Regret

Brace yourself. This may be a dark one. But I hope the point is that something of great value can be found in the darkness.

I have rarely been one to experience regret, although there have been a few times. Usually caused by a sudden revelation that I have made an error in judgment, or followed the lure of impulse just a little too far. Mainly it has had to do with behaving with less compassion or wisdom than I would like to think I possess. A dawning understanding that I am not so wise or compassionate after all.

The thing about regret is that it's rare that you can 'undo' the mistakes that put you there. What's done is done, and though we are rarely alone in it, I carry a heavy weight at this time in feeling that I have not acted in a way that would have led to greater healing and a more beautiful resolution.  To commit to the (sometimes) hard road as a gateway to real ease. I imagine now in this light that to remain seated at the table, or at least return to it, can lead to a different and more powerful place than departures can ever go.

I circumvented a possibility that will now never come to pass. I unconsciously followed my wiring down a practiced path, feeling like I had to defend myself at every turn. Keep myself safe. And now, whatever insight I have had is little more than a moment too late. And moments can be etched into lifetimes like tombstones.

I am haunted by this sense that such a stunning opportunity was lost. I only see now that the invitation was to transcend the rut I have been creating in this soil for years.
There are reasons...I was not ready, I was protecting myself from what had come before, I was clinging to a belief in a fairy tale of my own making, but they all add up to the same thing. I was afraid. I could not bring myself to simply listen and silence my own ego and identity enough to realize the possibility of what was being offered to me.

These past few weeks I have been in the throes of a remorse so overpowering that it has served to throw me completely off my line. I have been grieving this thing that I abandoned in needing more time, space, and reflection. My old bedfellows. It has been a slow dawning, but the light has now hit me full force. The realization that in life and love it does in the end come down to choice. Knowing now that the lightning bolts of fate come in multiple forms, not just the ones most recognizable.
The choice is to get over myself and bow down to the grace of relinquishing the parts of me that keep me from seeing down to a deeper truth. There is a wisdom that is shared rather than singular.

I know this path is leading somewhere, but what I can see now is that I have been living an erroneous life. I know that the heaviness will pass, but I hope to carry the crux of this lesson with me on the next leg of this journey. It has been a costly one, and a door has closed behind me.

Although perhaps it was never mine to walk through. This, as many things do, remains unclear to me.

The Sea and the Seashore

For years the sea has collided against this shoreline,
Buffeting the sand and rock of the coast in the
Storm seasons.

The sea asking the shoreline to relinquish it's solid nature.
To be less still and unyeilding.
To give way more easily
And surrender to the flow and watery cacophony
Embodied by the ocean swells.
Insistent that she change quickly and constantly like the
Briny blue itself.

But the shore remained stoic,
Unchanged,
Convinced of the sameness of her world of earth and stone.
All the while wondering at the sea's ability to
Churn and crash at her shores so diligently.
The always changing tides
Bewildering.
And she quietly begged for silence, stillness,
Sameness.

Both were missing the point,
That the sea and the shore are not
Separate beings,
But elements made of the same cosmic stuff.
One stretching above and
One reaching forever below the other,
For miles.
Never breaking contact.
Engulfing and supporting the other.
Different, but never truly distinct,
Both moving and changing
In their different ways.
And needing one another's edges to find their own.

The Cure for Heartbreak

I have found the cure for heartbreak.
It was hidden in a small nook behind my left ear.
Stuck for too long tangled in a strand of my own hair,
Which had grown wild and a little long under the admiring gaze of a man.
Who knew it was there?
When I retrieved it, it shook itself off and stretched,
As a dog might, just before he is invited for a walk.
It smiled and winked and explained itself.
"Distraction," the cure said simply.
I said nothing, attentive to what other wisdom it might offer.
It remained silent for awhile, perched in the palm of my hand,
Gazing out at the world of humans, with all of its' drudgery and drama and impermanence.
And at the trees in their rooted stillness.

Then the cure smiled at me,
Its' little brownish face sleep-wrinkled but clear-eyed.
I was impatient for more.
"Distraction?", I asked.
"That's right," said the impish creature,
Stretching out across my palm.
Propping itself up on an elbow,
It looked up at me with a cheeky glint.
"Because you people will not stay put long enough to see how it goes.
You don't have the patience, or the stamina.
And have trouble standing for long enough in your own pain,

To see it's end."

Fresh Tracks

A few years ago a friend of mine was struggling, and he started talking about the idea that it was a 'pattern' he had with a specific aspect of his life. He pained over the idea that again and again he had found himself feeling stuck in a familiar set of circumstances. Looking at the storyline, the only pattern I saw was one of perception. The suffering was built out of the idea that something about the way he moved through his life was intrinsically wrong and needed resolving. That somehow the actions, behaviours and even feelings of the other people in his life were a function of his own unconscious patterns.

I may be about to suggest something unpopular, or even wrong. But I have a wondering that perhaps we have gone too far in our love of the pattern diagnoses.

I'm sure it's true that each of us has certain tendencies, like snow being pushed into drifts and cornices on a certain aspect of a slope, under the influence of some wind generated in the vaults of our unconscious selves. But it seems overly simplistic to view our choices and mistakes (if there is such a thing) always through this lens of patterning.  To suggest that every time we find ourselves in a seemingly similar situation - having started or failed to start, lost or ended a relationship being the obvious example - that we are repeating a pattern. It's an idea that's popular, but seems off to me. What if that's what life is made of - beginnings and endings? I could be in denial and maybe there are people out there that see me more clearly than I see myself who would say that I am a patterned animal, showing my stripes in identical ways over and over. Or maybe just in the fact that I still do, at my age, enter into, and leave or lose things - jobs, people, homes, pets. Maybe I am the living breathing poster child for all things patterned. Or maybe shit happens and dreams are born and lost and born again and it's up to us what to do with that.

To me, the pattern idea doesn't capture the complex richness of relationships. Love, loss, grief, joy, fear; they are so layered, alive. We are ever-learning, ever-growing creatures. Life is surprising;  presuming to pigeonhole it's evolution and ever-changing textures seems arrogant and one-dimensional. To reduce our human experiences with each other and with the world as if we are wedged into a same-old-same-old groove seems well... unimaginative. We are creative beings, surely once in a while we do something new? Is dropping an old story line that complex? Is it possible, sometimes, to just move out of or into something for the most simple and right reasons? Do we always need to punish ourselves and others for the process of transition?

Maybe I'm playing at semantics here. Because it's not that I don't perceive things in my own life that are echoes of other times, terrain traps that I sometimes find myself being sucked into. But I know that I am a different person now than I was before. Am I defined (other than by some outdated societal norms) by the fact that I've never been married? By my history of beginnings and endings? My relationships have been far from identical to one another, and while there have been a few themes emerging from the narrative maybe they are not defining.  There are outliers. I can't afford to look outward or inward thinking that we are all making the same choices, over and over again. Doomed to relive past hurts in a new form. My experience has been more diverse than that. And I feel hopeful, for myself and for others. Maybe we're all free to decide what we make of the what's-next and the what-went-down-before.

This slope ahead of us is expansive; so clean and rich with possibility. Why do we obsess over what's behind us and the switchbacked labour of the uptrack, when we could just allow ourselves to perceive the untouched lines stretching out before us? If we lean forward (just slightly) and let go, there are fresh tracks to be had.

Underground

Have I lost my way? My dreams tell me something is up, but they are a moving and ethereal target, images made of mist and whispers. These days I just feel lost, purposeless, apathetic to the things that usually summon up my life force. I still puzzle over what is unfinished, but less in the devilish details and more in the way of the immutable watercolour shades of feelings, ideas. My sense of things and how they are shifts like vapour across a dark palette. But I am at home here, certain of nothing. Although sadness seems to wash up on my beach more days than not right now, that is fine by me, as I know it passes. It is seasonal, and though I feel it it does not overtake me.

I once told myself and another that I was impulsive, but that is not the case. More so I am quick and sure when I move to my heart's song. I waffle and hedge when I am out of tune with it, but find it hard to catch myself there. I look outside myself for answers, seeking counsel from the wind and anyone else who will answer. I convince myself that my gut must be wrong, am convinced by others who want to see me land...somewhere. Commit to something. Which is fair, we are all hopeful, and we all wish to see the people we love, or care about, or see as somehow lost find their way to a good home. Like stray dogs, wayward hearts are not always easy to behold.

Do I continue to trust that the path will reveal itself? To believe that there are no wrong moves, only options, diversions, forks. Fate as a conglomeration of all the choices I have ever made.

Last night I found myself contemplating another change of tack, a backwards glance at the things I used to love and sometimes miss tempting me to pull up stakes again. Maybe I would find myself there? I could initiate another swing of the cross-continental pendulum to rediscover the ever-white winters of my youth, the warm rivers where I built so many friendships. The thought of leaving again both comforts and terrifies me. The loss of momentum, interruptions to the building connections of this coast, represent the latter. But here I have also struggled to find my place, a sense of belonging, community. I have experienced a heartbreak here that has morphed in some ways, but left an indelible mark, and perhaps intensified my feelings of not fully being welcomed by this temperate coastline. A harsh kind of rejection, as if the fabric of the land itself cannot find a place for me, even in the deep moss of the forest or the fine sun-crisped sand of the outer edge of this island. In some moments, the idea of going back, even for a short time, feels like a balm to the unhealed parts of me. But I know that is illusory, and while I know there is change afoot, I am not sure that it is a geographical one. Staying put does not always come easily, it takes effort. Opportunities can seem fickle but are perennial.

So for this week I feel adrift and unsure, and have a feeling like I have lost the seeds of who I am. It is spring, but I have no idea what or where to start sewing what comes next. Maybe I already have, but this long winter is delaying the arrival of the new green, and I can't see yet what's coming up. And I understand as always that all this, the good and the bad, the vibrant and the listless, is impermanent. So much lies underground.
.

Ghosts of Giants

This weekend I took myself on an exploratory adventure, in search of snow and an elusive trail on the south island. I went prepared, skis in the back of the car, kayak (in case the mission was a bust and an ocean surf on the way home ended up being my only option) on the roof. Dog, rubber boots, snacks, curiosity and an open mind.

Eventually I chose a spot to park, after passing a few less promising logging roads in search of the right point of entry,  to lead me upwards, towards the promised ridgeline.  There was a wide river, pushing it's tannin-stained water over rocks, downslope, emitting the powerful energy that such rivers do. I found myself walking a slow incline beside the creek (a fly rod would have been a great thing to have), the river a continuous cool chatter to my left, the deep greens and mist of the forest surrounding me. Steep slopes cutting upwards towards the high ground to either side of the gorge.

I imagine that there is a threshold, a thin wall, situated somewhere between our earthly struggles, our guilt, shame, fear...and the grace of the universe. Sometimes we bump into it accidentally and for moments or more are loosened from the weights that pull at us, the things that keep us anchored in pain and struggle. Unhappiness. This fragile boundary gives way easily, and we are able to feel that the real purpose of this existence is in letting ourselves step outside of these self-inflicted realities.

As I passed a giant cedar stump I noticed the deep red heart of it. The bank where it had once grown had eroded, at some point breaking the tree open to expose it's core. It was still rooted, hundreds of years of growth and life and staying put to an end more than 30 years ago. But it was beautiful, and I stopped in my tracks to register the energetic pull of it. As if there was a spirit still residing there, I felt compelled to acknowledge it. Hands pressed together, I gave it a small bow. Another one further up the track beckoned to me to do the same. Pause, feel the presence of this wild rooted ghost, and move forward with respect and a sense of wonder. Both stumps, although long cut down were crowned with huckleberry, hemlock and salal, and covered in moss and lichen. Not dead after all, just host to a different being fuelled by the same ancient life force. This is what I perceive anyway.  

It is hard to stay in my own sadness in these places, almost impossible to remain in anger or hreatbreak, or some other tortured state. Even though as I move I ponder my life, the various people that have populated it and meant something, and changed me or made me more aware in different ways. The future is unknown, as always. I will be surprised and I will be disappointed, at least I hope so. My intention is to move forward with reverence and a sense of wonder, so that I can meet the what's next with an open heart and mind. And find more delight than disappointment.

The In Between

I come back to ground, slowly after being in the air for a while. I land softly, so much so that I am barely aware of the reconnection of feet to earth. My eyes open. There was a while there when I was floating, unable to feel what was real and solid and what was a fabric made of imagined things. Vestigial dreams suspended in the threads woven from stories half told.

I come back to earth now. And I accept what is and choose to put little thought into what might or might not be. Things that seem opaque,  part or future, can remain so, and are not going to come into clarity by the simple force of my gaze. Any disasters have been of my own making, sewn into my skin by a constant desire to know the unknowable, to see storylines that are not mine to see. This is the source of whatever deep sadness resides in me, in us, this need for things to be different from what they are. Trying to stretch too far outside of ourselves. We created this reality, for whatever reason, perhaps to solve it and come more fully into the light.

And with that thought I remember that it is the first questions we ask that are the most important.
Back then, I wondered aloud whether I was just a catalyst. I suspected that I was, or something like it; a wake up call, a beautiful interruption to an empty sleep. For a while we lived in the magical in between, reveling in the soft light that lingers after dreams. Before our minds returned to this mortal place, to pick up the burdens we had chosen to carry in this lifetime.

At this time in history the truth is being revealed that we are just part of a process, and an uncomfortable wedge is being inserted into our willful slumber.  Amidst this turmoil there is a forceful upwelling of emotional discord, we are waking up and coming to the realization that life is not meant to run us over. We are not meant to drive this machine, but neither are we meant to get dragged behind it like tins cans behind the newly wed.

Our light-handed purpose; to fall asleep and wake back up again, over and over, in order to better understand and hold on to that middling place between dream and wakefulness. This is where the divine meets the human, where we are meant to linger in those moments when we are barely awake, remembering. We all know it, whether we choose to admit it or not. Where we understand that there are two worlds; this earth with it's hard edges and the dreamscape which lies shimmering beyond our touch. Neither less real than the other. To walk the in between is our task, to hold on without grasping, to stay put without letting our feet plant too deeply, so we can see the intermingling of worlds. All this so we can sink into the ground that birthed us, fall to pieces, and begin again.