In the end, I got barely thirty days in the wilderness, and virtually none of it as alone as I imagined. I suffered through some of my goals, saw more than I ever though possible, and in good American tradition, left a brilliant foundation for a sequel. By the time I post this, some of you will know that I have returned to America early to resume caring for my farm. Eric, already struggling to fill in for me, has accepted a full time position with Fiskers, the electric car company that took over the old GM plant. Despite the fact there will be no product until 2013, he started training immediately.
I've spent the last ten days exploring the west coast of Scotland, Isle of Skye , and the Outer Hebrides isle of Lewis & Harris with my friend David. Initially, he had planned to come up for a long weekend, but the vast remoteness of the country there, and the inaccessibility of attractions made a short trip pointless. The most fascinating sites are often separated by twenty or thirty miles, with few buses and no services or even places to refill a canteen with water. He rented a car after we missed the only bus of the day from an extremely remote destination. (We didn't actually miss it, the bus driver just rolled right by four of us, looking straight ahead, speeding away...) The car was enormously helpful, we put over 600 miles on it in less than a week.
So how do you condense a wonderful week and a half of exploration into a paragraph or three that won't make people grind their molars off as they read it? Part of the magic was the people we met; Sven, a humorous German fellow who rode with us for a few days.. Jarrod, a teen and avid fisherman in our hostel who turned 19 Friday night and who cooked two of the best trout I've ever eaten yesterday....a local woman at a craft festival who bought not, one but two heather plants....(for surely I've already mentioned the heather infested moors in a previous post?) and then waved them in my face, while I tried not to laugh, as she regaled us with stories about her trip to America...
The places? The standing stones (sort of like Stonehenge), the old churches or ruins? The rugged coastlines or endless trails to walk? Finding the first legal scotch distillery on the island in 200 years- but apparently it's not allowed to advertise? The guide books and tourist information for the area weren't comprehensive, so a lot of it was just piecing things together and stumbling onto other things.
Saturday, September 24, 2011
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Things Happen When You Let the Universe Choose for You
Last week, I took a day of rest. I elected to stay in the hostel and venture out only to get groceries and make a real chicken vegetable soup.
On of the guiding principles on this trip is that I need to read for pleasure again, something I just don't take time to do at home. There are some rules in my game though. I can only carry one book. After my initial thrift store book purchase, I'm not allowed to buy another book- I have to take what I find for free left behind in bus stations, hostels, or where ever. I have to finish the book. (When I do read at home, I often have multiple books going. ) The books I've taken on have all had something to offer, even if only minimally, and the game has been fun.
So.... my initial Ian Rankin (Scottish serial writer of mostly police stories) purchase was traded for a book called IDORU, a not too distantly futuristic story where technology is more invasive, the net more interactive, with a cyber world that can interact with our world in very different ways. Not a great piece of literature, but evocative to me in the same way that Avatar was.
I traded that off for a story set in Malaysia about a hideous, dysfunctional family. Power, greed, incest, elder abuse, politics, unfaithfulness all had starring appearances. The book was well written, but the people were so horrifying, that I ended up writing a journal section clarifying my own personal life values. (They included creating love, order, being busy and productive- but not overwhelmed, clear and honest communication, the joy of new learning, and finding new ways to be more self sustaining/ less impactful of the earth.)
So finally, the dreadful book was finished, and I explained my game to a passing Australian tourist. She gave me a book called "Horse Boy," the story of a father who takes his autistic son to some shamans in Mongolia for healing. As I read, it occurred to me that I had read many similar stories over the years and had enjoyed them. When I was younger, it was so hard for me to relate to others and I felt so alienated from general society, that I feared that I was on that autistic spectrum, or at least hoped there was some rational explanation for my being so different.... Now I realize that I like these types of stories because they are generally joyful anecdotes about people way outside the norm finally finding some way to overcome their barriers and integrate with society in a more meaningful way. I have the blessing of many supportive, loving friends and family members, so I no longer feel the total alienation that I once did, but finding a way to fit in is still a struggle. While that struggle to fit and redefine myself may be fascinating, what really moved me about this book was a bit from the boy's mom.
"It's like he's a born Buddhist," said Kristen. Over the last few years, Kristen's Buddhist practice had been merging more and more with her academic psychology work. Specifically, she had been conducting research into the Buddhist concept of self compassion; the idea being to cultivate kindness and forgiveness towards yourself, as well as others: no easy task, especially in times of suffering or failure. However, the studies she'd been publishing seemed to show that self compassion was better for mental health than the conventional psychological wisdom, which equates self esteem with positive mental health. Kristen had found that the constant pursuit of self esteem becomes, over time, an obsession with feeling special and superior, an emotional roller coaster you can never get off of. By contrast, self compassion allows you to look clearly at yourself, forgive yourself, and then make the necessary changes to achieve equilibrium.....she goes on to comment on her son, "It's as if he takes nothing personally. He suffers in the moment, then lets the suffering go. He doesn't carry on the story line and make a personal drama of it."
Wow. I think I just got a message from the universe!
On of the guiding principles on this trip is that I need to read for pleasure again, something I just don't take time to do at home. There are some rules in my game though. I can only carry one book. After my initial thrift store book purchase, I'm not allowed to buy another book- I have to take what I find for free left behind in bus stations, hostels, or where ever. I have to finish the book. (When I do read at home, I often have multiple books going. ) The books I've taken on have all had something to offer, even if only minimally, and the game has been fun.
So.... my initial Ian Rankin (Scottish serial writer of mostly police stories) purchase was traded for a book called IDORU, a not too distantly futuristic story where technology is more invasive, the net more interactive, with a cyber world that can interact with our world in very different ways. Not a great piece of literature, but evocative to me in the same way that Avatar was.
I traded that off for a story set in Malaysia about a hideous, dysfunctional family. Power, greed, incest, elder abuse, politics, unfaithfulness all had starring appearances. The book was well written, but the people were so horrifying, that I ended up writing a journal section clarifying my own personal life values. (They included creating love, order, being busy and productive- but not overwhelmed, clear and honest communication, the joy of new learning, and finding new ways to be more self sustaining/ less impactful of the earth.)
So finally, the dreadful book was finished, and I explained my game to a passing Australian tourist. She gave me a book called "Horse Boy," the story of a father who takes his autistic son to some shamans in Mongolia for healing. As I read, it occurred to me that I had read many similar stories over the years and had enjoyed them. When I was younger, it was so hard for me to relate to others and I felt so alienated from general society, that I feared that I was on that autistic spectrum, or at least hoped there was some rational explanation for my being so different.... Now I realize that I like these types of stories because they are generally joyful anecdotes about people way outside the norm finally finding some way to overcome their barriers and integrate with society in a more meaningful way. I have the blessing of many supportive, loving friends and family members, so I no longer feel the total alienation that I once did, but finding a way to fit in is still a struggle. While that struggle to fit and redefine myself may be fascinating, what really moved me about this book was a bit from the boy's mom.
"It's like he's a born Buddhist," said Kristen. Over the last few years, Kristen's Buddhist practice had been merging more and more with her academic psychology work. Specifically, she had been conducting research into the Buddhist concept of self compassion; the idea being to cultivate kindness and forgiveness towards yourself, as well as others: no easy task, especially in times of suffering or failure. However, the studies she'd been publishing seemed to show that self compassion was better for mental health than the conventional psychological wisdom, which equates self esteem with positive mental health. Kristen had found that the constant pursuit of self esteem becomes, over time, an obsession with feeling special and superior, an emotional roller coaster you can never get off of. By contrast, self compassion allows you to look clearly at yourself, forgive yourself, and then make the necessary changes to achieve equilibrium.....she goes on to comment on her son, "It's as if he takes nothing personally. He suffers in the moment, then lets the suffering go. He doesn't carry on the story line and make a personal drama of it."
Wow. I think I just got a message from the universe!
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