Life is a mystery to be lived, not a problem to be solved.
— ADRIAN VAN KAAM, REMINDER TAPED TO MY CABIN DOOR
NO ENTRY FOR JULY 1, 2001
JULY 2, 2001
MIDNIGHT: I’ve been using cypress for kindling the last few days. What a difference; makes the stove much easier to light. Soon I’ll paddle the kayak around the island to cut some more. Yesterday was a busy Sunday. I mended clothes and rain gear, started a wash, organized monthly food, sent and received a check-in email, and reinstalled the carburetor on the 15 hp outboard. The repair job seems to be holding.
This morning I tried to fire it up. Nothing. I checked the plugs and there’s no spark. I emailed Patti asking her to consult her local outboard mechanic for advice and to purchase the parts they recommend. I also asked her to buy a bunch of electrical items and some other things. I’m very fortunate to have her out there to do these things for me. She’s perhaps the only person who I feel not only understands me, but deeply cares.
The 4 hp is running fine again — at least for now. If I can’t get the 15 hp running, I won’t be able to use the boat for the next seven months except for very short trips with the 4 hp. Technology is anchoring me to my social reality and identity. Mystics simplify their lives for good reason, and if I do another long wilderness retreat, so will I.
Just the other day I was berating myself for wanting to have so much firewood stockpiled. Now I’m glad to have as much as I do. I need to learn to trust myself more, and also to think more clearly about perfectionism. It’s not that I should do sloppy work, but only let go of harsh self-criticism. In believing that whatever I do isn’t good enough, I destroy the joy of accomplishment and sap my creative energy.
Cat had another seizure today. Very strange. It must be even stranger for him. He ’s so spaced-out afterward. Tried to claw up my leg as if I were a tree. I freaked and knocked him down. Mostly, though, I was patient and comforting. He loses all sense of identity for a while, but seems to reorient himself in a couple of hours. It reminds me to be careful as I explore the depths of my mind beyond my own identity.
NO ENTRY FOR JULY 3, 2001
JULY 4, 2001
LATE NIGHT: I’m losing the urge to write again. Yesterday I emailed Alejandra, who works for the national parks. What a huge help she ’s been. She thinks there won’t be a problem getting German to bring supplies, probably in August.
I’ve put the clock away to see if I can relax my grip on time. Losing that structure triggers anxiety. Yikes, what if I just drift away...?In counterpoint, I’m also going to be more formal in morning meditation: I’ll sit for forty minutes with the intent to not move during that period. Then I’ll send people, plants, and animals loving thoughts for a while. Including exercise, sweeping the cabin, and drinking coffee, the routine takes about three hours. I worry I’ll lose this discipline when I leave solitude. It isn’t easy in the social world to begin each day with that much personal work.
I continue to read Flow and continue to cycle between agreeing and disagreeing when he advocates controlling the content of the mind to exclude unwanted experience. In meditation I work with the space in which experience arises: learning to be with whatever happens without becoming overwhelmed. The chaos/psychic entropy Csikszentmihalyi believes is inherent to the mind is actually created by the separate self ’s desire to maintain its identity by excluding whatever it imagines as threatening or painful. It’s like shining a flashlight in the forest at night and imagining monsters in the dark just beyond the reach of the beam. The only way to really deal with the fear is to turn off the light and realize the monsters are projections of our own imagination. If we always maintain control of our experience, there’s no opportunity for the new and unexpected — for Life — to enter.
Here alone, I argue with Csikszentmihalyi about the need to stop the endless mental activity and allow the mind to settle and experience whatever comes into it. Then I realize I’m doing just what I’m telling him we should not do: filling my mind with activity. I’m really arguing with myself to understand what I think and feel.
I’m trying to let go and trust something greater than my small self to pull me to it. But what if that something is evil, not benign? It requires discipline and integrity to remain open to whatever arises, without being swept into darkness.
Today was slow and easy. Now I’m off to sit under the moon, and I imagine Cat will go with me. He usually sits on my lap for an hour or two a day. I get tired of him sometimes, but feel he needs the contact — as, perhaps, do I.
NO ENTRY FOR JULY 5, 2001
JULY 6, 2001
LATE NIGHT: A strong wind from the southeast is pounding the sea on the beach. The cabin trembles in the gusting blasts. I snuck away from Cat to sit alone on the rocks and feel the wind’s energy more directly. With this wind, he wants to be on top of me, and I wanted some space for myself.
I found a loose wire in the 15 hp outboard yesterday, and once I tightened the connection, both plugs sparked. The motor started, but wouldn’t keep running. Still seems like a fuel problem. The 4 hp was also hard to start today. Arghhh. Technology.
The sea was flat calm all day. No hint of stormy weather coming — at least not to my senses. I took the chain saw and paddled to the north side of the island. Felled a mostly dead cypress and brought back a dozen rounds. At one point the saw got stuck and I buggered my shoulder, yet again, by impatiently yanking it free. I wonder how long it will ache this time?
JULY 7, 2001
LATE NIGHT: 36°F. Just the remnant of a breeze; moon and stars are shining on snowy Staines, as a swell crumples softly on the low-tide beach. It’s been a good technology day. I drained the laptop battery, which has been taking only a half charge lately. I thought the battery might be dying, but now it’s charged right up again. I cleaned the chimney, and tonight it’s dripping creosote like crazy, which stinks up the cabin.
I finally got the 15 hp running reasonably well. It’s still a little rough and misses at high speed, but it is running. Not sure what the problem was. I opened the charts to check the route to the glacier, again. It looks to be about eighty miles each way. With good weather I might make it in a day, but more likely it would take two there and two back. If a storm slams in, who knows how long I might be stuck out there somewhere?
I was feeling good about getting the 15 hp to run, and then started to feel anxious again. Flow recommends staying occupied with goal-oriented activity in order to harmoniously structure consciousness. But that’s exactly what I don’t want to do. I want to go deeper and feel at peace in stillness.
In meditation I stay with the anxiety, and awareness itself is what establishes harmony. The price of psychological, as well as political, freedom truly is eternal vigilance. For some reason, I resent the constant attention that’s required. But attention is also needed in the physical world to split wood, run the boat, or catch fish. So why do I believe internal harmony should happen automatically without conscious awareness? Perhaps because in our culture we ’re not taught to pay attention to our internal world in the same way we pay attention to the outer one.
Finished Flow, and, finally, I liked it. In the last two chapters Csikszentmihalyi goes somewhat beyond the individual ego. The book is good in discussing interactions between individual and world, which is where meditation has less practical advice to offer.
JULY 8, 2001
I often sit beside an all-day fire on Sundays, and this is a good day for it. The wind raged up from the south during the night, and by morning it was driving spray and waves onto the beach. My tarp-walled cabin is shaking as if caught in a very long earthquake, or as if a train were passing right next door. This is by far the worst buffeting I’ve taken. Feeling too tightly bound inside, I step onto the porch to shake myself free from the tendrils of anxiety that reach for me from dark depths.
Condor! Sweeping low down the wind toward me. Entranced, I watch as he circles and climbs the updraft overhead. When he banks to turn, I see his back looks white but for a delicate black line on spine and splayed fingers of up-curved wing tips. Calligraphy painting a poem of grace across the sky.
I watch him float light as a feather in the roaring wind. What is this feeling that soars with him through the empty spaces of my heart? I watch and watch as he glides the wind stream, then — huge wings arcing into a hollow curve — flaps twice and is gone. I’m left staggered on earth, clutching a tree for support.
JULY 9, 2001
LATE NIGHT: Clear blue and sunny all day with a light breeze from the south. I went to lizard at the point. It’s been a long while since I’ve had the chance to sit in direct sunlight, and I’ve missed it. I decided to go fishing, should the motors still be working. The 15 hp started rough, but smoothed out when it warmed up. The 4 hp wouldn’t start at all. Grrrrr. I took off the cover, and the poorly designed choke linkage wasn’t engaged. Once choked, it started fine.
I get angry dealing with the outboards. I don’t know much about mechanics, am usually uncertain what the problem might be, and doubt my ability to fix it. Then, after I do everything I think I should do and it still doesn’t run, I get furious and curse at the motor instead of calmly looking for the problem. My anxiety about the motors failing far from camp is probably out of proportion to the actual risk. Unless everything really screwed up at the same time, I don’t think my survival would be threatened.
Tonight I caught myself thinking that I just can’t stand any more demands on me. I felt totally exhausted from trying to fulfill expectations. Yet I’m alone here, and the demands are internal self-criticisms.
JULY 10, 2001
LATE NIGHT: Another cold beautiful day, but I didn’t get to enjoy the sun much. Instead, I sat fishing in the shadow cast by the rock walls at Staines. I had to work for them but caught enough for four days. The motor cut out once, but otherwise ran fine. Hauling the boat up the beach is still hard on my shoulders.
I’ve started to read Care of the Soul by Thomas Moore and like it a lot. Moore was a Catholic monk for years before quitting to become a therapist. His approach is more spiritual than psychological: accept the mystery of life and explore and honor yourself just as you are. Very different from Flow, which — in its claim that flow is the best we can hope for — is seriously misleading.
Care of the Soul is catalyzing the sort of spacious self-acceptance I experienced twenty-five years ago on my first wilderness retreat. Moore clearly differentiates between cure and care. The goal of cure is to fix the self and be done with the problem. Care is a lifelong work. It’s not about changing the self into an idealized socially normal person without hang-ups or problems, but about becoming more complex. The intent is not to get rid of or change anything, but to integrate all aspects of character — including the shadowy and painful. In this integration, all parts become acceptable and make sense: then there is harmony. One of the joys and challenges of solitude is having the space to explore more and more of myself.
NO ENTRIES FOR JULY 11–12, 2001
JULY 13, 2001
LATE NIGHT: It snowed three inches overnight and this morning. Just enough to turn the world silent and white. Exquisite. Yesterday was clear with wind and waves coming straight onto the beach. I took the chair, warm clothes, thermos of coffee, and book, and paddled to the island just across the basin. I spent several hours on a flat, nonslippery rock that faces north, gets full sun, and is protected from the south wind. The water was rough in the basin, so I wore the life vest and was surprised at how safe I felt. Usually, I’m very aware that if I should go into the water with all my clothes and rain gear on, it would be very difficult to climb back into the kayak or swim to shore.
Last night I drifted into a sense of deep belonging and the awareness that I am the World. It’s so easy to get lost in thinking about the experience, but when there is a moment of identity there’s no mistaking it. More and more, I doubt whether there is any way to make such experience easily available to others. It just seems like a long, long journey, without set rules or regulations, into an unknown land. I can’t imagine many people would want to follow such a pathless way. I’ve been at it for many years, and still have only rare moments of integration. Most of the time, I still experience the natural world as a mere backdrop to my individual activity.
I’m back where I was a month ago with the pain in my shoulders; using all my usual resources to try and ease the ache. Instead of firing up the chain saw to cut wood for the sweat today, I used the swede saw. The morning was too peaceful to disturb, and considering it’s Friday the 13th, maybe it was a good thing. But I’ve apparently reinjured my shoulders.
A trip to the glacier has started to loom, bringing fear with it. Do I have to go? How will I feel if I don’t go? Will the motor quit or the wind get ugly? Will I find places to camp along the way? Actually going or not going isn’t the most important thing. Just watching my inner turmoil around the possibility is interesting and useful. I seem quite concerned about failure to face my fear.
I’m getting along better with Cat for the moment; trying to let him be who he is and not control him so much. If he wants to chase birds, so be it. I’m slowly waking up to the fact that he ’s part of the universe with his own existence, and I can learn a lot by listening to and watching him. An important step in learning to love him, the ducks, the trees and myself is to slow down and feel the world, rather than being so impatient to accomplish things.
I suspect the underlying dynamic for narcissism, perfectionism, and low self-esteem is the same. Different concepts to describe self-focus, isolation, and judgment. My intention with all this self-examination is to escape the narcissistic cycle and experience the world as vibrant and immediate. Jeez, what a twisted circular trap: focus on self because my experience is so self-focused. But in Care of the Soul, Moore claims I can love myself as a simple manifestation of the universe without being narcissistic. Such self-acceptance brings me back into direct contact with the universe as it manifests itself in me.
JULY 14, 2001
LATE NIGHT: 36°F. Two more inches of snow, clouds and wind from the northwest. I checked the email from Patti and sent her a reply. I’m still deciding on the supplies I’ll ask German to bring.
I’m beginning to remember dreams for the first time since I arrived. Many are disturbing and I wonder what to do with them. For the moment I’m just letting them be without seriously trying to figure them out. I’m also starting to have sexual fantasies. I guess there ’s a bunch of stuff I’ve been keeping a lid on that’s now coming up.
I saw a knockdown drag-out fight between the two pairs of nonflying butter-belly ducks today. They’re very territorial, but until now their interactions have been vocalizations and ritualized posturing along the boundary line between their territories. Today the pair that lives around the island across the basin hammered one of the ones that live around this island. The lone one finally dove and disappeared. The other two patrolled a while and then swam off. A while later I saw a shape I didn’t recognize. I put the glasses on it and it turned out to be the lone duck swimming very low in the water, head just above the surface, as though hiding. Earlier in the day the local pair came to drink the freshwater that seeps down the beach into the cove. Watching them, I realized I’m made from the same stuff and by the same processes they are. It brought tears to my eyes.
One reason meditation is so nice is that it’s a simple spiritual practice: just pay attention. It does seem very impersonal at times, but perhaps there really is no need to deal with individual neurosis. Just leave it behind and move on.
JULY 15, 2001
NIGHT: Today I saw dolphins and an otter, and heard sea lions for the first time in weeks. I’d been thinking that maybe these critters had gone for the winter, but perhaps it is I who haven’t been noticing.
Today is the third Sunday of the month and I sweat in the snow so I could join the circle at UBC. Halfway through the first round, I remembered that it’s summer in Vancouver and they haven’t been sweating since May. I had to laugh. Here I am, waking up early and dragging my sorry butt through the snow to honor my commitment to be with them when they sweat, and they’re all lounging in bed. But some will be preparing for Sun Dance, and I can support them from here. What courage, especially those who tie themselves to the pole by piercing their chests and then tear their flesh to break free. I can barely imagine it. Even the thought of dancing for days without food or water frightens me.
Since February I’ve sent three spates of email: to request technical support for the electrical setup, for medical advice, and now for outboard parts and other supplies. In all three cases I think I’ve been seeking personal security by making things physically safe and controllable. If so, I’ve been confusing physical vulnerability with the need for spiritual surrender. I’m frightened of the powerful mysterious Presence I sense, even though I believe it’s loving. The fear comes not from it, but from my ego freaking out over loss of control. Once the shift happens and I experience myself as part of something greater, there is wonder and peace, but beforehand it feels like impending death.
I complain about fear, but if it’s true that we fear the unknown as a generic condition, then the path out of small self and into Life/Spirit must lead through fear. My feelings of anxiety seem to depend on how rigidly I build protective walls: the more open I am, the less threatening the Other seems.
I talk about the need to surrender, but the experience of feeling weak, vulnerable, and dependent brings up feelings of shame. The shame comes partly from our strong cultural ideal of autonomy and self-reliance, and partly from my own deep rebellion and pride. I don’t want to be naked and ask for acceptance just as I am. Ah, but it’s cold and lonely inside these walls.
NO ENTRIES FOR JULY 16–17, 2001
JULY 18, 2001
NIGHT: The temperature has been near freezing, and more snow has fallen. But last night was clear and I saw two shooting stars. Today I went to read in the sun and then worked on the 15 hp outboard, which is not running again. I worked for only a couple of hours, but I’m wiped out. In general, I’m doing much less daily work now than I did during the first six weeks here. I can force myself, but I don’t have the energy to comfortably do much at all. Haven’t felt like writing either.
These have been rough days psychospiritually. It’s becoming clearer to me that I came here to transform my consciousness from this I/Bob Kull–centered experience to living in a collective decentered place where I’m part of the flow of the world. It’s painful to feel I’m failing. When I leave here, I shouldn’t say much to anyone about this year. Whatever I say will be a sort of lie since I’m only talking about the transformation, rather than actually living it.
This transformation has been my deepest goal for the past twenty-five years — since my first wilderness retreat, or even since I stopped doing LSD when I was twenty. I’ve given up so much for it: security, career, family. It’s painful to feel that in some sense I’ve wasted my life. Of course, from another perspective, I’ve lived as I have because I’ve wanted adventure and not responsibility.
What makes it so hard is that after all these years and all this experience I still don’t know how to break free of this small tight mind. It’s ironic. The more I try, the less likely it is to happen — because it’s the I/ego that’s trying to break free, and that very trying actually reinforces the tightness. Yet the pain of being caught in the small I is what drives the urge to freedom. Once I slip out of the closed loop, I no longer feel the shame of failure; I’m content to just be. Of course from that open space, I haven’t failed and I do have something to share.
At the point today, almost unnoticed, I drifted free. The same thing often seems to happen: I become exhausted, give up struggling, and relax. There must be an easier more sensible way to shift into that open space without so much trauma.
In terms of a method for bringing about this transformation, I’m as bewildered as I was twenty-five years ago. I read Ken Wilber and he makes the process of spiritual development seem straightforward. But in my journey, it seems like there are no clear signposts or procedures to move me in the direction I want to go. Everything I try keeps me stuck, and release comes only when I finally give it up. But when I try to consciously yield, that doesn’t seem to work either, because there’s always a small flicker of “looking over my own shoulder” to see if the capitulation is working. There’s a sense of “doing it so that . . .” that is not true surrender, but negotiation.
When I’m more open, I realize that the success/failure dichotomy is a confusion of small mind. There is no absolute success or failure, just process and journeying. I won’t leave here with any definite answers, but I will have something to share with others — even if only a warning against any set procedure that promises success!
Last night I sensed that the biological world that we lose by building a conceptual reality to buffer ourselves against uncertainty, suffering, and death is profound and meaningful. We’ve become trapped in our conceptualizations and cut off from the living world. Instead of trying to control Cat so much, I would do well to allow him to invite me into his world. I’ve been there before, and it can be frightening; but reentering that world is part of why I’m here.
This morning Cat jumped onto the food shelf where I insist he not go. I freaked and whacked him on the butt. He turned to stare at me and I smacked him on the side of the head. What instant anger when he thwarts my will! After a while I called and he reluctantly came and we sat together. He seems so forgiving, but who knows what damage I’m doing to our relationship? I would be ashamed for anyone to see me hit him that way.
I’ve noticed something recently. When I tell him to get down from my lap, I expect immediate action. When I don’t get it, I assume he ’s willfully ignoring me. But if I get his attention first, then tell him to get down and wait a second or two, he usually does. It’s as though it takes some time to process the information. I’m not sure if this is just the way cats are, or if his seizures have fried some circuits in his brain.
Enough. For not feeling like writing, I sure wrote a lot.
NO ENTRY FOR JULY 19, 2001
JULY 20, 2001
LATE NIGHT: Last night I got out the alarm clock and set it for 8 AM to be ready to go for firewood on the noon high tide. I’ve gotten so slow. I blink and an hour is gone. The outboard was cranky to start and ran badly until I fiddled with the low-speed fuel adjustment. After that it worked ok until I opened it up to full throttle on the way home; then it started to misfire. Amazingly, the repair manual describes exactly this symptom. It’s probably the ignition module, which I can’t do anything about until German brings the socket to remove the flywheel. It’s nerve-racking to always wonder when I leave camp if the motor will crap out and leave me stranded somewhere.
I tried to be careful when hauling the boat up, but my shoulders are sore again. I should probably forget about wood for a long while, but can’t afford to. I don’t yet have a full supply, and once the constant winds return it will be much harder to bring in more rounds.
I saw two sea lions hauled out on the Staines rocks. They were big. Very, very big. Maybe that’s why fishing has gone downhill. How many pounds of fish do they consume each day? I can understand why fishermen shoot them. Serious competition. Yesterday the redheaded woodpecker came by and landed on the wind generator’s steel pipe tower. That threw him for a loop. I wondered if he would hammer it the way some Mexican woodpeckers hammer on metal billboards, but he just checked it out and flew away.
I’m reading At Home in the Universe, and it’s a pleasant change from all the personal work. Stuart Kauffman seems to think he’s made the profound discovery that life is at home in the universe. Well, of course we are; we ’re here. And if we’re here, it’s because, one way or another, the universe brought us forth and has sustained us.
He postulates that life arose spontaneously when enough different kinds of molecules gathered to build self-organizing, self-sustaining networks. This equates life with organisms. But if the whole universe is alive, he’s missing the point. His notion seems analogous to the idea that given enough neurons in a network, consciousness arises spontaneously. This is still pure materialism and doesn’t consider the possibility that consciousness is as fundamental to existence as matter.
The truly profound mystery is what any of this — including ourselves — is doing here. Why does the universe exist at all and why is it self-organizing? I think self-organization is a metaphysical rather than a scientific question. If you reject the idea of dualism and an external God, then the universe must be self-organizing. It’s here and continues to exist. If you accept the notion of an external God, then God must be self-organizing.
I’ve also been reading Krishnamurti again. He ’s so extreme and absolute in his view. Everything is utterly this or utterly that. He talks about comparing what actually is to the myth of what we think should be, and says that this comparison is the source of most of our discontent, conflict, and confusion. The myth is pure illusion and has no reality at all. Wow. Social reformers like Paolo Freire would definitely disagree. They see the “should be” as most important, and the “what is” as grist for the mill of transformation.
Personal myth is a real risk. We tell stories about the past and forget that these stories are our own creations, built on selected aspects of experience. The stories describe a self-identity we come to believe in: “I did this or I thought that.” Once we believe the myth we ’ve created to be literally true, we become — in our own mind — the character in the myth. Then the real problems begin. We must now live up to our expectations for this character based on what he or she has done in the past — what we have created him or her to have done. When who we actually are does not behave the way we’ve created the hero of our myth to behave, we feel like a failure.
I have expectations of what my current experience should be based on my first long wilderness retreat. But my memory of that retreat has been strongly colored by a story I later wrote about it. When writing the story I condensed and idealized the messy actuality into a more dramatic narrative. By now, I’ve come to take that idealization almost literally. This brings me grief since my current experience does not and cannot match that imaginary history. My task now is to be starkly honest and not mythologize this retreat.
JULY 21, 2001
LATE NIGHT: I notice different experiences when I step out of my small mind. Usually there is a sense of no-self, and I experience an open empty space within which there are sounds, feelings, and physical sensations (including this body). Things are simply happening. There is love for the world and for myself. Big mind. Peaceful and beautiful.
More rarely there is the sense of myself as other — as though seen from beyond — just a man in the world who belongs here as one being among many; all of us real and alive together. This experience is tenderly exquisite and what I long for.
NO ENTRY FOR JULY 22, 2001
JULY 23, 2001
NIGHT: 29°F. Two more glorious days. Since tomorrow is my birthday, I’ll accept them as birthday gifts. Why not? I often take the wind as a personal affront, might as well claim the good days, too. Yesterday when I went for wood the chain saw misbehaved and finally quit completely. I finished cutting by hand with the swede saw. I’m glad to have more of the redwood German told me about when he was here. It burns hot and steady.
Back at camp Cat came running to meet me as usual. I don’t know if all cats are as affectionate as this one, but he acts more like a dog than how I expect a cat to behave. Although I’ve named him Cat since he’s the only one here, I usually call him Pup or Bud and think of him as the pup. He jumped onto the boat and I gave him some love before starting to unload. Then he went to check out the kayak that was tied alongside. He’s not supposed to get onto the kayak since his claws could seriously damage the lightweight material of the inflation tubes. When I looked up he had his back paws still on the boat and his front ones on the kayak. I yelled, “No!” and he paused. Then the kayak drifted further from the boat and Cat was left hanging in midair . . . for just a moment before gravity helped him find his way down to the water. It was a classic spread eagle and funny, but I thought he might freeze and ran to scoop him out. No need. He instantly hoisted himself up and lit out for the cabin.
Poor Cat. He has thick fur and usually appears quite large, but soaking wet he was pretty scrawny. I zipped up after him to make sure he didn’t go into his box and wet his bedding. I dried him off with my towel, which he didn’t like much, but he acquiesced pretty calmly.
The rain barrel is so low that this morning I emptied three of the smaller food barrels and went to Staines to look for a stream. I followed the shore, stopping now and then to fish and listen for the sound of running water. It was so calm I didn’t even need to anchor, but just drifted slowly along in the warm sun. A sea lion came by and hung around, swimming sleek and graceful in the clear water under the boat. Once she showed up, the fish quit biting, but I’d already caught six.
I finally found a small creek with an easy landing spot nearby. After I filled and loaded the barrels, I scootched upstream through some brush to where I heard water falling, and discovered a lovely grotto beneath the trees. Circling a rock that jutted up from the small pool, a collar of perfectly round half-inch spheres of ice had formed from the spray. They sparkled like a jewel necklace in the dim light. What a lovely gift.
Tomorrow I’ll be 55. What does that mean? Headed toward 60, which sounds pretty scary. I look at my life and wonder what it’s about. It seems to me that I am and have been living as if I have some goal in mind — but I don’t know what it is. Perhaps it’s an epigenetic journey whose destination I cannot know until I arrive. I wonder what I’ll do when I leave here. I may keep wandering as I’ve done for so many years, but I’ll need to make a living somehow. My physical adventures may be less extreme — or maybe not. Happy birthday to me!
JULY 24, 2001
LATE NIGHT: This has been one of the nicest birthdays I can remember. I woke to the trees and bushes covered with fresh sticky white. But the temperature has been above freezing, and all day I could hear the drip of melting snow. I’ve been doing just what I wanted: eating bread with honey, drinking coffee and some Scotch. I lit a fire in the early afternoon and have been inside and warm since then. Yum. Started to read The Family Moskat again — slowly — and it should last for many Sundays. I’ll have fish for dinner and a bath after that.
This morning I sat on the porch and opened my gifts from Patti. She’s such a sweetheart! Colored pencils and a small sketchbook. I drew a very rough sketch of the view from my porch. Too bad the pencil set doesn’t have grey or silver — the most important colors here. She also gave me a yo-yo. What an apropos present. In Spanish, “Yo, Yo” means “I, I.” If you focus excessively on the self, you will likely spend a lot of time going up and down. . . .
Patti enclosed a note saying she hopes I’m finding my song here. As I read the note I started to cry and softly said, I hope so, too. It’s been a long time that I haven’t known my song. Painful to wander lost.
Nature also gave me a gift. I think it wonderful but I’m not sure everyone would agree. A hawk — perhaps a falcon — was perched in the dead tree on the far side of my cove. Suddenly, it lifted off, swooped over the sea, and just above the surface intercepted a small bird flying from the other direction; fwoop, snagged it midair in its talons and continued on its way. Fast, efficient, and very beautiful.
A while ago I cast an I Ching. I’ve intended to for some time, but haven’t been sure what question to ask. In concrete situations the counsel I receive usually seems ambiguous, but for spiritual questions, my mind is often blown by the insight I find in the answers. Sometimes the hexagrams I cast seem mysteriously miraculous. Tonight was one of those times. Patti’s birthday note catalyzed my question. I asked, “How can I find and live my heart song — deep meaning and fulfillment, peace, love, beauty, and aliveness — here on retreat and for the rest of my life?”
I cast the hexagram Holding Together. It’s about community rather than individuality; waters flowing together in the sea. It’s about being a leader, or, without that capacity, becoming a follower. It instructs the questioner to ask the Oracle whether or not he or she has the qualities needed to be a leader. I was tired by then, had lost concentration, and thought I would wait until tomorrow to ask whether I have those qualities. But something urged me to continue. This time I used coins instead of yarrow stalks because that method is quicker and less demanding.
I cast the same hexagram again, which, simply by chance, is extremely unlikely. The two results differed slightly because the second, instead of remaining stable, transformed from Holding Together to The Receptive, which is one of the two primary hexagrams: Creative/yang/male; Receptive/yin/female.
This hexagram is exactly to the point, since I’m struggling to shift from aggressive activity to acceptance and quietude. The commentary on the trans-formative line in Holding Together addresses the need for a leader to resist wooing or intimidation and to allow people to freely follow or to go their own way. If, someday, I do become a leader of some sort, I must stay true to myself and if others gather around, ok; if not, ok too.
One of the dangers with the I Ching is that it speaks in mythic terms, and I can easily start thinking of myself in those terms, too. Inflated ego. I can’t deny that I have a strong character, but I also have self-doubt, fear, and a need for freedom. Perhaps I should swallow my pride and become a follower. The hexagram clearly states that going my own way as an independent is not a skillful path.
It’s compelling to cast the same hexagram a second time. I have difficulty accepting that there is, or at least might be, a Something greater than me speaking through the hexagrams. Even with all that has happened here, I still tend to attribute such notions to projection. The I Ching is evidence — not proof — that there is something real beyond my own small self, and this is a good thing.
JULY 25, 2001
NIGHT: Washed clothes today. I don’t much like doing it, but it feels good to have clean stuff to put on. I’ve switched to using homemade soap instead of detergent. Better for the environment and for my body, too. This way it doesn’t matter if I’ve rinsed it all out.
JULY 26, 2001
NIGHT: 43°F. Calm and cloudy. The natives are restless tonight: dolphins splashing in the basin, and the bull sea lion bellowing across the channel. During morning meditation I heard the dolphins blowing and looked out to see them close by. One made a rare groaning noise, and I swear another blew bubbles. The snow is melting. I’ve enjoyed it, but I’m ready for it to be gone — until it snows again, if it does. So far, winter has been much nicer than the wind and bugs of summer.
I tried to start the chain saw today. Gas poured out the muffler. This, I presume, is not a good sign. I’m thankful it waited until I have most of the firewood I’ll need. I also split wood this afternoon and that’s all I did today, except my normal routine: meditate, exercise, sweep up, prepare food, and eat.
NO ENTRIES FOR JULY 27–28, 2001
JULY 29, 2001
NIGHT: Every day it’s getting harder to write; I just don’t feel the urge. Today was Sunday, an empty day. I look forward to Sundays when I can read a novel and don’t feel I must accomplish anything — not even meditate. But Sundays are probably the hardest day for me. Without structure or purpose, depression, doubt, and emptiness come rolling in. I feel like I’ve been wasting my life pursuing something, and I don’t even know what it is. But I sense I will know when I find it. It’s like fishing in rough water. There are lots of random tugs that might be bites, but when there actually is a bite, there ’s no mistaking it.
One premise in coming here was that our culture’s pursuit of material possessions is not only destroying the environment but is also fundamentally futile. Material things cannot give us the satisfaction we seek, so we need to run ever faster, consume more and more, to stay ahead of the meaninglessness of our lives. I’ve claimed that when we shift out of the conceptual domain that we create and into the actual flow of Life, that experience — just in itself — is deeply meaningful and fulfilling. Yet in actuality, I seldom feel that way.
When physical and emotional pain rolls through, it feels somehow wrong. Buddhism teaches that suffering is inherent to living, but why should it be so? Even if, as the Buddha claimed, there is a way out, why should the journey be so difficult? The injustice enrages me; or rather, my own suffering does. I can be philosophical about someone else ’s suffering, but not my own. Self-centeredness is a dark aspect of my character, and I’m also seeing sadistic tendencies.
I don’t think pain, loneliness, or emptiness, in themselves, are what really trouble me. What really troubles me is that they trouble me. If life is inherently worthwhile when we live it fully, then those experiences should also be valuable and welcome rather than rejected as unsatisfactory.
I’ve usually taken Krishnamurti’s statement “Truth is a Pathless Land” to mean that conceptual theory cannot take us into the truth of our experience: each of us must find his or her own way home. But I’m slowly remembering that truth is not somewhere else that we must follow a path to reach. It is always right here in this moment, even though we’re often blind to it. We don’t have to go find truth; only open our ears, eyes, mind, and heart to what already surrounds and fills us.
Today it was 46°F, the warmest it’s been in two months. A heat wave. The blackflies are out, the snow almost gone, and soon the winds will start again. I wonder if I’ll go to the glacier before they become too strong, or if I’ll go and get caught in a storm, or if I’ll not go.
I built a fire and took a nap in the afternoon. I awoke feeling joyful. From a straitjacket of perfectionist self-judgment, I’d eased into the space of letting myself and everything else be just what we are. Often on Sundays I feel empty and lost most of the day, and then my experience opens into peace and harmony during the evening. I’m learning not to cling, but to let things be and then to pass away.
JULY 30, 2001
NIGHT: While eating breakfast, I heard a ruckus and looked out to see two male butter-belly ducks hammering each other. It looked like an aquatic cockfight. Flapping furiously, they rose to attack, first one on top and then the other. The females mostly just watched, but every now and then one would give her partner a rest and harass the other male, too. They never ganged up at the same time, though.
Until recently, the aggression and territorial defense has been symbolic. Maybe they’re adjusting their boundaries. I’d like to be able to differentiate between the males and females, but I can’t unless they’re standing on shore together or two males are fighting. Neither partner seems to lead in swimming, landing, or diving. I think the one watching the fight made the honking sound I’ve associated with what I thought was the male.
Over at Staines today, fishing was excellent. I also cut rounds from a grove of redwood trees I found growing right on the beach. The outboard still misses if I crank it to full throttle. The left rear pontoon on the boat is losing air, but I don’t want to patch it until the weather warms up. As I was adding air to it this morning, the foot pump broke. Then the other pump broke, too. Now I have two broken pumps to fix before I can use the boat again.
After I unloaded the wood, I decided to take Cat for a ride to see if he would be ok in the boat. He immediately climbed up onto the pontoon, and I immediately dragged him back down. It took a few times, but eventually he sat calmly on a life vest. If he ’s on the pontoon when I turn or the boat rocks, he might fall into the water. I can’t say he really liked the trip, but he didn’t freak out either. If I do go to the glacier I may take him with me. He ’d probably rather be in the boat than here alone.
Last night I was considering the aphorism “Life is a Mystery to be lived, not a problem to be solved.” Do I really believe that? Do I want to surrender and let Life live me? To be mysterious and free? If so, the problem to be solved is how to shift from seeing my own life as a problem to experiencing it as a mystery. But trying to solve the problem of learning to surrender at will is another trap! The whole process of surrender is a mystery to be lived.
JULY 31, 2001
NIGHT: Winter is more than half over, and my time here is half over, too. There are days when I think I might as well leave now, and other days when I doubt I’ll be ready to leave after the year. What a lot of energy I wasted fearing winter. So far it’s been much nicer than summer. More sun, less wind and rain; only about 15 or 20 degrees colder.
A piece of the butter-belly puzzle fell in place today. A pair swam into the basin, and something in their upright posture was different from what I’d seen before. They glided casually along, looking around as though trying to appear like they belonged there. If they could have whistled, they would have. Since all these ducks look the same to me, I didn’t realize this wasn’t the local pair until I heard the locals sound a warning and saw them stalking the intruders. They, too, were swimming like I hadn’t seen before. Low in the water — crocodile eyes just showing — as though sneaking up. They dove and I could see them swimming just beneath the surface. Up for air and down again, then back up to attack. But the intruders spotted them coming and took off. The locals chased them far out into the channel.
This all seemed pretty strange since the borderline interactions between the ducks are usually visible and loud. Both pairs flap, call, and charge, but break off while still about twenty meters apart — each pair in its own territory. Then I heard another warning call and saw the pair that holds the territory across the basin charge the pair that had just been chased by my local guys. Huh? Three pairs? Ahhh, there is a new pair looking for a territory.
The territories of the two resident pairs are established, and their confrontations are largely symbolic to maintain the status quo. But this new pair is being dealt with harshly to prevent them getting a foothold. That explains the major fight yesterday and the sneak attack today. I wonder where the intruders came from. In my boat wanderings I don’t recall seeing many of these ducks. Is the whole area already covered with established territories, or is this area of shallow kelp beds prime real estate? These ducks are fascinating. I hope they mate and brood close by.
I’m more and more taken by light on water: soft shifting greys, whites, and pale greens. This afternoon, reflections from the sunset sky and shadowed rock were exquisite. I watched as ripples from two directions created a crosshatch pattern that was broad and heavy close by, and became smaller and finer further away. The distance/texture relationship was beautiful. Like seeing boulders in a field diminish in size in the distance.
Tonight I decided to sit out on the rock at dusk, instead of later as I’ve been doing. I’m too drowsy later on. For a while, as dark set in and the moon lit sea and mountains, it all opened out into nameless color, shape, and movement. Softly, everything came alive. Yes, this is it. All of Existence together is alive. Experientially, a tree, a rock, a bird, is not alive because those things are conceptually created fragments, and concepts are not alive. The process of creating concepts is a living process, but the concepts themselves are neither alive nor dead. Only the whole pulsating cosmos is alive.