The land that beckons me

I'm going to start this post off with an ancient, 14th century Irish poem from Deidre Remembers a Glen. I'll explain why I'm sharing this in a moment, but first, I want to present this without any sort of pretense.

THE GLEN

Fruitful glen of fish-filled pools

beautiful your rounded hills of wheat;

remembering you causes me great distress,

glen of bees and the horned wild ox.

Glen filled with cuckoo, thrush and blackbird,

joyous forest to every fox,

glen of garlic, green with cress,

flowering clover curly-crested.

The clear voice of the red-backed deer

under the oak tree, high on the summit

gentle hinds and they so timid

lying hidden in your well-wooded glade.

Glen of the scarlet berried rowan

fruit praised by every flock of birds,

for the badgers a sleepy seclusion

quiet in their burrows with their young.

Glen of the silent blue-eyed hawk

glen with rich bounty from every tree

glen sheltered by peaks on every side

glen of the blackberry, wild plum and apple.

Glen of the sleek brown flat-nosed otter

leaping lightly, freely fishing,

many are the graceful white-winged swans,

salmon spawning in the stony streams.

Glen of the tangled branching yew

glen of mists and gentle cows

glen of the clear brilliant sun

glen of the graceful women, perfect as pearls.

In a lot of ways, this poem puts into words the feelings I get when I think of British Columbia, and in particular, the Okanagan Valley, a place I was fortunate enough to call home for four short years. My memories of that place are very dream-like, in the sense that they seem almost too good to be true. I moved away from Kelowna in 2000 and have wanted to go back ever since. This aspect of myself is very difficult to understand for some people, and this post is partly aimed at fostering an understanding. The other purpose of this post is to help me sort out my thoughts and feelings about British Columbia, and to explore why it had such an impact on me.

I was born in Prince George, B.C., a small town in the northern interior whose primary industries were forestry and pulp milling. I lived there until I was five, so my memories of that place are fairly dim. We moved to Winnipeg, Manitoba in the spring of 1985, and it was the summer vacations my family took to B.C. every year afterwards that really allowed me to learn about the province of my birth. We frequently visited relatives in Prince George and in Armstrong, a small farming community in the northern Okanagan valley. Some of my happiest childhood memories are from those trips: the hot summer days, the frequent, and harmless, quarrels with my brothers in the car during the interminable drive across the Canadian prairies, and the visits with relatives. My family followed this pattern religiously right up until 1996, when my parents decided we'd move to Kelowna.

It was during one of our regular sojourns to the west that we'd stopped in Kelowna, and in particular, the future site of a suburban development named Kettle Valley. We had driven up a long, winding road that took us quite a ways up onto the hill that borders the eastern edge of Lake Okanagan. From there I could see what felt like the entire valley. We stopped and piled out of the car where the road ended. Beyond was a huge area full of spruce and fir trees, growing out of sandy, dry soil. A bright July sun beat down on us from a clear, blue sky. The air had an arid, dusty quality to it scented by the legion of evergreens around us. Way off in the distance, we could spot tiny white specks out on the lake; boats of all varieties moving about on the dark blue water. On occasion the faint noise of their motors would drift up the hill towards us. Eventually, one of us kids piped up, asking why we came all the way up here. That's when our parents told us that this was going to be a housing development, and that they wanted to build here. The implications of that didn't really sink in at the time. It just seemed too big of an event to process.

We came home from the trip, and there wasn't any talk of moving for months. It wasn't until January of 1996 that our family sat down to discuss moving to Kelowna. I was elated, while my brothers were less certain, especially the youngest. The decision to go was made that day, and that marked the beginning of our preparations for the big move. The next few months passed in a blur, and before I realized it, it was summer and we were moving to Kelowna. The first couple of months were rough, as they always are, when you have to dig in your roots in a new area and work at building a community again. The beauty of the valley, and the very mild weather, certainly helped overcome that difficulty. I cannot remember ever loving the outdoors as much as I did when I lived there, and I was very much an indoors type of person. My interests involved TVs, video games and books! For the first time, I started paying attention to what lay outside the front door.

My love affair with the Okanagan went beyond the visual and the weather, however. For the first time in a long while, I felt at peace, and I attribute that to two things: being given a chance at a fresh start, and connecting with the natural world in a way I never had before.

Moving halfway across a country as large as Canada really does afford one the opportunity to start fresh, and this was something I needed badly at that point in my life. I was socially awkward all throughout school, and moving with the same crowd of kids from school to school meant that reputations stuck, even if one started to outgrow them. I was at that point where I could transition to being just a regular kid, rather than "the weird one." This, combined with making friends who genuinely shared my interests, made for an amazing two years of high school. I didn't dread going to class in the morning. I didn't have anxiety attacks that would stop me cold while trying to keep my breakfast down. As a matter of fact, I actually looked forward to going to class. That isn't to say that I was popular by any means, but I was "normal," and that is something every child craves.

My social life only improved over time. After high school I attended college in the valley, with many of the same people I graduated with. It was a great time in my life, and I fully acknowledge that this made my experience in Kelowna all the sweeter of a memory. I would go so far as to say that perhaps that makes my memories of the Okanagan seem better than they really are. This is one of the reasons why I want to go back and try living there again. It's the test against the hypothesis that people are what made my time in"K-town" so memorable. That's one aspect of my love for B.C.

The second half of my affection for British Columbia is its natural beauty. This is a far more ephemeral and elusive topic, because it doesn't have an obvious cause and effect. The best way I can describe its effects on me is to say that I feel a deep, abiding peace and love for the province.  Places like the Rockies evoke feelings of awe and wonder at the mighty titans that loom over the valleys where people dare to live. The Okanagan inspires a calm and deep connection to the sun-dappled hills, vast forests and orchards and the welcoming lake. The west coast and Vancouver Island have a lushness and vibrancy of life that can't be ignored. I think I can speak more about this connection now because of my spiritual studies, and I would say that my soul is attuned to the energy of that land; it gives me strength, confidence and a surety that I am in the right place. There's never been a time where I doubted that connection. I just lacked the words to define it, as much as something as powerful as that can be confined to the limits of language.

To be at peace, I need to explore that half of me that wonders if it was the community that made the Okanagan so incredible. Moving out there and living there should answer that question quite effectively. Perhaps it won't be as amazing as I remember it, yet perhaps it may be even better; I am a very different person from who I was 13 years ago. I have much greater appreciation for the natural world, and I am far more community oriented now. In any case, it'll be one hell of an adventure. Speaking of which, I am still committed to my WWOOFING adventure this September. The process of writing this blog post has reinforced that decision.

Sticking to the plan

I certainly hadn't intended to let six weeks go by without posting, but it is what it is. I clearly haven't made blogging a priority and I'll forgive myself for that because of how busy I've been in those past six weeks. The busy-ness of my life right now is what's inspired this post. Let's get right to it.

One of the main highlights over the past month or so was a workshop I attended on voluntary simplicity. It was hosted by the Sustainable South Osborne Community Co-operative, in which I will be a board member as of tomorrow evening, and it was led by Mark Burch, a leading expert in the voluntary simplicity community. At the workshop I made friends with a peer, someone who was actually my age and is at roughly the same place in his life as I am. We're both in transition from the "old ways" to a new way of living. He's been a godsend as far as I'm concerned because I now have someone I can genuinely communicate with while I navigate the difficult and lonely waters of social pariahism.

So we come to the heart of the issue of transitioning my core values and lifestyle. This is something I want, but damn it can be pretty lonely at times. That isn't to say that I am alone. I still have all my friends and family, they still love me, and I am ever grateful for them, but they don't get it. I'm not saying "no one understands me" either, because I've begun building a community of like-minded individuals, but they're not my friends yet. For the most part, I am alone in transitioning from the "go to school, get married, buy a house, have kids, go on vacations and work until I retire" script to "discover what's truly meaningful in my life and don't rely on material comforts to provide that meaning." After all is said and done, it may just turn out that the original script is what I want. I don't rule that out. At this point, however, it's looking very unlikely.

One of the most effective ways of testing this all out, after much consideration, is to completely leave behind my regular life and go on an adventure. I learned last year during my sabbatical that taking a break from the everyday routine can provide a lot of perspective on just what the hell it is that I'm doing. We can get lost so easily in the doing that we forget where it's taking us. I've become so busy exploring my hobbies, building community and socializing that I'm concerned that I'll be swept up by it all again and lose sight of my overarching plan. Going on an adventure will provide the big break I need to gain an even wider perspective on my life.

A lot of my activities are currently aimed in the right direction. I'm much more cognizant of the activities I choose and how they fit in my life. Some activities I feel move me backwards, things like visiting family or certain friends. It's a mixed blessing, because it allows me to go to back to sleep, in a sense. I can stop striving for personal growth for a little while. I can't stay there for long, however, as that drive to pick myself up and move on is always there in the back of my mind. Maybe that's my purpose in this life. I feel more passionately about that then most other things, and it would explain my dedication to it.

In the end, though, I have specific goals I want to achieve within the next year, and I don't want to lose them amongst the "living" that happens in everyday life. I am so thankful that I am busy with life, and everyday I do honour to my existence by living consciously. Sticking to the plan, i.e. WWOOFING in the fall, and leaving my very comfortable and safe job, are the priorities. This is the next step for which I've been preparing myself. I've delayed it for one more summer, but then there can be no more excuses. I try to avoid binary thinking as much as a regular person can, but in this instance it truly does come down to moving forward with my personal development, or not. I choose the former.

Fear and Courage

I often wonder if I have the courage to make anything of myself in this life time. Since returning to Winnipeg from my little adventure in Victoria, I've been living a life primarily of inaction, paralyzed between my old life and the new one I was moving towards. This is the dilemma that I've been sitting in for months now, attempting to determine what direction I should go with my life.

I believe I was very close to a break through with "wwoofing," which is a program that allows volunteers to work on organic farms of all types in exchange for room, board and getting to know the farm family and its social circle. I know myself well enough to understand that full immersion is the best way to initiate and internalize change in my behaviours and thought patterns. That probably holds true for most people, I'd imagine.

Wwoofing is probably one of the best ways to see if I want live a life much simplified. The implication here is that I could hate that lifestyle, and that I'd come running back to the city and extend my current standard of living for as long as possible. I honestly don't think I'd react that way since I love the outdoors, the country, and growing food but there's no harm in trying it out to make sure.

It's for these reasons that I had made plans to go wwoofing this spring. My original intent was to quit my job, travel the world for a year as a "wwoofer," and then... I don't know. The uncertainty at the end didn't sit well with me because I wasn't sure what I'd do to earn a living, and it was definitely a factor in backing out of this adventure.

I contacted a vineyard in Summerland and heard back immediately from them. It sounded like a great place, and would be an amazing fit. It fulfilled my desires to work on an organic farm, to be back in the Okanagan (for reasons I'll get into in another post), and it would teach me employable vineyard skills. The family head seemed very friendly, and we would have made an excellent team. This wild plan of mine became very real when I told the SSOCC president and VP, and my boss, that this is what I was planning on doing. It was the discussion with my boss that turned things around, however.

My boss is very supportive, all things considered, and she definitely appreciates the work that I do. When I told her I was going to quit in March to go wwoofing for a year, she thought it was very cool, but she wanted to arrange a part time gig for me out in Summerland. She didn't want me to quit. This discussion all happened on a Thursday, and she wanted a few days to see if she could work something out before I handed her my resignation letter.

Here's the thing, though: I didn't want a part time position in Summerland. I didn't tell her that. I just went along with her plan, and then brooded over all of this for the rest of the day. Why didn't I speak up? It was because I was scared. Scared to lose my comfortable, secure job, scared to go on this crazy adventure, and scared of what I would do with myself after the year was up.

I started rationalizing with myself, thinking of all the reasons why I shouldn't go wwoofing: family obligations, volunteering with SSOCC, giving up a perfectly good job, singing lessons, druidry work, brewing, etc. The list goes on and on. All of these things seemed so critical all of a sudden because I was very close to giving them all up for an experience of a lifetime. Well, all those things won out, in the end. I called my boss back the very next day, apologized for sounding like a crazy person, and chickened out.

At first, I convinced myself that I made the right decision. Family and community volunteering and personal development are all important to me, and it's far wiser to keep what I have than to let it all go, even if only temporarily. That's when the regret started creeping in, and along with it the realization that I had once again let fear intimidate me into inaction. What seemed so important when I was deciding what to do, wasn't all that important anymore. I am now committed to this dilemma for a little bit longer.

I have since informed the SSOCC president and VP that I will be around for the 2013 growing season, and that I want to join the board of members. This is all truth, and I must keep my word. I also have an illustration project that I need to finish by mid-February for a kid's magazine. It's a paid gig, or at least will be once the contract is signed and delivered, and it'll give me a taste of one of the other paths I've considered taking with my life.

September is the new "go" date. I've already informed the owner at the vineyard in Summerland of that. I have two options for work: a three month leave of absence, or flat out quitting. I want to quit. I've flirted with this option long enough, and it's long past time for me to move on to something more meaningful. I will feel that fear again when I tender my resignation, the fear of the unknown, the fear that I'm not good enough. That fear must be embraced, and action taken in spite of it, in order to overcome it and start believing that I can control my destiny.

Observations

I was at a party recently with people several years younger than me, and at one point in the evening the conversation moved to our parents' generation and the financial predicaments some of them are facing as they approach their retirement years. It was troubling to hear stories of real people who could be potentially facing a future that doesn't match the one promised to them by society at large, and it was fascinating that this discussion began at all given the age of the party goers. Issues included large amounts of debt, next to nothing saved or investments lost, and houses that have been leveraged to maintain a standard of living most Canadians consider to be typical.

Our parents are part of the baby boom generation and have lived through the most prosperous economic times in the history of the western world. Due to the implied social contract that exists, this generation, and generally any following it, fully expect a comfortable, well-to-do retirement that starts around the age of 60. 500,000 baby boomers will be entering this retirement age each year over the next decade or so, and many of these fully intend to tap into the equity of their real estate to fund their golden years in part or in whole. I think there's going to be a lot of disbelief and anger among this group of people for the failure of the social contract to hold up its end of the bargain. This isn't to say that our parents can be held blameless; they have their fair share of poor decisions made, albeit in the frame of a society that encouraged those kinds of choices.

Garth Turner, over at his blog www.greaterfool.ca, is convinced that the real estate market will tank, with the vagaries of regional circumstances affecting just how deep the asset deflation will end up being. Recent news certainly seems to support this viewpoint, and the wider perspective of macro economic performance in our nation and the world certainly cannot justify the meteoric rise of property value over the past decade. Canada, on average, is rated as one of the more unaffordable places to live and the size of our country and economy certainly can't be blamed for it. Rather, it seems speculation, cheap debt, and treating real estate as a primary investment source are the causes for the inflated prices we see now. The debt binge is over; it's hangover time.

I am by no means a financial guru, but I have learned quite a bit from the blogs I've been reading over the past year. It seems to me that having the ability to make smart decisions about wealth should be commonplace. I say that financial ignorance is intentional because people who are smart with their money generally make for very poor consumers. I count myself among those who have very little knowledge of investing, and even less hands-on experience. I have recently learned how to save significant amounts of my earnings, but my knowledge of what to do with my cash ends there. I'm curious why something like money management isn't included as part of a basic education. I'd like to ask my teacher friends about that.

A future where net energy is declining every day will only exacerbate the predicament our parents face as they head into their retirement years. My guess is many of them will have to continue working in some form for far longer than they'd like. It's an ongoing trend in the U.S. where the majority of the jobs created since 2008 have been part time, and the employees are 55+ years of age. I imagine a very similar situation will occur here as well. I also foresee multi-generational homes becoming a common feature as our aging parents seek help that the government will no longer be able to afford due to decreasing surpluses, and because our generation will be one of the first to face widespread downward mobility. Yes, home prices will be depreciating over the next six to ten years, but in parallel with that we will see deflating wages and inflating prices on staple goods and services. It's going to be rough for all involved!

Completely unrelated to the topic of the post, I should note here that I've postponed my cross-country volunteering adventure until September. My time will be spent preparing for my journey and enjoying the company of family and friends. Next week I'll get into more detail about the skills and connections I'm developing before leaving.

Happy Yule

Jesus H. Murphy, is it 2013 already? I'm so terribly happy that I didn't make any resolutions this year, especially ones about writing regularly on this blog. The daily journal I keep in the Real World (tm) has been my outlet for angst, agony and acrimony since September of last year. In all honesty though, it really isn't that bad. My life, I mean. In fact, I wanted to start the New Year right by speaking about gratitude, and how it's affected my life recently.

This evening I had the pleasure of showing my blog to a dear friend of mine, who was polite enough to not immediately close the browser window after reading the first paragraph. (Thank you!) Naturally I read along, and since it's been so long since I wrote those old posts I could look at them with fresh eyes. There were two central themes to the majority of those posts: thankfulness for experiences both new and old, and a terrible anxiety of what to do with myself.

To be thankful for the many wonderful things in my life is to be free of the need for more. I find it to be a universal truth of humanity that we all seek to increase, in whatever way each of us deem important. Whether that be through career, love, family or perhaps just material things, these are the ways we seek happiness. Learning gratitude frees us from the treadmill of acquisition. I believe this lesson, more than anything, is what's brought a true sense of happiness and balance to my life. I now have freedom to act from a purer source. My motivation is no longer based on the fear of not having or being enough.

I recently decided that I will quit my job early this year to volunteer at organic farms, homesteads and vineyards in various places around the world. I chose this because I will meet new people, acquire new skills and develop a more worldly perspective. This is my method of growth, because it moves me closer to my true self. It's a process of refinement that began almost a year ago: as I add to my life so too do I subtract those things that are not important to my core values. I have asked myself on several occasions why I would go to all this trouble to seek my true self if I am already happy. The reason goes beyond happiness. It has become a spiritual journey, one that I hope will increase my understanding of Truth. I am reminded of a poem by Rumi, who speaks of the development of the human soul:

Little by little, wean yourself.
This is the gist of what I have to say.
From an embryo, whose nourishment comes in the blood,
move to an infant drinking milk,
to a child on solid food,
to a searcher after wisdom,
to a hunter of more invisible game.

The anxiety that I felt over choosing this career over that career, or living in this place as opposed to another is, for the most part, gone. I was chasing after an illusion because my true target is more meaningful than that. I am no longer so concerned about the exact destination I want to reach because I've finally internalized the lesson that the journey IS the destination. However, there still remains a deep-seated fear of social reprisal from those closest to me for choosing to let go of a sure thing like my current job. I have to remember that imagined phantoms are nearly always more frightening than the shadows that play in the real world. As the same friend who graciously read my blog said earlier today, "You want this, and those around you should (and will) respect your choices." Wise words.

As the New Year kicks off, I wish to maintain this sense of gratitude for all that I already have. The freedom gained from the humility of thankfulness is exactly what I needed to begin a journey that is motivated by greater and deeper things than fear and joy. Where will it take me? I don't know yet, but this blog will be the chronicle of my adventure.

Fear this

"Fear is the mind killer." - Frank Herbert.

The more I contemplate my life and the decisions I make now and have made in the past, the more I realize that fear controls me. For example, I could have the left the apartment to go to a pub or coffee shop in the off chance that I might get to socialize with people. I'm aware of the rationalizations now that I use to avoid situations that I'm afraid of. Truly the only way to get over fear's control over me is to face it. Where fear would dictate a particular course of action to avoid it, I must choose to act in spite of the fear. It's the only way to properly honour this incredible life I've been given.

I'm realizing more now than ever that I crave courageous action. This all falls in line with my recent discovery that I want to live an authentic and courageous life. I hate letting fear have so much control over me. The fears are numerous, and it may be I haven't identified them all yet. I'm going to allow myself that ignorance for the time being because I've already identified enough fears to conquer over a lifetime. The fears that bother me especially are the social fears: fear of rejection, primarily, and fear of failure. I don't like that feeling because it makes me feel trapped.

I must give myself some credit for the tiny baby steps I've made so far. Some things don't concern nearly as much as they used to. I acknowledge my progress, and am glad for it. At the same time I realize there is much more to my potential and I've only just started scratching the surface of the real life I want to lead. The key is to give myself permission to do the things I want to do.

Melancholy

Melancholy is a great way to describe my overall feelings as of late. The only escapes I have from it are when I'm exercising, when I'm out among nature, or when I'm with friends. When I exercise, the physical exertion burns the stress away and leaves me feeling good. When I'm strolling through the golden-leaved trees along the riverbank with the sun shining down on me and the geese, ducks, and squirrels, I feel balanced and normal. When I'm socializing with my friends, I am enjoying the moment and I can forget, for a time, the uncertain future. I think the feeling of melancholy is coming from trying to suss out the motivations for my actions.

Some psychologists believe that all motivations are fundamentally based on fear. It would seem that in my case, when considering my options, that holds true. I fear regret, self-loathing, and failure when I consider staying in my cozy, safe, and secure (for the time being) job with the government. I fear failure, success, and potential destitution when I consider a career in illustration. I fear that my motivations are fear-based when I consider blacksmithing as a vocation. I want to live my courageously but it seems everything I choose to do is based on fear. I'm certain I'm over-thinking all of this.

Since my return from the trip to Victoria, I've been floating in this dilemma about where to direct my efforts. It seems to bounce equally between wanting to be an illustrator or wanting to be a blacksmith. It isn't necessarily that my identity is tied up in either of these options, although I will admit that's part of it, but rather about trying to minimize the regret I'll feel in the future about the decisions I make now. I regret staying in this government job for so long. I regret not pursuing my illustration career more fully, and wasting time. I regret not pursuing my blacksmithing interests from years back. I see wasted time behind me. There's a big problem going forward, however, as the future will most likely be nothing like the life I've known so far. Big changes for the worse are on their way, despite the "best" efforts of the political and financial classes.

What I must accept, though, is that my life right now is the result of all the choices I've made in the past. I own that, and I bear full responsibility for that. It's comforting in a way because it gives the illusion of control over my own life. What I'm learning now, and it's a bitter lesson indeed, is that the wider world and its circumstances have a strong hand in how my life is shaped. If crises break out in the near future, the best I can ever expect of myself is to respond to them. So perhaps living courageously is to act despite the fear. In some situations, a person may be paralyzed into inaction because of fear, or may perhaps choose to simply ignore the source of his fear until it's in his face and will be ignored no longer. Perhaps courage is the ability to see and acknowledge the truth of a situation, no matter how terrifying it may be, and choosing to act to either minimize the pain, or to even take advantage of what opportunities may present themselves.

I've been working with the concept that courage means to act regardless of the situation. In this particular case it would be deciding to be an illustrator even if I knew ahead of time that it would be extremely difficult to earn any kind of living from it because of how the future is shaping up. I don't want to waste any more of my time on something that I won't end up using. Why is it a waste though? Wouldn't that time spent be valuable in some way? Wouldn't it lead to self-improvement, and time spent on something I really enjoy? I'm getting stuck on the end result again. The irony of it is that a life long pursuit like illustration has no end; I'm looking for something that doesn't exist. The same goes for any pursuit worth chasing.

The one certainty that I do feel at this time is that any time I spend at my government job is time wasted. I am not improving in my career, and I am not improving as a person. These are active choices on my part. I do not want to advance this part of my life any further. I want out, because my potential will never be fulfilled so long as I work here.