The Tsunami

A story from dreamtime.

There were two of us,
I'm not sure who you were
My companion.

Both of us afloat on the lightest of boards
Upon the ocean's surface.
It was calm
As we paddled out to sea.
(but)
A wall of water was coming.
Monstrous and dark,
It's crest curving inexorably
Over a distant promontory.
As we watched it
Racing towards us
At great speed belied by volume.
A Tsunami
Readying itself
To engulf the world
Behind us.
We were like
Specks of dust in its path.

Still, we paddled out
In no hurry,
To meet the giant swell,
As it rolled on,
Beginning to break
A thousand feet above our heads.

There would be no time
To escape it now.
Any ideas we had of reaching
Deeper water
To avoid being caught
Clearly futile.

Still,
With soft hands,
We plied the glassy surface
Smiling
On our way to the maelstrom.

Even though it was a dream,
I felt my mind
Quietly searching for a
Plan.
My pulse steady.
My body calmly
Bracing for the hit.
Musing about
What to do,
How to swim.
To let go of the flimsy board
That was keeping me afloat
Or not?

Even as the wall
Turned into a seething mass of
Foam,
Bearing down upon us
I considered my options.
Aware of you
Still there beside me.

When it came,
There was
A moment
When I was still thinking.
Forming useless plans.
Then
I felt some part of you
Glance off of me
As we were taken
By the crush of liquid.
I remember
Letting go of any idea
Of control.
An act of will,
To surrender
Just before
I let the ocean have me.

All went dark.
Our tiny bodies at the mercy
Of the briny
Blue.



I am not sure
How much time had passed
When I awoke
To the slight roughness of
Damp sand
Against my face.
Just enough heat
From the sun
As it tried to
Bend its way around the clouds.
Beginning to dry me
And you.
The sea now lapping against our feet
As we found ourselves
Safe
On solid ground.

Delivered by the
Power of
Letting go.

The Dress

(in response to the world as it is)

A night on the town,

Me wearing a dress.

You in a suit.

Both of us looking beautiful.

Revelling in the safe and joyful harbour

Of friendship.

Or so I thought.

Later (much) I found out 

That dress,

Or my body thus covered

In it's black sleekness,

Was equated to torture.

Me, depicted as the
Manipulator.

Abusing some power
I did not wield.
Instigating some imagined
Game of chase.
Power thrust upon me,
In order to claim
A kind of victimhood.

How is it that I felt
Responsible?

My being-ness,
Playfulness,

Beauty
Mistaken for an unkindness.

How is it that a woman

Worries about such things?

Somehow culpable for the

Projections of those

Who do not know how to appreciate

Beauty

Without seeing
Sex
And power-over.

Who see an
Object;
The beautiful
As the enemy.

The tormentor,
Or quarry
To be brought down.
A light to be extinguished.

I rarely wear a dress.

Because I feel responsible.
Protecting a man
From the pain of
Desire.
As if it was my duty.


This will stop now.

Because I know there were
Two of us.
Both equally beautiful.
I would never
Look at you
And think you unkind
For wearing a suit.

May I never apologize
Quietly again;
For being beautiful,
For feeling free
To wear what I want
Without fear of reprise.
For having my own
Wellspring
Of power
Wrapped lovingly in a black dress.

Stretch

"An archer's bow is always stretched before it releases its arrow, as the arc of a soul is always stretched before releasing its wisdom." ~ Mark Nepo 

When I was seventeen I left home for the first time, I was not-quite-done high school and boarded a plane to the UK. I had three months, a skeleton plan and an adventurous nature. I was curious about many things, particularly about matters of spirituality, a fact I had perhaps kept to myself within my pragmatic (perhaps at times cynical) and right-brained family. My affinity for forest fairies and dragons had long been expressed in my creative writing projects and lengthy wanders in the woods of our property, but it was something I kept close to my chest. There was and remains a mystical sensitivity to my nature that shies away from the world.

I had saved my money that year from my part time job at Cultures where I served salads, bantered and learned Spanish words from the ebullient and hilarious Mexican busboy and developed a taste for drip coffee (it was 1987, there was no other kind). I was a voracious reader as a teenager - entranced by Tolkein, but also Richard Bach (Illusions), Tom Robbins (Jitterbug Perfume) and any stories, fact or fiction, that married wild nature with the magical and esoteric.

During that year I had read "The Secret Life of Plants" and become aware of the spiritual community of Findhorn. Located in Northeastern Scotland Findhorn was famous for growing lush gardens in the infertile sandy soils and harsh coastal climate of the Moray Firth. Their giant crops were attributed to attuning to the guidance of nature spirits and over the years the place had developed into one of the foremost New Age centres in the world. I was set on having a visit to this amazing-sounding place and so signed up for an "Experience Week", a 7 day immersion into the Findhorn way.

I was a shy kid by nature but this was a summer of re-invention, of taking new risks and exploring solo travel. I was making my own decisions (I'm sure my parents had no clue what I was doing - which was by design but not unusual), and I felt a type of freedom that was both terrifying and electrifying. By the time I got off the train in the small village of Forres I had missed the shuttle to the retreat centre and so made my way by foot in the oncoming darkness. I felt courageous, self-determined and clear as I wandered onto the property. I also had no idea what the week was going to be like, but was envisioning days of communing with trees and Scottish sprites, and long walks on the blustery coast.

When I reached the centre and checked in I met a few of my Experience week counterparts I quickly became aware that I was most definitely the youngest person there. By the first morning, sitting around a circle listening to the teary introductions of a group - most in the throes of mid-life angst, it was dawning on me that I may have signed up for something quite different from what I expected. The highlight of that first day was a too-short tour of the gardens and community that had been built up around it, but most of it was spent sitting on a cushion in a circle. I felt a mix of itchy feet, guilt, and insecurity about having nothing to cry about in front of the group. I was also irritated, edgy and frustrated that we seemed to be spending all our time staring into a circle of pained humanity instead of revelling in the wonders around us. My sense of expansiveness, freedom, and adventure was dissipating in the face of what seemed to be a midlife encounter group.

As a seventeen year old I had the sense that I did not belong. I felt the simple burden of my youth, my  emotional wounds seemed so uncomplicated in comparison to the others there; the circumstances of my adolescence had not been easy and as a result  I did not get along with my family and had essentially run away from home. I had experienced a deep and unrequited love at the age of 15, and had not yet been kissed by a boy were very real but simple pains to me. All these things seemed to pale in comparison to the dense and murky patterns of adulthood, and I had no desire to unpack them there. I was so much more concerned with magic, freedom, and the mystical optimism I had nurtured since I was very small.

I awoke on day three with a song running through my head. 'Should I Stay or Should I Go' by The Clash continued to ricochet through my mind in a discordant counterpoint to the pan pipes being played as I entered the group that morning. I had spent part of the night ruminating about whether to leave, feeling a little embarrassed about the idea of taking off but also feeling like I wanted out. It was a field trip day, and we were heading off site to a river* to do some exploring. We were to be set loose in the forest for a few hours to connect with whatever we might find there. I'm sure it was meant to be contemplative and meditative, but I was more interested in running and exploring. As soon as we were off the bus I disappeared down the trail as fast as I could to find the river. The woodland was stunning - almost purely composed of ancient Beech trees, their elephant-leg trunks reaching into the mossy dampness of the Scottish earth. I immediately felt at ease, happily loosened from the sad and existential clutches of middle age.  I also had the sense that I would find the answer to my dilemma there in that forest.

Descending into the coolness of the river valley, I soon found myself standing on the edge of the dark rushing waters of a tannin-stained creek. it's edges were lined with river-sculpted granite - the perfect type for scrambling. The river had spent it's life cutting a sinewy chasm through the stone, churning and gurgling, disappearing and reappearing around sieves and undercuts. I set out to lose myself with the river, following it's edges, looking for and finding (as I still do) the most energetic piece of water. A gap between two rocky outcrops where the water was being squeezed into a narrower channel before plummeting several feet in a churning maw. The river was the colour of coffee, the whitewater a tawny yellow.

I looked for a place to cross - something just narrow enough to jump across without falling in - and this spot was the closest to that I'd seen yet. For me it has always been the other side of the river, not fence that calls and my search has not been for greener grass. We cross water for all sorts of reasons. That day I was looking for clarity, an understanding of what the 'right' decision would be for me. I was looking for my own wisdom to make an appearance within the noisy halls of my mind -riddled as it was with judgments and fear - the fear of missing out, of being seen as a quitter or worse yet seeing myself that way. Mostly I was petrified of the possibility that I might get it wrong; of regret.

I stood facing the opposite side, trying to gage the span of the gap and whether I was nimble or strong enough to make it across. It was wide enough to cause uncertainty but it was the height difference that was the real complication -  the water-polished rock of the opposite bank stood a foot or more higher than my side of the river. I stood there for quite some time, guessing and second guessing the physics of my body while the water rushed by below, cold and oblivious. Finally I just did it. Planting my feet squarely on the rocks I fell forward, hands and arms extended to catch the smooth lip of the far bank. Barely.

I found myself extended, my body stretched across the deep channel of whitewater, close to horizontal. Suddenly and too late I realized that I had misjudged. I bowed my head and stared down at the river passing beneath me, felt the vibration of the rapids through the warm rock beneath my hands. I was living the question. My body wanted movement, propulsion it did not have. A leap of faith was needed. But there was not a scrap of flexion available in my legs to initiate a spring forward, though I played and replayed the possibility for what seemed like a long while, paralyzed. To allow my feet to lift off in the hopes that my hands would grapple their way to safety on the smoothed edges of river rock would almost certainly end in a swim through an inhospitable watercourse. I was not schooled in the art and science of rivers back then, but it was the kind of rapid that would clearly cause injury or entrapment. At the same time pushing off to go backwards seemed equally uncertain, and in that moment I had wanted to cross more than I wanted to go back. I tested the possibilities, alternately flexing my knees and elbows and pushing off slightly to figure out which way might actually keep me dry. Either move was going to be about commitment.

This was not the last time I was to be stretched between river banks, but it was the first and most formative. In those few eternal moments staring down at the rushing water, my seventeen year old self found an answer. I pushed off hard, throwing myself into reverse with all the force I could muster. I think there was a bruise on my butt for a week or so after that from my stumble backwards onto the rocky ground. But I was dry and intact, and as I walked back up the trail I knew what to do.

The next morning I was up early. I left a note for the group, had an uncomfortable talk with the group facilitator, shouldered my pack and walked down the road to the village. Perhaps it was the right decision - in truth I'll never know what would have unfolded had I stayed. What I do know is that I had never felt so empowered, so aware of my own wisdom or the felt sense - the quiet clicking into place of all the things in my universe. I surged with energy.

It is ok sometimes to get suspended, stretched between possibilities. Because in time, at the right time, if we listen in closely the body will tell us when it's time and in what direction to take whatever leap is necessary. Then our only job is to trust our move, and know that external results are not the only or best measure of the quality and heart of our committed action.



* In my best Google images research, I believe we were at Randolf's Leap on the River Findhorn. Perhaps it was this very spot.

In Gratitude

I am grateful

For all the things (in no particular order).
The coming of the dark stormy season,
Dogs on beaches.
Dearest and oldest friends.
Visits.
The beauty of a crowd in a small space,
Sharing food.
The joys of having someone to come home to,
Even temporarily.
My strange and wonderful dreams, a lifelong source of mystery;
Of wolves, whales, and finding my centre and the power of
Standing my ground.
A clean house
And a messy, full one.
This incredible Island we live on.
Trails, coastlines, rolling seas, nurse logs.
The wild ocean.
Driftwood.
All the friendships that have carried me forward on this journey,
Even in the smallest of moments,
Human and non.
Companions in adventure and play.
The wisdom of Heartache;
The un-locker of souls.
Sadness and glee.
Forgiveness - in divine and intimate, messy human forms.
Dance and
Crazy leggings.
My own knowing of when is a good time to push past
Fear.
Feeling the pull when it is right to step out onto this floor.
Trusting my gut because
It knows best.
Surf - in all it's wild inexorable energy,
Carrying me in.
The passion of kelp,
And letting it all go,
Finally.
To new beginnings,
And the quiet vigilance of the wise and compassionate spirit
That is my own.
For all the things that may never feel complete.

I am grateful.

Roots

It seems to me we make up our lives of stories, meaning-makers that we are. And I for one can catch significance and symbolism in even the most mundane details of a day. Maybe it's all just the fabrications of a monkey-mind, but sometimes there is a grace to these narratives that helps me wade through even the deepest suffering. Sometimes these moments of seeing are the wellspring of my deepest joy.

When I was quite small, my parents sent me to a summer camp. I was horse mad, and had chosen the camp because of it's lush and prolific horsiness sprayed across the brochure. It turned out to be quite different from my imaginings of days of wild riding across open fields and forests. It was a small place, boasting a few Connemara ponies that we weren't allowed to ride, an above-ground swimming pool, and an acre or two of fields surrounding an old farmhouse that served as a dining hall. The property was dotted with a small cluster of wall tents for the 30 or so campers who attended each session.

The staff were an eclectic bunch, as much as I remember all these years later, they seemed old and quirky to my seven year old sensibilities. The cook in particular was an interesting character, a little gruff, wiry, crease-faced and quiet. I was a little afraid of him although it was clear he was well loved by the other camp staff.

The week I was there fell over July 25th, and the camp had a tradition of celebrating 'Christmas in July'. Everyone at camp was assigned a secret Santa, and on the day a tree was decorated, a turkey dinner was served and gifts were exchanged. Someone on staff knew that Christmas was my birthday, so when it was my turn my secret Santa stood up in front of the dining room to present me with my gift while everyone sang Happy Birthday. It was unexpected, I was shy and therefore horrified to be the centre of attention, and my secret Santa turned out to be the cook. And then he pulled out my gift - a paddle he had carved in the last 5 days, inscribed with the word "Roots" on one side of the grip. I can't remember all of what he said, other than his shy apology for not having finished carving out the other half of the camp motto on the other side..."Wings". To this day 40 years later, half a "W" is all that adorns that side of the grip. I was overwhelmed by the gift, the giver, the magnitude of the item I was being given. No doubt, as was my fashion, I clammed up. It's an unfortunate reaction that I sometimes still have when unsure of how exactly to express gratitude, or overpowered by strong emotion. It's easily misunderstood as disrespect or ungratefulness.


This paddle lived for a long time at my family's cabin, for all those years I spent living out of my car, or at basecamps. One winter I moved into the cabin for a few months before moving out west again, and took it with me when I left. At that time, the significance of the thing struck me. It had come to me long before I ever dreamed myself a paddler, but as an adult canoes have been the defining vehicles of my life. It had also come from a place with no nearby lakes, rivers or oceans, so it had always seemed strange to me that it's maker had chosen such a gift. To give to a small, introverted and mousy little girl at a horse camp with not a canoe in sight. It is hard not to imagine this gift as a missive from this long lost stranger, a future reminder of my arrival into one of the great passions of my life. As if somehow, my path as a wilderness guide and paddler and all it's soulful explorations and deep connections had been written into my DNA.

This morning I pulled the paddle out of a closet where I had stored it months ago while redecorating, still living with it's unfinished message. And I am considering that other side. I have come to be rooted here, indeed I have always thought there is a kind of rootedness to my nature. But I wonder, what needs to come into balance?
The work of this week is begin to carve new wings, because I think I might need them.

Wayfinding

Amidst the west coast fogs of August and smoke from burning forests throughout this province, I paddled with a group for 12 days this past month. The coastal wilderness we travelled through remains one of my favourite places around this island - magical, ethereal, filled with changing light and oceanic textures. 10 years ago I paddled this same section of coast for the first time. At that time, fairly new to a sea kayak, I felt at the mercy of swell and wind and coastal bathymetry; I had moments of terror on that first trip that I have rarely or ever experienced before or since in any wild landscape. Coming from a river environment, I was used to dynamic water, understanding the way that a boat can get pushed around by waves and current, and how to respond, but the verticality and sheer power and volume of the ocean was intimidating. All things moved on multiple axes, the scope so large that it caused me to lose my bearings. There were currents which were invisible to me, so large and influential that I could not perceive them, waves emanating from sources tens or hundreds of miles away, and from below. Fog drifted in white walls that obliterated visibility as we inched up the coastline. My paddling partner kept disappearing behind mountains of swell, dipping dramatically in and out of sight as we rounded each jutting headland. My normally loose hips (save ships) were tight. In those moments of blindness I felt very alone, exposed and small - a tiny speck of cork bobbing on a monstrous sea.

But in the past decade the ocean and I have become friends, and while she owns my respect, she no longer feels so threatening. Even in those moments when she challenges me, as she rolls and blows and pushes in thick with foggy blankness, I trust her. And I trust myself and the tools I have garnered over the years before and since my first introduction to this Pacific creature. The rivers will always have my heart, but so does she. And she is full of ideas, living metaphors for this journey that I am on.

This past month I had the fortune to circumnavigate these same islands, one of many wild homeplaces I have been lucky enough to inhabit and love. It was an extended time to explore corners I had not yet or rarely had the time to see on shorter trips. The 'outside' or west facing coasts of these islands are known for their exposure to wind, swell and fog, and on some days these forces can conspire to complicate or prohibit passage by kayak. On the day we paddled around the most exposed bit of coastline the forecast predicted some manageable but significant swell and light winds, and a promise of lifting fog that seemed to be manifesting as we rounded the first headland. But soon the only thing that became clear in the rolling sea was the white wall that shrouded our progress and remained stuck in, thick and pernicious. I responded to the conditions by consulting my quiver of tools; the simultaneous use of compass bearings, watch, calculations speed over distance, the minutest details of the coastline features matched between chart and barely observable reality. Even my ears were pulled into the game as I listened for the sounds of waves crashing on rocky shelf to gauge distance from the shore in different spots. I chatted to those closest to me, mostly about navigation, shoulder checking every few moments for those just behind, our group tightly packed, my staff partner shepherding the back of the group, a couple of whom were feeling sea sick in the poor vis. It was fun, absorbing, and engaging technical work which did not allow for a moments' lapse in attention. At each rest stop I checked and rechecked landmarks, noted and counted visible points and backstops, tracked our drift forward or back, took into account time or distance lost.

A few hours in we stopped again, this time on the home stretch, but with a boat in need of a tow I unlocked my focus from wayfinding for just a few moments. After a few minutes I realized I had lost our exact location, and scrambled to pinpoint it as we passed a few tightly spaced headlands. But towards these last few miles a sound had begun to come to us through the fog, the whistle of a navigational marker known to lie about a mile southeast of our final destination.

At some point someone asked me how I was keeping a fix on our location and what slipped out of my mouth was 'by feel'. I laughed and quickly corrected myself by explaining the myriad of concrete tools at my disposal, but the truth of that first thought hit home. This is just it, all these tools, the skills I have learned over time are the gifts of 'feel', an intuition that is made up of faith, skill and a focused and expanded awareness. There are components of this that are 'technical' - speed over time, magnetic bearings, navigational aids and markers.  And then there are things my gut and body tells me. Even when external reality seems to deny them, they garner a kernel of truth that can be counted on. I am good at recognizing and following my instincts and trusting my skills on the water, but in the past few years have lost faith in myself in other ways.

This past month the ocean reminded me that I have done the best that I can, given the complications and challenges I have faced in the parts of my life that are most tender. And my best has been pretty good - I cannot be faulted for a lack of self examination. I am worthy of my own trust, despite having wandered off course at times. This has not been a squandered life, because amidst this foggy section of the journey I still have myself and all the things I have learned and know. I am allowed to be happy, to find myself in the right place at the right time, if only by navigating the uncomfortable blindness by the handrails and landmarks that show me I am on the right track. And not losing faith when I seem to have drifted.


What I know is this - I must pay attention to the minutest details of this coastline, listen in for the sound of surf  and watch for the rocks and headlands as they emerge from the fog. I will stay present to what is directly in front of my hull, and keep my senses tuned to the magnetic bearing of my heart. Keeping my eyes open to the reality of the emerging landscape I will find my way home. I will try to remember that sometimes in the lee of the most formidable rock gardens there is shelter for a safe landing.

Blackberries

Blackberries

I rode my bike to and from work yesterday. It's that time of year here, where seemingly every street in Victoria proffers up a bounty of blackberries. I had ridden past a swath of intense ripeness near my office a couple of days before. The berries were fatter, shinier and more plentiful than any others I had seen this year. The bushes were literally dripping with the things, protected from human detection on this suburban stretch of pedestrian-unfriendly road. On that day, I had no container with me and was also in the throes of inertia. Once in motion it's easy to keep going. I was on the way to work, which is an hourlong ride, and to stop a few hundred meters before reaching my destination represented a delayed arrival, and later departure at the end of the day. The feeling of being on borrowed time welled up. So I rolled on.
Yesterday morning I stopped long enough to fill a travel mug and set them out on the counter for my co-workers when I arrived at the office. On the way home I had two empty lunch containers and a water bottle so stopped for much longer. As I picked I considered the process of the harvest. Blackberries bushes, especially these wild imports are intensely brambled. Every square inch of them is equipped with tiny and not so tiny barbs, ready to impale, embed, scratch and snag any piece of exposed skin or clothing that brushes up against them. At first, overwhelmed by the sheer density of the things, I tried to take more than one berry at a time, but soon found myself recoiling or dropping one or all of them as the plant's defences did their sharp work. Unlike blueberries, which is a friendlier plant, grabbing hasty fistfuls is not an option. My urge towards efficiency, to pluck more than one at a time, was having the opposite effect.
While I do my best to be aware of the feeling of rushing through things in my life killing two birds with one stone is often my modus operandi. This past couple of weeks when I have been walking my dog Kimik after work I have been taking him past the berry bushes near my house. He doesn't like this because his sniffing agenda gets curtailed by my picking agenda, and sometimes I am anchoring him too close to something prickly under his paws. He plants his feet and resists. Sometimes we stop at the little market on the way home too...so I don't have to go out for groceries afterwards. Kimbo doesn't like that either as he's not great at being tied up outside the store - if another dog walks by it triggers armageddon. He's a bit like a blackberry bush that way, I pay the consequences if I try to combine too many tasks with him. Multi-tasking is not supported by either of these beings.
Yesterday afternoon I picked slowly, methodically. Moving with my back to the traffic, I meandered along the row of bushes, taking one dark berry at a time, dropping each one into the container for the ride home. I dropped fewer, was stabbed less, and took the time to wait for the sway of each stem to slow before going in for the next one.
This is not new, this reminder to slow down and rest in the moments. It is just the next wave, some new stage of remembering to pause and take stock. On the rest of my ride home a quail chirped at me from the railing by the side of the bike path - it was inches from my face. A young stag watched me ride past, his ears flicking. I saw more things on my way, felt the way the air moved and changed against my skin, and allowed myself to drop into the sensation of pedalling up hills, less hellbent on getting to the top. More willing to let things be.

Swimming Towards the Bubbles

A few days ago I happened upon on old journal. I have a few of those around, as I am often gifted and gift myself with notebooks. Some of them like this one have only seen a few pages of use. In amongst the expanse of empty pages, I found a reminder of something I had forgotten. It was a scrawled collection of bulleted notes from a conversation I'd had with an intuitive over 4 years ago. It took me a few moments to place the entry, dated only by the month but contextualized by the references to events and concerns that had filled my life at that time. They were scribbled in haste in the rush to capture her words and my anticipation of hearing some clarifying insights from the ether after a heartbreaking and painful period.

I am fascinated at how these missives have reappeared to me now, and wonder what wisdom they may have to offer me 4 years later. Life has certainly been eventful since then in both beautiful and deeply unsettling ways. Although life is primarily good and I am grateful for all of it, there are still layers of grief my body is still working to metabolize.

The intuitive had offered up a series of images, because that is how things came to her. As I re-read them, my eyes fell on these words:

'...swim in the direction of the bubbles, when we are turned upside down going in the direction of inertia. Relax...counter-intuitive but wise. Figure out which way is up. Don't follow the same pattern...'

She pictured me underwater, my bearings lost, the aerated surface distant and unseen from the depths of a dark pool (ocean?). She tells me to be still, relax, wait and let the bubbles rise then swim in that direction. I ponder now the source of these little balls of air - my own breath? The movements of some other creature? The inevitability of life rising up from somewhere deep below me?

At the time, and at a few times since I have felt thus disoriented by life, by events, by the actions and inactions of those I care about and am influenced by. Turned around underwater. For a while now it has also felt like a piece of me, the Dreamer, has been holding it's breath, not wanting to move, needing to hide itself away for a time. That part has felt battered and has needed time to heal - to protect myself against the possibility of further injury.

In recent years I have sometimes measured my own worth through the absence of others, and that is not a way to live. My greatest and deepest desires have felt pummelled into a thin dust at my feet, in some part, but not utterly by my own hand, and I am not sure what to make of that. The desires I have are to be met, to see and be seen, to hold and be held in a shared light. This is 'what I was made for' to steal some words from another once much loved but absent soul. It could be that there is a power in saying it, for expressing this deeper and universal calling for belonging and connection. Maybe I am exposing this part of my soft underbelly and risking, as I sometimes do, to be pitied or feared or shamed. Maybe that is a risk worth taking, because it is healing and beautiful to write these words.

Over a year ago I took a call. Prior to that my life had felt like a bit of an emotional maelstrom for a number of months, a constant clamour of need from without. I felt pushed when all I wanted was to hide away for a while, to wrap myself and the people and events of my life in a cocoon-like pause. A few moments to breathe, take stock, and allow the bubbles to rise. But the universe was having none of that and was delivering a further push, an unwelcome pressure I was not equipped to deal with well. More than that it was poking me on sacred ground, a trusted territory I had never imagined could be tampered with.

On that day, it felt like just another concussive blow to my heart and nervous system. Instead of pausing or allowing myself time to consider a fully formed response, I reverted to a practiced default - my inertia move. On the phone I was full of grace, no doubt responding in just the perfect way, offering non-dualistic acceptance, support, affirmation. What I was not able to do was to speak the truth of my unreadiness, instead voicing the internal setting which goes something like this:
"It's ok. I can handle this. Don't worry about me."
In those moments on the phone, underneath the apparent grace and simple truth of my words, I remember most clearly the upwelling of a voice in my head saying  'you've got to be effing kidding me.' I had been so exhausted already, why was I being asked to withstand more?
Maybe because that is what I constantly ask of myself, and felt shame and unworthiness for even having a more nuanced response.

Ironically, it is the unspoken truth that tends to follow up with a vengeance on the coattails of such things, sometimes messily. By subsuming that second voice, an equal and opposite reaction was triggered.  Like whiplash, it caught me (and others) off guard. I have less of an earthy stoicism than I would like to think. I feel attachment and pain, tend towards expressiveness when hurting and need time to process and talk and feel my way through things - I am learning to allow for that. Perhaps I can be forgiven and understood by others for these things as well, though that is not something within my control.

In the weeks that followed I and others suffered the fall out of my own conflicted responses. The inertia of the situation seemed to me unstoppable, freight-train like, made worse by my initial acquiescence. To onlookers, I probably seemed insane. In the course of a few days I had an epiphanic change of heart, and communicated this with honesty, pure intention and with what felt to me like a deep vulnerability. I was rebuffed and felt exposed, at fault, regretful, scared, as well as conflicted and disloyal in sharing my truth. I imagine I was perceived as manipulative, fickle and inconsistent. Unkind and insensitive.

I have a coffee cup that a dear friend gave me - it is thickly made and earthy and is etched with the words "I am strong" on the base. I have, over the years and throughout my childhood, internalized this message - I think I can own the fact that at my best I have a powerful and willowy resilience. I am not (too) afraid of conflict and prefer it when difficulties are openly and compassionately engaged, knowing it can lead to transformation, redemption and magic. However, one of the more problematic strands of this weave is a deep rooted desire to not be a bother, not to get in the way. There is sometimes an altruism in that - a desire to see the people I love happy and a deep trust in the way things unfold. But there is also no doubt that this stoicism is tied up in a sense of unworthiness. I also can, when pressed, have trouble imagining a way for apparently conflicting needs to be met. So I remove my own, turning them inward. And I have a short fuse for suppressed emotions.

Historically I know how all this is connected to having been the least in need of my family constellation - the youngest but the most ok, able to withstand not only the winds of absence, neglect and abuse, but also to rise and deepen despite of it.  Maybe even because of it, using the fertile soil of adversity as fodder for growth. On the dark side, it may be because I am strong that I will initially defer my own needs. I know I can survive, but ultimately life should be about more than survival.

There are bubbles going up...somewhere. I need to trust that. To rest in this stillness despite the cacophonous demands of the human world for movement. The perceived pressures and expectations of my age, my status, my 'failures' in relationships. I need to hold, not my breath, but my own hands to stop them from clawing their way to the next false surface of this vast and dark ocean. In the scribbled words from the barely-used notebook I found this week, I need to do my best to be still and let the universe meet me half way.


**Post-script: My writing often emerges as a reflective tool, a healing process, a way into the next phase. It is the crack in the seam that bubbles with life when there is no opening for real dialogue.  Thus, it is subjective and reflective of my own experience.

Soulful

Sometimes you just have to claim what's yours,
And this is mine.

Soulful,
Artful.
I am
Far from perfect,
Slightly guarded but wildly open.

Pay attention, and
You may get a small window into this
Spirit.
Caught in the flight of dance,
Music,
Light,
Careening around the open field.
Broken, unbroken.
Again and again.

When you let yourself be influenced,
Like I have,
Allowed the ethers to steal your magic,
Essence by essence.
Stripping you of your innocent nature.
When you believe in projections
You become dilute.
Watered down in self doubt.
Loss and hope,
Unfettered and unclaimed.
Sometimes it feels safer to be this way.

But
In the sweep of redemption that never happens
I am
Losing faith a million times.
I crack,
To find more pieces still clinging
To the life raft
Within.
Lying dormant at the level of soul
I find
Remnants of a self
Magnetically seeking it's own shards
In the push and pull of this
Spring tide.
Becoming whole.

Once again
I see her
This creature of adolescent dreamscapes.
She is the same
But also utterly different.
She is me.
Lost, found and abandoned
In the crash of this
Ambient moment.
Through the trees
She is coming home again.

Second Life

I've been thinking recently how great it would be if I had two lives. Not so much one after the other so much as one that paralleled this one. You see it seems that I am constantly faced with choices, too many things that I want to say yes to and only one life worth of time and energy to do all of them. It is a privileged position to be in for sure, but it makes me wonder what fuels this desire for a second life.

Part of it, to be completely honest, is about FOMO. Fear of Missing Out is one of the banes of my existence. It is a problem. Just in the past month I can probably list about 6 events, trips or gatherings that I have not been able to go to because I was doing something else. Each time I say no to something that conflicts with something else on my schedule I feel like I am missing out on an opportunity to show up and do something cool. I am also quietly haunted by a sense that my absence will precipitate some loss - as if by not showing up I will somehow be stricken from the list of invitees or worse, forgotten entirely. Not missed. That terrifies me, and I am very aware of how narcissistic that might be. I need to feel like I belong, and am wanted at the party.  The feeling  of exclusion is a trap for me. It may not be pretty, but it's true.

Another piece of this second life business is about energy. I find these days that life is an intricate dance between taking action and engaging in experiences and taking refuge in the pause. Exertion, either physical, geographical, emotional or spiritual must be balanced with restfulness. There is refuelling that needs to be done, and if we ignore that need we tend to trammel ourselves in an overcommitted slurry of doing and striving. It's not that I don't want to stop and rest, it's the opposite -  I love resting, but sometimes is feels like resting comes at a cost. And I want to experience all of it - the oasis and the adventure, the party and the sleepy mornings over coffee with nowhere to be.

I think about this in bigger terms as well. I am aware that there have been times in my life where I have feared making a choice. I have hesitated, or tried to hold the inevitable rush of passing time at bay, tried to hold the people, or my idea of them in stasis around me until I have had the time to gather my wits and make the 'right' choice or action. But this is impossible, and in many cases, once we have walked by a fork in the trail, even if we have willfully paused only a few steps beyond the juncture there is no going back. Sometimes the trail has been erased, by circumstance or the movement of others, or simply by the same magic that made it appear in the first place. At other times the landscape has changed entirely in the space of our hesitation and to make our way back to that path is too arduous or thick with brambles to undertake without completely losing ourselves along the way. Sometimes what feels only a breath away is really long gone. This is a lesson worth remembering.

This summer I have made choices. I am blessed to have the luxury of a generous share of time, a lack of stress or material need and the gift of opportunity. And this is what I will try to sit with, as I struggle with the privilege of wanting.  I will trust that the choices I am making are setting me on the right path

.

Salt

Every 18.6 years the tide cycle in the Pacific Northwest repeats itself. So perfectly predictable, it is a pattern created by solar and lunar orbits that brings about the exact same measurements - to the centimetre - on each place on the coast. We commonly think about tides in relation to a daily and monthly schedule, the higher high and lower low waters, the springs and the neaps, so it is always surprising to people when you tell them about this larger, multi-year pattern of highs and lows. Nature has a precision we cannot hope to replicate, and yet we often characterize her as chaotic, cacophonous, unbridled. 'Wild' is a word often used to describe people and things that are without discipline, impulsive or wanton.

I returned home this week from a 9 day trip on the ocean, skin and soul scrubbed by saltwater and the finest sand. I am tired, back in the routine of a regular job after being on ocean time, having returned to the lee for a short break from the windy side of this island. My clock has been reset by a feral kind of symmetry; I have made this way of living a bit of a habit, moving back and forth between the urban and the wild, always working on evening out the pendulum swing.  Always seeking just the right mix of movement and staying put. It is as good as it gets right now - I have called it perfect, this balance of freedom and stability that I have built. My nomadic soul has always wanted to meet it's more settled twin, and this is possible now. Perhaps it is already happening and they are twining fingers and staring into each others eyes just beyond my line of sight.

The wild west scours me clean and works it's magic on my nervous system. I sleep well, bathed in a soundscape of dumping surf - and the slow inhale as the sea sucks itself back for another assault on the shore. Since the first time I travelled up this particular bit of coastline by kayak I have noticed that the ocean is a breathing thing. It reminds me to breathe more fully and I make a point not to forget this when I am back in the city.

It seemed like there is often no pause between these two realities, but sometimes I am aware that this life is made of nothing but pauses. The only adversity I feel is what I drum up from the inside, looking to find discord where there is none, creating a sense of rushing when I have already arrived, a sense of lack when I am steeped in riches; I am just like a human being in that way. Always on the lookout for imperfection, or trouble, or something that is somehow not enough. But these days the blows from within seem to glance off me like water rolling off freshly preened duck feathers. There is a smoothness to things, like polished beach stones.

The Green Corridor

I won't do it justice, because the moment has passed, but as my bike coasted along the downhill slope yesterday on the way home from work I felt surrounded, encased in the green world. A protective boundary of verdant spring foliage, dappling sunlight sneaking through the gaps in the leaves. The perfect temperate air flowing around me, slipstream unused at my back.  The world here is almost always green, but spring is still bursting.

It is a truth that not all the things I long for are here in this season, and still nothing is missing. There is a contentedness, a gratitude that suffuses the moments like the scent of the newly fledged leaves surrounding me. It is not hope, but it is grace. An allowance for all the wrongs done by my errant heart. A forgiveness for all the wounds unknowingly inflicted, and for the meanings randomly assigned to each broken piece of glass. I am learning how to stay in place, by allowing that place to change as the seasons do.

I am lucky to have landed here. Amazed at what I have been granted in work, the creative freedom, paired with a material security that has the effect of calming the nervous system. I no longer say yes to all the things - perhaps finally understanding the space needed between projects and adventures. The need for some measure of staring into space, for stillness. In the coming months I am transformed again - almost half of every month immersed in wildernesses of my choosing. The deep oceanic work of summer. It is an alchemical time, a confluence of magic, humanity, connection and the wild lingering places. It is the journey work of souls and the source of all imagination.

I can lean into it all, knowing that life takes time, and change is a given. For now, I have some constants; a home, friends and people who love me, the perfect mix of stability, freedom and creativity in my work. I am learning how to bring my gifts to more of the things in life, even the mundane and seemingly routine motions of a modern existence. Although that will always be a work in progress. I am in the green corridor, which is beautiful for it's own sake, immersive and sensory, but perhaps also a gateway to what is unfolding.

The Facebook

I recently took a monthlong break from social media, actually from Facebook to be exact, since that is the only social media I subscribe to. I returned this week and have had some observations that may (or may not) be worth sharing.
This is not the first time I've taken a break from the book of face - many times over the past 10 years I've deactivated my account for stretches of up to several months, but upon returning to it this week I have some new reflections.

When I turned off and tuned out of social media a little over a month ago it was about curbing an addiction. While I was not 'using' that much by some standards, I was definitely in the compulsive checking habit. I was also noticing that when I made an effort to resist the craving for a day or more my mood and sense of well being improved. It was beginning to really annoy me that my computer was encouraging me through 'click-baiting' my browser's memory and enthusiastically filling in '-acebook' every time I started typing the letter F into the search bar.

In the first few days I congratulated myself for being above average in the impulse control department. It was surprisingly easy for me not to log in to check my messages, post 'likes', or scroll through my newsfeed. With each passing day it got easier - I had been needing a break and was clearly ready to unplug. The experience has made me ponder (more than usual) the nature of human connections in the age of social media, email, and texting and revisit my intention to invest my energy in the real ones more often. Even in my closest relationships I have been sometimes ill at ease with the way text has become not only a venue for checking in or giving information, but also to sort through complex issues and emotional dynamics. I have been guilty of, and have been swept up with others in the instant gratification of being able to get something off the chest now and have it 'said' (good or bad). In retrospect, even though I have been the recipient of some truly fun, and sometimes absolutely swoon-worthy stuff via text, instant message and email, it has also been the ground for the planting of deep and pernicious misunderstandings. Instant, faceless communication allows us to decide what we think was said and leave 'conversations' without having to face or be faced by the more subtle and discernible truths that can only be found in 3-dimensional methods of connecting.

As someone who writes, I love the playful use of written language that social media and our devices give us, but I have also been guilty of mis-using the venue for conversations that would be better had by organizing an in person meeting or voice call. It's so convenient, and when I'm stressed or upset about something and fearing disconnection, it's sometimes easier for me to express myself in writing. But there's something so absolute about the written world - even when it is coming from a place of curiosity or uncertainty it can have a way of seeming so ultimate and decisive. It's not something that can be taken back, and much is left to the interpretation and inner voice of the reader.

Anyway, I digress...but these thoughts are related to what I am puzzling over. The social connection part of the social media equation.

 For the month I was 'away' from Facebook I often felt like I was missing out on conversations and events that were happening outside of my tangible reality. It was a bit like sitting alone in the school yard or cafeteria, peripherally aware of the quiet whisperings of peers, wondering if there is a party you're not invited to or a secret you're not privy to. And a few times over the month I discovered that I had indeed missed out on some social/professional gatherings - a few I found out about last minute because someone thought to text or tell me about it in real time. This became the biggest issue for me in being off Facebook - the connections that I was potentially missing because I was away from the platform. I didn't miss the time-wasting and compulsive scrolling, and I didn't (much) think about the fact that no one had recently given me a thumbs up or heart emoji to show me how much they liked what I had to say or approved of something cool I had done. But a few times I felt as if I had been disconnected from the 'community message board'. Overall however, I felt happier, calmer, and more connected to the things that were actually happening around me. The things that were 'close in' rather than peripheral.

As a friend observed this week on my 'timeline', Facebook is a lot like an alternate universe (thanks for that one Perch). It is a world happening on another plane of existence, only accessible through devices that are connected to an unseen array of energetic signals being transmitted through the ether. It's a world unto itself, but one that has a direct line to the 'real' world of living, breathing, relating human beings. But sometimes it feels that this virtual world is taking over.

The month I was away from Facebook, I got a lot done. I made a garden, read a few books, connected with people (in person, by phone, via snail mail, etc.), I wrote a few pieces (most still in progress and not yet published), joined a music group, went paddling, skiing and biking and all the usual things that I tend to do. I recertified my Wilderness First Responder over a beautiful weekend in Squamish, stayed with friends on Bowen Island, and designed and delivered a super cool mindfulness-in-nature workshop for educators and planned a writing and mindfulness retreat. I also walked the dog, stared into space a lot more than is usual these days, and breathed in a whole bunch of forest/ocean/river/mountain air. I am betting that there were subtle differences in how much attention I gave the things that I did. And I can guarantee that all that staring into space and the lack of compulsive clicking and post-planning (even if it's unconscious) gave my brain some much needed recoup time and space. I was most definitely more creative in those four weeks.

The other thing I've reflected on since returning to Facebook this week, is the nature of connection. Or more precisely about feeling connected. I think Facebook (and I would guess, other social media) feels to us like being privy to that whispered lunch room conversation. We get to feel connected to a community of sorts, and are allowed to comment, approve or disapprove, empathize and sympathize with anyone we want to feel affiliated with. Although we know it is a public platform and one that is curated by the user (and the corporation), it's a forum where people can sometimes be quite vulnerable. We are often using our 'inside' voices - you know, the ones that we may not speak in public, but are willing to 'share' publicly when we are hidden behind a profile and keyboard in a room out of sight. It is a strange intimacy that in some way simulates a sense of belonging and even acceptance.

For the likes of me (an extroverted introvert who sometimes expresses myself well in writing) Facebook can sometime replicate the feel of a gathering. In real life, I love being part of a familial crowd and derive a huge sense of safety, belonging and positive esteem when I am amongst my 'people'. It's something I had a lot of when I was in my twenties and thirties, living as I did in small like-minded basecamps filled with other outdoors people. I thrived on living and working together in close proximity.  Social gatherings were spontaneous and low stress. I could be a fly on the wall or at the centre of the chaos and feel similarly 'part of' and an accepted and valued member of the group. I felt a sense of belonging in ways that I never truly did in my family home or growing up in school.  As I have gotten older, and moved away from many of these tight-knit communities (and as many of them have dissolved due to life stage, bascamp closures or other factors) I am acutely aware of how much I miss and sometimes feel a lack of that intense sense of belonging.

I think this is what we are attuned to about Facebook and other social media. Every time we log on and get a 'like' or comment, we feel a sense of connectedness, being 'part of'. Although it's fleeting and in reality devoid of much substance it gives us a 'hit' of social acknowledgment. The more likes and comments the better. But it ultimately leaves us craving more - hence all the checking, scrolling and liking. We are trying to find our way back to our people, one emoji at a time.

Last summer I found myself sitting around a long table at a pub one evening after working a successful and powerful wilderness program. I had parachuted in to work the course and I was surrounded by some people I knew well, and others I had just met. Whether we knew much about each other or not, As I sat there in the late afternoon sun I had an overwhelming sense of being in my place, with my clan. There have been other such moments this year for me, most have involved making an effort to connect with the people I love and make a plan (sometimes involving a lot of logistics) to get together. It is always worth it.

The feeling of connection I get from these times tends to last days or even weeks, and even now I still hold in my bones a residual feeling of belonging. It feeds my soul, and I gives me a sense despite everything all is right in my world. The shine of those times takes a while to rub off.

I think this is what we get a glimmer of in the world of social media - a feeling of being surrounded by 'friends'. But it is more like a chimera because the moment it is felt it dissipates, and demands that we return to the illusory oasis of belonging for another drink. Social media can be fun and connecting at best, but it is a bucket full of holes.

To Be Continued (maybe)

Stone Gardening

I am growing vegetables, perching them on the metallic glassiness of my condominium balcony. Not too far up, but suspended. There are flowers too. Underneath the soil of each pot there are stones, rough-hewn collections of gravel, adding extraneous weight, providing drainage. Within  these few early weeks I have already harvested some salad and am watching the emergence of small shoots of life pushing up from the soil. A Sunflower in the making here, the beginnings of an herb garden there.
The strawberry plants are hardy little beings, growing broad little leaves that splay out to absorb all the light they can find. It is magical stuff this earth, water, and late afternoon sunlight that filters in to feed this small oasis of elevated life.
I will not stay here in this urban pod forever, but this season is mine. There is a stability to it. I am allowed to water and tend, there is time.
But what of the stones? They lie quietly, as if in wait in the layers below the soil and roots. Collecting and dispersing moisture. Doing their small but indispensable service, adding weight to things. Are they changing down there, protected as they are from force of the weather? Impervious or at least less prone to the elements that cause stone to be carved and worn, to turn to sand or earth? I am not sure but it troubles me a bit, because I dream that stones want to find their way to becoming earth, seed, leaf and flower. In the slow way of the turning world, far beyond my lifetime, but with an unfathomable certainty.

Love Song

It is about time,
About time that I hear the song that
I thought was
For and about someone else.
The fire in the bones
The spirit dancing out loud
In a thousand year spiral.
The ode to the long wait,
The effervescent moment
Spinning out for eons in the
Courtship of two mortal souls.
Knowing now I was not mistaken,
But simply not listening deeply enough
To truly hear.

It is about time
I hear the call
The voice that for so long I thought
was for
Someone else.
Belonging only to me
By association,
By remembering.
I know it by rote,
The familiarity of yearning for what was.
And puzzling over what was not to be.
All the time swaying to the sounds that
Pulled at my soul
Like a missing link.

And here, now
Once more, and again
Knowing the love song for what it is.
No longer a question mark.
Perceiving finally the the voice that sings it
Is my own.
Sinking
Deeper now into the still pond,
This song that has always been mine.


On the surface the ripples spread,
Diffuse, refractory.
In the depths they are contained,
And reverberate endlessly into all the layers of what is true.

Redemption

To be seen.

I have been granted a test, a run of experiences that have pointed me again and again to this need, this desire to be seen for who and what I am. To be understood. In all my imperfection and incompletion, but out of reach of any coloured or warped lens. What a gift it would be to finally, or once again, feel visible.

Our external transparency is so fleeting and clouded by perception; the ubiquitous blindness of human beings. Sometimes we are illuminated in moments of flow, when both the seer and the seen are loosened temporarily from the boundaries of our own inhibitions. In the stop-motion capture of a grin, or a playful movement across snow or water or rock, we are most truly ourselves. Sometimes we are found in passages of writing, art, music or dance.

It is perhaps that our parents and guardians could not fully see us, too consumed in their own lives to notice. The bright soul-lights of children are too often stifled and dumbed down. As a kid I knew myself as brazen, fiery and wild-hearted, but learned ways of muting that powerful energy for public consumption. The duties of school, expectations and complexities of family dynamics, and the adult world of convention grind us down. Uniqueness is shaped into uniformity, our impervious light-armour gets dented and dulled by comparison and fear. Shame is methodically applied in response to public expressions of strong emotion. No wonder we grow up buttoned down, dulling ourselves to the pain of these spiritual losses.

As a kid I could perceive the brightness and depth of my own inner source. I knew I was made of magic and the iridescent dust of stars. I spoke to animals and trees, saw sprites and forest fairies, trusted that all would be well. My imagination was a rampant thing, finding belonging and wonder in every corner. And somewhere in there, I'm not sure exactly when, I began to understand that I had no language to express what was within me. The wild optimism and brilliant trust I had in the world. I was made of magic, as we all are. Ultimately I could not find a way to fully reconcile the outer world of the mundane with the richness of my inner landscape.

I have certainly been seen, perhaps fully at times. But I am coming to know that while this is a gift, to be seen by another it can also be fleeting and unreliable. It can become addictive; one can develop a dependency if not careful. So recently I have decided to become visible to myself once again. To dampen the noise and listen in. I am recovering some of what has been muted and misunderstood for a time, not so much by others as by me. Uncovering what has lain buried in the dust of the sorrows and disappointments of life. An arm here, a leg there, the old bridle from the pegasus I used to ride across my dreamscapes.
I can see that it has been my own fight to remain in integrity, with it's pendulum-like swings, that has led me to this point. And so it a good place to start.

I understand that first it is me that needs to do the seeing. My job is to remind myself of myself. Because at some point I will wake up and notice what is already here. Redemption and healing arriving from within.

Ostriches

There are some days I notice themes. Recently I've become more aware of avoidance, in myself and the world around me, and I've wondered about it, why I am noticing it now and to what end.

I've never been one for current affairs. I don't read the paper, watch the TV news and try to avoid the parts of "The Current" on CBC that involve the horrors and atrocities that we humans inflict upon each other and this planet. And let's be honest, there's a lot of very ugly train wrecks happening out in the world these days. I've always told myself that I am not so much burying my head in the sand as much as it feels unnecessary and counter-productive to bask in the well-known awfulness that makes up a generous aspect of human nature. It bums me out and burns me out, darkens my mood, confuses my energy rather than clarifies it. I feel like I do a better job at life knowing about the existence of the many dark truths of the world from a distance, although I get that that is a luxury. The other night however I did listen, a rare tuning in to an evening radio current events show.

I was driving through the beautiful and incessant rain that has been both pummelling and nourishing this coast for the past month or so. On my way to an evening class. I feel so lucky to live here on this island, despite the threat of being carried away by a tsunami or swallowed up in an earthquake, I am privileged to have the freedom, comfort and abundance that I am afforded in my life. My class, race, the many lucky happenstances of my birth (all except my gender culturally speaking) have made my life materially and and in many other ways easy. Although I want for certain things sometimes, my very existence is not threatened on a daily basis. I am not struggling to survive in any way, and in some ways I am thriving.

As I drove through the rain and listened to a few of the stories - tales of violence, destruction and incredible cruelty I allowed it to sink in. Hospitals - maternity wards - built underground in war zones, being systematically targeted and  destroyed. Babies, labouring mothers, all terrorized over the course of days and weeks and incinerated in a moments' bomb blast.   This just one of several stories about war, pipelines and human rights offences. Just me and the radio and the dog in the back, as I drove through the verdant fields in tears, listening to the crackling voice of some soul living in that war zone, sounding so matter of fact, so possessing of dignity and grace and resignation. Just living the experience, of being in direct and visceral contact with the evil in the world and telling his story.
Past some of the self-protective filters I have, I let myself feel the discomfort of it, which includes an awareness of my culpability as a human being.

I reflected that while not all bad, some of my avoidance of these types of programs is about the shame and helplessness I feel at not being able to do anything substantial to make it better. I often feel, underneath it all, ashamed of my life of privilege and abundance and my tendency to sometimes ruminate on the petty heartbreaks of my small life. My colonial heritage troubles me, and the way it plays out in my way of being in the world. I feel shame at my tendency to avoid facing the ever-present difficulties that so many people deal with daily and my fixations on 'living into what is beautiful' which though I see has value, seems to be an insufficient contribution in this world of suffering and injustice.

I don't usually listen to the news not because I am trying to will it out of existence, but because it pollutes my consciousness, makes me feel small and ineffective. Useless. When I pause long enough to consider all the unfathomable losses and horrors brought about by the human predilection for inhumane acts I am overwhelmed by it.

I wonder at that word - inhumane, because I understand that without us humans there would be no inhumanity. And yet we push it away from ourselves, labelling deeds and actions that are in any way destructive using a word that overtly suggests it is the opposite of us. Not human. And yet it is exactly and wholly human to be violent, to kill each other, as well as destroy, plunder, or cripple the the infinite biotic and abiotic beings that are also of this world. Ironically when I looked up synonyms of the word "inhuman" one of them was 'wolfish', the irony and inaccuracy of which is unbearable to me.

I sometimes push things away that threaten my sense of my own essential goodness  - things that I do, think or say feel less compassionate, less loving, less worthy. We all like to believe in this idea - that we are essentially and innately good. But sometimes we don't even see the messes we make, so habituated are we to the carelessness of the day to day acts of modern living. I know I don't, in part because it's hard to extract my own tenuous sense of self from the ways where I have been less good, less fair or grounded. All the dark thoughts and neglectful ways I have of being in the world. All the places where I am out of integrity.

 I am wondering whether that is really the great feat in this life. To take it all - encompass and take responsibility for our own light and darkness and know it to be part of our wholeness. There is darkness wherever there is light. To use shame simply as a landmark to remind us to continually check the compass of integrity and compassion. To feel deeply but not be overcome by it. To see the human casualties, and mountainsides being carved and blasted to rubble for the sake of modernity; to hear the resounding silence of lost species are falling under the hands of our own unforgivable apathy and insatiable material desires. Maybe we need to be touched by things enough to see what needs to change. To work through and overcome our shame as best we can because I am almost certain that sitting in shame and guilt, while useful indicators, only really lead to more wrong-doing and wrong-thinking. And to be able to accept that I am part of the problem and find something, even something small that I can actually do.




* After I wrote this I saw this post: https://www.facebook.com/ngc.tw/videos/10156270456689170/

Calling In

This spring I attended a training about awareness and diversity at work. During a group discussion, someone asked a question about how we might 'call someone out' for a certain kind of behaviour. For a few minutes we talked about the importance of language, and boundaries, and of establishing a culture of respect, kindness and non-judgemental awareness. Near the end of the conversation, one of the younger (wiser) staff spoke up, turning the idea of 'calling someone out' on it's head. 'Another way to use language' he said, 'Would be to call someone in, rather than calling them out'. Absolutely, I thought. Beautiful.
How many times this year have I had thoughts that involved calling out, seeking justice, making something or someone right instead of wrong?
More importantly, and perhaps the foundational question is how can I call myself 'in' rather than out?

This last paragraph was written back in April  and here I am rediscovering it again, today for some reason sifting through one of over a hundred unfinished blog posts. Not to mention the Word documents that are scattered across my desktop. This is a little bit of the way I write; I complete and publish less than half of my beginnings, some of which are a paragraph or two long, others a few words jotted down in a moment of inspiration. Words captured like sparks in the enclosure of cupped palms, held safely for a better time to sit down and complete the thought. Occasionally I rediscover them as little missives from my past to my present self.

I have had the sense that I am not quite at the end, but really someplace in the middle of an emotionally dense period of my history. I have to believe that this will pass, as all things do, but certainly there are times right now when I cannot see the light at the end of this particular tunnel. Although when I stop and pay attention, I do notice dapples of sunlight interspersed within the dark cover of these January days. I revel in the white out weekends in the mountains; despite the lack of visibility this body loves moving on snow. I am faintly aware of the unbearable lightness of   my own being, and all those beings, living and non-living that surround me.

And so I am issuing myself (and anyone else out there who is interested) a challenge, to see how I can apply this idea of calling in. To those whose actions or inactions cause me pain, as well as those who bring me joy and solace. Strangers; the guy on the phone I am disagreeing with about a botched appliance repair; the harried clerk at the grocery store who miraculously replaced the litre of maple syrup that I had accidentally left at the check out two days earlier. I seek to call them in, somehow. Maybe it is enough just to hold the intention of it, to hold myself out in silent invitation and see what comes. The fact is that people may not see it for what it is, and I may not execute it in a way that can be seen or heard by those I am aiming to reach, but it is worth a try. This has been proven to me in spades this year - I am not in control of the receipt of the message, as words are sometimes (perhaps often) lost in the filters of the listener. However clear or redemptive my intentions might be to me, they are being filtered through lenses that I do not influence or truly understand. As well as the intonations my own imperfect voice; I am aware of the fact that my own stories and projections may sometimes cause something beautiful to become warped into something painful. I'm not sure. But I can hope that it is the intention that will endure in the end, that whatever purity or clarity there was at the beginning is what will survive and nourish the spring growth to come.

How can I invite myself back into the sacred territory of my own precious life? To honour and call it  in; sadness, joy, ambivalence and all.

A Story Half Finished

Yesterday I executed one of the more perfect front surfs I have had for a while. Water levels and the looseness and ease of my river-body conspiring together. The drip of damp moss-covered stone alongside moving water, the simultaneously decaying and verdantly alive forest rich in my lungs, the contour of river bed and bottom coming together in just the right way. All these irregular natural forms; seeming imperfection and disorder uniting to create a momentary phenomena just the right size and shape.
This is one perfect and complete moment in the midst of incompletion and discomfort.

This, it seems is what life is made of sometimes. We can find ourselves, as I do now, in the middle of a mysterious plot line - living into some untenable situation or dynamic. Upon reflection today I am aware of my own ability to traverse things that are difficult, my tendency to want to face up to things, to hear the truth, the real truth of my own and another's heart, including what is beyond words and more than human. To step into the fires of misunderstanding and pain to the wholeness that lies on the other side. And also knowing that I can't do this alone and have little control of who chooses to join me.

I have many critics, most of whom live inside of me. They tell me that I should let go more quickly, lighten up, be more loving or less judgmental, less contemplative and more playful or vice versa as the occasion arises. It's possible I have a disorder that centres around seeing too many sides of the same situation. It can be paralyzing, knowing that all perspectives are true, seeing them all co-existng at once. But this is also one of my greatest gifts, this tolerance for ambiguity and multiplicity, and I need to learn to embrace it more fully. To balance it by grounding in my salient truth, by hearing my own voice just one decibel higher than all the others. To make sure the course I am on is my own, attuned carefully to my sensitive inner compass.

The perfect wave can be narrow and fast, with irregularities in flow and texture - there is a need to make constant but minute adjustments, to carve just the right amount left or right. Tilt down the face, or let the paddle drag a moment longer to match the quiet pulse of the earth and the trees and the flow of river water underneath my hull.  Turn the body in some minute and particular way. This is not a stationary art form.

Today I have given myself permission to do whatever I want. To lie still and silent or rage against imbalance or cry or beg myself for forgiveness. I tend towards wholeness, I seek to mend, heal, bring about a return to the table. It is something I beat up on myself about, because it makes me vulnerable; this tendency I have to seek out the things that do not seem to want me. But appearances are deceiving, and today I discover that this is perhaps what is most beautiful about my way of being. This capacity for wholeness, of allowing of all the facets of things complex and dense to take and change form.

To sit in incompletion is no longer a weakness, but a gift, a cure. In it rests an imagination big enough to contain the universe in all it's detail and vastness. It no longer matters whether my invitations are accepted, because there is peace in simply issuing them. Together with a generous measure of fear, the possibility of humiliation and some sadness I am releasing them at the end of fingertips, a grateful and wanton flinging of intention. I will trust that only what is worthy will return to me. What is not can drift into dust, settling into the ground to mark the trail ahead.

I am learning to rest more often in the faith that all is not 'well' or as it 'should' be, but just as it is, and that is enough. To be at home in the middle of the story, when all seems lost or confused, knowing that another plot twist is coming. This life is made of a thousand beginnings, middles and conclusions, overlapped and layered, nested in infinity. And for now there is always another perfect wave waiting to take form, waiting for the right number of raindrops and the precise speed at which the forest wants to release them into our watershed. We are unimaginably influenced by the shallowest tilts of the earth, the slightest breath of wind.