering
Of like minded and kindly souls.
Now I drift south and slightly west to hit this beautiful place from memory.
An impulse trimmed by
Another drive,
years before this moment.
It was
My first meeting with this Pacific creature.
Now the monolithic rocks and beach breaking waves of Cannon Beach
Seem familiar, so like a recent home,
But also it is a back casting swing of the mind,
Images stirring the surface like a
baited trout.
Who I was
Who I am now
Place
Welcoming me home.
I learn to stay put by wandering,
And returning.
And returning again.
To reground,
Breathe
Pause
Find my piece
of sandy salty ground.
Before the next swing of the rod
Propels me eastward.
Meet me here.
Because I will always pause
For you.

The Coccoon

It is possible I am just waking up now. All systems are not yet go, and it's possible I still have some sleeping to do, some more fibres to weave in the closed comforting darkness of this winter retreat. But I think I am feeling the slow outward stretch of emerging starting quietly. I have battened down the hatches, and that's a good thing. Withdrawn, sometimes isolated myself, at least from things that do not serve the process of attending to healing and fortifying myself. Attending to the core. Making choices about which branches to cut off while serving and feeding the deepest roots. Because that's where the energy comes from, and unlike other times in my life, this winter I dug in, sealed the doors and lit the fire. I took in only things that would feed me, and not much of anything that would drain. I made good choices for myself, and despite the depth of my retreat it felt like the healthiest thing to do. Especially in retrospect.
I reduced the 'shoulds' and attended to the 'musts'.
I have often been confused about whether I am truly extroverted or introverted and have sometimes defaulted to describing myself as an 'introverted extrovert'. Because most often when sad, or in need of rejuvenation I have turned outwards, filled my cup with good people and adventures. I have certainly done a share of that this winter, but there has also been the overriding theme of wrapping myself in the closed quiet safety of home.
I have learned a few things, some of them new to me:
That it's ok and sometimes necessary to say no.
That there is no set time limit, or statute of limitations on how long it takes to heal, or do whatever it is you know you need to do.
That quiet is an acceptable way to be.
That 'being anti-social' is a label and a judgement I put on myself.
And...
This is ground breaking: Not everyone is going to like, understand or support me or what I am doing, and that is ok and should perhaps be expected (but without dread or fear). The trick is to listen to the still small inner voice more attentively until it is louder and stronger than the ones coming from outside. Then it becomes your guide, even when you step outside the four walled safety of whatever sanctuary you have built around yourself.
When in doubt, stay calm, relax, get still...and wait to see which way the air bubbles go before trying to swim to the surface.

The Confluence of Sand and Water

I have long been a believer in the incredible ability dogs have to channel pure joy. Through their ways of moving, communing with people and other dogs and the landscape they are a force of bouncy, paw-flailing, tongue-lolling celebration. Today I got my dog back after she had been away for a few days staying with the people that own her mother. I took her to the beach. This is what that looked and sounded like:

I have been mired down of late. Arguably in a sea of sadness for many months now, and newly stressed by some imminent changes (mostly good) and a hard decision I am weighing. My brain has been on a bit of a negative track and I have let it go there, let it ride the rails into some dark little tunnels. But I was on this beautiful beach today with this crazy dog girl and her enthusiasm was so ebullient that perhaps for a moment I have been able to shift and let myself feel a little bit of her unbridled goofy happiness. She loves the confluence of sand and water as I do. Based on how she gets 'zoomy' and runs in crazy dog-circles when we get to the soft sand on the beach, I imagine that she loves the feel of the stuff on her paws. The way it flies up and hits her belly in little disintegrating clods as she runs. And it's clear that there is something wildly amusing to her about the way water tastes and feels when she snaps at it, stomps her paws in it and play bows to the ocean at large. Then runs wildly away from it and back again in haphazard zig zags, paws asunder. Salty or fresh, Jespah finds water thoroughly wonderful, especially when it is moving in some way, either as the current in a rain filled creek or the rhythm of waves as they hit and slide up a beach. I do too. I just am much more reserved about it. So much so these days that it leaves me wondering whether I have forgotten my love for it. The salty taste of joy temporarily lost.

What this little clip also shows me is the glee that J has as she comes towards me. I have no illusions about dogs, I see them as creatures of the moment and of convenience. I know there are some people that are simply more important, more 'loved' to a dog, the ones they know, who feed them, interact with them, smell familiar. My dog, as with many, thinks most people are kind of marvellous, though admittedly myself and a couple of others are of more prime importance, but not really for sentimental reasons. Just because we are the smells and voices and hands of her puppyhood. I can understand that am special to her, and her approach in this clip is part of a our coexistence...part of the way I have trained this dog who is of  a sometimes difficult to train breed, to love coming back to me. Clearly she is anticipating some sort of wonderfulness to come about when she gets to me. A game maybe, or perhaps it is just the love of speed and soft sand and the edge of the water coming together at my feet. We are a confluence. Of dog and human, joy and sadness and elation and confusion, paws flying, tongues lolling, eyes shining.

Aspiration

To have an open heart.

There have been many events in my life, as there are in everyone's, that have left scars. Some bigger than others, some more jagged and unhealed. Where do scars come from? If it is a wound free from the complications of infection, it could be a clean one, one that might one day be as faint as a far distant memory. So faint as to be erased with the healing magic of the new skin we grow every 7 years. A thin line of white on tanned skin. Others heal poorly, raised, red, jagged, visible. We bear them with pride, showing them off at every opportunity. Consciously or not. Dinner time conversation. Beginning of the relationship story time. This is who I am; a timeline in scars, bruises, wrongs inflicted. Learnings.

But what did we learn that we are here bearing scars, and telling their stories? That they are the flag bearer as we explain ourselves to new friends, new loves. It is a question I am wondering about today, this week, this lifetime.

A scar suggests an injury, a cut, open fracture, burn, gash as a result of some trauma, some painful event or deed. Often we relate the stories of our scars to those who inflicted them. Someone else. Lost lover, bad parent, faithless friend. At best some well meaning, or unintentional emotional blunder visited upon us by a hapless individual. These seem to be the type of scars we bear most overtly, assigning responsibility and injurious blame to the other. Even sometimes when we think we are not, we are attaching a name and a face to the different scars we bear.

But what if. What if there is something else to be made of these experiences, something better, more right to learn. Is it possible we have 'learned' something other than what is most true? Something other than what we could be learning?

I say this because I think I have been off. Somehow somewhere along the line I got my wires crossed and started generating scars.

We are made of light, of stars, of soul. We are spiritual beings having a human experience. Our humanity tells us there is something wrong with us, faulted, messy, imperfect. At some point we began to believe that the challenges we have faced, the experiences we have had may have been a result of this wrongness. But what if we are mistaken? That the things that have caused our scars were actually meant to open a door, not inflict a wound. We just misinterpreted. Saw it through a lens that was not clear. These things are meant to open us, not knit the flesh of our hearts with a map of scar tissue. Not close us, make us weary or less trusting.

We are built to love. Made to be open hearted. The things that knock us over, the tsunamis of experience are simply here, or on their way, to wash us clean, remove detritus. We are being invited to see with fresh and wide open eyes. Invited into truth. Awaken.

There is no getting it wrong.

Snow Melt

I was recently invited on a backcountry ski tour (thanks Josh!), in the Kootenays. Our four days on the Bonnington Traverse came complete with temps in the low -20's, clear skies and broad mountain vistas, a few sweet well-earned turns, and some fun (and for a few steps slightly sketchy) high alpine ridge travel. Skiing is something I grew up doing, and I was introduced to ski touring in BC back in the late nineties and early 2000's.  I found it addictive and wanted to do more of it, but it was one of those things that time, work, geography, companionship and skill conspired to limit me in. In 2008 when I moved to BC more permanently I aspired to get into the winter backcountry again, get better and more competent at touring. It's now 2014 and here I am, finally getting down to it. I have no aspirations to work professionally at it, but aim to do more of it for fun, for bodily solace, for the hard work and the glorious (though not always graceful) powder turns it affords me.

I wrote in a previous post about 'the Farm', a place deeply connected to memories of my dad and one that taught me much of what I know about real life. By real life what I mean is living in places where it is impossible to take basic things for granted or get bored for lack of things to do. On the Bonnington  there are a number of small efficient huts scattered at 9-11 km intervals throughout the tour. They sleep 6 or so…depending on how close you want to be. Bunk beds just wide enough to fit two thermarests sandwiching a table with lower bunks acting as benches, a small counter with a coleman two-burner, a small wood stove, and abundant drying hooks and lines pretty much fill the space. If more than 2 of you are standing up or trying to do anything at the same time forget about it. One of you at least will end up burning your ass (literally), tripping on something or simply getting stuck in the midst of the tiny crowd unable to reach whatever you are trying to get at. These wee cabins are supplied with wood, axes and mauls, basic kitchen supplies, and a gas stove and lantern. There are a number of gaps in the chinking of all of the huts, so in colder weather puffy jackets and LJ's are worn inside until such time as sleeping bags are pulled out for the night. There are no open creeks near any of the cabins so water is made by melting snow - a constant act of labour over the wood stove. This is an environment where I feel deeply at home, tuned in to basic needs and fall easily into the rhythm of the steady puttering work of keeping warm, hydrated and well fed. There is a constant supply of small tasks, and while I am tired from the humbling days of skinning up long ascents (especially being out of 'ski shape' after only 4 days of skiing this winter) and cold weather, I find it relaxing, grounding to keep this type of busy. The right kind of 'busy'. I imagine that I could live this way for good long periods of time. I have. I spent weeks and months of my life living at the Farm, chopping and loading the wood bins daily, lighting and stoking fires, priming stoves and lamps, and melting snow for water. These things are second nature to me. I fall into them. In this world of dish washers and taps and central heat I am less sure of what to do, more likely to be idle. Life becomes less about movement and more about looking for something to move towards. Making lists and ticking boxes to help me feel accomplished, purposeful.



In hut life purpose is inherent and embodied. The shared need for basic things…water, warmth, food and rest are the driving force of every evening and morning. Throughout the night, especially in the arctic cold that gripped us this past week, we even move out of sleep intermittently, to keep the fire going to heat the space so that energy can be restored for the next day of slogging uphill.

I am always acutely aware of the primacy of water when I'm living in the field. Especially in the cold. Probably a lesson hard learned through years of guiding winter trips with dogs and people in frigid northwestern Ontario. Both needed water and lots of it. To this day I recite my aspirational '4 litres of water a day' spiel to all my students, summer and winter. How important it is for the mind, body and soul to be abundantly hydrated. How the litre of water you should be drinking first thing in the morning before emerging from your sleeping bag can make or break your day, your entire experience, on so many levels. When I am on trip I practice this ritual personally without fail, because it keeps me on my game, and allows me to be cheerful and funny at times that are anything but inherently cheery or humourous. On this trip, as with many others I was focussed on the constant and proactive production of water. It is a small thing that makes a world of difference.

Maybe it is in these small and detailed acts that we make up our calling. I know somehow for me there is a connection to my life purpose wrapped up in this repetitive and endless task of melting snow. This minute but essential act of service.

Flat Light

Snow Lady in Pond Inlet on the day the sun returned.

Yesterday I tried to write, I started writing. Then it occurred to me as I read through what I had written so far that I was deeply displeased with the results. It seemed self-absorbed, boring, dumb. So I stopped. What was spilling out seemed uninspired, flat. I still wanted to write something, but I was not 'feeling it' as they say.

This morning again I am bound and determined to write something, so here I am, starting fresh. However, I am still not in the zone yet. But the word 'flat' reminded me of an email I had sent when I was living and teaching in Pond Inlet in 2000/2001. I had this habit of sending out mass emails to a long list of friends that I loved and missed, little prose and poetry updates on life and it's various curiosities and miseries in the small high Arctic community. My missives were often short, but good I thought; simple, elegant, connected and connecting. It was a way of reaching out to people in my life, feeling connected from my extremely isolated little fly-in access only home. A somewhat self-conscious written form of extroversion within a deeply introverted existence. Here is what I wrote, the subject line of the email was "Flat Light":

"Boring" Teacher Fiooooona
 (as my students used to call me).

School was cancelled today at 10:30, and after an hour and a half of making origami frogs and racing them on the tiled floor at the bottom end of my classroom, the five kids that came to class this morning were whooping with joy to go home. Most of the town, including 8 out of 16 teachers are sick with flus of various sorts. Yeah, I was whooping too. A cloudy day when the sun has just returned is a little anticlimactic, but has it's own flavour. As I look out my bedroom window the world is still and perfectly white (bluish white), If there is a skidoo track cutting the snow, or a change in topography, or a horizon line breaking the world out there I can't see it. It is simply flat. i am afraid when I go outside I will trip and fall, for not having seen the bumps in the world.

This email was sent on February 7th, 2001, 5 days after the sun had returned. On the 73rd parallel in 2001, February 2nd marked the end of a 3 month absence of it. It was a powerful thing living in a world of starlight and twilight. A kind of cocooned suspended animation of a life. Nesting deeper into the covers, books, knitting, painting, glasses of wine and movies. Sometimes just sitting and staring into dimly lit space. Being stillness. In my class I had the kids working with crafts of various sorts, one of which was papier mache masks. I usually participated with my own interpretation of whatever I was asking them to make. The mask I made was a sun-face. When we worked with tissue paper making 'stained glass' I also made a sun and taped it to my living room window. That tissue paper sun travelled with me for years afterwards, taped up in the window of my car or whatever I was calling a home at the time. It held some important meaning, and symbolism to me, reminding me of that day when the sun returned.
The darker winter months had and sometimes have this sense of waiting for me.
Waiting for light to return, waiting to get out on the land again. To un-coccoon and stretch my legs and breathe more fully. Waiting for the sun, for shadows, for contrast.

In 2001, February 2nd was the day the sun returned. There were celebrations in the community, everyone was out, building igloos and carving snow-people, dressed up in seal and caribou, eating seal and caribou. And for a fleeting few minutes the sun rose low, a thin bright colourful line above the horizon.

On February 2nd 2013 my family and many friends and colleagues celebrated my dad's bright and brilliant life, the sun sneaking above the horizon line in memory after his slow decline into darkness.

On February 2nd, 2014 I am starting a ski trip to the snowy Kootenays. To stretch my legs and breathe more fully, to celebrate the comings and goings of light and dark. To see if I can see the thin bright line of the sun returning once more.

My Father's Daughter

January 25th, 2014

A year ago today my father passed away. At the time, in that moment, I was as usual for me, somewhere else, geographically speaking at least.

He had Alzheimer's, dementia. He was always the 'absent minded professor' type, but in the years that preceded his death he became more absent than minded and the only thing professorial about him lived in the memories and perceptions of his friends and colleagues who had shared workplaces and ideas.

My dad generally worked too much. In that he worked at the university, for a firm that carried his name and legacy and myriad other special guest appearances at educational intitutions, conferences and as a consultant on various international things. For as long as I can remember he also worked at home. Often buried deep in sheafs of paper, computer files and book revisions. When I left home my bedroom became his second office (the other up in my parents bedroom). It's only in retrospect that I notice this…he had two offices in the house. That's how much he worked. His work of course was his passion, he was respected, liked and renowned in the various fields he contributed to. I don't doubt that it probably never felt like 'work' to him, in the sense that it was what he was made for in many ways. At least like many men of his generation, I imagine it was what he felt most competent at. The intellectual and creative elements of his life seemed to have escaped the emotional hobbles of a difficult childhood and early adulthood.

Dad and Adrian at a street party, circa 197?

My memories of my dad when I was little though faint are certainly wonderful in many ways. Before I became an obnoxious teen I believe I was adored in the way little girls are by doting fathers. And along with the regular stuff that dads do including piggy back rides and trips to the zoo, he also shared skills and experiences with me traditionally reserved for sons. How to hammer a nail, use power tools (some of them anyway), chop wood, explore the woods and get dirty and lost with impunity, paddle a canoe, snowshoe. He fostered in me a love for wild places, a willingness to explore them and an ability to look closely, carefully, and see things that perhaps not everyone can. This is something that persists in my life today, on a professional and personal level. I am usually the first to see the whale spout in the distance, or the wolf prints tracking around the tents in the morning. While there was a distinct disconnect between us on an emotional level, perhaps as much by my hand as his as I entered my teenage years and into adulthood, my dad was always a sweet, loving and gentle man. For sure there were layers of hurt, anger and loss beneath it. They were deeply buried and rarely spoken of. Despite that I always had the sense that he had an innocent spirit. If we talked on the phone, or if I came home to visit, his delight in seeing me was always apparent. Admittedly I often felt unable to receive it fully, though it was always freely and consistently given. Though on my visits home he would quickly retreat into an office, there was never any doubt that he loved and was proud of me, and the circuitous path that I was walking in the world. The wilderness in my veins was also his.

In his last few years, he was distilled, at least that's how I saw it, to his most basic parts. Emotional, impressionistic, absent mindedly sweet and loving in his reception of visitors (for the most part - also at many times anxious, confused and frightened). He was reduced, or made more full perhaps of what lies beneath the intellect. As he was eulogized by one friend, my dad was 'a gentle man'. I am my fathers daughter in a number of ways, some very concrete and visceral. And there are ways that I now aspire to be more like him. Daily.

It is said that it is the child's job to exceed the potential of their parents. With that thought in mind I aspire to retain an open heart, a willingness to keep moving through and beyond the things that go sideways and try again, despite loss or damage done. To live life as if there really is no way to get it wrong, but with integrity, care and truth. Before I reach a time where my intellect and memory is lost I aspire to be reduced to my purest form. I will make mistakes, gladly. I hope to remain or become more innocent. To retain and foster my naivety and trust in the goodness of the world and of people. To believe that this earth is resilient enough to withstand us.

Solo Mission

Campsite at Prevost, serenaded by Selkies.

So, admittedly I am not so great at this 'staying put' gig. Especially when the going gets tough…I am often the tough getting gone. There have been a lot of things in the past 6 months that could have pushed me away from the physical place that I have planted myself in. I was asked repeatedly after my dog was shot by a neighbour in August whether I would move. I didn't but the place…my house, the property and neighbourhood, the drive to town and walk to the mailbox have been irrevocably tainted by the fact that I would pass the site of Piper's death. The place where we raced to gather up his small body, still warm, into my arms. More recently there are lingering memories of something wonderful, but quickly lost. I am disoriented in the aftermath of this magical, heartfelt, and breathtaking thing, wondering and confounded by what just happened. This is the thing about staying put…it invites me to feel the echoes of loss more often than if I were to leave.

Perhaps that is true.

Lunchspot.

This past weekend I went on a little solo trip. Most of my life I have paced the wide line between craving a home place and the need to move, adventure, wander. I revel in the fact that I am able to throw together my gear, food, and a plan in a few hours and take off (in January no less) by kayak. Despite the lack of snow this year, and in general in my area (I love snow and winter and it is one thing that makes me seriously question at times my current geographical choice), there are many pretty awesome things about living in a temperate coastal place. A launch into the Pacific within 5-45 minutes is one of them. While the Gulf Islands reminded me a little bit of car camping in a kayak with toilet paper stocked outhouses and picnic tables at every site, in January it is dead quiet. Even on a weekend as glorious as this last there was no one else out there. Except a few thousand seals.

On my little weekend trip I paddled pretty hard most days, at least once racing to get across a channel before a humungous BC ferry could run me over. I monitored channel 11 on the VHF for news of shipping traffic in the slightly obsessive and mildly terrified way of a lone paddler, and gleaned from my chart and observations which boats would cross my path and when in an area that was new to me. The days are short right now too, so making the miles to the next campsite before dark without rushing through my morning coffee was also a factor. It was fun in the way I sometimes like to have fun - just a bit freaked out and a little uncertain. Enough to keep me on my toes and in the present moment.

On the first day, right after I launched I realized that I had spent more time of late checking out avalanche forecasts and looking at mountain topography than nautical charts, and as a result my perspective was skewed. For a time after I launched I felt disoriented and a bit panicked. It mirrored the disorientation I have felt sometimes in the wake of all that has come to pass this year. Certainly over the past few weeks I have felt so confounded, confused, unsure. That I had lost my bearings in the wake of an intense certainty.

Leaving Canoe Cove, not many meters away from where the "Coastal Celebration" rumbled ominously in it's port, the geography of the place was so obscured by the sheer scale of the ferries and their mooring jetties that for a good 20 minutes I was unable to situate myself on the chart. But I moved, checked out different islands in an effort to figure out exactly where I was. I paddled slowly and in a non-linear way, and tried to keep myself calm and present in the face of the approaching sunset.  Ultimately, once out of the shadow of the behemoth ferries and human features on the landscape I found myself again on the point of a small island, the San Juans before me and Sidney Harbour at my back. It was a moment when the scale and mess of islands on the chart and in the world suddenly became clear, and I was able to set a bearing on my destination for the night.
,


Maybe that's how it is. Amidst all this stillness some movement is necessary, critical. There were times in the rhythm of paddling on flat water with a clear destination that I found myself falling into waves of sadness, frustration, and rumination over recent things. But I also found myself noticing where I was and falling steadily into the task at hand. The smell and feel of ocean air, birds and seals speaking in their different ways, and the simplicity of pushing glass through salt water.

Storm Season

This Tuesday morning I am up, some time to drink my coffee and indulge the unfocussed urge I have to write…something. I have looked over the list of 'starts' that I have for blog posts but come up empty of inspiration for content for any of them. Titles like "The Invitation', 'On Risk' and 'Homeplaces Part II' sit on my list of unpublished posts asking for content and spark, but I have nothing for them today.

It's not a bad day so far. My legs still a little sore from the skiing I did on the weekend in the first real snow the Island has seen this year. They remember the thick coastal powder of Sunday, like skiing through damp icing sugar, in the lactic acid traces that still remain. My left knee is reminding me of the tweak of another dense ski day a couple of years past. Not quite bending under me the way it used to. There is still a trace of the way the sun tried to push it's glow through the clouds on my nose and cheeks.

I noticed the other day how I have answered the question "how are you?" these days. Certainly in the past few months my answers have most often followed a general theme. It's been a "rough", "crazy", "hard", "sad", "challenging" year. It seems that it has been a year of incessant change, much of it involving some form of grief and loss, at times the kind that is wrenching, difficult or shocking. However I have also reflected that earlier this year, after the death of my father, a split with my long term partner and leaving my job I  had often commented that while it had been full and sad, lots of good had come of the losses. They were kind and right in a way, and though difficult had also brought gifts of connection, love, and clarity. Until August, I would have said in my answer that the sadness and grief had been tempered by a sense of growth and peace.

In the past 5 months there have been a few more challenges, and though also laced with an intense beauty, they have been disorienting, unexpected and gut wrenching. I have spent good portions of time at a loss, incapacitated with grief to some degree, most intensely around the shooting of my dog Piper, but also at other times more recently when things that seemed so clear and right have taken an unexpected turn into murky confusion. It has been a year of visceral extremes, and as I have slowly entered this new year I can sense the beginnings of something I cannot quite wrap up in words.


At times I have had the sense that I am being 'tested', although I tend to believe the universe has better things to worry about than playing invigilator to my personal development. But I have started to notice patterns, repeated invitations into…something. Exactly what that is is still in the process of becoming clear, but my inkling is that it is about things that are long standing and partially buried. Only now being exposed by the record winds and tides of the storm season that was 2013.