Fire

I realised today, perhaps more consciously than I have for a while, that I am not on fire for much of anything right now. I should know myself enough at this point to remember that I don't do well in a by-rote world. I suffer repetition like something caught between my teeth rather than revelling in the perfection that comes with practice. I need to feel  what I do and say. It needs to be real and authentic and informed by the ever changing nature of this planetary ordeal. I tend to drift towards unconscious competence; rather than becoming more versed in the intellectual understandings of a skill or topic. I start to forget the small details that went into building that feel of water under hull, the perfect weighting of my downhill ski, or the look in a dogs' eye when he solves some puzzle of human expectation. If anything, I get less perfect over time, more sloppy, less inspired. My heat dwindles and weakens, the lack of oxygen turning it to cool cinders.
I can tolerate much drama in those around me and stand firm and calm in the face of it. And I can forgive those who chose not to heed the deep and resounding call of the heart's desire at my expense. But in the end it tires me, sucks up my motivation, and sends me flying off in other directions. I hope it does, because I want to catch a spark once more. I tire of this staying put, at least in the sense that it requires a more focussed tolerance for mediocrity than I perhaps possess.
I looked at myself today and can see that I am verging on the edge of something.  One of those times when the urge to shift gears, to re-evaluate, and touch in with something more visceral and fiery is looming.  Maybe something as simple as letting go of the small security blankets that I hold close. These scraps of time and commitment that have the illusion of keeping me anchored perhaps only serve to starve the embers.

Let's gather firewood. We'll light a fire on the mountain. ~ Pablo Neruda

Edging

You have been walking the ocean's edge,
holding up your robes to keep them dry.
you must dive naked under and deeper under,
a thousand times deeper. love flows down.
~ Rumi

I have been doing just this, an ocean-edge balancing act. Getting my toes damp before darting away from the oncoming rush of salt water. Living on the rim of these shallows - themselves just the gateway to the deep. In part, my arrogance is a product of trying to get it all right, trying not to hurt and not to be hurt, to remain unscathed. To continuously do no harm, to be...impeccable. Not to draw blood yet again, and not to have my own veins opened up.

But as you point out, to live is to cause harm. By dwelling here on this edge I am attempting to avoid the territory of broken promises, this time mine, potentially. It is in the what ifs that I bide my time. Not to make a bigger mess of it all. Not to 'fuck it all up' as someone once espoused to have done.
But I am risking mediocrity here at the tideline. Sniffing the saltwater breath of kelp rather than swimming with it, getting tied up in it's slippery fronds. I have never claimed or desired perfection and do not shy away from the swampy mire that sometimes seeps in to these matters of humanity. I am quite willing and able to see through it, know it for the smokescreen that it is. Most messes are made of spilt milk and moments; they are only eternal if we allow them to trick us into thinking so. If we let them persist and steal our gaze, drawing us away from the loosening beauty that empties out into this world daily, minute after minute. To remember that we are all worthy of forgiveness and freedom, love and happiness, and not to bind each other up in an unending accounting of who is to blame. 

It is this edge that I need to broach, though I continue to trip over these rivulets of sand as I approach the proffered ocean. To free myself and allow the tug of currents to take me, trusting it as I used to before.

Freedom (Art of the Road Trip)

To this day there are few things that I anticipate with more enthusiasm and freedom-seeking fervour than a road trip.  Of Glasser's basic human needs this F ranks high for me. I am buoyed by the prospect that is coming up in my near future, 3 weeks to Baja and back, climbing, surfing and all the other wonders that inevitably arise when there are fewer boundaries on time and movement. It is short one on the scale of road trips, and I still pine for the year of wandering with boats and boards and climbing gear that is a recurring dream of mine. But  while short, it is something, and has a different feel to other times away, other ways of getting to a destination.

In anticipation the road trip south feels different from the 10,000km flight that looms before it on the calendar in  the coming weeks. It was free for me, but flights in general, or any mode of travel where time is of the essence and efficiency is paramount feels hemmed in, constrained by structures outside of my influence. And I am tired of investing in things that are outside of my control.
Air travel is a numbers game, designed for the mass movement of people, computer-screen schedules flashing their updates in a rotating and repetitious pattern. Flight numbers are not unique, and whatever I experience on my flight to Hong Kong on flight JA17 will likely be a carbon copy of the next one and the one before that. It is travel by rote, undeviating, though there is no doubt that embarking on the plane to much needed vacation time for many has some vestige of wildness and freedom. Trace amounts.

When you fly from point A to point B there is also an urgency; time is money and money is made of time spent in many cases, in a work-life bondage. In road tripping, most often these diversions are part of the gift, an expected and celebrated aspect of moving across country the long way. In the ethos of the airport the sandals, shorts and quick-fading tans of the returnees are overshadowed by the besuited business class mover and shaker. Freedom and lightness fade quickly upon re-immersion. Both time and finances are finite, lashing us down to travel without much possibility of looseness and little hint of liberty. To afford the flight away in the first place, we most often bind ourselves to more hours and days and months spent under someone else's  control, our lives being defined by the abstractions of external economic factors. We can't afford to meander anywhere, we need insurance for a quick arrival. The finite destination is arrived at swiftly, with no funny business or side trips or distractions.  Our departures and arrivals  pre-ordained, hemmed in. 'Vacation time' is steeped in scarcity and controlled by responsibilities, shoulds and obligations. We bracket it carefully in a bed of efficiency.

The luxury of the  road trip is formed by distraction, whim, cadence, and interruption.  It is not always necessary to arrive at one destination, but it is inevitable that you reach many. Bad snack food and good snack food, opening the windows in sub-zero temperatures to stay awake through a nightlong drive. Smelling the sea air again after a long traverse of the landlocked states that it cost us to get there. Heeding the call to adventure, even for a few weeks can reopen the clogged valves of our freedom mechanisms, our basic human wanderlust, and the nomadic underpinnings of our falsely settled life are daylighted for a time.  When on the road we plan a route and a timeline perhaps only partially adhered to. Opening ourselves to diversion if it serves a purpose or even if it does not. Taking the time to stop and notice the canyon overlook, a subtle change in the landscape or some aspect of an imagined place discovered in real time. Stopping to visit, rather than flying over those friends now spread over this continent, disparate, but connected by roadway geography.  We are constantly faced with the generosity of friends, bed and floor space. In return, our visitations at times can provide interruptions to the mundane; we arrive wafting small clouds of spontaneity so that others can smell it on our breath, feel it drift off our clothes as they open the door. Points A or B while road tripping are moot, and more clearly parts of a serpentine continuum, stretching into vastness and open space.

So when I asked myself last week where to spend my time next month...far off destinations found briefly by air, or an adventure-punctuated drift south by car, the answer was clear.

Freedom (Part 1)

I have been having many dreams of late, full of imagery, perhaps messages from the ether, or from the underground of my mind. There is a lack of control, an inability to eradicate or escape some creature of deep imagination, leaking up from the floorboards of my rustic dreamland home. This is about staying put, and perhaps being bitten, or caught, or absorbed and digested by the thing that i fear most. To risk happiness, despite its transient nature.
I have pondered my own freedom of late, am learning to understand that the desires i have to twist free of the grasp of anything is grounded in entanglements of my own making. The only person to hold myself still is me. Someone I love has repeated the phrase 'you are free' enough times that I see that it is not others that hinder that feeling. I am held in the warmth of an open palm, leaving me safe but free to move if I so wish. If I would allow myself to range and be and say my own piece.  I have never been less sure of my own waywardness, and how it is formed and dissipates under tighter or looser holds. I notice that I have not written for a time and that is part of it. The fear of being exposed as the charlatan I am - an imperfect being rife with unclosed wounds and still hanging questions. Waiting for the river to wash these sharp edges down over time.

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.