“Oh my darling, oh my darling
Oh my darling, Clementine
You are lost and gone forever
Dreadful sorry, Clementine
Oh my darling, Clementine
You are lost and gone forever
Dreadful sorry, Clementine
Drove she ducklings to the water
Ev'ry morning just at nine
Hit her foot against a splinter Fell into the foaming brine
Ev'ry morning just at nine
Hit her foot against a splinter Fell into the foaming brine
Oh my darling, oh my darling
Oh my darling, Clementine
You are lost and gone forever
Dreadful sorry, Clementine
Ruby lips above the water
Blowing bubbles, soft and fine
But, alas, I was no swimmer
So I lost my Clementine”…
Blowing bubbles, soft and fine
But, alas, I was no swimmer
So I lost my Clementine”…
Disputed author (apparently, a heart-stricken, gold-digging father?)
Well. The big day finally came. Bet you never thought it would. Eh?
What big day?
The big… ritual to feed the mouth of the Mad River where it meets the Pacific Mother Ocean… day!
Oh, that big day. Better fill the thermos up with dragonwell tea…
You’re dang tootin!
OK. So. I said my prayers for a spiffy new goddess incarnate. Then, forgot about my worldly worries. Hauled my seventeen-foot “white whale”… Mad River (VT) standard, fiberglass, with all wooden trim, struts
and cane seats… totally awesome canoe… on top of my 1982 Mercedes 300D wagon… diggadiggadiggadigga… down to the Mad River boat launch… just about a mile from the mouth of the Mad… a stone’s throw from Mad River Beach. And set forth with my collapsable twelve-foot carbon fiber “push-polling” canoe pole.
Yeah. Cool. Push the canoe. With the pole. Standing up. Trying not to fall into the water. But, if I do?
Fuuuuuun!!
And, of course. I had nice wooden—
Wood canoe paddle
Tapered oval Douglas fir shaft
Molded, laminated Ponderosa Pine-Walnut-Ash blade
Dynel & Kevlar Pro-Tip
Pear grip
Tapered oval Douglas fir shaft
Molded, laminated Ponderosa Pine-Walnut-Ash blade
Dynel & Kevlar Pro-Tip
Pear grip
Sawyer paddles. Two of them. Even though. There was only me. You never know, right? And. Waterproof storage bags, two personal flotation devices, Ray Bans with retainer straps, floatation pads for kneeling and sitting, beach towel, sun block…
And yes. Of course. The whole point of this adventure…
I had the damn feng shui magic rocks… ESJ’s Rocks!!
That’s right. All… however many there were of them? At least the four boulders that held down the four cardinal directions, or, deflected the poison arrows of the enemy ninja turtles…
I had them. All of them. Present and accounted for, sir!
Stored in the bow of the boat. They were a perfect counter-balance for me poling and paddling from toward the stern. They actually came in really
handy. Especially when the wind came up. As it does in the afternoon around here.
It was a gorgeous morning with wisps of light fog… moving silently past in a slight northwesterly head breeze… hiding, then revealing the river ahead… allowing sunlight to penetrate… now and again… with its vivifying warmth. The day was still cool, and fresh feeling… early enough in the morning… so that sheer threads of golden mists… spun from the wheeling river… appeared to dance… toe-slippered ballet… with high-heeled sun sparks… en pointe pirouettes… inches above flowing water… glimpsed momentarily… through pale veils of delicate fog.
Ospreys appeared as if on queue… as if a curtain opened and closed briefly on nature’s wondrous stage. Families of river otters arose… as if caught in the beams of roving spot lights. The river dragon was definitely waltzing her majestic, magical dance of life. Hiding, then revealing… her many secrets… and her bounteous treasures.
I push-poled for awhile, then paddled… when I got tired of poling, or, wished to change muscle groups. It was all pretty much downriver at this point in my journey. Easy going. The river was running low, slow and wide. Maybe a hundred feet wide at most. A few feet deep, narrow and slower here. A few inches shallow, wide and faster there. So, mostly I was drifting. Feeling into the river. Feeling into the peaceful joys of the moment. Watching, smelling, listening… taking the whole show into my heart and mind and lungs. Tasting sweet, salty river mud decay. Mixed with a soothing, tinkling music of river stones. Accented by a chorus of hungry ravens.
While exploring the river’s currents and intimate channels thusly. Randomly. Feely. Bank to bank. Occasionally, I had to get out and ease the light canoe over shallow, sandy pebbled spots. I may have sat quietly and waited for great schools of salmon and steelhead to pass upriver. Their brown finned, humped backs wriggling above the water… writhing in the fresh morning air… pushing on relentlessly… with heroic passion and lustful determination… through these crowded… traffic jammed… flat places in the equally determined… onward flow of the great river dragon… onto the beloved mother ocean.
After a time of this… listening, watching, smelling, poling, paddling, breathing… contentedly. As one might imagine. I was quietly lulled into a mindless, careless… almost a Cotswolds English revery.
Old Cockermouth Willy Wordsworth would surely have been proud of my…. Mad River… restorative dreaming
After a year, and, more like… several lifetimes… of fateful, often self-inflicted misery.
I was finally feeling… pretty darn good about myself.
After my long time coming… ever longer in the making… ritual offering… summoning of the goddess prayer… that very morning. Carefully rendered. All ten pages. Delivered with all the curative trimmings. And then, dutifully forgotten. More or less.
After a year of getting over the old snag… what’s her name? Who can remember?
The “J” word tossed out with the baby wash—
Suddenly.
No. Not suddenly this time.
Slowly. Ever sooooo slooooowly.
Like the mysterious, haunting sounds that blue whales make nine-thousand feet beneath the ocean’s spray…
Slowly. Curiously. Arising faintly at first. Unclearly through the mists. Hidden and just barely. Glimpsed once. And then again. Fleetingly. Through mummy tatters of glimmering fog.
Like a melting mirage out in the distance. Like a grey whale’s spritsail. Or, a ghostly pale pirate ship…
THAR SHE BLOWS!!
Hold your harpoon steady there just a minute, mate.
“Thar she blows”… the popular nineteenth century whaling expression… made famous by the movie, Moby Dick, starring Gregory Peck, as the infamous, maniacal… Evangelical Christian Captain of Industry… Captain Ahab—
Thar she blows… those particular words, that colorful ejaculation… is just not…
What?
It is not an appropriate choice of words. Not at this time in…
Hey. If it was good enough for Herman Peckerville? It’s good enough for me!
THERE SHE BLOWS!!!
Would you stop that?
This is a particularly delicate… tippy stand up… push-poling moment… in the perilous Odyssean voyage of our illustrious hero—
The incomparable… Alain de Mckinleyville!
Ici Ici.
Quien es esto?
Silencio! Hushshshsh….
In this potentially… Nobel Prize winning… or, is it Pulitzer? This ideal modern saga of horrendously bad luck… coupled with insidiously self-destructive, foolish… porn film behavior… somehow miraculously coming about… on wind tossed tides… metamorphosing both the measure… the metronomic beat and… the meaning… a la mixed metaphorical happenstance… into an amazingly
powerful collision of a… breathless, timeless jazz medley… with a majestic minuet of self-redemption… for all ages.
You think so?
I have no doubts in my mind!! I’ve rid myself of the witch!! I’ve buried the tomahawk!! I’ve said my lordy-lordy prayers!!
Hold on. You haven’t launched your tomahawk missiles yet. And, the wicked witch still awaits her official burial… if not resurrection… at sea… from what I can tell…
Technicalities!! Pyro-technicalities!!
I’m still waiting for “proof through the night that our”… beloved flagpole is still standing tall?
I’m still waiting for “proof through the night that our”… beloved flagpole is still standing tall?
Hrrummph. Not in 2018. Perhaps it’s a little…
Tippicanoe and…?
Well… yes. Crooked. But, I can assure you that my staff of life wasn’t waving at half mast in 2008!!
Enough with your nonsense already!
No shouted out>> “thar she blowses”<< for now.
No alarming whaling vernacular in the cyber theater, please. Quiet.
You might frighten the ghost of Peewee, the other Herman.
ABSOLUTE SILENCE!!! me laddees…
That’s perfect. Now settle down.
Just listen to the booming of the surf in the background. Filtered through the noise dampening fog and… subtly murmuring through the dune grass.
White noise, please.
And. Action.
And. Action.
Back to our bemused hero in the white whale…
The point is. She floated up out of the endogenous ether. Ever so slowly. Like an image in a developer bath… in a black-and-white photo printing… darkroom.
It was eerie at first. Like… I couldn’t believe what I was seeing… like I couldn’t trust… “mine eyes (to see) the glory of the coming”.…
How do they say? “My eyes seemed to be playing tricks on me”.
“Trix are for kids!!”
Settle.
So. I was poling silently along in the intermittent sea smoke. Listening to the subdued roar of the briny deep. When, I saw her…
Well. Not exactly.
It came and went.
That’s it.
It came and went.
That’s it.
Like a wavering radio telescope signal from deep space... bleeeep bleep-bleep...
It was just a scritchy-scratchy “it” at first.
A mysterious, indistinct chalk mark in grey fog.
A milky shroud in mist.
A pallid, translucent daydream.
An opaline apparition swimming toward me.
A frail Merchant Ivory shimmer.
An angelic snowflake vision.
A mysterious, indistinct chalk mark in grey fog.
A milky shroud in mist.
A pallid, translucent daydream.
An opaline apparition swimming toward me.
A frail Merchant Ivory shimmer.
An angelic snowflake vision.
I wasn’t sure for a while. I was poling in the void. See? My movements... breaths... were slow and steady. I was advancing gradually… at the creepalong pace of the Mad River at low ebb… probably in mid-summer.
Maybe the tide was still pushing in against the river?
Maybe I was near to that magical, diurnal point in the day… when the downward and outward thrust of the river… comes into balance with… the upward, inward push of the ocean tides…
Yes!! That was it!! It is certain.
It was at the precise moment when the ocean tide and the river flow meet… when these two ancient, opposing forces of nature come together… to create a calm, zero point energy, hurricane eye—
Stillpoint: A Gentle CranioSacral Intervention
By Kailas, LMT, NCTMB, CST, Cert. Ayu. CranioSacral Therapist and Certified Ayurvedic Clinical Consultant in Los Angeles
A stillpoint is an observable, palpable, and measurable(1) physiological state in which the craniosacral rhythmic impulse (CRI) is temporarily suspended. In this state, apparently the production of craniosacral fluid ceases, and the active craniosacral rhythm, which is the natural force exerted by the system upon the rest of the body, also ceases. This allows the body to enter a state of deep rest and self-correcting activity, the results of which are the reduction of symptomatic conditions, and an increase in wellbeing.
A “stillpoint” window. An alchemical, mystical “door of perception”. A spiritual portal within the psycho-physical plastic… a trapdoor in the spiritus mundi... a wormhole in the crenelated fabric of the space-time tapestry of the universe. A Don Juan warrior... shamanic moment... a magician's "now you see it, now you don't"... a secret back door entrance to an opportunity for healing, for growth, for change, for intervention, for enlightenment, for… a “miracle” to occur.
There are these unique… escape hatch… moments in the otherwise busily ticking… seemingly almost… mocking… flow of time.
These rare, pivotal moments of awareness which lend themselves to… momentous chance meetings!
The Greeks call these critical, key, decisive... grace filled... opportune moments of time, Kairos.... While Chronos, refers to the continuous, automatic... unconscious flow of mundane time.
It was just such a becalmed… still moment. That foggy bright day as I paddled watchfully along on the Mad River, in 2008.
And, indeed. She slowly emerged from the fog. On the banks of the Mad.
A woman. Yes. A woman unknown to me. Seated in a lotus style, cross-legged position. A slender, serene white female. Around forty-something years of age. A slim, wan, lotus-sitting figure…
Well. You can see my predicament. Can’t you?!
I had just delivered an eleven-page, highly detailed… goddess-summoning prayer to the universal… all powerful, always listening, infallible… cosmic three d printer in the sky!! And here… right beside the river. Almost directly in my path then… was was was
This this this… curious, meditating... otherworldly woman!! Like—
PRESTO!! WHAMO!! HELLO!!!
Same day delivery!! Better than Amazon.
“ASK AND YE SHALL RECEIVE”
Almost instantaneously?! Free of charge?! No strings attached!?
Well. Go-OO-llly!!
Ask el rio and bingo. Here she is. The goddess of my prayers and dreams. Just like a princess in a fairy tale. Or...?
Right?! So. Like. Wowser?
How could I just paddle on past? Pretend I didn’t notice the timid miracle?
Oh no. Well. I did. I did paddle past at first. Or rather, pole on by…
But. I felt like I would be slapping the gods in the face, if I didn’t…
So. Yes. I poled back around. I pulled a pole u-ey. Like I said. The tide and the river flow were about equal so… It was a snappy seventeen-foot canoe, twelve-foot pole about face!
I wasn’t exactly tied to the mast this time!!
I poled back around. And poled in casually for a closer look. Just to make sure that it was really a miraculous goddess… like I pictured… or at least an angelic, saintly female… and not just some typical homeless, toothless hag… a Mckinleyville ogress on meth… some shifty chimera… some squamous selkie… or your typical bewitching naiad.
Well. Sure enough. It looked… She-like.
She looked real enough to me. Just like a fine Celtic lass on the banks of the Leffey should.
She looked real enough to me. Just like a fine Celtic lass on the banks of the Leffey should.
And so. Suddenly. Without prior planning, praying… or even thinking. About four-and-a-half feet away from her. Standing upright proudly in my canoe… in a deeper river channel. Holding steady. Her sitting there on the bank. Each of us looking self-assured, bemused. Directly into one anothers' eyes. I just casually blurted out with—
How do, milady?
You wouldn’t be waitin for a white knight
On a fine white charger
With a marvelously long jousting pole
To be poling along
At this very moment—
Would ye?
You wouldn’t be waitin for a white knight
On a fine white charger
With a marvelously long jousting pole
To be poling along
At this very moment—
Would ye?
Next. I heard myself saying aloud…
I didn’t just say that? Did I?!
And she said. Without batting an eye… Actually, with a sly Celtic twinkle—
Oh yes. You did.
. . . . . . . . . . . .
“Oh my darling, oh my darling
Oh my darling, Clementine
You are lost and gone forever
Dreadful sorry, Clementine
Oh my darling, Clementine
You are lost and gone forever
Dreadful sorry, Clementine
How I missed her! How I missed her
How I missed my Clementine
But I kissed her little sister I forgot my Clementine"....
How I missed my Clementine
But I kissed her little sister I forgot my Clementine"....
