Betrayal

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

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

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

Any betrayal exists only by my own creation.

The Brink

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

But I lean towards it, this precipice. 

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

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

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

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

Pause

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

The Coccoon

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

The Confluence of Sand and Water

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

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

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

Aspiration

To have an open heart.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There is no getting it wrong.

Snow Melt

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

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



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

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

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