I sit for a spell on the rocks at Donner Summit, CA, Tahoe National Forest, August 2002 March 2003 Cabin Diary |
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11 March 2003 -- The necessity of my substance
I have found the "luxury", as it has increasingly come to be, to take a trip up here and sit amid the snow that is on the verge of melting at last, ushering in the interval of mud. It is wet, yes, and warm enough to make things even wetter as I speak. It is almost as if I shouldn't really be burning a fire inside the Cabin, since that is only adding more heat to the outdoors, where winter is some sort of cherished desolation that I should not want to dismiss. It is a grey day, like so many, and it is hard to think of when the ground will become hard, with its granite-flake upper layer being driven into bare feet that have again been toughened from outdoor use. I suppose there is a certain romance to such a thought, especially while I'm not needing to chug water from the canteen and cool myself off in the waterfall above the portion of the river that passes immediately below in the ravine. Why I'd carry any fondness for what's out there now is beyond me, unless I consider that I'm looking for what is best in all things. This would have to be a departure from my previously-stated preference for characterizing everything according to its worst, so that it doesn't disappoint me. In the rational analysis, though, cultivation of the better looks easier on one's physical constitution on a day-to-day basis. The crises of individual moments that this will obtain still do not add up, overall, to an impulse to exceed the nagging wear of long-term and institutionalized pessimism.
The seasons, gratefully enough, do not often pose those moments of intense change, except perhaps when a "front" moves through and things warm up by tens of degrees F. It might be 40 - 45 F right now, but that's not so materially different from the 30 F that prevails during the stoutest of blizzards that hit these parts. One should hope to be conveyed through life on a natural, higher-order curve of one's external influence, something that hasn't the slightest hint of impulse, but this is never what life actually deals. No, the notion of the impulse and of the abrupt step are somehow rooted in the concept of living that I've been taught to accept. It is the indeterminate form of the vanishingly-short episode of exceedingly-large effect that is so commonly found. I can only imagine that each individual person has enough of a "low-pass characteristic" that these shocks are evened out, in the classic style of a damped simple harmonic system. Oh, yes, those old metaphors from engineering school look so elegant, and can be described in such detail. To think of every phenomenon as simply an unacceptable perturbation in a decidedly-continuous space is a tempting world-view; even the ebb and flow of the quantum-mechanical "goo" is, at its core, a smooth outcome. Still, it remains that sudden imposition, whether modeled or actual, is something that the competent navigator must weather. It is how weakest links get tested, when one's principal defense is indeed something so authoritative as a chain of tempered steel.
I should wonder instead how the better majority of folks really deal with the immediate and the harsh. They simply deny what they're seeing, until their system has ramped up to process the full load. It can't be any other way, for the mind that comprehends fully is ultimately tested beyond reasonable limit by the brutality that is there. Time is indeed a wonderful balm for creation, for in combination with subjective observation, it allows the short-but-sweet to be shouldered as an everyday load. This could well explain for me the delight I find in the slower pace of the woodlands, even with the critical acts contained therein, such as the taking of prey or the collapse of sufficiently-old trees up on the hillside. The containing superstructure is made to ignore these in favor of the larger process, as if gaia has a subordinate child in the form of sylvia; the woods. Carrying about such a buffer and barrier is enough to insulate the most fragile of cargoes, and I could well be modelling the immense internal infrastructure I've been made to build by comparing it to a whole "ecosystem" and its insignificant individuals. I'm not quite sure how I came to any kind of central role in this reactive and proactive processing construct, but as author, I get the immense privilege of definition. I suppose I could well live out the hours and the days and the years by being entirely passive, since even dead weight still has inertial mass, wherever it goes.
Yes, I'm full of the metaphor today. It all looks like a reflection of my worldview, the one in which time-domain, single-valued functional reality unfolds, whether I happen to be ready for it or not. I instinctively balk and cringe when I hear these perfectly rational folks talk of subjective perception as one's only feasible solution. No, there is what is, and the bulk of it is "not me". I cannot ever discard my shell, thin though it becomes; I am always parcelled off and kept from "borrowing" what I need to soften the blows from the resources strewn about. This whole hollow, and even the village below, are within my firm grasp, being made distant but not entirely inaccessible by the difficulties that face any creator in a dry spell. I will not be the singularity whose "without" is so earnestly embraced while still realized as a proper externality. It is the domain of the wishful fool, to see something in nothing, for that is what the single point of anything, be it light or mass or space-time itself, is constrained to contain. I will not discard the notion of proprietorship in functional surroundings, for no one will free me from my self-limiting instance. I know there are wonderful schools, filled to the brim, with those who have taken their vows of non-possession, but my faith is not like theirs. I have a fundamental rooting in the crass and the material that haunts me whenever I begin to think of an essence in the non-temporal.
I need my holdings, and indeed, they must be mine.
"Bo"
17 March 2003 -- Those necessary duties
I have found it difficult to get away for this trip, given the complexity that inheres in an ordinary, "productive" life. I lay tentatively on the slipcovered sofa, thinking I'll soon need to get up and go. But where, really, would I go next, so as to optimize the burner upon which time combusts? Outside the wooden front door and currently-moot screen door that will take its place 'round about late April, it is quite wet, and indeed, thoroughly, soppingly so. There could still be another snowfall, but the sun is now about to cross the meridian, and such a sun is no longer a simple accessory to the environment. What was once marginalized and in winter storage is being brought back out, and with a certainty that must frustrate the commodities speculator. Yes, it is a lot of mud, and there have been some hard freezes the last few nights. I still feel like I have to "get up and go", though. There is no time for this, really, for the "system" has its design for me, the one that gets revealed in the manner that a blessing is conferred.
I turn about on the sofa, pressing my face into the upholstery. Sometimes the entire picture is so grand, yet it is not to look at; it is to edit. How I would love to see the whole plan and just sit there and watch it. I'm required to input my choices and my affirmations, but why would the great "producer in the sky" choose to let the subject client design his own outcomes? It should just be as simple as letting go and shutting down. I should have the liberty to take leave and take it well. It is getting on towards night, but I know it's a later hour than before. It's all opening up, right on schedule. I tell myself not to push myself, for there is more than enough guidance in one's surroundings. Maybe I'm managing my surroundings improperly, and I'm getting too rich a mixture. I could probably launch into some metaphoric reverie about carburetors at this point. It doesn't stop. Is this the point where I get down on my knees, disclaim the authority I'm so constantly called to employ, and turn it all over? There must be a great contingent who just drift along that way. They know the parameters of their enclosure, and what's the point of beating on one's bars?
This all sounds too desperate. I am a human being, and I'm arguing about small matters in the greater significance of life as a whole. I should be grateful that I'm not yet stricken; that most of those maladies are the stereotypies of a high-stress diet. It's a real kick, though, to drive such a machine as this. It makes me feel like the real man I never was. But I'll never have more than token control, as if the master has put up the walls and I'm doing the decor. Yes, metaphors, and this doesn't really do much. I feel myself hanging on to something vile as I lay here. I should get up and walk around some. Shoot, I should even don my boots and muck around out there in the mostly-snowless regions, where the yellowed grass is finally beginning to gain some of its sense, as a whole being. There are no truly binding commandments at such a point, except the notable profit centers that have a high return on investment. If a man were just to do his work, and do it to the hilt, then his mark would be made, if it was indeed his initial intent to create one. These wastes of time are at once a tragedy and an asset, for they denote my ultimate ability to hit the right spot and just run with it. Yes, Mr. motivational seminar speaker and huckster, I can do it.
I feel the call to self-discipline, though this hardly is the way to cool off. Ordinarily, one relinquishes and the craft will right itself, for there is a lot of design work behind the instance of life that one is given. It is a big old storm, to be ridden out. What is the reality behind all of this imagery, though? Am I being allowed to build ridiculous contraptions by the maker, so that his glory will be re-affirmed? I highly question that we come close to God, when it is said that "ye are gods". There is the finite instance, walking the earth, and forming the fanciful front that should properly bring the passer-by to look above and see the inspiration. Oh, but how the mud behaves, to suggest the spring. The picture is a soothing one; all of these rather-wet, yet-to-blossom woods. I meditate for a moment on just how the underlying structure of renewed life is being "prepared" in these hundreds of acres in the hollow. One could hardly build a terrarium so lush, even though it be full of lots of moldy leaves, soaked-through bark and soil of a kind that forms a great continuity on the drainage basin.
What was the problem, anyway? Am I fearing that my all-or-nothing machinery might have failed to receive its proper maintenance? In the spirit of things not broken, I wouldn't know where the real fixes need to be made, anyway. I feel myself sink into this old sofa, knowing I'll have many more moves to make, and with finely-honed alacrity. Those moves underly the structure as it is expressed, as if the conduct within one's vocation is like a form of worship all its own. What is excellent, though it may be the sounding of a gong, is still a part of the more excellent way. Yes, I could take a trip through Scripture, too. I guess we're talking about driving many roads in shifts, but under the same domination each time. I am a bit wound up, and I suppose this was not intended, much as the management likes actions that are above and beyond. I breathe deeply, practicing the old routine that just might let me go. It all glitters at times, and I have to wonder if that's really where things are headed.
"Bo"
24 March 2003 -- The immutable blessing
There was a decided arrival of "fresh air" across the clearing today, though there are still many places where the snow remains, proud, defiant and cold. Spring, indeed, is a reality that will proceed, regardless of my own little dealings and dispositions. It is about 50 degrees F on this bright day, and while I know that the ground is mud more than anything else from the relentless downward run-off, I am at least inclined to come outside and sit for awhile on the porch. I am aware of the advanced state of preparation exhibited by the foliage all about, and it is this knowledge, more than anything else, that gives me a feeling of being borne aloft by "life", in whatever prehistoric remnant of fertility cult imagery this might invoke. Really, I suppose I'm pretty tired today, and from activity not too out of the ordinary. All this "mountain man" talk presumes a stouter constitution than my own. Bolder men deal in bolder influences, and think them not beyond propriety, for after all, any good post-modern will tell you that the person defines for himself what is indeed "proper". I am aware of the assorted folks out there who would look at someone like myself and wonder, "what's he complaining about?" Oh, yes, I have it all so good; wonder of wonders, many are the blessings conferred / on he who just will live. What is not life is death; there is no middle ground, so by stoking this old hulk along, I'm making a statement of unqualified allegiance to all others who truthfully uphold this wondrous good.
There should be no quibbling, therefore, over anything so inane as "quality of life", when it is that "quality" called "life" that needs no further explanation. Pain, yes, is my portion, but what man escapes the assorted demons of the sensory path? I still hold my place for another time, so I'd do better in allowing what ails me to find some of those many apertures outward. I have been on the porch, with the brilliant blue and its cloud-structure moving along. The wind shakes the trees I can see, and it is no longer the exclusive agent of the cold. I wish there were somewhere dry enough to go, beyond the porch, so that I could just crash out and absorb some of this exquisite-yet-uplifting calm within the fresh air. If I had greater strength, of course, I could find a way around this, but then that greater strength would open more opportunities for work. It would seem that weakness is the individual's way of finding his place, for to do more will begin to infringe on the great sanctity of one's own life. If it were not for my obvious membership within the living, I would wonder if perhaps my central essence has died out years ago, to be replaced by some stooge of the approval-givers. I should be my own source of infectious merriment, with the cordoned-off source that I might otherwise be carrying around. It's all just a matter of "turning down" the level I so compulsively accord voices that might in all truth be smaller than my own. I should be like the radio-astronomer who curses and attenuates the abundance of terrestrial "noise", while listening intently for meaning within the envelope of true noise from beyond.
So, much as all of this resembles a functioning enterprise with no need of being fixed, I am left today with a contrition that suggests I am mightily "broken". To whoever has the immense and unrelenting hands that can do this, I do humbly protrate myself in obeisance. Where is it written, anyway, that this fleeting glory known as "pleasure" must be supplicated ahead of your own almighty benevolence, in building this great brotherhood of all that lives? They do not share in anything personal to me; they read instead a participant of whom much is expected, simply because of what he has been given. I lean back in the porch chair, whose rusty structure squeaks slightly. None of this is yet to the finely-"developed" point where true leisure can be sold at a profit. This is all run of the mill, and indeed, the mill as it runs does not concern itself with what has come before or what is to come. Oh, but if I were not so handily pushed into the regrettable position of complaint; I would breathe deeply, and in gratitude, in the style of any self-help book that makes it to the shelves at Barnes & Noble, Border's or B. Dalton. What I'm after, though, looks altogether proprietary and sequestered, as if the input to one's contentment will bear a price, regardless. I feel myself begin to drift a little, in the process of slowing down. There is no charge for the loosening of a load, other than the previous asset of being able to carry it. I feel as if I must still fend off whatever is "out there", ready to beat me back the minute I stand up. If this is no-man's land, then indeed, I am no man.
There has to be a good way to convert some of this silliness into proper, mature life. I'm just too old to accept regular whoopings on the strength of some greater voice. Indeed, I am authority, to a certain non-negligible extent. Speaking within the years of one's majority, they pretty much listen to what's coming over my channel, even if it is defeatist drivel. The eccentric, it is true, has his imperfections, but he still has the coherence to form a closed conic-section form. The switch is turned "on" in the control center of the right and proper, so that he wields a common- and natural-law presumption of being alive until proven dead. It is not something that can be squashed, misdirected, mis-presented or faked; this matter of being alive. It is an inertial center that, even at rest, has its energy equivalent. The coalescence is the essence, and not how it behaves or how it is regarded. There is no erudite recitation demanded of the living, for one's words are only the cutting-edge increment of something much older and better-established. The larger show, as in the case of the arrival of the new seasons up here in the hollow, will continue. Blessed is he who lives, for indeed, he will live. The mechanism of this one earth is so huge as to belie the fact that it, too, is a closed form, and bearing a limit. Since I share as it does in being "one", then I'll have to stake my belief in the notion that "life" is a property of one's extent, and not one's extent. This, then, could explain what it is to be made in the image of the Master, who is also but "one".
"Bo"
31 March 2003 -- Life within the light
In the many small scenes that make up the overall "experience" of the Cabin and its woods, the green is rushing forth onto the foliage in a way to make me wonder what was really powerful enough to hold it back since October. The days have finally arrived where a person feels there is "a point" to stepping outside and walking around. Of course, given the immense quantity of mud out there, mud that has formed even of the soils so sturdy in August that no one would imagine its softening, there is little real opportunity to do much besides "think about" what it is to have such a land portioned out and given at least nominal legitimacy as a place of retreat. I'm in the living room on this bright morning, where the sun fills the front windows so fully that it is nearly too bright to look out. Oh, yes, the warmth is coming; those days when I will have fewer cares and feel all the more "at one" with the land. I suppose there is some sort of duty implicit in having anything so wondrous, and indeed, the popular literature of life in the 00's does not hint at anything being without cost. Who am I, anyway, to think that I can have even a fantasy-world, without paying for it somewhere? The fool who dreams suffers principally in what he still does not have when he wakes up again. There is a better plan in place, back in city life, and one where I need only continue as I have. The mighty plan works itself closer to the implied crescendo with each day that passes. I am made more and more into what I will be when I am no more.
But darn it, I want some of that luscious fullness now, and I don't think I'm necessarily "spoiled" for using so much of the tone of a brat who has known only the splendor of the 1960's or better. What can I do, except more of nothing--but then time not used is time lost. Everything "eats" at me, as if I were some sort of objectionable anomaly in the almighty's workshop of creation's artisanry. To appreciate the meager and the base, even it must be assessed as something of which I am undeserving. It is kind of warm inside today, and my body should appreciate that, if no other part does. Though the land looks splendid and inviting, I'd still have to suit up, against the lingering remnants of wet and cold, to take even the most modest stroll beyond the Cabin compound. Am I accomplishing anything in this visit? Am I supposed to wait for the "other times", when this form of disciplined release will prove me out as some sort of "pseudo-enlightened" student of life? There is no escaping that nothing escapes. The great "plan" is either being hindered or helped, by every decision I am still allowed to make. When time has passed, on the other hand, the great variable that is one's will is no longer a discretionary ingredient. At that time, there will remain a yield, of its own character and magnitude, and this will be the entire allotment. "I should really be finding some chow around here soon," I say to myself, acknowledging one of those many factors of requirement that are imposed upon this querulous pile of existent representation. There is no "break" of any real significance written in to the plan.
Thus it is, that I am placed in a wealth of encouraging appearance, amid all the land that is coming to life, but also being told to ignore appearance and walk by faith, as if sight were some kind of curse that only invites the weak to indulge in envy. Pursuant to this "instruction", I close my eyes and feel the warmth on the back of my head as I sit on the permanent placenta that is my sofa. Indeed, I wish little more than to be complacent, from moment to moment, even if the final outcome is not enough. Nothing, by definition, can be "enough", for my worldly portion and temporal toolkit were placed under strict stewardship and pre-definition, the moment they came to be mine. What kind of twisted deity is God, anyway, to assign his own kind to a game that cannot be "won"? Is there some grand prohibition, owing to original sin, that holds up the luscious enticement of final satisfaction, to a being who can fully see it, but that's about it? I'd rather not have the ideal and not be called to work in its path, for then I'd be satisfied to wallow, in the finest porcine style, right where I am. Idealism is such a pile of folly, except for the extent it prevents a subset of imperfection from ultimately prevailing over the scenario of one man's life. I should think that perhaps I am being actively cursed and punished for the times I've tried, simply, to look straight at the cardinal objects, for as immersed as I am in their radiance, I should be able to follow along tangentially. I was never "designed" to "have" any of that--only to be influenced by it. I am stationed where I am, with the unmentionable godhead as my fixture and my feed-source.
Yes, that's it. I am called to mill about where the light exists, simply because the imperfection all around me causes enough diffuse illumination that I can be "happy" to the extent that I'm properly "allowed". The grantors of the marvellous light are not of my kind, for they produce first and are freed from consuming. My own interface, in stark contrast, is as an absorbent sink of as much of the incidence as I can rationalize "keeping". It is not that I seek any given amassed quantity of the radiant currency by which all is animated and enticed, but I still need something to keep me moving forward. The temporal world arrayed before me has nothing that is its own source, and capturing any fragment of that source is a foolhardy enterprise. I'd only wish that I could behold the magnificent and affordable glory of what I "see" under the light, without jumping to the conclusion that I'd rather have the light instead. I suppose I should get into my outerwear and satisfy myself that it is really a rather murky world outside right now, much as some time in the woods might sound like it is preferable to where I am at present, inside this dry affordance. Oh, but when all is made so intricate and unreachable / through the inept wielding of reason's blade / how much is then the portion that is found at one's very hand / made into the moment's final satisfaction and resolution! "It's a human body, you fool," I remind myself. "We're not talking about anything altogether special, for that, assuredly, you are not".
So, then, within the frail allotment I've been given, of light seen only in the secondhand, there is nevertheless "enough". Since it is my evident and ongoing frustration to be among the instantiated and self-aware, I should find consolation when I am reminded that the imperfect is given every assurance of satisfying fulfillment in the fellow imperfection that is readily at hand and assimilated. It is not mine, to question the unity that shines from above. I cannot even perceive of what it would be like on the "other side", up there where he/she/it dwells, as the singularity that shines for all time. "Perception", I'm sure, is not even a good word for it, since that always implies the kind of frustrating dualism that is but a relic of frustrated time-space and its frantic population. The sun, therefore, should continue to shine on the back of my head for now, and maybe for all time.
"Bo"
