What We Leave Behind

Social media, on it's best days, brings back kind memories. Today it reminded me of the two of us beauties, shining in the Hawaiian sun. You are fresh from picking wild oranges in our beachside haven, presenting them to me like a kid on Christmas. 

It is a Good memory. 

It makes me realize that as time passes it allows memories to come in from the side, now untethered from whatever darknesses our mortal selves cling to. 

Who cares about the other things, the imperfections, the mistakes, the time we did something wrong, the ways we fucked up, and even the way we did something tragic to end ourselves. The residue that matters is the smile that arrives when I see our sweet faces pressed together on that beach. There is nothing else that was important about you, or any of us, except our essential goodness.

It is the best parts that are the only parts of us that we leave behind. 

Ocean Remembrance

I can float on top of it as long as I want, but you have become it. 

What if I had stayed? 

I was willing, my many years ago self.

Maybe we both would have been better off. 

Me learning to accept your departures of spirit,

Your disappearances into the netherworld of a darkened mind. 

Allowed you that and understood it as a temporary state. 

But that is a fabrication 

Made up of things that were not meant to be.

You were made of such light, 

But the kind that can't sustain itself.

You were not temperate like me but winter and spring, 

Locked below a cold layer of snow for months at a time, 

With the promise of a blossoming. 

So many ardent hopes and aspirations, 

Too slippery to get ahold of in the grip of your cold hands. 

Spring was not long enough 

For the flowering you needed. 

But just long enough for the shoots to poke up above the dark earth.

Promising redemption. 

Unsilenced before the next round of winter stillness crept in.

There is a raft of sea lions. 

Sunning themselves in the sparse winter light. 

Maybe below them parts of you are settled quietly, 

Like dust on the dark sea floor. 

Mingling with kelp, 

Disturbed by the occasional pass of a piniped hunting fish

Amongst the dormant roots of an oceanic forest.

Something near the surface drops a piece of it’s meal,

And it too becomes you. 

While you become the sea, 

More and more as time passes. 

Your particles pulverized by the constant motion. 

You becoming more dispersed,

Each cycle of the moon.

Thaw

The snow is melting rapidly as this new year begins. I have spent the last week finding myself, at least the part that has been hidden, tucked away but still living. She was left behind, waiting for me to rediscover her alive and well. Abandoning me because I had abandoned her, my present self a traitor to her heartfelt and hopeful way of being in the world. She is true resilience; untracked snow. She is impervious to the marks left by the departures of others and the constant heartaches of being alive. She is impervious and resilient, unmarked. But not hardened. 

How did I find her you might ask? Through some deep soul searching meditation, angst filled journalling, or, my personal go-to, the gruelling solo journey into the wilderness? Not at all. It just snowed. 

Here in this evergreen world, where we expect snowfall to turn to water almost upon impact, or to fall wet and turn into a crusty slushy mass for a day or two, it snowed and stayed cold for a full week. Perfectly timed  for the quiet lull between Christmas and New Year. Enough snow to cover the rocks and roots of the forest trails behind the farm, and form a base up into the network of hills beyond that. Enough to make me think of those skis I have, largely unused these past couple of years, packed away in their bag in my tidy little gear shed. 

I love walking these trails and do it daily, but the snow is like a beacon to me, showing a path that is iresistable and keeps me out, wandering for hours in the crisp air. The farm is on a slope, and there is an unploughed road in the park behind us, accessible by a 20 minute ski through the snow laden cedars and another 30 minutes up. I make a skin track over and beside the foot-trammelled trails, and one morning early enough to make first tracks in new powder. After reaching the top of that long slope, I make cruising turns on the way down. I carve a snaking line where there are the least footprints and essentially glide almost all the way back to my door. Some days I just let the dogs out and we run laps to the top of the farm and back, through the small winding path just beyond the gate, the snow-covered salal brushing my gore-tex pants. I leave the two gates open so I can slide uninterrupted down the hill. My dog Kimik knows what to do - he is a born ski dog who understands the purpose of the up and covets the chance to run behind my swooping turns on the downs. The other dog, Bolt, looks at me uncomprehending the first time I stop at the top and fuss with my gear before turning downhill. "I thought we were going for a walk?" his look says. But after 3 or 4 runs down he starts to get it and watches me intently when we reach the bottom, his feet dancing in anticipation of another lap. 

As I write the snow is melting with the return of the soft Pacific wind and the rains to come later today. I walked up the trail this morning in my rubber boots instead of my mukluks. The cedars had shed their white blankets and the forest shone a familiar dark green against the white of the moisture-laden snow still on the ground. White was starting to give way in spots to the browns and greens of the forest floor.  Here and there a salal bush has spring up out of it's snowy encasement. 

I was reminded at the end of 2021 that I am more winter than summer. I love the water, but I love the snow, and the cold that comes along with it more. My body comes alive and the reclusive parts of my nature dissipate or are transcended. It tells me to that I have become someone different than who I was ten years ago. It's not about age, but about the fact that I let myself get hung up like loose wool on barbed wire, I let myself lose hope in the existence of a world in which magic is commonplace. My trust in all that is unseen was usurped by things both within, but mostly out of my control. 

So I return to what I know myself to be - complete, with the recovery of parts left behind. These moments of true winter brought me back to myself. The crisp air, snow crystals floating down from the branches in a sub-zero night and sparkling in the shine of my headlamp. The world engulfed in a blanket of white, at once muffling and amplifying sound. Hiding and enveloping the green world below. The way Kimik's nose hones in more clearly to the scents the deer and squirrels leave in their tracks, and how I could tell which way he has gone to follow them. Late on New Years eve, I went with a friend to climb the big hill once more, looking out at the lights from the summit  and carving out our soft turns down in the final darkness of the old year. Into this new one I will pick up the part of me that is better than the weights I carried in her stead. She is more winter than summer, and so am I.

The thaw is coming, but I will not forget.

White Lies

 I told you to keep singing, 

Even though you were tone deaf. 

Because you loved it

And hoped one day to make something of it. 

Although mostly because I could see

It was what you loved. 

You were born to make music 

Spring from your fingers 

And your lungs

And your pores  

Undeniable and important. 

In striving to find yourself in the 

Meandering chords and melodies 

You would dissapear. 

Head bent into that guitar 

As if you were falling 

Into a stringed rabbit hole. 

Your eyes closed, 

Or simply not seeing. 

Not hearing anything else but the song 

Realeased from your fingertips, 

Wavering into the air through your imperfect voice. 

When you asked me about it 

I would tell you white lies. 

Knowing that my ears too are imperfect,

and remembering that there were moments. 

Small and sometimes nearly lost in the confusion 

Of flat sharps and broken phrasing.

The static would clear, 

And that one pure sound 

Would escape your lips. 

Your sound 

Flying out into the world 

In perfect timbre.

Intervention

 Those of you that know me may recognize that the art of noticing is a skill I try to practice. To pay attention to whatever internal noise arises and do my best to allow it, hold it, and not let it drive me. Today the world, the universe perhaps, offered up an opportunity for me to do just this. I'll refrain from telling the details of the story, in part because the story of what happened on the material plane is not the point, and I'm allowed to keep them to myself. I sometimes forget there is no shame in holding certain things close. And some stories have layers of complexity that are hard to communicate in a quick telling.

This was an event that stirred up a deep sense of self blame, shame and fear. I got home afterwards and noticed all of these feelings churning away and my sense of moral and ethical integrity buzzing like a siren. I also noticed that I immediately gravitated towards some things on social media which always make me feel particularly bad about myself. Like a punishment. I had a sense of what right action was but was kind of terrified by the prospect of that action and it's potential consequences. At other times in my life, I have sometimes struggled to come clean when I make certain types of mistakes, when there is an option to avoid detection and in particular when truth telling involves considerable effort. While I strive to meet things head on when it involves people I know or care about, in this case, it didn't involve anyone I know or would likely ever meet. I'm sure you're curious to know what happened, but it's not the point, so I'll continue. 

There are times when I've avoided uncomfortable conversations, when having the conversation was harder than not having it. I'm not afraid of confrontation, but I am afraid of strangers (true story and probably a throwback to being an extremely shy kid) and I'm most definitely afraid of making people angry or losing things that matter to me. Today I had to decide between staying hidden or stepping out into the harsh light of my own failures. And today the pull of my internal compass was what cut through the fear, shame and anxiety about an unknown outcome. 

Coming clean involved going to an area I am not familiar with to find someone I do not know. I had to extrapolate using Google Maps to find where this unknown person might live, brought along my mask and imagined ways to knock on a strangers' door in the time of Covid. But I did not want to be a coward, and I am driven these days to keep things as clean and in integrity as I can, to find the right path, whenever possible. To me the right path involves not hiding from my own mistakes, even when there is a cost.

On the longish drive there I noticed my mind wanting to explore various theories about what might happen, little vignettes involving forgiving kindred spirits on the one hand and gun-toting hotheads on the other. With every story that arose came a wave of anxiety, or hopefulness,  acute feelings in the body more than anything else. And each time I just noticed, and kept driving through the heart palpitations. I breathed into my belly. I told myself that the universe has a much better imagination than me (which it most certainly does) and that whatever happened would probably be something different than the various predictions my mind was offering up. 

As it turns out this was true. I'm trying to keep perspective and not have this be about ego, because to be honest an action I took today inadvertently caused a loss for someone else. But it feels like the universe had my back, and big time. As I drove down a road in search of my stranger I was intercepted - there is no other way to put it. In my search to find a human needle in a geographic haystack I had narrowed my search to a single neighbourhood. I was putting up a sign that would not be missed by the locals. A note to this unknown person in their unknown neighbourhood, taking responsibility, apologizing and offering amends with my contact information. As I started to drive away, a van drove up and someone got out to read the note. I felt the urge to drive off, but paused myself again, and noticed that through the clamour of avoidance there was something calmer. I opened my window and leaned out. A short conversation there in the road with the driver of the van meandered widely but also provided me with uninvited but informed counsel. Strangest of all I realized we had met before, although I did not know her well. As we parted ways my note came down and was tucked into the woman's pocket to be passed along if needed. And so the arc of this story may not yet be over as it has been entrusted to her. 

I can sometimes poopoo the idea of divine intervention, or of a kind and karmic universe. It feels cliche, and I often wonder if the reality is much more chaotic and nonsensical than we orderly little beings would like to believe. But I can't help but feel that what I was given today was protection from forces that could have harmed me. I followed an internal bearing along what felt like the best and most difficult line, and was met. Timing, fate, or something else did find me on the path of integrity and intervened. 

Descent

 There is something about this time of year. As the sun lowers itself across the darkening horizon, I am reminded of it. Suddenly this week I am feeling into the melancholic and reflective drift of fall. I have been so happy this past year, for many reasons - all of which are profoundly ordinary. There have been no lightning bolts of synchronicity, no mad love or material windfalls, just a slow unfolding of mundane and beautiful circumstances that have supported my wellbeing. 

This evening I sat in a chair on the driveway, three of us watching the sheep we had set loose to trim the grass on the edges of the pavement. Drinking beer and laughing about the personalities of our small flock. The small sounds of their grazing, soft noses picking out the best bits of clover, the quiet cropping of green grass. When they first arrived a few months ago the ewes shied away from us at the smallest movement, but now they will clamour and bleat at the gate for handouts and scratches. I give them the carrot tops my new horse friend won't eat.  

This year has been punctuated and populated by shed building, the arrival of 21 tiny chicks, 5 sheep, newly planted garden beds, first eggs, and a feeling of intense contentment. Over the summer I spent the better part of two months floating on the Pacific - a trip that started and ended at the beach at the end of my road. An adventure long anticipated that took a shape not quite so symmetrical as originally conceived, but still perfect in its own way. A gift of time and freedom in a strange year. I had to tear myself away from this new home when I left in June. As these things tend to work, I had to tear myself back out of the addictive rhythm of expedition life to return to this settled way of being. But now I am fully returned. Kimik the dog and I wander out the door in the mornings, out the back gate into a forested trail network that could take days to fully explore. 

I have frequently found myself looking around my life marvelling how nothing at all seems to be missing. There is no hole to fill. Even though I am on my own, I do not feel alone. I was struck by a feeling of belonging, community and connection when I returned home this summer. Loneliness is a feeling, not a true state of being, it is a trick of the mind. I sometimes catch myself wondering if there is something wrong with this state of contentment - is wrong to feel so fulfilled by such simple things? To be so intensely at ease and at home. 

And so the rains have come. Beating against the tin roof of my small bungalow, reminding me that with the slow descent into winter comes a comfort hard to find in the intense glare of summer. There are moments I can feel my body and mind rebelling against the lack of sun, the early darkness. But  I also welcome this quiet moody season, and I am not afraid of the dark.

Love, Fire and the Sea

There are maybe a hundred unfinished pieces hiding behind this one. I sometimes worry that my thoughts scramble before they hit the page. But that's what blogs are for, I think. At least this is what they are for me. A place to download, often quickly, the passing ruminations of a life lived as well as I am able. I am often composing something as I move.

This one is about love, fire and the sea.
I took a long walk down a short beach this morning, past the nudists with their beards and spread-eagles, and through the rotting sea salad that delighted the dog with it's putrid scents. Weaving my way through red alder and big leaf maple branches, slung low over the high tide cobblestones. Patches of sand, and the soft sea air and diffuse sunlight of early October. We are perilously close to the yearly storm cycle, but it's so beautiful today. At the same time it feels to me like the end of an enduring storm season of my own.


I read somewhere recently about a ceremony, a way to cleave away from what haunts you. It sounded good, and maybe everyone needs a little ceremony sometimes. So I took some supplies and kept walking past the populated and narrow band of intertidal zone just as the tide was pushing into its last rising hour. My dog Kimik travelled parrallel to me in the way that he does, sometimes lost in the bushes, only the soft padding of his feet and jingle of his tags as an occasional reminder of his presence. At times I there are glimpses of the white tip of his flag-like tail, and something about that makes me profoundly happy.

It might be worth mentioning that there was a lot of warning about the nudists. Painted on driftwood logs the word "NUDE" is emblazoned across salted wood. Say no more. Beware all ye who enter here.

A thousand years of storm seasons
compressed.

The beginning of my storm season is marked in my accounting of things by the death of my father. That same year there was a series of events, one after another, that seemed to be stacking in layers of loss and magic. In the years after that, although spread a little more generously across time, there was more to come - much of which I was unconsciously engaged in creating, some completely out of my control and all utterly my responsibility to integrate. It has not all been about grief; there have been other things, both miraculous and mundane, like lines of sediment. Gain and wonderment. Pain. A disruption in what I thought was the trajectory and order of my life. A loss of myself, then a re-understanding that is emerging of what I am becoming. A new kind of spaciousness. I have descended, and now I find myself rising back into the light of my own eyes. Emerging slowly at a pace more suited for the shaping of river rock than short-lived humanity, but emerging nonetheless. And I have come to believe that that is ok. It's the best I can do, and perhaps how I am built.

Today on the beach I noticed an internal sense of steadiness, a calm in my bones. I have so often seethed in my impatience with the process. But there has been no rushing it; it has been a complex type of grief, and this period of repair has been long and deep.

Today I am willing to be slow and deliberate. To persist despite a malfunctioning lighter and damp wood. I let the fire burn all the way down, witnessing the pieces of memory, the tokens and words of the past be consumed. Fragments of moments long gone but inexplicably haunting, are reduced to fine white ash and smoke. The fire is ringed with a circle of beach stones. They are disappointment and disillusionment. In the end I take the hot rocks in my hands and toss them away one at a time; they hiss as they made contact with the surface of the ocean.

While I was engaged in this little ceremony, the nudists had arrived. I always find it a bit nerve-wracking to pass by naked people on the beach when I myself am fully clothed. Especially at high tide it's so hard to pass at a distance that feels ok. Even worse because Kimik insisted on getting as close to them as possible, to sniff their dozing faces. But in my becalmed state I had a thought about this discomfort. As I walk by their bare and uniformly tanned asses, I imagine that I myself am returning from my own nudist retreat. For some reason it makes me feel better, even though it isn't true. A subtle yet profound shift in perspective.

I am wandering unguided across this territory of aging. Maybe we all feel that way. Our culture is so steeped in bullshit about age, gender and power.

I have found the cure for heartbreak. This time not in corporeal form, curled up and tangled in a lock of my own hair, even though I have let it grow long again. I found it in the passage of time. In noticing what is close and what is far, and learning to accept that for what it is. In travelling deep into the heart of my own imperfection. In finding all the sharp edges that I still contain. Doing it in my own disorderly and circuitous way.

I am burned down to white ash. And released.

Red Foxes

There is a zen koan about a monk who answers a student's question, claiming one who reaches enlightenment is no longer is influenced by the laws of cause and effect. As the story goes, upon giving that answer the monk is turned into a wild fox for 500 lifetimes. One day he returns to the village, and finds another monk, and asks him for a 'turning word' to free him from the body of a fox. He asks the same question that was asked of him - to which the younger man answers that no one is immune to the laws of cause and effect. At that, the old man is freed from his curse, and tells the young monk that if he takes the people of the village to the other side of the mountain they will find the body of a fox in a cave. He asks them to 'bury it as one of your own'.

This July I listened to a Zen teacher give a dharma talk on the topic of Baizhang's Fox. It's potential meanings and interpretations are infinite and multi-dimensional in the way that Zen Buddhist teachings tend to be. For me the story summoned a long forgotten memory, a visceral recollection of a moment of my childhood. About the time I buried foxes and mourned them as I would my closest human friends or family.

I was 7 or 8 and my family had recently bought a rustic off-grid cabin in northern Ontario (see "Home Places") for our family of 5. It was nestled in a pristine 200 acres of hardwood forests, creeks and wetlands, surrounded by more unclaimed and sparsely populated acres. The long unpaved driveway forked off of an even longer gravel road. That spring and summer we visited the place frequently, going up for a few days or a week at a time, my mum and dad busying themselves with finishing the half-done chinking of the log walls, or building the ice-box that would serve as a refrigerator. I was allowed to roam freely and spent my days exploring the new territory. It was not long before I found a den, a few hundred meters down from the cabin, dug into a sandy slope by the paws of an unknown wildling. I had been taught the art of noticing by my dad, but also had an inherent attentiveness to the details of the natural world. I could tell that the den was freshly made, maybe I could smell the earthy dampness of a fresh dig.

I reported the find to my father who identified it as a fox den. From then on I spent my days watching for a sign of the creature from what I hoped was a respectful distance. I understood not to get too close - my dad had told me that foxes in particular were sensitive to human presence. We went back to the city - perhaps there was still a school year to finish, or jobs to return to, but it was not long before we returned again. Over the course of that next visit I did not see the fox, but I heard her yips on nighttime hunts and felt her wild presence around our cabin. I would anticipate the reflected green of her eyes under the glare of my flashlight on every one of my nighttime missions to the outhouse behind the cottage.

Over the coming weeks and months we returned to our family retreat many times, each time getting more clues of what we now knew was a small family of foxes. A vixen and three kits, living so close to us. We heard them mostly at night, calling to one another in the old farmers' field that surrounded the cabin. Over a hundred years since it had seen a harrow or spade ground cedar, thick swathes of bracken ferns and small clumps of saplings had grown into the field, the encroaching forest providing plenty of cover for wildlife. I found fox tracks in the sandy soil of the driveway, and made regular visits to peek carefully over the hill in the hopes of spotting one of the young. It felt to me like an intense privilege to be in contact with and surrounded by these shy creatures. I made a study of them, drawing pictures, telling stories, and staying alert for any possibility of a sighting. Then sometime early in the summer, I had a very close encounter. I was sitting on our deck and looked up to find myself under the steady and curious gaze of the three young foxes. I was beyond thrilled. It was daylight and they were only a few feet away, calling out to me with their sharp yips and barks. Unafraid.

At this age I was in the thrall of the animal world  (and I still am). There was something magical about that encounter, but I was also aware that it was unusual. The mother fox was nowhere in sight, it was the middle of the day and the kits' boldness had been strange. For the few days we were there the scene repeated itself a few times, the little foxes appearing or calling to one another very close to the cabin. I remember my 7-year old self - how I had the strong sense that they wanted something from me. Their fearlessness, curiosity and the steady way they would look at me suggested a request. Sometimes they came almost close enough to touch - they were no doubt communicating with me. It wasn't until afterwards that I understood what they may have wanted, or the conditions of their lives at the time.

We went home to the city soon after that, and did not come back for several weeks.
When we returned again there was no sign of them. Their now familiar night time calls were obtrusive in their absence. On the second day back I decided to check the den. I found the three of them just inside, curled together, their little red-furred bodies now lifeless and emaciated.

Devastated, I ran to find my parents, knowing my naturalist father would probably know what had happened. I imagine I knew he would also be upset, as one thing we shared was a love of the wild creatures of the world.

It was in that moment of discovery that I understood something about what it meant to be a human visitor in the home of wild animals. I knew then that in some way we, I, had been responsible for these deaths. That simply by being there, arriving and departing at intervals in a noisy vehicle, making human noises and smells and going for wanders around the property we believed to be ours, we were causing harm. In fact, we had been so disruptive that the vixen had abandoned her family.

I don't remember the conversations, or the exact order of the events that followed, but I do know I returned to the den with a shovel in my hand. I sealed the entrance with the dry reddish soil of the hillside, and moved some stones into position over that to keep other animals from disturbing the grave. Every time we returned to the cottage I would check up on it.

I shed rivers of tears over those young creatures - and I wonder now whether these young foxes pre-dated any of the pets I cared for and lost in my childhood. They were probably the first companions I had loved and buried.

This summer during my retreat in July this memory came flooding back in, like a messenger, a strange and long forgotten missive from my former self. It helped me remember something of my essential nature that I greatly value - a care for and awareness the fragility and sensitivity of the wild places and creatures of the world. It also served as a reminder that simply by existing I do harm, but that for what it's worth, acts of repair and honouring are important. I believe this is true in both the human and non-human world.

Photo from Jared Lloyd Photography -
https://jaredlloydphoto.com/2018/08/31/coastal-wolves/

I started writing this post in July, wanting to get the bones of it down while it was still fresh. This past month I spent some time paddling with a group in an area of Vancouver Island that is home to coastal wolves. At our launch there was a welcoming ceremony held by a young Tla-o-qui-aht woman  - she drummed and sang us into our brief time in this coastal landscape. I was reminded that we are visitors in these places. Other humans have lived here for thousands of years, alongside these creatures in a way that is more constant and less erratic than ours. But that the natural world is so much more sensitive than we know. On the second last day we landed our kayaks on a beach - our home for one night only. As we started to unload, popping open the hatches and pulling out our blue Ikea bags and tents, we turned to see some movement on the edge of the forest. A wolf and her three pups, a few months old, trotted out across the sand fifty meters away from us before disappearing back into the trees at the point.

Early the next morning I awoke to the sound of wolf howls, their voices calling back and forth to one another across the forest and low tide beach. Just before we paddled away from the beach, the three pups emerged from the forest once more, curious and seemingly unafraid.

Breaking Down Stone

I stop and face it. The roots of an old cedar spread like latticework across the slope on the trail ahead of me. Mid-conversation I am frozen. This is wonderment. My walking companion continues on without me, but for some reason I am struck silent and still. These roots laid bare, exposed by erosion, but still holding the thin rocky soil of the forest in place. Oblivious, hundreds of human feet travel up and down this hillside day after day, vibram soles and flip flops alike doing their compacting work. The soil between each twisting root branch is beaten down and stripped until it is clear it is only this ancient tree that is holding it all together. Gripping the earth like a fist grasps a ball. An Entish topography preventing the hillside from collapsing in a tumble of rock and dirt the next time it rains.

What holds us together?

I let my eyes travel across the maze of roots on the slope. Tracking the path of each branch, under and over and under again, looking for a sense of where they lead. But each time one crosses another they merge or become lost to an unknown underground world.
These roots are holding fast, and are doing their job to break down stone to create new soil. Their persistence is like a reminder to me. To wait and be patient like trees are, but not for anything in particular. Allowing the world to move at whatever pace it needs, without needing to follow or keep up or move at a speed faster than my own. To hold fast, to have faith in and remember who I am. To remember and know again what is held inside my own root ball. To heed the gentle reminders of wind, sun and rain as they brush against my leaves and branches - and all the beings who remind me daily of what is good, and right and safe in this world. To keep doing my work in the breaking down of stone, however subtle or unseen it might be.

Found

I find myself.
Here on these pages
Of virtual whiteness.
Making marks again.

It's been a slow trickle,
For some reason.
I have found other places for now,
To deposit my explorations in written form.
These meanders through a sea of emotion and impression.
Today I happened upon this page,
Again.
Finding myself
Reminded.

These are strange days,
A life is a
Work in progress,
Always so full
Of surprises.

I learn to roll with them.
Allow them to take me to the next
bend in the road.
To peer into
This inscrutable future.
I know that's the way
It's meant to be.
The not knowing is the point.
So why not be happy
In the meantime.
No harm in that.

I consider now this juncture,
This crux move,
There is possibility here.
Rolling forward
Like a trust fall off a high platform.
Knowing that there is no harm in trying.
No harm in falling into arms outstretched.

Throwing our names into
A million hats
Perhaps is better than throwing them
Into nothing at all.

I entertain the possibility of departure,
But don't get too far ahead of myself.
Just lingering here
In this place of potential movement.
It is a lesson
In not waiting,
But being infinitely patient
With the mystery of the what's next.

Shades of White (Snow-folk of Victoria)

In the past few weeks the famously temperate Vancouver Island has been blanketed with snow. The temperatures have remained below zero down to sea level. Schools have closed, people have lost things they left outside. Gardening tools. Children's toys. Cars. It is unusual that snow actually  sticks to the ground here for very long. More than a few hours is rare. This city hardly knows what winter is, with its greenery and early blossoms. But here it is in 2019 feeling like any other Canadian town, snow being heaped into piles on the side of every driveway and sidewalk. It stayed for days, creating slush puddles at every corner, then setting hard like concrete.

The other morning I saw a woman trying to chip her car out of one of the rock solid drifts with a minute windshield scraper.  The kind that you can hold in one mittened fist and lose sight of. After the plow came to our street parked cars had become encased in the frozen saturated snow. No longer pure white, but shades of freeze-thaw grey.
The woman knelt on the ground and set to work, tiny bits of ice flying into the air like sea spray with every futile strike. It would have taken her all day if I had left her there, no doubt bloodying her knees and hands in the process. Never getting to work.
I think I am the only person in the neighbourhood with a metal shovel under my bed.

Snowmen have been popping up all around town. Some are enormous, unnaturally large as if someone was trying to use up all the surrounding snow. Most are not artfully done. You can tell the snowman-makers here are inexperienced, hurried. Their balls of snow are rough and lacking finesse. One stick-arm bent askew and the other one too short. Oddball snow-children with ill-chosen accessories. A total lack of carrot-noses and charcoal eyeballs. They seem to have been made with a sense of urgency, as if their creators were afraid the medium would melt before they were done. Long before the final ball was rolled and placed. But this year the snow came and stayed for a while, covering the newly sprouted bulbs of our west coast spring. So our snow-folk with their flailing twiggy arms have enjoyed a longer than expected life. Gazing out to sea for a good long while before melting into it.

One Hundred Days

The wonder of moss and lichen.

In early September I started a project. I called it "One Hundred Days of Beauty". My goal in part was to renew a sense of sacredness in the every day and mundane details of my life and the world. To acknowledge that there is a choice we can make, that if we string together experiences of beauty in whatever form they can be found, they will become a bright thread and ultimately a blanket that surrounds us. It is important to be surprised, to find wonder in the smallest of things.

I counted out 100 days on my wall calendar and made a practice of noticing beauty if only for a few moments each day. From September 4th until December 12th I would remember to pause and become aware of a feeling, sight, sound, taste, smell or being, that struck me as beautiful.

Making ice art at Mountain Lamp.

This is how it began:

September 4th
Today as I was walking the dog after work I made a point of noticing, of becoming more present and less caught up in the thoughts that rumbled around in my head. I began to pay attention to the simplest of things. The feel of the air on my skin on this fine September day.
And somewhere in that 40 minutes of slow walking through the divine and mundane places near my home, I found an idea. I think it was caught up in a hedgerow, like a slip of paper that had been blown into the brambles by the wind. An experiment. A reminder to my future self that I really did take the time to smell the flowers, enjoy the beautiful people, things and experiences of this world on a daily basis. A living love letter and a reminder of the innate goodness in the world and in myself.

Until the end of September I made notes about my noticings.
The dappling sun upon ivy bushes.
A neighbour gathering the late urban blackberry harvest.
The late day sun on the water - textures of light and wind.
Fresh tomatoes from the balcony in my salad.
Bird magic. The little brown bird (LBB) who flew in front of my bike for a good 5 minutes this afternoon, diving and soaring inches away the whole time.
Morning light (golden clouds), the smell of rain on parched earth, fall crocuses.
Soft fall air, smell of sun on damp earth.
Floating fog banks lit through with sunlight.
Open windows.
Forest bike ride – damp, green forest.
Dream of a kiss waking me at 3am.
The bliss of a Friday afternoon.
Time spent with important people, circling back to spend time.
My own inner strength returning. Dusk.
Biking to work. Faces. Sun.

Ultimately after a few weeks of this, I found it was more important to be in it rather than record it. I have experienced a tendency with photography - while guiding canoe trips in my early twenties I noticed that when I carried a camera I would look at everything from the perspective of taking a picture. So for many years I stopped carrying a camera while on trips (as a result I would characterize myself as a photographic freeloader).

I can have a similar experience with writing; Ideas bubble up and I start composing as I hike, paddle, ski, chop wood, etc. While it's not a bad thing, and is part of the creative process, I do think there are times when it's best to just be in it. Social media, and for me my blog-writing, has certainly fed my tendency to look at the world through a lens - to stand just one step away from the actual thing. I have a predilection to think in metaphor that does not help either.

  

Beauty in the snow - the generosity of friends, ad hoc
gatherings, renewing my love of the Christmas season.

I find it difficult to encapsulate exactly what has emerged from this intentional period of noticing. So many things, but nothing visible to the naked eye. Life has taken on a different, more fluid tone in the past several months. So much so that the project of a hundred days has simply become a more timeless and routine practice in my daily life. I have felt more moments of simple happiness without any external reason. I have begun to see a lit path. Each moment of beauty like a bulb on a string of lights. Not leading anywhere in particular, but lighting a way. I know where my next step is landing.




It's not that I did not notice beauty before, for I think that has been part of my life's work, but I have somehow reminded myself of myself. I've moved from feeling a little lost to realizing I have been faithfully standing by this whole time. Just waiting for the opportunity to be seen once more. 

For the next hundred days I will be adding another practice. I am taking a break from social media. I will be writing, as there are projects I am working on, but I'm excited to take some time to notice what gets freed up when I unplug from this strange world of disconnected social interaction. 

The joy of sharing time with good friends.
Photo cred. Nicola Mosley

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.