retrospectives

Its been hard to keep up with the momentous moments here in Adventure land.

The moments that lead to this point; before and after...

We had a commercial drive, protect the park, close the street kind of party the other month.

Where I ran into my ex-wife after 8 years of incommunicado.

It was a happy surprise, but she couldnt talk for long, she had some friends waiting. She wouldnt exchange emails, since, after all she doesnt keep in contact with anyone from the old life...

But my realization wasnt this 'same old thing' from ages old. But the fact that, this emotional wound had healed, and I could turn around (on the street) after this kind of snubbing experience and become engaged with another person, a person I would love to spend more time with. There are so many people that I would like to spend more time with.

My emotional health and flexibility improved.

I am free.

Sniffy vs Howler

My friend Howler said that people didnt understand art... He insinuated that it was one reason he considered "checking out"...

He may be right- but I dont think its a reason one should kill them-self over...

The Sniffy the rat exhibit might have been the apex of Rick Gibsons art career.
I wonder if he felt some deep glow with the recognition that an angry mob chasing you down the street can give... (finally! people are noticing my art). Well you can lead a mob to art, but you cant make them think.
http://archives.cbc.ca/arts_entertainment/visual_arts/topics/300-1604/

I think he was trying to understand mankind...
Studied psychology before going to Art school....

http://www.odlt.org/interviews/rick_gibson_interview.pdf
www.rickgibson.net

http://millionmonkeystyping.blogspot.com/2010/01/sniffy-rat.html

As a long ago Polish man once said... "Art is not a mirror... Its a Hammer!"

Nudism that human thing...

In my early career as a nudist I first started attending swims indoors, in public pools, during winter.

And I thought I knew something, in my basic understanding.
Since I had gone to a nude swim or 2.
The age grade, the demographic of the east side swim that I attended, set itself as predominately seniors.
So I thought to myself, "ah, nudism, right, its that seniors thing".
Seniors=nudism.
Its in the nature of human understanding to form patterns, to make "guesses" and to assume.

Then later as I attended more nude events in different areas, sometimes it was predominately hippies in hotsprings. Then I thought, "right, right, nudism-that hippie thing. Or later at Burning Man, that burner thing. Or when the majority seemed to be Gay men; Oh' Nudism, that gay thing.

Perhaps now, seeing babies, I'll say "nudism- that human thing..."

love

A young couple is led to imagine that a relationship is a box full of goodies... and that they can sit down and eat out of this box all their lives, and it will never be empty.

But it is empty. There will never be anything in it unless the partners put it in there.

And if they do not want it to be empty, they must put in a lot more than they are in the habit of taking out. But the young romantic who imagined it ought to be full of goodies, institutes a law suit against God and against his partner as soon as he discovers the game. He feels swindled.

Yet he imagines the next box he buys will be full, even though the last one was empty.

W &B Beecher

I knew couples who had been married almost forever — tending each other’s illnesses, dealing with money troubles or the daughter’s suicide or the grandson’s drug addiction. And I was beginning to suspect that it made no difference whether they’d married the right person. You’re just with who you’re with. You’ve signed on with her, put in half a century with her, grown to know her as well as you know yourself, and she’s become the right person, or the only person. I wish someone had told me that earlier; I’d have hung on then.

Anne Tyle

There is no limit to our capacity to love. We can never be satisfied by loving just one person here and another there. Our need is to love completely, universally, without any reservations — in other words, to become love itself. It can take our breath away to glimpse the vastness of such love.

Eknath Easwaran

ochlophobia

Like a scene out of kids in the Hall, a larger than life comedy scene.

Well I was walking down the street in Vancouver, and was confronted with my fear of groups, yet again.

Enochlophobia- Fear of crowds.

Ochlophobia- Fear of crowds or mobs

Approaching me on this warm, calm summer night was a screeching, florid, chichi, flamboyant gang of young flaming gay men.

Seeing the narrow sidwalk and the prevocative mood they seemed to be in, I just had to cross the street to the other side. It didnt seem worth it

to be stuck in the middle of all that, not even for a second...

Not to seem bigotted, I simply didnt want all that energy in my solitary headspace.

It was hardly a block on, when yet another gang approached, damn! And here is where the small absurdity of life show;

A gang of mustachioed, leather tassled, cowboy hat, folk singer musicians, hopped up on Dwight Yokum and Garth Brooks. Seeing the size of the sidewalk

I was overcome with anxiety, not to want to seem bigotted, I simply couldnt bear to be surrounded by that gang, not even for a second.

So you see, its possible to feel the menace of street gangs in "Charming" Vancouver. It could be gangs of late night nerdy, Asian teen, World of Warcraft players,

out for a smoke and noodle break. Or a gang of east side, lesbian, single mothers complete with babystrollers, you know those strollers take over the sidwalk...

And that they can get pretty crazy when riled up...

So there you see it, I share my pain and we are all suffering.

sense of liberation from an illusory difference

On my return from Latin America (via Ontario) to Vancouver, I found myself in the streets once again running into friends unexpectedly. Perhaps it was that, and the international couchsurfing that I've been doing that sponsored my latest epiphany. Like the Buddhas disciple, reformed, who upon presentation to the community as a reformed man was derided and shunned. (He was the murderer and maker of finger necklaces) it may take time before others realize anything has changed. Like Scrooge, (a name synonymous with miserliness) at the window shouting down on everyone the joy he felt. Are sympathies may not be appreciated. Peoples opinions arent quick to change. And in fact we might never influence the attitudes of their courts. The results of Scrooges window benedictions, might have been a "Fuck you Scrooge, you bastard!" middle finger raised high. I dont feel any sadness, that some locals arent happy, interested, amused, satisfied or pleased at my west coast return. Just a little amusement with this realization. Here is the quote from Thomas Merton, one of my favorite dead monks, that pretty much says it all... In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all those people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. It was like waking from a dream of separateness, of spurious self-isolation in a special world, the world of renunciation and supposed holiness. . . . This sense of liberation from an illusory difference was such a relief and such a joy to me that I almost laughed out loud. . . . I have the immense joy of being a member of a race in which God became incarnate. . . . There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun. Thomas Merton

Playa del Carmen or Hell on Earth

Playa del Carmen or (Hell on earth)

I recently landed on planet Playa Del Carmen, Wow! what changes have taken place in the 12 years since I was here last...
I have been protected on this trip and within my bubble.
In so many ways, this is the opposite to a small, colonial indigenous, Guatemalan village, this is like hell on earth- or Shinjuku, or Kao Sahn Road, or Las Vegas.
All the glitter and emptiness of a western consumerist megalopolis.
I am a bit embarrassed, or ashamed, of the place.
Kind of like stumbling into a brothel; embarrassed with realizing why everyone is there, and not wanting to take part in it.
Especially after the wonder of living in close community in Colosio, during a land rush (and there arent too many of those around) where folks would rather the cheerful "pay me tomorrow" if you didnt have the change for your avocados, papayas and bananas. Than let you go away empty handed...
We all lived in small huts, everyone was excited for the future.

Now its an endless mall, advertising all the things you dont need and cant have.
I forget that there are enclaves like this, Acapulco, Mazatlan, "...insert tourism blighted city here"...
Who would choose to go to them, with nothing cultural or sustainable about them...?

Playa del Carmen could be called a success story, with the fastest growing city in North America and lowest unemployment. But what a vacuum of spiritual emptiness, so immediately evident after the sincerity of highland Chiapas and Guatemala. I must have had 5 church groups on my street...
Maybe I am only whining since I didnt stay all those years ago, and wandered on, away from the smell of money...

L