at sea, on bodies

My body is implicated now more than before; I am on the Coho ferry from Victoria, headed across the Straight of Juan de Fuca to the Olympic Peninsula. Destination is Port Townsend, the Mandala Centre training on Theatre of the Oppressed.

Being embodied has been a struggle for me for years. I remember in grade 3 when they did the unit on safe touching at school, the teacher saying things like, “Your body is yours…” I was embarrassed that she was referring to our bodies so directly; I wanted to get back to the alphabet. I remember doing that sort of leaving that offers some relief, narrow escape while body stays put wherever it’s supposed to be… or supposedly is - sometimes my body felt more like a rumour rumbling up gossip from below the neck.

Last week at the dinner table, home visiting my parents, Mom’s eyes focused on the delicate lines underneath the fern tattoo on my right bicep. In my story I’m sure I’ve seen her see them before, and not be ready to know that she sees. Finally she is asking “What are those marks on your arm?”

“You really want to talk about this?” I return. She affirms, and so begins two hours of strained attempts to talk ourselves closer to each other. Dad looks uncomfortable but quietly does the work of staying, to understand. "Since how old...?" Mom searches for the reason why, a person to direct the blame (pain) towards. More questions. I welcome them with my head, but my heart stays mostly buried for the exchange. Survival instinct. Breaking the norm of silence is enough for one day, we won’t also break the norm of keeping tears inside. I have to draw the line when she wants to look closer at the skin.

A couple days later I am deep in the backcountry hiking with Dad. After a rigorous 10km hike to our base camp at Bedwell Lake I count to 3 a few times and dive into the cool mountain waters. The next day we attempt to follow an unkempt route up to the ridgeline of Mt. Tom Taylor. At some point I am bruising my inner thigh wrapped around a tree, while it hugs me back very intimately, its pokey finger of a branch in my mouth, my eye, grabbing my hair. A steep drop behind me and a cougar den in the cliff to my right, “Dad, um… are you sure we’re still on the route?” My legs are covered in scratches, bites, abrasions and bruises. But these, given by rubbing myself upon nature feel different from the old wounds, purifying, healing wounds. And after all that we find a magic subalpine valley with an unnamed lake.

Yesterday it was my nephew’s third birthday. I woke up in the morning from a dream of my ex (hereafter “X”) who I lived with for awhile in the subarctic, who assaulted me, who I lived in fear of for months before I left. Not a usual being chased and running dream, this time we stand face to face. I am frozen but calm, X pulls two handguns out, looking morose. I take them away. X pulls out two knives. There is some threat, but more it is like a plea for disarmament. 

My nephew Sheamus is double the size he was at his last birthday. I try to remember what its like to be able to grow that fast. As we set up for his party I notice a FB message from a friend in Kahnawake. Two young women we worked with in the North, close cousins of X, died in the night. One was in high school, one was about my age, early 30s. A car accident. Alcohol? Two women, like the two guns. Despite a resolve to uphold the no-contact order, my heart flies on the wind to X, a prayer for them to choose to go out on the land for healing, to muster the strength not to destroy their own body upon this grief. I string helium balloons to little fire trucks and spread pink icing on chocolate cake.

I am a boat floating above churning waters. My heart feels joy for Sheamus’ pleasure. This is the first year he really understands that everyone is here because they love him, and want to celebrate him, to sing to him, give him gifts. Then the tide shifts, reveals their bodies lying too still, I can not believe the animation I met has disappeared. It’s a hard thing to let myself know, harder still to feel.

Cutting across the outgoing tide of the great ocean, the rocking side to side of the ferry is getting too strong to ignore, comforting and yet sickening. Time to put down this alphabet, drop anchor into my body and start to swim for shore.

~sab

somewhere over the juan de fuca straight

*see the page tab on gender neutral pronouns

WestCoast Whirlwind Lovecapades

Two weeks ago I landed in Vancouver and breathed that salty warm but not too hot coastal air and exhaled something I seem to hold whenever I’m away. So generously I was welcomed and fed as I flitted about, a different home each night, reconnecting with people, saying all the things that don’t get said on FB and skype- things that get said only when it’s 4am and you’re eating salad in the living room, only when you’re walking along a rugged beach after a quiet breakfast, only an hour into a pitcher of good brew on the patio half-baked in sunshine.

Mebrat treated me to my first Vancouver breakfast at Main & Broadway. The waitress poured me a coffee and asked, “Milk, cream or almond milk?” I started to wail a sort of laugh-cry and fought back the urge to hug her. In another place later that day I found a bathroom labeled  “This room has a toilet in it” and the same sound came out of me. I know this starts to veer into a west coast caricature, but inside of that stereotype, something signals a truth that I feel home.

After a quick visit with Rachel, walking along False Creek, I took the Langdale ferry up to the Sunshine Coast, where time is warped somehow, so it felt like a week. I invited myself to Amanda & Denise’s mini-farm and they invited me to come to a small dinner party at some friends’ house. Slightly depleted from the travel but fueled by the reserves of energy that present on a sabbatical, I went along and found myself in a most bizarrely magical table.

Serendipity's Table: bringing people together since forever...

To my left sat one of my most favorite people, Amanda, and her partner Denise, esteemed as Mr.Robert’s Creek 2012. To my right sat DonnaBalma, a famous artist in her seventies still painting and living her dream. Across from me our hosts, Randeesh who is originally from Belize and enlivensthe coast with his reggae, and his partner Jan who took a thousand pictures and led us around the fairie trails of their forested & river-running-through property before feasting us on local vegetables and fresh fish. And then Darcy,who was quietly sitting on a volume of activism and research on community-basedforestry that I want to learn more about.

Rounding the crowd out was a 15 year old, whose parents were away. Darcy explained that the young woman’s  parents met while the mother and Darcy were studying edible worms in Africa. With a witty intelligence beyond her years gleaming in her eye, the young woman turned to me at the end of this introduction and said, “Thank god for worms!”

On my last morning in Vancouver serendipity delivered me again into a glorious state of affairs. I was sitting in a new café in Strathcona, just off Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. I was having breakfast with Raven discussing the on-going difficulties of addressing domestic violence within queer/activist communities. In the back of my mind I was also wondering where I would stay that night, when an old acquaintance Christyn passed by. I ran out to say hello and she invited me to share her space that night, which is a tiny apartment full of paintings taller than me of fierce feminine sacred warrior images that watched over me and I think blessed me while I slept.

The next day I rendezvoused with my parents, we stopped by Loutet Farms in North Vancouver to see what Gavin's been up to. This fully operational suburban farm with drive-by farmers market twice a week is a brilliant project, and the peas popped with sun warmed green perfection in my mouth. Since then I’ve been home in Victoria, which is awholenother story, but before I can tell that chapter I’m going with dad into the mountains to hike the Bedwell Lakes trail and hopefully summit Mt. Tom Taylor.

So, I will leave you with this ditty that came to me in the whirlwinds, about the little souvenirs that are accumulating in my little cloth bag of found souvenirs.

~sab

like old time homework, at mom & dad’s kitchen counter

Victoria, BC

angel crumbs

Here, let me show you the metal medallion painted with an genderfree winged knight, long trumpet in hand that stowed away in my breast pocket when I abandoned the nest.

Let me tell you a story of this red feather that fell between the step I took

 and where my next foot followed its lead.

See these three little silver stars, invisibly joined; I found them on the stairs of the ferry as I climbed up to the outer deck to watch the mountains be spectacular.

Rejoice for Breathing In

Here is the other poem I wrote on the silent retreat, inspired during a meditation led by Pir Zia focused on the inhalation aspect of breathing.

Inhalation Exaltation

I am a hungry shoreline,

sitting before the immensity of Air.

Ancient currents that have soared across the waters,

pulled deep inside the gills of fish,

blown life into every fire,

thinned to encircle the greatest mountains,

quickened in the muscles of dinosaurs,

intimated every tortured being and their torturers too,

cojoins us all inside one epic truth.

We enact this dynamic balance, the warm-bloods and the green ones,

co-emerged to purify one another,

we dance life alive,

together continually regenerating our most precious resource -

the earth-halo atmosphere.

Her hair rustles

oh Great rushing wave!

I open my mouth and it comes into me -

washing my throat,

breaking against the bronchi of my lungs,

feathering out, beloved breeze of life through my blood,

into every tiny articulation of me, each cell of my body,

heart,

unfolds into my spirit

awakes the secret centre,

golden-eyed wormhole,

me.

A short eternity, then 

enticed by the outgoing tide,

I try to remember this place as it recedes,

delicate chatter of wave filtering

back through a million polished pebbles

to rejoin the formless ocean, source of all.

I am alone, and for a moment all is silent.

And then,

I see the great tide returning to me,

And with Great rejoice,

I open my mouth again.

~sab,

With wifi and hifi thanks to Rachel,  after a nice walk at False Creek I'm sitting @ her office - Compass, in Vancouver. Highly recommend their new book: Structured Decision Making!

Wonder Rise

How appropriate to write a few words about the silent retreat I was on last week, from way up here above the earth, riding in an airplane between the hazy cloud mountains, chasing the sunset west. I’m going home to the ocean, family and amazing friends. 

Diasporically yet perfect in nomadic implication, I am listening to Aman Iman singing Tinariwen on the “Transitions 2013” playlist filling my lil shuffle. (Ben Loomer gave me this track a few weeks ago, when I spent a weekend packing up my apartment and making a journey soundtrack. I received lots of great suggestions from friends on FB. I’ll post my Top 9 list to the Compass page coming soon in the tabs above.)

Appropriate to write up here in the stratosphere, because this is the same larger perspective that I was helped to rise into within the silence. Pir Zia Inayat Kahn, leader of Sufi Order International, led the retreat. Eloquently he narrated us along a soulful river through territories of astrophysics, biochemistry, evolution, consciousness, universal spiritualism, ecosystems science, every few minutes inviting us to breathe and sing together. So our silence was a tuning out of ordinary chatter, a reserving of our voices only for the exercise of celebration and unified harmonies of gratitude for all that is glorious.

“Fourteen billion years ago there was an eruption of energy from a single point…crystallizing into galaxies. That primal energy continues to reverberate. When we walk, when we grasp…we are availing ourselves of that same energy, of which we are beneficiaries. Thus we are privileged agents. So with it, what shall we do?”

   ~Pir Zia Inayat Kahn

Many months ago I had started to pray for the return of my wonder. Wonder like a moment I remember once as a child in our first house standing at the bedroom window. I looked at the big arbutus while I brushed my hair. Out of my absentmindedness, something strange dawned in my consciousness. Hair along my arms rose to attention. I looked at the hairbrush and it looked at me. Dark black bristles each one implanted in the blue plastic handle with the swooped Johnson logo. And I, standing there with a strong sensation of my arm – warm and soft compared to the hard plastic I gripped.

A wash of time and space rushed through me and the brush as I realized myself against it, how many thousands of ideas and creations occurred leading up to this moment, an epic story written like a secret right there in my hand. Particularly interesting to me was the thought that somehow plastic got invented.

Of course all of this went through me without the words I have now. It was more like a kaleidoscope of flashing images all tinged with a sense of Wow! and the wonder How? How did all that happen? And how did I get to be standing here, on the fresh growing end of a long thread?

And other wonders- my first bonfire on a beach at night, an anniversary celebration of some family friends. I watched sparks rising up from the fire into the stars and saw that the little sparks and the giant fires out there all looked the same size from my perspective. Tears rose up on the tide of that overwhelming perspective – joy, amazement, that delicious taste of seeing. 

Recently I noticed that my wonder muscles seemed to have atrophied, a deadness had crept into my relationship with the world. Even when I tried to pull awe out of a sunset, it just seemed commonplace, predictable, boring. 

I realized that my whole life felt like that time after I had my wisdom teeth out and my mind woke up inside a still sleeping body. I screamed and fought to sit up for a many long seconds before conscious will beat the drugs. My body jerked awake with a weak “Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!” and heart pounding.

Sitting for three days in meditation in a large tent raised up amongst the trees, learning to hold a contemplative focus on all of creation while the birds sang loud overtones to our melodic prayers and the wind blew through, we entered what he called “mystic relaxation”. Perhaps this is the effect of prolonged alpha-gamma-theta-delta wave vibrations thrumming in the body? 

With all of us in this state for three days together, it felt like we pulled heavenly paradise right out of the air between us.

However it may be described, what I know is that wonder broke back into my body like a sunrise in my being. So, I will leave you with this poem that came to me in the midst of a song, I guess it is my first Sufi poem! I presented it to Pir Zia as an echo of his guidance, and a small gift of thanks:

Sunlight through treetops,

these long rays of sunset

flicker morse code into my eyes.

A message from the beloved

fills me, altering me –

Yes, I am with you!

Yes, I see you seeing me.

Isn’t it glorious?

With deep gratitude and winged blessings

~sab
Thousands of feet above the Rocky Mountains

Public Benches & Cafes

So, I didn’t make it to Soul Unplugged, damn it! I was sad to miss it but the universe intervened with about 8 different misdirections and signs saying, Nope! Tonight you gotta DEAL with yourself. 

After moving and helping Julia set up futons at her new place (everybody was July 1st in Montreal!...), I got to the bus stop and realized I had lost my bus pass in the move. I’m sure it’s somewhere… but the trip to Laval would’ve cost too much. At this point I need to stretch $3000 in savings for 9 months! I went back to Julia’s to look for it and then realized there was no way by that point I’d make it in time.

Julia and her romantic friend were having a date in her new apartment and Jessica was sleepy a couple blocks away. Both made it clear I was welcome to stay, but it hit me. Woah, I don’t have my own space to go to anymore!

So I found myself sitting on a public bench for the second time today, half way down a block, not quite sure where to go next.

Funny, two benches in one day, made me realize I don’t really sit on benches that often, I’m usually walking by with somewhere to get to, unless I’m waiting for a bus. But suddenly benches have a whole new atmosphere. Somewhere I can be, without paying, just because.

So it’s other peoples spaces, friends & family’s houses, couchsurfing, etc..

or public spaces, like the bench, where I decided to make a video – I’m really shy about it, done in one take and kind of tentative. But Frankie encouraged me to put it up anyways, as a sort of benchmark (punny!..) for future videos. See my first bench video!...oh my goodness I can't believe I'm sharing that... 

or semi private spaces, where there is an unwritten norm (or is it written somewhere?..) pay-to-stay, like the café where I’m writing this.

I wanted to give both of my friends space and also realized something new was hitting home and it was time to open the door and invite it in, so I took it to a café+ for hummus & crostini ($2096) and chai tea ($2094) and here we are. (Nice tense change sab. Thank you sugar, have some chai . Your very welcome darlingpie, and damn this jazz trio is blowing my mind. Mine too!)

Now I’m working on a little creative nonfiction piece about what it means to me to go on this sabbatical, which I will put up soon. In the meantime, Rosemary Rielly, an awesome prof in Applied Human Sciences at Concordia, just posted this video to me on FB, Todd Babiack on The Future of Sabbaticals. 

Love it.

I'm off to a silent retreat now, my first one ever!... 

~Sab

Resonance Café, Montreal

Leaping From the LoveNest

Wow, moments like this.

I just left my apartment. I took the stairs one last time down from the third floor, but metaphorically I am leaping into the sky. My back terrace was a huge roof, extended over the mattress shop below. My neighbours were a Peruvian restaurant with the owners afterhours apartment scene on my south wall and an unfinished construction site on my north wall. I called it The LoveNest.

a place I landed when I fell out of the subarctic two years ago

a place to hide and lick my wounds, to regain courage and hope, to recover my self

a place to revel in the conveniences of city life like swine in her beloved mud

But now it is time to go lose and find myself again.

Moments like this when the veil of habituated existence which seemed like the very fabric of life parts slightly and you can pass between them, something whispers This is a taste test of the great death.

You know these moments? Struck with wonder, right there in the in between. Here I Am... Where Am I? I stopped on a bench half way down my block, overcome with the realization that each step is away from the LoveNest, from now on it is a memory.

I was overcome with the urge to cry. But joy-laughs flew up beside the tears. They all looked at each other and stopped, unsure who should go first. This often happens to me, two or five or twenty simultaneous emotions wash through, each canceling out the others while I sit waiting for something to break through… like when grandma was taking so many medications near the end that doctors weren’t sure what was having an effect anymore.

Time to release the white-knuckle grip, let go where I have been holding on, and release myself into the churning river of life.

U.S.S. Chickadees’ Delight, here I come! I mean, here I am!  Wait, where am I? Wait, who am I?... Well I think I'll start with finding some lunch. Tonight I'm going to watch my friend Mebrat's gospel choir City Soul, out from Vancouver to perform their acapella Soul Unplugged. A perfect day for a "Can I get a hell ya?!" kinda night.

Wow, moments like this...

~sab
Cafe El Mundo, Montreal