The North is a Spirit

You know the North is a spirit
You're gonna know it when you hear it
In the cry of the loon
Beneath the waning moon...
You better try to understand it
And when you finally begin to
You'll see the North is a spirit
And the spirit is in you.

Here's Hoping

I had a conversation with a friend of mine today, about the effort to put meaning to one's own life.

It's no surprise this topic arose on the day after the Easter holiday.

The overwhelming image of the past weekend for me was graffiti on the door of an abandoned church near Bloor and Dovercourt. This mighty old red brick edifice, now surrounded by a wire fence, hung with signs reading "Power Of Sale" seemed a somber sight on Good Friday... the more so, as a hand-scrawled message on the door read "Jesus has left the building. You are now on your own. You'll have to work things out for yourselves."

But a second writer had modified the original message, with a parallel possibility: "Jesus Is Everywhere". Cheering, surely, especially for the former congregation of that bereft building. But what about those, like me and many others, who find themselves not entirely comforted by either sentiment?

Sure, I worship in my way. I spent Easter Sunday the company of friends and loved ones, visiting the McMichael Collection, a temple of Canadian creativity surrounded by a stunning white pine forest, set in rolling hills.

I'm at peace with finding divinity in a place like that, whether it's gazing at Lawren Harris' icebergs, or communing with Norval Morriseau's spirit people, or simply running my hand over the board-and-batten walls of Tom Thomson's shack.

I believe in a resurrection of spirit that accompanies a brisk walk and a breath of fresh air beneath a blue April sky.

Still, putting the meaning to the moments between those moments tests my strength, my resolve, and indeed, my faith.

What exactly is it, I wonder, that I believe in? And is it possible to make meaning of something that can't even be said?

Here's hoping...

The Crossroads

I've been thinking about this a lot lately, and it's time I wrote it down.

On the Festival Express DVD, there's a Janis Joplin performance filmed in Calgary that is like nothing else I've ever seen. She is pushing the bounds of the blues so hard, singing with such raw and painful emotion, that it's actually difficult to watch - yet totally compelling. She reminds me of those men in the Phillipines who are willingly crucifed; she's literally made a sacrifice of herself. And six weeks after that mesmerizing performance, she was dead. You could see it coming; in fact, it would have been difficult to imagine her going on giving that way.

I believe Joplin, like Van Gogh before her and Cobain after her and many, many others at many times, made the conscious or unconscious choice of feeding her creativity with her essential, rather than her available energy. Her art came right from her heart's blood, and that's powerful stuff. It's strong and rich with feeling and vitality, and it makes for incredible creations sometimes.

Maybe this is what's meant by selling your soul at the crossroads: it's like you've made a pact to give your life to your art. I can see why people do it, but it just isn't for me. Tonight I heard a soulful singer doing Joplin, singing "take another little piece of my heart," and I thought about how few pieces of a heart there are to give away. What do you have when it's all gone?

A crossroads isn't just a place to sell your soul to the devil for the sake of the depth of your blues. It's also a place where you can choose the other road. You can choose to live a life that's about life, to feed your heart first and then feed your art. I choose to belive that the heart, the art, and the artist will all be better off in the end.

With all my heart, or at least all that's left, I hope I'm right.

The Frequency of the Heart

It's been said "when the student is ready, the teacher will appear." Many times, this has proven true for me, and on my current journey of discovery, I met two new teachers who have greatly revived my spirit.

Their names are Herwig and Shahida. They're a retired couple from Germany, and they are incredibly rich in wisdom, having spent a great deal of their lives devoting themselves to the practice of meditation and to walking the path of the heart.

We've been sharing meals for the last three days on the train from Toronto to Vancouver, first by happenstance, then by coincidence, and then by design.

This morning I presented them with a song I had written, inspired by our many conversations. The prettiest turns of phrase in the song are things Shahida said in conversation - she has a lovely way with words. And the images of flight are references to Herwig's former profession as an airline pilot for Lufthansa. He once flew Shahida up past 40,000 feet, to where they could see the blue curve of the earth against the blackness of space.

His retirement gift from the company was 2 flights anywhere in the world. They picked Canada, and chose to ride The Canadian. They celebrated their 32nd anniversary in the Bullet lounge at the back of the train. This is their song.

The Frequency of the Heart

The gentle grey-haired gentleman,
and the woman with the lovely smile
Have been travelling together for many a mile
He took her to the edge of the earth,
she took him to her heart
It was plain to see they could never be apart

Above the clouds he drifted, upon the wind he flew
He dropped into her life from a sky of blue
She got a good green garden growing,
kept a hand on the telephone
It was plain to see they could never be alone

Chorus
Beautiful shiny colours, the power of second sight
He knew her, she had known him from the start
Beauty truth and wisdom, life and love and light
They were finely tuned to the frequency of the heart

They are travellers together on the rolling train of life
The journey of a husband and a wife
They are seekers after spirit, harmony and art
Finely tuned to the frequency of the heart

(repeat chorus)

Shedding

Remember Richard Dreyfuss' character in the movie Close Encounters? He couldn't stop creating sculptures of that strange mountain, in whatever material he had at hand - from mashed potatoes to backyard mud.

I've been similarly obsessed about a shed.

So, I've been building a shed out back. A real one. You might say I've been shedding. My skin and all. Tough sledding, this shedding, at times, but I kept at it. I'm almost done.

It looks beautiful. It is small, quaint, rustic, faintly zen in the lines of the roof, full of tools already and resplendent with mis-matched French doors to let in the light of day. It is a home for my spirit, maybe. Who knew my spirit could be so small and so sawdusty as to be lodged in a shed? Everyone but me, probably. But I'm glad to know it now, and humbled by the fact.

If you want me I'll be out back, busy as a beaver by the light of a kerosene lantern, saying my rough prayers to Jesus, the only god who ever was a carpenter. I hope he'll take pity on a sinner like me, an odd-job man with a blue thumb and a tradesman's tongue.

I swear I'm doing my level best.