First sights of south

Greetings from Ensenada.  Four days ago Jordan Harder and myself left San Diego with a boat (Hasta Luego) and a dream.  After a month of preparation and itchy feet we finally felt we were ready for an extended sail trip of the Pacific.  So much of the knowledge and gear we acquired was thanks to generous people looking out for us.  After a few weeks we started to see a pattern that everything we needed was being provided for us, sometimes without even searching.   When we were truly in need of something, just the right person would come along.  (I wish I had time to get into those stories...maybe someday.)  So with charts, and GPSs and surfboards, and 200 lbs of legumes to sprout, and the end of hurricane season, we pulled out of our San Diego dock for the last time, waving goodbye to a handful of special family and friends who had come to wave us off.  

That moment was a big one, it was a gateway, a passage into a new life.  And as the burden of preparations and shopping and planning faded, a new life of freedom and exploration unfolded in front of us.  The sun was setting over the familiar Point Loma lighthouse, the moon was waxing, the wind held strong at 7 knots, and our hearts soured.

After a quick one day/one night passage we arrived in Ensenada, anchored out and took a breath.  It had been a large wave, heavy wind passage…fun, but exhausting.  We’ve spent the last few days here checking in with authorities, trying to save a closed out bank account, and exploring the town.  

Last night Jordan went in to Starbucks to use the bathroom before we explored south, and he came out with a red-headed american girl, saying, “hey Mark, this is Cat, she might be staying with us tonight.”  “Hmm.”  Then he said, “She just got dumped by her fiancé, and has been locked out of their apartment with no where to go.”  Ah, my heart broke, and it was then I noticed she had tear stains down her cheeks.  I couldn’t help but reach out and give her a hug, she received it gratefully.  Cat is only 18, and has been working in Mexico circuses for 2 years, she has a pet wolf, just sold her pet puma, and has owned a whole assortment of exotic animals.  She laughed as she showed us pictured on her iPod of her rolling around with the animals, the pain seemed to lift for the moment, and she started talking more openly.  Just minutes before Jordan found her crying in Starbucks she had received the text that her fiancé was dumping her, she had just asked the question in her head “where am I going to go?  Where will I stay tonight?,” when Jordan asked her what was wrong, and proceeded to offer her our boat for shelter for the night.  When she told me that I said, “It’s pretty cool how things come just when you need them most huh?”  She nodded and smiled, “everything’s going to work out.”  We paddled out under the night sky with the sounds of the city and a drum circle.  It was her first time on a boat, and we treated her to a Spanish rice dish as we sat listening to Old Crow Medicine Show, enjoying the moment.

Tonight her friends get back in town, so she has a place to go.

It’s amazing to be on both sides of the synchronicity.  And it seems to open up the more you follow it.

And now we are within half-an-hour of pulling anchor and heading south.  This next cruise will take a few days. From here on out we’ll be stopping in bays with no cities, or just a small village.  The cruising community has already taken us in and we are good friends with people on 5 boats heading south here in these few days, so we will have allies in the waters.

Freedom to you friends,

Mark

Fellowship of the Zen Trees

Alright, lets go for a walk.

After three days of rain, the sun is out and waking the land with light. So I'm shifting from reading Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by the wood stove with tea, to mentally charting the infinite backyard of this cabin. (Infinite meaning this: if you walked west without stopping, you would traverse Alaska all the way to the bering sea without crossing a single road or seeing a town.)  After a meal of rice, lentils and bread I throw a plant and mushroom identification guide into my pack and head out the door. The three days of rain has swelled the mushrooms to sizes larger than my head.  I affectionately name one with a crater-like wart, Moonshroom, imagining what invisible creatures would inhabit that fleshy planet.

Like Annie Dillard, and the bear who went over the mountain, I'm going out to see what I can see.  As I go to turn on to an animal path I notice my mind has been wandering, "should I wear pants or shorts? Should I bring my iPod touch? It does have the bird and tree identification apps, but it also has time, and I don't want to bring that deceptive concept with me.  Did I bring enough water?" Then on to my injured back and on to the very fact that my mind is wandering.  It's an awareness-sucking spiral.  I turn onto the animal trail, and the water hanging on the plants soaks into my socks.  I consider going barefoot, and I feel something within me long for that freedom.  As if it was an epiphany, I realize, hey, I could actually do that.  So I set my shoes and socks by the trail and step on. My foot sinks into the moist moss, and instantly I'm plugged in, like I finally got this forest's wifi password right, and I'm connected.  All the places my mind had been wandering vanish and I enter the forest like a flame.   

I think psychologists would go broke if we all walked barefoot in the woods.  Maybe there are a few reasons for this shift.  First of all, every step becomes more important with vulnerable feet, your awareness must pool to this step and the next. And second, you feel everything.  If an object is defined in terms of how our senses experience it-what it looks like, how it feels, etc.- then going barefoot gives me another access point to understanding the world I'm walking on, like a bug's antenna.  

With every step the moss bows and holds my feet in the air like little personalized hammocks.  I'm walking through a spruce forest, and noticing the trees are stunted from the arctic winters.  The entire forest floor is carpeted in deep green moss, and an occasional patch of white, reindeer lichen.  I stoop to get a closer look at the lichen. Intricate, tiny branches-resembling the bony structure of antlers growing upon antlers-warp into a deep visual.  At my eye level are three brown mushrooms, their glistening caps perched high on a thin stalk, displaying their bellies proudly, from which hang thin, almost translucent gils like spokes on a bike wheel.  As I stand, I hear something and crouch back down again.  Then I stand, and crouch again.  No danger is lurking, I'm just noticing a phenomenon.  In addition to the sun, the wind has decided to put on a display of its power, and the spruce trees are bracing against it, creating a deep whooshing and whistling.  But when my head is at moss level the sound flattens out, as if the moss has swallowed it whole.  And so the ground dwellers of this forest live out their entire lives not knowing what wind sounds like.

I keep walking.  The space between the spruce grows, and my feet start sinking into cold water, occasionally stepping on a tower of grass that wobbles.  I enjoy a game of jumping from tower to tower without hitting the water, which has turned into hot lava in my mind.

The ground opens up before me, sloping into a valley.  The spruce have morphed into aspen, and instead of moss, I'm stepping on blueberry bushes.  Last summer the blueberries were so thick the bushes themselves were blue.  A sweep of the hand would yield 5 berries and a nice juicy mouthful.  We would collect them and make a few jars of jam every day.  But this summer the bushes are bare.  Joyce told me its because there were a few late freezes that killed them all.  But every once in a while I see blue, and I hold the berry up to the sun, between my fingers, turning it like a diamond.  I must enjoy each berry this year with the fervor of a whole jar of jam last year. 

In the valley below me runs Little Panguine creek, but I cant see it yet.  Running my eyes along the apposing ridge, I guess the location of the lake Diana and I happened upon after an entire day of hunting and hoping for a lake.  What joy filled that moment.  Maybe I'll hike there today.  

I start to hear the rush of a creek, my feet quicken, down a steep hillside, it's contagious. I find a tributary to Panguine, and stop at the intersecting point where another tributary joins it.  The resulting crests and troughs of the green land around me would make for a lot of tightly packed squiggly lines on a topographical map.  

Sitting on the slope I realize I haven't seen any animals yet.  The forest seems empty, void of life, and I strain, hoping to catch sight of something living.  Then I start to realize my blindness.  There is life all around me! The trees are alive, the grass is alive. I feel ashamed for my lack of vision, and look at the trees with an expression I hope they'll understand is an apology. 

At that moment a flicker in the corner of my eye turns into a butterfly, small and brown. It lands on my shorts, tonguing the strange blue cloth.  It's aliveness is a lot easier for my beginner forest mind to pick up, and I get that feeling you get when you've been in a foreign country for a week and finally come across someone who speaks English.  Friends instantly, no questions asked, you thirst for connection.  I ask the butterfly for help, for guidance, to see the world truly, in its naked aliveness, there's something in the way, I want to be one with the forest, for my veins to grow into its heart, but I don't think the butterfly understands what I'm asking, it has probably never had this problem before.  It looks at me in a way that comforts me a little, and then flutters off.  I walk downstream, still feeling unrest about my inner landscape. 

Then I stop among a grouping of tall pines, I look up at them.  I sense a wise presence, and realize these are my teachers.  I feel like a new student on the first day at a school of zen, and for some reason, I'm lucky enough to get a student-to-teacher ratio of 1:100.  I feel the old sages gazing down on me; long, thin beards of moss whisping from their chins.  I feel inadequate, foolish, ignorant, small. I think of the long life they've lived to get here, and realize I AM going to need 100 of them because I have less than 80 years to learn what they have learned in hundreds.  We get right to it. They remain silent, knowing that words would only get in the way...what we are going for is something deeper.  A realization comes to me...I'm not the one creating this inner landscape, I'm just the one watching it, but I've been trying to control it.  Instantly my experience changes, there's no burden, just an eagerness to see what happens. So, who I get to be is the witness of the intersection of whatever creates my inner landscape and whatever creates the external. An infinite, ever-changing crossroads of wild randomness and perfection.  Or like a wave going through the ocean. Ah, some of you see what just happened.

I hear a distant train whistle, it reminds me that the trees and I are not the only ones on this planet.

When I get to the Panguine, I sit on a log to watch the rush. Some purple flowers catch my eye and I pull out a book to identify them-monkshoods-"a fitting name," I think.  I try to memorize mushroom names, interested in the edible ones.  My favorite is the bright red Fly Amanita, with white spots on it, though it's not edible.  I leave the river to head back to the cabin.

When you walk in a straight line here it is uncommon not to find an animal trail within a few minutes. It's interesting how animals drift towards the same hoof and paw paths.  One can conclude that this is because, after a while it clears the brush and makes the stroll easier.  But maybe there is some heart in animals, and they realize if they walk anywhere they would be killing more plants, so they walk on the same paths to let the largest amount of plants live. The later is the reason I walk the animal trails, at least when convenient. And something in me likes the prospect that it increases my chances of seeing a moose or bear.  

I hear the flap of wings, and from the stillness float three grey jays. Frisking the tops of spruce for food, perhaps beetles, or bugs, or seeds.  I turn to them ready to be friends, and they stay for a bit, but apparently they have no need for a flightless forth member to their crew, and they continue spruce hopping upwind.

My inner compass served me well, as I came out only 100 yards off from the path that I left.  And now I sit, back in the cabin, water heating on the stove, feet tingling with the memory of a thousand steps. And those zen trees still stand, wondering if i got it, and that moth has fluttered somewhere else, still trying to figure out what I was stuck up on, and the river still flows past the log where I sat, still gushes forth, following the call to return to its mother, and that train might be to fairbanks by now,  and the jays are frisking other spruces, and the wind blows north, pushing air, always coming, always going. But there is always the air right here, and that is the air I breath.

The Little Cabin

 July 31

Friends,

Parallel flames walking this great plain,

Maybe to the horizon

Or maybe to join the sun.

How do YOU see your fellow human?

I'm looking out a cherished window, soaking in a cherished view, from a cherished little cabin.  The steam is rising from my jasmine green tea, the chicken on this mug is still sitting on her nest, the same place I left her last year.  I found the purple fireweed we pressed last summer, and I laid them by the lantern on the table in front of the window. 

Last summer the universe led me to this place through Darren, a Canadian I hitch hiked with. Because of him, we hiked out the the bus that Chris McCandless (Into the Wild) stayed in, and on that hike I met Diana, a Connecticut English major. She was up here on a writing grant focusing on the bus.  She was living in this cabin for the summer.  We became best of friends and explored endlessly for weeks and the cabin gave us shelter.  Jon and Joyce-the couple who homesteaded this land years ago and have a bed and breakfast on another part of the property-sort of adopted us.  

That's a short non-significant way to tell a long, significant story, but that's for another time, and now you have the context.  

So this summer Jon and Joyce kept the little cabin open in case Diana or I wanted it.  I wanted it, and thats how I'm here now, just 20 miles north of the entrance to Denali national park. 

I have mixed emotions being here.  On one hand, it is one of my favorite places, I feel safe, I feel clarity, I feel a sigh of relief, I feel alive. On the other hand, I've never been here alone. It's strange. It's quiet, I can only hear the walls, and the rain, and the leaves, and my breath.  And I think that's what I need.

Everything here carries a magical essence, even the smell, like sweet, cooked cabbage, and wood.  Out the window, the familiar birch and aspen weathered the winter well, and through them, I can see for miles to the east, across the lush valley, way into the snow capped mountains beyond.

I've been painting the trim on the B and B cabins blue. Jon and Joyce say this is their last year. What characters they are. I didn't tell them when I was coming and they found me looking at their garden and came out with smiles and hugs. We sat with the tv on, talking about Jon's medical problems of the last year, and their times in Michigan-how all the old men there carry little dogs-and their experiences hosting the campground at Myrtle Beach in South Carolina.  

Our relationship is progressing. I can tell because they told me I should charge devices and get Internet from their sun room in the house, instead of the guest area.  And when I was filling my bottle with hose water Jon told me to come fill it up at the sink.  Then they told me I could take a shower tonight in their house.  Maybe it's because they're starting to smell me, but it still means something, you know? 

Yesterday I went to Rosie's cafe with them.  I watched their small town jive with all the other locals that they've known for years. Miners and guys that Jon worked with at the power plant.  They told me about whispering John who lived out behind the mine, no one knew where he came from, he was seldom seen and had a quiet raspy voice.  Joyce remembers one day when he gave her a heart-shaped candy.  When he died in his cabin, no one claimed him, so they just buried him there. No one claimed him.

I watched an inchworm today, and every time it flung its head frantically into the air I heard, "What! No further?" It never got old.  There was a small blur of brown fur in front of the cabin. A little mouse. It flew over the ground faster than a squirrel. I tried to imagine what that meant the legs were doing.  I watched it, leaning forward, the edges of my lips turned slightly up.  The Js have seen a moose and a calf around, and a few days ago there was bear poop by one of the cabins. I look forward to sharing space with these larger animals.  Why do I feel the sacredness of creatures in proportion to their size?  Flies bug me, mice entertain me, at eagles I stare in wonder, at moose or bear I stop still, my whole being floods with presence.  Is it in relation to the threat they pose? Does it have to do with the frequency with which I see them? Or is it something else? Does their larger body somehow channel a bigger energy field or spirit that resonates deep within me?  Why do I not stop with this thunderous awe every time I see a fellow human?

Escape from Anchorage

July 30

It was Friday, I had made up my mind to leave the airport the next day wether it rained or not.  After listening to two kids jam, and watching natives dance, I turned on my iPod and started listening to the new Trevor hall album, which has, over the course of the last week become a pinnacle album for me.  I noticed a girl my age, with a backpackers backpack, and curly blonde hair. I had seen her pass through before and now she stood reading Alaskan destination magazines.  I picked up a magazine next to her, I don't know why I did, because I wasn't interested in the magazine.  I asked her if she had been to Alaska before, she said this was her first time.  We started talking, I told her about all the adventures I had up here last summer, and she told me about Minnesota where she went to college. She said she rented a car, but it wouldn't be ready for a few hours, so we sat down and kept talking.  She was scouting Alaska because she wanted something different, because a new place always opens your eyes, and she thought maybe she wanted to move here.  Her name was Abby, I found out an hour into the conversation. She was short, wore no make-up and smiled frequently. About that time she told me her friend wasn't coming to join her for a few days and she has this car, she asked me if I wanted to adventure with her for a few days.  That was the start of it.  The end of it was getting a massive fever in the talkeetna mountains a few days later and getting dropped off at FredMeyer to start my hitch north, but that was more of a transcendental experience than it sounds, and I'm getting ahead of myself.

The first night we stayed in town to explore a bit, and we were let down.  The first thing you need to do when you get to alaska is get out of Anchorage. The best part of the night was climbing to the top of a school gym to watch the sunset.  Every direction we turned seemed like a different world. Toward the mountains, great remnant thunderclouds loomed, but the sun striped them of their normal gloom and instead clothed them with a marvelous salmon pink, contrasted sharply by the dark clouds behind who managed escape the public wardrobe change.  The other side of the sky was open except for thin strips of clouds, the sun caught them in a way you would think they had a light shining from within them. But they faded, and we moved on. The whole time talking about life (which is an easy way to say we discovered where our souls aligned.)  The next day we high tailed it out of town after a quick REI stop-the one redeeming factor of anchorage.  We drove southeast along the ocean, with the steady steam of tourists. We kept having to resist the urge to stop because we knew soon we would move out of the land of tourists. We went to Whittier which claims to have the longest tunnel in the country, and you feel like you're in a mine because it's one lane wide, surrounded closely by jagged rock.  Whittier was confusing, with a cruise ship three times the size of the whole town.  But the view was awesome.  The bay looked like an alpine lake with steep pined slopes rising on each side, we were shocked to remember this was the ocean.  Walking through the docks I loved seeing how the sailboats are built differently up here for the northern seas.  I was admiring one and a guy jumped in to tell me about it, he'd been here for 15 years and never seen the owner. He was a crab fisher, and showed us the inside of his boat, he was eager to be heard and dove right into the whole thing.  I'm sure he's seen some burgeoning storms.

We continued to drive south, stopping once, to hike up a valley; we were lured by a glacier. I sat for a while watching a marmot while Abby kept on to get the perfect photo.  Everything about the place makes you feel small because the mountains shoot up right above you.  I found a picture in a magazine Abby brought of a lake we were at. It was taken 100 years ago. Almost the entire lake was covered with a towering glacier that blocked even the view of the mountains. Today, the only remains can be seen high in the mountains.  I made a comment to some one about the glaciers, and they replied, "ya, gotta enjoy them while they're here."  Woah.

We drove through the rain, listening to music, looking out the window, and beaming from ear to ear.  We couldn't help it.  Further south we stopped at a small lodge at the edge of an expansive emerald blue lake. We ordered a plate of hummus, pita, olives, peppers, cauliflower and other veggies.  Abby asked if we could be seated outside in the rain, and we were.  If you ever get a chance to eat hummus in the rain by a lake, do it!  I saw a cabin across the lake with a sailboat tied to a small dock.  I wonder if that guy knows how lucky he is.  We played a quick game of ping-pong and kept driving.

Way down a dirt road we stopped and hiked for a few hours.  Abby told me about a trip she took to Africa.  While she was there she saw an exorcism, she was in the room, shaking walls, flying objects and all.  After that conversation I said, "ok, I'm intrigued with life once again."  What mysteries life is full of!  That, in particular is one most prefer to avoid thinking about.  We made it to a lookout with the most stunning 360 degree view.  A lake the size of south america from space wrapped around us, we could see up to the inner ice field.  To the north, the ocean glistened and beyond that Mt. McKinley.

The next day we met up with some friends of her friends who live in anchorage. Two brothers, who apparently have an Instagram page about Alaskan adventures that went viral. Our goal for the day was to find the crash site of a World War Two bomber.  Their dad had been there and said we'd never make it.  We hiked up Hatchers Pass, to the Reed lakes, which is where REI has shot a lot of their adds (I found out the next day because I hitch hiked with the wife of the guy who flies the planes for those shoots.This woman had also seen me on Facebook before in a picture from when I. Flew into Denali on a helicopter. With PBS because her friend was the helicopter pilot.))  Needless to say it was gorgeous, Abby said that this blew Banff, Canada out of the water.  We stood at the edge of a big waterfall and looked down on lower Reed lake.  The fingers of snow stood out against the dark rock and reflected like ribs in the crystal blue water.  When the trail stopped, we kept hiking.  It started to rain, and the boulders we were climbing on became slippery.  It got steeper and steeper until we finally got to the pass and looked over the other side. We could see deep into the Talkeetna range. And the whole thing was snow, including the rest of the hike.  We finally made it to the plane and a plaque read that three men died upon impact and the captain, despite his own injuries, drug the other three men through the snow to a shelter, and wrapped them in parachutes and sleeping bags until rescue came.  The plane is now a huge pile of metal, you can make out the wings, but not the cabin.  When we got back on the other side of the ridge, we were completely socked in by fog.  That's when the fever started.  When I laid down to rest and closed my eyes, I saw the flowers from the trail, spinning, and changing colors.  Then my focus would zoom out to see a certain scene and back to the flower, but each time it went back out, the scene would be something completely different.  I tried to describe the good sides of having a fever to the group, but I don't think they got it.  Everything slowed way down for me and I started talking about Plato and Jesus, and what it would be like to be a fly, or a person with a seven-second memory.  I wonder if a fever is natures way of giving you a natural high, plus a few side effects, but I know most don't share my point of view.

Abby dropped me off at fredmeyer, we hugged and i went inside. I asked Starbucks for a cup of hot water, and sunk into a $999 couch on sale for $599 and stared wide-eyed at a painting of an orange tree for who knows how long, jerking up in amazement when a woman's voice echoed from the ceiling in all directions, "make sure you pick up grapes on the way out." What a strange environment superstores are, especially with a fever.  Imagine what a baby's experience of the store would be like.

So I slept, I laid in my sleeping bag and slept forever. And the next day I would catch rides with fascinating people and walk up a hill to the blessed expanse of land in which I now dwell. 

Mukluks to the Inner Passage

This is structured from an email I wrote last week.

July 21

There's burning in here too. I want to hear the beat of a drum that pervades everything, I want to be taken over by it, to become rhythmic waves. 

 I'm in the anchorage airport. I've been here for a few days, it's been raining outside, so I'm making this basecamp as I get caught up with the Internet before hitch hiking north.  A few hours ago I followed the sound of loud guitars and singing voices.  I sat at the source across from two guys around 19, jamming without a care.  One sang a song he wrote, singing from his soul, opening his chest wide open, lifting up his head and closing his eyes...the sound echoed through the entire airport.  There were some uncomfortable glances, but no one stopped him.  As I sat there, I wished I had what he had, so in line with a deep fire and creative force, being a vessel for it to break through this boundary of silence...of distance.

Upstairs there was an unveiling of a new Native American exhibit.  I watched as natives beat drums and sang native chants and girls danced in sync, with animal skin boots, and fans made of fur. I was overtaken for a moment, imagining them and me, in the woods at night, around a big fire, dancing, in it for real, not this recreation for the white folk in the airport. Tears came to my eyes.  I long for so much.  I long for so much.  I feel so alone sometimes and I think I've been trying to avoid that feeling.  But in my most honest hour I feel far from others souls.  I long to be found, but so few are looking.  And I long to find, but so many are inaccessible.  Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote that "souls never reach their objects. An innavigable sea washes with silent waves between us and the things we aim at and converse with."  I feel him, but yet something in me sails on through these silent waves.  Something in me feels that, though this sea remains uncrossed, maybe if I keep sailing deeper I'll find that inner passage. And soul will touch object.  

Most of the dancing girls were half-native and in their late teens, but one was full native and maybe 13.  She was the one I watched, she was fully submerged in it, fully undivided, she moved like the ocean, the waves from the drum moved her soul like seaweed in the surf. She seemed completely at peace, not a thought, effortless.  Something tells me that I was seeing a glimpse of the truth, right there, in this girl's movement, so simple.  

Very few people watched, most rushed by, nervously trying to make their flight. 

What do we do when the beauty that has been tucked away in corners is pulled out for once, and most rush by unaware?

I don't know, but I'll keep looking in corners.

Inside the Full Circle

Dried mud on my feet, and a heaviness pulling me into where I am.  Sitting in vicarious anticipation, smiling on the inside along with these humans looking expectedly to be reunited with this someone they have missed so much.  Lives flash before my eyes as I get a front seat to these crisp moments when people are reminded of how much they love each other, and run into each others arms, a moment void of the pain between them, a moment when the veil of separation is pealed back and two souls reach out in the dark, loosing themselves in each other.  I think there is nothing more beautiful than what I'm seeing now, here at the anchorage airport where friends and family wait for arrivals.  

A woman and two curly hair kids look unwaveringly past the do-not-enter sign. I can feel the butterflies in their stomach, until at last, something wells up inside of them, leaping, almost unable to contain their joy. Eyes bright, the kids run. The father is already bent over and sweeping forward, reflecting their excitement.  They meet, a kid in each arm, the mother joins, and in this moment four lakes of built up ecstasy burst forth and run together. They become enveloped in something so pure and so magical that nothing else matters, nothing else exists.   

Two lovers see each other, already one, already wrapped up before their physical bodies touch, a smooth gaze that comes after years of love, eyes locked, lips lock, eyes closed in deep happiness.  

Is this moment the peak? I wonder what the rest of their lives together are like.  Will this level of joy fade? Even before they are out the door their eyes return to the way they were before. Why does this joy not sustain? If this is a glimpse of something, what is it a glimpse of? And why is it so rare?

Unlike these people all around me I'm not waiting for someone, I came to be reminded of the light and bask in it.

I just flew in from dillingham where I fished my third gill-net salmon season.  Upon arrival, my captain, fellow crew and I walked to earthquake park, 3 miles from the anchorage airport.  I took my sandals off, and ran and slid in the mud down the beach.  Then they continued to the lower states and I'm staying here to head north, into a land that feeds my soul, that nourishes me in a way I didn't know I needed.  

Yesterday I stood on the banks of bear bay in western Alaska, miles from any civilization, and watched the river turn red. Thousands of florescent fins propelling the salmon upstream, where the scent of home will guide them within forty feet of where they were born. Where they will lay their eggs and die, to provide the vital nourashment for their babies. The ultimate sacrifice.  This, after years of swimming the big Atlantic to Japan and back.  It was a sacred ground, I stood in awe. As I walked up the creek, alert for bears, I noticed that these salmon would form groups just before a shallow stretch. Hardly swimming, they would muster energy from their weak bodies to power forward, wriggling, half out of water, sending pulsing splashes into the air, until they reached the next pool where they would return to slow twisting back and forth. I rounded a corner where the river stretched straight for 200 yards, the entire extent penetrated by hundreds of fins, glowing red as if a light was shining from inside.  This scene only exists a few places on earth for only a few weeks out of the year. I will never forget that holiness.

I love meeting characters pushing the frontier of what it means to live.  In dillingham I met Martin, who just finished fishing and was getting ready to hike back to anchorage, 300 miles over tundra and glaciers.  This was a dream I had last year.  Here in the airport I met Andy Knight, a New Zealander, who has spent the last two years bicycling around the world.  He's done all of Europe and Asia, and today he starts the America's.  He will bike north to the Arctic Ocean, then south all the way to the tip of Argentina.

This airport is the same place where my great journey begun last year.  Where I entered life with no plans, and discovered freedom, and started to see the world.  I've come full circle with an amazing year behind me, and I have a lot to ponder.  There are so many things in my heart, there are things I need to look at.  Life is such a massive thing and we have this one life, with infinite possibilities.  I don't want to walk through life not stopping to consider how I'm living, and how I want to live. I'm looking forward to my first stop, a cabin in the woods close to Denali national park. I'll be helping a couple I became close to last summer, who homesteaded the land years ago. They have a bed and breakfast and have a hard time keeping up the 100 acres. I'll help them half of the days and walk into the forest the other half to be, to learn, to see, to consider who I am and how I want to live and what life is, and where we can go, and what freedom is and how I can most fully propagate it.

I wonder what life is like from your perspective, and I hope you are doing well.

In the heat of the season

July 7

The days are starting to blur together, I'm having a hard time telling if its morning or evening, we fish for eight hours then sleep for a few, fish for ten, sleep for a few, each day feel like two.  And the sky is only dark for a few hours.  The mighty salmon have been good to us this year, not killer good, just good enough, the seas have been calm, it's pulled my food out of me only once.  And it's put food in many times. Last night we filleted, breaded and fried another salmon, cooked up black African rice and green beans, had a priceless feast anchored there on the south line among 500 other boats filled with fishermen who miss women all over the states. I'm listening to Peter Paul and Mary, getting very nostalgic for the 60s and 70s, and for free people, and for receiving and giving complete love, and for pushing to one. 

I'm grateful for Casey, my fellow crew, talking about life and the universe and the course of the human race on the back deck as we push through the seas and lay our net and call to the fish to culminate their destiny giving to us. Pulling jokes on each other and laughing and dancing.  Creating ideas together that rival the best shows.

And now it's time to fish, and watch the Alaskan ocean, and a 360 sky filled with clouds like you've never seen before, depth, color, texture, and a horizon of boats, and rejoice over every splash in the net.

Teleport off the port

June 29
When the immediate light of our sun shoots from one end of the horizon over the valleys of a distant mountain range through the crests of the brown waves and crashes against the shoreline cliff, I forget for a moment that I have a life, the dirt-fronted, tundra-tufted cliff face blasted with sun so fiercely it is knocked out of its home in Alaska and into my head, where nothing exists except waves refracting light, this cliff and distant silhouetted mountains. Then the light hits my head, my skin, and my eyes directly. The waves of light fire my neurons which immediately shakes me from my other-dimensional hermit perch and like sparks from a flint I appear now as part of this scene that used to be apart of me. The drone of the Cats Paw's engine, this gill net fishing vessel, the hurdling of the waves that my body has already learned to counterbalance, the other boats fighting the current to find a calmer water to anchor for the three hours that the district is closed. It all starts to come in clear. I'm back, I'm an Alaskan fisherman, and I'm basking in the sleep-deprived glory of the wild land, the textured sky, the endless water and the mighty salmon.

Temporary Farwell

Friends,

I'm leaving for Alaska in a few hours.  I will be hundreds of miles from internet on a boat in the Bristol bay for a few months.  I've appreciated the opportunity to share some of my experiences with you guys.  And I can imagine that on the other side there will be many more opportunities.  I love you all, and wish you a beautiful journey.

Be well,

Mark

Yosemite

I just spent a week in Yosemite, during which time I hitched rides with 10 different amazing people.  Some were guides or outdoor educators, a swiss family in a motor home, who i got to watch as they saw the valley for the first time, one woman from the dominican republic who talked of her dream of a world without borders like the show futurerama suggests that she watches with her kids, one breast cancer survivor who crafts wind chimes and goes to Africa half of the year to help recovering child soldiers, one bro who wanted me to go boating, and one hippy who described to me the pinnacle concerts of the grateful dead, he appologized to me that his generation ruined a good thing: hitch hiking. But I never waited more than an hour.  The first day I hiked into the northern back country and was halted by a massive fever, which had me shivering in a sleeping bag for a day.  The cool thing was that, because I wasn't moving, nature carried on as if I wasn't there.  So I had a first row seat to it's spectacles in an altered state of mind.  My favorite was the covey of mountain quail that fed near me.  Feathered horn pluming out of it's head, wings sparkling iridescent.  The chicks less preoccupied with fear.  A deer grazed near me later in the day.  I woke up the next morning to find my water filter out of batteries, so I decided the backcountry wasn't meant for this trip, and I hitched into the valley of Yosemite where civilization was and where the heavy hitting wonders are.  One night I hiked up to mirror lake.  The next morning, I wrote this.

I've been watching a school of six carp glide silently beneath the surface of the crystal clear Tenaya creek.  Their bodies glow of green, almost phosphorescently, their image beautifully distorted by the ripples on the surface, which throw in elusive hues of rainbow.  A foot beneath them, on the brown-pebbled bottom is a web of dancing lines of focused light, like fingers of electricity, flickering in patterns beyond my comprehension. They flow continuously upstream with the breeze.  Above the surface a moth glides across the water drinking when it dips. A blue dragonfly hovers; orange, white and black butterflies flutter by.  On the banks, the grass is abundant and the sand is white.  The long slender willow leaves glisten in the sun.  From a hole in one willow branch a group of babies chirp their hunger to their woodpecker mother who cautiously approaches to transfer the green worm from her beak to theirs.  Vaux's swifts dart from bug to bug, they are one of the parks endangered species.

Beyond the willows are spires of ponderosas. And when the wind dies down, the reflection in the Tenaya reveals sheer cliffs.  I direct my eyes upward to see the mighty half dome 4700 ft above me, the sun has just passed the half-way point in the sky and has cascaded down its smooth, vertical, 2000 ft surface, streaked black with algae.

Here I am, sitting on a log, in the middle of all this. It's been a while since I've felt HERE, like this. 

To my right, an Indian man sets up his go-pro mounted drone, which he then controls to get sweeping shots of him and his girl, even maintaining control while kissing her.  When it flies over my head it sounds like a migrating beehive.  Now the crowds are starting to show up, a group of Asians scream and laugh as they cross the "cold" creek.  Babies pushed in strollers like kings are unaware of the fading luxury they have inherited.  Toddlers splash in novelty, a family picnics, lovers hug and take selfies. Many people have go-pros on poles documenting what they're seeing. Perhaps because of this longing to share what one is experiencing with people he loves.  Maybe a similar reason to why I'm writing this.  

Flux and Coulter

Hello world,

There are so many stories I want to tell, it gets overwhelming to think about.  Since I wrote last, I've been in 15 different states. Each one with a set of experiences and people that have been irreplaceable.  And as much as I'd like to write about all of them, I'm not going to be around my computer for a while.  I came home for a few days for mother's day, connected with some key cup-fillers, and now I'm off to Yosemite for a few weeks.  I'm looking forward to exploring and reading and writing.  Here is one piece I wrote a few weeks back, thought I'd put it up.

Last night I was in Ohio.  I started out the day in Indiana.  It took me just two rides to get to where I wanted to be.  I decided to make use of the bus system because hitchhiking was going slower than I wanted to.  So I walked to the Greyhound station in Toledo.  The next bus leaving was going to New York, so I bought a ticket, and as I got on the bus and found a seat the bus pulled away.   For those of you who don't know, Greyhounding is always an interesting experience.  You've got foreigners who are trying to see the country as cheap as possible.  And the American's on board are for the most part a different class of people than you would see traveling by plane.  Which is partly why I enjoy it.

As I squeeze into my seat I notice the guy next to me across the aisle is writing down what seems to be lyrics or a poem, talking to himself as he searches for the words he wants, enveloped in his own world.  Of course I'm curious what he's writing and try to sneak a peak.  After a bit, he puts the binder away and I take the opportunity to engage.  "were you writing a song?"  "Ya! Do you write?"  His eyes were lit up from the beginning, full of enthusiasm.   19-years old, Coulter has the Irish eye sparkle, medium-length, straight, brown hair that hadn't been washed in a bit.  He wore a plaid collared shirt, jeans, and some unique old leather boots, untied.  A cigarette hung from behind his ear.  It didn't take long to realize he was a kindred.  There was nothing normal about the conversation.  We laughed at how there was no linear structure, it was just a flow, many flows at once.  "Flux," he said.  Soon we were both pumped for the 12 hour ride we had committed to.  I only slept for a few hours, and the rest of the time we talked about everything under the sun, and some things that aren't.  As we talked the question became, "how can we start a revolution?"  We came back to that question a lot.

Coulter went to a semester of college before deciding it's not what he wants for now.  Now he's living in a similar way to me.  Taking each day as it comes.  He was just in Michigan for a month collaborating on writing and recording music.  He said he wants to hitch-hike west in a few weeks, then head to Alaska for the summer.  Haha, that's basically my itinerary.   He isn't following any society-made structure, he is about as free as I've seen anyone.  He is quirky and brilliant.  Many times he would skip a week of school then ace the tests in high school.  He lives for art and writing, carrying around a bag of books and paints.  He didn't care what people thought of him, he spoke his mind and he jumped into connection with so many people.  Jumping up to help Indian parents clean their babies vomit, and giving generously to homeless who asked.

We had an hour layover in Cleveland, so we explored the town and ended up playing some foozeball.
I learned a lot on that bus ride.  Coulter doesn't live in any box, he sees the world for what it is, and he's not being mindless about it.  He is happy, and spreading really good energy to people.  He is not afraid to be who he is, to say his opinions and stand firmly.   It was one of those interactions that rekindled my fire and gave me hope.  I had been thinking how I wanted to meet someone like him.  Someone who is awake, who sees the world around him with an intense energy, and breaks the mold, leading into a loving rebellion.    He's someone I'll be keeping in touch with.  We're going to send each other writings for feedback.  We said farewell knowing that when one of us starts a commune, the other is on the top of the invite list.

Ode to Central Park

I'm back in Central Park.  It's a haven.  It's the breath of New York City.  The sun is warm and bright, penetrating my skin.  I'm wearing shorts, liberation of the legs.

The towering fountain with a sculpted angel on top ripples out a steady stream of fresh white waterfall noise.
A saxophone player mixes his melodies in with the fountain's.
A french-speaking group throws coins over their shoulders into the pond like they do at Trevi fountain...un-duex-trois!
An Indian couple stares confused at a group of blond american moms doing cross-fit lunges and jumps in spandex.
A Russian family is posing for a picture in front of the pond, the camera man in front of the pond, the man barks in attempts to get the toddler to smile...success.
Behind them, a woman with short white hair paddles herself in a row boat, pondering.
A black woman whose hair is many tight braids wrapped in a glorious head-sized bun resting straight above her lounges smooth by the water.

A Jewish duo.

There are two types of people in this square.  One, a steady stream of passers-by, most admire the fountain, pose for a few photos, then continue on their way.  The runners would fit into this category.  The other type is sitting around the perimeter on a perpetual stone bench, they are like me, observing.  What would happen if everyone was observing?  If we all noticed that everyone else was seeing?  All looking around at each other, an energy shift, a new connection?  What then?

The melodies of a quartet singing remind me of a group I heard last time I was here a month ago, in fact, it is that group  Such soul, the crowd applauses with gusto.
A bearded man scratches the ears of his white puppy.  An elderly Chinese couple stretches in a distinctly Chinese manner.
A french man serenades his woman with a french song while oaring the row boat.  They lean in for a kiss, his beret touching her forehead.
A pretty Londoner, Olivia, looks at her map, trying to decide what she'll see in her last two hours in New York before her flight home.
A short woman walks by very slowly, very intentionally, soaking in everything around her, completely absorbed.  Something about her energy touches me, expanding my heart and presence, raising my awareness.

Hard to see, but this guy was texting and driving.

It's spring in the park, the trees are bursting forth green leaves and pink blossoms.  The tulips, daffodils and bleeding hearts are full, waving their vibrant colors and textures in the breeze.  It's spring for the birds-chirping, and it's spring for the people-smiling, faces blooming.

I am rejuvenated once again in Central Park.  Central Park, you slice of heaven.  It doesn't seem possible that in the middle of this, many times, calloused, distracted, hustling city, there would be a fortress of life and abundance sprawling for 150 city blocks.  Central Park, you give me hope.  It's as though there were some portal at your boarder that transformed everyone who walked in.  It's as though you are an alternate universe shinning light in the darkness.

I have now outstayed everyone at this plaza.  To a new space I shall wander.

From a castle, looking over turtle pond.  (Which lives up to it's name.)

Ether

Something about this moment

when I slide under the covers 

and finally let everything go. 

Laying, completely unlaced,

embraced between gravity and bed. 

When I can drift out of my head and 

into my body, down my arms and legs, 

over the sheets, across the floor, 

up the walls, and 

out the chimney into the night sky, 

a space that more suitably facilitates my soul, 

expanding up into the heavens, 

where a million little strings of starlight
lift me up from the inside and 

hold me…

                 hanging, 

        dissipated, 

etherial.

Ether: noun

     a very rarefied and highly elastic substance formerly believed to permeate all space, including the interstices between the particles of matter, and to be the medium whose vibrations constituted light and other electromagnetic radiation.

Oatmeal Essence

Feel your heart,

let your awareness slowly
cook it like a bowl of
oatmeal. Let the smell fill the whole
house.

Tendril Effect

Stop for a moment.
Notice the tree in your mind,
infinite fingers stretched
out like veins.
Trunk giving way to branches which
spring twigs searching for total
sun.
Beneath the bark, feel the electricity
let it fly like a beehive,
to and fro,
searching for new air,
and
enjoy the trip.

Sky Meets Water

Walking in this world, looking at the life around me, I hold two realities, one in each hand.  In one, I trust that everyone is exactly where they want to be, that they are living as fully as they can, that they couldn’t be happier.  In the other I look around and I feel that so many haven’t seen the vision of what life could be.  Not that they are living the way they are out of a rejection of the best possible reality, they don’t see it yet.

Where do I stand?   Usually on one foot or the other.  One stands underwater.  In this place I feel that I don’t see what could be, I don’t feel free, and I look to the sky, searching for a way up.  The other stands in the sky, it sees clearly that there is no such thing as the opposite of freedom.  It looks down at the water and think, “my that is a beautiful lake, I think I’ll dive in and have a swim.”

While he was swimming, sky foot came across water foot.  “Isn’t this water amazing to swim in?” he asked.  But water foot just looked down and said, “I’m not free, I can’t get to the sky.”  Sky foot leaned in, “Ah, but there is no such thing as the opposite of freedom.”  Water foot replied, “yes, there is, I know because I am not free.”  “Ah,” the foot from the sky said, “but you’re making it up, you’re creating the cage, let it go, and see how refreshing the water is, then we’ll fly to the sky.”  But the foot from the water said, “if I’m making this up, then you’re making up the reality that there is nothing but freedom.”  Sky foot winked at him, “now you’re starting to catch on my friend.”

Thoughts from Toronto

Greeting from Michigan! It's a good story how I ended up here, just like everything is when you're "riding the wave of freedom" (as a long-haired vagabond once told me.) But before I get into that, I found something I wrote in Toronto a couple months ago. I was in Toronto for a month, a beautiful month that deserves many blog posts. I wrote this in the warmth of a coffee shop one day in February...

Just walking down yong street in Toronto to see someone I love. Many people walk on this street, and as I walk, I look at everyone that passes me, I begin to realize that I can understand each one in just a few moments, by understand, I also mean there is nothing that would get in the way of how deeply I love them. I look at the world around me, we all share this place and this moment, and it is so beautiful, just to be. As the energy in me dances I notice that it is reflecting back to me in those whose eyes catch mine, more and more I see smiles, alive eyes, and happiness. Like a fountain I bubble, just at that moment I think to myself, "I'm just..." And before I could finish the thought my eyes read the name of the shop I was passing, "walking on the clouds." I laughed, and said back to the universe, "I couldn't have said it better myself."

I don't understand why we compartmentalize our love for the people we already know who are waiting for us somewhere. Then, on the way to that place we shut down the eyes of our soul. We all know what warmth is behind the walls of places we know. But outside those walls, it's usually a different story. Why are there walls? Love is all around us and what a beautiful thing it is to pass it to everyone who crosses your path.

I think there is a world of energy deeper than what we call reality based on our senses. I think this is the truth, I think this is love, and I think this is where we are headed.

I don't seek money, I don't seek security, I don't seek attention, I seek becoming aware of and aligning with the energy that is already one, and is beyond what we have been taught reality is, true connection, boundrylessness, love.

Every moment of connection is a portal to another world. Every person sees the world differently, feels different things. I desire to see the world through the eyes around me. I think when two people see through the same eyes, they become one and "eyes" disappear. When I see through someone else's eyes that becomes part of my world, when all eyes become apart of your world, there is no longer a me.

Heard

Later the same day as the above post

I'm refreshed after a long walk down Yong street. At the top of some stones stairs in front of a Toronto apartment building at Yong and Wesley, I scan the intersection's pedestrians for someone who might lend me a phone to make a quick call. But my attention is drawn by the voice of someone who does not live in the same societal structures that the rest of these city dwellers. I can tell by the level and tone of his voice. My eyes find him, a black man with a black toque, a scruffy beard, and an old dirty jacket. He is standing still in the flow of people going both directions around him. I can't tell who he's shouting at because his eyes are looking slightly above the people around him, but his yelling is directed at someone. And as I listen, I gather that he tried to make contact with someone who ignored him and kept walking. "See, no one listens to me!" he directs his attention to someone approaching him. "People are too busy." His voice is impossible not to hear, but no one makes eye contact with him, they look to the ground and walk around. "Oh, you're not going to listen to me either? Fine, keep walking!" "No one even notices me," he says with a laugh.

The five steps beneath me props me up above the scene, and keeps me invisible, a perfect vantage point to observe. I am extremely interested. Here is a being who is frustrated with the reality that surrounds him. So frustrated that he is willing to risk what his image to publicly demonstrate his frustration in a way most people would call unacceptable. Normal social walls have collapsed for this being, but the rest of the world still remains inside their walls, probably feeling uncomfortable, or irritated, writing this man off as crazy. He is alienated, and that intensifies his drama.

I wonder what led this man to this point. I wonder what is going on in his mind, and what his experience of this moment is like. To my eyes it doesn't seem pleasant. He is in a flow of negative energy, and I doubt he knows there is another way. I want him to know.

I remain transfixed on this man, as he lashes out about things that I don't understand. Then his eyes glance in my direction, and he continues in his drama, but his energy is shifted because he feels someone sees him. He looks at me again, and stops for a second. Still a ways off he shouts, "Did you see that? No one listens to me, no one pays attention." I don't say anything, I just keep my gaze. Now that someone hears him he can spill out what is going on. He doesn't stop when I say nothing, the words come gushing out. I realize that the words he is putting together don't form thoughts that I can follow.

My consciousness drifts as I become aware of the scene that lays before me, his words begin to blur. I can't tell you what he is saying because I don't know if I hear it. I am in a different reality than this man, and I want to pull him into it. I decide to not say a word, and just communicate on the waves of my eye contact. As he gushes frustration, I don't recognize it, instead I give him something completely different back through my eyes. I almost feel like I'm saying back to him over and over, "Bro! I see you! You don't have to be angry, there is happiness, there is peace." Time blurs and I just wonder how this will end. Eventually he begins to slow down, he pauses every once in a while. His energy shifts and he begins speaking softly.

He looks at me, "THANK YOU, for listening," he says. "No one listens man." He looks down the street and says, "I just want to love people, I just want people to love me." I'm surprised to hear these words. "But then, when they don't listen I say @#$% you!" I speak for the first time, "that doesn't seem like love to me." "It is," he smiles, "it's called tough love." I say, "if you want love, give love." He tilts his head, thinks for a bit, then walks away. I cross the street and look over at him, he gives me a nod and a wave.

Kids

Place: Toronto

Time: Sometime in later February

I love kids. Today I've been noticing how they respond to a different type of impulse than adults. A toddler just burst into running, almost without thought, not to get anywhere...just enjoying the movement, she stops spontaneously a few seconds later, and look around with wonder. Each moment is separate, not linked up in a chain. A brown-eyed boy catches my eyes, and notices that my attention is more present than what he usually sees, but he doesn't look away from a lack of comfort like adults do, there is no reason for him to be uncomfortable, he hasn't learned about judgement yet. He stares straight, and pure. Something about this moment, like two mirrors facing each other. Something small, deep within me flutters...the honor of this moment. It makes it's way up to the edges of my lips in the form of a slight smile.

Alaska Adventure Videos

I'm drawn to wild places, I'm drawn to pure exploration, I'm drawn to the "power-vision" that solitude facilitates.  Last summer I took to Alaska, an experience that culminated with a 10 day exploration into the Gates of the Arctic National Park.  I captured some moments of the first 3 days on film before my camera stopped working.  This first video is the short trailer version, showing the action and the scenery, with an extremely relevant song, it's really all you need to see.  But I put the second video because some of you might want a deeper look into what the experience was like.  It's basically 11 minutes of what I'm thinking at various points of the journey and a few stories, pretty candid.  There are a few classic moments caught on tape.  There isn't really any overlap in the two videos.