Everyday Boy

First Day Of Spring

I held it truth with him who sings
To one clear harp in divers tones
That men may rise on stepping-stones
of their dead selves to higher things

Alfred Lord Tennyson, English poet (1809-1892), In Memoriam to A.H.H

One final paragraph of advice.  Do not burn yourselves out.  Be as I am – a reluctant enthusiast – a part time crusader, a half-hearted fanatic.  Save the other half of yourselves and your lives for pleasure and adventure. It is not enough to fight for the land; it is even more important to enjoy it.  While you can. While it's still here.  So get out there and hunt and fish and mess around with your friends, ramble out yonder and explore the forests, encounter the grizzly, climb the mountains, bag the peaks, run the rivers, breathe deep of that yet sweet and lucid air, sit quietly for awhile and contemplate the precious stillness, that lovely, mysterious and awesome space.  Enjoy yourselves, keep your brain in your head and your head firmly attached to the body, the body active and alive...

Edward Abbey, American author and essayist (1927-1989)

The sun is out today.  I decide to drive out to Squamish to hike the popular Chief mountain range.  Passing the ferry terminal on the Sea to Sky highway, and once again seeing more closely sparkling water rippling into distant horizons and fir trees flourishing against snowy mountains, I am reminded how much I miss being in the shadow of rocks and tree limbs.  I am once again impressed with how the natural world can loom over us in it's beauty and majesty and leave us in child-like wonder.  The necessity of nature becomes clear in my heart's eye.

I guess there are hundreds of different ways to summit the three different plateaus of the Chief, along with rock climbing it's one sheer face. I was told by my housemate that the second and third summits had better views than the first, so I set out on the well worn path of the second summit, to then traverse over to the third.  It is a perfect day for a hike, blue skies, and warm temperatures.

The trail is steep and in a way reminds me of the Grouse grind, with wooden steps and logs laid out at the beginning of the second summits trail.  The forest is damp green and silent, save for a few hikers I encounter along the way.  It is good to listen to the woods: streams trickling close by and birds chirping.  It is good to feel the rough bark of old tall trees that stretch high into the sky, and see icicles melt on rocks in the sunlight. As the forest thaws I feel some things thaw within me.  At a certain elevation point I hit snow, and close to the top there are chains and a ladder at some steep points to help you climb higher.  It's slippery at some points against the wet rock, so I am thankful for the hand holds and footholds.  While I love the views, I'm not so good with heights.

At the top of the second summit there is a good metre of snow at some points of the rolling plateau of rock and trees.  I stop at the edge of a cliff rock to eat some pasta, watch the crows circle above me, and rest.  It's bright and clear and I can see a lake, the town of Squamish and mountains all around me, with Mount Baker prominent to the South.

I continue on to the third summit, down through a dark valley and then back up yet another another rock face.  The valley is dense with snow, with sheets of icicles against one rock face - a shimmering waterfall of icicles, drip-dropping to the forest floor.  Looking upwards I see the icicles glisten in the dark shade of the valley, against the green leaves of trees and bright blue sky.

The third summit is a little higher up, and provides a more prominent view of the first and second summit, along with the highway snaking it's way back around around the mountains to the city.  I am thankful for this perspective.  I am reminded of the glory of transfiguration, and the importance of going back down the mountain.

Going back down, the third summit's trail proves to be steep and a little more rugged.  I toboggan down some parts packed down with snow, hopping and running over roots and stones. The valley is lush and green.  Snow is melting.  City life seems so far away.  Have we come so far to forget such places?  The trek takes me a little over three hours.  I head back to the land of pavement and the rush and noise of traffic, thankful for the natural world of water, earth and fire, and thankful for this first day of Spring.

Thomas Merton Lectures

I am going home, where I have never been.

There have been ongoing lectures on Thomas Merton at the Vancouver Public Library about once every month this year.  I've managed to make it out to a couple of them.  They've been put on by the Thomas Merton Society of Canada.  The last one I went to I didn't find the lecturer to be very engaging, as she mostly just read verbatim from a paper she wrote about Merton, but the lecture back in January I found most enjoyable, as the lecturer touched on Merton's affinity with Nature, and his vision of seeing both ourselves and the Divine therein.

The lecturer showed photographs that Merton took on an Oregon beach, of giant rock formations a couple of hundred yards out into the ocean.  I have yet to find the photograph or the book it was taken from, but hope to track it down one day.  About this photograph Merton writes:

John Griffin sent one of my pictures of Needle Rock, which he developed and enlarged. I also have the contact.  The Agfa film brought out the great Yang-Yin of sea rock mist, diffused light and half hidden mountain - an interior landscape, yet there. In other words, what is written within me is there, "Thou art that."
      I dream every night of the west.

Thomas Merton, May 22, 1968.  From The Other Side of The Mountain: The Journals of Thomas Merton Volume Seven 1967-1968.

The theme was on sense of place - how we shape and imprint ourselves on a place and how a place shapes and imprints itself on us.  Tell me where you live and I will tell you who you are.  It's comforting knowing a spiritual stalwart like Merton struggled with being in one place as well. The whole the grass is greener on the other side.  How does one be content on being in one place, while not settling or stagnating because of it?  The importance of stability, and our innate sense to wander and explore going hand in hand.  A friend has often said that we think of things happening everywhere but where we are. We want to escape instead of recognizing, as Nouwen suggested, the fertile ground on which we stand as a place to root ourselves and grow.

Trying to decipher my chicken scratches in my little notebook, I think Merton spoke of his prisoner's base, of our search for transcendence beyond time and place, and our struggle with both our homelessness in this world and being at home everywhere.  Gratefully, I find myself content where I am: this room, this house, this street, this neighborhood, this city, but at the same time, not fully present.  Longing not so much for other places, but for loved ones far away.

Lonely for the Pacific and the Redwoods.  A sense that somehow when I was there I was unutterably happy - and maybe I was.  Certainly, every minute I was there, especially by the sea, I felt I was at home - as if I had come a very long way to where I really belonged.  Maybe it's absurd, I don't know.  But that is the way it feels.  I seem to be alienated and exiled here.

Thomas Merton, May 24, 1968.  From The Other Side of The Mountain: The Journals of Thomas Merton Volume Seven 1967-1968

Under The Cloak Of Winter

Every gardener knows that under the cloak of winter lies a miracle... a seed waiting to sprout, a bulb opening to the light, a bud straining to unfurl. And the anticipation nurtures our dream.

Barbara Winkler

Back in January I went down to Jericho beach after work one morning to take in the sun rising above the gathering clouds to the south.  After walking along the beach and taking in the clear view of mountains and skyline to the North, I was drawn to these bushes that had flecks of yellow shining through.  Like I've written before I'm still surprised how fast the flora and fauna spouts here in Vancouver, and I welcome it nonetheless.  Signs of life in the cold winter.

Newborn Stars

From NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope:

Newborn stars, hidden behind thick dust, are revealed in this image of a section of the Christmas Tree Cluster from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, created in joint effort between Spitzer's Infrared Array Camera (IRAC) and Multiband Imaging Photometer (MIPS) instruments.

The newly revealed infant stars appear as pink and red specks toward the center of the combined IRAC-MIPS image (left panel). The stars appear to have formed in regularly spaced intervals along linear structures in a configuration that resembles the spokes of a wheel or the pattern of a snowflake. Hence, astronomers have nicknamed this the "Snowflake Cluster."

Star-forming clouds like this one are dynamic and evolving structures. Since the stars trace the straight line pattern of spokes of a wheel, scientists believe that these are newborn stars, or "protostars." At a mere 100,000 years old, these infant structures have yet to "crawl" away from their location of birth. Over time, the natural drifting motions of each star will break this order, and the snowflake design will be no more.

I had to spend a good chunk of time with the images and the explanations that went with them in order to decipher what I was looking at here, rereading and re-looking, my mind playing tricks by humanizing the pictures - faces appearing to me out of the wisps of clouds.  It seems to fitting to look at something being born in the heavens as we contemplate God being born on earth.

Now The Fall Is Here Again...

We did not change as we grew older; we just became more clearly ourselves.- Lynn Hall, Where Have All the Tigers Gone?

Autumn has crept up on me this year.  I can't believe it's all ready the end of September.  I hardly even noticed the leaves change color, which makes me think that  I really need to be outside in the daylight more.  I went for a bike ride along the sea wall today and was surprised to see bright patches of crimson and yellow in many of the park's trees.  I miss Central Park - but Stanley Park is just as wonderful with old sprawling maple trees shedding their mammoth leaves.

The pathways weren't busy at all, so it was a relaxing ride.  It allowed me to take in the landscapes of water, trees, beaches and sky. Leaves fell quietly like intermittent rain;  I saw a few cranes wading along the shore, stretching their long white necks towards the ocean, as if they were pointing something out to me; and I stopped along a stretch of beach where the tide was coming in with a roar, washing the sand into a packed brown palette of tangled green seaweed, crushed seashells, and seagull tracks that looked like Egyptian hieroglyphics.  There is something about being silent in Nature that takes all pretense away, and allows me to gather a sense of self again - or better perhaps, the sacred in all things.

I find myself reflecting on humility again in my daily readings of Chittister's commentary on The Rule of St. Benedict... a proper sense of self in a universe of wonders.  I'll always remember what my former pastor preached one morning.  He passed along these basic clubhouse rules some kids made up, which to me sums up humility quite nicely:  Don't act too big.  Don't act too small.  Act medium.

The Grind

I finally got out and did the infamous Grouse Grind - a trail of wooden steps and large rocks, hidden in trees, shadows and sunbeams.  It's a popular hike among the locals because of it's intensity... and it was in the news for a bit because an American from Wisconsin went missing from the area.  It's only about a 3 kilometer long hike, but it's a very steep ascent.  It was quite apparent from the start why they call it a grind.

Halfway up the gondola passed by through the trees, quietly whirring along on it's cable, me cursing under my breathe wondering why I decided to hike up.  I've never seen so many stairs in my life!  But I must say it was good to be enveloped in a forest of trees again, plus I love the people you meet along the trail - down to earth folks you can easily strike up a conversation with.  I managed to get some gardening tips from an older middle-aged woman before she left me in her dust.  I tried to keep the number of folks passing me even with the number of folks I passed, but I think more and more people were passing me the higher I got.  All in all it was a very humbling experience.  I managed to do it in just over 1 hour.  A fellow recently broke the record, running up the trail in 24 minutes!  Craziness.

Up at the top I sat and watched some of the grizzly bears they have in captivity and took in the wonderful views - even spying Mt. Baker in the distance.  I ended up walking up a to a higher point on the mountain up by the ski lifts and took this panoramic:  Grouse Mountain is in the center, the city of Vancouver just above it, and water leading off into the ocean to the right.  It's something I've definitely been needing these days - to take a step back for some perspective.

Mother's Day

Your mother loves you, so act accordingly. - Anonymous

Our backyard is a bit of a natural disaster with dandelions overtaking our small rectangular patch of overgrown grass, and a smattering of plants and weeds fighting for space in the garden soil.  It's definitely not a very picturesque yard right now and is in need of some grooming, but upon closer inspection there is still much beauty in the chaos: the rose bush yielding lush full red blooms, bright yellow flowers cradling drops of afternoon rain in their crescent petals, and even the white dandelion skeletons - made up of tiny effervescent paint brushes all perfectly placed around a tiny globe, saying - make a wish.  It's an apt illustration of how I'm feeling these days - a bit of a mess when I take a step back and see how much is left undone, but many instances and opportunities to be thankful for.

Some questions were asked recently in a discussion group I'm part of: How do we in North America cope with the whirlwind of stress and overwork?  How do we find and make time to live and not only exist?  How do we stay sane?  It was pointed out that the culture in South America, where things move at a slower pace, allows people to take time to breathe, enjoy friendships and nurture family... there is time and space for afternoon naps, leisure and wonder.  Coming back to these questions and comments at the end of the week, I am much more certain we have the same opportunity to cultivate such things here in North America - but just more often neglect to do so...

For myself work continues to be tiring and stressful as I sometimes feel inadequate in counseling youth with drug and alcohol and mental health issues, but I do my best and have to remind myself that that is enough.  Perhaps that's a bit of the root of the problem - our need to do more or be more.  I remember reading a book by Mary Jo Leddy called Radical Gratitude which touches on our cultures propensity to emphasize our dissatisfaction with what we have and who we are; we don't have enough and therefore we aren't enough.  So I struggle with my writing because I say to myself I'm not ready, I have nothing to say, I can't begin yet; I struggle with trying to let go and play because I feel like I should be doing something more productive; and I struggle with living out of fear of not being or doing enough, rather than living freely in love and gratitude.

I went to the Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden in Chinatown, tucked away behind a long concrete white wall, away from the traffic and noise of Pender Street.  It's a beautiful space, with a Bogota, a large pond covered with lily pads, and dirt paths and stone bridges throughout - all surrounded by large weeping willows, cherry blossoms, and even thin bamboo shoots sprouting up to twelve feet.  It's a perfect spot to go to after a hectic day at work, and so I sat, and took pictures, and tried to take time to breathe.  I know these moments of peace are fleeting, but I also know they are important.  They enable me to recognize the illusions of worry and busyness that I so easily fall into.  I can fill my time with worry or I fill my time with wonder.  I can run around with chores, or I can take a nap and feel refreshed.  I can become consumed with work or consumed with play.  And of course, there is a time for everything... but within those spheres of worry, wonder, work, play and rest I must remind myself again and again that nothing can separate me from the Love which says you are enough.

Out From Under April Showers

I was born to laugh
I learned to laugh through my tears
I was born to love
I'm going to learn to love without fear

Pour me a glass of wine
Talk deep into the night
Who knows what we'll find...

Put your elbows on the table
I'll listen long as I am able
There's nowhere I'd rather be

Born, from Over The Rhine's album Drunkard's Prayer (2005).

It's been difficult for me to write words this past month, although I've experienced much and have wanted to share much.  The food, drink and laugther that have flowed over tables (for which I am always grateful) have helped ease the sense of emotional tiredness the past three weeks.  My tiredness has mostly to do with what work brings, but also in looking ahead and trying to figure out the direction I want to take in life come Fall.  I still have so many questions, and feel as though there will be difficult answers ahead.  The sun broke out this past week from what has seemed like a long string of cloudy and rainy days - or perhaps it's more my sense of comng up from the bottom of some doubts and sadness the past little while.  I've had to come to terms again with my own limitations - having to let go of having to do so much or invest myself so much in the lives of the youth that I create an unhealthy space for me to live in.  I was reminded of the Zen saying: No seed ever sees the flower, and so I am learning again how to nurture a seed, and not crack it open.

I watched Angels In America which I found sad, bizarre and funny.  it really made me think about how we hold the idea of love up, but fail to live it in the day to day.  So to with Herman Hesse's book Siddhartha, which I just finished reading.  Seeking and working out the ideals of life in the day to day.  Not escaping the ordinary through excercises of asceticism or abandonments into illusions of money or pleasure - but in listening to the world around us: nature, people, the inner voice of love that speaks Om (unity, perfection, love).  Waking up, the commute, work, cooking, cleaning, play.  I've needed to remind myself of the contemplative question: Where is God in this before me?

We bid farewell to our housemates Josh with a party one Friday night and a little ceremony the next morning.  It was also a time to officially welcome our newest housemate Leroy here.  Change.  Comings and goings.  Both have been such a big part of community and work this past year.  Perhaps my low envergy this past month has to do with shedding the winter blahs from my body, and coming to terms with the changes that need to happen both within and without; the groan of seeds within me trying to push through to new life... we're going to need to be a little more mindful of the plants in our house as Josh is usually the one taking care of them.  I think it's a good indication for four bachelors that we have at least a few plants and flowers blooming in our house.

There have been a few trips this past month.  Leroy and I took a youth out to do some dives out near Squamish - as she is hoping to go to school to become a commercial diver.  She was lucky to have found three dive locations over the weekend, the last one we took her to especially unique as she had a chance to explore some shipwrecks.  While she went diving Leroy and I went for brunch at a great little greasy spoon diner just off the highway, and then went bushwacking off a trail sanwhiched between the highway and water.  We decided to leave the well worn path for a little adventure in a tangle of wood.  Here's my best go at some Henry David Thoreau inspired writing:

Swinging around a small pond we came upon the typical rainforest of the west coast, lush green and mossy.  We walked down several openings of forest, down a dirt path overgrown with roots, until we encountered a cliff with a little waterfall trickling down it's shiny sheer face onto a bright green fern flourishing on a ledge.  Further on broken wood stairs dropped down, leading us into a dense valley.  We encounter a large fallen tree trunk blocking our path, making us duck under and examine it's innards on the other side, hollowed out like a pipe with bright green moss puffed up inside.  We continue on into a drier wood encroaching our journey, bare tree limbs clutching at us, twigs snapping beneath each step.  The woods are both alive and dead.  I am always surprised by this beautiful juxtaposition.  We hear a hidden stream gurgling in the silent forest, and follow it until it disappears into the undergrowth, and so we turn up a rock face, over mossy padded stones, and climb up to the tree line to take in a vista view of the mountains and water surrounding us.  We continue on, downwards again, trying to find our way back through branches and brush clawing at our arms and legs.  I slip down a muddy hill backed up with leaves, grabbing for support from a flimsy branch.  We come to another cliff, this time looking down to train tracks below us.  We shimmy our way down along a steep rock incline to the train tracks and follow it down all the way to the highway, trickling waterfalls soaking the cliff face beside us.

It's always good to go back to Nature every now and then.  I finally made it over to Stanely Park - if only for a quick drive through, as well as Queen Eliabeth Park - a bit of a touristy garden centered park, but beautiful nonetheless.  The necessities of Nature still beckon me, so I try to incorporate walking time as prayer time, if only down the city block and in the neighborhood, seemingly sparse of mother Nature but still full of beauty... so slowly but surely I feel like I've begun to turn a corner - with better energy, better awareness, and better rhythms to my days.

Effort is its own reward.

We are here to do,
And through doing to learn;
and through learning to know;
and through knowing to experience wonder;
and through wonder to attain wisdom;
and through wisdom to find simplicity;
and through simplicity to give attention;
and through attention
to see what needs to be done...

Ben Hei Hei in Wisdom of the Jewish Sages by Rabbi Rami M. Shapiro. From Spritual Literacy (353).

On The Road Home

Pictures on postcards were authorized by the Canadian post office in 1903 (postcards without pictures had been around since 1871), and over the next twenty-five years - a period known to postcard collectors as the Golden Age - postcards became a preferred way of confirming one's arrival at exotic destinations. - Mandelbrot, Giest Magazine (4).

After packing up Monday morning we went into Tofino one last time to do some errands and walk around a bit.  I managed to mail off some postcards to the few addresses I knew off the top of my head.  We then took to the road to head back home.  On the way back to Vancouver we stopped off at a couple of places: Schooner Cove Trail, a beautiful walk along a wooden plank path through a dense emerald green rain forest of plants and trees twisting off one another. The path was about a two kilometer stretch that led to the northernmost end of Long Beach - a small cove that's sheltered from the westerly winds; Florencia Bay, Wickaninnish Beach and South Beach, where we saw lots of driftwood along the shore, and watched high waves crash and roll along large rock formations; the quaint town of Ocluelet; and lastly Cathedral Grove, an old growth forest of mammoth trees - many of which fell during a wind storm in 1997.

When your tongue is silent, you can rest in the silence of the forest.  The your imagination is silent, the forest speaks to you.  It tells you of its unreality and of the Reality of God.  But when your mind is silent, then the forest suddenly becomes magnificently real and blazes transparently with the Reality of God. - Thomas Merton, March 17, 1952, II. 470-71.  From A Year With Thomas Merton.

Hunting For Whales & Treasure

... staring out into the blue Pacific, which ran without a clear transition into blue space, I felt that the ocean was immense, endless, bottomless.  There was something beyond human comprehension about its immense variable size, since the Amazon, the Nile, The Danube, the Mississippi, the Ganges, all the rivers, floods, and sewers in the world could enter into it ceaselessly without the surface level ever changing an inch. - Thor Heyerdahl

Area of world's oceans and seas: 361,000,000 square kilometers, 71% of earth's surface.  Area of Pacific Ocean: 166,000,000 square kilometers, 33% of earth's surface.  Volume of Pacific Ocean: 710,000,000 cubic kilometers, half of earth's liquid water. - From an imformation sign along the beach.

Sunday was another beautiful day of sun and clear blue skies.  In the morning we went to Radar Hill, a vantage point which was used to bring ships in during World War II, where we enjoyd a nice panoramic view of Clayoquot Sound: it's beaches, the ocean, the mountains and the coastal rainforests.  We then drove south to Long Beach where we walked along the shoreline, dipped out feet into the water, and took in the surfers catching some waves.

For lunch we went to a favorite local restaurant called Sobo, where we had fish tacos with wild salmon, halibut and fresh fruit salsa, mexican shrimp cocktail, polenta fries with spicy caesar dipping sauce, shrimp cakes with mustard sacue, and a thai style green papaya salad.  The food was scrumptious, with very fresh and distinct flavors, and all quite reasonably priced - a recommeded lunch stop if you're ever in Tofino.

After lunch we met up with the Native American couple we met on Friday, Hudson and his wife Jan-Marie, along with their nephew Terrace, who kindly took us out on their twenty-one foot boat, called Ten Wolves, for some whale watching, salmon fishing, and treasure hunting.

Rushing out into the ocean, with white spray and foam trailing behind us, we stopped a little ways off the coast to wait and watch for signs of whales.  After bobbing for about ten minutes like a cork in bathtub, Terrace spotted a spray of water in the distance - a whale coming up for air, and so we sped on towards the horizon.  Hudson opened a small hatch at the front of the boat for Chris and I to take turns popping our heads up and keep watch from there.  Josh and Terrace took watch along the railings on the side of the boat.  There was a group of four whales migrating together, every once in awhile coming up to the ocean's surface to spray some water through their blowholes, bending their backs and flashing their tails in the sun for a fleeting moment.  It was a cat and mouse game of trying to come alongside them without disturbing them too much.  They would often shift directions on us, coming up every five minutes or so on different sides of the boat.  Between their submergings the ocean became silent, water lapping on the boat, until we saw them again and the boat's engine kicked into gear.  At times I thought I could hear them below us, as I imagine whales sound - a booming squeal of thunder.  We were quite happy to see these enourmous creatures, if ever so briefly.

After following the whales North, all the way up to Bear Island, we tracked back south along the coast and found a spot for Terrace to drop his fishing line and try and catch some trophy salmon.  Unfortunately, the fish weren't biting, so we sailed inland and stopped along a shoreline where Hudson's grandfather used to live to try our luck at some treasure hunting.  The land where his grandfather's hosue used to be was now run over with trees and bushes, but there were still remnants of settlement in the shorline of rocks and seashells - pieces of glass, disehes, and rusted metal.  But the treasure we were seeking were small two-hundred year old blue beads that the Spanish would trade barrels of to the Native Indians for dried fish.  Sure enough, spending a quick few hours combing through beautiful rocks and crushed shells of diffent shapes and sizes, coming across crab legs, fish vertabrae, and even a tiny egg insect embryo, we found at least one blue bead for each person.  I felt very lucky in finding four of them as poor Terrace didn't have much luck finding one, and hasn't found one in the times he's looked the past thrity-five years.  Each bead is about the size of a pea, some with cut edges, and a hole bore through them.  The bead hunting was a pleasant way to round out the day, as the sun slowly set on the horizon.  We slowly made our way back to the fisherman's wharf, taking time to look at eagles and heron in their nests and along the docks.