Why is this man smiling?

Working on this site requires me to spend a lot of time looking at pictures of myself. Understanding how I present myself to the world is part of what I do. I also talk about myself a lot; this is a diary, after all. As someone who is hoping one day to transcend the ego, I feel a certain tension about all this mirror- and navel-gazing. I'm also frequently chagrined by how much clutter I discover in the ongoing effort to clean up the dirty basement of my soul. But what makes it all worth while is that occasionally, I discover something in me that I really like.

Last summer, I saw a photograph of myself taken during the encore of my CD release at Hugh's Room. I was smiling so broadly I barely believed it was me when saw the picture (although the music note ball cap and Canadian flag t-shirt were pretty good evidence). I truly hadn't realized that my mouth could even stretch that wide. My face actually taught my brain a lesson.

Later, I saw another picture of me, taken in the backstage area at the Shelter Valley Folk Festival. My eyes were closed and I was listening to the live feed from the stage, captured brilliantly by my friend Michael Nunan. The look on my face in the picture was one of profound peace. I truly hadn't realized that my mind could even sit that still. Knowing that I was able to inhabit a friendly moment incidentally, gave me more confidence to inhabit difficult moments intentionally. That was a big step.

Recently, I saw a likeness of me with a big wide grin and an easy, happy confidence on stage at the Free Times Cafe. That picture somehow combined the peace of the Shelter Valley shot and the joy of the Hugh's Room shot. Again I was greatful for the gift of a photographic lesson. Why is this man smiling, I wondered?

He's smiling because he's happy.

Of course that opens another can of worms: who am I to be happy? I'm an undeserving sinner, an existential wretch, a lost soul on the human highway and all that. Whole villages are being wiped out and I have long hot showers whenever I want. I burn gasoline and electricity and fly all over the place in airplanes, and my little folk songs ain't exactly saving the world...

Still, I ask myself: if I can't be happy, with all my great good fortune, good health, and good luck... who could be? And so I feel that I must be, and I shall be, and I am.

Keeping in tune

There's something about the seasons that is fundamental to my sense of the world. The subtle shifts in the colour of the sunlight, the feeling of soft mud underfoot, tender green shoots poking tentatively through the snow, faint hints of warmth in the wind, the taste and the temperature of the air... these are the indicators of a great global shift, and they're wonderful.

But as we swing through the equinox and the days grow longer than the nights again, there's more to it than just little signs of spring. My whole being changes. I feel like a bear emerging from his den. I'm not a true hibernator, but I do tend to get hunkered down some. I've heard winter referred to as "the time of turning inward" and it certainly is that for me.

It's good to turn inward. It's good to explore the mountains and the crevasses of your own being. It's good to fumble in the darkness and get the shape of your innermost self, to test your own mettle against the valley of the shadow and all that. Plumbing the depths is de rigeur for a thoughtful person, a spiritual person, a creative person, and I accept that and respect it.

Yet trips to my innermost sanctum are hardly joyous occasions. They're more like being sent to the principal's office, and I feel like a guilty schoolboy, shifting uneasily on a big chair across the desk from a looming, stern authority figure, who doesn't even need to say anything for me to feel wrong and shameful and stupid about all the dumb things I do. And believe me, I do.

I accept the wrongness of my sins, as it were, and the necessity of checking my moral compass. I accept the need to have straightened out my basement this winter, metaphorically and actually. I accept and am grateful for the chance to take inventory of myself and to do the work within.

Still, the very best thing about using the winter to tune up, is that when spring comes, I can sing in some kind of harmony with the changing of the world. Now begins, in a slow and ageless dance, the time of turning outward. This is the time of the coming of the sun.

Happy Equinox everyone. I'll see you out there. I'll be the one with the light heart and the dancing feet and the slight wildness in my eyes, the unmistakable symptoms of the sweet delirium that is spring fever.