Morning adventures in the Library

On this Thursday Morning I have already been to the library and discovered a journal called Seven. It is an entire journal devoted to seven authors, MacDonald, Lewis, Tolkien, Chesterton, Williams, Sayers and Barfield. It tipped my day on to the good side. I was not sure what side I would land on...I was feeling that pull to the other world, and the tension between this. By 8:30 I was almost convinced I should join a monastery.
So I sat and read about labyrinths. Unsatisfied I began exploring the journals and came across one randomly called "Seven." Then I looked up C. Williams, and found we had a collection. I can begin to be introduced to him. Then I was distracted by MacDonald's biography.
He found a library too, and it was there he discovered the German romantics. Apparently he was not an avid reader (!). He would walk around the library and familiarize himself with the tittles and dive into a small selection of poetry where he perceived truth. He was drawn to the cover of books, calling them a sacrament, "outward signs of inward graces".

The pull is everywhere, in everything. It is only felt when I am tied down, like I am now, to space and people. The moment I up root there is too much distraction to hear it. Yet, this pull demands that one leave. Dang these imortal souls.

What should I do?

My tooth chiped.
I'm virtually unemployed
Aries and Capricorn are incompatable
I can't get my puzzel together
There is a blizard
everyone has papers
I just bought food that has moral consequences attached
and used gas to get there


I should just leave. I should pack up everything and go back to the hills. Even if I were to starve, at least I would not live in the tension of not being with my heart. Everything would be perfect in that land...



I just had to get that out and see it in writing. It is a shit day. period. It happens.

The physical events

I forget what a wonderful and powerful thing it is to be able to put into words thoughts and events. Through my words I interpret and give meaning to them. I used to percieve this as something bad, because in my mind meaning was inhernet in the thoughts and events and to "give meaning" was at best redundant but more often an idea which felt like heresy.

I am setting out in this blog entry to give words to my experience in Scotland. I have told the story to many differnt people by now. The words accompaning the narrative differ according to my audience, thus each story is differnt and each person percieves my adventure in a different way. I aim for this account not so much to be difinitive, but to be a combination of all parts which I tell to everyone.

I divide the events from my trip to Scotland into two categories of adventures. Usually when I tell the story I asertain which category to highlight. The general pattern is that the random, polite, general public (none of which would read this blog, don't worry), recieve the physical events category. This is how the dialogue goes:

Them: entusiasticly Hey! How was your trip?

NB there are many variations of this

"Did you have fun in Scotland?"

"You made it back! How was it?"

Etc

Me: Equally enthusiastic and usually on my way somewhere else Hi! Great!

If they are really inquisitive the dialogue continues

Them Did you have a good time?

NB there are many variations of this

"What happened?"

"Was it fun?"

Etc

Me: Yea, I got my pack and pass port were taken, had to go to London for a few extra days, but its all good now.

Them: cool Welcome back.

This is a good basic level of English and if I did not engage in this levle of conversation then my life would be full of converstaions accompanied by a cup of tea.

Part II

So, the physical events are important for recording like little sign posts on maps, but they are not the reason that I am walking. I am interested in the meaning behind the events, and I am writing to give them meaning, and to let you participate in my mind's meaning making. Or as my Tiglath puts it, sharing treasures from my pocket.

The events:

Tuesday/Wednesday

Travel

Depart Tuesday YWG

Arrive Wedensday LON

-->Glasgow overnight

Thursday

Bus to Cairinlarch

hike 11 miles

See some ruins

Breath the air

Enjoy the colors

Pitch camp

Try to sleep

Friday

Hike to remote place

leave pack by bridge camp site

collect fire wood and think

eat lunch at camp

Hike again

retrun to find pack gone

Beginning of a new adventure

***

Now there is a lot of meaing to be examined behind these events. I would just like my reader to keep in mind that the first part of my journey was over. The reason I had come to the Highalnds was uncovered in these two simple days and the rest ofthe trip was given to processing the thoughts evoked, and solving logistical problems like tickets and passports. The most profound revelations happened here, but because I was once an archeologist and appreciate completed times lines here is the rest

***

Satruday

Day in Glasgow

Buy tickets

check email

meet up with old friend

crazy night

Sunday

Travel to London

where I find myself at my Sister's

Call from Hotel: they have recovered my passport!

Monday

Wait around...

Might as well explore

Tuesday

Overnight post failed to live up to its name.

More exploration

Books!

Wednesday

Decide to stay in

Doo dee doo

Thursday

V & A explorations

"I hate London" feeling after Oxford Street

Friday

Clean house!

Saturday

Homeward bound on Kuait airlines

Meaning behind these events must be explored in another blog however, because I am missing a critical resource. viz. a book I found in London.

But actually I feel that i have written enough for one blog and I do not want to walk home (even though there is beautiful frost everywhere...)

Ancient Caledonian Forest

"With our being we speak the word,
but we can not utter it with our mouth"

I went to a land I knew to have the most meaning in my symbol system. I went to sit among these symbols and be drenched in their meaning until I felt satisfied of the meaning's existence beyond my creation. I found what I have been looking for all my life, and my heart was buried there.

There is a difference between heart and home which I have not perceived. The mountains, hills. heather, forest, skies and wind is foreign to me and I am a stranger to it. It is not my home and it would take a life to make it so. The first night I spent in agony wondering why I had driven myself to be alone is such a desolate place with no friends, no warmth and only the beautiful, strange and wonder. I did not sleep for a restless mind. But that first night I learned that my home and my heart were separate. I learned that my life will always be a tension to balance heart and home. That first night I learned I had roots.

The second day I asked the question with my being, and in my being I received the answer which has always been there, but which had never been answered in time and space. I had the abstract answers of symbols and the mind's generation of meaning, but I did not have the answer which the physical presence of the symbols deliver to a physical being.

I asked the hills what it was they were keeping, why it was they were calling, and what the answer was they promised. Then the answer was like the moment when you realize that you already have what you are looking for, and that it has been there all the while. I had not recognized it. I looked for the chieftain. I looked for the Keeper of the glen. Not the Flemings who own the space (whatever that means), but for the one who is intimately tied to the keeping of the hills, sky and trees. I longed for the person who gives all that life meaning, and I did not look for a bounded presence, yet for an imminent one.

Always I have at the question resigned myself to "symbols" which are finite containing infinite. But this time the difference was what Buber describes as "uttering the word with being." It was different to look at the hills and be there with my whole body and ask the question. I needed only a moment to see that what I looked for surrounded me, yet that moment only exists in the physical space.

Finally I felt the meaning behind the words "holy spirit." Finally my heart can rest because I know that it belongs to that presence who keeps the mountains, and gives life to all life, and knows them each intimately. And who knows me intimately. Scotland's past and present are the words of the gospel and they symbolize the same reality that is spoken of by many different systems in this world.

After this knowing nothing could phase me. And it was after this that I discovered my pack gone, and an adventure ensued. All this seems peripheral to what I have learned there. Whatever has come my way these past days can not compare to the great solid person who keeps all life.

I found out as I waited for the train to take me back, that beneath the heather are the roots of the ancient Caledonian forest. I think my heart lies among those roots. It is there until history wakes from the past and all things are made new. Until then, I live a simple life growing under the symbol system which speaks of that which lies beyond.