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Sailing by the Stars

I try to imagine what it must have been like for the early explorers as they set off in their little ships across the vast oceans. What courage it must have taken to sever all ties with home and journey into the unknown. “Here be Dragons” was used by the mapmakers to indicate the void beyond the known, but they didn’t let that deter them. I wonder what motivated them to abandon the comfort of the known and embrace the terror of the unknown. Of course, we will never really know, but ultimately only dreams have the power to draw us to venture into the true unknown, and with every bold dream, the mystery of the vision at its heart.

The boundaries of today’s world are so familiar and natural to us now that it’s easy to forget about the earlier times of sirens and demons, maelstroms and terra incognita. But it’s not just lines on maps; In the sciences, humanities and every human endeavour, it’s the dreamers that have pushed the boundaries and in doing so, redefined them and changed our world, or at least the way we perceive it.

Like so many other aspects of Life, I think that the boundaries that most define us lie within us. Quite possibly, they are the most difficult of all to identify and challenge. It’s so easy to go about life without really testing ourselves or pushing our own boundaries, and I find an inconsistency between one aspect of myself which wants to live easy in the moment and has its roots in appreciation, and another which is founded on pursuit and dreams and is rooted the hope of a better tomorrow. I suppose that the answer is to somehow find a balance between the two. In so many respects my life is and has been a never ending search for this. Balance. It’s almost as though to punish me for the disdain that I would hold for astrology, the stars saw to it that I was born with the sun in the constellation of Libra, and then ensured that I turned out to be the archetype of the sign.

And now, having set out naively and without much sense of direction, after following the winds of circumstance and having relished the journey, I find myself at the verge. At some point in our lives, I believe we’re all called to account. To take stock, as it were, of where we’ve been and what we’ve done and left undone. A recovery of truth divine and a reckoning of truth denied. Which way shall I go? Shall I stay in the realm of the known, or do I dare to venture beyond?

In this way I make my voyage. In my mind the memory of a vision draws me on. In my heart, the search for truth guides me. Like the needle of a compass turning North. But like mariners of old, I sail without compass in cloudy skies. Navigating by night, praying for a break in the clouds and an anchoring glimpse of Polaris. Scanning the horizon by day for the shore of the land that haunts me. Is it real, or is it just a dream?

Kakapo

The ship lies lonely on the beach,
beyond the tide and out of reach of waves
that cruelly plotted her demise.
They can’t touch her now.

And stripped of all but heart and bone,
naked and abandoned, she waits alone for time
to take her slowly, inch by inch,
defiant to the end.

Beyond the bluff, a lighthouse, raised to late
to find and guide her from the tragic fate that took her,
a maiden, to this forgotten place,
and left her.

And all the while the waves claw at the wall
of sand. Her last protection from the horde, grasping,
unrelenting, for one last chance to ravage
what’s left behind.

Reflections and New Beginnings

I love Spring and everything that this time of year brings and all it symbolises. The freshness in the air as all of nature celebrates new beginnings with the return of the sun and the rapidly lengthening days and shortening nights. The blue skies make me look back on storms of the past as a necessary part of the appreciation of the present. Caterpillars are busily going about their ways and a few days ago, I found one making its way across the sterile floor of our warehouse with the purpose that few apart from caterpillars have. I’m sure it thought it knew where it was going but of course it didn’t and I saw to it that it got safely moved outside and put on a better path. I remembered a day on the central line in London so many years ago, commuting from the City, as I watched a ladybird on the floor of the busy carriage, as oblivious to its surroundings as were the passengers to its presence, and oblivious too of the reality that at any instant its life could end with one unfortunate footstep. But the footstep never came and after watching it for some time with morbid fascination, I coaxed it onto my finger, took it out of that dark place and set it free on a leaf in the sun outside. I don’t think the ladybird understood or cared, but that didn’t matter; Life and liberation was my gift and the gift is for the giver.

So it’s with some appreciation that I view nature’s choosing September, the month of Spring, as the month of my beginning, fifty years ago. How time flies. It all seems to go by in the blink of an eye. How clear the childhood memories of looking upon people as old who we would now consider young, and somehow it doesn’t seem that we come to see ourselves as old even though through the eyes of a child we are. Perspective is everything. But we are defined more by the way in which we see than by the way in which we are seen.

I’ve always considered myself to be the master of my own fate, but increasingly I see a life shaped by the larger forces of circumstance. Or destiny. I suppose we like or need to feel that we’re in control, but are we really?  Perhaps in the details we are, but what about the larger realm? By chance we’re born into our cultures, faiths, and families.  By chance we meet people or have experiences that alter our lives.  Little by little, life’s chance happenings change our course and as they accumulate, guide us to destinations sometimes different to what we’d anticipated or planned. How fortunate then, to arrive at a good place.  How easily one wrong turn could have led elsewhere.  Somehow, in the end, I feel as though the Universe has conspired in my favour and that I have been given so much more than I was ever due.

Looking back, I can’t help but feel deep gratitude for the countless blessings that have always been there in such abundance. How easy it is to overlook them as we lose ourselves in the immediacy of our day-to-day lives.  I think that one of our greatest blessings is that which allows us to appreciate the true value of the blessings we already have; It turns out that like many of our most wonderful gifts, appreciation has a way of multiplying itself.

One of the things I appreciate most about life is the way that it’s offered me new perspectives along the way and never more so than in the recent past. They have left me with more faith in our innate humanity than ever before and feeling more connected, but at the same time with a deep sense of unease about what we’re allowing to happen, and with grave concerns about where the world is headed. Sometimes I look at the way we desecrate nature, or how we routinely treat people and animals in the most inhuman ways, and then I look at people around me going about their lives without an apparent care, and I wonder; am I the only one seeing the world this way? Perhaps they think the same of me, but if that’s so, then it only confirms the strange paradox that despite the abundance and sophistication of today’s communications, beyond the superficial we may be more disconnected from each other now than ever before. And although I feel connected, I’ve never felt more alone.

It’s seems to be the modern way to fill every open space with clutter, every idle pause with activity, every silence with noise.  We now say so much, but so little of consequence. The quiet voice drowns in cacophony.  Somehow, we have to find our way back,  to rediscover that it’s in the emptiness and silence of that idle moment that we have the chance to connect with the sacred and to find and embrace the heart of our humanity.

I can’t look at the issues facing us and give myself over to cynicism or hopelessness. Neither will I live in denial.  The only other course, daunting as it may sometimes be, is taking action and it’s a course that I feel myself increasingly drawn towards and defining my purpose. We can’t all do great things, but we can all try to be more honest and aware about the effects that our lives and our consumption have on other people, other living creatures, and all of nature. We can all search for truth and use it to undress evil. We can all dream of a better world and do little things to live and share our dreams, and in so doing, turn them into reality.

In truth, I’d never planned to climb Kilimanjaro this year or ever, and the dates for the expedition were set long before I knew about or became part of it. That it happened to be coincident with the full moon and my birthday was just another fortuitous accident in what I sometimes feel has been a life filled with a myriad such accidents. But despite its accidental origin, the expedition became symbolic for me – the ascent a fitting way to punctuate the life lived from that beginning. In years past, I never dwelt much on how I would feel when I got to 50, but had I done so, I would never have imagined that I would feel so full of purpose, dreams, and hope.

Kilimanjaro

There’s something spiritual about mountains and it’s easy for me to understand why ancient people associated the peaks with their gods. Having spent five days on this massive mountain, it’s hard for me to visualise the sheer force that it would have taken to lay down such a vast amount of rock. Nature has a way of making me feel so small.

Today we’re camped at Mawenzi turn, a little camp in the shadow of the majestic Mawenzi peak. The camp lies in what was once the heart of the volcano before it was blown apart by an eruption from nearby Kibu, the youngest of the triad of volcanos that have formed Kilimanjaro. It’s a special place and I couldn’t think of anywhere I’d rather spend my 50th birthday.

Tomorrow we hike through to Kibu camp and then at midnight we set out for the summit. There are two caves that overlook the camp we’re in, with a rock shelf above. In a few hours we will climb up there, build a cairn and say a prayer. Mine will be for safe passage on the journey ahead and for a better world for my children and my children’s children.