The Mystic Church of Hiking in Acadia

The first time hiking in Acadia, I took the Beachcroft trail, beginning with a set of granite steps for more than half a mile

until I reached an overlook above the valley pond that’s called the Tarn which lies beneath the steep expansive side of Dorr Mountain.

From there I scrambled up the face of Champlain Mountain's pink slick granite and low evergreens until I reached its naked dome.

There I was ascending when the barrier of summit disappeared and right before my eyes was nothing but the great blue sea of luminous Atlantic.

It hit me like a mystic ton of spectacle and infinite reflection, as if my body had just opened up revealing deeper breadth I never knew was there.

Long sighs came sweeping from the vast horizon where I glimpsed a cloud or two above ancestral shores of Nova Scotia, if not France itself.

My heart was sky, my feet were earth, and no-mind was my state of being. No wonder I'd return to walkabout for corresponding seeing.

The Emptiness of Offices and Goldfinches

I had an insignificant small office with a window at the rearmost section of the building where I could see an undeveloped spruce tree

growing from a secret patch of grass protected from the eighteen-wheeler trucks arriving at the shipping dock just twenty feet away. 

Outside my door, an open lab, where quality assurance underneath my diligent direction happened.

Christmas, San Diego John, a quality inspector I had hired, just recently returned from California, who missed the West Coast desperately

and had returned east only for his wife's desire to be back home with family, had gifted me a thistle-feeder, which I hung upon that tree. 

As winter turned to spring I watched the goldfinch flocks begin to turn in color, from a drab and almost gray-like green to brilliant yellow.

I had never seen this spectacle before. It's almost twenty years from that occasion. John had left his family soon thereafter,

moving back to San Diego, and I heard he had a heart attack and died. In time I got a transfer to Materials

and then I was promoted to a bigger office with much more responsibility and then, in time, let go.

But it's the transformation of those small goldfinches that provide this story all its lovely

lack of any allocated quality of all material effect or meaning. I have to thank my great unknowable for that.

Fundy in Consciousness

The Bay of Fundy has the greatest tidal ranges in the world extending over fifty feet. Some docks are almost built on stilts and still some boats will lie in mud flats at the lowest tide.

It was almost named a wonder of the world by those who deem themselves the legislature of such matters.  (A chickadee is hovering about my window at this moment and appears to be the current wonder of this world.)

Others on that list that didn't make the final cut of seven are Grand Canyon, Mount Vesuvius, the Matterhorn, and Angel Falls. You can look the winners up,

but there's just one real wonder of the world and this is consciousness itself. Without it, there's no wonder, all would be like deepest sleep, and not a word could write it otherwise. Enjoy.

Who Believes in Atheists?

Atheism is a sad religion. To believe there isn't any god but still believing in the universe it made is sorry stuff indeed.

It's like to want a cake without a cook, and not to see you cooked up both the cake and yes, the cook, and all of it is nothing but imagination

and what's more: there isn't even any you. The me and universe it made is just the means that I intended to—to know my unknown essence.

In the end, it's not so much a god that's unbelievable, but the person in itself, professing atheism when there isn't any atheist at all.

But then again, just who am I?

The Great White Spirit of Mount Pemigewasset

It was my first real hike alone, in the Whites. Admittedly it wasn't Washington, or even Lafayette, but ascending fifteen-hundred feet was not exactly easy for this novice.

The path itself was just a little shy of two miles long from trailhead to the summit, and I enjoyed the early easy-going, although the bear claw imprint on an ash tree supplied adrenaline enough.

As the incline increased, I felt my heartbeat do the same, and as it increased even more, my backpack and my breathing got a little heavy. By the time I reached the top, I was literally a mess; sweat had soaked my t-shirt through and through.

But there atop the granite features they call Indian Head, I could see the notch below in all its mirroring the humble genius of an ancient glacier's flow. I thought of subsequent Abenaki tribes who traveled through that very valley giving thanks and praying to the silent peaks above them.

And then I saw the spirit of our age emerge from out behind a thicket. He was carrying a can of beer and smoking a cigarette, so cool there wasn't any sign of sweat about him. "Hey man," he laughed, "don't go spiriting  away my valuable point of view."

The Primordial Prophecy of I Ching

Careful formulation of your first and foremost question and the asking of it clearly and directly is the answer.

Whose face is that I see? What color is the sky? Which one is best for me? In truth, just who am I? 

Any mindful, lucid, open question is in fact an inquiry pertaining only to oneself. Even asking "who am I" reveals I am the Absolute Unknown.

In other words, much like the great reflexive universe of evolutionary and enlightening Intent, I always know, I always am, the answer—

it's the question, or the universe, that I am formulating which is the most material event that will, in space and time, reveal it.

The Revelation of the Poet Basho Divine

In Japan, on Matsushima Bay, a peacock passed a dragon in the light of day, two ferry boats progressing in their opposite directions. We were on the peacock,

contemplating pine-enshrouded little islands that pervade the bay like earthly stars within a navy sky or cherry blossoms being blown into the wind and rain.

But none of these descriptions do that setting any justice. In his journey on the narrow road, the poet Basho wrote a haiku on each scene he saw except on this one. No inspiration could exceed its revelation.

Tao that can be named is not the Tao. But tradition has him writing just the name of Matsushima and an exclamation word or two. Three times. The one becomes the two becomes ten-thousand exclamations!

Holy Mother, this astounding universe is either unbelievable or overwhelming if approached with any small amount of true attention. Dragon or the peacock: either way, it's not your doing.

The Evolutionary Sādhanā of the Light

It is the Great Intent of That Unknown to know itself. This is labeled evolution by the scientific-minded or enlightenment by those of no-mind.

The point of all of this, my world, our universe, is knowing I am That, that I, the Great Unknown, must first forget myself within the known,

this vast molecular morass of my intentional star stuff, and slowly learn by doing, rise by suffering, create my own vast laboratory for an ultimate unknowing,

where I see that all of this is false except my nameless and ungraspable existence, and in knowing only this, That Great Unknown now knows itself,

and like the final scene in some finale of a situation comedy, turns off the lights—but until then, I follow my enlightening intent, my evolutionary energy, my bliss, my love, my That.

Carl Jung on Facebook

There are no natural laws but just statistical truths and every one is subject to exception. Carl Jung said that. The hero knows it's zero and plays one anyways. I said that. 

All of this is just a story that we tell while on the road to nowhere. Nothing must be something to discern itself. An irony is something physical suddenly realizing all is immaterial. I just said that on Facebook.

We're all just avatars the absolute unknown must use to see itself, but in the process it believes the avatar is me and I forget I'm not an avatar. The paradox goes on forever if we only think about it.

One will climb the height of consciousness to gain that lack of oxygen within the Everest of awareness and. Be. Still.

The Shaman of Phenomenal Yosemite

I lost my hat once in Yosemite, on a trail around the village, after visiting the nearby waterfall. Yosemite Waterfall is three waterfalls in fact. As one becomes two becomes three becomes the ten thousand things,

I watched the water split apart like shards of crystal lightning. I was alone, leaning on a glacial boulder, somewhat away from all the people who were frolicking within its wonder.

My hat was turned around so that the visor wouldn't interfere with picture-taking, like the black-and-white zoom shot of the lip of Upper Falls kissing the void of the absolute unknown.

This was sometime after leaving Glacier Point where I'd become entranced by the shaman figure of Half Dome across the great abyss in its High Sierra shocking world of alabaster granite.

From that viewpoint it appears to be enshrouded in a sorcerer's cloak and Yosemite itself is its astonishing phenomenal creation. There's nothing one can do but tip your hat surrendering to its intent to silence—

and illuminate.

The Red Winged Perfection of Understanding

Spring happened in the Stop & Shop parking lot; after putting all the groceries away inside the trunk, I opened up the driver's door

and sat inside and slipped the key into ignition and as I was just about to close the door, I heard their trill, and realized it had been there

but I was busy being me and didn't hear the wonder of rebirth, the renaissance of northeast marshes, Michelangelo of bird call,

Zen of emptiness is form and form is wavelength of an ice-out on the Merrimack as red-winged blackbirds have returned from Tennessee

and self-awareness is arising from material phenomena in consciousness through evolutionary Intent like chevrons on their wings becoming red

as April will arrive in all its yang of spring, spring, spring beyond, spring altogether all beyond, O what a great awakening!

The Oracle of the Underground

Lost in thought, one advances toward the oracle. No red wings flutter in this land of winter. Swamps of passion sleep beneath the ice.

Volition is denial of the natural watercourse of love. Ten thousand concepts sparkle in the frozen wasteland of the mind. Which forgery should one select?

The prophet from the south realm answers none. Forget the dollars of the senses. Division is a fabrication of an elementary schooling. Concentrate on one.

The voice of orioles is immaterial but gold. A charm is plummeting into an unfathomable well. The splash is always in the spring of heart.

Satori in Canyon del Muerto

In the canyon, sitting on the desert ground by clear and rushing waters of a crystal stream that flows from mountains far beyond the high surrounding mesa, I look at Anasazi ruins built within a crack between the sun and moon.

A thousand years ago, people occupied this space and made their time like pottery and sacred images of Kokopelli breathing infinite designs of lightning on these sandstone walls created by a long-forgotten sea.

The water starts to talk to me. It is speaking in a language that I used to speak before this world was planted in a fertile consciousness. I could say it's timeless but it's more like time itself. It's as if the Big Bang is right now.

Those ancient Pueblo people walk past me. Dinosaurs are dying out. Purple darkness like the one original sea distills each and every drop of water in my blood. I drink its whirlwind we call being until it covers me in silence.

When the tour bus leaves, I climb aboard, unable to explain to her the scene I've seen, the sea I am. Instead, I speak of ruins in the stream. My lunch was good. I took a picture of my hiking boots. Two ravens soar above me in these thermal waves of turquoise sky.

The Enlightenment of Julius Caesar

The Ides of March arrive tomorrow. Don't be late. Nine days from now and forty-two years ago, my father died. In eleven days, my mother would be ninety-seven. And pi was just an hour ago.

Time is permeated with the absolute unknown and the Merrimack is still embraced by ice although in any minute water from the Whites will free itself when everything is seen as universal, causeless, empty, and impermanent.

But let me suffer as a person for this moment just to tell you I love watching situation comedies like 30 Rock and New Girl. Like napalm in the morning, they remind me of loving deconstruction.

Science really doesn't do it for me. "That I am" to "I am That" is all the evolutionary arc from Big Bang to Enlightenment you need to know. The rest is there for you to breathe. Et tu, ego?

Grandfather

I don't remember much about my grandfather. He smoked a pipe. He rapped his knuckles on a table in percussive and sequential ways which seemed magical to me. He pulled a quarter from behind my ear.

He had a little garden with a shed. I remember radishes and cucumbers. One time I saw him weaving his way home from drinking at a local bar and falling to the pavement. One year later, he had a stroke and died.

Behind his house in the woods flowed the Spicket River. I was sure a band of Indians encamped there on their way from the White Mountains to the sea. Later I was told he had an Indian guide which talked to him in spells.

I've hiked the high words of India and all their nonduality of That. I've even asked some questions of the I Ching lately. The fruit of light is always hanging from the tree. The wilderness of wisdom talked to him. It also talks to me.

That Space of Clarity

A bird just flew into the picture window. Is that the inspiration for the words I was waiting on while looking out at bare trees in the bright March sun?

Imagine its surprise when it crashed into hard clarity. It was a flash of revelation surrounded by the spraying feathers of confusion.

It registered within its birdbrain though. Correcting course without much hesitation, it flew away in opposite direction.

That's the way of nature, like the mountain stream that slams the boulder and in reversal forms the temporary whitewater.

What's missing from this picture is that bird and stream will both continue in their way around the objects of obstruction in a slightly rearranged intensity.

Although, in longer view of things, the boulder will be worn away and this building with its window razed and trucked away.

The only fact remaining is that space of clarity.

Noise Will Be Noise

And then there was lightning before there was then.

To be followed by thunder which then came to be.

Being aspires to know why it's being.

Nothing in thunder can answer—it's nothing.

Sound and the fury of this thunderous world is only the sound and the fury.

Appearances only, it's only appearances.

Noise is but noise.

Lightning is lightning.

Silence, silence.

Superstar

I dream that I am something, superstar of screen and space. On Earth, I walk the stage with dinosaurs and woolly mammoths. Comets write my name in lights.

I played a monkey once. Reviews were raving all about me in the darkest caves of France. I swam the English Channel and continue swimming seven oceans every single day.

Trees talk to me because I am a tree, oak-strong and aspen gold. I wear a beard and stroke it like the Milky Way. My womb gives birth to constellations which I name from heart.

Rivers are my bridges from the mountains to the sea. Bodies are my bridges from the sky to bone.

Love is just a bridge from eye of you to eye of me. Dreaming is the bridge from X to I, unknown.

Belief Story

When I was in the middle of this life, those early thirties in the years encircling 1984, I tried to re-believe in God. I'm talking of a personal relationship with that almighty and omnipresent creator god, a superstar of biblical proportions.

One night while sitting upstairs writing, praying, I felt a drumming in my ears and took it as a sign that God was telling me of his existence. If he existed, then, of course, it was my undertaking here on earth to worship him.

And so I did. And studied fundamentalist compendiums about the Father and the Son and saw salvation in the fact of my belief alone. Beyond a shadow of a doubt, I knew such faith was king. 

One night I had a dream. And in that dream, this God of newfound faith was visiting me and asked me if his deep and mind-encompassing voice was really God. It really shook me.

It further asked did I believe because I wanted to believe in something which would answer all my existential doubt or was this voice beyond belief. The words were like electric shock and led me to a nervous breakdown doubting everything I took for granted. 

Little did I know that such a deconstruction of my social conditioning is the actual beginning of the way to truth and in the subsequent confusion float the momentary cinders of destruction

flying in a disappearing face before the clarity of being that original unknown—this energy, intelligence and experienced existence without a thought of any personal belief or clouding images of god or world or me.

Overlooking Awareness

One always tries to solve the x of me, but I am always undefined.
One day the me is sorrowful and tries to understand just why.
One day the me is happy and desires to know exactly how to stay that way.
After years of swinging to and fro, the me forgets stability of what it is,
entrapped within the back-and-forth, recapturing some pleasure or avoiding pain.
In time, this bipolarity appears to be the ordinary state of its existence.
Monkeys see and monkeys do. The jaguar has escaped from its own view.