Hi,
I wish you all a Solstice and Holy Days season filled with peace and joy and wonder, shared with family and friends.

As for me, I am well. This is the most peaceful, if not the most painless, Christmas I have spent in a long time; I will share it with the sky and sea, the mountains, the trees and the wind.

Long ago I put away my watch. At the beginning of November I put away the barometer, thermometer and tide tables, and took down the wind generator. For the most part I have stopped reading and writing - laptop and books hidden away (except for the “I Ching: Book of Changes,” “Chuang Tzu,” and “Seeking the Heart of Wisdom: the path of Insight Meditation”), and over and over when I catch myself at it, I let go of useless repetitive thinking, fruitless planning, and idle speculation. Coming back to my own direct experience of the here and now: to my body and heart and sometimes spacious mind. To the question, “Who am I?”

Also at the beginning of November I gave up coffee, all kinds of chocolate, and sugar, and stopped making fry bread. I found I was escaping too much into food. I eat rice and beans, oatmeal, soup made with bouillon cubes and noodles, lentil sprouts, fish occasionally, and fried potatoes with bacon once a week on Sunday. A small piece of cheese, and a handful of dried fruit along with honey in my evening tea, powdered milk on the oatmeal, and half tablespoon of peanut butter complete my daily diet. However, I do intend to indulge again during these next few days.

All the physical work is done until it is time to take down the shelter in February. More than enough firewood for the stove and sweat lodge cut, brought in by boat, and stacked. I have avoided firing up the chainsaw or using the boat with outboard for the past three months (which I imagine disappoints the dolphins). Since early October there have only been 4 or 5 days calm enough to fish from the kayak so mostly I am land-bound on this small patch of earth. I can wander perhaps 150 meters along the rocky coast, but the rain forest behind me is very very dense.

When I do go fishing, I feel more and more deeply that I am taking a life in killing the fish. My emotions are ambiguous: I feel a deep connection, gratitude and appreciation for the gift of sustenance from the sea and also sorrow (and perhaps guilt and shame) in taking the life of one of my fellow creatures. Yet out here alone (except of course for the whole world around and within me), I see death daily and know that all beings survive by ending the life of others. There is underlying harmony and oneness in our common existence, we are all alive together here, yet there is also surface conflict; competition for food and space.

Daily (for the past 2 months) at low tide I go down near the windy point to measure and record the movement across the rocks of 50 limpets, whose shells I have numbered with nail polish; watching their silent dance through time. Some do a very slow waltz - a sort of staying in one place and shuffling their foot in time with the rhythmic rise and fall of the sea. Others boogie right along. And then I go out onto the exposed point to sit or stand and get hammered by the roaring wind - slowly being shaped, perhaps, in ways I cannot tell.

My neighbors the Orange Bill, Butter Belly, Diving Ducks brooded and hatched 7 chicks. Mom let me get to within 3 meters to see them and take some photos. Three days after they emerged, there was a serious territorial confrontation between this pair the pair across the way who had 9 chicks. In the rage of the moment, this female left her chicks unprotected to join the fray. Eagle, watching for just such an opportunity and with chicks of her own to feed, swooped down and took 5 of the 7. Two days later the last two had disappeared. Mom was distraught, searching everywhere for them. She even went up to the nest site to look. I thought this female and male were just not very good parents, but the far pair lost all of their chicks too, as did a pair that lives over along Staines Peninsula. Stern stuff indeed. The Black and White Flying Ducks, on the other hand, hatched 6 chicks and 5 of them are still alive and growing rapidly. Both the male and the female are very very attentive and protective and never let the chicks get more than 3 meters away from them. The cat I brought with me has done his part to add to the mayhem and has nailed at least one of the small land birds that feed nearby.

I spend much of my time now meditating: sitting quietly (at least physically) listening to the rain on the porch roof and the sound of the waves against the rocks; watching the tide and my breath flow in and out. This morning I completed 4 days of fasting and intensive meditation; sitting out in rain and wind for long hours encased from head to toe in plastic and rubber. Watching how desire, aversion, judgment, rebellion and restlessness affect my mind. Watching how desire slips into demand, and dislike into anger and rejection. Watching how my need for myself and the world around me to match some vague ideal I have of perfection tightens my mind and body and heart and pulls me out of fully experiencing the present moment just as it is and not as I want it to be.

The process is often difficult. There is darkness and anger and grief. There is pain. Daily I ask the Spirit to help me learn a bit of patience, compassion, humility and trust; none of which come easy to me. But there are also times of radiant joy when my heart and mind and body are filled with the light of peace and love and beauty. Times when wonder fills the world around me. Times when I want to never leave here.

Love to you all. Bob

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