Don’t take it personally.
— NOTE TO MYSELF TAPED TO MY CABIN DOOR
May 1, 2001
NIGHT: 40°F. Calm and drizzling. The “I’m ok” email went out, and replies came back without problem. I wrote a short note to Patti because she said it means a lot to her. It’s the first personal note I’ve sent, but I have sent several emails to request information on setting up the satellite phone and electrical system. I want to curtail these communication flurries; they’re a distraction and an escape. My agreement with everyone is that I send one check-in email a month, but do not receive any news of the world unless Patti or a family member is deathly ill.
In reading about Big Mind in Nature, Man and Woman, I remember that the main reason I’m here is to immerse myself in a situation that encourages awareness of Big Mind. But by focusing so much on techno problems, I keep myself anchored in my small thinking mind. Everything is more or less working now, and it’s time to let things be and relax into the now.
Watts writes that the term “Big Mind” was originally used by Shunryu Suzuki-roshi in his book Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind. For me, the term has many meanings, none of which can be clearly grasped conceptually, even though the shift from small to Big mind is experientially real. I hope during this year to learn how to more easily shift my consciousness to that open flowing space.
The fish weren’t biting much this morning, and holy mother, the wind was cold out there. I finally noticed that the sea was covered in whitecaps. I figured that since I wouldn’t go out in such conditions, I better not stay out either. When I got back to camp, I organized the next three-month supply of food. If last month is any indication, rice, milk, and oatmeal are the only items I might run short of.
May 2, 2001
High overcast, flat calm. The fire started easily for a change this evening. Good thing since I came in very chilled. Usually the stove is a hassle to light, and by the time I’ve split kindling and blown on the flames, I’m not cold anymore.
Spent almost all day fishing from the kayak. Still trying to get a sense of where and how to fish. At one point, I paddled to the small island just north of here. Above the rocky beach is a firm carpet of short grass where I could walk for a hundred paces without fear of falling. I did some fast laps to warm up and felt years younger. I’ve been feeling like a creaky old invalid creeping around, always watching my step to not slip and fall. There’s been pleasure and joy on this journey, but very little lighthearted fun. It’s mostly hard work. And when not physically active I’m still usually focused on spiritual/ psychological exploration and on dealing with pain.
Something went splash in the afternoon light. I paddled over for a closer look, but the critter had gone. I think it was a nutria — mostly because I can’t imagine what else it might have been. My Spanish dictionary says nutria is otter, but the ones here sure seem different from the otters in California. I’ve never seen an otter chase a fleeing bird, swim rapidly across an open channel, or make the kind of screeching growl I heard the other day.
Floating quietly in the kayak today, I started to think about my clothes: rubber boots I purchased new for this trip; pants from Goodwill in Vancouver; long underwear Patti bought me for our last camping trip together; T-shirt from Christmas with my family in California; flannel shirt from my years in Montreal; wool vest that was Dad’s before he died; silk scarf from Susan; handwoven wool cap I found in Peru twenty-five years ago; leather belt and silver buckle from an old friend in Mexico; broad-brim hat I’ve worn constantly for the past seven years. A mosaic of my life and relationships.
May 3, 2001
morning: Strange to imagine that people in Canada are expanding into the longer days and warmer temperatures of summer, while I’m hunkering down into the dark belly of winter. I’ve never thought or read about the effect of alternate seasons on politicians from the northern and southern hemispheres trying to communicate with each other. They’re never in sync psychologically.
I’m trying to be more aware of my body. I suspect I’m unconsciously clenching my muscles much of the time, and the only way to relax is to become aware of doing it. It’s as though I’m always tensed up to reach for something or to ward off the blow I expect life to deliver. Living this way offers little relaxation and a lot of pain.
I also want to make a conscious effort to remember my dreams. Not that I plan to analyze or even write them down, but I suspect I’ve fallen into the habit of repression, and that might be one reason I wake up tense and sore.
Mom’s death was the end of another kind of dream: that we would finally find communion without all the junk in between. The grief, in part, is because I believe it might never happen — with any woman. I’m beginning to see more clearly how I plague myself and the women in my life with the same criticism and heavy judgment Dad leveled at me. Both Mom and Dad are dead and gone, but I continue to act out the same scenarios in my present life.
I am — I guess I should admit — apparently afraid of commitment; perhaps because loss of freedom is involved. Or maybe it’s not commitment I avoid, but breaking my promise. I see myself as inconstant in keeping long-term commitments, and since I value my word I avoid giving it. I hope my relationship with Patti is changing that. I’ve told her I won’t disappear from her life, and she offers me the freedom to be who I am. There’s no easy way out. Just steady day-to-day work to relax deep habits. Old, old stuff, but I need to keep seeing it and letting it go.
My lack of commitment to my own soul is even more serious. During my first long solitary retreat, I promised myself I would stay open to nature and to the inner light. During the twenty-five years since then, it feels like I’ve strayed far from that bond. I don’t seem to have an inner pole star that guides me through the changing circumstances of my life. I hope (and fear) I’ll find something here that will be a constant — something that will hold me, or something in me that is steady.
MIDNIGHT: It’s been raining for hours, beating on my mind, even though I try to let it be and not resist. Feeling restless and lonely, at loose ends. Where will my life lead and with whom, or will I end up alone at the end? I’ve eaten every kind of treat I have — cheese, peanut butter, dried fruit, bread and honey, popcorn, chocolate, coffee, booze — and still I want something else. To go to a movie and drink a Coke, anything to escape for a while from the here and now. I got out my few photos of family, Patti, Susan, and myself. It gave me pleasure and comfort to look at them. I wanted to check for new emails, but didn’t. Hunger for contact. The longing I feel for Susan will only get worse once I return north. I can’t see any way we can be together, so I’ll likely be more lonely back in Canada than I am now. Maybe I’ll just stay here....
May 4, 2001
The rain stopped at dawn. It had been falling steadily since yesterday morning. Just thirty-nine more days and we ’d have been biblical. I guess it sometimes rains like this in Vancouver, but I spend more time indoors there and don’t really notice.
The blackflies were out in swarms today: at least a million on the porch, and since I had the cabin door open, nearly half a million in here. I lit the propane lamp to exterminate them, and my altar is now covered with sacrificial corpses. Luckily, the lamp, not me, gets the bad karma. I can see myself at Nirvana’s pearly gates talking to a stern Buddha, holding a large illusory book. “Says here you murdered a bunch of blackflies on May 4, 2001.” “No, no, it was the lamp that did it.” “But you lit the lamp with blood on your mind.” “Oh no, I only wanted to see the clear yellow light.” “Uhhuh. Back you go as a flyswatter.” I get a creepy feeling as I write that. I mean, what if ...?
I finally rigged up a fairly efficient boat-haul system. To pull the boat above the high-tide line, I set a five-foot-tall tripod about twenty feet ahead of the boat and tie it back to a tree. I attach the haul rope to the apex of the tripod, run it through one pulley on the front of the boat, back through a pulley attached to the apex, and back through a second pulley on the front of the boat. I must pull in four feet of rope to move the boat a foot, but exert only 25 percent of the force I would if dragging it without the pulleys. Transom wheels on the back and two plastic rollers under the front of the boat make the job easier, but it’s still a strenuous process.
In the afternoon, I hooked up the solar panels on the point. I intend to use them on a regular basis and the wind generator only when the batteries get low. I figure that when the wind is blowing at least 30 mph, which it does a lot of the time, the generator will crank out 500 watts. If I lose 300 of them in the long wires coming to the cabin, 200 still arrive here. My lights each use 15 watts, so in one hour, the generator should replace fourteen hours of light-use. That means it would take about an hour and a half to recharge the batteries after using both lights three hours a day for three days. Probably none of these calculations has any relationship to what’s actually going on in the physical world.
From the point I looked west across the channel toward Staines Peninsula and realized I’m getting hungry to go back over and fish where the waterfalls pour into the sea. Southeast I saw, more clearly than before, the exquisite mystic blue of the hanging glaciers. Nothing else I’ve ever seen shines with that tender and intense glacial blue. It slips through my eyes straight into my heart.
Tomorrow I’ll have been here three months, a quarter of my stay. That matches the longest I’ve previously been alone. After that I’ll be in new territory. What a silly idea. Each moment in life is always new territory, for everyone.
May 5, 2001
THREE-MONTH ANNIVERSARY:49°F. Flat calm and cloudy all day. If this is typical winter weather, neither the wind generator nor solar panels will be much good.... One calm day and I’m away into fantasyland, but in general there is less wind now than there was before.
It’s been a productive day. I was up early and got all the gear ready. Looked like I was taking off for a month instead of a few hours, but if the outboard dies or a storm prevents my return, I’ll be marooned in semi-comfort. High tide made hauling firewood much easier, since I didn’t need to carry it over slippery rocks. I had most of the log cut into rounds when the chain saw crapped out. It’s probably a clogged gas filter. Sure glad it was the saw and not the outboard. I chopped the rest of the log in half with the ax and humped the two pieces into the boat. This load should replace the wood I’ve used so far.
At the base of a waterfall coming off Staines Peninsula, fishing was excellent. I caught ten before they quit biting and I headed north to explore the shoreline. Beautiful over there, especially where the rock face slams straight down to the sea.
Back here, I cut branches for the sweat lodge I’ll build tomorrow. The trees here don’t grow with straight or flexible branches, so it will look more like a small crooked tepee than a domed lodge. I celebrated this lovely day by toasting the world with a sip of Diane ’s fine old whiskey. Shoulders are sore, of course.
May 6, 2001
MORNING: 44°F. Calm and overcast, low tide coming in. It was a rough night. I woke up over and over from the pain in my shoulders. Exercised and took ibuprofen, used the cold water bottle, arthritis cream, and tennis ball. Nothing helped. I plan to sweat today and I need to collect fifteen stones before the tide covers them.
NO ENTRY FOR MAY 7, 2001
May 8, 2001
Glorious dawn. Though I’m filled with tales to tell, I’m also groggy from lack of sleep and too tired and sore to write. In any case, the book I’m reading, Hermits by Peter France, speaks of the value of silence. Much of what France writes about solitude is how it is for me. But even so, I resist accepting it. Negation of ego — the only path to real peace — is hard; hard, I say. For days I haven’t been able to close my inner shutters, but that’s why I’m here, so why complain now that it’s intense and difficult? I feel so much love, gratitude, and pain here.
May 9, 2001
NIGHTS: 42°F. Sea on the move. Rain and light wind all day, but now the sky is clearing and the breeze has dropped away. I haven’t written in days, and still don’t really want to, but I feel I ought to record this year in solitude. Until now, words have flowed easily, perhaps as a way to maintain a sense of contact with others. But Hermits, with its strong call to silence and humility, is touching me. Pouring all that happens into words — as though everything is of great importance — seems arrogant.
On my first long wilderness retreat I wrote nothing until the final week and then only some short poems. Perhaps that retreat was so powerful because I didn’t anchor myself in language-based consciousness by writing.
And with that, I’m away. I was up soon after dawn on Sunday to gather stones and set up the sweat lodge near the point. I tied together the pole framework and covered it with the tarp that usually covers the boat — the same tarp I bought years ago for shade on the desert beaches in Baja California. I like the continuity of using things I got for a different purpose in another life.
I built a fire to heat the stones, and it was very uncooperative. I had to coax it for hours until the flames were blazing hot enough that I knew the damp wood was fully lit. Then it hiccuped and went out. Huh? Wait a minute, fires don’t do that. They don’t just go out once they’re really burning. But apparently they do here. Very weird.
Late in the day, I finally decided the stones were as hot as they would get in the reluctant fire. I set a bucket of water inside the lodge and smudged each stone — which then became a Grandfather — with smoldering cypress needles as I moved it from fire to lodge. I stripped, smudged myself, entered the lodge, and pulled the flap door closed.
I sprinkled sage on the Grandfathers, introduced myself, and began my prayers. I asked for healing in my shoulders and for courage and strength to deal with the pain. I poured water and the sweat poured off of me. When the heat had gone I brought in the rest of the stones and repeated the process but with sweet grass this time. It felt good to sit there, wrapped in the dark wet heat. My sweat-lodge brothers and sisters in Vancouver, who taught me this practice, were praying together at the same time, and I joined their circle.
By the time I’d dressed and taken down the tarp, it was getting dark. The sky cleared and the full moon shone down as I sat soaking up the last warmth from the dying fire. I miss sitting by an open fire. Having the cabin here is different from previous retreats, during which I’ve camped out and been more exposed to the elements. But when the wind came up, I was happy to load the kayak and paddle to my refuge.
A hard night, and I was up until 4 AM. I tried everything, but nothing eased the ache in my shoulder. I didn’t accept it with equanimity or grace; just sniveled and tried to escape any way I could. Pain woke me again at dawn. I tried to hide in sleep but couldn’t, so I got up to a perfectly clear sky and mirrored sea. I checked the charts, got the survival kit together, lashed the kayak across the front of the boat, and headed north to explore the east channel, where I hadn’t been before.
I tracked the far shore to look for firewood, and saw some driftwood logs, but most were four or five miles from camp. With heavy clothes, sun, and no wind, the 40°F temperature felt quite balmy.
East of the main channel, I motored into a long inlet that squeezes to a narrow neck halfway down its length. The water was opaque and strangely streaked with glacial silt, stirred by the strong running tide. On the surface ahead, I saw something that looked like algae and wondered what it might be, but it didn’t seem heavy enough to trouble me so I didn’t try to avoid it. The crunching sound told me it was ice!
A strong current swept toward the bottleneck, and I pulled ashore to walk down for a look. Whooeee! The tidal bore was a churning rapid. The water dropped more than three feet on a run of seventy-five or so. I took photos, but the moving water will be blurred. All the camera’s electronics, including light meter and speed settings, died some time ago, so I can shoot only at 1/90 second. Luckily I brought a spare light meter with me and can set the f-stop on the camera manually. Since I can’t develop any film until I leave here, I have no idea if I’m getting usable photos. It’s an act of faith to shoot in a vacuum for a year.
Back in the boat, I pushed off and pulled the starter cord. Nothing happened. I yanked again, still nothing. I was drifting uncomfortably close to the rapids when the motor finally caught. So far it’s been reliable, but since it was submerged I know it could quit at any time.
Further north, I cut into a large bay fed by a river that looked enticing. Alone and far from camp, I decided it was too risky to go up — but then went anyway. The water was opaque with glacial silt and I worried I might hit rocks. Clunk. Yup, I hit rocks. Dumb. Why do I do these things? Luckily the prop wasn’t damaged. I turned back to the bay, shut off the motor, and drifted in the afternoon quiet. A condor soared over the ridge of a looming glacier.
Coming home, I crossed to the west channel and Staines Peninsula by weaving along narrow passages with swirling current patterns that were created by the tide running through a cluster of small islets. I saw some plastic debris I’ll clean up one day. I tried my luck in a snapper hole, and in half an hour caught enough for four or five days, then lingered to watch the sunset before coming back to camp.
Another night of pain and sniveling, and exercising my shoulder every two hours until first light yesterday. I wanted more sleep, but dawn was so exquisite I made coffee and stayed up to watch the day come on. Strange mysteriously dark reflections from the mountains rippled across the glassy water. And then colors began to shine.
I sharpened the chain, and found a wad of debris blocking the saw’s secondary fuel filter. When I put it back together, it started easily. By the time I came back with a load of wood and dragged the boat up, I was toast. Meditating in the dark of the night, I heard a flock of birds running and flying across the water, and opened my eyes to a huge golden moon rising over the mountains.
It’s a shame that after the wonderful gifts of the past days, I have so little acceptance of pain as part of the overall experience. I ask for help and try to relax into the pain, knowing intellectually that it’s part of being alive. Meditation instruction teaches that a lot of what we experience as pain is actually the psychological tension of resisting strong physical sensation. But when my shoulders cramp up, I just want it to stop.
I feel so weak in the face of pain, especially when I read of spiritual warriors who realize that pain is not only inevitable but beneficial because it keeps us humble and open to help from a higher source. During these past four days, I’ve felt so blessed and grateful for all I’ve been given, but nights are different. My shoulders don’t trouble me much while I’m active, but when I lie down they start to cramp and throb. During the day I can be philosophical about pain as part of life, but at night when I actually hurt, I have no reserve of stoic equanimity.
Perhaps tonight I can show a smidgen more grace in the face of the pain. I need to deal with my own mortality, and here is a good place to start. This is not abstract philosophical stuff, but immediate physical actuality.
May 10, 2001
MIDNIGHT: I’ve seen a lot of moonrises, but few like tonight’s. One darkly silhouetted mountain peak was haloed in misty light that spilled onto the surrounding ridges. I expected the moon momentarily, but the glow stretched through time and became brighter — and brighter. Finally, nearly full, the moon slid over the peak and cast a band of gold across the sea toward me. Out in the channel where the water was rumpled, the band was wide and diffuse, but as it slipped into still water, it focused into a narrow ribbon of smooth ripples. Closer still, the ribbon unraveled into distinct yellow threads, and each, riding its own ripple crest, was woven into the surrounding dark. Out came Diane’s whiskey.
It’s been another glorious day. Calm, cloudless, and blue. I woke refreshed after almost eight hours of unbroken sleep and considered rushing out to explore, but decided to hang with the urge and stay here instead. The cabin now lies continually in shadow, so I took coffee to the sun at the point. What’s with these damn blackflies? Don’t they know that when frost comes, it’s time for them to leave? I read for a while and walked some short laps on the small gravel patch. I miss walking.
I crossed to Staines to fish the afternoon high tide, and then motored north to a log I spotted a few days ago. I cut, carried, and loaded the rounds in less than two hours. Soon I’ll have enough wood for the winter and can give my shoulders a chance to heal.
I cut myself for the first time since I’ve been here — while sharpening the chain saw, which happily wasn’t running. I took it as a warning. But later, with the saw running, I also took a careless step, slipped, and almost sliced my leg. A seriously dumb and dangerous thing to do. A chain saw can instantly rip flesh to shreds. For the past week I’ve been very aware of the risk of cutting myself with the ax while splitting kindling, and have tried to be extra careful. Precognition of some sort?
May 11, 2001
God Bless you, Dr. Nelson. While she was writing the prescriptions for my medical kit, I asked for fifty Tylenol 3s; she suggested I take one hundred instead. I thought I’d declined since I didn’t expect to need that many strong painkillers. Last night, my shoulder was so painful I decided to take one. The bottle seemed very full, so I checked the label. One hundred! Happy day. So far I’ve used only three or four because I’ve wanted to save them for an emergency, but now I feel freer to take one now and then when the pain gets nasty.
Pride may be one reason I force my shoulders to keep working, even though I’ve already cut and hauled enough firewood for several months. I do want the comfort of having plenty for the winter, but there is also the pride of having a strong resilient body that can suck it up and keep working. In Hermits, humility is pointed to again and again as the key to spiritual growth. Hard. Pride goes so deep. Once I stop thinking in terms of excessive pride, and begin to realize that any pride at all is a spiritual liability, whew. I expend so much effort trying to keep up a socially acceptable self-image. What a relief to let it go, even a little bit, for a short while.
This afternoon, the sea was so calm there were no ripples at all as the tide came in; just a slow steady rise in level. I watched the water creep up smooth rounded stones until its surface towered almost a quarter inch above their still-dry tops. Then one by one, these circular mini walls of water would collapse with a rush. Did surface tension hold them up like that?
I also saw another nifty sight yesterday: small lavender blobs spinning in a quiet pool. Some sort of larval clusters, I suppose. Now and then a wee purple speck would whiz off and hook up with another spinning blob. Looked like a pretty frantic lifestyle to me, but I guess they like it.
The black and white geese have different vocalizations. The white one makes soft rapid cooing/chirping/clucking sounds, and the black-and-white one gives single resonant honks. The black-and-white one seems dominant and is probably the male, but I wonder.
May 12, 2001
MIDNIGHTS: 28°F. Moon and stars in a cloudless sky. I woke this morning just after dawn to a shining sea and no trace of wind. Five miles south from here, on the far side of the east channel, a long hook of land juts out and forms a deep bay. Near the bottom of the bay, an inlet reaches east into the mountains. I wanted to explore the inlet and perhaps the lake that feeds it through a short stream.
I crossed the channel and headed south until I came level with the tip of the hook, now a mile west of me. Ahead I saw a smudge on the water that I recognized as ice. It made sense since the sun had just cleared the mountains enough to touch that side of the channel. I backtracked west, thinking to hug the sunny side, but a half-inch crust of ice covered the whole bay. I wondered if the temperature had dropped without my noticing, and worried I might get trapped by ice away from camp. But once out of the bay, the ice disappeared. Perhaps it freezes down there because so much freshwater melts in from the glaciers with little tidal exchange to wash it out.
This country is incredibly beautiful. I love the brown badlands feel to parts of it. I idled for a while in front of a giant amphitheater carved into a bare rock wall where scrub trees climbed the slopes and cliffs. Huge square boulders lay scattered here and there, and waterfalls ribboned into the sea. The sea itself was so calm today that half a mussel shell floated by, mid channel, caught in the tidal current.
It was quite warm in the sun this afternoon, but only 34 degrees here where my cabin sits in shadow on frosty ground. I’ve stuffed extra sacks around Cat’s box for more insulation; with his thick fur, I doubt he gets cold.
According to the author of Hermits, the Desert Fathers clearly realized the need for obedience. At times I’ve also felt this need to obey — to surrender the ego’s decision-making activity. But how? Not belonging to a religious order, whom do I obey? I think surrender and obedience — although not spoken of in those terms — are also central to Buddhist meditation practice. In remaining still, without grasping or aversion (nice dream), we are obedient to the moment, to how things actually are right now. In accepting things just as they are and not as we would like them to be, we surrender self-centered will. In keeping Suzuki-roshi’s “beginner’s mind,” we remain humble in the face of the unknowable.
Ah, but ...words. It’s easy enough to grasp these ideas conceptually, what’s hard is moment-by-moment practice. I can see that a year here won’t be nearly enough, although five might make a difference in my life. In the meantime, tomorrow is another day, and tonight my heart is soft with love.
May 13, 2001
The night is dark and clear, the moon not yet risen. Today is Sunday, my chosen day of rest. I exercised just enough to loosen my shoulders and ease their ache, then took chair, coffee, and book to spend the day in the sun at the point. Cat, of course, went with me. I considered starting a fire and staying indoors, but didn’t want to miss the windless blue-sky day. This weather can’t last and I want to hoard it in my bones.
With closed eyes I lay on the rocks and listened to the water lapping the shore. The sound soothed my ears and heart. How different from the anxiety of three months ago when I felt the rain and surf beating incessantly against me. I was actually glad this morning to have a scatter of high cloud and a light breeze. It made the day softer and less crystalline brittle.
I read some excerpts from Thomas Merton in Hermits. He doesn’t convince me. Too sure of himself. Too dogmatic in telling me about solitude — what is and is not healthy to do when living alone. The universal “You” slips too easily from his pen. And he never actually spent much time in solitude. For years, he petitioned the Catholic hierarchy to allow him to live as a hermit within the Trappist order, yet when he was finally granted the privilege, he received visitors all the time. His brother monks, trying to protect his privacy, turned people away, but Merton then told them about a back way into his cottage. Even sending an email and waiting for a reply alters the quality of my solitude, so it’s hard to imagine that Merton, himself, traveled far into his own aloneness when he was so frequently with visitors and wrote and received so many letters.
What Merton writes makes sense to me, but I wonder how much is his own direct experience and how much he internalized from reading? He argues the need for silence to escape the incessant flow of language, but the man wrote over three hundred papers and thirty-seven books! And he died pretty young, too.
As I muttered and judged Merton’s life, I noticed that the quiet spaciousness that had been growing in me all day began to fade. Discounting people as inauthentic is also what I do to myself and so stay bound to doubt and a sense of worthlessness. His life was what it was, full of contradiction — as is mine.
From below, I heard heavy breathing and looked down. A sea lion was working the kelp bed close to shore. Aha! This is what I saw from the kayak last week, what I’ve heard bellowing from over by Staines, and probably what I saw and heard in the east channel several weeks ago. It’s nice when a bunch of separate mysteries coalesce into one larger mystery — which we call a sea lion. I now think the nutria is an otter. The creature I had come to think of as a nutria is a mythological beast; a hybrid cross of otter and sea lion.
I also watched one of the creamy-breasted ducks having a bath. It was dunking itself, then fluttering and flapping, and looked like it was actually turning somersaults in the water. The dolphins came by for a while, and a smallish hawk perched in the dead tree above me. I usually see more wildlife just sitting here than I do out in the boat or kayak.
I’ve been thinking about my response to blackflies. On the physical level it seems natural to be irritated by the bugs. After all, it’s more pleasant to not get bit. But my psychological response makes less sense. I feel like my survival is on the line if a bug bites, and this is what causes me to react so strongly. Instead of just brushing the bug away or accepting a small bite, I freak out, wave my hands, and slap — causing myself much more pain than the bug would have caused.
It’s this psychological reaction that also makes the pain in my shoulders so distressing. Yes, there ’s pain, and I can’t do all I’d like to do, but I’m unlikely to die from it. In any case, if I want to be free of these angry responses, I need to give up my frantic psychological attachment to survival. Physically, of course, my biological drive is to survive. But beyond that, feeling anxious and angry about imagined threats to that survival is unhealthy and painful.
A while ago, I sponge-bathed and shaved and put in some long underwear to soak. Yuk, time to do laundry again already? Weeks have passed since the last time. For now, though, the fry bread is just ready to eat with hot chocolate.
May 14, 2001
40°F. A breeze from the southeast is pushing the sea directly toward me. The sky is clear, but not many stars. This morning I took the kayak to the windward point of the island just south of here to collect dead twigs for kindling. I climbed the headland there for the first time, and being fifty feet above sea level gave me a different perspective on the area. I paused to give thanks for this time in solitude. I seldom stop to really notice and appreciate that for the first and, perhaps, last time in my life I’ve been completely alone and undisturbed — day after day for months. Only occasional contrails far off over the Andes signal the world of people.
After unloading the boat, I split some wood, and Cat got in the way. He probably just wanted some contact after being alone all afternoon, but for me, he was in the way. I lost it and yelled at him, and as usual he disappeared under the house. A little later I called and he jumped into my lap, so I guess he doesn’t take my yelling too seriously. I felt bad and explained that after I’ve been working all day, I’m just barely holding it together, and his added confusion sends me over the edge. I said I was sorry I had yelled, but I wonder. Why should I feel bad about yelling at him? What are acceptable ways to express anger? I often feel that giving the cat a swat or a gentle kick is not inappropriate. Animals often interact with each other using snarls, swats, and snaps.
May 15, 2001
38°F. Calm, dim stars. How nice, the fire caught easily tonight. I used some of the dry twigs I collected yesterday as kindling, then added small pieces of the wood I cut today across the east channel. There are several rocky beaches over there with plenty of semidry logs.
Finished reading Hermits. The last person the author writes about is writer/poet Robert Lax. Lax has been living hermitlike for most of his life, but within towns and cities. He doesn’t see himself as a classical hermit because he isn’t self-sufficient in his abilities. He believes a classical hermit must be able to chop wood. He tried it once without success, and doesn’t think it’s the sort of challenge he’d want to respond to if he didn’t have to. How strange. What limitations we put on ourselves, as though chopping wood is some sort of extreme activity. But in one sense his intuition is right. He probably wouldn’t like it out here. Chopping wood implies a constellation of other, more difficult, survival activities: finding, cutting, and hauling the wood; keeping the chain saw sharp and functioning; handling a boat; etc.
I’ve been meditating quite a bit in short snatches, rather than long stretches. Sending loving-kindness, being mindful of what I’m doing, exploring the tightness and pain in my back and shoulders.
May 16, 2001
41°F. Sea on the move beneath wind-blown rain. Ah yes, this is the anxiety-producing weather I’m familiar with. I walked to the point earlier this evening to feel and enjoy the fierce wind. Going there to visit it is very different from having the wind roar down on my cabin uninvited.
I siphoned gas from one of the 55-gallon drums into the 5-gallon containers I take in the boat; split wood, then cleaned up and organized the porch and under the cabin. It all looks tidier now. Before tucking the 4 hp outboard out of sight, I decided I’d try to start it. Whoa, spark in one plug! I’d been convinced for almost three months that it was dead, but maybe it was just wet before. The second plug had no spark at all. Weird.
One of my rubber boots split. This isn’t good. I’ll try to repair it with Shoe Goo. Before the year is over I’ll probably be sorry I bought cheap boots instead of spending another $100 for good ones. Didn’t imagine I’d be spending this much time in them. Still, the cheap ones are the lightest and easiest on my prosthetic leg.
I’ve been reading Nature, Man and Woman again. Most of what Watts says is based on Zen Buddhism and Taoism. Seeing through the illusion of self/ego is the only way to true peace and happiness. But if we claim that, then most Christian mystics were and are misguided, because they believe in an eternal individual soul that must surrender to God’s Will. In both cases the key to peace, joy, and love is to give up a self-centered worldview.
Walking back from the point, I was reflecting again on writing these journal entries. It’s not the writing, itself, that’s the problem (if there is a problem), but thinking beforehand about what I’ll write, and mentally describing to myself what I’m seeing and feeling. When I do that I’m not really here in solitude, but in an imaginary future where someone else (even if it’s only a future me) is reading my descriptions. In this way, I cling to my social identity through interaction with other people, instead of seeking a deeper identity as part of the universe or in relationship with God.
May 17, 2001
It’s been raining and blowing on and off all day. The ice on the puddles has melted, and it’s nice to have it not so cold. This afternoon, one of the resident birds was gobbling up grains of rice just below the porch. Cat was sitting on the porch just far enough back from the edge that he didn’t see the bird until it flew up right in front of his face. Really startled him, and he leapt back in alarm. The role reversal was pretty funny.
Phantom pains in my stump are going crazy tonight. Dammit! If it’s not one thing it’s another. What creates the experience of pain? It’s clear that the same physical sensation is sometimes experienced as pleasure and at other times as pain. Context is key, but what aspect of context? I think, in part, it’s whether I welcome the sensation or it comes against my will. A sensation I welcome is pleasurable, yet the same sensation feels painful if I don’t want it. The trick is to learn to choose the pain and transform it into pleasure, or at least into a neutral sensation.
I’ve always placed great value on insights, but in some sense they’re a dime a dozen. They come and they go. I long for understanding and wisdom, but no longer know what I’m seeking. If all is transient, including clarity and peace, then what is there to seek? I feel peace, love, and gratitude flowing over me at times, but no sense of a Supreme Being. And I still have no idea what my soul is. There are thoughts, emotions, physical sensations, and — though Buddhism says it’s an illusion — a sense of I, but what is the soul? What does it look or feel like? How does it manifest itself to me?
May 18, 2001
Today is another day. A hummingbird just flew in and I cupped him in my hands, stroked his head lightly, and carried him back outside.
The phantom pains are back and I fear they will get worse. I look ahead and see a never-ending stream of pain in my life, and it’s too much. Last night, for the first time, I felt overwhelmed and worn down to the point where I can’t deal with any more physical discomfort, and maybe I’ll just end it all.... It was a scary feeling.
It’s not skillful to compare what’s happening here to my first long wilderness retreat, but I continue to do so. Back then I dealt with similar issues, but especially acute fear, rather than physical pain, anger, and resentment. What scares me now is the remembered intensity of that experience, how I was pushed to the edge of insanity before I let go of my defenses. I’m not sure I still have the strength and courage to face such intensity, but if I don’t somehow surrender to my life the way it is, I’ll have a desolate road ahead. I feel I’ve been on this journey a very long time without reaping much benefit, and now I’m not sure where to turn. No wonder I’ve been staying up until 3 and 4 AM. Nights are difficult.
I saw clearly today that I have a strong goal in being here. And that — in some sense — is just the problem. Goal-oriented behavior — the whole notion of progress and getting somewhere — is one of the things screwing up our culture. Paradoxically, the place I’m trying to get to is right here: fully experiencing each day as meaningful in and of itself.
May 19, 2001
NOON: 40°F. Rain, light wind, sea on the move, mountains gone and hills only faintly visible. I like daily sweeping as part of my morning ritual. There is always a bunch of debris on the floor. The phantom pains have eased. I wasn’t using enough stump socks now that I’ve lost so much weight, and the leg was loose and jamming the nerves. I’m still rinsing my tooth with saltwater morning and night to keep infection from exploding. After June 1, I might start building fires during the day. So far it’s been a kind of ascetic practice to stay with the cold until evening: eight hours of ambient temperature, eight hours of warmth, eight hours in the sleeping bag.
I’m starting to see more clearly the interpretation I put on physical events, like the weather. There is physical weather — sun, rain, wind — which just is, and my emotional response — pleasure, peace, anger, anxiety — that I associate with the weather. If I can tease these aspects apart, and experience weather as weather and emotional response as emotional response, my days might be less dramatic and draining. This is so for pain, too. Woven into the sensations is a cognitive/emotional component, which includes the belief that the pain will last forever or become unbearable and that I’m being mistreated or punished for something. This nonphysical aspect makes the pain much more difficult to deal with.
Sitting on the porch a while ago, feeling, listening, and watching the dark settle over mountains and sea, I finally surrendered and felt myself opening into a peaceful space of stillness. Again I see how misguided are my efforts to “get” somewhere. I’m already here. There is nowhere else to go. The aliveness I seek is everywhere; I’m always in it and it in me, even though I often don’t experience it consciously. Trying to get somewhere else psychologically only removes me further into a conceptual dreamland.
May 20, 2001
This morning, I took the sweat-lodge gear to the point in the kayak, built and tended a fire, and finally went into the lodge midafternoon. Wonderful to be hit with the moist heat, drip sweat, and be barely able to breathe. I asked for strength and guidance, prayed for many people in my life, and gave thanks for all I’ve been given. I wished there was someone to share it with.
Afterward, I sat by the sea to let my sweat dry before dressing. Dolphins and an eagle came by. As I sat naked, without leg or glasses, I thought, “Well, Spirit, this is all there is: missing a leg and a bunch of teeth; eyes not so hot; scars everywhere. Here I am.” Then I thought of how I would appear to a woman. And my biggest fault is that I would expect her to be perfect.
May 21, 2001
40°F. Blue sky and clouds, some wind moving the sea. A morning of mild sorrow and despair. No way out. I’ll never escape my life and fulfill my potential for joy and freedom. I’ve been over this ground so many times — hoping and believing that this time things will be different and I’ll be saved from myself. Even realizing that there is no way out — and that surrendering to that fact really is the only way out — is illusion and manipulation. Perhaps reading Nature, Man and Woman brought on these feelings and thoughts. Almost all my hard-won insights are in the book. I might as well have simply read the book fifty times during the last thirty-five years and saved myself a load of grief, hard work, and pain.
May 22, 2001
Cold, grey, rain, and wind. The 4 hp outboard is working! I cleaned the electrical connections, sanded and adjusted the points, and voilà, spark in both plugs. Cranked it a few times and it fired up. This is very cool, but when I use the boat I’ll continue to take the kayak so I can at least make it to land if both motors fail. I’m not confident in either of them since they were submerged.
I’m tempted to say I got the motor running, and in one sense that’s so; but I also feel gratitude, as though it’s a gift that it’s running. It’s like fishing. I go fishing and sometimes catch fish, but they are always a gift. My fishing skills make it possible to receive the gift, but my skills are also a gift.
I had the boat pumped up and gear loaded to go for wood when wham, the wind came snarling down the channel and clawed it into whitecaps. The weather here is like the rocks — dangerously seductive. The rocks look dry and safe, but are incredibly slippery. The sea was placid and, fifteen minutes later, savage.
One of the small birds with a spiky topknot just landed on my leg, then flew to the bacon hanging under the porch roof. She started to gobble down a bunch of dead blackflies stuck to it. Hope she comes back to finish the job.
I’ve put the booze away. It’s become too important. Silly, since I sip only about a quarter ounce daily. Just a security addiction — like coffee and chocolate.
May 23, 2001
38°F. The stormy weather continues, and I remained land-bound today, going no further than the chopping block and the beach to pull the boat up higher.
Late last night, a luminous pool of crystal water, rippling over shining pebbles, opened deep inside, and I bathed in it. At times of late there have been moments of freedom from this straitjacket of self-criticism. Moments when I experience myself as just a man . . . living alone in the wilderness of southern Chile. A fairly decent man doing the best he can.
I have a book written by Mark Epstein, who is a psychiatrist and a meditator. It points out the impossibility of fulfilling the ubiquitous human desire for perfection, and discusses the link between non perfection and anxiety. It’s useful to see my own experience in a more communal context.
This evening, an inner light shone up from within, and a voice called, “Come to me, trust me, depend on me. You cannot do it yourself. You’re trapped where you are, and your struggling efforts to free yourself enmesh you more deeply. Come to me.” “Yes,” I answered, and surrendered. Yet my pride was soon fighting back. This is the work I came to do.
May 24, 2001
I woke in the dark to the patter of rain on the roof. It took me back to my years as a logger on the west coast of Vancouver Island. Feeling glum, I imagined living in some small town with a steady job, a committed relationship, and no plans to ever leave. Depression is often linked to certain kinds of thoughts I label “the future,” and not to actual present conditions. Those thoughts have the quality of unchanging permanence, which is a central aspect of their oppressive quality. In the present, things don’t happen that way. Everything is always changing.
I got up, exercised, and made coffee. My mood shifted and so did the weather. A storm front moved in and drove waves onto my beach. Feeling anxious as the cabin shook in the gusts, I waited for the very high tide that was on the way.
Some snow came down, but didn’t stick, and now the storm has passed. The tide wet the bottom layer of the woodpiles. According to the tables, there will be still higher tides in June, July, and August, but during daylight hours. The February high tides came in the night when I couldn’t see what was happening.
I wonder what tomorrow will bring. Hell, never mind tomorrow, how about the next few hours?
May 25, 2001
First real snow. Wet, but with flakes so huge that they swirled and drifted as though light and fluffy. Days — even in the cold — are easier than nights. In the day, there is the world to see and things to do. The pain is less intense. At night, the world closes in and my body grows large. Only rarely do I experience the sensations of my body as manifestations of the universe — like wind and rain.
So often I take the world personally, as though the wind and rain are directed against Me. It’s insane to take them as a personal affront, and I sometimes smile at my antics as a sort of game. But it’s such a deep habit that, often unconsciously, I take it seriously. Time to let this game go.
I spend a lot of time listening to the sounds of water, yet am just now listening to learn. A crack in the rock on the far side of the cove gurgles and whumps — each sound unique — and it seems to be the sea saying: “I am this, and this, and this.” I close my eyes and follow the sound into the universe and feel myself float free. Then I hear the calm voice that calls, “Depend on me,” whisper, “What about me?” My heart opens and I am flooded with peace and love. Yes. Clarity of mind is not enough without love.
The topknot bird that was eating bugs off the bacon flew into the cabin today and was trying to leave through the Plexiglas. She banged her head and fluttered onto the table, then noticed a dead fly lying there. “Oh, a fly, I’ll just gobble this down before I continue to freak out.” It was pretty comical. Eventually she found the door and left, but later returned, searching for this and that to eat. Now there are little gobs of shit all over.
As evening fell, I watched the creamy-breasted ducks — black against the snowy hills — patrol their grey-green turf. They seem especially territorial now that an intruding pair is skulking around. The resident land bird that feeds in my front yard chases another of its kind away. Their game of tag goes on and on. It’s not as though one is the victor and the other driven permanently from the area. No, they both seem established here, and both spend a fair amount of time running instead of eating. To my eye, it doesn’t seem to matter much who’s running ahead and who behind. It’s just what they do.
May 26, 2001
It’s drizzling outside. I know, I was just out there puking in the dark. A couple of hours ago I ate some limpet. I chewed a little yesterday and spit it out. Tonight I swallowed a bit. As I chewed, I noticed a metallic taste and should have spit it out, but for some reason I swallowed instead. I doubt it’s red tide poisoning, since no taste is associated with that toxin, and Cat ate some of the limpet and is fine. But I feel slightly odd and so decided to puke. Hope I’m ok. Should know in another few hours, I guess. I wish I knew why I do these things. My eyes are a little heavy, and I feel slightly feverish. It may be getting hard to breathe. My tongue, lips, and fingers feel tingly. Wow, wonder if I’m going to die. Wouldn’t that suck?
I went fishing to Staines this afternoon. No fish, which is surprising since I’ve caught plenty every other time I’ve gone there. They may not bite when it’s stormy like today. Heart is beating faster.
I put the 4 hp on the boat and ran it for half an hour. It worked perfectly and moves the boat along at just under 5 mph, which is better than I expected.
Cat’s been having one of his snivel days. He started crying this morning and has been at it ever since. He seems to have two cries: one says, “I want,” and the other says, “Poor me.” Actually, that sounds a lot like me and it’s probably all projection on my part.
I sliced my finger with the hatchet while splitting kindling today. Not a bad cut — just enough to remind me to be more careful — but it sure bled a lot. I still feel like something is very wrong and I’m going to lie down. If this is the last I write, good-bye, everyone. I love you all. This journey has definitely been worth it.
May 27, 2001
32°F. Calm, starry, beautiful. Well, I’m still alive. Last night got a little weird. I stayed awake until 3:30 AM to be sure I wouldn’t die in my sleep. I’m still not sure if I actually poisoned myself, but doubt it since Cat ate most of the limpet and is fine. Probably just mind games. Such intense imagining is a risk in solitude. My shoulder was very sore last night and I took four ibuprofen. After not taking any for several days, I was aware of how drugged I felt. On the other hand, if I hadn’t taken them, I might have been more upset about the possibility of dying. Silly stuff indeed.
Today is Sunday, theoretically my day of rest, but it didn’t work out that way. I decided to cross to Staines. The 15 hp outboard is missing when I crank it wide open, and it feels good to have the 4 hp with me. Fishing was good. It seems like they bite only when the weather is clear and calm. How they sense this 150 feet below the surface is a mystery.
After fishing, I fetched the rest of a log I’d been cutting during the last stretch of good weather. I originally figured a dozen loads of wood would be enough for the year. I’ve now brought in eight loads and wonder if they will see me even through the winter. I’m glad to already have as much wood as I do, and want to cut all I think I’ll need for November, December, and January before the summer winds return and I won’t be able to cross the channel.
I’ve been reading some Buddhist teachings about restless mind in Seeking the Heart of Wisdom. Boredom and restlessness are two sides of the same coin. I’m coming to see that from a Buddhist perspective, the vast majority of our culture ’s activity is likely driven by boredom and restlessness. With my lifestyle, I’m the epitome of that. Not a cultural rebel at all, but right on the cutting edge.
May 28, 2001
35°F. No wind and the sea is calm. Socked in and snowing lightly. I can see no more than a hundred yards or so.
I caught myself thinking that I wish winter was already over. Yet the next three months may be the heart of this whole retreat. After that it will be spring, then summer, and I’ll be looking ahead to leaving. It’s time to stop telling myself I will start to really live in some imagined future time and circumstance. Once that imagined situation arrives, I dream up some other future. I know intellectually that here and now is all there ever is, and I’m working to actually stay in the present and live each day as it unfolds.
I’ve taken another vow to not yell at or hit Cat for crying. I get instantly furious when he whines, and instead of responding with compassion because he must feel out of sorts or he wouldn’t be crying, I lash out. This is what I do to myself when I’m hurt or frightened. Instead of being gentle with myself, I get angry and push on through. If I can learn to be patient and kind with Cat, perhaps I will treat myself more gently, too.
Why do I accept whatever the ducks, eagles, and other birds do, but am offended by some of Cat’s behaviors? I think it has to do with a sense of ownership. He is, in some sense (at least in my mind), mine and should do as I wish him to do. This is a problem in all my relationships. The most serious case is with myself. I feel I somehow own myself and have the right to control what I do and feel and what happens to me. From there it follows that the world is mine to do with as I wish. But I didn’t make me, nor do I own me or the world. I’m just part of the flow of existence.
Quiet, sad, lonely afternoon . . . but lovely and tender, too. Still snowing, and it’s sticking to the ground. I have a feeling there might be inches before morning. Makes me long for someone to be here with me.
May 29, 2001
A flock of black birds landed on the low-tide beach to feed together without territorial squabbling. After the hummingbirds and other territorial bullies, it did my heart good to see them hanging out together. I think they’re some sort of corvid. Same black body shape, cocky movement, raucous communication, and beady intelligent eyes. They used their beaks to flip over rocks to search underneath for food: probably sand fleas or shrimp. When one found a good rock, others would scramble over to join the feed without apparent discord.
The small bird that’s been cleaning bugs off the bacon landed on my shoulder today and then flew right into the cabin without concern. She ’s switched from bugs and is eating fat on the smoked meat. I keep telling Cat “NO” when he stalks her. I don’t really expect him to stop since the urge is so primal, but maybe I can make him tense enough to throw off his timing when he pounces. Could this be the Church’s plan with sex? It’s not that they expect to actually stop unmarried folks from screwing, but maybe they hope to tense us up enough to throw off our timing so we don’t really enjoy it.
I doubt I will ever again do formal science. Like most people, motivated by immediate personal concerns, I do casual science all the time. I hypothesize and test the hypotheses, about where, when, and how to catch fish; about what firewood works best and where to find it on the beach; about how different electrical hookups will work. But abstract theories don’t attract me anymore. And as far as I can tell, I have no interest in trying to construct a mathematical model of what I’m seeing and feeling.
For me, the line separating lived experience and conceptual understanding is not as sharp as it used to be. In the past, when I was out like this, the world seemed to be a wonderful mystery — spontaneously alive and beyond all rational explanation. Now I live and also think about how the world might work. But I don’t often have the strong sense of wonder and mystery I’ve had before, so perhaps the line is still sharp and I have merely mostly stayed on the near side.
Not much excitement now as I head into winter. Same old crap going round and round in my head and heart, with a small new insight now and then. But this is how I do my work: cover the same ground again and again, slowly seeing things from different angles. Today I caught myself secretly wishing that something exciting would happen — some sort of accident or disaster to deal with. This is truly scary. It’s fairly suicidal if I set out to do risky things with the secret hope that I’ll have problems and a juicy story to tell.
Years ago I heard about a rock-and-roll drummer always stoned on drugs and booze who cleaned himself up for a while. Then he went back to serious self-abuse. When asked why, he said that when sober he couldn’t drum as well. Many of us seem to sacrifice our spiritual, emotional, and psychological health to be: a better scientist, politician, businessman, lover, soldier, environmentalist, spiritual seeker. Self-sacrifice for what we love is our cultural ideal, but I wonder. Is such behavior just ego-tripping and escape from existential angst?
Merton has gotten under my skin. I’m reading Solitude: A Philosophical Encounter by Philip Koch, and he quotes Merton at length: “The hermit’s whole life is a life of silent adoration. His very solitude keeps him ever in the presence of God....His whole day, in the silence of his cell, or his garden looking out upon the forest, is a prolonged communion.”
This was written by a man who either had his head up his ass or was bullshitting the public. I’ve spent a lot of time in solitude, and have listened to and read many meditation teachings (meditation being a form of solitude), and nowhere does Merton’s statement find support. On the contrary. The mind and heart are all over the place, from the most trivial, mundane, and negative to the joyful, peaceful, and sacred. Solitude is like the rest of life, only with less opportunity for escape into diversion. And where does Merton get off saying under which conditions one is or is not in the presence of God?
Or this: “Not all men are called to be hermits, but all men need enough silence and solitude in their lives to enable the deep inner voice of their own true self to be heard at least occasionally. When that inner voice is not heard, when a man cannot attain to the spiritual peace that comes from being perfectly at one with his true self, his life is always miserable and exhausting.”
This is claptrap. I personally agree that we all need solitude, but who am I to say I’m right? Maybe others find their source of spiritual insight and peace though interaction with other people. Ah me, petty, petty, Bob. I think I got it out of my system for the moment. His writing is, though, well crafted and accessible. No wonder he’s the most well-known and popular hermit in America.
May 30, 2001
Looking at the limpets on the low-tide rocks today, I wondered how much they move and if there is pattern to their movement. I thought of a simple way to find out. I could number their shells (with the nail polish I brought for just this sort of marking) to identify them as individuals. Then, each day at low tide, I could locate each limpet on the rock and record its position on graph paper. After a month I could connect the sequenced dots and have a track of their movements.
Funny how interested I’ve become in their movement when just yesterday I was thinking that I would probably never do formal science again. What intrigues me is to see them and the mussels apparently sedentary when all else is in motion. I picture a computer animation of their collective movements for the month. It might look like a slow-motion folk dance. Or perhaps they move only a quarter inch a day. I think I’ll dab some nail polish on a shell or two to see if it sticks in the salt water.
I’ve started reading Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire. He writes about creating the future, and that triggered thoughts about whether self-directed personal growth is really possible or is an illusion. The duality I’ve set up may be part of my perfectionism. Absolutism. Either/or. As if there either is the possibility of change or there is not. Bam. But both these notions are only thoughts that run through my mind. Whichever I give energy to is more likely to manifest. At times it will seem like I’m stuck, have always been stuck, and always will be stuck. At other times I’ll feel more space opening in my experience of being alive.
MAY 31, 2001
On my beach
ten thousand
broken mussel shells
slowly turn to sand.
Yesterday
each was
like me today
alive.
I crunch my way
among their corpses murmuring
brothers.
Down the channel
to the west
a fierce north wind
sends foaming whitecaps south.
And at my feet
the soft slosh of ebb tide
roars in my heart.