Whoa! Has it really been a year? Sometimes it feels like I just arrived; at other times like I’ve been living here forever. I am not anxious to leave… and happily I don’t need to yet. Patti (the person who is forwarding these reports to you) is coming in a few days to stay for 5 weeks. That will be very nice indeed. So I will not be back on the electronic grid for a while yet, but if you choose to write, I would very much like to find news of your being and doing for this past year in my mailbox when I arrive in Puerto Natales in March. If you do write, please send your email to kull@interchange.ubc.ca

N.B. This report is very long indeed and as usual it is for your possible interest and reading enjoyment only. Please feel no obligation at all to read all or any of it. On the other hand, it is not confidential, and if you do enjoy it please feel free to send it onward to others who might also wonder what it can be like to live in solitude.

This is strange. It is raining outside (well of course that in itself isn’t strange; that’s what it does here. November and December were especially damp with more than 17inches/40cm of rain each month.) but I cannot see out. I am sitting in a sort of booth I have made by hanging black plastic from the ceiling around the table where I sit and write. The walls of my cabin are translucent and it is too bright in here to see the laptop screen. I seldom use the laptop now. I do not journal as extensively as I did, and when I do write, have switched back to pen and paper. Odd, but there it is. I am writing on the PC which Aled gave me (wonderful gift). Mostly I saved it for sending emails and wrote on the Mac which Patrick gave me. But, unhappily, in a moment of complete mindlessness I fried the Mac by plugging it into the charger for the PC which uses different voltage. Bummer. I really liked that little notebook. It was just after my solstice fast/meditation retreat and, although I didn’t realize it, I was very dehydrated. All the symptoms were there - droopy skin, dry mouth, disorientation, etc. – but it took a while to recognize what was going on. I knew something was wrong and even considered for a bit calling out for assistance. Finally the light dawned. A catch 22: how to recognize your own dehydration when one of the symptoms is confusion.

Health
My health during this year, except for the buggered rotator cuff muscles in both shoulders, has been very good. I am lean and fit and for several months now have not even taken any ibuprofen Shoulders have improved a lot with the daily exercises. It has been a real pleasure to not have had a cold or the flu all year. Allergies have also been on vacation. I did have a problem with teeth a while back. I knew when I came that several teeth were iffy, but decided to just chance it. One of the upper incisors got pretty infected during the winter. I babied it along with salt water rinses for a couple months, but finally it got seriously abscessed and loose. It was linked to another tooth to form a sort of bridge, and then the other tooth broke and left me with this dangling mess in my mouth. What to do? I really didn’t want to break solitude and go to Puerto Natales to see a dentist, and I also really didn’t want to face up to yanking it out myself – not being a fan of pain at all. I started antibiotics and Patti suggested via email that I use the old tie a string between the tooth and a door and slam the door method. But, I have no heavy door here, so I tied the string to a 10lb/15kg rock instead and planned to drop the rock. But before I did, I decided to just tie the string to the leg of the table and see if I could pull up with my neck muscles and wiggle the tooth out. Oh Yes! Out it came. Very little muss, fuss or blood… except all the anticipation in my mind. Amazing the shit this mind dishes up. Now I look rather like a hockey player from the old school.

Critters
There are very few land animals here. I have seen or heard a couple of kinds of frogs and a gazillion tadpoles, plus earth worms, spiders, beetles and evidence of rodents – more on that in a bit. On warm days the black flies can be a real nuisance. But there are (have been) many kinds of birds; most of them apparently migratory. One of the wonderful things about spending a complete year here is to become aware of some of the rhythms around me. Different birds appear, stay a while and then are gone again only to reappear some time later. They ebb and flow almost like the tides.
There was a wonderful influx during mating season, but most have gone now. I even had a flock of parrots, of all things, hollering in the trees around my cabin for a few days. And for a week or so there was a really neat bird that looked like a sort of long-billed cross between a roadrunner and a chicken. It acted especially like a chicken; strolled around the front yard pecking on dishwater scrapes and even came up onto the porch to snitch food from the cat’s dish. It seemed pretty unconcerned with cat and when I caught cat stalking it I yelled at him to quit it. I considered trying to teach it to lay eggs for me, but it is gone now. I went away for 3 days and since my return I haven’t seen it. Perhaps Cat got it. The hummingbirds are back which is nice. The Black and White and White Goose/Duck pair still have their 5 chicks. Growing fast. I imagine they will start to fly soon. 4 have the black and white coloration of the female adult and one seems to be half way between the all white male and the black and white female. So perhaps the white color is not a sexual dimorphism, but rather the result of recessive genes. The small chickadee-like birds that were so fresh and friendly seldom come around now… or perhaps Cat has caught and eaten most of them…
The small gray and white land bird who feeds around the front yard hatched at least 3 chicks and maybe more. I saw 3. It was very busy for a long while carrying food to its nest. They make their nest by hollowing out a hole in a sort of dense moss that grows down from overhangs looking much like stalactites. This one’s nest was about 200 meters away across the water. One day it appeared in my front yard with one of its chicks. I had always thought that parents feed chicks while they are in the nest, but once the chicks emerge they feed themselves. Not these guys. The adult would hop around searching for food and the chick would follow. When the adult found a tasty morsel, it would shove it into the chick’s gaping beak. After a while the adult would take off leaving the chick here. I followed and found that the adult had two more chicks stashed and waiting on the beach beside me. It would spend about 5 minutes or so with each of them before moving on to the next one. Very cool.
One day I was watching a hawk (stop me if I have written this before) sitting in the dead snag at water’s edge just beside my cabin. It is a perch where hawks and eagles and kingfishers like to hang out. Suddenly the hawk lifted off and swooped down and out over the water and, surprisingly, looked like it was going to land on the kelp bed… but no. When it was just a couple of feet above the surface I caught another movement in the corner of my eye. The hawk stretched its claws forward and snagged a small bird flying towards it right out of the air. Whoa! I wouldn’t swear to it (it happened very fast), but the small bird looked to me like a hummingbird.

The Orange Bill Butter Belly Diving Ducks continue to fascinate and amuse. I had a question about whether I became able to differentiate between the male and female because my eyes got sharper, or because of a change in coloration; the latter is the case. During mating season the male’s head feathers became much lighter and more grizzled. Now I can only tell them apart by their calls or the female’s neck stretch. Twice since this pair lost its chicks to the eagle I have seen them mate and thought/hoped that perhaps they might be going to brood again. But nope. Both times they were about 30 feet apart and at some occult signal both just charged toward each other and mated. So I guess it is not just humans and monkeys that copulate for the pure joy of it. (Except for me that is… Watching the ducks fuck is about as close as I’ve come, with one or two notable exceptions, to having my prurient interests aroused. Sexual desire, with nothing to stimulate it except my mind - which hasn’t seemed much interested in going there - has been pretty thoroughly absent during my whole time here. My cravings have focused more on spiritual or adventuring experience, fantasies of social acceptance, and occasionally on food.)

I have now seen 8 pairs of the Diving Ducks and only one pair had chicks. Amazing. I wonder if eagle got all the others? How do they keep their population up? I was in the boat when I saw the pair with the chicks. They all hit the alarm button as I approached and took off flapping and flailing across the water; male this way, female that way, chicks straight ahead until they dove. It was every duck for itself and to hell with parental duty. I stopped for a long time and watched to see where the chicks would surface. Nowhere. Nowhere at all. I looked and looked all around and scanned the kelp beds and the shore line, but they were gone; just flat out disappeared. I have noticed this before with the pair that live in front here. I will see them one moment and take my eye off them and poof, gone. Or, during a chase I will see one dive way out in open water and watch and watch for it to reappear… but it never resurfaces. And then 5 or 10 minutes later I will see it on the rocks right here in front of me. I have thought about this a great deal, and it seems to me that the most parsimonious explanation is that they – like the electron – lead a discontinuous existence. They just pop in and out of the physical world. Hi ho.
Yesterday the territories in front here were invaded by three solitary males (well one was a male for sure since I heard it call and since none of the three seemed paired up, I assume they were all males). This is the first time I have seen any keep company except as mated pairs. The local pairs chased them away, but the whole interaction seemed pretty desultory to my eye. Much less intense than the squabbles during mating season.
Looking through binoculars is very interesting. It not only brings the world into very intense immediate visual contact, but also narrows the world dramatically. When I’m really focused, all that exists is the small field of view through the glasses. One day some time ago I was watching the Red Bills (a shore bird with a long red bill that can actually hammer open mussels) on the rocks just in front here. Since they were not far away, they pretty much filled my field of vision through the binos. All of a sudden in the water just beyond them a monster appeared. Two malevolent eyes, intent on committing mayhem, showed just above the surface and came straight at them (and me as I watched). Huh? Then the male Orange Bill Diving Duck roared up out of the water to attack them. We were all pretty startled since usually they coexist happily – but this was during nesting time and the Orange Bills were especially aggressive. The Red Bills easily fluttered out of harm’s way and landed again. Whew! To see that raw aggression coming straight at me was intense. Odd too since the Red Bills dislike the eagles even more than the Orange Bills and drive them away when they appear. You’d think that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” would hold, but apparently not… at least during the nesting season. I sometimes wonder if the Orange Bills realize that they are the only birds that can’t fly and so are land/water bound. If so, that might well make them grouchy and aggressive. It would me.
My all time favorite episode happened a month or so ago. I was watching the dolphins play just in front here and out of the corner of my eye noticed the resident pair of Orange Bills swim into the basin. Nothing unusual about that, but they casually continued to swim into the neighboring territory and up onto that pair’s home rock. Huh? I started to watch them through the field glasses, and then into my field of view swam a lone duck. Stranger and stranger. The pair gave chase which told me that they were not my pair at all, but the pair from that neighboring territory defending their rock. I watched through the glasses as they chased the intruder away. I don’t know if you have ever seen a non-flying duck/goose “run/flap” across the water. It is a very intense, adrenaline-pumped movement. If you have not seen it, it is hard to describe. I suppose a flock of chickens when Farmer Brown’s wife appears in the hen yard with a meat cleaver in her hand and Sunday dinner in her heart might come close. Usually is seems sort of comical because I see it as they are frantically trying to escape the imagined danger I present to them as I approach in boat or kayak. But to see it coming at me (through field glasses) in a charge is a different matter entirely. Very threatening indeed.
In any case I was watching the chase through the field glasses when suddenly – holy shit! - they all totally freaked, spun around and headed back the other way with the lone duck now apparently chasing the pair. Huh???????? I thought that perhaps I had gotten it wrong and that the pair really was “my pair” and the lone duck the male from the far pair and that now his mate had arrived to help him out… But no, not at all. They all frantically scrambled up onto the rock together (totally unexpected) just as the dolphins I had been watching exploded into my field of view. They roared in, leaping and splashing, kept right on going, and disappeared behind the small island in front. There is a tidal race through there that they like to play in. When the ducks calmed down again and remembered what they were doing, the pair again went after the lone one. They all disappeared behind the island where the dolphins had gone… but not for long. They instantly reappeared with the pair in the lead and the dolphins right behind them all. The pair fast waddled up onto the rock, but the lone one just did a running loop on the water, and as the dolphins streaked by, it headed off back behind the island again. The pair, what with this and that, decided to stay put this time. This whole sequence was very funny to watch and quite wonderful. I still laugh when I remember it.
I doubt that the dolphins were actually hunting the ducks, but who knows. The ducks sure took the chase seriously. I think they were just playing and excited by the vibrations of the flapping wings and running feet on the water. After all, I often see them and the ducks peacefully sharing the same patch of water. I decided to see if I could get the dolphins to play with me too. I took the kayak out and instead of doing a normal slow stroke, flailed and beat the water with the paddle. And it worked… The dolphins, which usually disappear as soon as I go out in the kayak, actually came around for just a short while. Not again since though.

I haven’t seen the otter for a long while now, and the sea lions have moved on as well. For a while the colony numbered more than twenty. Wonderful creatures. The dolphins which I seldom saw in winter and fall now come by almost daily to play out front here which is a real pleasure to watch and, I imagine, to do too.
My study of the limpets is pretty much done. Can’t say that I discovered anything startling in terms of natural science. But I got to know them better. I tracked and recorded their movements for over two months and then started to do some simple experiments. I gently lifted and relocated them to see if they would return to their original positions – nope; to see if the ones on vertical surfaces would return to vertical surfaces – nope; to see if the ones that had hardly moved at all would still be sedentary – not sure yet, but looks like nope; to see if they can sense a rock a foot away across a sand area – nope. What I did discover is that lifting and moving limpets is not good for them. Gentle as I tried to be, about 25% of them died anyway.

Fishing has been very fruitful and interesting. For a long while I thought that there were no snapper here close by and I always took the boat over to fish along the rock walls of Staines Peninsula about a mile west of here. I tried fishing just off my island here a few times, but without success. I was even convinced that they only really bite at high tide. Slowly, with the presence of the sea lions on the Staines rocks the fishing over there deteriorated. Then one day I tried fishing from the kayak here close by and voila… excellent fishing. I think I had been fishing in water too shallow. I now fish at a depth of 70 – 100 meters. A lot of work to haul them up, but definitely worth it. I also stopped using bait once I discovered that they will hit a jig. For a while I gave up eating fish as the pain of killing got very strong. But the call to go fishing runs very deep in me. I experience it as a sacred activity and try to honor it and the sea and the fish and myself.

Condor (from July 8 journal entry)

Sunday, my day for an all day fire in the wood stove. A good day for it. The wind, usually out of the northwest, from which I am protected by the trees, has shifted to the southeast and is pushing spray and waves up onto my small beach. It has a straight shot at my wood frame/tarp covered shelter too, and in the strong gusts we are shaking like a leaf; like a very long earthquake or as though a freight train were rumbling by next door. Unsettling since I worry that it all might shake itself loose and leave me unprotected here a hundred miles from nowhere. I breathe deep to shake myself loose from tendrils of anxiety that reach up for me from dark depths.
Feeling too tightly hunkered down, I step out onto the porch for a breath of air... and look up at the blue gray sky. Condor! Low and sweeping down the wind toward me. I grab binoculars and, entranced, watch her wheel and climb the updraft close over head. All black from below, except for white collar, when she banks into a turn I see the stark delicate tracery of her back. Black head and along the spine down to the rounded tail, the rest of her back and wings pure white out to the splayed black fingers of up curved wing tips. Calligraphy painting a poem of pure grace across the sky. Only a seagull can begin to match such lyric beauty. I watch her float light as a feather in the roaring wind; she dips a wing down from the flowing upcurved V shape and wheels up and away. What is this feeling that soars with her across the wide spaces of my heart? Joy, love, pure admiration? I watch and watch as she soars higher up the wind stream, then flaps twice, no three times, wings beating powerfully down into a hollow curve, and is gone. And I am left staggered on earth, clutching a tree to not fall off my perch.

Cat
Ah, I could, by now write a book about Cat. I had no thoughts of bringing a cat with me here until the National Parks Official said that the locals use cats to test shellfish for red tide poisoning which is prevalent down here. Ah. So on the spur of the moment, I brought a kitten with me. (I actually have never eaten shellfish here myself since the fishing has been so productive.) I thought to bring two to keep each other company as I didn’t want to get too involved with “a pet.” But the other kitten was very resistant to coming and clawed and scratched me, so I left her behind. Just as well perhaps or I might have a litter here by now.
This one is a tom and a very intense individual too. It is a myth that male cats do not hunt. He is fierce. The only evidence I have that there are rodents on the island here are the noses he leaves on the porch; almost like an offering to me or a proof that he is on the job. I also saw him eating a foot long fish he had just caught among the low tide rocks. I don’t mind the rodents and fish, but do mind that he also kills birds. I have seen him eating two. One day not long ago, we were walking out to the exposed point to visit the wind (This cat often acts more like a dog than a cat. He never seems to be really content unless he is sitting in my lap and I often prefer to not have him there. If I go out to the point or to do the limpet study, he always comes with me… no matter if it is pissing down rain and blowing up a storm.) and we flushed a bird that is much like a smallish grouse in coloration and in habit – relying as it does on remaining still and invisible until it is almost stepped on. It lifted off and Cat leapt and snagged it in mid air about a meter above the ground. I yelled “NO, NO, NO” and luckily he let it go and it flew away. A couple days ago I saw him leap for and almost catch one of the small gray birds a good 4 feet up in the sky. The bird swerved just in time. I am somewhat mellower about this now since he is just doing what is natural to a wild animal. And in any case, if I am killing fish, how can I criticize?
I have trained him (pretty much) to stay out of the cabin even when the door is open. I am allergic to cats and don’t want him in my clothes and bedding. In any case I have lived most of my time out on the porch except for the winter nights. He also knows “NO,” “get down,” “come here,” “go on git,” and – when in the mood – “stay there.”
There are times when I feel a deep love for him and am very glad to have him for company. But often, too, I would prefer not to have him here, especially when he is crying. And he cries a lot… or at least at times it seems to me that he does. A wonderfully peaceful morning or evening is just shattered by his moaning cry. I have tried everything to get him to stop: reasoning with him, yelling at him, swatting him, and squirting him with lots of water. But nothing has really worked. Slowly now, he is learning the meaning of, “Stop!” He is truly creative in his vocalizations; what variety! But most of the sounds he makes are unpleasant to my ear: a sort of mindless complaining sound like the whining of a 5 year old child; a demanding yowl; or his hunting cry. Just the other day I was patching the kayak and he made a sound so truly disgusting that it stopped me in my tracks… It was so nasty that I had to laugh. I mean if you can imagine the sound rotting meat might make (analogous to its stench) this sound would be it. Yuck. I was sleeping out in the forest a couple weeks ago and Cat came looking for me sounding his hunting call as he came. I didn’t especially want him with me at the time and so I kept very still with the hope he wouldn’t find me. As he came closer and closer, the hair on my neck stood up and I got a faint taste of what if feels like to be the prey of a hunting cat. Perhaps my aversion to his crying has some deep genetic roots. In any case, a lot of the work I have done here around aversion and anger has focused on Cat. At times, when I am concentrated and centered, I can just let his crying move into and through me and watch it arise and dissolve moment by moment. And then, of course, I discover that it doesn't in fact last forever as I fear it will, but actually only for a short while. When I remember that my spiritual work isn’t a search for some ideal peaceful state of mind, but rather learning to accept the world as it is with an open heart and mind, then I recognize Cat as my dharma brother and am very grateful for what I have learned in my interactions with him. Tell you what though, I don’t think I am “Dad” material. And I certainly have more compassion now for parents with whining kids. I have always thought it was the parents’ fault in their rearing practices, but I now suspect that for whatever reason, some kids are just whiners by nature. Hi ho.
In the last couple of months, he has taken to shaking his head vigorously. I thought it might be ear mites, but an alcohol cleaning hasn’t seemed to help. This is an especially unpleasant habit since he often does it while I am scratching him under the chin - which he really enjoys – and thus sprays my face with his drool. Perhaps the head shaking has something to do with his epilepsy. On occasion he has serious seizures which seem very hard on him and leave him quite disoriented for some time afterward. But he recovers and comes back to himself as though they never happened. All in all a unique individual. I am concerned about finding him a good loving home down here since it would be difficult for me to bring him north and live indoors with him. Well, I trust that something will work out.

Black flies are also a challenge. Happily they are seldom a problem, but of late on warm still days, they can be nasty. I resist using repellent, and have practiced not killing them as fellow creatures. It is one thing to kill fish for food, and another to kill insects out of aversion. Sometimes I shoo them away, sometimes I share a bit of my blood with them… unless there are lots and lots of them, and then I lose it and spray and swat too.

Plants
Plants, somehow, have never really deeply entered my field of consciousness. I have always enjoyed the visual form, but plants themselves as living beings have just been a backdrop/environment for animals. During these last 3 months, this has changed. What had been just a source of firewood or troublesome brush to clear out of the way so I could build, has now become vital and real to me. During most of my time here, I have sat in a chair, but some time ago I took to sitting on the ground and leaning against trees. There have been times of deep concentration when I have felt myself actually sink into the tree at my back, and opening myself in return, could feel the tree flow into me too. There has been the sense of deep mutuality in realizing that we really do depend on each other for life. I, as an animal, especially depend on plants to first create themselves – as if by magic –out of air and water, and then, secondarily, to provide me with food and so create my body too. Wonderful. Also, of course, we breath each other too. Molecules that just a while ago were literally part of some plant’s body, are now part of my own.
Now, for the most part, the bloom has passed, but for a while there were many blossoms on wild flowers, bushes and trees. Very beautiful and calming. There is a luxuriant growth of grass along the upper littoral zone that in places reaches a height of almost a meter. I never expected to have a front lawn which is why, I suppose, with all my planning and preparations I never thought to bring a lawn mower with me.
Until recently I seldom ventured into the forest behind me, but focused all my interest on the sea, mountains and rocks. Once I hiked (crawled mostly actually) across the island. It is only perhaps 300 meters or so, but the trip over there took well over an hour. I have never been anywhere as dense as it is here. It is all fallen trees once you leave the water’s edge. Often as I was making my way along, I would realize that I was not anywhere near the ground at all, but some 2 or 3 meters up in the air and creeping along a fallen moss and brush covered tree trunk. Very intense indeed. While the growth is very dense, it is not very diverse, but rather simple… which I, myself, like. I don’t know the names of any of the trees except the wonderful smelling cypress. There is also the small leaf, red wood tree that burns well even when green and so makes excellent fire wood; and the spiny leaf tree with a profusion of tiny white flowers and deep red berries; a sort of holly like tree with waxy orange blossoms; and three or four other kinds as well.

Wind
The wind has been a very strong presence here as I have written before. Early on it seemed to literally threaten my existence and triggered a lot of anxiety in me. Often I felt land-bound when I wanted to go out fishing or collecting firewood or exploring. I remember one day watching the sea imperceptibly carving the rock at my feet thinking how beautiful the interplay was and realized that it seemed so to me because I was not identified with either the water or the rock. I wondered how I could come to experience the same acceptance and harmony in my interactions with the wind… And finally I got it. I let go of myself and my desires and who I thought I was and what I should be doing and opened myself to be shaped by the wind. Slowly as I stopped resisting and opened my heart, an inner change took place in fits and starts and I came to see the wind as my teacher rather than as an enemy.
Recently, on windy days I have taken to “sky fishing” for the wind using a kite I made as a lure. Especially when there is a lot of turbulence it feels amazingly like having a fish on the line. It is the ultimate in catch and release sportsmanship. Moment by moment I catch and release the wind. And in dancing with the kite, I can see the wind as well as feel it. Making the first kite was both wonderful and frustrating. It wouldn’t fly, but either spun out of control or just sank back to earth. As a boy I had only one experience with making and flying a kite that I can remember. Boy scout’s kite day. My father – who himself as a boy, back when boys did fly kites a lot – helped me make and fly the kite. Now as I experimented with design and tail etc, I had only that memory from 40 years ago to rely on. Nothing seemed to work until the horizontal piece of the kite frame broke and changed the shape radically. Then, it flew. It had little lift, but was stable. Ah hah. From that I knew what I had to do and easily built a kite that soars even in a strong wind. It needs a lot of tail as the wind comes on; 15m/50feet or more. I made it and the tail of translucent plastic and sometimes against the gray cloudy sky it almost disappears. Then truly I am fishing in the sky for the wind. It is also a treat that something my father taught me so long ago has brought me such joy. So often my memories of our interactions are negative and painful.
I have also taken to paddling the kayak out into the wind and chop on semi-rough days… not to go anywhere, but just to paddle in place in the flow of energy. The wind has, to some extent, become my playmate. But I also recognize that the wind is none of these things in and of itself… it is just wind… and not there for my sake in any way at all.

Rain
I have come to deeply love the rain especially the sound of the rain on the tarp that is the porch roof. Early on I often felt overwhelmed by the intensity of the water noise here: rain, waterfalls, waves on the rocks. But slowly these sounds have become my mantra helping me to concentrate and carrying me to a still place within. The flow of sound is moment by moment unique and ever changing.
Examining the listening process is an excellent way to watch how the mind creates categories and uses them to identify and organize sensory experience. Out of the flow of sound I pick out which ones I want to put together as rain on the roof, water falling from the gutter onto the ground, waves on the beach, waterfalls, wind in the trees, etc. A “new/unidentified” sound is somehow both exciting and vaguely threatening until I have classified it. This is all good survival activity, but it has a downside. In conceptualizing/organizing/thinking about these sensory impressions, the immediacy of the experience can easily be lost and with it the wonder and joy of actually being alive in the flow of existence in this moment and this one and this one. To back off from this habitual activity and just stay with the sensual impressions requires patience and practice; to over and over again let go of thoughts and analysis and come back to the flow of sound just as it is without trying to “do” anything with it. Ah but the sense of peace and joy and contentment that sometimes arises from this concentrated stillness is truly wonderful.
One day I “saw” the sound of the rain for the first time. Actually, I have always seen it, but didn’t recognize it for what it was. I was out on the rock in front of my cabin encased, as usual, from head to toe in rubber and watching dark ragged patches of storm sweep in along the rock walls of Staines Peninsula. The rain (which actually turned out to be hail which is why it was so vivid – hail falling is visually much denser than is rain) was not just streaking down as it usually does, but swirling in a sort of liquid madras pattern like a tapestry made of mist. Dark opaque geometric shapes formed among the lighter areas, then swirled and dissolved again as they slanted down into the sea. Ah, so that’s what the sound of rain looks like. The changing intensity and tone I hear - light pattering, heavy drops, driving roar – is that swirling tapestry draping itself across my roof.

Now I know wind and rain: how they look, sound, smell, taste, feel on my skin and in my bones, what emotions and thoughts arise and flow through me when it rains and blows. Rain and wind are not things or processes. They are mysterious. They just are.

Techno (C)ravings, Imaginary Boatworks, and a Phantom Supply Train
During the year, I used the satellite phone/email more than I had expected. I sent just under 100 messages. 15 were for the official monthly “I’m OK” email. These were the only ones I had fully planned to make. 13 were requests for techno information; 24 were to organize getting some additional supplies; 6 were health consultations with Patti (a registered nurse) about shoulders and teeth; 12 were to keep the email/satphone system functioning; 5 were to send these reports; 15 were short personal messages. I sent messages out on 47 different days including the 12 first of month check ins. April and July had the heaviest traffic with messages coming and going on 9 days each. For 6 of the months I sent only the check in message or one of these reports. La la la.

The requests for techno support had to do with getting the satphone working properly and setting up the electrical system not long after I arrived here, and then later on about keeping the outboard running.
The desire for additional supplies is an odd story. It all began with the visit of the Parks Official in June. He offered to bring me anything I might need when he makes his regular every 6 weeks trip from the park where he lives and works most of the time to Puerto Natales. I told him I thought I had everything I needed. A few days later, I was over fishing along the Staines Peninsula and the 15 hp outboard motor refused to start. Oh shit. But I put the back up 4 hp on and came chugging on home. Just before I got here, the 4 hp started to seriously miss and I barely made it in. This freaked me out. I finally got both motors running again, but my confidence was shaken and I had visions of getting stuck out in the middle of nowhere with both motors kaput. I always carry the satphone with me when out in the boat, but to have to call out to get rescued would sure put a hole in this project and in my self esteem too. After reading the manual, I was pretty sure I knew what was the problem with both motors, but that didn’t help at all. Although I had brought a spare ignition module for the 15 for just such a situation, I had somehow neglected to bring a socket large enough to remove the flywheel under which the module lives, and so I couldn’t replace it. I think the 4 hp needs to have the points and condensers replaced, but I didn’t bring any spare parts for it. So, I decided I would write to Patti in Texas and ask her to send down the parts and tools I needed to make both motors reliable again. Then other stuff started to seem quite important to me until I was sucked into a serious case of “Just in Case Mind.”
About that time my teeth went south and I had to use some of the antibiotics I’d brought. Since I have two other teeth that are also iffy, I conjured up a situation in which I had used up all the antibiotics and had another tooth abscess… not a comforting fantasy at all especially since at that time I still had 7 months to be here yet. Then I noticed that the chimney on the wood burning stove was already seriously rusting out. I bought the best one I could find down here, but it was made with very light weight sheet metal. It was winter here then and I imagined being stuck here in the cold with a stove and lots of wood, but no chimney and so no way to heat the cabin. Not a happy thought at all. I decided I better get more stove pipe too. At this same time my shoulders were still giving me a load of grief and I was rationing out the pain killers and worried that I might run out. And finally, the electrical system was not working as efficiently as I would have hoped due to the fact that the only place I could locate the solar panels and wind generator is 100 meters away down on the point and I was losing a lot of juice running 6 volt current to the cabin to charge the batteries here. Putting the batteries and inverter at the point and running 120 volt current from there to here would be much more efficient and would work fine to charge the laptops, but my only lights were 6 volt. So I figgered I’d get Patti to send down some sockets and regular 75 watt light bulbs. In the meantime since there was very little sunlight anyway in the middle of winter, I switched over and started lighting the cabin with the propane light I’d brought. I also decided that getting some fresh onions, garlic and potatoes would be rather nice… and on and on.
So Patti sent the stuff down and it arrived to the National Parks Official w/o problem, and there it stayed. His expected trip got delayed and delayed and delayed. I kept checking to see what was going on and to add more items (with apologies for the bother) to the shopping list. This went on for almost 3 months (but mostly in July) until I finally decided that I really could get along without the supplies and would rather not break solitude. I managed to patch the chimney using 6 of the 7 large cans of powdered milk I’d brought with me. Perfect fit. It has worked out really well in fact. So all those emails were unnecessary after all.

But the uncertainty/anxiety I’ve felt concerning the reliability of the outboards has been a part of this whole experience. Of course if it hadn’t been that, it would probably have been something else. Anxiety and uncertainty seem to be part of this business of being alive in the world… at least for me.

Two Journeys and an Abortion.

When the Parks Official stopped by for a visit in June, I asked him about the route north to the nearest glacier that I could get to by sea. It is about 70 miles/120 km from here. All fall I had watched the fierce winds roar out of the northwest and I was pretty leery about heading out that far from home in my 4 meter inflatable boat with only a 15 hp outboard. It is not that I was really worried about getting swamped and drowning, but that I might get blown ashore and stuck there for days or weeks, and that fighting the wind and chop and cold spray for that far wouldn’t be much fun at all. He told me that winter (from when he was here in the middle of June until the middle of August) were the best times to go since I could count on calm weather. A couple days later a really nasty storm blew up and made me reconsider his advice. But, it turned out that he was right. Winter was quite calm. But just after his visit, the outboards started giving me grief and I ordered the spare parts and tools I needed to repair them. For months I expected them to arrive at any time. At the same time the days were very short and quite chilly and the sea was freezing over even in pretty open water so I imagined that up in the inlet with the glacier it might be frozen solid at least on some days. I decided to wait for the tools and parts and for somewhat longer/warmer days. As I wrote above, the outboard parts never arrived.
Week after week went by and I was pretty constantly dealing with my desire to go to the glacier and my anxiety/uncertainty about heading off from this place in the middle of nowhere to another place in the middle of nowhere in a small open boat with very uncertain weather, and a motor that might crap out at any time. But I had the strong sense that if I didn’t go while I was here I would feel that I had failed to face my fear and be disappointed in myself for not having given this experience my whole heart. Also, of course, there was all my self-image stuff about being an adventurer (even if of the sandlot variety) on the line. Over and over I came back to the present so that I wouldn’t lose my daily experience of being here in some fantasy of going or not going to the glacier. I didn’t want to waste months over a trip that would only take 3 or 4 days. Meanwhile I made a few shorter day trips and lots of short runs to go fishing and fetch more and more firewood. In all, I brought in 12 or 13 boat loads. In the middle of August the winds started to blow again as predicted and I was really bummed that I had missed my window of opportunity to go to the glacier. I was at that point still waiting for the outboard parts.
On the first day of Spring (Sept. 21) the weather woke up magically clear, calm and warm. I took a long day trip and got in another load of wood. The next day was lovely too. I had been looking at my maps/charts of the area and had seen a glacier only about 25 miles from here that comes down not into the sea, but into a lake. It looked like I might be able to hike up to it. I figgered that if I couldn’t get to the glacier I really wanted to see, perhaps I could at least go to this closer one. The route to get there was along fairly protected waterways and close enough that even if the 15 hp crapped out, I could probably limp home using the 4 hp. Also, the days were now much longer and warmer than they had been in mid winter.
The next morning was again wonderful and so I packed up the boat with spare fuel, camping gear, food, etc. (a process which always seems to take about 5 hours) and took off. It was wonderful to finally be on the move and I arrived to where I thought the river from the lake came into the sea and hoped to find a place to camp without any problem at all. And there I discovered one of those magical places hidden away waiting for those willing to live on the edge to find. I headed up a narrow inlet bounded by shear, vertical rock walls and turned a bend into what I expected to be a dead end instead to find a narrow notch that just let me pass through and into a small, circular, mountain-encircled, semi-tidal lake. Ahhh… what wonder is this? In a trance I slowly made my way to the other side where the river cascading down from the upper lake with the glacier flowed in. I looked up to see 7 condors soaring along and above the rock walls and lower down, not far above me, two curious eagles – who, perhaps, had never before seen a human – circling and closely checking me out.
Right then, my heart melted and I knew I would stay that night and the following day and night too. It was several days past the new moon by then and I hadn’t fasted as I have made it a practice to do each month. I decided I would fast the next day and consider the lake my quest circle and quietly wait for a vision. I spent the next two hours hiking up to the lake with the glacier… only I couldn’t make it. The terrain was too steep and rugged. But it was a wonderful hike (my first real walking in months) and I felt ok knowing I had made the effort. I passed a frosty night in the boat and the next day dawned clear and sunny. I dried my clothes and gear and waited for a special vision.
I had during the previous months been struggling internally with my personal psychological issues; the desire to both become a healthier, happier human being and to also find acceptance of who I actually am. The vision I waited for I hoped would in some way transform my life. The vision never came. Instead, there arose in me a deep sense that all of the things I experience – the joyful and the painful, light and dark, courage and fear, kindness and meanness… are all part of me. And stretching out, that all I experience in the world is also part of me. That there is no real division between me and the world around me. Ahhh. To simply accept it all whatever happens and whatever I experience just as it is/I am. Yes! There is a Zen poem that I have on my cabin door, “If you understand, things are just as they are. If you do not understand, things are just as they are.” But to move these words from the mind into the heart takes a lot of practice. That night I slept in the boat again and had a dream. In the dream I was hitch hiking and was picked up by a very evil man with a knife. Some time later in the dream, I woke up in the hospital and someone said that the police had gotten the man. I asked, “then I didn’t manage to kill him?” “No,” they said, “but the police did.” When I awoke, I sensed this to be a warning that in accepting all of myself including the shadow side, I need to be careful to not lose my sense of balance and responsibility. Because if I don’t control my own dark impulses, society will do it for me.
Early that morning I packed up and left to continue my journey. I headed up other inlets and passed through channels between islands always with spectacular views of the Andes hard by to the east of me. It remained warm and sunny and the wind didn’t come up at all. As I approached my island under a perfectly blue sky, I realized that I wasn’t ready to go home yet. So I went on down along Staines Peninsula to a beach where I’ve gone to cut fire wood and camped there for the night out in the open under the stars. Very rare here indeed. In the morning the sunrise was one of the most astonishing I have ever seen and that too is very rare here.
As I watched the dawning, another realization quietly grew in me. Not only is whatever I experience acceptable and part of who I am, but there is no need to go anywhere special to seek special experiences. That everything life has to offer, what I (we?) am truly looking for can be found anywhere at all, even close to home. Even more, that what I most deeply desire (a sense of wonder and being truly alive and at home in myself and in the world, peace, and the Presence of Spirit) I already have and have always had if I only pause and become still enough to realize it. That we are all equally and fully (manifestations of) Spirit or Life or the Way just as we are. We are Life. There is no real separation between us at all. Since that morning that realization has been slowly sinking in little by little. Some days I forget entirely and feel disconnected and dead, but then as a gift from some Other, the realization dawns again and I smile and relax into the love and peace and beauty of each passing moment.
Then, the whole world comes alive for me and I realize that as long as I am equating life with individual organisms I am not really experiencing Life but only thinking about it. Only when All that exists – the table and stove and rocks along the beach as well as the trees and limpets and myself - is Alive does the sense of joy and wonder fill my heart. In those moments I realize that everything is Sacred. Sometimes it seems to me that in our focus on protecting the physical environment, we are losing sight of the deeper issue. What we really need to conserve is our experience that Life is Sacred. If we live in a way that sustains us in that, physical care for the land will follow naturally.

From October Journal Notes:

That trip, according to my GPS unit covered 87 miles. I felt content that I had made the trip and reconciled to not going on the long trip to the far glacier if it didn’t happen. I spent the next two days (also calm) getting two loads of fire wood. But I didn’t remain reconciled. The inner conflict I had been wrestling with all winter resurfaced: desire to go both for myself to see the glacier and to face my fear and also for the sake of my self-image in the (projected eyes) of other people Vs fear that the motor would quit in route or that the weather would turn foul and I would get stranded for weeks out there. I continued to tell myself to just let go of it, but kept having the strong sense that if I didn’t go I would leave here disappointed with myself and feeling incomplete. Kept telling myself that this was all diversion and that my real work was to face my inner fear of letting go of my need for my ego to remain in control which was keeping me locked into this small self. Transformation, not adventure, is the real reason I came here. All nice, but the inner turmoil continued. Next day (Sept 29) was glassy calm. Decided to go for it. Took 5 hours to prepare. Took food for a couple weeks and left Cat food for a couple weeks too. I also took 30 gallons of gas, tools, the kayak, and camping gear plus lots of warm clothes. Took off and within 5 minutes a breeze had come up. Shit!!!!! Couldn’t believe it. Still, sometimes it gets just a bit breezy for a couple hours in the middle of the day. Decided to keep going for a while. Went about 6 miles and then ducked into the inlet in Isla Owen to hide and wait. After several hours it calmed down some, and I kept going due north straight into the teeth of wind and chop. After 15 miles my route turned east and I was again in the wind shadow for a time and this lulled me into a sense of security. There was a three quarter moon by this time and I decided that if the sea continued to calm down, I would just keep on going under moonlight. Uh huh. Just at dusk, it clouded over as I rounded the corner into the main north/south navigation channel. This channel, although still a protected inland water way, lines up with the prevailing wind and has a long reach and so can get pretty rough. Instantly I was hit by the wind and awash in a “confused sea” coming from all directions. No way to continue, I began creeping along the shore line in the dark looking for the tiny cove indicated on my chart where I could hunker down for the night. I found it and double anchored the boat, stayed in all my clothes and rain gear, wrapped myself in a tarp and settled in for the night. It blew heavily, but only sprinkled a bit. In the morning the wind was still up and the sea on the move. I decided to abort and head home struggling a bit to keep the boat tracking down the swell and chop. That round trip was about 60miles/100km. I was really bummed by then that I had missed my window of opportunity when for days the weather had be fabulous.
The next day was windy, but two days later the sea was completely glassy again. I was pretty tense and frustrated with my fear and sense that the weather is just fucking unpredictable here. Packed boat again and took off. Got going before noon, but again the wind came up, and again I hid in the same inlet. Looked out at 2 PM and it seemed to be calming down, so I got going. It continued to get calmer and calmer and by the time I reached the main channel a couple hours later after a very easy and smooth trip the sea was almost glassy. I cached one empty and one full 5 gallon gas can in a protected cove and kept going. Happy day! The boat, lighter now with less spare gas, got up into a plane which increased my speed from 8 mph/13kph to 12/20. Very good news indeed. I just kept going since I still had more than four hours of light. The further I went over the smooth sea, the more I thought I might actually make it that same day all the way to the cove near the glacier where I intended to camp. The whole trip one way I had calculated to be about 70 miles. I figgered that I would just go for it since I wasn’t at all sure how long the weather would hold. The return trip in rough weather would at least be with the swell and if not pleasant, at least much better than fighting the wind and sea.
About 15 miles from the glacier, I started to run into floating ice which didn’t slow me down, but did focus my attention. Very beautiful. Also large dolphins began to follow and play around the boat which before I realized what was happening freaked me out since all of a sudden for no apparent reason the boat would lurch and swerve as they swam right underneath me. I decided it was time to stop and siphon gas from a reserve container into the outboard gas can. Smooth. Took off again and went back to tracking my position by visually correlating prominent points on the land with GPS readings and the chart I had previously marked with longitude/latitude positions. Things started to not make sense to me, and as I continued, for the first time I wasn’t really sure where I was. I thought I was starting down the inlet toward the glacier, but it didn’t really seem like I should be there quite yet. It also seemed strange that all the floating ice had disappeared. It took me 4 or 5 miles to wake up to the fact that I was headed north instead of south. Overcast evening with no sun or direction and since I was focused on my long and lat position, I hadn’t been paying attention to the compass. Ah shit. When I stopped to do gas, I was pretty much out in the middle of the channel and must have gotten turned around. I was pretty tired and also in a hurry and had just fired up the motor and kept going without really stopping to check my direction. Oh well.
By the time I got back to the channel I realized that I couldn’t make the cove by dark. On the chart I saw what looked like a lovely little inlet only a few miles away, so I went there. Narrow opening into an inlet about half mile in diameter. Found a tiny little cove protected from the wind by rock walls and trees. Put plastic up over boat. Things were just a bit damp from spray, but I managed to stay dry. Very cozy. Had dinner and went to sleep. Windy night and so I didn’t hurry in the morning. Figgered I would be there all day and that night too. Finally took down plastic to go look for water and to have a shit on the beach. Went out to have a look at the channel and lo, it was pretty calm. I decided to go on down to the glacier and camp in the cove down there. Easy trip down even though the boat didn’t want to plane some of the time.
I went straight to the glacier. Not nearly as impressive as the one at Calafate, Argentina, but there were no other people here to distract and dilute the intensity of the experience. What was very cool was the thousands and thousands of small floating icebergs that I had to navigate between to get as close as I could to the glacier. But it was still was a couple hundred meters away I guess. Five dolphins showed up and played with the boat too. Took lots of photos. Was just enough sun to bring out that mystic blue in a few spots. In some way I think it is that blue that I went to see. That blue simply does not exist any where else.
After a while I decided that I would go over to the nearby cove to camp, but then decided that instead I would just head back to the same place I had camped the night before. That way I would have a start on the return trip the next day. I actually found a more protected spot to anchor that night and at first light packed up to leave. Return trip was just as smooth as the trip going. Had trouble getting the boat to plane which surprised me since it was lighter now that I had used up more gas, but the motor was not running efficiently either. Finally got up though and after that just didn’t want to stop at all so kept going all the way back to where I had cached the gas. Found it w/out problem thanks to the fact that I had marked the location as a way point with the GPS. It is such a handy little tool that gizmo. Ate a bite and kept an eye on the sea and sky. Seemed ok so decided to keep going down the main channel along the west side of Isla Evans.
When I got even with the opening to the inner waters of Isla Vancouver across the channel, the sea was a somewhat choppy and there was some breeze, but I decided I would just go for it and really complete all the trips I had intended to make while here. I had originally had Isla Vancouver as a possible place to set up for the year, but the Parks Official told me that fishermen go in there to harvest urchins. I have my doubts, but maybe. Anyway, I went over and in and looked around. It was ok, very protected, but I think I wouldn’t have been as content there as I have been here. No view of mountains, I doubt the fishing is good in there either since it is all pretty shallow. Would have spent a lot more time in kayak though. Some pretty interesting tidal currents through the narrow passage ways. Only stayed a while and then headed home. Total trip was 181 miles.

Ah. To relax. I was so absolutely glad that I went for it and made all the trips. Total distance in those first two weeks of spring for the three trips and one aborted one was somewhat over 350 miles/600km. That trip to the glacier is one of the hardest things I have ever done. Not the actual trip which because the weather and sea were calm was just smooth and easy, but the facing of my fear and uncertainty. I would get up to prepare everything and then the weather would turn shitty. Or it would look like it was going to really blow and the day would end up being flat calm all day. I was worried that the motor would die in mid trip and I would have to try to limp home with the 4 hp which I also don’t trust or worse, would need to call to be rescued which for me would be a serious failure and sign of irresponsible behavior. The only reason I think rescue is really justified is if there is a serious unexpected storm, or unexpected health problem, or unexpected equipment failure that is not due to faulty maintenance. If I had needed to be rescued, it would have been either because the weather turned too nasty to let me come home and I knew that that was a real possibility, or because the motor crapped out and I knew that also was a real possibility. As it worked out, my behavior was not irresponsible, but if I had had to call for help, it would have been.

Moving on
I was very glad I had gone and felt fulfilled and complete in that aspect of my time here. I began to settle in and focus on my inner work again now that I didn’t have the distraction of being bummed that the wind was blowing every day and I didn’t make the trips while I had the chance. And the wind did blow. When I went was the absolute last window of opportunity. It stayed calm for the two days after I got back, so I didn’t really need to rush home, but then I didn’t know that ahead of time. Since then there have only been a few really calm days and never more than two in a row. Some are only somewhat rough, and others are just roaring. And this is in fairly protected water. I imagine almost every day has been pretty bad out in the main north/south channel.

Looking back, I suppose I could see my being and doing here as falling into 4 main areas which are all mixed up together and not really separate at all, yet - perhaps analogous to life in general - show some sort of progression through time. For the first months I was very focused on the physical: getting the cabin etc. built to secure my survival and comfort and also dealing with physical injury/pain. Then through the cold months of winter I spent most of my time reading (I did however bring way more books than I ever looked at… another serious case of “just in case mind.”) and thinking about philosophical questions. My style of reading has been, as usual, very slow indeed. A bit of reading and a shit load of pondering (daydreaming?). There was also a strong focus on inner psychological/personality work and the desire to change who I am to become “better” ala the self-help world view. During these last three months I stopped reading and, over and over, thinking/analysis and spent more and more time meditating with intent to experience myself and the surrounding world just as it is in the moment.
Again looking back, and finally letting go of all my humbug, I must admit to myself that the real reason I came here was to get myself enlightened. This was a no starter since I don’t even know what enlightenment is. I have vacillated between the desire to “let go” of myself to merge with the ongoing flow of life and the desire to “grasp hold of and cling to” some profound personal experience/insight that I can bring back to the social world with me which will give me a sense of security and something to share with others that will justify my making this trip at all. And behind all that, in spite of “knowing better” I have over and over been trying to recapture the profound experiences I had during my first retreat in northern BC 25 years ago. I am indeed a slow learner… But it all seems to be part of the process. Once again as I look back, it seems to me that the lessons I am working to learn, I have been working to learn for a very long time now. I can only trust that my life is not really moving in a closed circle, but rather in a deepening spiral; same lessons over and over at new levels.

In some sense, the whole of the spiritual journey is not to learn or gain anything new, but rather to let go of rejecting - through various defense mechanisms - who we already are and have always been. We all (according to many psychologists and meditation masters) begin with our social persona – an image of who we think we are/want to be, but which, in the dark hours of the night, cannot really sustain. Slowly as we mature, we come to acknowledge and integrate the darker less positive aspects of our character; the shadow side of ourselves. Then we are still, for the most part, living in our minds as a sort of disembodied center of consciousness split off and often alienated from our own bodies. Through the practice of focusing attention to our actual physical sensations we can slowly relax the hold of our conceptual mind and come to live more comfortably and freely as a balanced body/mind organism. But at that point, we still sense ourselves to be alien and deeply separated from the world around us. More practice and little by little (or perhaps in one fell stroke) this illusionary boundary might also dissolve and result in the experience of being one with all of existence.
This is what I “came to get.” But, this is not something one can get. As long as I, as a self-centered being am trying to get anything at all, I am shooting myself in the foot. It is only when, one way or another, the clinging to the notion of self relaxes, does this experience of oneness flood the heart. Then, at least for me, my usual instant response, is “Yeah! This is what I’ve been after all along. And poof , gone again and I am locked back into this sense of closed off lifelessness. And, the practice continues. One of my daily prayers now is, “May I have the courage, patience, compassion, humility and trust… to over and over open my heart and mind and body to the world (and myself in it) as it is and not as I would like it to be.” For me, it is opening the heart more than either the body or the mind that has been the key to the process.

But now at the end of my time of solitude here, I must admit to myself that in some way I don’t know any more now than I did 25 years ago. I still don’t have an inclusive, coherent metaphysical system of beliefs that I can share/defend or that will sustain me during the coming times of doubt and depression. (Or perhaps I do, and am just resistant to accepting the responsibility of committing myself to speak my piece in the world.) And so I guess I will have to practice keeping an open heart and continue to live along from day to day like the rest of the world.
Twenty five years ago during my first long wilderness retreat, I discovered that although I had been working as a logger and trying to be physically tough and fearless, I was not really the macho I pretended to be. Now I also must admit that after 10 years in the university I am not really a brilliant intellectual macho either. I don’t have the capacity or mental toughness to develop and defend against attack a conceptual world view. And, I am not really happy when I try to do so. At least here in solitude, I feel most peaceful and alive when I just sit and let the world and myself be without trying so hard to understand and explain it all to myself; to just soak in the beauty and mystery of it all. And, of course I find some inner justification for this. As long as I am analyzing and conceptualizing, I am cutting myself off from the immediate experience of being alive in the moment. So I can either seek conceptual knowledge, or relax into the spontaneous mystery of Life. It seems to me to be a trade off. If I do one, I lose the other.
The trick I suppose is to find a sense of balance between the need to function in the world and the joy of surrendering to just be in the moment. Mostly though it seems to me, we are so caught up in our Doing that we have forgotten how to just Be. And it is not easy to just be in the world. Life is painful. There is suffering. There is death. It seems to me that much of our activity is oriented toward reducing the pain in our lives and toward holding death at bay. Yet I have re-discovered here (and forgotten again and again too) that death is one of my strongest allies. Somehow, strangely, in opening myself to accept death (both in the larger sense and in the moment by moment process of dying to who I think I am) I am set free and find myself filled with the light and wonder of living. Odd shit indeed.
There is another way I look at this process of growth. It is a decentering away from the self as an isolated center of experience. Peace and joy and aliveness arise when I experience myself to be part of something larger. That something might be family, university or community, society, the earth, the universe, or Spirit. Each time I catch myself in my small mind struggling to make sense of the world with myself as center, I suffer. When, as a gift from beyond, I experience release into the flow of Life, there is peace and tender joy.

There is a kicker in all this: the Buddhist notion that there is no real self in the first place. It, like all distinct entities, is a conceptual illusion. This is easy to say and not so hard to think about, but more difficult to actually see happening in the mind. I have had some insight into the process in a neat way. The rugged, wind-sculpted rock walls of Staines Peninsula a mile to the west of my cabin are full of faces; frowning gargoyles mostly. This seems to be a byproduct of solitude for me. There are three faces in particular that have solidified in the rock of my mind. One is a sensual Earth Mother figure with an demonic aspect as well. Another is a frowning old man filled with disappointment and aversion. The third is an indigenous wise man of infinite patience and equanimity. I realize that all are projections of my conscious/unconscious and are aspects of my own mind. Still, those beings have come to actually inhabit the rock for me - experientially if not intellectually. During these last weeks, I have made a conscious effort to withdraw my projections and see the shapes and colors and textures of the rock as they are instead of as “eyes, or noses or mouths.” This is not so easy. Imagine looking north and seeing a certain cluster of stars and not seeing the Big Dipper in them. In order to give the rock back to itself, I have focused on the actual details of it and through the overlying faces in my mind. In doing this I have come to see how I create those faces; how I focus on certain features - especially outlines - and ignore others. I can actually watch my mind create these entities from the ambiguous, random features in the rock. Very neat. In the same way, we create our images of ourselves - who we take ourselves to be - by abstracting out of the flow of our experience and behavior certain desirable features which we make concrete and real and ignore whatever doesn’t fit. We also do this with others and so in large part create the social reality in which we live. Even harder than seeing the mind doing it, is breaking the habit and coming to live in a more open, flowing, ambiguous and alive world.

This brings me to Spirit. Much of the reading I’ve done while here simply assumes the presence of Spirit in the world to be real. I, myself, waver. More and more of late though I directly experience the presence of Something beyond/within the physical. The question arises: Does this Something actually exist, or is it, like the faces in the rock, a projection of my own mind? I have gotten very tangled up in this question mainly because I have become caught in equating my actual experience with some sort of objective reality. I no longer doubt the presence of Spirit in my experience. That Something which is beyond definition is simply here. Nor is it something my consciousness creates and projects. One of the strongest features of it is that it comes from “beyond” as a gift of life. As far as I can tell, I have no way to determine whether it is in the world out there, or is an aspect of my own deeper self. This also confused me, until not so long ago I realized that this point is moot. It simply makes no difference once the hard division between this and that dissolves. This Something does exist in my experience and I exist in the world, so it exists in the universe through me (us) at the very least.
Whether it is eternal or is an emergent property of evolving consciousness is, it seems to me, an open question. But still of no real consequence unless one takes our existence to be mere happenstance; blind luck as it were. Yet, even so, the process of development from infant to adult – and beyond into the spiritual domain seems to be a natural one. There seems to me to be either some attractive principal pulling me toward it, or some inherent self-organizing principal of development within me. In either case, I am not on my own here. I feel cared for and guided in some deep way. I have not created myself or the universe of which I am, and so slowly, little by little, I am learning to relax my grip on myself and trust the process of living just as it is.

Moving out
About a month ago I was sitting on the porch meditating and noticing how emotionally knotted up I still felt toward my now dead parents. In spite of inner work, I felt I had never been able to truly open my heart to my mother when she was alive, nor to really grieve her recent death. I felt deeply frustrated and angry with myself for worrying so much about my social persona and being so little able to really share love. Something inside me broke and I felt a deep urge to take off my clothes and go down to the point. Naked except for sandals, I went out into the wind and rain. Without thought or intention I found myself striding back and forth along the sea rocks bellowing and waving my arms as the wind and rain beat against me. Eventually, feeling cleansed and drained, I returned to the cabin where I shivered for a long time before warming up. Only later did I realize that if anyone had seen me down there, they might well have assumed me to be insane. To me it felt and still feels completely natural… a sort of do it yourself Primal Scream Therapy.
Following that inner call opened something in me and little by little I have come to hear and have the courage (at least here alone) to follow that inner voice. I began to realize how attached I’d become to the comforts of my small cabin and, wishing to give everything I had to this process, I started to move out and sleep either on the porch, in the forest or beside the sea. Beyond the porch, it is not practical to use a sleeping bag, and so I dress up in warm clothes and in rain gear. The first night I made my way into the forest just at dark and, creeping my way along, ended up spending the night nestled into the root mass of a fallen tree some 4 meters above the ground. It was a powerful and wonder filled night. Since then I have found a small nook near the point and protected from the wind where I have spent a number of nights. Always though there is the resistance of not wanting to give up my security and comfort.
This seems to be an ongoing pattern with me, as though I am two separate personalities; one who loves security, comfort and the social matrix of friend and family and who dreads the thought of being rootless wandering homelessly over the earth, and another who revels in the freedom of the unknown and feels somewhat dead and trapped when living a safe and ordered existence.
For the last three days of my year here, I left my island to go boat camping to a protected inlet about 6 miles away. It seriously stormed the first day and night, but with plastic over the boat I stayed cozy and dry. I took the I Ching and Chuang Tsu with me and read for the first time in 6 weeks or so. The next day the black flies were a plague and, abandoning my tender heart, I killed a bunch. In the afternoon, four dolphins swam into the tiny cove where I was anchored. They had followed me (the boat) in when I had arrived the previous day and now had returned to (I just can’t see it any other way) invite me (the boat) to play. Only 20 meters away, they began to leap up completely out of the water, sometime falling straight back in and sometimes doing a sort of arching back flop. It was so exciting and beautiful to see. February 5th, the last day of my year woke up still and sunny. As I sat meditating I realized how completely silent it was. The only sound was a very faint gurgle from a nearby trickle of water over pebbles and into the sea. Here, on “my island,” it is never silent. There is always the sound of the sea, or wind or distant waterfalls, or, of course, Cat crying. In the deep silence of that final morning, I felt something, I don’t know what, heal within me. I packed up to come home and stopped to fish along the way. I had planned to do a final sweat that day, but instead decided to climb to the peak of the island just behind me to get a bird’s eye view of the world I have been living in for this past year. It is something I have been meaning to do for months now, but have waited for a calm clear day when the mountains would be visible and the rocks dry and so not so slippery. What a glorious last trip. The world and my heart simply filled with wonder. I returned home and heated the stones to sweat in the night.

Coming Days
And now, in some sense the really hard part of this project begins; returning to the immediacy of the social matrix and finding a way to create a pH thesis that in some real way will reflect and synthesize this whole process (including the writing of the thesis itself). Strangely, albeit with some fear and a great deal of uncertainty, I look forward to the writing as itself an important part of the total process and inner search, even though at this point in time it no longer seems so important to me whether or not I actually obtain a pH. I remember sitting in the dirt eating lunch with one of the Forestry Professors several years ago while I was working as a teaching assistant at Fall Field School. The conversation wandered here and there and finally touched on what I was doing my pH on. A good question I told her and one that my supervisory committee would also like to know the answer to. But I don’t know and probably won’t know until I am finished doing it and look around to see where I am and back to see where I have journeyed; much like turning around and looking back at your trail of footprints along the wet sand of a solitary beach. Luckily, I moved from Forestry to Interdisciplinary Studies which is much more open to such an approach. However, even there they seem pretty insistent that I should in fact write and submit a thesis. I said I thought that this is most unfortunate and is a requirement I think we should do away with. The Prof., usually quite calm and relaxed – especially while sitting in the dirt eating lunch far away from campus – got very excited about this idea… but not, I hasten to add in a positive way. She was pretty appalled at the thought of abandoning what she seemed to consider the very heart of the pH degree. I don’t know about that, but the writing and, perhaps, oral storytelling component does seem to me at this point to be important. So when in the coming months I lose sight of that, please free to remind me.

And now, although there is a great deal more I could and would like to write, it is time to send this off, and in any case, if you have actually made it this far all the way to the end, I imagine you, yourself, have had quite enough. I hope you have enjoyed it, and I especially hope to hear from you soon. All the best. Love Bob

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