Intro (13 new posts)

After 7 months of cruising, Hasta Luego is safely holed up for the summer, and I'm heading north.  Before I get too far away I wanted to share some scattered writings from the last 7 months.   The perfectionist in me was holding off the post month after month because there were so many unwritten stories I wanted to write to fill in, so many more things I wanted to express.  But in the end, there will always be untold stories, so I may as well put up the few I do have.  I put them in reverse order so you should be able to read them from the top down.  Make sure to pace yourselves, no need to read it all in one sitting.

Limbo

It’s a different kind of light in the middle of the ocean

When you wake up to an unobstructed horizon day after day

Wondering if the world is still out there, 

Wondering if the world you’re going to was the same one you left.

And you know...

                            there’s not a chance

Welcome

I want to pull you into this moment. Above deck it’s just you and me, I’m behind the wheel, and we’re under full sail, welcome aboard. We’ve been sailing for three days now, and haven’t seen land for 24 hours. Half-an-hour ago the sun settled into the cloudless horizon, leaving in its wake layers of light yellow and peach. The colors climaxed and disappeared, making way for the first stars of the night, and as it turns out tonight is going to be a spectacular celestial display. After a full day of blazing sun, the night comes as a breath of fresh air, a rest for the body and the eyes.  A shooting star burns silently to the horizon to welcome you.

15 Knots South

It’s been a few weeks, we set south from San Diego with an old sailboat we bought a year ago for 3200 dollars with 3 other good friends. If you told me then I’d be sailing the same boat south in one year toward the turquoise waters of the equator, it would have been to much for me to handle. The days role by out here like these waves, they just go on their own, I can’t keep track, and there’s no need to keep track. Right now I’m sitting next to the cockpit, starboard side, facing the stern. The froth in “Flo’s” wake is floating steadily to the horizon, our speed is great, not top speed, but maybe 5 knots (almost 6 MPH.) With the wind at our back, we’re on a southbound “Manta-Ray” tack (our blood red spinnaker sail is full on the port and our white mainsail is full on the starboard.)

Behind us is Cedros Island, rising out of the ocean 4000 ft, slightly green with low growing chaparral. We left Cedros this morning at 6:30 AM. I was sleeping in the v-berth bed, when I heard, “hey Mark, the wind is great, and there’s no waves, wanna head south?” I jumped out of bed uncharacteristically awake, “let’s sail!” I shouted. While I took the sail cover off and cleared the deck Jordan paddled the yellow kayak to shore with our charcoal bag to collect the remains of last night’s beach fire for future BBQ’s on our boat, it was mostly ash. Twenty minutes from the time I woke up, our anchor was pulled, our mainsail hoisted, and without turning on our engine we drifted south, no jarring engine noise to pollute the perfect beach with 5 date palms clumped at a spring.  We could still hear the gentle gushing of the waves on the beach and the frogs croaking in the spring as we said hasta luego to the historical anchorage called Las Palmitas (the little palms.)

It’s now 3 PM and the island is 30 miles behind us, thanks to the 15 knot winds. Jordan is at the helm, La Sierra trucker hat, orange tinted blue blocker glasses, and a pastel pink, blue and green striped tank-top hanging around his nose, mouth and chin like a bandit, keeping the sun from his skin that has evolved for the northern woods, not the sun-soaked Mexican ocean. A week ago I wouldn’t have believed that I would be able to write in these 4 foot swells without getting sick, I guess I’m adjusting, and what a relief.

Ten miles to our east lies desolate Baja California, various shades of light-brown and dark-brown bony earth are illuminated by patchy sun. The sky is mostly covered by clouds, and to our east the sun is blasting through in a fan of silver rays, salmon colored horizon indicating the coming of night. After listening to the weather report we decided to shoot past a common anchorage for cruisers (Turtle Bay) tonight and just sail down the coast. We can’t resist a week of 15 knot wind coming from the north, and the south is calling. I don’t know what’s ahead, but I’ve got a good feeling as I take over the helm.

Hatching Light

A thin ribbon of morning light streaks into the cabin hitting me on my bare chest. I watch it illuminate previously invisible dust particles floating softly in the room.  They transform in front of me into a universe of stars and galaxies orbiting around each other, twinkling…and I’m the lucky giant looking in from outside the universe.  What civilizations are living on planets orbiting these specks of dust, and do they know about each other?  Do they know about me?  As the boat rocks and the water gently laps at the hull, this ribbon of light moves up and down rhythmically, changing which galaxies are in the spotlight, and the slight breeze swirls them into waves and whirlpools in the air. 

Added to this morning’s spectacle are two, ever-rising symphonies of steam from the bowl of oatmeal with honey, and the cup of jasmine green tea next to me on these blue sailboat-themed couch cushions.  I don’t see the steam until, 6 inches from my eyes, it reaches the ribbon of light coming through the main hatch, and at that point it lights up brilliantly, twisting and turning like smoke. As I look closer I can start to see the individual drops of water that make up the whole, bright little bubbles of water floating up, like a reverse water fall. Though there are millions they seem to have choreographed this moment perfectly to create a dance of order in the randomness, each following behind the other as the choreographer directs this wisp over there, and that wisp to flip inside-out and twist under, then through the middle, thicker one. 

I imagine these droplets get the same satisfaction that a dance group gets when they perfectly deliver a never-before-seen routine. How do they know how to stick together? What keeps them unified in their freedom? They remind me of a flock of a thousand birds, little black silhouettes, flowing in and out of each other between an urban skyline, or a school of glittery fish morphing their collective form to create a hole wherever a hungry shark tries to dart. This collective mind, it makes sense for the bird or fish, it serves a function of protection and maybe teamwork when it comes to finding food, but for the drops, for the steam, what is the purpose? What is the evolutionary advantage? These water droplets don’t have the responsibility of reproducing. Their longevity is inherent, they are immortal. Rising into the air, forming clouds, condensing, falling back to the earth where they flow through rivers either to end in my pot of tea or the ocean once again. They have no worries, no responsibilities and yet, they still spend their time creating the most elaborate works of art the eye has beheld. It makes me wonder…What is the choreographer? Is there one bird or drop that moved up the ranks like a first violinist and become the leader? How are decisions made? Especially when there are a thousand tiny decisions per second. It takes us humans ten uncertain minutes sometimes just to decide where we are going to eat tonight or which movie we are going to watch. And then, many times, once the decision is made, we still question it during and after the event is over, letting it form into a regret if we feel we have made the wrong choice. What makes these smaller, so-called less intelligent life forms so unified, and here we are glitching over small things which turns into frustration and regret? Does our complexity have some side-effect that pulls us from a deeper connective force? And do we have the ability to “dance” like the birds or the drops without a choreographer and months of practice?

I ponder all these things still laying on the couch of my sailboat in the early morning.

Cabo is starting to wake up, and I have a date with Blanca, the beautiful Mexican woman in the taco truck, who is going to teach me to make corn tortillas and roasted salsa this morning. Soon, I will paddle our kayak (the yellow submarine) to shore where the tourists are enjoying their one week of freedom, and walk to Jose’s Taco Truck.   

But for now I am grateful for these moment, I am grateful for this one ribbon of light, because without it, the dust galaxies still would have floated, and the steam still would have swirled elaborate masterpieces with one mind, and I would have been sipping tea, oblivious. It makes me wonder what else in life is right in front of my eyes that I don’t see and just needs a certain ribbon of light coming in from the front hatch to open my eyes.

Stomach Within a Stomach

Part I

The knife effortlessly cuts into the foot-long papaya, whose juicy flesh is glowing bright orange. I slice a generous ring and step out to the edge of the boat. I examine the little black seeds, which have to be one of the most intriguing visuals. Somewhere between a brain and a beautiful gem, there seems to be another dimension as I peer through the shimmering clear film into the embryonic sac with mazes of brown bark, and rainbow colored bubbles. I push the seeds from inside the ring and they fall into the light-blue water.  Almost instantaneously a school of inch-long flashy fish frenzy to peck at these nutritious drops. Then beneath them gathers a school of foot-long silver fish to peck at the delicious inch-long fish. So within seconds I have contributed to multiple layers of the food chain, and the food I held in my hands a minute ago has trickled into a stomach within a stomach. I find in myself no feelings of sympathy for the little fish, or feelings of congratulation towards the bigger, but instead I find gratitude that I live in a balanced world where organisms’ main function is to seek out floating energy and to absorb it, to continue its flow through progressively more complex forms, to be returned once again into the ground where the papaya grows, because I enjoy papayas in a way I can’t describe. And how lucky am I that I get to be apart of this flow for a fleeting moment, and to be aware of it!

I take the first bite, and my mouth is filled with juice and soft flesh, with aromas of flowers and smiles wafting into my nose, and flavors of the sun and honey melting into my tongue. As the golden ring transitions from existing outside my body to inside, I feel increasingly more alive. I can feel the exchange of energy, and here I am along side the fish, completing the circle of everything.

This morning for breakfast I hand-flattened corn flour and water to make tortillas. 

The flavors of the papaya and tortilla connect me even deeper to the land that is a quick paddle away from my boat…Mexico.

Part II

The last month has been a series of sailing adventures that have brought me to La Paz, Mexico, at the south end of the Sea of Cortez (which Jack Cousotou called the aquarium of the world.) La Paz is a peaceful town surrounded by cactus and red rock. (As we sailed in a few days ago, I felt like we were sailing into the Grand Canyon if it were filled with water except for the top 1000 feet.) La Paz has a high reputation among sailors, so much so that many put their ocean wanderings on hold to settle down here for years. Needless to say there is an amazing sailing community here, the mode of communication being radios and a net call every morning at 8 o’clock during which announcements are made, like coffee at 10, or jam session at 5, or line dancing at 3, weather is given, and items to be traded are shared. Jordan already bought an iPad, and we have a lead on an outboard motor for our dingy.

We came to La Paz to see some of our good friends from the docks at San Diego, Steve and Janny. They invited us over the first night we got here for dinner and to spend the night on their spacious catamaran. In the few following days we have met cruisers from at least ten boats, and have been invited over for dinner on another boat. The community of sailors is glued together like no community I’ve been apart of because we have all come from and we are going to that great unpredictable beast that covers 71% of our world, and because we have left a conventional life style to drift into new lands, to discover and to learn.

Bag of Limes

The setting sun turns the cloud filled sky into a colorful watercolor, a sandpiper walks the beach probing deep with his bill for food.   A photographer with a big lens is stalking him.  The bird will be silhouetted backed by peach water and dark ripples.  

All around me kids on wheels whirl and smile and fall, a dance on cement, skateboards, BMX bikes, low-riding tricycles, pink bikes with training wheels, each in their respective group, each interacting and pushing the limits.  A mix of gringo and local couples walk through the plaza and out the pier.   Flashing white Christmas lights spiral up palm trees.  All ages, all comfortable.  I notice a lone elderly Mexican man slowly hobbling through the plaza, through the commotion, unable to dodge anything.  In his hands is a bag of limes.  He wears old leather shoes, old brown slacks and an old flannel, tucked in, brown and green plaid.  His back is hunched and he strains to lift his eyes to see.  What does he see?  He sees a world that has changed in front of his eyes.  What does he think of what he sees?  Silently he hobbles on with his bag of limes and looks at the kids zipping on wheels.  He strains back to track the sound of a plane, he looses balance almost falling back, but he stables himself and looks around.

Here stands a flicker of fading light from yesterday, trying to comprehend the growing lights of tomorrow.  No one seems to see him, as he hobbles through with his bag of limes.  No one seems to realize that here walks the wisest man in La Paz, a man who has seen the world many times before the times that came before these times.  What would he tell us if we listed?  It’s all too beautiful…my eyes tear up.

Canvas

The sun is almost set.  The only trace it leaves is a light dusting of pink on the purple clouds over the ocean, and one intense beam, that has chosen to spotlight a red-rock cliff in the distance.  I’ve feasted my eyes on these miles of sheer red spires and cliffs many times but not until now has this particular one been a resting point.  Now it is the star of the show, the rest of the cliffs have faded to grey and this cliff shines the most brilliant warm red it can muster.  And the crowd goes wild!  The crowd of one.  Man, it’s a good thing I am where I am, or else no one would have seen the show, so it wouldn’t have even happened because light is only light when there are eyes, otherwise it’s just endlessly vibrating energy.  So when the cliff bows as the curtains close he leans forward and says, “Thanks for bringing an empty canvas.”

But thanks to the moon, the sun continues to put on a show.  The waves on the water refract the light of the full moon into a million dancing lights, which-if you let go of your mind enough-will morph into images imprinted into your mind like an open exposure photo of someone drawing with 15 flashlights.  And these curvy images are replaced with new ones every second like start-stop animation.  

 And this is how the one light of the sun is reflected off the moon, transformed into a masterpiece film and returned to one light once again in my eyes.  My mind tucks it away long enough to record then floats away with the wind, leaving room for the next phenomenon in this wild life to use my mind as its canvas.

Outside Time

You are sitting in a cave on a Mexican island with a yellow journal in your cross-legged lap, writing this.  I am at the computer reading this blog.  Before you write the words, I have already read them.  That’s how I know what you’re going to say, but I’m still interested because I’ve tricked myself into thinking this is the first time.  You are going to say that you hold light and dark in your hand, they are two mirror balls.  They balance each other, and when they touch, the universe is born.  

They hold everything that is in this moment.  And as you spin them in your hands the next moment arrives, and the next, and in this way the flycatcher on the cardon cactus in front of you starts whistling, and the plain moves down its contrail, and the vulture soars to the left, and the emerald water laps at the hull of the sailboat anchored in the bay bellow, and your sister moves her pen at her desk studying back in California, the steam from your mom’s pot of soup is rising, and congress continues to argue, and a girl gives a New York hobo a smile, and a twinkle appears in a Chinese monks eye, and the Voyager I drifts further from earth, searching for life.  Everything at once.  7 billion conciousnesses are receiving scenery input and acting or reacting, all in this one moment which you hold in your hands.  But it’s not just this moment that you hold.

These orbs reflect each other into infinity, holding every moment within themselves.   Like two mirrors facing each other in the bathroom; you look into one, and it shows you a thousand reflections down into infinity, you stand in the middle of a beginningless beginning and and endless end.  In them is your reflection also, because this is the particular form your consciousness is inhabiting at the moment.  A beard has grown around your mouth, your hair is combed back, curling around your ears, on your bear chest hangs a neckless with 108 rose-wood beads.

Grandpa

I'm sitting across from my grandpa's maroon easy-chair.  I've never seen another person sit in that leather chair.  And now it's empty.  

His struggled, heavy breaths wafting slowly into the room are the only sounds in this house, other than the quiet crackling of the fire next to me.  I sit, following the flow of air in and out of his lungs.  The flow stops.  Intent, I look at him, the whole world seems to freeze as I hang in limbo searching for the sound of another breath.  In the silence, images of my strong grandpa come back to me.  A handsome, young man singing in a quartet touring the nation in the 50s.  A wild grandpa who built the biggest rope swing you ever saw, just so 8-year-old me could get the thrill of my life.  More water comes to my eyes, then, I hear it, another breath, with a weak cough.  

I continue to watch his sleeping body, framed by 15 bouquets of flowers.  He looks like he's in a floral shop, but he's at home, in this hospital bed.  He has lived in this two-story house in the woods since he was not much older than me. Behind him, out the window is the vivacious spread of Oregon fauna.  In contrast, his skin is yellow and loose, the meat on his face gone, revealing the contours of his skull.  His mouth is hanging open, in an expression that looks halfway between shock and horror.  His hazy eyes are slightly open gazing at the popcorn ceiling, but he is deep in a hallucination.  

When he could still talk a few days ago he would allude to his hallucinations.  Intrigued, I would ask for more, but he could only say vague things, such as, "I think that was the right one."  

Once he woke up and managed to say, "I'm disoriented."  My grandma proceeded to tell him the time and date, and I added, "you're still on planet earth," thinking that would be more relevant.  

The next day when he woke up he said, "I wonder which of these I won't wake up from."

The process of watching a soul leave a body is fascinating, eerie, heavy, and holy.  I find myself dying to know what his experience is like.  He is more somewhere else than here, and I wonder where he is.  What has he learned? What does he think of this life he has lived?..(if he thinks of it.)  What would he tell me if he could talk?  

I've spent much time in the last week looking into his eyes, hoping to understand a bit, hoping to see him, and for him to see me seeing him.  But whenever his eyes would hit mine he would glance away.  I got the sense he didn't like being seen.  You see, this decrepit man in front of me used to be a superstar.  Wherever he went, whatever community he was apart of he was the star, he was the one that everyone looked up to, the one who brought the life.  He was the one who could play a trumpet and the piano at the same time, he was the one who could balance anything on his hand or nose.  He was the one who could tell a story with his eyes and everyone would be transported.  He was the one who could climb fastest and run the farthest.  He was the doctor that organized meetings that resulted in hundreds quitting smoking or changing to a healthy diet.  He was the one who led out in church services, and bible studies.  He was the one who grew a big enough garden to feed a small army.  He was an upper-middle-class, american legend.  The endless flow of flowers and letters indicate that fact.  And now he lays in his bed not even able to clear the saliva from his throat.  He chokes.  

The doorbell rings, and a nurse is now here to wash him.  My mom is back from a walk with a friend, so there is now some life joining the death.  I can feel the air lighten with their presence.  Turning him on his side was difficult for the nurse, so I helped her lift and hold his fragile body.   His skin was rubbery almost like plastic.  I put my hand on his shoulder and told him I loved him, in case he was here.

Now my grandma-his loving wife since he was younger than me-sits beside him and strokes him.  Kissing him.  Telling him how much she loves him and what an amazing man he's been.  You wouldn't know by looking but she doesn't know how to handle what's happening.  She told me that her identity has always been wrapped around her relation to him.  She was always "Jim's wife," she was never "Carolyn."  If she was at a gathering without him she would stand in the shadows, but with him, she would walk tall and straight into the limelight, as the Wife of Dr. McHan.  

Yesterday grandpa sat in his easy chair.  Not that he had the strength to get there, but in his stubbornness he didn't care.  I think it was the last time he'll sit in that chair, in fact I think that was the last time on his feet.  During the 10 foot walk back to his bed, he couldn't find the connection between his mind and his feet, they didn't move, I could see the struggle, he put all he had into it.  But in the end, I had to lift his feet and put one in front of the other.

This morning a varied thrush smacked into the window and died on impact next to the front door.  I moved it so visitors wouldn't see to a moss covered stump in the woods, covering it with a few golden leaves.  I found it hard to walk away.  I felt like something more needed to be done.  Later, as I photographed the Jacuzzi to sell, I saw a tiny shrew lying on a stepping stone.  It was curled up...lifeless...a dew drop glistened in its whiskers, it's little paw folded under it's long nose.

It's everywhere.  Forms dissolving.  Death.  And yet my vision is not darkened.  Let’s go somewhere. I do not feel that death is the enemy.  If death were eliminated, the only thing that would exist would be everything.  And in that case there would be nothing, it would all be light...infinite, formless light.  Or if just some things existed, without death it would be stagnant, there would be no flow, no movement.  Death is the gravity for the river of life.  It makes way for an ever twisting, turning cascade, creating time itself.  Otherwise the flow would cease, nothing coming in, nothing going out.  So death is the hand that reaches down to part the curtain of light and give birth to time.  But what is death really?  Is anything lost?  The thrush already gave birth to 5 more, and the shrew's body will become food for mushrooms, and my grandpa has instilled me with the desire to seek the next challenge.  Though we call them dead, from them has rippled the current state of the river, without them, there would be no us.  So we are a continuation of them.  And if you took us away, there would be no them, they had to go somewhere, and that somewhere is right here.  So between us and them lies an equal sign and the only difference on each side of the equation is the combination of symbols.  So maybe there is no difference between them and us. Maybe there is no death, maybe death is something we have created and focus on that distracts us from the truth, that we are not the pebble that gets picked up by the river for a time and is discarded under a log...we are the entire length of the river.  We are on one side of the equation, so we are on all sides of the equation, we just get to experience the parting of the curtains in different ways every go around.  And we enter the other side of the curtain, and realize there is no time, but the illusive death has reached down and shown us what cannot be seen: the form in the formless. We previously thought we were the form…but form comes from nothing and goes to nothing…the only thing that remains is the eternal essence of our soul.

Lions of the Sea

It’s cool enough to enjoy tea, and enjoy we are.  Kathryn and I spent the morning kayaking to the north of Isla Partida where hundreds of sea lions were raising their pups.  I was drawn to paddle into a cave, sided with flat black rocks, deep, narrow and tall.  Below the water was clear to the sandy bottom featuring liquid light beams ten feet below.  The swells pushed gurgled sounds into the air that was already occupied by sea lion wails.  Purple, pink and green plants covered the walls.  Suddenly, two big round eyes popped out of the water.  A baby sea lion.  He kissed my go pro with curiosity and twirled down to the sand where he picked up a rock and started playing with it in his mouth like a human baby with a chew toy.  I jumped in with snorkel and mask and was led toward the bigger lions.  The water teamed with colorful life, purple fans, bright green parrot fish, yellow finned angel fish.  The first lion I met was a hefty but hansom fellow gliding unperturbed by my lanky body.  I was completely at his mercy.  I swam toward the rocks where I motivated 10 adults to bark their consent then slide in.  Soon there were as many bodies in the water around me than a well-attended party.  I swam down into their midst so that they were under me, over me and on all sides.  They became a curtain so all that existed was right there, within their sphere. Suspended for that moment, no longer as Mark, but as the unattainable tide. I held my arms out open, but none reciprocated the hug.

Mango-breasted Pajaro

Last night I paddled among waves glowing green as they crashed, to a campfire on the beach of Tenacatita, under a full night sky of stars and silhouetted palm fronds.  Around the fire were three traveling friends, my current sailing partner, Kathryn (who I met last summer riding south from the Alaskan arctic on a bicycle,) and two guys who were hitch hiking from Quebec to Brazil (Ottar and Hogan,)  they were looking for a ride from baja to the mainland, which we provided and more.  I played the guitar against the stump of a palm, entranced by the fire.  

When I woke up, I had that feeling of not being present, I recognized my lack of recognition, lack of seeing.  So I went for a walk.  I was walking by a beautiful jungle creek, birds singing all around, abundant fish in the shallows, inchworm on my arm.  Yet I wasn’t fully there.  I continued to loosely ponder that, not grasping it.  

And as the others sat at a restaurant, I sat on a palm tree stump, playing my guitar.  I felt distant.  

Twenty feet in front of me a little bird landed, one of the most beautiful birds I had ever seen. Mango-yellow breast, brilliant green cap, and sparkling blue on the back.  It seemed specifically interested in me, hopping closer little by little, until it was at my feet.  My mind raced to label what was going on…I’ve never had a wild bird be this focused on me before.  But my mind racing prevented from my actual soaking in the presence of the bird, I felt like I was missing an amazing moment, but didn’t know how to enter it.  I’m not sure why, but the words “I love you” started repeating in my mind, as if spoken to the bird, and as those words repeated, the mind chatter stopped, and I began to see the bird in full color, right there in front of me.  I longed for it to be a message from a purer dimension, I longed for communication, for connection.  But it continued to hop and peck at the dirt, and glance at me, silently.

The MATCH Box

I came up from Mexico for a week for a friends wedding in Yosemite. Yesterday I was at Pieology with some friends, but I didn’t get a pizza to save money.  Soon pizza’s were out and being chewed.  A few pieces were given to me by selfless hands, which only increased my appetite, so when Cam asked if I wanted to split another one, I couldn’t resist.  We didn’t know what that decision would lead to.  

We went through line asking for one whole wheat crusted pizza.  The pizza girl started buttering a white one.  “Oh, we just wanted one whole wheat.”  She sighed and started to toss the pizza.  “Wait, are you going to throw it?”  “Could we have it?”  “Raw?”  She asked.  As we were trying to figure out how beneficial that would be to our diet, the manager came over and said quietly, “ah, I’ll make you guys some garlic strips.”  So when we returned to our table we had strips to share, on the tab of the manager’s generosity.  

It was Chelsea’s birthday, so we wanted candles to stick in the pizza.  I went to the counter to ask, but the search revealed a lack of candles in the pizza shop.  I went back to ask for matches as a substitute, but again, no luck, not even a lighter.  The manager picked up on what was happening, and said, “I’ll go grab some for you guys at the gas station.”  The group was starting to get blown away by all these things coming to us.  She came back with matches and we explained it was for a birthday.  “Oh! I’ll go get you guys some brownies from the special stash in the back!”  Jaws were dropped.  

So as a thank you we gathered 20 dollars, and stuck it in the match box with a note we all signed telling her to buy something special for her workers.  We left hearts warmed, but that wasn’t the end.  

As we stood by the car.  Clarissa came out gushing over.  “Thank you guys so much!”  She told us of her life passion to open a health-conscious restaurant, and how this job was the perfect stepping stone for her.   But this last week had been really difficult for her, causing her to doubt her path.  So this came at just the right time, it reminded her of her passion.  As I watched her through the window later, she was exploding with happiness.  Interacting with her employees as a whole new person.  My hearts smiled, reminded of the potential impact we can have on others lives.

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.