The Place Where Time Stops.

Well, for me, this is the place where I stopped. This is where I spent five nights and days alone in the desert. After all that road-going, I think my time at Big Sur and the Desert House of Prayer were "slowing down" places, but here in this tent-ramada high on a mesa out in the Sonoran Desert in Arizona I really came to a complete standstill and in a quite exceptional way entered into the present moment as a way of daily living.

I have this theory that when you travel long distances in a short space of time there's a kind of "spiritual lag" whereby it takes a while for your spirit to catch up with your body - you know that feeling when you arrive somewhere and it takes a little time before you're "quite all there." When you do this over a protracted period of time the effect is even more pronounced - the sense of spirit-body disconnect is the only way I can think of expressing it. So at Cascabel (="rattlesnake") Hermitage I was able to stop and reconnect with myself, so to speak, with the flow of things from the outside world turned off for a while.


So what did I do for five days and nights? Well, as I say, the emphasis was not so much on doing as on being - sounds a bit of a cliche I know but that is how it was. How did I spend my time? Sounds a bit like a question Thomas Merton was asked once in terms of what was a typical day for him in response to which he wrote "Day of a Stranger." Really, life was stripped down to the bare necessities, as they say. I got up with the the sun (about 7am) and went to bed a little after sunset (by 7pm), so I slept a lot, though I also read a bit by flashlight or was happy to lie content with my thoughts. I had a simple breakfast (freeze dried scrambled egg and/or a banana plus good coffee, of course! "Don't tell me how good my coffee is..."), I prepared a simple meal before sunset using a single-burner propane camp-stove, and a snack at lunch-time usually down in the canyon. Apart from that I didn't do anything that had to be done.


Three days I hiked down off the mesa (like a plateau) into the canyon below. After about an hour up the canyon you come to a stream, water flowing in the desert, and as you hike further and further up it becomes more of a challenge to make your way, crossing the stream back and forth. This came to be a kind of physical meditation for me forcing me into the present moment, being present to the stream and the banks and the rocks - watching also for the unlikely at this time of year presence of a rattlesnake (didn't see one) or a gila monster.

I spent five nights and days not particularly thinking of the past or the future but being right there - of course memories came to mind, and thoughts of the future too, but I didn't dwell there. I didn't meditate formally very much though I tried to be consciously present which, as I say, wasn't hard to do in this place. I didn't do a lot of praying in a formal sense, though my heart was full of gratitude for each day and each moment, and I said many kyries (Lord have mercy!), and when people came to mind I found it to be a kind of prayerful reminiscence.

While I was at Cascabel I finished reading Ann Charters' biography of Jack Kerouac that I began reading, appropriately enough, in Lowell, Massachusetts, and that I've been reading on and off throughout this whole time. In many ways it is a sad tale as his life unravelled in his later years, and how the promise and exhuberance that is found in his writings met with dissolution and despair in his own life. I agree with Ann Charters though, that part of his genius at least was his ability to take the tragic material of his own life and creatively depict it in his writings - thinking particularly, for example, of the sorry tale of his "crack-up" that is related in Big Sur - somehow he was able to stand back from it and portray its reality with awful honesty. He was under no illusions. Perhaps there is redemption in this.

I've been conscious during this sabbatical journey that by coincidence I have reached the age Jack was when he died. I turned this age on February 17 (I originally thought it was January 19 when we left New York on the 60th anniversary of his journey, that would have been just too poetic but was actually a poetic miscalculation!). I'm now older than Jack. In one way this has no significance - we all get to the age of people who died younger than we shall - but doing so may give us cause to look at our own lives, both looking back and looking forward in terms of "How shall I spend the time that is left to me, be that long or short?" There are many ways we could answer this, but when the question came to mind that other evening as I sat looking at the sunset at Cascabel, two things immediately came into my head: practice kindness and do not fear.


So now I'm once more on the road en route back to the Californian coast and the New Camaldoli Hermitage at Big Sur where I'll get back into the rhythm of the daily liturgy of the monks based around the Psalms and begin the re-entry process for the next stage of life's journey...

Lost & Found on Wasson Peak

A special report from my return to Wasson Peak today:



This took far longer to load than it took me to shoot or you to watch!

Back in Arizona

Back in Arizona, back in the land of cactus, back on mountain-time.... After the week of doing very little except eat, pray, sleep ... it was a little bit of a shock to find myself back "on the road" with two relatively long drives from San Luis Obispo to Palm Desert and from there to here, the Desert House of Prayer near Tucson, Arizona. Though not as long as we'd been doing, but this time it was just me again.

When I'd arrived at Robert Inchausti's house in San Luis Obispo, he asked me if I was feeling mellow, because that's the effect spending time in the monastery has on him. And yes, I was feeling mellow, and I commented that I'd driven quite slowly down the coast from Big Sur. A good transition to the road as we talked about Kerouac (I was reminded that the opening scene of Dharma Bums takes place at the railroad station in San Luis Obispo), Cassady, Burroughs, Merton, Obama and a whole host of others ... literature, politics, social justice, war, peace, rock'n'roll preachers and reminiscences of earlier times we'd been together. All the while, Robert's wife, Linda, fed us sumptuous food to fuel our discussion.

From San Luis Obispo to Palm Desert and another wonderful meal and relaxing evening with Ed & Penny before hitting the road again for Arizona where I've now come to the Desert House of Prayer for "Part 2" of my processing of this whole adventure on the road. And there in lies a problem: for I'm still feeling too much in the middle of it to really have very much to say at this point about what it's all about, what I've learned from it etc. It's not just about "thinking" about it and reflecting on the experience ... it's about having time and space and silence and solitude - to just be and not have to think about it. Maybe that's the message of the road, though it's probably premature to say that - the road is to be driven not thought about, life is to be lived. Ginsberg wanted to know what all this travelling across the country was in aid of, what was the purpose of it all; Cassady just descended into giggles.

Next week I'm really going to get a taste of solitude in a big way as I've booked myself to go and spend 3 or 4 nights in a tent in the middle of the Arizona desert. Alone. No running water, no electricity, no internet, no cellphone, no car. It's organized by the Cascabel Hermitage Association (you can google it), that I heard about from a woman here at the Desert House of Prayer who's going there in April for a week to stay in a strawbale hermitage. I wanted to do that, but they're booked up and so can only manage 3 or 4 nights, and it's on the tent-ramada hermitage instead of the strawbale - but I think it's going to be great! Course, I won't be able to tell you anything about it until I've done it.

When I first arrived here at the Desert House of Prayer on Monday, I felt really tired - went to bed really early 9:30pm (which was really 8:30pm for me still on Pacific Time), and slept and slept, yet fitfully, dreamfully but dreaming indistinctly though it all had something to do with being on the road, and woke up groggy and still tired and a bit headachey - that dull ache behind the eyes that isn't really a headache. Felt I needed to blow some cobwebs away, get some air in my lungs and in my head, so I headed out to explore some of the amazing desert scenery just around here - it's a very fertile desert full of saguaros (the "classic" cactus), prickley pear and hundreds of other plants growing green on the desert floor.

[Don't forget: you can click on any picture to enlarge it.]

Fans of truly "western" culture might recognize the landscape in this next picture:

Yes, that's right, the High Chaparrel really was filmed just around the corner from here in Box Canyon! Lots more "western" landscape today as I went out into the blue skies and bright sunshine to really blow those cobwebs away with a hike up to Wasson Peak, only 4687ft (1428m) but the highest spot just around here with spectacular view across the whole desert plain in every direction. The 10 mile round trip has left me feeling like I've had a good workout and I feel fit, glowing too from probably too much sun, but it feels good!

Kairos

A view from the New Camaldoli Hermitage high above the village of Lucia on the Big Sur coast where I've been staying since Monday - in a "trailer" with the name "Kairos"... a special timeless moment in time. No cellphone coverage, no internet, so I've been completely cut-off - now snuck off to the Henry Miller Memorial Library up the coast where they have free wireless internet, so that I can let the world know I'm still alive!

It has been a simple week of rest, restoration and reflection - eating, sleeping, enjoying the breathtaking scenery and coastline, joining the monks in their liturgy, and reading. In the mornings I've been reading Subversive Orthodoxy by my friend Robert Inchausti who I'm going to stay with tomorrow, then in the afternoons/evenings I've been reading Henry Miller's Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymous Bosch - his memoir of his time living on this coast, kind of appropriate. I'm struck by the profound spirituality in his writing, which some might not expect given the controversy surrounding many of his better known books.... Similarities here with some of the Beats too. I recall Thomas Merton also had some correspondence with Miller in which he remarked that they both bore a passing resemblance to Picasso! I don't recall what else they talked about.

Time to return to eternity...

The Rainbow at the End of the Road

So here's a picture of where we ended up before Sean flew back to England. Montara, California overlooking the Pacific Ocean with the overarching rainbow of promise, which is really the rainbow of grace because that is the promise at the end of the road, wherever that road may end.

After we staggered out on O'Farrill Street, unsteady on our feet as if from a long voyage at sea, we headed down the coast on Highway 1 to friends David and Anne-Ly who arranged for us to stay in an empty house round the corner. On Thursday we returned to San Francisco, visiting Jerry Cimino at the Beat Museum (right) as well as City Light Bookstore round the corner and next door to that the Vesuvio Pub.

Yesterday, as I mentioned in my last post, I had a day of contemplation and journal writing on the beach, my ears filled with the roar of the sea as the waves came crashing in on the rocks.


Today, I returned to the Beat Museum (where I've just come from) and met Carolyn Cassady! What a privilege to meet someone so intimately connected with the story that Sean and I have been following, and that has had such a profound impact upon what we are doing. Carolyn was exactly as I imagined her, full of smiles and very gracious, though she'd injured her back a few days ago and was obviously in discomfort. It was a great atmosphere in the Beat Museum this afternoon, a feeling of real camaraderie and the gentle affection of kindred spirits discovering one another's existence. It was striking the age range of people present - Carolyn herself must be about 80 and I gauge there were people there from every decade of life right down to the teens. It was good also to meet Neal and Carolyn's children, John and Jamie both of whom I had quite a chat with - including showing John some of the pictures from this trip on my camera's viewer. He was particularly interested in seeing the Burroughs house in New Orleans.

What happens next...

So here we are at the end of the road, no more land to go. We've done what we set out to do, more or less; we set out from New York and drove to San Francisco via New Orleans (and Toronto! Twice.) and a whole lot of other places.

Yesterday (Friday), I took Sean to the airport and said goodbye, for us to enter into further phases of our lives. But this journey is not over yet. There's more to be told - both about where we've been and what we've done, but also reflecting on what this journey has been about - for me at least.

Just as soon as I can get a wireless connection with my computer (I'm using David & Anne-Ly's at the moment) I'll be able to load up more pictures and tell you what happened once we got to San Francisco, and I'll continue to give updates as the remainder of this sabbatical progresses - still more than a month to go.

Tomorrow (Sunday) I will be attending a book-signing at the Beat Museum in North Beach, San Francisco by Carolyn Cassady - Neal Cassady's wife - who will be signing copies of the latest edition of her account of her time with Neal and Jack, Off the Road. I'm really looking forward to meeting her - for me, this is the icing on the cake of this trip!

Then on Monday, I will be going to spend the week with the Camaldolese New Hermitage Community at Big Sur until next weekend. This will be my first extended time to reflect on the journey and really begin to process it - I've already begun this today with a truly sabbatical sabbath of a Saturday watching and listening to the waves rolling in from the Pacific Ocean and writing in my journal, but there is a whole lot more to do.

So, I invite you and encourage you to continue checking back with my blog, and feel free to continue making comments - I really appreciate them, though I don't see an easy way to respond to individual comments without publishing a comment of my own in response, and that seems a bit cumbersome (and maybe a bit too public!?). Blog entries may not be so frequent if I'm not somewhere that has a wireless internet connection, but be assured I will continue to update whenever I can.

Later in the Afternoon of Time...

Here's the video clip of our arrival in San Francisco that I was trying to upload last night...

The Late Afternoon of Time

"It seemed a matter of minutes when we began rolling in the foothills before Oakland and suddenly reached a height and saw stretched ahead of us the fabulous white city of San Francisco on her eleven mystic hills with the blue pacific and it's advancing wall of potato-patch fog beyond, and smoke and goldeness in the late afternoon of time ... he drove into the Oakland Bay Bridge and it carried us in. The downtown office buildings were just sparkling on their lights...." - On The Road.

Yes, indeed! Here we are! I can see the Pacific Ocean from where I'm sitting. From the Lincoln Tunnel all the way to the Oakland Bay Bridge which carried us into San Francisco late this afternoon (I have a video clip of this but it has been uploading all night and still isn't finished, so I'm going to cancel it) - we've driven across a whole continent, seemingly in a matter of minutes, as if in a dream.

From El Paso we had the longest day's driving to reach Palm Desert where we found a warm welcome and hospitality with Bud and Penny (whose real names aren't Bud and Penny, but that's what everyone calls them!). Originally we were due to break that leg of the journey in Tuscon, Arizona at the Desert House of Prayer, but because of the delay with the car we had to make up time to get back on schedule for Sean to catch his plane from SF to the UK on Friday morning. I'll be returning to Arizona the week after next to spend some time at the Desert House of Prayer.

We headed north into New Mexico and then west into Arizona with the desert becoming hotter and drier as we went. We stopped at a rest stop just before we crossed into Arizona, and an elderly woman who was walking past the car spotted the B.C. licence plates and asked us where we were from. On hearing that I'd come from Vancouver, her face lit up and she told us that she'd spent her whole married life there before moving to Ohio. In 1946 she won the 100m sprint for Canada, but then sadly suffered an injury in training and so never made the olympic team. She was our generation - she'd have been a young woman when Jack & Neal made their journey across the country in 1949. I've been thinking about this generational shift idea a lot on this trip as I've met people of Jack & Neal's generation (my parents' generation) and found a connection with them - I think of Frank who hosted me in Lowell, who was born the same year as Kerouac (1922) and who grew up in and around Lowell.

At one point on the road driving in Arizona, I looked up to the left and I was sure I could see The Lions that stand above Vancouver as if transplanted in the deserts. See what you think:


We made our way up through Arizona past Tuscon and Phoenix and then north to "towns in Arizona I'd passed in 1947 ... Wickenburg, Salome, Quartzite" stopping along the way for refreshment and to look at the amazing cacti that we could see all around us. Then on to Palm Springs and Palm Desert, where we spent two nights. Yesterday we spent a day in Joshua Tree National Park, and it was really good to have some down-time after three very full days on the road.


Today was the last leg of our journey, from Palm Desert to San Francisco. Unlike Kerouac, we didn't labour in snowy passes toward the town of Mojave, "the entry way to the great Tehachapi Pass" - no snow to be seen, only sunshine and blue skies, giving us warm temperatures.

"Up ahead we saw Tehachapi Pass starting up. Dean took the wheel and carried us clear to the top of the world. We passed a great shroudy cement factory in the canyon. Then we started down. Dean cut off the gas, threw in the clutch ... In this way we floated and flapped down to the San Joaquin Valley. It lay spread a mile below, virtually the floor of California, green and wondrous from our aeriel shelf." - On the Road.


At Bakersfield we picked up the 99 and from there it was straight up through Tulare, Selma "where I had lived and loved and worked in the spectral past" and Madera, on up to Manteca where we cut across to Oakland as late afternoon in time turned to evening, "which is just before the coming of complete night that blesses the earth, darkens all rivers, cups the peaks and folds the final shore in."

"...we staggered out of the car on O'Farrell Street ..."

The Valley of the World

"He [Dean] took the wheel and flew the rest of the way across the state of Texas, about five hundred miles, clear to El Paso, arriving at dusk and not stopping except once when he took all his clothes off, near Ozona, and ran yipping and leaping naked in the sage." - On the Road.

This picture was taken today somewhere near Ozona when we stopped for a bite of lunch by the road en route from Austin to El Paso, where we arrived a little after dusk this evening. However, we did keep our clothes on and didn't run "yipping and leaping in the sage."

Once again a very full day, and a very long day as we drove from new friends Misty & Brian, and their sons Robert & Ewan, in Austin where we arrived after midnight last night, to El Paso this evening. We arrived so late in Austin partly because we stayed in New Orleans to partake in the delights of "King Cake" seen below, bought direct from the bakers Angelo in Metairie, New Orleans.

We set off north along Highway 61 retracing the route Jack & Neal would have taken in 1949 - not the main interstate and therefore not the quickest route, but one that allowed us to drive right by the bayou, what Kerouac called "these evil swamps," and witness the rich wildlife of birds, turtles and Sean even saw an alligator sunning itself on a log - not what we're used to seeing by the side of the road! At Baton Rouge we headed west on route 190, crossing the Mississippi River at Port Allen and then on heading for Beaumont, Texas and beyond that Houston before making our way with the assistance of our new companion "Jane" to Austin.

Today has been a very long drive - 938km - right across the state of Texas, mainly across the desert, and it is hard to convey the majesty of the terrain through which we have been travelling. We stopped numerous times and took many pictures, but somehow whatever filled the frame only tells a fraction of the story in terms of the visual assault upon our eyes of the vastness of this land. Notwithstanding that, here is a sample of our snapshots along the road:



































We thought maybe a way of showing something of the experience in terms of all that surrounded us as we moved along might be through a short video clip. So as an experiment, let's see how this works:



"I woke up just as we were rolling down the tremendous Rio Grande Valley through Clint and Ysleta to El Paso.... To our left across the vast Rio Grande spaces were the moorish-red mounts of the Mexican border, the land of the Tarahumare; soft dusk played on the peaks. Straight ahead lay the distant lights of El Paso and Juarez, sown in a tremendous valley so big that you could see several railroads puffing at the same time in every direction, as though it was the Valley of the World. We descended into it." - On the Road.