The Green Corridor

I won't do it justice, because the moment has passed, but as my bike coasted along the downhill slope yesterday on the way home from work I felt surrounded, encased in the green world. A protective boundary of verdant spring foliage, dappling sunlight sneaking through the gaps in the leaves. The perfect temperate air flowing around me, slipstream unused at my back.  The world here is almost always green, but spring is still bursting.

It is a truth that not all the things I long for are here in this season, and still nothing is missing. There is a contentedness, a gratitude that suffuses the moments like the scent of the newly fledged leaves surrounding me. It is not hope, but it is grace. An allowance for all the wrongs done by my errant heart. A forgiveness for all the wounds unknowingly inflicted, and for the meanings randomly assigned to each broken piece of glass. I am learning how to stay in place, by allowing that place to change as the seasons do.

I am lucky to have landed here. Amazed at what I have been granted in work, the creative freedom, paired with a material security that has the effect of calming the nervous system. I no longer say yes to all the things - perhaps finally understanding the space needed between projects and adventures. The need for some measure of staring into space, for stillness. In the coming months I am transformed again - almost half of every month immersed in wildernesses of my choosing. The deep oceanic work of summer. It is an alchemical time, a confluence of magic, humanity, connection and the wild lingering places. It is the journey work of souls and the source of all imagination.

I can lean into it all, knowing that life takes time, and change is a given. For now, I have some constants; a home, friends and people who love me, the perfect mix of stability, freedom and creativity in my work. I am learning how to bring my gifts to more of the things in life, even the mundane and seemingly routine motions of a modern existence. Although that will always be a work in progress. I am in the green corridor, which is beautiful for it's own sake, immersive and sensory, but perhaps also a gateway to what is unfolding.

The Facebook

I recently took a monthlong break from social media, actually from Facebook to be exact, since that is the only social media I subscribe to. I returned this week and have had some observations that may (or may not) be worth sharing.
This is not the first time I've taken a break from the book of face - many times over the past 10 years I've deactivated my account for stretches of up to several months, but upon returning to it this week I have some new reflections.

When I turned off and tuned out of social media a little over a month ago it was about curbing an addiction. While I was not 'using' that much by some standards, I was definitely in the compulsive checking habit. I was also noticing that when I made an effort to resist the craving for a day or more my mood and sense of well being improved. It was beginning to really annoy me that my computer was encouraging me through 'click-baiting' my browser's memory and enthusiastically filling in '-acebook' every time I started typing the letter F into the search bar.

In the first few days I congratulated myself for being above average in the impulse control department. It was surprisingly easy for me not to log in to check my messages, post 'likes', or scroll through my newsfeed. With each passing day it got easier - I had been needing a break and was clearly ready to unplug. The experience has made me ponder (more than usual) the nature of human connections in the age of social media, email, and texting and revisit my intention to invest my energy in the real ones more often. Even in my closest relationships I have been sometimes ill at ease with the way text has become not only a venue for checking in or giving information, but also to sort through complex issues and emotional dynamics. I have been guilty of, and have been swept up with others in the instant gratification of being able to get something off the chest now and have it 'said' (good or bad). In retrospect, even though I have been the recipient of some truly fun, and sometimes absolutely swoon-worthy stuff via text, instant message and email, it has also been the ground for the planting of deep and pernicious misunderstandings. Instant, faceless communication allows us to decide what we think was said and leave 'conversations' without having to face or be faced by the more subtle and discernible truths that can only be found in 3-dimensional methods of connecting.

As someone who writes, I love the playful use of written language that social media and our devices give us, but I have also been guilty of mis-using the venue for conversations that would be better had by organizing an in person meeting or voice call. It's so convenient, and when I'm stressed or upset about something and fearing disconnection, it's sometimes easier for me to express myself in writing. But there's something so absolute about the written world - even when it is coming from a place of curiosity or uncertainty it can have a way of seeming so ultimate and decisive. It's not something that can be taken back, and much is left to the interpretation and inner voice of the reader.

Anyway, I digress...but these thoughts are related to what I am puzzling over. The social connection part of the social media equation.

 For the month I was 'away' from Facebook I often felt like I was missing out on conversations and events that were happening outside of my tangible reality. It was a bit like sitting alone in the school yard or cafeteria, peripherally aware of the quiet whisperings of peers, wondering if there is a party you're not invited to or a secret you're not privy to. And a few times over the month I discovered that I had indeed missed out on some social/professional gatherings - a few I found out about last minute because someone thought to text or tell me about it in real time. This became the biggest issue for me in being off Facebook - the connections that I was potentially missing because I was away from the platform. I didn't miss the time-wasting and compulsive scrolling, and I didn't (much) think about the fact that no one had recently given me a thumbs up or heart emoji to show me how much they liked what I had to say or approved of something cool I had done. But a few times I felt as if I had been disconnected from the 'community message board'. Overall however, I felt happier, calmer, and more connected to the things that were actually happening around me. The things that were 'close in' rather than peripheral.

As a friend observed this week on my 'timeline', Facebook is a lot like an alternate universe (thanks for that one Perch). It is a world happening on another plane of existence, only accessible through devices that are connected to an unseen array of energetic signals being transmitted through the ether. It's a world unto itself, but one that has a direct line to the 'real' world of living, breathing, relating human beings. But sometimes it feels that this virtual world is taking over.

The month I was away from Facebook, I got a lot done. I made a garden, read a few books, connected with people (in person, by phone, via snail mail, etc.), I wrote a few pieces (most still in progress and not yet published), joined a music group, went paddling, skiing and biking and all the usual things that I tend to do. I recertified my Wilderness First Responder over a beautiful weekend in Squamish, stayed with friends on Bowen Island, and designed and delivered a super cool mindfulness-in-nature workshop for educators and planned a writing and mindfulness retreat. I also walked the dog, stared into space a lot more than is usual these days, and breathed in a whole bunch of forest/ocean/river/mountain air. I am betting that there were subtle differences in how much attention I gave the things that I did. And I can guarantee that all that staring into space and the lack of compulsive clicking and post-planning (even if it's unconscious) gave my brain some much needed recoup time and space. I was most definitely more creative in those four weeks.

The other thing I've reflected on since returning to Facebook this week, is the nature of connection. Or more precisely about feeling connected. I think Facebook (and I would guess, other social media) feels to us like being privy to that whispered lunch room conversation. We get to feel connected to a community of sorts, and are allowed to comment, approve or disapprove, empathize and sympathize with anyone we want to feel affiliated with. Although we know it is a public platform and one that is curated by the user (and the corporation), it's a forum where people can sometimes be quite vulnerable. We are often using our 'inside' voices - you know, the ones that we may not speak in public, but are willing to 'share' publicly when we are hidden behind a profile and keyboard in a room out of sight. It is a strange intimacy that in some way simulates a sense of belonging and even acceptance.

For the likes of me (an extroverted introvert who sometimes expresses myself well in writing) Facebook can sometime replicate the feel of a gathering. In real life, I love being part of a familial crowd and derive a huge sense of safety, belonging and positive esteem when I am amongst my 'people'. It's something I had a lot of when I was in my twenties and thirties, living as I did in small like-minded basecamps filled with other outdoors people. I thrived on living and working together in close proximity.  Social gatherings were spontaneous and low stress. I could be a fly on the wall or at the centre of the chaos and feel similarly 'part of' and an accepted and valued member of the group. I felt a sense of belonging in ways that I never truly did in my family home or growing up in school.  As I have gotten older, and moved away from many of these tight-knit communities (and as many of them have dissolved due to life stage, bascamp closures or other factors) I am acutely aware of how much I miss and sometimes feel a lack of that intense sense of belonging.

I think this is what we are attuned to about Facebook and other social media. Every time we log on and get a 'like' or comment, we feel a sense of connectedness, being 'part of'. Although it's fleeting and in reality devoid of much substance it gives us a 'hit' of social acknowledgment. The more likes and comments the better. But it ultimately leaves us craving more - hence all the checking, scrolling and liking. We are trying to find our way back to our people, one emoji at a time.

Last summer I found myself sitting around a long table at a pub one evening after working a successful and powerful wilderness program. I had parachuted in to work the course and I was surrounded by some people I knew well, and others I had just met. Whether we knew much about each other or not, As I sat there in the late afternoon sun I had an overwhelming sense of being in my place, with my clan. There have been other such moments this year for me, most have involved making an effort to connect with the people I love and make a plan (sometimes involving a lot of logistics) to get together. It is always worth it.

The feeling of connection I get from these times tends to last days or even weeks, and even now I still hold in my bones a residual feeling of belonging. It feeds my soul, and I gives me a sense despite everything all is right in my world. The shine of those times takes a while to rub off.

I think this is what we get a glimmer of in the world of social media - a feeling of being surrounded by 'friends'. But it is more like a chimera because the moment it is felt it dissipates, and demands that we return to the illusory oasis of belonging for another drink. Social media can be fun and connecting at best, but it is a bucket full of holes.

To Be Continued (maybe)

Stone Gardening

I am growing vegetables, perching them on the metallic glassiness of my condominium balcony. Not too far up, but suspended. There are flowers too. Underneath the soil of each pot there are stones, rough-hewn collections of gravel, adding extraneous weight, providing drainage. Within  these few early weeks I have already harvested some salad and am watching the emergence of small shoots of life pushing up from the soil. A Sunflower in the making here, the beginnings of an herb garden there.
The strawberry plants are hardy little beings, growing broad little leaves that splay out to absorb all the light they can find. It is magical stuff this earth, water, and late afternoon sunlight that filters in to feed this small oasis of elevated life.
I will not stay here in this urban pod forever, but this season is mine. There is a stability to it. I am allowed to water and tend, there is time.
But what of the stones? They lie quietly, as if in wait in the layers below the soil and roots. Collecting and dispersing moisture. Doing their small but indispensable service, adding weight to things. Are they changing down there, protected as they are from force of the weather? Impervious or at least less prone to the elements that cause stone to be carved and worn, to turn to sand or earth? I am not sure but it troubles me a bit, because I dream that stones want to find their way to becoming earth, seed, leaf and flower. In the slow way of the turning world, far beyond my lifetime, but with an unfathomable certainty.

Love Song

It is about time,
About time that I hear the song that
I thought was
For and about someone else.
The fire in the bones
The spirit dancing out loud
In a thousand year spiral.
The ode to the long wait,
The effervescent moment
Spinning out for eons in the
Courtship of two mortal souls.
Knowing now I was not mistaken,
But simply not listening deeply enough
To truly hear.

It is about time
I hear the call
The voice that for so long I thought
was for
Someone else.
Belonging only to me
By association,
By remembering.
I know it by rote,
The familiarity of yearning for what was.
And puzzling over what was not to be.
All the time swaying to the sounds that
Pulled at my soul
Like a missing link.

And here, now
Once more, and again
Knowing the love song for what it is.
No longer a question mark.
Perceiving finally the the voice that sings it
Is my own.
Sinking
Deeper now into the still pond,
This song that has always been mine.


On the surface the ripples spread,
Diffuse, refractory.
In the depths they are contained,
And reverberate endlessly into all the layers of what is true.

Redemption

To be seen.

I have been granted a test, a run of experiences that have pointed me again and again to this need, this desire to be seen for who and what I am. To be understood. In all my imperfection and incompletion, but out of reach of any coloured or warped lens. What a gift it would be to finally, or once again, feel visible.

Our external transparency is so fleeting and clouded by perception; the ubiquitous blindness of human beings. Sometimes we are illuminated in moments of flow, when both the seer and the seen are loosened temporarily from the boundaries of our own inhibitions. In the stop-motion capture of a grin, or a playful movement across snow or water or rock, we are most truly ourselves. Sometimes we are found in passages of writing, art, music or dance.

It is perhaps that our parents and guardians could not fully see us, too consumed in their own lives to notice. The bright soul-lights of children are too often stifled and dumbed down. As a kid I knew myself as brazen, fiery and wild-hearted, but learned ways of muting that powerful energy for public consumption. The duties of school, expectations and complexities of family dynamics, and the adult world of convention grind us down. Uniqueness is shaped into uniformity, our impervious light-armour gets dented and dulled by comparison and fear. Shame is methodically applied in response to public expressions of strong emotion. No wonder we grow up buttoned down, dulling ourselves to the pain of these spiritual losses.

As a kid I could perceive the brightness and depth of my own inner source. I knew I was made of magic and the iridescent dust of stars. I spoke to animals and trees, saw sprites and forest fairies, trusted that all would be well. My imagination was a rampant thing, finding belonging and wonder in every corner. And somewhere in there, I'm not sure exactly when, I began to understand that I had no language to express what was within me. The wild optimism and brilliant trust I had in the world. I was made of magic, as we all are. Ultimately I could not find a way to fully reconcile the outer world of the mundane with the richness of my inner landscape.

I have certainly been seen, perhaps fully at times. But I am coming to know that while this is a gift, to be seen by another it can also be fleeting and unreliable. It can become addictive; one can develop a dependency if not careful. So recently I have decided to become visible to myself once again. To dampen the noise and listen in. I am recovering some of what has been muted and misunderstood for a time, not so much by others as by me. Uncovering what has lain buried in the dust of the sorrows and disappointments of life. An arm here, a leg there, the old bridle from the pegasus I used to ride across my dreamscapes.
I can see that it has been my own fight to remain in integrity, with it's pendulum-like swings, that has led me to this point. And so it a good place to start.

I understand that first it is me that needs to do the seeing. My job is to remind myself of myself. Because at some point I will wake up and notice what is already here. Redemption and healing arriving from within.

Ostriches

There are some days I notice themes. Recently I've become more aware of avoidance, in myself and the world around me, and I've wondered about it, why I am noticing it now and to what end.

I've never been one for current affairs. I don't read the paper, watch the TV news and try to avoid the parts of "The Current" on CBC that involve the horrors and atrocities that we humans inflict upon each other and this planet. And let's be honest, there's a lot of very ugly train wrecks happening out in the world these days. I've always told myself that I am not so much burying my head in the sand as much as it feels unnecessary and counter-productive to bask in the well-known awfulness that makes up a generous aspect of human nature. It bums me out and burns me out, darkens my mood, confuses my energy rather than clarifies it. I feel like I do a better job at life knowing about the existence of the many dark truths of the world from a distance, although I get that that is a luxury. The other night however I did listen, a rare tuning in to an evening radio current events show.

I was driving through the beautiful and incessant rain that has been both pummelling and nourishing this coast for the past month or so. On my way to an evening class. I feel so lucky to live here on this island, despite the threat of being carried away by a tsunami or swallowed up in an earthquake, I am privileged to have the freedom, comfort and abundance that I am afforded in my life. My class, race, the many lucky happenstances of my birth (all except my gender culturally speaking) have made my life materially and and in many other ways easy. Although I want for certain things sometimes, my very existence is not threatened on a daily basis. I am not struggling to survive in any way, and in some ways I am thriving.

As I drove through the rain and listened to a few of the stories - tales of violence, destruction and incredible cruelty I allowed it to sink in. Hospitals - maternity wards - built underground in war zones, being systematically targeted and  destroyed. Babies, labouring mothers, all terrorized over the course of days and weeks and incinerated in a moments' bomb blast.   This just one of several stories about war, pipelines and human rights offences. Just me and the radio and the dog in the back, as I drove through the verdant fields in tears, listening to the crackling voice of some soul living in that war zone, sounding so matter of fact, so possessing of dignity and grace and resignation. Just living the experience, of being in direct and visceral contact with the evil in the world and telling his story.
Past some of the self-protective filters I have, I let myself feel the discomfort of it, which includes an awareness of my culpability as a human being.

I reflected that while not all bad, some of my avoidance of these types of programs is about the shame and helplessness I feel at not being able to do anything substantial to make it better. I often feel, underneath it all, ashamed of my life of privilege and abundance and my tendency to sometimes ruminate on the petty heartbreaks of my small life. My colonial heritage troubles me, and the way it plays out in my way of being in the world. I feel shame at my tendency to avoid facing the ever-present difficulties that so many people deal with daily and my fixations on 'living into what is beautiful' which though I see has value, seems to be an insufficient contribution in this world of suffering and injustice.

I don't usually listen to the news not because I am trying to will it out of existence, but because it pollutes my consciousness, makes me feel small and ineffective. Useless. When I pause long enough to consider all the unfathomable losses and horrors brought about by the human predilection for inhumane acts I am overwhelmed by it.

I wonder at that word - inhumane, because I understand that without us humans there would be no inhumanity. And yet we push it away from ourselves, labelling deeds and actions that are in any way destructive using a word that overtly suggests it is the opposite of us. Not human. And yet it is exactly and wholly human to be violent, to kill each other, as well as destroy, plunder, or cripple the the infinite biotic and abiotic beings that are also of this world. Ironically when I looked up synonyms of the word "inhuman" one of them was 'wolfish', the irony and inaccuracy of which is unbearable to me.

I sometimes push things away that threaten my sense of my own essential goodness  - things that I do, think or say feel less compassionate, less loving, less worthy. We all like to believe in this idea - that we are essentially and innately good. But sometimes we don't even see the messes we make, so habituated are we to the carelessness of the day to day acts of modern living. I know I don't, in part because it's hard to extract my own tenuous sense of self from the ways where I have been less good, less fair or grounded. All the dark thoughts and neglectful ways I have of being in the world. All the places where I am out of integrity.

 I am wondering whether that is really the great feat in this life. To take it all - encompass and take responsibility for our own light and darkness and know it to be part of our wholeness. There is darkness wherever there is light. To use shame simply as a landmark to remind us to continually check the compass of integrity and compassion. To feel deeply but not be overcome by it. To see the human casualties, and mountainsides being carved and blasted to rubble for the sake of modernity; to hear the resounding silence of lost species are falling under the hands of our own unforgivable apathy and insatiable material desires. Maybe we need to be touched by things enough to see what needs to change. To work through and overcome our shame as best we can because I am almost certain that sitting in shame and guilt, while useful indicators, only really lead to more wrong-doing and wrong-thinking. And to be able to accept that I am part of the problem and find something, even something small that I can actually do.




* After I wrote this I saw this post: https://www.facebook.com/ngc.tw/videos/10156270456689170/

Calling In

This spring I attended a training about awareness and diversity at work. During a group discussion, someone asked a question about how we might 'call someone out' for a certain kind of behaviour. For a few minutes we talked about the importance of language, and boundaries, and of establishing a culture of respect, kindness and non-judgemental awareness. Near the end of the conversation, one of the younger (wiser) staff spoke up, turning the idea of 'calling someone out' on it's head. 'Another way to use language' he said, 'Would be to call someone in, rather than calling them out'. Absolutely, I thought. Beautiful.
How many times this year have I had thoughts that involved calling out, seeking justice, making something or someone right instead of wrong?
More importantly, and perhaps the foundational question is how can I call myself 'in' rather than out?

This last paragraph was written back in April  and here I am rediscovering it again, today for some reason sifting through one of over a hundred unfinished blog posts. Not to mention the Word documents that are scattered across my desktop. This is a little bit of the way I write; I complete and publish less than half of my beginnings, some of which are a paragraph or two long, others a few words jotted down in a moment of inspiration. Words captured like sparks in the enclosure of cupped palms, held safely for a better time to sit down and complete the thought. Occasionally I rediscover them as little missives from my past to my present self.

I have had the sense that I am not quite at the end, but really someplace in the middle of an emotionally dense period of my history. I have to believe that this will pass, as all things do, but certainly there are times right now when I cannot see the light at the end of this particular tunnel. Although when I stop and pay attention, I do notice dapples of sunlight interspersed within the dark cover of these January days. I revel in the white out weekends in the mountains; despite the lack of visibility this body loves moving on snow. I am faintly aware of the unbearable lightness of   my own being, and all those beings, living and non-living that surround me.

And so I am issuing myself (and anyone else out there who is interested) a challenge, to see how I can apply this idea of calling in. To those whose actions or inactions cause me pain, as well as those who bring me joy and solace. Strangers; the guy on the phone I am disagreeing with about a botched appliance repair; the harried clerk at the grocery store who miraculously replaced the litre of maple syrup that I had accidentally left at the check out two days earlier. I seek to call them in, somehow. Maybe it is enough just to hold the intention of it, to hold myself out in silent invitation and see what comes. The fact is that people may not see it for what it is, and I may not execute it in a way that can be seen or heard by those I am aiming to reach, but it is worth a try. This has been proven to me in spades this year - I am not in control of the receipt of the message, as words are sometimes (perhaps often) lost in the filters of the listener. However clear or redemptive my intentions might be to me, they are being filtered through lenses that I do not influence or truly understand. As well as the intonations my own imperfect voice; I am aware of the fact that my own stories and projections may sometimes cause something beautiful to become warped into something painful. I'm not sure. But I can hope that it is the intention that will endure in the end, that whatever purity or clarity there was at the beginning is what will survive and nourish the spring growth to come.

How can I invite myself back into the sacred territory of my own precious life? To honour and call it  in; sadness, joy, ambivalence and all.