5th Dec '08 - Life's Canvas

4pm -

Whiled away the day, watching the mountains and the people. Reading Kerouac's Big Sur - the madman he. It's an advert to warn against the dangers of prolonged drinking - days on end.

Then I moved to Zen Mind, Beginners Mind by Suzuki. I liked the idea of the waterfall... the separated droplets will join again with the body of water at the bottom.

Death will be the end of suffering. But while alive use the time. For no purpose other than experience, which will vanish away, memories and all. It's not that anything is gained or not. The insignificance of life... it's a blip, a twitch. We all reach nirvana whether we try or not.

I'll live now. Use the moment, the canvass. The paint dries. The sun sets. The river doesn't think. Lao Tzu my teacher.

A dred-l0ck beard baldy once told me that the enlightened monk leaves the monastery.

In the end back with the mother waters and the twinkling of the stars and the slurping of the deer at the rivers edge. We will be the river, the deer, the slurp.


8pm -

A blue whirlwind had started up spinning in Deeds Grove front room and Jert was nonchalantly doing something... "Look Jert a ****ing whirlwind"... and I woke up to the wind howling outside.

2nd Dec '08 (715pm) - Mountain Joy

On the factory hill, overlooking Slate House I seem to have an abode... door like the double glazed balcony one I have now. A car is being parked by what seems a push on the slippery ice ground (not driven). It slips down the hill and into the cars parked at Slate House, though the drive is the one from Deeds Grove. A new curvaceous lady car, sporty and pink, is hit among others (it's Hazel's). Hazel, Rachel and I are at the top of the hill, outside my door, and I put my arms around them, one over each of their shoulders, as we crouch and take it in. At least I'm getting R.E.M. sleep.

I did a five hour walk today, up into the snowy mountains, along mostly National Park tracks or those imprinted in the snow by those before me. In a valley between two bluffs the wind picked up and the dry snow was whipped up like sand in a desert storm and I turned my back to its force. Then when the gusts died down I trudged a path up in some parts up to my knees and I laughed at the joy of feeling like a mountaineer in the austere conditions. I turned around because visibility was poor higher up and I wasn't sure of changing conditions at, I'm guessing, 1300 metres plus. Made the walk back down to Zakapane at 800 metres plus.

In town I bought a pork steak in toasted bread, with salad, and Polish beer, sitting near the crackling open fire... pop pip fzzz... I read some of Kerouac's Big Sur and listened to Gypsy sounding music from the speakers. I was trying to not look overcome with tiredness, haggard face and eyes. Bleary drunken stair. Tiresome. Lonesome. Satisfied. It was a good walk.