What we call the beginning is often the end
And to make and end is to make a beginning.
The end is where we start from. And every phrase
And sentence that is right (where every word is at home,
Taking its place to support the others,
The word neither diffident nor ostentations,
An easy commerce of the old and the new,
The common word exact without vulgarity,
The formal word precise but not pedantic,
The complete consort dancing together)
Every phrase and every sentence is an end and a beginning,
Every poem an epitaph. And any action
Is a step to the block, to the fire, down the sea's throat
Or to an illegible stone: and that is where we start.
We die with the dying:
See, they depart, and we go with them.
We are born with the dead:
See, they return, and bring us with them.
The moment of the rose and the moment of the yew-tree
Are of equal duration. A people without history
Is not redeemed from time, for history is a pattern
Of timeless moments. So, while the light fails
On a winter's afternoon, in a secluded chapel
History is now and England.

With the drawing of this Love and the voice of this Calling

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, unremembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple-tree
Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea.
Quick now, here, now, always-
A condition of complete simplicity
(Costing not less than everything)
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flames are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one.

-T.S. Elliot, Part V, Little Gidding

Solstice Shakedown

Now I face the rising sun; eastward bound to Frederick's town.

I've had enough patchouli, thank you.

BC's been beyond fun - I've had a phenomenal time,

but, as the man said,

you have to know when to hold and know when to fold.

I lost my camera... well, not exactly: i still have it, but i've lost the use of it. the lens broke, and now the zoom is shot. Hence the lack of personal photos from Keremeos. Luckily, however, Nick McCaig stopped by a week back for a few days and snapped a couple of beautiful shots, which, having acquired, I now wish to share!

My Home :)

My time out here has been a grand experiment, to date, in leaving behind all that holds me back. It's been a relaxing a purifying series of moments of increased appreciation for others, nature, God, myself - all of it in a better perspective. All that conceptual mumbojumbo of academe has been a neutral conditioning; it's neither necessary nor sufficient. Working in an orchard, plucking away the bad fruit, leaving the good - creating the proper medium for ultimate growth - is easily interpretted on a level of metaphorical significance. All the academic conditioning, as I've said, now seems highly unsubstantial and irrelevant. This is an adventure in getting back to the earths essentials - the sun, and light and rain and dirt, reading the land and the skies. I've worn one pair of pants for the last two weeks.

"what more can a man do then eat drink and enjoy his toil..."

"if a man does not work he should not eat."

Blake, again, captures my sentiments precisely; frusteration from mistwisted contorted presentations of man who said that truth was comprehended by the foolish, not the wise. Forget your street preaching and start serving. Life isn't a documentary, it's a drama - not even that - its a circus, and the clowns have the wisdom...


The Vision of Christ that thou dost see
Is my Visions Greatest Enemy
Thine has a great hook nose like thine
Mine has a snub nose like to mine

Thine is the Friend of All Mankind
Mine speaks in parables to the Blind
Thine loves the same world that mine hates
Thy Heaven doors are my Hell Gates
Socrates taught what Melitus

Loathd as a Nations bitterest Curse
And Caiphas was in his own Mind
A benefactor of Mankind
Both read the Bible day & night
But thou readst black where I read white

-William Blake, in The Everlasting Gospel

Similkameen 35 degree burns

Keremeos

This is my new temporary home - Keremeos, British Columbia. I arrived here after a days hitchhike from Vancouver. After camping out for the night I went to a restaurant in this small village of less than a thousand. Before even getting my meal served I was offered a job by a local woman sitting at the next table. I went home with her, met her husband (who really runs the orchard) and set up all my stuff in my new home - a beat up old renovated short blue bus! so now I'm living in a bus down by the river, working in the beautiful sun, enjoying a paradisic working vacation thinning the orchard out.

I plan on blogging my time in said bus - more than one person have done so. apparently its a famous little spot in town. lots of transients like myself have slept here over the past years. I feel like i've tapped into something wonderful.

my karma has been at its apex since I left the treeplanting company Apex... I got a job before breajkfast, found a cheap bicylcle before lunch, had a tan by supper time, and in the evening sat and listened to the music festival.

then, while hanging out with the family inside the home eating crepes, i looked over at the TV to see my cousins and father (!) on Slice network on some reality television wedding show! what a freaking small country.

Until next time!
.a.

a dead man's possessions remember him not

Finally, here are some photos - the most recent at the top. Believe it or not, this is a shot of Wreck Beach in Vancouver. I took it this evening as I sat on the warm sand contemplating how happy I was that I quit my job tree planting.

It was a very hard decision to make, but I feel very confident that it was the right one; I have reasons that are far far too numerous to recount here. Let it therefore stand on the record my soul was simply in the wrong medium. I've since picked up what little roots I had and transplanted my plans to the Okanagan valley region, where I'll be working on an organic farm around Keremeos/Cawston area for a couple weeks. Hopefully I can follow a good orchard harvest around this summer for cash.

I'm in Vancouver right now just taking it easy with some great friends, namely Jacques and Randy, but with some new folks thrown in the mix. Staying here for a day or two to recharge the bateries and then off to clear my head in the desert.

What is a rainbow,

Lord? A hoop,

for the lowly...

Wrek Beach, Vancouver, at dusk... as I watch my first Pacific sunset of the summer!

My feet in the Pacific!

Starting!
Almost done...
All done!
Finale...

Jacques in Keremeos
Keremeos - soon to be home?
Okanagan Lake
oyoos

Northern Okanagan Lake

total luxury

What a beautiful clearcut!

At work planting trees on the clearcut.

My 'dibble' on the clearcut

Jacques the travelling tank engine. Look out, bears.

Our apartment in Prince George

The Parting Shot

Mt. Robson

Sign in Prince George, BC

Jayne!
Jasper

Jayne and I in Jasper!

The highway not the highlife.

Gross trucker piss jugs

Driving into the Rockies in the Rain

Edmonton May Day Parade
Edmonton Bus (blood)

Someday you might have a stroke and THEN you'll wish you gave!!!

Gear

Prairie Sunrise

Shitty Edmonton Jobs! (everywhere)

Edmonton Faces

Edmonton Bank
AB Parliament

My nephew and godchild Aiden, the cutest ball of Stevie Wonder I've loved.

Thunder Bay Backpackers Hostel *****

Canada: The Country with One Street

Jayne and I

This has a good story (in person) later....

North Shore of Lake Superior

too exhausted to write much

its been a while since I've worked my body like I have today. i think st. patty's day may mark that last day I went for a serious run... i started smoking again (exams and all) and when you're smoking there is clearly no point in going for a run. but now, man, I wake up at 5am strap on the dirtiest grubbiest clothes and go put my body through absolute hell in the hot sun all day stabbing the ground and bending and placing and kicking etc. for anyone who can appreciate the pleasant pain of a long workout, tree planting has at least that one benefit. calouses better start growing soon because my hands are cut and brambled to shit and i have mud in my pores that wont come out till November. i love it! 6am - 8pm... just enough sleep to recover slightly before the next bout with the earth :)

Jasper, AB

The more frigid the cold,

the better the warmth,

the barren praries (and ugly Edmonton)

make these stunning views all the better!

Pictures to come soon, when I stop forgetting my USB cord.

I hear you maritime suckers got some snow the other day!

Be not dismayed!

Summer is on it's way towards you; I'm an eye witness :)

PS:

A man who I got a ride with across the praries was in Seattle after our time together. He gave me a ring. Apparently, I had left a guitar pick in his car. When visiting the grave of Jimi Hendrix, he left the pick and felt an electric sense that through my mandolin the spirit of Jimi will make itself known. Wow. okay, well, I'm out to go enjoy some purple haze...all in my brain

Welcome to Alberta - where a local telephone call costs 35 cents!

Several thousand kilometres past Toronto liesEdmonton - a city with such wealth and 'success' that it's really quite difficult to even describe in the language of a Maritime Canadian. This is Texas - the oil fields and dollars flow endlessly numbered. Every business is pleading for you to work; there are great wages and benefits for the most menial jobs. To these eastern ears it sounds too good to be true. The economic boon/m has forced the balooning of Edmon ton from close to 100 000 people a decade ago to more than a million today, with an underground subway system allready operating and a fullscale expansion at the ready. The downtown is chrome and glass and even the litter must cost money.

I met up with Jayne in Toronto, and after a massively stressful systemic loss of both of our abilities to properly use the airline industry (missed flights, connections, Gatwick doesn't equal Heathrow etc.) we began the Ontario Marathon. If you start driving East of Ottawa (leaving Montreal into Ontario) and set you cruise control at 100km/h, twenty four hours later you would still be driving through Canadian Shield. It took us three days: 1) TO - Orillia, 2) Orillia to Parry sound then to the Sudbury bypass highway, 3) to Bachawana Bay on Superior, finishing in 4) Thunder Bay at that wonderful hostel with Willa and Lloyd I stayed at last year.

We hopped a (very expensive) bus to Winnipeg after that, simply because I needed to know that I was in Winnipeg that evening with time to Wake up and have a whole day in the city (and with my family) without any travelling to do. It was amazing to see Aiden, my nephew, and his wonderful parents my sister Jen and brother in law Yves.

Yves dropped us off at the truck stop. It rained. It got cold. We waited an hour or two. Then, just as we were calling it quits,, a van stops and we meet Dave - a great guy heading where else, than to Edmonton in one haul. We joined the crusade and now I'm planning with Jayne our next move ... into the mountains!!!! I'm so overwhelmingly excited. okay, on that exagerated note, I'll call it a day.

Till next time,
.a.

My April 20th wishlist:

Stop legislating morality. Stop prosecuting victimless crimes.

Stop turning honest, productive, virtuous citizens into criminals.

Stop making my generation go to sketchy coke dealers in order to buy a plant.

Take the power out of the hands of organized crime.

Stop breeding an absurd fear of nature in the young,

and start revealing the truth about this so-called "drug."

“Consumption of marijuana is relatively harmless compared to the so-called hard drugs including tobacco and alcohol. There exists no hard evidence demonstrating any irreversible organic or mental damage from the consumption of marijuana.”

- Ontario Justice J.F. McCart

Toronto!

So what were people to do before February 29th?

After 24 hours on the bus, hunched over, hugging a pillow and clinging to an intermitent sleep, I'm here in Toronto. I'm in Kensington, 14 degrees - even more in the sun. New Brunswick is a world away :) I took a bus to Riviere du Loup and then decided against setting up camp in some frigid wind and took the Toronto express... I'm presently staying with my friends Ryan and Charlie whom I met this time of year twelve months ago.

I missed city life - I love the urban energy; a persistent buzz that never dies. I somehow love the sound polution and wanton pamphleting - something happens here, something is always happening here left and right. In small towns (like Fredericton) one's gaze falls down - to the ground, stones, shoes, slush... in the city, however, a narrowed aperture forces one's attention upward; a panoramic skyscape towers of lights and glass and concrete "rising ever upwards..." It crushes the individual into a mass of nameless faces and the hum of an anthill. Like a warped version of cummings' spring, constantly arranging everything, yet always breaking something: 60 000 homeless, I think, at the last count. This kingdom of chrome, said Muggeridge, "is clearly only for posterity." Still, I love this grand experiment of a multicultural polis; I certainly do NOT miss the racist cabbies of Fredericton.

Till next time,
.a.

First Day of my Summer Break

Leaving Fredericton this morning :)

Beautiful Summer

Only In Saint John

Brunswick Square Shopping Centre Bathroom