The Ocean

As James Cameron has just touched the bottom of our deepest sea, we humans have killed another mystery in a world that was once full of mystery.  We, humans, seem to look so hard at the physical nature of our world, dividing and classifying everything we can observe, including ourselves.

It seems to me that with all of our "great" ability to explore, produce, extract and organize, we still have done little to improve our situation with greater happiness, compassion, or peace.  It has been said that all of our technology, industry, medical advances, entertainments, can be likened to giving salt water to a thirsty person, the appearance seems desirable but the effect is to make us more thirsty, and sick.

Because we know how far, how fast, or for how long, it does change the fact that we all thirst, hunger, love, hate, rejoice and suffer, live and die.

For each bit of "advancement", there is a price such that we have not seen much gain but rather a lot of frenzy and chaos.

Exploration, on a truly human scale, could do us some good, but we have mostly looked right past that.  

I stand on my own two feet, 

and move with the energy that is truly mine, 

I need no thing not offered, no thing that was not already here,

 and explore my own reasonable path,

 all that I need to discover is within my reach.

We have reached the tallest peak and the path is a littered highway, the peak a mound of meaningless markers and flags.

We have soared higher than the greatest birds and now our planet is surrounded by dead satellites, flotsam and jetsam.

As we now touch the deepest ocean floor, I wonder at what form of desecration will we put upon it.

I have explored the ocean, the deep and the shallow, the calm and the stormy.  I have got there by my own means, within the limitations of my human condition, by the energy that was offered.  My navigation was made by looking what at was around me, the face of the sky, the birds that flew by, the mood of the water, and by listening to the stories of those who went before me and who now have a quality of spirit like polished glass found by the sea.  I don't think that we will find anything at the bottom of the Mariana Trench that will be as useful to us as what we could get from just standing at the edge of the ocean and watching the waves roll in.

As waves upon the great ocean

we run our course

sometimes gentle, sometimes crashing

always mixing, reflecting, amplifying, canceling

but only for a time.
all end as they began 

Never alone, or separate, or individual

we are simply an observed series of moments and places of the great ocean

The surface of the great ocean has infinite numbers of waves

there are no limits to how many or for how long, and each has it's

own unique path

as some die others are born, it is impossible to count them

There is no need of fear, no ego, no individual need or desire

no wave is a thing unto itself, but just a quality of the great ocean

The end of a wave is not the end of the water that formed it

or the energy that shaped it

these things never belonged to the wave and were always a 

part of the great sea.

The Hat

Death is a hat I wear each day

When the brightness of the sun threatens to cook my brain,

I am relieved by the knowledge that this life

will have it's end

When the rain runs down into my eyes and blurs my vision

I put on my hat and can see a bit better, further

I take it off when crossing the threshold of the church

Those inside seek escape from death, but I keep my hat in my hand,

and I notice that the miter stays in place

While taking a rest at the stream side, under the shade of the tree

I take it from my head and cool my thoughts, sinking deeply into

the bliss of this life, body, heartbeat, tired muscle, gratitude

Eventually I will resume my journey, and restore it to my head

holding it in place when the freshening breeze grabs at it,

the brim keeps me from looking to high up, away from the path I walk,

without me adjusting my whole attitude upward

It is mine, and fits me

I have come to know it as

it has come to know the shape of my head

It is not good or bad, it is just a useful thing,

a necessary thing to carry with me

each day

each night I can leave it on it's hook

and know that in the morning, if morning should come

I can find it easily

and go out into the day

and continue on my Path

Where am I, or how'd I get here

From where do I begin?  

     I am here.  

Where is here?

     This is a journey of it's own that is in no way a simple or short/static answer.  

But, for a beginning this is what I know:  

     In this almost 49 year old body, in this chair, in a wooded part of the world I know to be east, the direction the sun rises, and a bit north, the direction the sun goes away from in the winter, by about 2500 miles of where it was I first knew to be.  

     All else, like this being earth, in a solar system......is convention, assumption, and not so relative.

     What is the difference between my knowledge of where I am now, and my knowledge of where I was when I was in France, or Japan, or any other place that I was flown to or driven to and did not mark the passing of each moment of the journey?

     The first time I came to the Northeast of the United States I flew her on a commercial airline.  I didn't keep track of the flight in it's entirety.  I just took it for granted that I was being taken to where I was going.

Now that I have actually driven the distance from where I first began, to where I am now, and marked every bit of the way, finding it myself, I think I have a better idea of where I am.

     It is important for me to know, just what it is I know of where I am, and to differentiate between this and what I assume or accept as convention.

     I could say that I am on planet earth and that earth is at a certain place in the solar system, galaxy, universe.....

All of that would be convention, what I have chosen to accept as true, and not of my own personal knowledge.  This doesn't mean it isn't so, it just means that I haven't experienced it, really.

There was a time not so long ago when so much of what we knew, was what we experienced.  It was knowledge that was earned by living it.  Now, so much of what we think we know is what we choose to accept as knowledge.  Do you really, really know where these words on the screen are coming from? Going?  Where do they exist?  Can you actually pinpoint them.  (don't actually try this or you might ruin your monitor screen)

In my quest to understand where it is that I am, so that I can understand where my path begins, I need to look around me and asses what it is that I know.  It isn't necessary that I have science reports of climate change or news of oil spills or mountains being mined, or forests being cut down, to recognize the state of my world, the one I live in.  It is as easy as noticing, really looking, listening, smelling, feeling.

My world is crowded.  My world is noise polluted.  My world is chaotic.  It is littered.  Life around me is stifled by tarmac and concrete.  The roads are littered with the bodies of the dead, killed by vehicles who's drivers put schedule or entertainment over the value other, and sometimes their own, life.

The world around me has been changed so that I can't find the food or materials I need to survive, in the area I live. 

I can't walk from my home to visit my friend a few towns away with out having to be threatened by speeding tons of steal (cars) or with having to walk thru privately owned land, or that which is as limited to me as private, but labelled public.

All of this, and more, define where it is that I start my journey from.

More,

There is still a growing and regenerating world around me that can supply much of what I need to, not only survive, but thrive.  Water still falls from the sky and stores under ground, in lakes, and runs in rivers.  Their are still those around me who choose to nurture life, rather than exploit it.  They understand the on going nature of life, and the end of our individual lives, the co-dependancy that benefits us all and the affects we each have on one another.  That these kind of people exist, and choose to be stewards the world is energizing and comforting.

    Though the place I find myself has the scars of generations of abuse, it takes very little effort to produce healing.  

A Path is made with respect and consideration of the elements found to already exist.  It is different than a road in this respect.  Many paths can exist in a place and reveal the place to those who would walk them, never changing the nature of a place.  A road is different in this respect.  One road, forced upon a place can change the nature and integrity of place.  A road cuts through a place and allows one to look away from and disregard what is around it.

A path is something sought after with every step, every moment

Questions, quests, and more questions

In order to embark on this Path a few questions have to be asked:

From where do I begin?

Where is it I intend to go?

In what manner shall I get there?

A journey is in each of these questions.  Each gives rise to more questions.  At some point we either stop asking questions so as to get on with the beginning, or we realize that the questions themselves are the journey, each a stone to be stepped upon, a print to be made in the earth, a blade of grass to be pressed down by our step.