HEADING OUT. SEE YOU SOON

LETTING GO

My departure draws near, Wednesday, and I am busy wrapping things up and attempting to bring a conclusion to the experience just as I have concluded the manuscript. Thats right, 300 plus pages of ranting, confessing, musing, crying, plotting, scheming, screaming, scraping, analyzing, shifting, shaping has come to a conclusion, I found my ending.  I must admit it feels good.  I feel free from much of what I put down on the page, like it exists in the story now and I'm not carrying it all around in my head. Now I let it sit for a month, completely ignoring it and hopefully coming back to find something that has taken on a life of its own and it is then my job to attune to its needs and mold and shape. I have birthed this monstrous creation and now have to let it grow and eventually  (still need to tweak, edit, tweak, edit) I will have to let it go. 

To love anything, to truly let it shine on its own, I believe you have to let go. We find grounding, comforting, cherished things and places and we instinctively desire to squeeze them tightly to us, guarding them and preserving them.  You discover an inspiring piece of art and sometimes you feel as if sharing it and letting it go from the personal relationship you share with it will diminish its magic.   Also, you meet and get to know an amazing person, who burns bright and whose heat energizes and illuminates your world and the initial desire is to possess that person, keep them to yourself.  Let it go. I think just let go of the possession, the protection, have faith in their freedom.  I am tempted to cling to the immense stability of this retreat, this cabin because of all the health and peace I have found, but what good is it to keep it all shut in.

Here is something I have clung to as a great secret source of inspiration over the past months, a music video by the Icelandic band Sigur Ros.  I share it now, sharing the stoke as they say when teaching new people to surf.  The video, I believe, shows the journey we all share, often just unsure children underneath it all, making our way to the next place and if we do so with generosity and communion maybe together we can find the courage to let go of the stable ground and soar. 

I am preparing one more blog post and then that is the conclusion.  On to the next place. 

TESTED

I have recently declared my love for the animal kingdom and reverence for all forms of life. Yes, I have been welcoming all, leaving out peanuts for the squirrels and waving hello to the pheasants along the road, a regular Grizzly Adams.  Now, I believe I am being tested.  A few weeks back I was driving to town and was going to eat a granola bar on the way, but deciding to save myself for dinner I threw it in the glove compartment thinking it would be nice to have on hand for a long drive.  A week later I am driving to Alexandria to visit my cousin and think it would be nice to have that granola bar.  I take it out and, thats funny, it has been opened and seems smaller.  I think, oh it must have been opened when I put it in there and the freezing temps have shrunk it, I'm new to this weather, what do I know?   I still go to eat it, but it looks strange and toss it back in the glove compartment, thinking I will throw it out later.  So, time passes and arriving home from town the other day I remember the bar and that I should throw it out.  What do I find?  The damn thing is gone, the package is all torn apart, and the nasty evidence of the culprit, its remnants are littered about the glove compartment.  

Is a tiny mouse hobo squatting in my car?  Does a little magician critter  sneak into my car at night and find his way into the closed glove compartment? Does this rodent Houdini live under the hood and somehow survive while I drive?   What the heck is going on here?   My initial reaction is one of violation and want to rid myself of this problem with extreme prejudice. After all, who wants their car to be notorious for a rodent infestation (I actually heavily debated whether to announce this to anybody).  I'm thinking a little rat poison in the glove compartment or a trap set on the floor would do just fine, but I am almost immediately struck by my hypocrisy.  It is one thing to love love love all life when it stays in its place but as soon as it infringes upon my space I'm all ready to go guns a blazin' in hot pursuit.   I calm down and let go of the anger for the infraction.  I just need to clean my car of all edibles, which is a good thing anyways and scour it for a little mouse home.  If there is no more food he will move along or stop visiting.  I have done so and assure you that your ankles are safe when riding in my pitiable hatchback.  What have I learned from this? Well that the Kia attracts stories like high dollar call girls allure high powered politicians, but more so that it is going to be a true test to live the life of which I have been writing. 

As my stay here draws close to its end (a matter of weeks now), I am wondering if I will be able to hold on to the introspectively accrued virtues and lessons when I launch back into the currents of society's seas?  Will I  be able to embody that which I have been writing and dreaming?  To treat all with respect and yet stand strong in my pursuits and aspirations.  To stay focused and yet allow the good things in life, the surprises, enter in as well. Can I keep my balance and equilibrium amongst the unexpected riptides and unseeable undertows?

I have mentioned it before, rising up after the fall, but stress it again, knowing there will be bumps in the road that will pitch me over.  This determination but also flexibility I believe will be important.  I have been operating in a controlled setting, everything is set up the way I left it everyday and nothing intrudes upon my schedule, an ideal environment to create.  I will now need to to adjust and adapt as there is bound to be a refrigerator in your lane on the freeway every now and then, what? that doesn't happen in places besides Los Angeles? Well, in LA it does, take note.  

However, the most important virtue to maintain in this relaunch I believe will be compassion.  I have been thinking about that quite a bit during my meditative seclusion, facing my past transgressions head on and forgiving myself in order to let them go.  A dear and beautifully contemplative friend of mine recently mused over the same subject of compassion and got me thinking of it again today.  Compassion towards others can carry us respectfully through all difficult human interactions, a truth to hold high as a lamp to illuminate, but perhaps even more important is finding compassion for ourselves, without which, we can never move forward.  So, it is not only getting back up after the fall but allowing ourselves the fall.  

My grand plans will need modifying, my words will need editing, my car will need sanitizing, but through it all I will aim  to be accepting and forgiving over everything else.  I bring forth the wisdom of the Tao to support the importance of compassion discussed by myself and my friend. 

Tao 67

I have just three things to teach;

simplicity, patience, compassion.

These three are your greatest treasures.

Simple in actions and in thoughts,

you return to the source of being.

Patient with both friends and enemies,

you accord with the way things are.

Compassionate toward yourself,

you reconcile all beings in the world. 

Also, thank you to all for the support and kind words for my Grandfather. He is out of the hospital and slowly recuperating in a rehab center. Day by day we hope to see him regain his strength and know your concern, thoughts, and prayers help him to do so. 

CHASING THE UNUTTERABLE

I find myself day after day looking for the right words, desperate to convey what I personally feel so strongly to be true, feel so evidently present in my chest yet impossible to bring forth in text.  I am beginning to wonder if the greatest truths and understandings are the unutterable ones. Inexplicable yet fully capable of being emoted and shared, I believe I am finding these truths, and the solace they bring, in the forms of light and music. 

Solace I have especially been seeking since my Grandfather was struck ill earlier this week in Arizona, suffering from concurrent strokes and is currently progressing through a slow and still scarily unknown recovery.  How we feel is natural, but what to say is difficult and it is strange how words lose most of their meaning and power when held against the striking grip of emotion.  As he recovers, I have sought out ways to face these emotions and reside in them, looking for hope and peace to accept the outcome.   

In this search, I went out with my video camera looking for a sunrise and found the encroaching spring, the grey gradually being worn down by the rays' increasing strength and the welcome sounds of new life. However, it is the light and music which we ourselves create that I have been finding  most appealing. The music and light that comes from within our own nature seems to bring the most comfort when in the rare occasions we are able to purely present it or bear witness to its presentation in others. 

 

 

I found the sunshine and later in the day I found the music (thanks to NPR), the Miserere (Allegri). The foreignness of the Latin insignificant as the voices of the choir bring forth the music's inherent peace. The story behind the Miserere is as wondrous as the indefinable assurance of its notes. Originating in 1630's, it was performed only for the Pope in the Sistine Chapel during Wednesday and Friday of Holy Week and was so highly regarded that it was eventually forbidden to transcribe or perform elsewhere. It stayed hidden from the world until upon hearing a performance,  a 14 year old Mozart miraculously recreated and composed the Miserere from memory the next day and brought it to us all.    

The song is a simple prayer for the presence of the almighty to be with us, a thought or meditation that crosses all factions of belief.  We yearn for connection and what ever can bring us closer to a communion is worth adherence.  I do not wish to hide or categorize away my feelings, and within the warmth of the light and the presence of the music I can find the channel running to my family's outpouring of warmth and concern and also deluges of worry and pain, funneling acceptance in the duality. 

Music has been my great companion in the inevitable loneliness I have felt out here, and I apologize for the bombardment of music I have been sending out to my friends and family these past months, but I find in it a way to share something with those I long to be experiencing life amongst.  So, as I long to be with my family by my Grandfather, I pray we can connect and share in the hope of the light and music we find in this new Spring, in each new day. In sharing the same sun and hearing the same songs we are together in  a moment of repose and comfort. 

              *        *         *         *         *          *

I have found that many great writers and minds have shared a bond in their esteem for the expressive power of music. Here are a few sentiments to read over while the sun rises and the voices reach out to the same light. 

"Music is the shorthand of emotion" - Leo Tolstoy

"Music expresses that which cannot be said on which it is impossible to be silent" - Victor Hugo

"Music can name the unnameable  and communicate the unknowable" - Leonard Bernstein

"Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything"  - Plato

"A painter paints pictures on canvas, but musicians paint their pictures in silence" - Leopole Stakowski

"See deep enough, and you see musically; the heart of nature being everywhere music" = Thomas Carlyle

"In the end I think of music as a saving grace for all humanity" - Henry Miller

"Music is well said to be the speech of angels; in fact, nothing among the utterances allowed to man is felt to be so divine.  It brings us near to the infinite" - Carlyle

KILLING IN THE NAME OF...???

 

             I am not a hunter. My father was a hunter, I come from a long line of hunters, I am living in a land of hunters, but I am not a hunter.  Now I know I am going to catch some heat for my ideas here, to be labeled the soft city boy, but please just hear me out. 

  I am dog-sitting this week, a lively and sweet golden retriever by the name of Penny, and we are outside.  I am sitting off the end of the landed dock writing, enjoying the company of the long estranged sun and Penny is rolling about in the snow in such a genuine display of joy and health that it is all but impossible not to be pulled into an equally contented state.  We play fetch with a stuffed cow toy I bought her, and she pounces on it and upon bringing it back I give her a "good girl" and an approving scratch behind the ears. 

I let her wander off down along the lake shoreline and  when I whistle she obediently comes loping back with a big grin.  This carries on for sometime, but then I whistle, and nothing.  I whistle louder, still nothing.  "Penny" I shout and then again with authority.  I can see her now coming from way down along the trees, working her way towards me but stopping and lowering her head to the ground occasionally, and when she finally gets close I see she has something in her mouth. "Crap, she's been chewing on a dead bird" I think and jump down to get it away from her, but when I meet her she drops what is in her mouth, barks, and leaps about in ecstatic pride.  A little chipmunk lies at my feet.

  He is wet and matted, and hoping to find him stiff and long since dead, I tap him with my boot, he cringes, opens his eyes for a second and then winces them closed again.  Broken into pieces as tiny as his quivering paws is my heart. Reasonably, logically, sensibly I know it is just a tiny chipmunk, a rodent even, but in that moment he seems to hold all the world's pain and suffering in his little pulsating chest. 

  I pull a frenzied Penny away and being as this is what she is trained to do I have to tell her "good girl" as I lead her back up to the front of the cabin to be chained up again.  I go to the garage for a shovel,  it being my responsibility not to let him suffer.  Ready to finish Penny's work, I come back to my little martyr, bend down to examine, nudge him to assess the severity of his injuries. He is in pretty tough shape although not bleeding.  I stand and lift the shovel, locking my elbows and tensing to deliver an unquestionably finalizing blow. I hold, I hold, I lean into it, I can't do it. 

  Cursing, I throw the shovel aside and sprint back to the garage, greeted by a barking and frustrated Penny.  I grab an old towel hanging inside the door, then sprint back. Quickly I wrap him up  and holding softly the fleeting life that seems to weigh nothing, I raise him  high and hidden from Penny as I pass by entering the garage,  tuck him in a box wrapped up in the towel. If I can just keep him warm. Thinking practically long since out the window, if there is a chance that my warmth, my concern my care could be enough to heal him then I have to give it a shot.   

  He is out in the garage and I am inside the cabin.  Concentration is impossible, I keep checking on him, finding his little body still responsive yet his eyes cease to open anymore.  "What am I doing?" I think as I pace the cabin.  My own weakness is continuing his suffering.  This carries on until I check on him for the last time, finding him still this time, lifeless. I am relieved and saddened by the finality. It is then I know for sure that I am not a hunter. 

Being immersed in the hunting culture for the first time in my life, it has been an idea, a moral quandary mulled over in my mind since my arrival.   In November, I accompanied my uncle on a profitless day of deer hunting, and I even saw the last stages of a deer being butchered, from which meat I have dined on many times this winter.  I came to the realization that there was no difference between eating a hamburger in a restaurant and shooting a deer and eating it, and to think otherwise would be hypocritical of any meat eater. I still respect the long standing traditions and the use of wild game to feed yourself and your family. 

       However, especially influenced by what I witnessed today. I do vehemently rail against the lack of respect for life and nature that is the sport of killing.  It was not seeing a dead dear on the table or a raccoon in the ditch that struck me, but watching the process of death, the physical departure of life, no matter how small, that shook me. All life is of value, a gift and to watch it slip away frivolously I feel should incite deep frustration. Even the death of this small chipmunk that came at the instinctual jaws of the circle of life seemed like a waste.  Penny would eat her store bought dog food and biscuit treats tonight, not feast upon her kill, which admittedly fosters the highly debatable idea of man's own continued need to eat meat at all. 

             The Lakota Indians of the Dakotas would bow before every kill and graciously thank the animal for the life that would now help sustain their own. Reverence for life is what I am pleading for in the hunt, which I find embarrassingly absent in nowhere near all, but many parts of this culture. Satisfaction in a successful hunt is one thing, but to kill with such boisterous joy just seems to be loaded with a bloodlust that needs to be conditioned out of mankind.  

           So, Penny and I held a ceremony of reverence for our lost chipmunk. We held our heads and sustained a moment of silence to honor the small passing in our small piece of the world in one small moment, seemingly trivial but when we stop honoring these small moments from when and where do we start.   

             How could I stay angry at this face, this smile definitely a cherished gift of life. 

USE YOUR DELUSION

BRIEF CABIN TOUR & HOMAGE TO BRIAN WILSON & FLULA BORG

 

SORRY FOR THE ABSENCE, BUT HAVE BEEN HARD AT WORK. THOUGHT I WOULD SHOW YOU AROUND MY CONFINES JUST A BIT AND I UTILIZED THE FLULA BORG VIDEO METHOD.  FLULA IS A GOOD FRIEND OF MINE IN LA AND IS ALWAYS AN INSPIRATION. CHECK HIM OUT AT FLULABORG.COM

THE SONG IS "BUSY DOIN' NOTHING" BY A CABIN SECLUDED BRIAN WILSON FROM THE BEACH BOYS FRIENDS ALBUM (LATER YEARS)

HERE IS THE VIDEO INSPIRATION FROM FLULA AND MY FRIENDS BACK IN TINSELTOWN.