People say that what we are all seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking. I think what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive.
— JOSEPH CAMPBELL
NOVEMBER 1, 2001
Here I am writing....Yet another plan shot to hell. But I’m again writing longhand, as I did for the first few months.
I’ve been thinking about Cat again and how “willful” cats are in general. A pure manifestation of self-centered wanting mind. I’ve also been looking at the shadow aspects of myself Cat might be triggering. Then it dawned on me: the traits I don’t like about Cat are part of me, too. I can’t believe it took me nine months to see this.
NO ENTRY FOR NOVEMBER 2–3, 2001
NOVEMBER 4, 2001
The notion that animals in their natural state, unspoiled by human contact, are unafraid of people is myth. It seems likely that none of the resident birds have had previous contact with people, yet most have become less afraid of me over time. At first, they tended to be shy of this large unknown animal. Only after I didn’t bother them did they become desensitized to my presence. It probably is true that they didn’t actively fear me as a human, and so their nervousness has relaxed more easily.
My expectation based on cultural mores led me astray; my earlier attribution of sex to the black-and-white geese, based on the apparently dominant behavior of the one I thought was the male, was wrong. The female emerged with six chicks today: grey fluffy little balls. She led them from their hidden nest down the steep rock to feed, and I paddled over for a closer look. The white male was close the whole time, peeping like one of the chicks. The little guys had a hard time climbing back up to the nest. I wonder if she chose such a tough nest site because of otters.
NOVEMBER 5, 2001
Solid walls of hail and even some snow interspersed with sun and blue sky.
The black-and-white geese brought their chicks to this side of the basin. They were very alert to the eagle, who also seemed interested in them. The chicks didn’t seem bothered by the hail, but at one point mom crouched, wings slung low to make a shelter, and tucked them under her. It was very beautiful.
Do they feel love or concern for their chicks? If I saw a human couple behave this way, I’d say, Yes! I can’t attribute human emotions to the geese, but it seems just as unwarranted to claim they feel nothing — that it’s all instinct. If Life brought forth human emotions, why not equivalent goose emotions, whatever they might be?
Why would we want to insist that animals have no feelings? Perhaps because it’s hard to live with ambiguity. It’s easier to believe that animals feel as we do or to turn them into automatons with no sense of self or feelings at all. It’s much more difficult to live with the mystery that they have their own lives we will never know — except to some degree through empathy, intuition, and quiet observation of their behavior. But the world is so much richer this way. Although I sometimes playfully attribute human qualities to the nonhuman world, this acceptance of mystery is what I actually think and feel about anthropomorphic projection.
It seems to me that the most parsimonious theory about anything is: none. Everything just is as it is. Of course that’s not very intellectually satisfying. There ’s a huge difference between being openly aware of mystery — the bare attention of don’t know mind — and prescientific magical explanation.
NOVEMBER 6, 2001
I was sitting on my porch peacefully watching the red-billed peepers happily murdering mussels on the low-tide rocks, when a malevolent visage suddenly loomed into the lens of the binoculars. Like a crocodile intent on mayhem, two beady eyes glared from just above the waterline. Then the male butter-belly roared in to attack. Whee! Nearly knocked me from my chair. The red-bills seemed startled, too, and scattered in flight. The butter-belly strutted a step, then returned to the water, and the red-bills settled back to their meal.
The attack was unusual since they frequently all hang out together, and it seemed strange given that they’re allies in chasing the eagles. It reminded me how rarely I actually see conflict. In general, the interactions between plants and animals are neutral or mutually beneficial. It just needs a more inclusive point of view to see things that way. It’s like a basketball game. On the surface the two teams compete fiercely, but from a broader perspective they cooperate much more. Both teams agree to meet at the same time on the same court, play the same game, and abide by the same rules.
NOVEMBER 7, 2001
Anxiety.
NOVEMBER 8, 2001
At low tide I went to see what the limpets had been up to. It was nasty out there. Driving rain and thirty-mile-an-hour wind, gusting to fifty. I doubt I’ll ever publish the data, so why collect it? Perhaps doing for the doing rather than for the result is a good thing. Why should we study nature only to share the information with others? Why not primarily for our own interest?
When it started to hail, I was briefly blown out of data collecting mind and saw myself as other: a lone man in the middle of nowhere on the southern coast of Chile. What was I doing? Then my mood shifted — and hunched on the slick rock, encased from head to toe in rubber, buffeted by wind, rain, and hail, I started to laugh. What else could I do? No one — except perhaps half a dozen other lunatics somewhere — could give a damn what the limpets on the tip of South America are doing. Hell, until a few months ago I didn’t care either.
So why was I doing it when I could have been inside my warm dry cabin? Well, in some sense this kind of scientific fieldwork is fun — like any outdoor sport. Skiers try to go fast, climbers try to scale mountains, field biologists try to make accurate measurements under sometimes-adverse conditions. Weird, but there it is.
From a nondual evolutionary perspective, I’m not outside the universe but have emerged from within and am part of it — this includes my knowing mind. So this study is not the separate mind of a scientist learning about the world, but the world learning about itself through a scientific study. Probably, even the limpets don’t know where they’ve been, so through my activity the world is becoming more consciously aware of itself.
NOVEMBER 9, 2001
I saw the female butter-belly for the first time in days. I was meditating when I heard them call and opened my eyes to see her and the male run across the water to greet each other. She bathed in the sea and was gone again — back I presume to her nest.
NO ENTRY FOR NOVEMBER 10, 2001
NOVEMBER 11, 2001
All six goose chicks — grey puffballs with black legs — are still alive. Their parents led them from place to place, feeding on the rocks and swimming in between. It was almost like an obstacle course to strengthen them. At one point they had to leap off a ledge into the water. One chick after another launched into space, almost like parachutists, plop, plop, plop.
NOVEMBER 12, 2001
I often sit on the point and let myself be battered by wind and rain. Part of my grief and sorrow is that I’ll never be good enough to get rid of this feeling of not being good enough. The death of ideals. Could this death lead to freedom from the straitjacket of perfectionism? I know I’ve been through this before, but then I forget, and each time, I need to rediscover the need for acceptance.
I watched as a rainstorm veiled the face of Staines Peninsula with a lovely swirling grey pattern. For months I’ve listened to rain on the tarp porch roof. It comes in waves of intensity. Changes in drop size and quantity, and the force of the wind, create a complex rhythm of shifting sound. Looking at the swirling pattern today, I suddenly realized I was seeing the sound of rain.
NO ENTRY FOR NOVEMBER 13, 2001
NOVEMBER 14, 2001
Today might be only the third time I’ve seen sun and blue sky since the beginning of October.
The female butter-belly emerged with her chicks: brown-grey on back and top of head; white belly, rump, and sides of head; black legs, feet, and bills. They’re much smaller than the goose chicks, even though the butter-belly adults are larger. When I first saw her, the male was across the basin, and I thought maybe these males don’t help with rearing. How quickly theories leap into my mind. But when he saw them, he came over and stayed nearby.
Sometime later, the chicks butted their way under her, even though she wasn’t very welcoming. Her wings are atrophied and there ’s not much to drape over the chicks. I found myself judging her; disapproving that she didn’t welcome them more readily. Good thing new life is emerging. I feel tired, sore, and used up today.
NOVEMBER 15, 2001
The butter-belly chicks can already run across the water and dive. They all went into the waves beyond the point. The chicks were washed around like fuzzy corks, even up onto the rocks, but it didn’t seem to faze them. On land, the female keeps up a low steady single cluck. If the eagle appears, she clucks more loudly and rapidly, and the chicks rush to her.
Today it seems I’m doing the limpet study just because that’s what I do. A form of meditation. The results or lack of results don’t matter; what does matter is to develop a sense of grace while making the measurements.
NOVEMBER 16, 2001
Rain outside and glum within. Two expressions of one underlying ...what? Yesterday was intense: new moon and my day for fasting, so perhaps the mood today is a sort of hangover.
It’s getting harder to not think Cat is playing games with me. At times it seems like he cries just to get my reaction. He’ll yowl from about ten feet away and then turn to look at me, knowing he’s out of water-throwing range. Sometimes when I throw a cup of water at him and he dodges it, he seems to take more pleasure in that than in not getting wet. Sometimes when he dodges the cupful, I try, unsuccessfully, to nail him with a bucketful. Hmm, I might be getting a bit crazy about Cat. In his cry I hear all the hurt and want of the universe.
NOVEMBER 17, 2001
When I’m honest with myself, I admit that my intended destination for this journey — and my life — is enlightenment, whatever that is. I long to feel part of not only my family and society, but the universe. A high-flown notion, but when I hold it loosely, this destination creates a huge space for living. I notice, though, that I become uptight and unhappy when I focus too tightly on the destination and neglect the present moment.
In land travel I’ve learned that what I most enjoy is not to seek special tourist sights/sites, but to relax on roadsides and park benches and notice whatever Life brings into my field of view. On this inward journey I haven’t fully learned that yet, and still grasp for exciting and meaningful experiences.
NOVEMBER 18, 2001
Nature is red in beak and talon today. As I sat meditating, a drama was unfolding in the basin. Something told me to look out and check the butter-bellies. I spotted both pairs on their disputed boundary line. The far pair had nine or ten chicks with them, but the close pair was chickless. All four adults were calling loudly and engaged in their stylized territorial defense dance, which became more and more intense until the two males started to fight.
Meanwhile, the eagle had apparently been busy. I first noticed him when he swooped on the far pair’s chicks. That female lunged to ward him off, and then a red-bill attacked from the air. The eagle gave way, but circled to land on a rock fifty feet from the fighting males.
At that point the close female swam rapidly away, calling, and two of her chicks rushed out from shore toward her. Although I didn’t see the attack, I assume the eagle took advantage of her inattention and nailed the other chicks while they were undefended. As I watched, the eagle swooped on the two remaining chicks, but they dove beneath the surface and the red-bill drove him off again. Whew, what an intense encounter!
For those who see the living world — rather than a disembodied creator God — as our source, we sometimes look to nature for possible lessons or metaphors. What does this episode teach? 1. A romantic vision of idyllic harmony and cooperation in nature is as misguided as an exclusive focus on competition. 2. Aggression/competition can be so extreme as to seem self-defeating. The close butter-belly pair expended considerable time and energy breeding and brooding their chicks. Then, caught up in aggression against the other pair, they left the chicks unprotected against an eagle attack. 3. Patience pays off. The eagles have been patrolling this area regularly since the chicks hatched, apparently watching for just such an opportunity. 4. The enemy of an enemy is not always a friend. The red-bills, which are strong allies against predation by the eagles, have been attacked on occasion by the male butter-belly.
Nature can also mirror internal process. I’ve become attached to the close pair and their chicks, and saw the eagle ’s attack as vicious, but he was just feeding chicks of his own. I disapprove of the female butter-belly for leaving her chicks unprotected, and I mentally scold the male when I see him away from the female and the chicks. The feeding chicks seem cute and innocent, even though they are killing, too. This, more than any other event here, has reminded me how risky and impermanent individual life is. I’ll also be gone soon — dead with all the others.
NOVEMBER 19, 2001
The female butter-belly is very vigilant and protective, especially on land, but today she let me come within four feet to photograph her and the two remaining chicks. At one point one of the chicks snuggled under her wing, and the other tried to butt its way under the male. He leapt like he’d been goosed.
During morning meditation, I wish the butter-bellies and the eagles freedom from suffering. But how can they all be free from suffering when it’s a zero-sum game? Life for the eagles means death for the ducks. I’ll stay with that truth and see what opens up for me.
I had a lovely dream sequence last night, inspired, I think, by Maturana’s ideas about language and consciousness (or perhaps by my Sunday dinner of bacon and greasy fried potatoes). According to Maturana we enact the world we live in through the distinctions we make in language. In the dream I was copulating with an empty pant leg (I wonder how much of the fierce activity of amputees is an attempt to re-create the lost limb) and bringing a world of things into being. It was apparent that: 1. The cognitive act of distinguishing things from a background and naming them is inherently procreative and so has an erotic aspect to it. 2. Since the things we create this way are insubstantial, transient, and exist only in relation to the background, they don’t truly exist and this creative act is never completely fulfilling.
In the dream I kept copulating on and on — unsuccessfully seeking completion and fulfillment. The process of creating a world of individual things in language is inherently frustrating and unsatisfying. Perhaps this is partially what spiritual masters mean when they talk about the fundamental dissatisfaction of living.
I’ve noticed over and over these past days that it’s words — some kinds of words — spoken to myself or read that shift me from small to Big Mind. So words themselves are not a prison, but only certain uses of them. A lot of densely packed analytic words tend to tighten my mind. A few lyrical words often open an inner space. I need to remember this in my writing and speaking — both with others and with myself.
In the long slow evening twilight I shifted from small to Big Mind, and for the first time ever (or so it seemed) I got the koan of “Listen for the sound of one hand clapping.” How magical and beautiful the phrase. This is all the sound of one hand clapping: wind, water, and rain, trees, rocks, and far foggy hills.
NOVEMBER 20, 2001
It’s been a day of conflict and insight. This morning I saw some of the beautiful brown-breasted geese near the point. I’ve been trying for a good photo of them since they arrived, but they’re very skittish. Cat was with me and he likes to harass them because — unlike the butter-bellies — they’re afraid of him. He headed for them but I called, “No!” several times and he finally stopped. I praised, petted, and carried him back to the cabin. Told him to stay and took the camera back to the point.
Halfway there I heard him coming after me. I told him to get back, and he ducked into the trees. I talked soothingly to the geese (which really does work), and they let me sidle to within thirty feet. I was moving still closer when Cat stalked by me and the geese scattered.
I was furious and decided that when I caught him I’d hammer him. I was aware of my decision and asked myself whether I really wanted to do it. I took the camera to the cabin and went out to measure limpets. There he was, casually sniffing around. I grabbed him hard by the skin on his back, yelled, and slapped him. He bared his claws and snarled — rage in his eyes. I slapped him again and yelled that he ’d better not fucking snarl at me. Then I dunked him in a pool of water and threw him from me. He ran off into the trees.
In the afternoon he asked to come on my lap, and I petted him and thought the confrontation had passed, but later he blatantly strolled into the cabin. I grabbed him and threw him out into the mud. I remain ambivalent about my behavior. I think most people would upbraid me for cruelty, and some might even slap me in turn. Still, it seems to me that cats in general, and this one in particular, are very willful and expect to do as they please. Most people let them, but I’m not willing to. I’m not comfortable either letting Cat do as he pleases or smacking him. Throwing water at him doesn’t work, so perhaps dunking him again will be my next recourse.
Toward evening, I heard the close pair of butter-bellies call and saw them swimming across the basin fast and alone. She was searching for her last two chicks: head high, looking around, and she even went up to her old nest site. I could feel her agitation in my own body: loss? pain? grief? I imagine the eagle got the chicks, but how? Since losing the other five, she’s been extremely protective of the remaining two. I’m sad both for her and for me. I was looking forward to watching them grow up. I’ve tried to simply be with the experience and level no judgments or rationalizations.
Examining the listening process is an excellent way to see how the mind creates categories and uses them to identify and organize sensory experience. From a unified field of sound, I choose the ones I want to group together as rain on the roof, water falling from gutter, waves on the beach, waterfalls, wind in the trees, etc. It’s my mind that distinguishes distinct “sound entities,” and attributes a source to each of them. When I hear a sound I can’t identify, my mind becomes alert and uneasy until it places the sound into a category.
All this is useful for survival, but it has a downside. In conceptualizing, organizing, and thinking about these sensory impressions, the immediacy of experience can easily be lost. It requires patience and practice to soften this habitual activity by over and over letting go of thoughts and analysis to simply stay with the swirl of sound just as it is without trying to do anything with it.
Today I watched my thoughts trying to create the sense of a solid self. The dream is to establish that self and then not have to hustle anymore; not have to fake it; actually be really real. But the hoped for solidity is an illusory dream. The only way to be free from the hustle is to give up trying to create a solid self or solid social presence. This doesn’t mean we disappear or stop being active, only that we can relax and let ourselves do whatever comes naturally without worrying about results. For the ego, this can be a truly scary idea.
There seems to be a thinking aspect to any Aha! insight. Thought may trigger that gestalt of apprehension, as well as solidify it. It’s a kind of dance to move in and think in a directed way, and then, when my mind begins to tighten, move back and simply notice the thinking from afar. Then once there is some space and stillness, move back in again. I’m learning that thinking is an art form. Too bad they don’t teach us how to think in school.
We train/condition members of society (especially kids) to be a certain way. But this is backward. It’s like seeing natural selection as selecting for some ideal form or behavior. But that isn’t how natural selection operates. Rather, some biological forms and behaviors that don’t work are selected against and die or become extinct. This allows enormous freedom of variety for things that do work well enough to survive and reproduce. It’s the same with socialization. We should train citizens to refrain only from behaviors that are unacceptable to the collective (murder, stealing, etc.) and allow full freedom for individuals to develop as they will within those constraints.
Jeez, for planning to not write anymore I sure am writing a lot.
NOVEMBER 21, 2001
I woke to a calm sea and hard steady rain; then snow began to fall. I thought it would be just a flurry, but it snowed all afternoon and evening — big wet flakes drifting straight down until ground and trees were glorious white. The sound of snowfall is so much softer than that of rain.
I fished for a long time from the kayak. Mist cloaked the solid rock of Staines Peninsula; the only sign of its existence was the sound of waterfalls and sea lions. The hills and mountains to the east had vanished, too. My world became this small cluster of hidden islands. From far above, I could see myself drifting in an opaque fog on a shining sea.
NOVEMBER 22, 2001
Is this Thanksgiving Day? I think I’ll treat it as such since it’s a beautiful calm morning, alive with silver light.
I’m neither stuck in language nor able to leave it behind. Language is like my body: I live in my body, and it’s an aspect of who I am. I’m not stuck exclusively in my body, but I’m never separate from it either. In one sense I began as body and then developed thinking mind. It’s the same with language and culture. I have the potential to grow through them and beyond. Language and culture are always an aspect of who I am, but I’m not stuck exclusively there. What a thanksgiving gift this simple realization is. I’ve been struggling for a long time with Maturana’s claim that we live in language.
Attachment to wilderness is still attachment and an attempt to prevent change. Global warming is — one way or another — part of the cyclic drift; populations grow dense and crash; life goes on. But we may be able to influence the process to prevent disaster to ourselves and to the ecosystems that sustain us.
NOVEMBER 23, 2001
The far pair of butter-bellies reclaimed the rock that had been their home base but that they’d lost to the close pair. All the chicks from both pairs are now dead. While my first long wilderness retreat showed me unity and harmony in all things, this time there seems to be conflict on all sides: wind, sea, and rock; all creatures eating and being eaten; birds fighting for territory; me struggling against myself. Nature, though, expects nothing from me but to be just what I am.
NOVEMBER 24, 2001
This afternoon I went to the point to brace against the roaring wind like a football player on the line of scrimmage. Something in me finally let go and I started to dance and holler for joy in the fierce power of it. Dolphins were playing in the basin, and I took the kayak out to play with them, but they left as soon as I arrived. It hurts my feelings when they do that. Perhaps the shape of the kayak reminds them of a killer whale.
NOVEMBER 25, 2001
sunday morning: I keep slipping out of the present moment by imagining future conversations. How strange to make such an effort to leave the social matrix and then spend so much time there anyway. A lot of my inner small mind dialogue is me telling others about this experience ...swell. The only thing I’ll have to tell others about is being lost in fantasies of telling them about solitude.
I’m not sure if I’ve been imagining such future events the whole time I’ve been here, or just since I stopped staying busy with daily activity. These imagined future conversations may have replaced thinking about cutting firewood, going to the glacier, etc. It all seems to be activity of the ego trying to maintain a solid sense of self and self-worth.
I seldom have sexual fantasies, and when I do they have little seductive power. But over and over I get lost in fantasies of telling other people about this year in solitude. From a positive perspective, I could say the fantasies are about wanting to share with others. But if I’m lost in an imagined future rather than being fully alive and present in this moment, I’ll do the same when back with people. And that’s just the problem: spending life lost in the past and future. When I’m settled into the present moment, these fantasies don’t seem to suck me in. What a relief to relax into how things actually are.
NO ENTRY FOR NOVEMBER 26–30, 2001