Our task is to see and accept the world as it is, not as we would like it to be.
— S.N. GOENKA
JUNE 1, 2001
MIDNIGHT: 34°F. Light snow on the ground, the wind blowing and the sea rough. Check-in went smoothly this morning and the process took only half an hour. This evening I picked up the replies. I spent most of the day building frames for the awnings that will go over the porch and main window. I had to cut heavy wire into short lengths to make nails. Incredible that from the thousands of nails I brought, I’m down to the last handful.
I measured food tonight and I’m set for another month. I’m eating hardly any pasta and not my full ration of rice, beans, or oatmeal, so I’ll have plenty of staples to last. I sliced some smoked meat and found a nest of maggots inside. I cut them out and fried the rest of the meat. I was surprised how unpleasant I found the maggots, and hope the rest of the meat is not infested.
The two tamest birds come boldly onto the porch now; not only into Cat’s territory, but also to eat his food. I think they’ve learned to come when I’m here, since I won’t let him attack. He sits on my lap and watches them only a couple of feet away. He does twitch now and again, but mostly remains still. If he wants to hunt somewhere else that’s fine, but not in front of me.
As I sat on the porch with Cat on my lap, I wanted to write a poem about the swirling snow, the quality of the light, and the birds black against the white; but I didn’t want to move, and now the poem’s gone.
I wonder if the people who told me there’s no wind in winter actually believe it. This afternoon it howled down the beach to smite my cabin. I’ve always liked the wind, but now I often feel it’s out to get me. In the cabin, I felt under attack, so I went to the point. Cat came along, and it was nice to have his company. Facing the wind and driving snow, I could see gusts writhing over the sea toward me, and heeded the warning to crouch and brace myself for the onslaught. I felt fine to be there — not anxious or threatened as I do in the cabin. There I go to meet the wind and can leave when I wish. Here I can do nothing but wait.
I sense that this deep anxiety is existential angst I project onto the wind. I feel threatened and want the security of certainty and safety even though I know it’s an illusion. There is a potentially real danger hidden in this anxiety: in longing to be freed from fear, I might decide to “face it” and take the boat out into a storm. I might be projecting my anxiety onto the wind, but the wind does exist as a real physical force in the world.
In just three weeks the sun will start back to me. Winter solstice has never meant so much. If I didn’t “know” the sun would return, I’d probably be terrified to see it disappear further into the north each day.
NO ENTRY FOR JUNE 2, 2001
JUNE 3, 2001
EVENING: 36°F. Grey and windy, sea churning. Winter wasted no time getting down to business, but last night the sky cleared and a nearly full moon shone on sea and snow. I had hopes for good weather today, but it’s socked in tight. I got out the last of my winter clothes, and as I did a Simon and Garfunkel song drifted into my mind. I can’t remember the name, but one of the verses is, “Then I’m laying out my winter clothes/And wishing I was gone/Going home/Where the New York City winters/Are not bleeding me/Leading me/Going home.”
Today is Sunday. Yesterday, I looked forward to staying warm and relaxed by the fire all day, with no physical or psychological work to do. But today, without the strong stimuli to the senses I have outside, the hours stretch long and empty. I’ve been awake for nine hours and have another seven or eight until I can sleep again. I miss Cat and guess he ’s out on the porch missing me, too. I look out the misted window and see a grey world where now and then sunshine slants over the hills, until grey settles in again. Snow swirls by blocking the light and is gone, until it comes again. I could meditate and will tomorrow, but that’s a disciplined activity, and for a long time I’ve looked forward to leisure.
I feel exhausted, as though I haven’t stopped to really rest in years, because this sense of emptiness would overtake and swamp me. Each time I settle down somewhere, these feelings of unhappy meaninglessness arise, and off I go to escape them. Now there’s nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, nothing to do. I’ve chosen these leisure hours to explore the feelings. It’s not that I don’t want to do things, but I’m tired of my activity being driven and joyless.
I guess I’ll do something with the fire. It’s getting chilly in here and dark out there. I’ll bake bread and bathe, and then hang with the long heavy hours, as they stretch for months ahead of me.
JUNE 4, 2001
1:30 AM: One-day-shy-of-full-moon light pours onto untrodden snow. A black line on the beach marks where the recent high tide ended and the snow begins. To the west, the Staines rock face glows from within. Nearby, the sea is shining, too, and out further another dark line — analogue to the tide line here — marks where the wind riffle begins. Occasional cat’s-paws skitter across the moonlit water.
Tonight Cat is asleep in his box, but last night he was out with me until late. Together we watched the black-and-white geese — phantoms in moonlight and shadow — feed on the low-tide rocks. Again and again, he began to stalk and I would softly call, “NO, NO, NO!” until I thought to simply call him to me. He ’s good about coming, and once on my lap, he traded the pleasure of two birds on the rock for a scratch under his chin.
Last night, too, I was gently released into the drift of the world, and sensed myself to be a manifestation of the One. Why do I resist this opening so? It feels — beforehand — like negation, like death, but once caught in the flow, there is the joy of belonging to and participating in the whole. Yesterday, I wrote about heavy hours of emptiness, and just a while later went outside and felt myself float free. I often feel such darkness and despair before release. It’s just where I feel most fragile and vulnerable that the walls of my ego are weakest and can most easily dissolve. Just in the spaces I try to avoid. Just there.
Any self, no matter how healthy, is inherently unsatisfactory because it’s cut off from the true pulse of living. But it should be possible to feel relatively good in this small I without becoming isolated inside. It seems twisted that the only reason I seek freedom is because it’s unbearable in here. Once I float free, I feel “perfect” just the way I am, as all things are perfect, yet inside this small self I suffer. Is this suffering the path to freedom and so perfect, too, as the old Christian mystics claimed, and as it sometimes seems to me?
Sharing this experience of freedom with others is the only really worthwhile social contribution I can make. But not everyone will choose the solitary path I’m following. There needs to be a way people can work with what’s already happening in their lives. Perhaps I can encourage others, if I ever learn myself, to welcome the darkness, difficulty, and fear. So far, I don’t know how to find even my own way home, never mind showing the way to anyone else.
I spent most of today just being with the world and with myself in it. Then in the afternoon I felt a dark ominous presence, and tingled with fear as it approached. The fear was not my usual anxiety, but deeper and not associated with anything physical. I took refuge in the Buddha, in my Sangha, and in Christ — the light I sense within. Will this darkness come for me? Is it madness?
JUNE 5, 2001
MIDNIGHT: A breeze blows from the southeast, and the full moon is buried in falling snow. It’s been a day of productive activity. I was up at 9:30 to a clear cold morning. Some light chop from the southeast, the cold temperature direction, ruffled an otherwise calm sea. A good day for fishing and fetching firewood. I had coffee and a dab of cold rice and beans, then forgot to eat again until tonight. I shoveled snow from the boat and went to Staines. It was slow and took work, but I have fish for most of a week now.
As I cruised the shore looking for wood, I spotted three sea lions on a ledge four feet above the water. Except for a pup tucked into a nook, they all dove in as I approached. I circled but not close enough to harass them. Perhaps they’ll establish a colony there. I found a log on a gravel beach so smooth that I didn’t even need to change from rubber boots to chest waders to cut and load the rounds.
It’s definitely winter now. Low overcast sky, and everything covered in ice and snow. As I motored along, something seemed seriously out of whack, but I couldn’t figure out what. Then I got it. The only other place I’ve spent time in inflatable boats was the warm sunny blue-water Caribbean, wearing a bathing suit and teaching scuba diving. So it seems odd to be bundled up in this snowy world. I felt that this is no place to be doing what I’m doing this time of year; then remembered there are guys in three-quarter-inch-thick wet suits diving for sea urchins not so far away.
JUNE 6, 2001
MIDNIGHT: It’s been a day of harmonious rhythms. This morning, three eagles landed in the half-dead tree on the far side of my small cove. Trippylooking birds: black crown; yellow-orange beak and throat; dark breast with a white fleck pattern; yellow legs and feet. One was young with immature plumage and had the disheveled look of a shag hairdo. Birds seem to like that tree. The kingfisher hangs out there, and hawks perch in the branches, too.
The eagles looked like they were hunting, but when one of the adults flew down to the beach, the small local birds continued to feed only three feet away. The adults eventually flew off, leaving the young one behind, and I heard them croaking from the other side of the trees — then silence. The fledgling was edgy and kept peeping and hopping from branch to branch until it finally flew off after its folks.
I timed the tide just right, and fetching a load of wood was quick and easy. The trip home presented no problem, even though a breeze blew up from the south, pushing a swell and some chop before it.
While building a fire in the evening, I thought about describing in the journal my sense of the day’s easy rhythms. At that point, the fire was behaving well, and I planned to include that in the activities that had gone smoothly. Then when I added more wood, poof, the fire went out. I had to rebuild it almost from scratch, but even that went smoothly, and instead of fretting I made popcorn while I waited for the fire to take off. Something else to include as an example of the day’s mellowness. But when I started to eat the popcorn, it tasted funny, and I realized I’d squirted ketchup all over it instead of hot sauce. I ate it anyway.
When I got home from cutting wood, I decided to take a vacation from pain and downed a Tylenol 3. I seem to have two distinct mind-sets about pain. When I’m focused inwardly, I can more openly experience and accept pain. That dissolves much of the tension. But when I’m trying to accomplish something in the external world, pain is in the way, and I just want it to disappear.
I’ve been reading Krishnamurti. He ’s a powerfully clear thinker and writer. “Suffering is the process of isolation.” Bam. He also says obsession comes from imagining that our lives can be different from how they are, and so we don’t accept the actual as it is right now. I’ve known that for thirty years, but still struggle against the simple truth that things are what they are and not what I’d like them to be. Apparently, my resistance to accepting things as they are is one of the things that are what they are. Jeez, that sentence gives me a headache.
JUNE 7, 2001
10:30 PM: 41°F today, a heat wave. I even saw a couple of blackflies. The rain barrel almost filled overnight. I had planned to go for wood today, but the sea started to move from the northwest in the morning, and there were whitecaps by noon. I’m slowly getting a sense of the weather, and when the wind comes from the northwest it’s apt to continue for days. I finally built the small outer porch today. I’m pretty much out of lumber, so I’ll probably use rounds cut from a large log for steps.
Krishnamurti is stern and uncompromising, and very good at pointing out traps. I feel like a weekend spiritual dabbler when I read him. I’ve been here for four months, and my awareness of my inner processes is still dim and dull. I know that clutching after desired psychological/spiritual experiences is futile, yet I still grasp. I imagine I’ll give it up when I finally get at gut level the painful futility of it.
JUNE 8, 2001
1am: 40°F and stormy. I’ve been sleeping on and off since 7pm. Avoidance mode. Shoulder and back are tight and sore. I want to take a Tylenol 3 and drift off, but I’m not sure I will.
I finished the awning over the small front porch today. Sitting out there gives a whole new perspective on the world. Once I’d finished it, I felt relaxed for a little while, and then the deep discontent returned. Cycling between intense joy and intense anxiety or sorrow wears me out. Not sure what I can do, except stay with it until the cycles modulate.
In Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Freire writes that we can be fully human only in dialogue, in naming the world together. To do so requires humility, honesty, and openness. It’s not my world or yours that’s true, but our world that we discover/create together. This is the direction I need to move in my life. Away from pride and fierce self-sufficiency toward humility and communion. I started the book because I’ve had it on my list for so long. I didn’t expect it to be particularly relevant to me here, but it’s just what I need.
NO ENTRY FOR JUNE 9, 2001
JUNE 10, 2001
2:30 AM: 32°F. Gentle night. Clear, but softly so rather than crystalline. A wide ring circles the moon, and sea lions and seabirds are calling. In here, my heart is crying. It’s been a hard two days of physical and psychoemotional pain.
Today was Sunday, my day of rest. Only I didn’t. I cleared moisture from the propane regulator, cut the top off a tree too close to the rain gauge, cleaned windows, and buried garbage. Then, since the afternoon was sunny and calm, I ran over to Staines. Halfway across, the motor started to miss, but the problem fixed itself. Three nice snapper.
Tonight, when I got out the mirror for my weekly shave, I looked into my face and eyes, and felt sorrow and compassion for the hurt I saw there. Anger and rebellion hid a boy longing for his father’s approval, but receiving only harsh criticism. No wonder I’m a perfectionist — always hoping that if I do things well enough I’ll finally feel loved and accepted. So much of my activity is driven by pain: if I can just do it right, I won’t hurt anymore. The trap is that it works — temporarily. For a short time I do feel better, but then self-criticism sets in again and I need to accomplish something else — perfectly.
Sitting under the moon tonight, I briefly sensed that what I’m going through here is not to teach me how to get rid of pain, but to teach me to open my heart to myself in pain. Pain is part of life, and if I don’t open myself to experience it, I can’t be truly alive. Nor can I open myself to others because that would risk experiencing their pain. And God knows I’ve got enough of my own I’m trying to escape.
JUNE 11, 2001
MIDNIGHT: 41°F. A few stars show through the high thin overcast; the sea is from the south but calming now at low tide. This morning, there was no wind and only a light frost on the ground. It wasn’t cold enough to freeze the sea, so I packed the survival kit for a trip to the bay where I’d originally planned to build my camp.
The pale winter sun hung low in the north as I left camp. Mountains loomed against the grey sky, and the sea was flat calm. I expected to make the fourteen-mile trip in just over an hour, but halfway there a breeze blew up from the south and started to chop the water. It wasn’t bad, but I had to slow to ease the jarring. Soon, though, things turned foul as the wind picked up and shifted to the southeast. But I’d never seen really nasty weather come from that direction, so I kept going. Then the wind got mean, and I again considered turning back. But still didn’t.
A dark line of wind-blown water, awash in whitecaps, streaked across the channel toward me. Oh shit. It looked much worse than what I was already in, and I was pretty sure I didn’t want to be where I was. Just before the squall hit, I moved from my butt on the seat to my knees on the floor to lower my physical — and spiritual — center of gravity. The channel doglegged, and the wind now struck broadside. Steep and breaking waves caught the boat from the side and caused it to lift and tilt at a sharp angle. The wind whipped up streaks of foam, driving it into my face. I worried the boat might flip.
I decided I really should turn back, even though I was only two miles from the bay. Once I was moving with the wind and waves, the storm didn’t seem so bad, and I knew I’d be unhappy if I gave up. So I turned toward the bay again. A ribbon of pale blue stretched low over the southern hills and I hoped the worst had passed, but the wind dug in to rage again. I was drenched with spray and thinking I should probably be wearing the life vest, but couldn’t let go of the tiller to put it on. Finally, I ran into the protected bay.
I often find it hard to let go of what might have been and stay with what actually is. I’d hoped the bay would not seem as beautiful as the island where I’m settled, but that hope was forlorn. The bay lies in a bowl of hills, over which a condor soared. And while there isn’t a view of wild mountain peaks, the smaller closer crests are lovely, too. Another lesson is that I must simply choose to be with what is rather than use a sort of inverted “grass is always greener” mind-set to rationalize that what I don’t have isn’t so good anyway.
I drifted in the still water for a while, then put on the life vest, said goodbye to the bay, and edged back into the raging storm. I was now crashing directly into the teeth of the wind and waves, but before I even made the channel, I hit a patch of drifting kelp and fouled the prop. Damn it! A nearby rock offered enough protection to clear the prop, and then out I went.
Holy mother, it was nasty out there — the kind of sea I’ve often watched from my island and thought, “I’m sure glad I’m not out in that” — but the boat and motor handled it well. Once in the channel with the sea on my rear quarter, the boat started to surf. I usually sit far forward to balance the outboard’s weight, but now, to prevent the nose from digging in, I shifted to the rear.
In moving back, I accidentally jerked the kill-cord attached to my wrist and switched off the motor. (The cord’s job, if I ever fall overboard, is to kill the motor so the boat won’t keep going without me. It would still be nasty in the cold water and difficult to heave myself back into the boat, but at least I’d have a chance.) This wasn’t good. I was close to shore with wind and waves driving me toward the jagged rocks. I reattached the cord and yanked the starter rope, but the motor had jammed in gear. Things were getting dicey. I reached over the side to jiggle the prop, and once free, the motor cranked up and I escaped.
Ten minutes later the sea was glassy calm again with just a gentle swell rolling the surface. Huh? Did I dream all that? No, I’m wearing the life vest, and in spite of being covered head to toe in rubber, I’m wet and cold. Behind me I see the sea still wind-whipped and churned with whitecaps. The ribbon of blue still stretches over the southern hills. I wish Cat could tell me if it stormed here at the island.
JUNE 12, 2001
MIDNIGHT: Fried potatoes and bacon for dinner. I still have four days of fish in the larder, but decided to vary the menu. My usual meals continue to be beans and rice or fish and rice for lunch/dinner and oatmeal for breakfast, with instant soup and noodles thrown into the menu from time to time.
The solar panels won’t see much sun for the next month and a half, so I’ve switched to propane to hoard electricity for the computer and satphone. The propane lamp is noisy, but not as noisy as the wind generator. There ’s been no rain to speak of in days. The mud in front of the porch where I pee and toss dish and fish-cleaning water is starting to smell rank. I’m finally tired of slogging through the mud holes and may take the boat to look for gravel soon.
It was a quiet afternoon. I spent time with sea, mountains, and myself. I’m seldom here when it’s calm, and I relaxed and bathed in the beauty of it all. How joyful if I could see such beauty in myself and in other people. I asked Spirit to guide me, and the reply came back, “What do you think is happening, moron?” A softer voice reminded me to trust the process.
Later, the eastern face of Staines was shadowed, but rich yellow light shone on the highest domes from the setting sun beyond. The peaks and ice fields of the Andes glowed gold, and one leg of a rainbow, pointing nearly straight up, hung in the air. The northwest sky, translucent, almost glacial blue, was streaked an impossible orange, and below, just over the hills, were delicate whorls of cream-yellow cloud, the color of the ducks’ breasts.
As night fell, I sat on the porch contemplating the world inside and out. Yes, beauty inside, too — of consciousness and visions and ...I sat peacefully there with Cat until I came in to build a fire and take a nap.
I woke feeling grumpy and groggy, went to fetch some potatoes, and Cat got right underfoot. As usual, it made me furious. I often seem to feel “bad” after a spell of feeling “good.” Almost like coming down off a drug high. I first noticed it in Vancouver last year, driving home from meditation. Instead of having patience, I’d get instantly angry at other drivers who were in my way.
In Nature, Man and Woman, Watts talks about feeling “blah” after sex, and points out that it’s not the ecstasy of sex that creates this reaction, but grasping for that ecstasy. Perhaps it’s the same here. I’m so hungry for joyful experiences that I cling to them and feel disgruntled when they pass. I also catch myself turning away from joy, believing it’s not to be trusted since it won’t last. It’s useful to write about this since I hadn’t seen it clearly before.
Pedagogy is displeasing me. Too black and white. Too Marxist dialectic. Freire also makes absolutist statements, comparing men to animals, and of course animals are just unconscious dumb brutes with automatic behavior. How can he know that with such certainty?
JUNE 13, 2001
MIDNIGHT: Starry and perfectly still, with just an occasional rustle of water against the rock. It’s been a slow, steady day. Little by little, I’m relaxing (at least for the moment) into how things are. There is peace and inner light. I still long for the sense of wild aliveness I felt so strongly during my first long retreat, of being inside my life looking around rather than outside looking in, but it will come when it comes — or not . . .
I woke at first light and got up to exercise, make coffee, and watch the dawn. Then went to spend the day at the point. Four sea lions swam by, and an otter appeared below me in the kelp. I got out the binoculars and we peered at each other for a while. Actually, I think he snorted and sniffed more than looked. Maybe his eyes aren’t so hot.
I also saw two new birds. An elegant hawk, colored café-con-leche brown with lighter flecks, landed on my beach. Tossing fish heads down there to attract raptors is a good idea. I spotted woodpeckers (Magellanic Woodpecker) for the first time, too. Either one male and two females, or one adult female with two young. All were black or gunmetal blue with topknots, and one had a brilliant red head. Their call was wonderful, but now I can’t remember it.
I’ve often said with pride that I believe in God/Spirit sometimes. That is, I directly experience a Presence sometimes, and when I don’t, I no longer know if there is or is not God. Since direct experience is transient, I’ve thought that people who expound their constant certainty that God exists don’t actually experience the Presence, but base their claim on only a conceptual belief.
But I wonder ...Jean Piaget showed that in a child, object permanence is a stage of cognitive development. Before it’s established, a child thinks that a ball hidden out of sight no longer exists. Once object permanence is achieved, the child knows the ball continues to exist, even if she doesn’t actually see it at the moment. Maybe this is so for spiritual development, too. Perhaps I’m just immature, and when I don’t have a direct experience of Presence it no longer exists for me. Perhaps when I develop more, I’ll have a sure sense that Spirit always exists, even if I don’t sense it at the moment.
Yes, I remember now. Without the direct lived acceptance of death, I cannot feel truly alive. Death is part of life, but the ego/conceptual self creates an illusory sense of permanence and invulnerability. If I wish to dissolve the shell, I must accept what the ego tries to deny. Pain, too, is part of life. Period. No exceptions.
What a blessing today was. I can only offer praise and thanks.
NO ENTRY FOR JUNE 14, 2001
JUNE 15, 2001
MIDNIGHT: I was just getting started on the day when I heard a motor. At first I tried to figure out what it really was, since I often hear sounds I think are a motor that turn out to be a hummingbird, bumblebee, boiling kettle, or waterfall. But this really was a motor. A boat appeared and stopped just past the point. I thought it was fishermen and went out to ask them to please go away. Two men walked down the beach toward my cabin, one carrying a box.
Ah, it’s German from the National Parks Service; I bet they brought my barometer. Sure enough. As they approached, German held up the box, as though it were a talisman to ward off danger, and called out that he had brought the barometer. I think they suspected that after four months out here alone, I might have gone dangerously insane. While the Chilean mail service may be slow (Patti mailed the barometer to me in Punta Arenas a month before I left there), the door-to-door service is impeccable.
The men were curious to see my camp, and I invited them in for coffee and a look around. They liked the cabin and suggested I leave it standing when I depart, so there will be refuge here; but I’m not sure I will. It would be much easier not to tear it down and nice for others to benefit from my work, but I doubt it would last long. Soon the tarp would rot and scatter in the wind. As much as possible, I want to leave the island like it was when I arrived.
They showed me a kind of tree with red wood that burns easily even when green, and said that if I run short of driftwood, I can use some of it. I’ve been careful to cut as few living trees as possible, and was surprised that they suggested it. I showed them the wood that had worked so well for kindling before I ran out, and they confirmed that it’s cypress, so I’ll look for more soon. Useful information.
When I told them about the outboards being submerged, they asked if I would like them to take the flywheel off the 15 hp to check the electronics underneath. Since it’s working ok, I decided to leave well enough alone. Hope that wasn’t a mistake. They might pass twenty miles west of here again in six weeks, and if I need supplies, they’ll bring them to me. I’m glad to have the barometer. It should help me predict stormy weather. German said it will be calm like this for the next two months, and I do feel a change in the air.
I enjoyed their company for a little while, and was glad they left when they did. Their visit reminded me of my first long wilderness retreat in Canada. I’d been alone for two months on a remote lake, when I was startled to hear an outboard. Skittish as a wild animal, I scurried to hide in the trees. I felt so shy and estranged from other humans that I couldn’t face talking to them. I hoped they would pass by, but they saw my canoe and came in for a visit. They called “Hello,” but I remained crouched behind a fallen log, thinking they would leave. They called and called until I finally came out of hiding. We visited for a few minutes, but I could barely talk, and soon they went away and left me alone again.
JUNE 16, 2001
11:30 PM: The grey sky sagged lower and lower all day, until the mist touched the water and my world shrank. Then I felt truly alone. Back, neck, and shoulders are stiff and sore, and my head is filled with noisy conversation. This morning I brought in half a dozen large flat rocks to lean around the stove. They should absorb heat and modulate the temperature. Later on, I moved the solar panels as far as I could from the tree line. I hope they’ll collect at least enough juice to power the laptop for journaling.
NO ENTRY FOR JUNE 17, 2001
JUNE 18, 2001
NIGHT: I can’t remember if I wrote yesterday or not; I’m losing track of time. It was misty in the early morning and then sunny all day. I spent most of the day just being at the point and letting myself flow with the world in acceptance and peace. I’m somehow reluctant to describe these experiences of release and freedom, but I’ve written a lot about the painful experiences of holding on and self-judgment. Such writing from pain is motivated by an urge to escape and by my desire to understand the source of the suffering. When there is joy, I feel less need to write about it.
Today warmed to a languorous 45°F. So far, June has been pretty mellow; not nearly as grim as I’d expected. If it doesn’t rain soon, I’ll take the boat to fetch water. I’ve had the generator hooked up all day, and there ’s just enough wind that it’s humming without howling. Yesterday, the solar panels in their new location had direct sun for more than six hours, and I’m back to using electric light.
NO ENTRY FOR JUNE 19, 2001
JUNE 20, 2001
MIDNIGHT: Rain and wind. This afternoon I crossed the channel. The sea was choppy and the fishing slow. When I tried to come home, the outboard wouldn’t start. I checked the fuel filter and poured gas into the spark-plug holes; still nothing. As evening shadows from the towering Staines cliffs darkened the water around me, I gave up on the 15 hp and tried to start the backup motor, but it wouldn’t kick over either. Anxiously, I kept tinkering, finally got it running, and headed back across the channel. It was a slow uncertain ride through the chop, but the small motor chugged along until just thirty feet shy of the island. Then it quit, too. Unbelievable. I tinkered some more in the gathering dark, and barely managed to limp into camp.
When I landed on the beach, Cat jumped into the boat to say hello. He wasn’t near the fish so I didn’t pay much attention to him. Then he cried out and I realized he had a fishhook in his mouth. I’ve been careful to always remove the bait from the hooks to avoid just this. But today, distracted by motor problems, I forgot. Happily, only the point pierced his lip. It would have been ugly if he’d swallowed the hook or buried the barb in his tongue.
I suspect both motors have electrical rather than fuel problems. If I’m lucky, the 15 hp might just need new plugs. I think the 4 hp is running on only one cylinder. Hard to believe that spark plugs and a carburetor kit are the only spare parts I brought for it. I’d hoped I wouldn’t need to use it at all.
I probably have enough firewood if I’m careful, and it might be time to stay close to home for a while. Of course I’ll probably feel differently if I can get the motors running again. Or I could email the parks service and ask German to bring spare parts and a socket wrench next time they pass near here. It would break my solitude, but if I can’t coax the motors to run, it might be worth it.
What a relief to have made it back to camp. I could easily be stranded on the rocks across the channel or drifting downwind in the dark rain somewhere on the water. This alone makes it worth having and repairing the 4 hp. I’m lucky this happened not too far from camp on a semicalm day. The boat probably would have been thrown onto the rocks if the motors had failed in the windstorm last week.
JUNE 21, 2001
Winter solstice. Tomorrow the sun starts back to me.
NO ENTRY FOR JUNE 22, 2001
JUNE 23, 2001
EVENING: As I suspected, the 4 hp is missing spark in one of the plugs. The 15 hp has spark in both plugs, and when I poured gas into the cylinders it fired up. So it looks like a problem with fuel, not spark. I hope it’s just a clogged jet in the carburetor. I’m not in a hurry to fix either motor. I’m tired of dealing with machinery.
As I listened to the enchanting sounds of water flowing through me today, I realized how inviting they are as a path out of my static mechanistic consciousness. They are always subtly changing, and if I relax and follow them as the days and weeks go by, water sounds can guide me back to the living universe. I sense that emotions are part of the field of Life here. Like the physical movement of wind and water, the behavior of the animals, and my own activity, the emotions I experience are a manifestation of our common existence.
Yesterday morning the cove and basin were frozen. I sat for a long time listening to the ice groaning and creaking as the tide pushed it onto the rocks. In the afternoon I took the kayak fishing, but no bites. At first I anchored just west of here, but — since I was in the path of ice being carried by a powerful tidal current flooding through the basin — I quickly realized it wasn’t such a good idea. So I hauled up the anchor rock, drifted out into the channel, and let the world flow through me.
I again like Pedagogy of the Oppressed, but in his writing Freire doesn’t seem to practice what he preaches. He insists on the absolute need for leaders and educators to enter into dialogue “with the people” rather than “filling the people” with what the educators think is the truth — which would be brainwashing. But he doesn’t approach his reader with the same open dialogical spirit. Instead, he lays out how education must proceed.
Ideologically he’s a Marxist and asserts that dialogue with Elite Oppressors is impossible. He defines social reality as grounded in struggle rather than in mutual understanding. He points out the illusion of the myths Oppressors foist on the Oppressed — one being that Reality is given and unchanging — yet in defining social reality as a struggle between concrete classes, he does the same kind of mythologizing. I’ve never met anyone who is simply an oppressor or completely oppressed. We are all a complex mix of both.
The oppressor/oppressed schema is sometimes applied to inner life, where the ego tries to oppress the whole human being. Perhaps dialogue with the ego is impossible and instead must be resisted or destroyed, but I tend to think this approach is mistaken. Rather than fighting the ego, my path lies toward balance and integration.
JUNE 24, 2001
SUNDAY MIDNIGHT: The rain has poured steadily for thirty hours and has washed the stench from the mud out front. There was an inch in the gauge this morning and more today. The rain barrel is long since full. It warmed up 10 degrees and all the ice melted. Tonight the wind is roaring. First time it’s blown like this in weeks, and I didn’t expect it again until September. I hope the solar panels are ok. They’re completely exposed where they are now. I anchored them securely, but I may walk down and check in a while. Depends what the tide is doing. It’s hard to get there at high tide, especially in the dark.
I spent the day reading Right Ho, Jeeves and escaping into food and sleep. It’s not that I’m unwilling to experience dark emotions and physical pain; I just get worn out with it. I’m feeling again the absence of clear insight and sense of wild aliveness I experienced during my first wilderness retreat. I keep trying to let the memory go, but it’s difficult. Apparently, I’ve signed up for a crash course in humility, patience, faith, and compassion — for self and others. This evening, as is my habit on Sundays, I made bread, sponge-bathed, and shaved. My tooth is getting looser and I continue to rinse it with saltwater and peroxide. It’s not especially painful, but I worry that problems lie ahead.
In a dream last night, a naked man was acting berserk. Several other men held long sticks with loops on their ends that were around the wild man’s neck. He was screaming, struggling, and trying to attack the surrounding men, who were holding him away from each other. Another man, without a stick, kept darting in, attempting to do something to the wild man, who tried to punch and kick him. Finally he managed to remove some sort of insect or spider from the wild man’s neck that was giving him an extremely painful bite and making him crazy. The wild man calmed down and started to cry.
This is what’s happening to me here. Something painful is attached to me and is being removed, and I’m fighting against the process because of the pain and my ignorance of what’s actually taking place.
JUNE 25, 2001
MIDNIGHT: 41°F. Stormy day, with rain and wind almost as strong as the worst storms of summer. Last night the panels were fine, but today the wind has been much stronger so I went back to the point and lashed them even more securely. It was a challenge to work down there without getting blown into the sea.
Cat did something quite civilized yesterday. He gave his “I gotta shit” meow and went down to the low-tide water edge to do so. Very nice.
JUNE 26, 2001
12:30 AM: I taped the sound of rain today, and also taped myself singing. My voice sounds pretty good to me as I sing, but the recording sounded awful. I guess my vocal cords are rusty from long disuse.
I spent most of the day meditating and reading Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. He claims that flow arises from setting a goal and focusing full attention on achieving it. For me, that kind of engagement is ego-centered; the deeper experience of surrender, choiceless awareness, and nonaction in the moment is Life-centered.
I’ve been looking again at my ambivalence about whether I should work on “improving” myself or abandon the self to go into the beyond. In my mulling and indecision, I do neither. I doubt it must be either/or. It can be both: when in small mind, work there; when in Big Mind, flow there.
I’ve also been mulling over whether to ask Patti to send down replacement parts for the outboards. Do I want to break solitude and pay German to bring them to me from Puerto Natales? I could take a chance on the motors (assuming I get them running), but it would be a major drag to have them fail and leave me stranded away from camp. Just a few days ago I was settling down to stay put here on the island, then in Flow I read a quote from a mountain climber about meeting a challenge. Instantly my restless mind, which wants to feel competent and adventurous, was snorting and raring to go exploring.
Out came the marine charts, and I looked at the route to the glacier I want to visit. If I do go, it won’t be for at least a couple of months; the days are too short and cold now. I need to be careful of how much attention and energy I spend on the trips I might make. Unless I have serious problems, I’ll be gone from here for ten days at most. And I expect to be here for another two hundred days. If I let worry about ten days out of two hundred fill my thoughts, I’m a doofus for sure.
JUNE 27, 2001
MIDNIGHT: Cold rain and wind on and off all day, and a glorious double rainbow in the afternoon. I sanded and adjusted the points on the 4 hp, and got spark in both plugs. I’m not ecstatic about it since the motor was working perfectly — until it wasn’t anymore. Still, if it continues to spark, it’s a good thing. It’s been a peaceful day. Feels like I’m slowly settling into solitude.
Flow seems to be a sort of peak experience, but it’s apparently different from experiences reported by mystics. In flow, the self (Csikszentmihalyi uses the term self-concept) is still in charge, but you are not aware of it since you are so focused on the task at hand. The flow experience actually strengthens the self, while in Eastern spiritual practice you either abandon the illusory ego-self for the true Self, or discover there is no real self.
Flow is activity-based (including mental and aesthetic activity). When you have the appropriate skills, and you focus deeply on the goal you’ve set yourself, flow can develop. Many of my activities here flow, but such self-directed activity can also mask the deeper experience that sometimes emerges when my mind and body are still. In those times, I become aware of the universal flow to which I always already belong.
In meditation, peak experiences are not sought (of course I’m doing just that) but fully embraced and released as part of the flow of living. In flow they are an end unto themselves. Csikszentmihalyi uses reading and sports as examples of flow, but Krishnamurti states that reading is often an escape from facing the world as it is, and Buddhist meditation teacher Joseph Goldstein writes that losing yourself in an activity such as sports does not lead to spiritual growth. Csikszentmihalyi recognizes that the experience of flow can become addictive. I know. I’ve lived much of my life chasing the experience of wild aliveness.
Sitting
bundled up
eyes closed,
I feel Cat’s weight
pressing down
through his paws.
The rain has stopped for now.
I hear
water surge
against rock,
and wind slide
through the trees.
The far faint stutter
of a woodpecker
cuts me like a knife.
The rain has stopped for now.
JUNE 28, 2001
1:00 AM: Calm and almost balmy. It’s been a strange day. Everything seemed to go wrong. I kept dropping things and stumbling, and then fell out of the chair while getting up. Not a hard fall, but just, “What the hell?” Dropping things and losing patience stems, at least in part, from pain, which sometimes overwhelms me.
I removed the carburetor from the 15 hp to clean it, and in doing so I carelessly broke the plastic cover. I didn’t get as freaked as I would have expected, just as I didn’t get too happy yesterday when the 4 hp sparked in both plugs. I sure hope I can fix it. I may also email Patti and ask her to send me some stuff.
Still reading Flow. I’m used to exploring and reading about a whole range of “nonordinary” experiences that, as an academic psychologist, Csikszentmihalyi seems to lump into a single category he calls flow. Most Western psychology has a rather limited view of consciousness: awake, asleep, dreaming, psychosis, flow.
Csikszentmihalyi claims flow is enjoyable because it orders consciousness, which is what religious activity used to do. But, he says, we no longer expect flow experiences to link us with the gods. Seems to me he ’s selling us pretty short. Spiritual experience may not link us with the gods, but it does meld us with the universe and with Spirit. Or rather, in these states we can become aware of the unity we have always been part of. It’s extremely limiting to assume that flow-type experience is only about ordering the consciousness of the individual self to generate a dollop of enjoyment.
Is there a self or not? Tonight, it doesn’t matter; presence or absence doesn’t change the quality of the struggle to be free. And once I relax into the flow of Life, it also seems irrelevant, because the apparent self is at ease with all around it. The self may be illusory or not, but it’s counterproductive to fret about it either way.
Tonight I sat listening to the sounds of water, and then focused on just one cluster of gurgles coming from a crack in the rock. With closed eyes I saw patterns of light and circles, somehow linked to the sounds. Little by little I feel the world and myself coming alive again. And once again I sense that the mechanistic laws of science have no direct link to the Life of the world, which is profoundly and mysteriously spontaneous. Yet those laws are also a manifestation of Life since they have been imagined by our minds.
I feel less fragmented now than I did twenty-five years ago during my first wilderness retreat. Then, human and nonhuman seemed radically at odds and I could find no place for myself. I was human, but felt I belonged to nature and not the human world.
As I sat on a rock by the sea, I wondered: Did consciousness arise via evolution with the development of the human brain and culture, or is it inherent in the universe? For me, the question cannot be answered logically, but only experientially — like the question, Does God exist? There is no right or wrong answer that can be proved or disproved. I either experience the world as conscious or I don’t.
Is consciousness inherently language-based? That query certainly is, but when I step back to notice the space of consciousness, I have no idea of the answer — and can see no way to find out. As soon as I frame the question, I’m in language and carry the answer with me.
Such speculation seems trivial to me at the moment. What’s important is whether my mind is swamped by and identified with the incessant chatter of rehearsing the past and planning the future, or I quiet my mind and float in the sounds, smells, feelings, and thoughts of the immediate present in all its shifting dimensionality. Because yes, that experience is beyond language.
NO ENTRY FOR JUNE 29, 2001
JUNE 30, 2001
11:00 PM: 36°F. Rain and wind. On the bluff on the other side of my cove, I’ve discovered a deep notch in a cypress, which, according to the tree’s growth rings, was cut roughly thirty-three years ago. Perhaps it was a marker-blaze for something. It faces the sea and would have been visible from a long way out. Surprising to find it here after all these months. I wonder if people have been all through this country and no matter where I’d set up camp I would have found human sign. Someday someone may find my tracks here, too.
I repaired the plastic top of the carburetor. A couple of careless minutes required hours of repair work. I Krazy Glued the break, melted small holes on either side with a hot needle, and lashed the break with dental floss. Over that, I laminated a metal patch with Shoe Goo. I think it will hold, but plastic is strange stuff and difficult to repair.
Sitting outside last night, watching moonlight on the Staines rock face, I was quiet and still on the inside, too. Ah. The world truly is mysterious when I’m fully open to it. After just these few glimpses of flowing Life, I feel more relaxed and patient about letting solitude have its way with me at its own pace. I imagine this patience will also pass.
What is the relationship between conceptual theory and the flowing present? For me, the more aligned they seem, the more I’m living in a conceptual construct and experiencing the world as a collection of static objects, rather than as a living organism. But I seldom realize I’m not feeling truly alive in a living world — unless I pause to remember that experience and realize I’ve lost it.
I emailed Patti a couple of days ago and asked her to buy and send outboard parts and several other items, but I’m still not sure I want German to bring them to me. I might not need the parts, and it could be another way to hold myself on the surface of this experience. The two-hour visit wouldn’t be a problem, but looking ahead to it could be a major distraction.
I’m still reading Flow. Csikszentmihalyi uses the concept of flow to explain the whole human experience. In some sense he ’s talking about escapism. He shows how to organize the mind so as to not experience the darker feelings of life, such as fear and doubt. He uses the example of Icelanders huddled in their shelters using storytelling to structure their consciousness so as not to dwell on the fierce winter wind outside. Here, I’m trying to allow myself to experience the wind and the fear. In that willing embrace, there is freedom.
Buddhist meditation is also a structured activity done for its own sake: it has the goal of sitting still and staying present to what is actually happening; there is feedback in noticing if you are actually present; it is about cultivating attention. But it is not about imposing an artificial structure on the mind or shutting out unpleasant experience. Sometimes single-pointed concentration is encouraged, but in the long run, the intention is to bring stability to the context of the mind — to awareness — rather than to the content.
Csikszentmihalyi seems to believe that consciousness is chaotic until we control it. He counsels imposing an artificially structured flow on the mind, instead of relaxing into the mind’s living rhythm. He advocates excluding the dark side of life, but I think he’s actually excluding the whole living world.
I need to be careful not to natter about abstract notions, but to stick with my actual experience. Deep peace and harmony seem to arise when I surrender to the flow of the world, not when I’m analyzing it or staying busy to shut it out.