Watershed

I have been gifted with this magical life. It is not that I have not worked for it, or struggled, or waded through dark confusion and felt the pain of loss and emptiness. Perhaps it is because of those things, and that I have not shied away from them that I find myself steeped in gratitude and magic now in this moment. I have traversed the steep slope of it and have found myself everywhere, not just in the resting places. I have stayed put, and looked up to see that I have gathered a storm of light around me.

A few days ago on the tail end of my last 'work' trip of the summer season (the word work does not do justice to the ease and flow of this past week), we were short on water. A couple of leaky droms* early on ensured a tight supply on that last night, morning coffee becoming a fading possibility. It was no emergency but I knew finding water, if possible in this oceanic archipelago, would be a bonus. We landed at our last campsite, a white shelled midden isthmus connecting two small islands, unloaded the kayaks and moved in. I scanned my chart for possible water sources in proximity to this rocky island group and found a few dark lines winding their way down from the steep slopes of Guilford Island. Not far. A nautical mile or two. A small thing to paddle alone and unladen, an empty drom tossed into the cockpit of my boat. 

For me it has been a summer of dry creekbeds. Even in late May it was a struggle to siphon enough brackish water from a normally copious source. I had followed similar dark watery lines on charts and maps all season to places devoid of moisture. So I was not expecting much, or anything from my chosen drainage. And either way, all would be well, water rationing on this last night and morning a small inconvenience or discomfort rather than a dire matter. Though I felt the drive to smooth this wrinkle from our last night in the islands. 

Getting back into my boat I felt it's buoyancy, newly emptied of it's homemaking burdens, hammock and sleeping bag, no small amounts of gear left at the beach with the rest of the group. It felt light and responsive as I paddled away, unburdened and unaccompanied for a time. A small act, but no small thing, and I became aware of a pressure; the desire to provide juxtaposed with the near certainty that I would return empty handed. Paddling on towards the sloped shoreline across the channel I left the shelter of the campsite islands, out in the open, exposed and temporarily alone. I became aware of a feeling of insignificance, the knowledge of my own smallness pushed up against mountain and ocean and wind. A risk, though small and not new to me, to travel solo in this way. 

I pushed on towards the steep rocky shoreline, making a beeline for the creek I had chosen, discerning it's location based on chart and topography, for now invisible and inaudible against the slow lap of waves on ungiving stone. I doubted the existence of the creek even more, or at least it's productiveness, and had accepted the possibility that my mission would be fruitless. But at least I tried, and could say I had explored this shoreline, deepened my understanding and knowledge of this place. Something of value. I had let go of the idea of adding the weight of fresh water to my return trip, satisfied myself with the effort for the most part when I saw it, the jumble of dead branches and  broken rock cutting through the steep cliff shoreline. A moment later the sound that had been made of wind and lapping salt water against rock gave way to the lush gurgle of falling fresh. 

I had a physiological response. It was as if I had been wandering a desert and dehydrated for days, those in my charge about to fade into oblivion due to a lack of water. My gratitude for this creek was palpable, hell-bent, tear-jerking. What a gift. I felt it in my bones, this wonder of nature emptying it's unsalted life generously into the undrinkable sea infinitely. I took my time, tied my boat off and walked carefully on slippery river rock, filled the water bag slowly with this boon of drinkable water. It was a beautiful thing. Not for the sake of the morning coffee or less stretched cooking water needed for the next 12 hours of this trip, but because of this moment of joy and purest celebration of the simplest of things.  

In this I have found the elusive...the 'what is this life about' question answered, resoundingly and in a simple moment of focus and mystery and unbridled gratitude. To experience all of it, or as much as we can, as if it was an oasis in an endless expanse of desert. And then to look around and realize that the desert itself is rich and full of life. 

* A "drom" or dromedary is a water bag designed for carrying in areas where there is no water supply.

Two

It is August 14th, 2 years to the day when my young dog Piper was shot and killed by a neighbour. Last year at this time I remember being in a state of much more strife, residual angst still alive in my bloodstream. The trauma of finding him warm and dead on the man's property the year before minutes after exiting my house palpable. Feelings of responsibility, failure and remorse as well as the type of anger and grief that comes with such events overwhelmed me. His death occurred mid-way through a difficult time in my life, and a year ago I was still neck-deep in the complicated tangles of my inner landscape. Trace amounts of loss and trauma lingered, many still unhealed and unresolved. This year those feelings have waned some and I remain grateful to have had this wild little creature and all his patience-testing ways as a brief companion.

Pipers' presence in my life was a watershed, inviting me to learn more about how dogs think. I signed up with a trainer in an effort to find a direction for his hell-bent energy and met with many successes. It was akin to magic this ability to tap into the hidden motivations of another creature, and all that was needed was for me to notice all the things he was doing right. In the time since, I apprenticed with the same trainer and have become someone who works with dogs, work that has become woven into an eclectic but satisfying mix of things that I do with my life.

In the past year I have worked with a number of people and their dogs, and a recurring theme has been people struggling on a decision point. To keep or not to keep; what to do with a problem dog. The ones whose unpredictability needs both management and special training to make them viable as a creature that can exist in this human world of ours. And we have a habit of becoming hooked, emotionally strung out on a cocktail of guilt and anthropomorphic reasoning and a drive to 'rescue'. It is almost impossible for most of us to remain objective for fear of seeming callous, but I have come to understand that there is nothing black and white in this reality. I can see now how the 'kindest' approaches can be the more destructive or futile, and how the 'callous' ones can really be the most compassion-filled. Sometimes the best decisions are the ones that end a life but free an animal from a lifetime of confusion, fear and the trauma of a more violent end, although the best of us may never find absolute peace in this conclusion. We try to figure out what the dogs would want/need, striving to be accountable in the best ways, attempting to do the 'right' thing for both ourselves and the dog. In all of it I am struck by it's challenges - torn between a reverence for life and other, more mundane but critical realities. I do believe we live in a world which does not always make it possible to choose perfectly or with absolute clarity. Perhaps part of our penance is to always doubt ourselves, even if it is only in small ways, and to know that we did truly love despite our imperfections.

With Piper, my choice was made for me, though I will admit here that there were days with him as he bolted away from me on the beach to steal a picnic (or worse) or suddenly went ballistic on my other dog for some imperceptible eye contact infraction, that I wished for an easier animal. One that was less Tasmanian devil and more placid, obedient, pliable. But he was none of the latter, and while his feral nature was probably what cost him his life in the end, it was also the thing about him that taught me the most about what I still need to learn. About how I cannot change other beings to be what I want them to be, how I must find the ways I can to step in with their wildness, to walk or gallop alongside them in an effort to understand. To see them and work with the materials I am given, to listen deeply, and learn how to let go if need be.

Hubris

This is an admission of guilt. Not that I am doing too badly at this art of being human, but there is always something to learn.

I am gathering by now that one of my most slippery life lessons is to be humble. In relation to others I have not always been as light handed as I could be - I can't know their pain, their joy, what drives them and what does not (or perhaps not unless it is offered and I am listening without ego). I am not responsible for anyone else's choices and yet I continue to hold myself accountable for things out of my control or influence; which in itself is a pernicious kind of hubris. I sometimes even have the audacity to think I know what is going on for other people, to try to assuage or predict it, but really I don't and can't. The best thing I can do for them and myself is to be self responsible and afford them the respect and space to do the same. And not be so quick to judge if the way they do that doesn't fit with my current ideal - to avoid objectifying, to give the benefit of the doubt. Let them unfold in just the way they are unfolding.

Sometimes I push without knowing the surfaces upon which I am applying this wanton pressure. Maybe this is alright as it is a way I have of seeing in the dark, of expressing myself in a sometimes unresponsive void. Like sonar, it is how I locate myself in dark places. And if nothing else, perhaps the purpose of it all is to illuminate my blind spots, through the reverberation of this still small voice against these fathomless walls.

Maybe this is what matters, the rest be damned as I blunder my way through this. I am not sure. Of course I could be continuously getting everything wrong. A very real possibility.

I have struggled with patience, even though my deeper intuition has told me that more time is needed, I have tried to press my palm into this unfeeling mystery that surrounds and engulfs. Begging it to give way, to access the light so desperate to burst through the cracks that I have no power to create. I have no influence here, at least none that I can perceive. At times I feel I have done poorly at allowing things to emerge, although I also know I have done my most imperfect best.

I have needed more time to absorb and contain and become all the things that have arrived in my life.
To transmute them into beauty if they did not arrive looking all that beautiful.  Especially if they were painful or difficult. Because these pieces are verdant, laden with things that have the  capacity to transform, enlighten. And to fully receive the unmistakable gifts that I have been unable to see, laid at my feet like rose petals, offerings.

Even if the things I say or feel are heartfelt, it does not mean they are true for anyone else. If they are that is a great gift, but it is not to be expected or assumed. My words are only shots in the dark, a crude method of echolocation.

I have, and will continue to do the best I can, and keep my spirit journeying through this human experience. I am allowed to come back and apologize, or rethink, or see the truth unfold in some new and completely unexpected way. Because that is the nature of things that emerge naturally, blossoming slowly but arriving suddenly, leaving us breathless and cracked wide open.

Choices

I am at a juncture where things are slowly emerging, small shoots sprouting up from the cracks in increasing numbers. Each new one provides another marker by which to navigate; these are clues for  me to follow into a larger mystery.

I have choices to make. I aspire to make them with clarity when I am able, and not before. I wait, watch, and pay close attention to what is happening within and around me. Information is gathering like a slow storm, ethereal and made of wind and cracks in the air. Vibrations of things held secret for a time, glimmering invisibly like the pre amble to a lightning strike. It is an electrifying time, but in it I aspire to be still, to stay put.

I will not hold you or myself to anything said or done in error, in incompletion, in retrospect. Not now, not any longer, and not in the future. I will stand here and look you in the eye and know that you can see me, even if you are unable to form the words to explain yourself. Explanation is not needed, and is made of dust and whispers, often just a distraction from the truth we know in our bones. The task is to listen and hear deeply what we have to say to ourselves, and never to lose that connection again. There is a mainline running between your heart and the unknown vastness of the universe - this is a know all, tell all kind of place. From this source I will know my own choices, clearly and without ambiguity. If you are brave enough to know yours, it is there for you but I will still make my own.

It takes courage and faith to stand in my own truth unwavering. Here I risk loss and loneliness, though the rewards of this high hard road are greater prizes. If you do not have it in you to know your own heart then you are not able to meet me here, in this beautiful windswept and sunlit place. Not yet. Perhaps not in this lifetime as there is a timeline to this beauty - it is a growing living thing made from the green heart of the world.

My choices do not hinge on you or what you see in the dark blue vastness, they hinge only on the song line that is meant for me, the translucent sound gathering it's harmonies behind the light of my own eyes.

Wisdom in the Bones

This thinning but clear spine of a lifeline that I am following is drawn on my palms and etched in my bones.

I have been amazed at myself of late. Not my conscious self, the one that wonders out loud and pays attention to the shoulds and the shouldn'ts and all manner of mindly things, but another part of me. It is my physical self, wordless but visceral, which carries a wisdom borne of the blood and bone that makes me human, that has held me fast to my own truth this past while.

Travelling for most of a month on the sea and beside it, I have been plugged into earthly cycles, my body giving me little choice but to abide by my own rules. There have been handrails to guide my progress, signposts and gateways made of cedar and polished rock. My feet have propelled me forward; poised, balancing, placing themselves upon the unseen path from one moment to the next. Attending to this and paying close attention, it seems almost easy not to wander into temptation or veer off course into carelessness and desire. It is not that I am not being challenged, as I am, though more gently than before. And I am still, as always, left wondering and not knowing a great swath of things of the past and the future, not seen and unknowable from where I stand. But that seems acceptable for the time being, bearable if somewhat mysterious.

This past week feathers fell from the sky and the ocean rose and fell to meet our needs as I shared a coastal walk with a now-dear friend.  Ask and you shall receive, but do not step out of yourself in order to pick up what falls all around you. Wait until you can sense which items were meant for you, and which were meant for others, or just themselves. Remain steeped in your own skin, alighting only when your body moves in step with your soul. Remembering always that this is a slow pace, one filled with pauses and moments of wonder.

It is in this that I have truly found the 'art of wait' (http://artofstaying.blogspot.ca/2013/12/the-art-of-wait.html).

Staying Put

“I am rooted but I flow.” ~ Virginia Woolf

Getting close to two years ago I had a revelation. In order to do the work that I wanted to do, I needed to learn to 'stay put'. I needed to choose a home place, and stick with it. At the time that realization had to do with ceasing my wandering, at least in the geographical sense. But as I have moved through this phase of physical stillness I have been learning that this art of being in place has even more to do with the ability to heed inner stillness. Learning to listen and pay attention to the details of life, and not get pulled off course by every butterfly and squirrel that crosses my path. And many do.

I have built and rebuilt communities in my life in different places, most of them have been steeped in quality, people I love and who love me in return. My soul sisters and brothers - most know who they are and will recognize themselves in reading this. And by staying put, I have learned that those people are still with me, even though they may or may not reside in the same place.

Each time I left, I had the sense that I was just on the verge of something, some great opening, or landing. But then I left anyway; I got itchy feet, wandering eyes, and an urge to move and find greener pastures, something 'better', something 'more', and at times just something different. What I have failed to do time and time again is to ground, pause, grit my teeth and steel myself against the discomfort of the squirming escape artist within. What I know now, without having the luxury of the whole and complete picture - that truly I will only get when my body dies and my essence merges with the green soul of the world - is that in staying put all the things I need will arrive. In their due time. Part of this is about learning to be patient and having faith. Another part is to allow myself to sink more fully into me, to take up the full space that is mine to inhabit. In this way becoming a more hospitable planet, complete with my own atmosphere, soil, sun and moon and stars, I will either nurture or draw in all the things and people that are needed. Just by being myself.

I get that this sounds idealistic, but that too is a big part of who I am and I am not apologizing for it.

Of late the lessons that have emerged for me have been about going against the grain, listening to my ability to discern the best route, and honouring and protecting myself. Not being a martyr on the altar of others' messes, lack of diligence or inability to attend to their own fires first. This has made me supremely unpopular in some circles, I have no doubt. But it has also given me no small measure of self-respect and a necessary sense of self direction. I am placing myself, one small step at a time, on the path of my own best interest. I am not looking for it anywhere else but here and I am resisting the urge to extend outwards, investing my energies instead in calm and focus. "If you build it, they will come", so to speak, even though sometimes I hear crickets.

I have also been unfolding, and have attracted a number of amazing things into my sphere, deep friendship, opportunity, the comforts of home, offerings of love and kindness. In this realm there are also pitfalls, in that by unfolding and showing up more fully, I can be more seen more clearly by others. Part of the benefit of my wandering lifestyle is that it prevented me from blossoming in full view, it allowed me to remain hidden and out of reach of grasping hands. Movement was a safety net, because I have never been very good at saying no, something that often brought up feelings of guilt and unworthiness, although I have been practiced at pushing away. I have acted more like an escape pod in a zero gravity world and less like someone who knew what I wanted and what was good for me. More recently I have been less of the former and more of the latter, which is an improvement.

While staying put I have noticed that things come and go, and I am faced with even more temptation and challenge. It has been so very alluring to run, and run hard, away from the sorrows that were born here, in the early months of my staying. The unseen ghost of these early times flitting between shadows, sensed lurking at certain street corners. Disappeared, but still there in the air I breathe and the tilt of my heart.

Some days I find myself imagining something big and worthwhile, something that has been worth waiting for, is coming down the pipe, but I also imagine that it is the small details that matter most. The dip of ancient cedar boughs, cool sea air, the gifts of friends and the moments of silence and space I give myself. It all adds up, and perhaps one day I will find that it has substance; a shape and a name.

Signposts

I am looking for signposts. I have come to a point in a question where I am graciously requesting answers, from within. I am asking them to come forth, because I do understand that for all the questions that seem to emerge from events external to me and my control, there is an internal clarity, a yes or a no. Resounding, crystalline.
As much as I am able I am ready to hear the scalding or uplifting truth now. Perhaps it will be both of these things. I have circumnavigated this question, backed off many times in getting closer to the source of it, feeling the heat of this truth too close for comfort. Letting go of attachment is juxtaposed with a sense that I am clinging to something that has no or little substance at this moment. At other times it has seemed to be unquestionable, but I have not had the courage to believe either answer and so have arrived at this place of continued mystery. I am ready to be deeply uncomfortable. I think. As best as I am able. Ready to receive.

I found these flowers living in the clouds. Above treeline, deep in the alpine, in a place of rocky footfalls, cairns, and the cries of ptarmigan. Mine are island mountains, often shrouded in the west coast vapour that rises from the confluence of sea and slope. The cloud flowers started coming up in tenacious clumps near the summit I was climbing last week, after a stretch of stunted heather and ground willow gave way to nothing but rocky outcrops. It was a short time to go on faith, but it told me that some time walking  without cairns, signs, or anything that validates your location in the world is a necessary thing as it forces, or enables you to keep going. You learn to pay attention to different things, things that you may not have noticed or known existed before.

In this silence and place of focus you put one foot in front of the other, shift down into the present moment, and discover the truth that blossoms beneath you.

"Don't turn away. Keep your gaze on the bandaged place. That is where the light enters you." 

~ Rumi