Under the Canopy

 [Continue]

Who wrote this part? I did.

It wasn't about pride but merely trying to understand one voice from the next.

On a piece of paper the next morning he wrote: I will right now and be the main surveyor.

As I awoke I hardly even heard the alarm. My body was filled with expectation and readiness to get out of the condo and the city where lately streets had been all busted up and much renovation of buildings causing backups that could ruin your afternoon.

I hopped in the Honda and stopped off at Starbucks for another blonde and popped in John Denver's greatest hits just as I exited into the freeway speeds and spaces and 80 mile an hour grooves I would have to press myself into, but it was never a problem for the Civic which could hop into warp speed at the touch of a toe.

The road was everywhere and I was everywhere on the road and as a bright sunlight pierced through the front windshield into my face I squinted and smiled and let it warm me and the feeling of the movement, the motion and the heat became one and I sang out Rocky Mountain High then stuffed a Snickers bar into my face. The highway carried everything along with it in the woods it now took me through where they were deep and dense and the first ride out to the place I was headed all came back to me.

Our parents had dropped us off at some central location and we were all bussed in from different places from their.  I saw the guys in the cabin, Steve and Jamie and Todd and our counselor Danny Martin. How we all got trained up first and then were left as our final test to do a night alone.

It was going to be an amazing few days. When I got back, I told myself, I'd have a much better sense about everything related to the Poppy… And all the sloppy mess of feelings and irritations with Laura. Of course, the silly questions she sent were still sitting there somewhere on the kitchen table.

After I parked the Honda it felt so fine to simply walk around the other side to grab my one pack and second smaller bag without really needing to carry much else on the first trip out. It's only going to be a mile in, but that will keep me careful about my trips and how often I want to go back and forth to the car.

White Pine, Birch and Alder and Hemlock and Balsam and Maple surrounded the space and the canopies were multilayered but very high leaving the forest floor quite dry.

I found the site and sat down on a log and immediately took out one of the beers, an ice cold 12 ounce clear-bottled champagne of beers from the good people at Miller Highlife. I promised myself I would sit there until I belched before doing anything else.

I waved off a few flies and killed a few mosquitoes buzzing around my neck. I thought of Laura with her legs wrapped around my ankle on the couch as I slapped a biting fly viciously.

I surveyed the area looking for the best flat spot to place the tent.

A blue Jay hollered from pine branches above me, chickadees worried about and pestered with flecks of tree bark, spinning their little heads.

The beer settled in good and I could tell because I felt still and slowed down into a savoring type space. I worried then about why I had left so much yet to carry and also had the beer.

I am not always a smart man.

Later on that night, among many other things I want you to know… (So I'll tell you… after a while)… Later on I had a fire crackling good, and oh the stars…!

This is what they really look like, I said.

My goodness…

BACKCOUNTRY

[Continuing]

Entering into preparation to go camping marks the beginning of camping. Your entire mind is filled with where you will be and what you will need when you're at that place, which is now because you want to think ahead of yourself being there so you know what you need when you get there.

Getting there in the mind put one out into the storage area to bring out the small saw and his Estwing E6-25A Forged Steel Camp Axe with an 11 inch steel handle, several small but lengthy bundles of nylon cord, three tightly folded tarps, a battery-lantern flashlight and some other tools.

He had a simple dome-shaped tent, a Eureka, with highly durable nylon stretched over three bending rods that folded down nicely into a light and manageable addition to all that he could fit in the backpack he'd been given by his grandparents.  It was the Osprey men's Atmos 65 A pack, top-of-the-line. Almost weightless, well-balanced and concrete sturdy with breathability and all weather seams putting scientific lockdown on moisture.

He would bring corned beef hash and eggs and bread and cheese and butter and a can of raviolis and four liver sausage sandwiches and mustard and otherwise he would starve.

Six bottles of ice cold Miller High Life.  Protein bars. Blueberries. Old film camera.

He prepped a few lines with various lures and spoons, he'd bring six or so set up already, some for bass, others for pan fish.

The cooler evenings now were what drew him out and back to the woods again. He could breathe out there. There was sacred darkness enough to see the shining stars in their true light.   Away, far away from the noisy lights and glare of the city one tenderly could hold and be held in the cool moist air itself through an evening under a moon with half a light on.

One could walk with God the whole day long without a single interruption not knowing what interruption was as pure being in true flow. Give me the forest. Challenge me to catch a few fish or eat boxed macaroni and cheese. I'll put fire in front of you out of nowhere. Cook you a meal, play you a love song.

I'll need my flask, thermos.

Breathable and Durable

[Continuing]

Shut up Zoe. What do you know? You're a cat.

He zipped his coat all the way up after covering his entire head with the hood.

You give someone a gift and they open it and have an experience. The experience is there's. It's not yours. Why was this so difficult for her to see.

He looked at himself in the mirror through a rough halo of faux fur, finishing the Colombian coffee he made himself. Enjoying the coat in the mirror he was ready for the challenge of another wet and chilly morning through the blue darkness of the city and into the hilly neighborhoods that made up his territory. There was no way that he could use his old bike, it was of no use to him given the weather. He was shopping endlessly online for something rugged but hadn't saved up enough given how much he put out for the Forrester rental and Honda repairs recently.  He wanted something with big knobby tires, he wanted to do his usual great research as well.

Nevertheless, he went out the door on foot in a great parka, and a decent pair of boots.

He was really glad he had gone with the Merrill Men's Moab 2 mid waterproof hiking boot. It was unrivaled as to its waterproof protection and overall durability, well worth the price given its out-of-the-box comfort. The performance suede leather and mesh upper was both breathable and durable, and the closure felt snapped in, secure and snug. It was a breathable boot utilizing a FIT.ECo blended EVA footbed specially contoured for durability along with Vibram PC five outsole for grips with wet or dry surfaces. They gave him a lift no matter what and he never had to worry about rain getting in. So these with a pair of wool socks and you could live for weeks without worrying about your feet.

He was planning another getaway camping trip. He figured he was more than ready to do some fishing. The mom-and-pop down the street had Whitefish this weekend and he devoured it along with 1/2 bottle of Kendall Jackson Chardonnay, a baked potato and a tossed salad.

He'd settle for bluegill over the campfire, indeed.

Just East of the Indian territories, on his way back from Laura's, he had spotted a small state park almost no one knew about. It was more than familiar to him, however. He thought he might head back there and see if he couldn't grab some perch or crappie from Crows Lake where he first ever spent the night out in the woods alone.

He was thirteen. He blinked about in the world behind his glasses, scrawny yet overconfident. 

It was a night full of stars. Sighs too deep for words sung from high bows above as mourning doves sang love… And love… And love… over him while he sat peering skyward at the waxing moon of mid-July.

The sleeping bag was musty. He had his knife.

Bacon in the morning.

To Your Stations

[Continuing]

Mutual indwelling.

That says it all, he says to himself. 

He takes another long drag off of the handrolled he was given by his brother. He finds the chocolate milk in the fridge and guzzles it from the carton and sits down on the couch to open an empty page of the spiral-bound notebook.

To his own mind now he is radically present. He is completely embodied and available to himself, to the divine or to anyone. It is a helpful thing to receive an almost immediate sense of relief within and straight through to the fingertips. He wants to be able to center in without breathing in the one long drag or two. Thoughts are strewn before him about true contemplative's. He should be more able, he lacks legitimacy, unless… He suffers them. 

He lets them go. He continues to attend to the flow.

Held in God, holding God. Here together. Mutually indwelling.

Had he been putting a worm on a hook sitting on the cushion in the front of the fishing boat in shorts and sandals with a Ludington State Park ball cap on his head, would you not have been able to smell the lake, the waters aroma that was of earth and fish and moldering leaves and red pine with a touch of old rusty penny at the finish?

Mutual indwelling.

These were your horses and this one was truly your finest Buckskin companion for trailing in the forests or making your way out to a rustic camp. This one has eaten from your hands how many years, has such charge and also great balance at the edges where the switchbacks narrow steeply down near the foamy rapids.

Later, you will bring a fire into being with dry kindling and your ax and great love and the thrill for all things primitive. You will use your spectacles as a magnifier and point the suns rays into a small bundle you have assembled beneath leaves and snapped off twigs and a few pinecones.

Now squeeze the creatures black mane and hold onto those reigns or you'll be thrown on out to the thickets in the ditch without your hat. Spend the whole day with that horse and stay awake to tend to him lovingly.

He went into the workshop with scotch. 

He worked with clay, slowly giving shape with his bare hands to what he had seen and appreciated in myriad forms and at odd angles so freely throughout the day. He filled the small Cool Whip container with cold water and placed it beside the crude sculpture. He then turned the pedestal it was secured to and it revealed a slightly more human form … 

Oneness found manifestation. A ruddy piling of chunks taken warmly down to smoothness would be added through his careful tracing of fingertips gently up and down in a soft line that led to a dimpled finish which he pressed the ball of his fingertip into with a circular pinch near the top, each time adding just a bit of water to his finger, transforming the clay with one touch at a time.  Mutual indwelling.

Back to attending, yes the basics.

Creative's to your stations.

Drummers learned rudiments; triplets, flams, paradiddels, different assortments of accents among sixteenth notes and so forth… Playing them out in different patterns and variations was a blast, but first you had to know each of them by heart and how to keep them clean and tight with syncopation otherwise you spoil the show.

It was a twelve-year-old scotch and it was serving him very well today especially as it was coupled with the handrolled.

Tending felt effortless. 

Every now and then he would throw on another piece of wood. Become counter of the stars, wonder waiter as the moon went down and the sun rose high.

He would remember the days struggles in the boat to get the anchor down low enough to settle in near a spot he knew there were bass and perch and maybe even some northern tucked in behind an embankment where the tree crossed over had maybe been dead fifty years. 

He ate smoked fish and drank beer he purchased cold from the mom-and-pop down the street beside the one gas station of the small town.

He took out his guitar and sang songs about a Burmese Cat with great intentions and profoundly attuned intuitions, especially when it came to relationships. Yes, Zoe had agreed. Laura had overstepped and it needed to be talked through, just basic boundaries stuff, of course. 

Zoe's point, however, was that no matter how he looked at it, both of their experiences with the photograph served as sacred and somehow of influence… Her best advice was to let things unfold and stay in touch and to both remain genuine with each other… They were each recipients of something special… Nothing to be selfish about whatsoever…

MINE

[Continue] 

Within a day or two Laura had amassed two pages of questions that she thought would be helpful to ask in supporting what she called the "fleshing out" of the material on paradisaic intentionality, those precious seminal musings he had made himself vulnerable enough to share with her.

At his station near the window he sat beside the opened envelope in disbelief. He smoked a cigarette. He shook his head and mumbled to himself, completely taken off guard by her ability to take over and put herself in charge of it.

Why don't you dive in and make it your own… Looks like somebody needs to run my shit. She doesn't even understand half of it and now she takes it and turns it into some kind of assignment for me to work on.

Anthony came by with a warm-up for the French roast. He leaned in and had the cup full all at once.

Sup chief? How is that paper route feeling with all of this rain we've been having?  We need to get you a parka. It's supposed to be 38° tomorrow morning.

It had rained for four days on and off. He gazed out the window after thanking Anthony with a wave, then also pointing to the notebook in front of him as though saying – I'd love to talk but I'm in the middle of something right here.

It was a sketch of the kayak he'd used during his getaway trip.  He was happy with his lines at the far end and the precision with which he illustrated the islets through which the loose net of bungee cord was threaded over the top of the pack that only the artist knew had been filled with smoked fish and half a loaf of old French bread and a small flask of wine and a bottle of water.

Later that evening he went online to treat himself to a men's extra-large McMurdo parka by North Face. It was windproof and rain proof and had a fur lining around its hood with a 550 fill count of down making it perfectly warm and dry. Not only had it been wet walking up and down the broken sidewalks but the temperatures had also dropped for some reason in the city making the normal summer days feel more like autumn. The wet streets and bone chilling damp did wear on him toward the end of his route. His old blue hooded sweatshirt needed to be retired for some gear.

He ate a simple dinner and spent a few minutes clearing a space in front of the television to do tai chi. There was a group online that shared the practice each morning in a public park near Seoul, South Korea. For whatever reason the group decided to start a YouTube channel simply offering the group exercises with soft music each day. Although he usually got around to it later at night, he enjoyed the whole experience.

Often times Zoe would make her way to the corner of the room and peer out from behind the leather chair with a posture of curiosity. She would roll and stretch, contented.

He told himself he would look at Laura's questions again when he was ready. If he was ready. The letter from her sat on the end table beside his keys. He was angry with himself for opening up about the revelation and thought to himself how easy it would've been to keep it all to himself.

It was intimate. It was just for him. What else did he expect for reaching or pressing along further to show it to her, almost as though he had some credit to take for the whole thing ever happening in the first place. His own pride had led him to say – guess what happened to me? Now it was biting him in the ass.

Of course, this was only part of it. Doing what she did was way out of line. No question.

As for now, he was moving like one who floats through the air. Tranquil notes trilled and turned softly through an Asian flute.  All of the surrounding space was water in which he could suspend himself without an ounce of movement.

He could not move, he would not intend or push or press any movement of his limbs in any direction whatsoever. He let the air, the open space, take hold of him completely. He let it carry him along.

CONTEXT

 [Continuing]

The precious words he was after, the ones Laura was now "borrowing" for whatever reason, already felt illuminative given what they were. Checking back into the notebook at what preceded and followed the explanatory messages about Paradisaic Intentionality now, however, immediately showed him how critical the context had been.

Memories came back of their time together talking things through the first time around. It didn't start with heaven or the unbridled and loving imagination or some sort of pie in the sky time where somehow someone is given there own little independent and everlasting shopping spree with God just for themselves. No, the nights conversations and these vital Wonderworking practices had something to offer of immediate use and were ready to potently rebuff and overcome, tooth and claw, many of the world's deep pains and shades of darkness.

They talked about cancer. Not only that of her photographer grandmother but the many they knew; friends, families whose lives were completely sidetracked, silently dismantled out of nowhere. They grieved the helplessness that surrounds so many in its grip.

Mass shootings and hate crimes remained on the rise in our cities. It seemed the world was devolving into an anxious pit of chaos and fitful disconnection governed only by fear and force. And the worst of it was the undeniable sense that the churches were caught up in the politics of their own communities. Election results were clear. Christian folks had become increasingly indifferent to the pain endured by so many people who Jesus loved just as they were… people who were immigrants, people of color or who had disabilities, people whose sexual identities would be named nontraditional. People had been hurt by religious practices, the superimposition of their own individualistic kingdom visions that somehow didn't include millions and millions of God's children.

To be so comfortable while so many suffered. That's what really got to them both. Each refused to look past that.

The singular Poppy that Laura sent was at first thought to be the source of the peculiar magic each now sought to disentangle into some redemptive and restorative purpose. Surrounding conversation, an unavoidable and complex context, had in fact disclosed it as more of a conduit, merely one tributary through which much light and mystery had been flowing for years.

Did it not seem destined to flow well beyond his chicken scratch or a few crinkled pages now folded deep inside her purse?

He sat drinking coffee back in his station at Anthony's. His fingers were still dark from charcoal and now the soft pencil that he worked with to raise up a three-story lakeside cabin, another dwelling place his fingers could create right before his very eyes.

Laura had left a message on his phone. He had listened to it four or five times without deciding to call right back.

She had a cute voice that always sounded at home and comfy to him. Some people always sound like they're smiling or on their way to something good.

Hey I wanted to follow up, she said. It was great to reconnect and have a chance to finally tell you where the poppy photo came from. Fred's been moping around ever since you left. Anyway, wanted to thank you for letting me go on and on about how it made its way into in my dusty old shed.

I don't want to fill up your messages here, but passing it along to you, it being my grandmother's, with my house already full of so many of her visions – Well, as I said the other night, she saw more than most people. Because she was looking for more, expectant.

I'm glad you have it. Seems right.

And yes, you've probably noticed some pages missing from your notebook. Sorry to be a dork, but I told you this thing is special. It has to be turned into something. It's a class, it's a retreat waiting to happen. And I'm gonna stick to my guns and convince you that it's worth developing and sharing. People need to be doing this, man. I'm not just blowing smoke…

All right, take care. Call me.