Born in the Snowy Season

A friend of mine recently returned from a trip to Namibia. With her, she brought a story that has made me consider my relationship with age, aging and linear time. There have been other events and insights in my life recently that have also made me question our cultural attachment to age markers. It's possible I'm just in denial, which might be true, but even so, I think my dubious regard for the importance of chronological age may have merit.

It's my birthday tomorrow, my 49th (I know, right?!), and my proximity to a major decade has been looming in the not so distant future. I have never really known what to make of age, my own or that of others, because in so many ways it seems to wear differently on different people. But I have felt the pressures of 'aging' - not so much in my body, but in the expectations of myself and others. On a recent retreat it was pointed out to me that it is at this stage of life that we are somewhat forced to consider that this one life we get is at least half over. We begin to feel our own mortality in a more poignant way. This year I have come face to face with a raft of existential angsts - the pain and fear of feeling or being alone, a deep sense of shame nested in and made of my own emotional fragility. But of late I have also discovered a strengthening faith in my ability to survive my own humanity. Not so much transcendence as much as living into it, albeit messily at times, and finding a path through it - training myself to trust in something much much bigger than me. It's not that 'all will be well', because that is not how life is, but it's possible there is a way - a path of deepening wisdom and compassion, accessed through a practice of accepting (and even wanting) what is. Not to deny or suppress the things that plague me, but to see them for what they are made of - the insubstantial creations of my own grey matter. And to discover the excitement that lies beyond the fear, the thrill of not knowing what next - because as I once read, the universe has a much better imagination than I do.

It is snowing tonight in Victoria, which it does rarely. I have found this time of year hard at times over the last decade - for whatever reason as luck or design would have it, there have been some challenging events which have centred around the Christmas season. There have also been great joys (and sometimes a combination of the two), but there is something about the mind that tends towards association - the pairing of hard memories with a particular date or time of year.

I was reminded of two things this week. One: the true 'turn' of the year happens before Christmas and 'New Years' Day on the Solstice, the day that our northern hemispheric days begin to lengthen towards summer. That Aleutian Low starts to feel the faint breath of the California High in the few more minutes a day of sun from now on. This marks a cyclical pattern, rather than a finite beginning or ending.

The other thing is that there are indigenous cultures that don't celebrate or conceive of birthdays the way that ours does. When my friend Nicola asked her Namibian bushman friend when he was born, his answer was 'in the rainy season'. No date, no year. Perhaps his is an entire community that lives without the knowledge of their chronological age. It's a bit of a radical idea for us North Americans of European (and other) descent. So I started wondering this week, what if tomorrow is not that big of deal after all. I was born in the snowy season, and maybe that is right now.

Settling

This afternoon I found a question bubbling up in myself - what does it mean to 'settle', and what will happen to me if I do? I have been percolating this question for most of my adult (and maybe some of my younger) life. I have always been somewhat fierce about not settling. I have stayed in a field of work that has allowed me to feel free, empowered, viscerally alive for a long time. At times I have shifted into different and slightly less 'wild' iterations within this, but the work of personal development and wilderness has been the fire in my belly. These days I have made a choice to 'settle in' for a while, I've taken on a job that feels considerably less connected to wildness, although it has other qualities that are close to the heart of who I am. It also allows me time, space (energetic, emotional and mental), and a sense of routine and consistency that has had the effect of loosening up physical and artistic creativity.

These are things that tend to lose steam when my life is more transient and less predictable. I can plan ahead now but I also have the time to do things that make me come alive. Someone recently called it "safety", but it is different than that. The only kind of safety I desire is trust, mainly self trust (which is where it starts and ends) and that is an inside job. The financial security that the job gives me is nice, but the part of that I care most about that aspect of it is the amount of energy it frees. It feels as if my body and spirit has been allowed to drop a whole load of worries and uncertainties off at the door. And I have a generous amount of time in the days, weeks and months of my current life to find the wild places, both near and far.

I have also been on a journey - internal for the most part, with some deeply uncomfortable and painful forays into the external :-) - asking myself this same question about settling in relationships. What is "enough'? (or even what is acceptable)? When is it the right thing to simply commit to something - to find the beautiful simplicity of choosing to accept the imperfections of another human being, and more importantly my own failings and imperfections. I have wondered whether my own brand of non-settling idealism had led me astray.

On the advice of a spiritual teacher I asked my body (and Google) to weigh in on this topic. OK, he didn't suggest Google, but my body has not had time yet to give me a considered answer, so Google was a good enough place to start today. Though I am not in the habit of using the internet as an oracle, I did immediately find this worthy article: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/jan/05/oliver-burkeman-settling

"...virtually all human activity requires some stability, some fixed points, some closed-off options."

I think my body is going to be in agreement, but
I will wait and see. I suspect that, despite everything (age, outward appearances of 'success' or 'failure' or other culturally imposed measures) I need to trust the intuitive wisdom that has led me to this moment, and this current state of affairs in all aspects of my life. I need to remember that the universe is more generous and forgiving than I am.

I will settle when I need a 'fixed point' around which to orbit. And sometimes I will not settle  when the fibres of my being are telling me not to, even when that may be painful. I also don't need to linger any longer in the confusing and gratuitous brand of retro-active sef-doubt that I have been living.

As I approach the Solstice, this is what I will carry into the new year. The sun is beginning to turn us towards the lightness of longer days, and I will be reminded to trust myself. To believe in the convergence of my past and future selves upon this present moment. To touch down upon the seemingly incomplete moments, in all their detail, minutia and beauty. So as not miss the blackening curve of the Cottonwood leaf as it gives itself up to the wintery ground, because I was too busy remembering the way it glowed translucent in the light of the summer sun.

100*

The Dark

I wind my way downwards,
Going deeper into winter.
This storm season whipping up the sediment,
Turning me into myself.

Through the cracks in the windshield
I squeeze perceptive glances.
Wayward, spinning as I have been,
Viewing the world and it's players
through a veil of topsoil,
Buried.
As if there was no other way out of this theatre
But through the lobby
(At intermission no less).
So crowded.

I step into the still dark pool,
It's surface silk-smooth.
This is where 'I' drown,
Free at last.

As always, asking too much of the world,
Searching for magic and retribution
Out there
Where there is none.
Instead I learn
To find stillness in the greenest blade of grass,
Unspoken for in this quietest of seasons,
Left to grow wild into the dim afternoon light.

It is the minutia that kills us,
Imperceptibly.
The ever chattering mind
Throwing knives at itself like there's no tomorrow,
So relentlessly that it can be hard to see
All those sharp edges
Whipping by.
So many
Hitting their mark.

Slow it down.
Pause the tape at each moment,
Notice what has been happening all this time.
Observe the ten thousand things that arise
From the single drop,
Rippling out, wantonly percussive,
Out of control.

Take them in on the breath,
Breathing out kindness, patience
Despite the slow pace of things.
Teaching the mind to interrupt
It's rumination.
Learning to see again,
Eyes closed.


*This marks my 100th blog post. 4.5 years of the Art of Staying Put.

Ambiguity

These twisted lines,

Never straight,

Not unbending.

Winding is the shape of all the paths worth taking in this world.

Even if they don't seem worthy,

The best ways are

Full of blind corners.

Gnarled and braided like the branches of trees and rivers. 

Wisdom can be measured by the
Depth of our faith in this 

Unwavering ambiguity.

The willingness to not have the answers.

A bold refusal to call the mysteries of the world by name.

Our job is to be curious about 

Every thing we are most certain of. 

Allow the floor to drop out beneath you,

Drop down willingly.

Trust in the moments that make you lose your footing,

Follow their lead, for they have a knowing 

Deeper than yours.

Question all the things that appear vaulted, 

Pry open the doorways kept locked.

Reject absolutes whenever possible, 

Go bounding past the fence lines that border the forbidden fields.

Like deer, prancing erratic ahead of the cars on a dark road,

In un-patterned movement.

We are not scientists, not in this realm,

Just explorers.

Shiftless visitors.

Every truth only half seen. 

Fallen

The gray forest people cast off their old clothes

The mists of all twilights dance close at hand

Harvest has lifted the crown from the ground

The song of the seasons brings life to the land

~ Bruce Cockburn - The Fall (excerpts)

Fall is here, we are deep into it, the last of it's brilliant shades drifting to ground. We are tilting into winter. I am learning to live with myself again. I am intermittently happy, anxious, despairing, gleeful, laughing, crying, bored and fully engaged in different moments. I hear that is how we humans are, and the task at hand is to become more of a witness to one's own roller coaster. Watching the cars get loaded up, seeing the people scream and throw their hands up or grip tight to the bar, closing their eyes. I have done both. Neither is right or wrong. Maybe I am learning to trust that the car will come back up the track again - maybe I will get another chance to get it right, make a choice that is grounded. Maybe, as the wisdom of many elders suggests, all the wrong has really been just right after all. 

I am breathing deeply and getting out on the water and hills, waking and being outside before the sun rises and watching the light die beautifully at the end of these shortening days. 

I am admitting that I don't know anything, just like Jon Snow. There was a while there when I thought my job was to know my own heart, and I do, but I also trust that I don't. I have relied on labels too much, bent to the pressure of naming and closing when I could have waited, listened more. Spoken less. There is part of me today that fears that I have lost all my chances, a part that clings to many things past - awaiting the return of something I once promised myself. A wish to erase all the mistakes ever made on my part or anyone else's. I also know that this feeling will change again, as the seasons do. I've never been much of clinger, but now I have had the great fortune (I say this without irony) to have had this human experience. An invaluable one - to become aware of this deep sense of wanting. It will only make me better, and hopefully more fair and more kind. It is the raw material for good prayers.

There is something I started to learn once, before life took over in the way that it does, funnelling me off one course and onto another. It is as if I forgot, at least in part, what it is to be awake. I have not often been one to believe in regret, or shame, but I have come to realize that these are just words that we use to put form to the ephemeral feels that drift in and out of awareness. I recognize these things in my own inner landscape. I can see the ways I have sought to bend myself around what I perceived to be what was wanted of me. All the while forgetting myself, and the perfection and beauty that lies in the uncertainty of the journey. 

Swans

"There are two swans in the harbour this morning." Says the man. He walks up alongside me and the dogs, keeps pace for a while. He is thin, unshaven, rough-hewn in his clothing and demeanour, has unmistakably kind features and has a looseness around the edges that I can't quite place. I think that maybe he lives on one of the boats, illegally moored forever in the saltwater gorge near my house. He has a plastic coffee cup in his hand - I imagine him rowing himself to shore just now and walking up this path to fill it at the bakery. A watery neighbour. We chat for a few moments, about swans, the morning, and other passing wonders before he moves on. A few feet away, he turns back and tells me about the raccoons in the shrubs up ahead - as if he knows the younger of the two dogs would find that tempting.
There was something easy in the way he pulled up, kept pace, spoke of swans, an unthreatening merging into my space. A gentleness. The older dog turned her head to greet him, the younger too consumed with the crystalline smells of an early fall morning to notice - he is less concerned with making friends out of strangers anyway.
There has been a hitch in my step these past days, and both a sadness and a shock of pain after some recent news from a friend. So many layers, I am both haunted by my own unshakeable mistakes and broken-hearted at the ways people hurt and misread one another. Aching for the sadness and confusion in those around me, and at the same time unravelling from my own dark linens. This is today and last night but I remind myself of the need to hold myself and others close, but not still. We live in a quickly and constantly shifting universe.

Run

I am strangely infused with an energy these days, a life force, a push and pull of full moonlight and bodily gravity. I ran around the lake this evening, the dog at my heels and out and around as he tracked scents through the bush in his frenetic and purposeful way. In the rainfall of this burgeoning storm season I find such grace. The cool glory of the turn; the descent of summer into the blustery edges of fall. The days becoming shorter but more textured. The wind and rain whipping through the trees, across the water, pulling forth the sweetness of the poplars that rim the water's edge.

I ended my work today, enlivened by the ways in which the dots keep connecting. Purposeful and inspired. In my office-y days I stumble across poetry, Rumi even. In this world of speed and disconnect, of desk-sitting and computer-staring I find strains of life seeping into the edges of every mundane thing. Re-animation in a de-magicked universe.

Most of my mornings start with ocean walks, evenings are rich with people and movement, and slow solitude. I revel in the salt and forest-imbued air of my chosen home. I find myself returned yet again to a state of loving what is, a full recovery of a piece of me that was lost and shattered. Adrift for a while, but now arriving lightly to ground. Over these years on this island I have come to know that I am a temperate girl at heart; in moments at the mercy of the turbulence of high altitude wind, spindrift racing across a moving sky. At others rooted like the ancient trees that still remain. I have found a homeplace in the darkness and the light, at peace but not untouched by the constantly shifting tides.

Tonight the rain washes the streets clean of a long seasons' detritus, falling with the pure sounds of revelation and absolution. The dog insists that 10km is not enough, the feathers of his tail and the whites of his impish eyes challenging my insistence to sit still. More play is needed. Sometimes he is right.

Seeing the Forest for the Trees

Today marks my first official day of 'weekend', that strange bookmark that happens in our unnaturally structured lives. And yet I am in love with it. I am appreciating the amount of freedom I have in this newfound stability.
I took the dog out this morning to one of the many amazing bits of forest and beach and ocean that abound in the place I live. Maybe 'we', as a general population sometimes take it for granted that we live in this beautiful spot. I wandered in wide circles through the forest trails of Garry Oak and Arbutus, watching Kimik in his quest for all that moves, darting through the forest, finding things to dig and sniff and occasionally chase.

There is a strange groundedness that has overtaken me of late, as a friend pointed out, of not looking much forward or back, of just being in this moment of my life and seeing it for all that it contains. I have experienced an unexpected kind of landing, another one of those times when timing and my own seemingly directionless path find me arriving at a destination that feels like the right one. A destination only predictable through hindsight; if I look back over the past 15 or more years I can clearly see the threads I have been weaving together, almost unknowingly, over time. How they've become something with a form and pattern. If I happen to look forward, I can only imagine the possibilities.

Each pause to notice is like sowing a seed along the way. It seems like such a small thing, to relent even for a second or two in the pushing forward, the questing that we do in life. To stop wanting for something that is not here yet, or anymore, to see that what is here is worth noticing. If I stop to see things fully I am reminded that everything is contained within a moment.

We are beginning to drift towards the darker days of winter. But today I am attuned to the clarity of the fall light, the way the sun catches and mingles with the crisp air and how the brown leaves rustle underfoot. As I moved through the forest this morning I noticed the texture of the cool-warm breeze, the way the breath of convection has a way of setting loose the smells of dried grasses and moss. I can almost feel the gathering of energy in the trees, as they abandon their outward growth, and begin to set store for the deepening work of winter.

Simplicity

One of my favourite things about backpacking is it's simplicity. This summer, I worked a fair bit on the ocean, paddling sea kayaks in beautiful and disparate sections of the BC coast. A couple of weeks ago I was offered the chance to get out to a place I had never been. It involved a long drive, a water taxi ride and an 8-day return paddle to where I was to leave my car. My sea kayak is not big, and I often comment that it's good thing I'm a backpacker too since my habit is most often to leave the kitchen sink at home. However, most sea kayaks (even mine) have space to fit enough stuff to furnish a  small bachelor apartment (ok...maybe a slight exaggeration), and so we have a tendency to fill them up with much stuff on our journeys on the ocean. Added to that the logistics of vehicles, trailers, water taxis and all the trappings of moving our boats and gear to the start of a trip can be none too simple. I have wheeled a small fleet of kayaks onto an overbooked ferry only to have one nearly smushed under a Greyhound bus and another needing to be loaded onto the roof of a strangers' car in order to make sure all the boats ended up making the trip. Needless to say, kayaking can be a complex and not so cost-efficient endeavour (don't get me wrong - it can be, I've certainly been known to throw the boat on the car and go to the closest put in for a day or multi-day paddle without much of a plan). Backpacking on the other hand has a simple and brutish elegance; an ethos of 'less is more', all our needs transported on our backs by the grace and balance of our bodies. One foot in front of the other.

As it turns out, the forecast for my 8 day sea kayak journey was looking a wee bit too windy and the likelihood of getting windbound out on an island for at least the first 3 of my available 8 days was high. But last week, my about-to-be-full-time-employed feet were itchy for an adventure. So the day before my planned departure I threw together a plan B. My pack, basic gear, some simple food thrown together from summer roadkill* and my boots were in the car in a matter of a couple of hours and off I went. Still craving some ocean time, I headed for a section of coast which holds no small measure of memories and magic for me.

I appreciate the simplicity of this process - and the luxury of having the resources of skill and freedom that make this easy for me. It feels less like an epic adventure and more like a return home; to a mode of travel that feels welcoming, comfortable and easeful. There is also an element of this stretch of coast which feels a bit like visiting ghosts - but the good and familiar kind. Over six days I moved at my own pace - a luxury that is notable as I am often in these places moving at the speed of the collective, and attending to the needs of others. I covered ground quickly when it felt right, and also spent a few leisurely afternoons at campsites arrived at early in the day. I read my book, drank tea, watched the surf, scanned for whales.

When moving, I often paused and noticed the small things that appeared along my path. The way gull feathers gathered water droplets from the morning fog on the many-textured beaches, or how the long greeny-brown strands of uprooted bull kelp that washed up on the sand had somehow tied themselves up in
knots. The way the sun and cloud and ocean water conspired with sand and rock to create a certain kind of dark reflective light on a certain morning, in a certain place. I slept one night in a sandstone amphitheatre, put to sleep by the resounding boom of dumping surf, lulled by the sounds of the receding tide sucking itself back to sea, tumbling and reorganizing the cobble beach. I sat in the non-silence of this wild coast, a campsite to myself for once, stoking a small fire and watching the sun set; only for a moment feeling very alone at all.

I was reminded of the power of these simple things. The way the sea can shift and wear at the most unbreakable stone and render them more beautiful with each passing year. That we are just passing through, our lives and petty dramas far less important than we can ever imagine in the grand scheme of time and nature. That all the things that catch our attention or get passed unseen along the way hold more secrets than we can comprehend; if we just pause a moment longer we may be lucky enough to catch a glimpse of something magical. The smallest details can sometimes hold the most valuable gifts, and the simple things can be the most profound.

 *'Roadkill' is an affectionate term used for leftover trip food that guides/instructors often scrounge up after work contracts.

Remnants

It's been a good week, a good couple really, but this one in particular has held up some good news. I have a lot of freedom right now, made more sweet by an impending rootedness, as a few things I have been working on have come to fruition quickly and somewhat unexpectedly. I had an inkling September would be a month to 'stay put' and as things have unfolded it is good that I have. Life is about to change some, and there will be adjustments, but it feels good, like I am on the right path. I have trusted that the tides and winds know what they're doing and my timing has been good - I have felt steered towards my current trajectory, my hands only resting lightly on the wheel.

A bit more than four years ago, in the aftermath of my fathers' death, I drove myself home, from east to west across the wintertime highways. A few very notable things happened on that drive, one of which was a stop that I took at the woodland property my family had owned for over 30 years. During my fathers decline into dementia, we had sold it, over 200 pristine acres of hardwood forest, ponds, marshes and hundred year old farmstead long reclaimed by wild things. The cabin, originally a small one room log building had been expanded in our time there, but remained off the grid, heated by wood and powered by the sun. Snowshoes, feet and a beautiful cedar strip canoe were the vehicles of choice for us; my dad reviled recreational vehicles of any kind. My stop there, in the dead of winter 2013 was difficult; the property had been opened up, once shaded by hardwoods the winding and bumpy driveway had become a wide swath of flatness. New buildings had been put up, brutally carved out of the forest - places to store big machines used to further flatten and carve out pieces of the Earth. Skidoo tracks laced the clearings, the dead hides of animals were pinned to the walls inside. It felt a little like my own personal Narnia had been pillaged and turned into a logging camp.

There is also a story that I could tell about a wolf on the long road west, but I will save that for some other time. A very few know it already.

That year was a harsh one for me, a war zone of death and griefs, although also it also contained some of the truest beauty as well. The brightest and the darkest of times co-mingling. Since then I am  aware that this period of my life has been about recovering parts of myself - along a very crooked path, and not without casualties of it's own, but a recovery nonetheless. In these years I went back to a life where much of my work involved being in the field, time on oceans and rivers and mountains. That kind of life has a way of slowing you down, and I think it is in those places and times of stillness, of being 'unplugged' and caught up in the rhythms of self propelled travel that the soul gets a chance to catch up to our body. Planes and trains and automobiles simply move too fast for the spirit to keep up (so I've heard), and so we lose parts of ourselves along the way of this modern existence. For me it has been a time of making mistakes and being unsure but trying anyway, of not knowing whether I am on the right track or not. I have been a party to some messes. But the fog is slowly lifting and I am learning how to surrender a little bit more to the forces that move me forward. In all of it I keep finding pieces of myself along the way, sometimes small and barely noticeable, others profoundly solid and beautiful. I have taken them up, a feeling like I am re-becoming what is rightfully me. Finding a wholeness that only existed before I arrived to this lifetime.

Tomorrow I am making a return to a place where I believe I will find some more of these remnant shards. To spend 6 days solo along a stretch of coast I first travelled when I was 20. I have this thought that I might find something there, something of the simplicity and forgiveness that exists before mistakes are made. A return to something simpler. Where I might find that I am not broken after all, but have simply been wandering the wilds, untethered, for a time.

Tuesday Morning

This could be the first of many days of freedom, of unstructured and creative time, or it could be a week that marks an end to that and the start of a new kind of routine. A life of consistency - something I both fear and welcome. I am that contradiction, embodied. I come alive in the moments on the river, like yesterday, finding flow in every paddle stroke. Low water rapids barely necessitating more than a switch of tilt. I can also see that this kind of freedom can be enabled by a kind of steadiness, routine; staying-putedness. Being in place.

At the moment, I am enjoying this slow morning, one of my favourite things. Keeping myself on a diet of screen-free time for the first hour at least of each day, drinking my coffee without distraction. Gazing out the window today at this hazy (smoke-filled) air that hovers in the city, between buildings and over the harbour. Doing nothing but that.

I think about walking the dog at the lake a bit later, writing something (chapter 1 in process), possibly going to the museum (artist's date).  Cleaning the car of sand and salty debris, a task still waiting for me in the aftermath of my return from the ocean. This is a good life. A short phone call from a friend as she drove this morning, young baby in tow, our conversation splitting the moments between cries. The definition of love, her sleepless nights, and all the imperfections of a life fully and honestly lived.
There is a strange but welcome peace for me today. A sense of forgiveness - of all the things, myself included, because this is where it starts - which feels a little like emerging from a fog, or being suddenly unshackled from my own (mis)perceptions. Allowed to move forward again. Knowing that all is not lost, that I am loved and able to love in return. Words...understanding how they can have the appearance of keeping us stationary, committed as they are to permanence, but can really be about unravelling what is stuck, relinquishing my ideas to freedom and flow. All things pass.

Photo Cred: ?? Not sure, spring day on Beaver Creek, circa 2006?

Yesterday those of us who were on the river just let it take us, the water low enough to funnel our boats on a swift course mostly free of obstacles. Each subsequent wave allowing us to bounce off the shoreline rocks and over the deepest channel. All that was needed was to trust in the balance of things, keep our paddles in the water and catch whatever eddies appeared on the way.

Home

Photo cred: Charlotte Jacklein

I have been a bit tortured by circumstance and my own (and others') human shortcomings of late, but a few days ago a friend said these words to me..."zoom out and see how much life loves you in other places". It was a piece of intuitive wisdom that was the stuff of genius; it arrived in just the right way, and at the right time offering a perspective that I was ready to see.  She is so right. I am so. Damn. Fortunate. And grateful, for all the good things.
And there are so many good things, it should be almost impossible to confuse my sources of sadness with the immense and extensive sources of happiness that populate my life.
I just got off 9 days of 'work' on the ocean, one of my favourite bits of it, Clayoquot Sound, a sandy, surfy and otherworldly expanse of west coast beauty. The place is pure magic, and on another friends' advice I asked the elements there for forgiveness and healing daily. At the start of the trip I was enmeshed in a toxic spiral of anger, hurt and frustration that was not doing much good for anyone. A strange concoction of guilt, sadness, confusion, righteousness and my own innate brand of half-blind insensitivity and self-centredness. Quite the soup, very chunky.
Today on my way home I felt washed clean, redeemed, joyful. More willing to let go of things that I cannot change or solve.
I have said it before but this body of mine, and the way it is aging so gracefully, is something that I am thankful for every day. How lucky I am to have been able to walk, paddle and ski my way through this life. I have lived at least 50% of my time here on earth travelling through and teaching others to travel well through wild places, holding space for all the lessons and beauty to emerge.  I get to be a witness to the healing power of ocean, river and mountain, and all the other places I have been graced to know. Even in the times when this work is meant to be just about the technical skills, it is not really, it is about soul, connection, love.
I will write more soon, because the gifts of the past week have been many, but for now I will rest with a grateful heart. For the counsel and listening ears of friends, the ever moving currents of the Pacific and the silence of the ancient temperate forest. And my own imperfect but resilient spirit. For this island I call home. For the many people near and far who offer hugs, laughs (even at my jokes), soulful questions, caring suggestions and acceptance. All of it matters.

Slowly

This morning I sit quietly, after a slow departure from the cozy comforts of sheets and blankets. My body satisfyingly tired, mildly aching with the lactic acid and fatigue generated in the day before. My dreams were strewn with the comforts of healing after this long hard journey I have been on – my heart broken open, partially closed for maintenance for a time, casting itself slightly forward again towards a softer opening. Sacred rooms, glass walls, rich carpets and friends-turned-shamans populated my sleeping hours.

Yesterday I climbed a mountain, the bundled gifts of ceremony wrapped together in the lid of my backpack, the dog at my heels (and darting off in search of squirrels). From the valley across the rolls of this meadowy subalpine terrain and up into the rock and wildflowers of the alpine. Asters, Paintbrush and Spreading Phlox still clinging to the small cracks of shelter formed in the shadow of jagged rock outcrops. Our feet crunched across scree – the remnants of volcanoes slowly crumbling beneath us. Lakes spread out in azure-tinted shades across their varying depths below the mountains' long sloping shoulder. A long walk for a young dog, and even for me, used to longer treks and possessing a habit of tenacity across extended journeys of time and terrain.

As I moved, I thought about time; when to turn back, how I was faring so far on the invisible arms of my watch. Making good speed, a clip of 3-4km an hour, slower on the ascents but steady, unwavering. Looking up when I could afford, only tripping once and mildly, on the tired descent home. Pausing once in a while for just long enough to take a drink, and share a snack with the dog, to let him sniff that thing or the other. I wait patiently for this at times, not so much at others. He is such a sensory being, not savouring the views so much as immersed in his attuned world of smells and movement, always ready to make chase, literally leaping all fours off the ground into a pounce at a moments notice. I lament a bit that he is such a hunting machine and I celebrate his ability to find water. I keep him close and on leash as we move into the territory of the Ptarmigans, for fear he might run himself off a cornice and into oblivion in the obsessive blindness of pursuit. Although he has surprised me before in his ability to see without seeing, to find the precipitous edges in the world and avoid them.

It seems without knowing it I have traversed into the land of aging, the transitional marks of womanhood flowing in and out of my life in a way so subtle it would have been easy to miss. As in other things for me, it has been easier and with less drama and pain than most. It is a good reminder that there is more going on underneath the surface of things than what is perceived. Many things are inexpressible in words. 

I moved quickly enough over the trails yesterday, not so fast to cause burn out, but efficiently, attending to the right pace – the one that my body knows intuitively in order to keep going over the  distance and the gains and losses in elevation. Wanting to drop off my bundles, to reach that arbitrary summit but willing to compromise if time and darkness threatened to converge upon me.   

When I arrived at the top, the air was warm, almost still, more so than on the wide ridge below. I mark this time; I came to the area a week ago with some intention to write, to move across mountain landscapes, to reclaim something that has been cast off in the arc of betrayal and loss yet again. Not to find myself, for I have not been lost but fully in residence, but to travel through some terrain not yet fully explored. I had company; the dog and two souls who appeared for some days in between to wander a bit with me, our days full of good story telling and philosophy. Soulfulness and the metaphysical eking it’s way into all our conversations. And then the others, the ones who have come in dreams, or the chance meetings on the trail, emissaries of the deeper journey I find myself on. Some haunting, delivering indecipherable messages for me to ponder as I move. I wonder if it is about knowing when to let go and when to accept the fact that I never will. Being able to feel loss while simultaneously being full of joy and kindness and the love of and for others. I will not miss out, but I am learning that a life fully lived contains strains of regret, of ambiguity, of completions that leave nothing but benchmarks to keep me a on true course. I strive to move more slowly so I can recognize all these moments as they come, knowing that I may never know their full meanings until all this is over.  

Near the summit I left something behind, with it my trust that all will be well, and all the yearnings of my heart will come home to me again. Some in this lifetime and others in another lifetime or a form unknowable to me now.

Moonrise

Moonrise

This waxing full moment, turned red with the smoke of wildfires.

I am wondering at the memory of a year passed.

The unfolding mist bent through a lens of

Retrospect.

A sea change, cast through an ocean swell

Like a fisherman's lure

Trolling the depths unseen.

All things reorganized, reorganizing themselves.

Even now

We have not found the end of this arc.

We have become different, unrecognizable even to ourselves.

In our hellbent ways of un-pausing, non-stopping,

An unfurling tapestry of constant movement.

Of not waiting.

Overflowing with desire to fill this unending ocean,

To put an end to our own fathomless wanting. 

We yearn for once to stay put,

To find a kind of stasis 

That only exists in the mind.

To stake a claim in the illusion of a beginning and an ending

We abandon ourselves.

A quiet heart is the only one to remain still,

Able to ride on this tidal flux,

Bending and cresting and diving deep 

As each phase of the moon tilts unknowingly towards the next.

Readying for Launch

I have recently returned from facilitating a wilderness experience with a small group of women. They reminded me of something quintessential about the power  of the feminine - the power of the subtle and the intuitive. The reminder that the slow burn that I am, sometimes quiet and thoughtful, moving through life at the speed of a footstep or paddle stroke can the best way to give my gifts such as they are.  I have always been one to value integrity (my own and others') above all things...and at the very least a level of self awareness that allows me to see when I have deviated from an honest course.
Things that ring falsely, or are about image, marketing, 'branding' and the manipulation of words and images for the purpose of selling has always bothered me. It's a necessary evil, one might argue, in this world that values momentum and boldness. But more and more I see the work of soulfulness, mindfulness, and personal growth being commoditized. We have turned intuition, human development and self awareness into a product rather than a practice.
These are not things that can be bought and sold. They are not things that can be achieved through any means but the personal sweat of intention and depth - of letting go and making connections. Of practice, and more practice. These are the tasks built on a lifetime well lived, not things that anyone else can grant us. This work of the soul, of 'self-improvement', is both personal and universal, but it is about showing up and being as fully ourselves as possible while also trying to do no harm. To support others on this journey is a delicate balance of coming forward in our own imperfect and vulnerable ways, while also being able to not make it about us or our story. On some level I understand this as a large part of my life's work - this art of showing up, of listening and seeing those who arrive on these expeditions on land, sea and mountain as fully and clearly as I can.
My intuitive and authentic self cringes at the thought of self promotion, preferring instead to just continue this slow journey. This emerging success story that can only be truly measured in the strains of truth in whatever I do. My 'progress' often seems slow, esoteric and lacking material form.
This blog is a window on my soul's wanderings, partially obscured by metaphor, but visceral, real. It's where I sometimes arrive to sort, and understand and access whatever wisdom lies within me. I trust that it will reach who it needs to, and I hope that by following my own voice, this elemental stream of words that seems to emerge from the ether as I sit down to write, I will get where I need to go.
The "Art of Staying Put" as I named it 4 years ago, has been about finding my way through the tough and beautiful things of life and committing to a kind of steadfastness - a stillness, both geographical and internal. Not abandoning myself in the process of pain and loss, or even in the face of the great number of wonderful things that have arrived in my life.
Right now I am feeling challenged, at once pushed to 'make something' of myself as I enter into a few projects this coming month, and simultaneously fearful of getting it wrong, of pushing outwards when I should have pulled in. But I also see that opportunities are emerging, as I have slowly edged towards finding the material  confluence of the gifts I express in the world; of mindful presence and action (always a work in progress), an objective and documented level of skill and competence in the outdoor realm, a writing practice that accesses deeper internal truths as well as a potent and discerning practical voice, and an ability to support and mentor people on journeys of growth, connection and self trust.