September 24, 2010
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1 So yesterday at 3:09 it was officially Fall.
2 Honestly.
3 I know my equinoxes.
4 When I was a kid, all that Solstice and Equinox stuff made perfect sense.
5 The Earth is tilted a certain way.
6 The sun is directly over the Equator at certain times during the year.
7 As a kid, I LOVED that stuff. I remember a teacher convincing me that the sun is closer to the Earth in December.
8 That naturally made no sense to me, because I had no global concepts.
9 But it was all still really cool to me.
10 Anyway, I thought I’d start a few barroom brawls by insisting that the first day of Autumn was actually yesterday at 3:09.
11 There seemed to be all sorts of disagreements about it, but dude, I’m totally right.
12 And what’s cool about being a teacher is that a lot of people think we know everything.
13 Actually, we don’t. But my info comes from a dandy source.
14 Wiki, baby.
15 The strangest encyclopedia on the planet.
16 I’ve actually found it to be reasonably accurate, which is better than a lot of other sources traveling around out there.
17 Would I accept Wiki as a source on a research paper?
18 Not on your life.
19 Would I use it in a pinch?
20 Doesn’t everybody?
21 Ah, who cares when the Autumnal Equinox is anyway? I thought of getting all spiritual and going to the top of Mount Hamilton yesterday to gather some Chi.
22 But then I realized I had no idea what the heck “Chi” was anyway.
23 It certainly has something to do with the life force.
24 And I have certainly experienced it at various moments in my life.
25 But if you ask twenty people at a party to explain it, nineteen will jump in with ideas if it’s a good crowd, and then some enlightened person will come up with the entire definition, history, and story, and your party will experience certain death.
26 I rather like the idea that things like the Autumnal Equinox and Chi are sort of personal anyway.
27 I remember my younger days in college, going up to Iron Canyon in Upper Bidwell Park in Chico and experiencing whatever Chi is. I had a summer job working as a vendor at Giants’ games, so not only did I make great money at the time (we got 20 per cent of what we would sell, and could make up to a hundred bucks in three hours, and that was a long time ago), but we also got two weeks off when the team would go on the road.
28 Well, one summer long ago I had a house up there, and was able to spend two weeks doing nothing but awakening on summer mornings, putting on shorts, a tee shirt, and a pair of sneakers, and hitch-hiking to Upper Bidwell, which had slick rocks, clean, creek water from what I used to call Mother Creek, and hiking through the canyon.
29 My friends and I would go up there and spend long days diving off steep rocks, sitting in natural jacuzzis, and basking in the sun. We ate very little, and spent long summer days at peace, reflecting on life, and what it all means.30 I had been reading a lot of Hesse, and did a lot of true meditating.
31 To me it was an amazing time, because while others spent time desperately searching for meaning through booze and dancing and partying, I spent a lot of time in a rather spirtual state, with very little input from television, radios, stereos, and all the rest. It was friends, cut-offs, tee shirts, and sneakers. All the rest was nature, and what many now refer to as “Chi”.
32 When I came back down to the Bay Area after living without any daily input, it seemed to me that the world had gone mad.
33 It seemed that almost everybody I ran into was coked to the gills on nervousness, frustration, and anxiety. I tried to keep reasonably Zen about everything, for lack of a better word. I couldn’t wait to get back to the Canyon.
34 Upper Bidwell was my sanctuary. There was a part of the park that was “mainstream”, where college kids would go to get zany with beer and joints and all. It had a rope swing that lifted you into an awesome swimming hole called Salmon Hole. First year students would go up there to drink, flirt, get crazy. It was all a sort of locker room mentality. Fun, but limiting.
35 By the end of my junior year, I had discovered that if you went up two more miles, there was the rest of the Canyon, and very few people even knew it was there. There were a few other stops before you got there. Salmon Hole, Bear Hole (I swear to you, suggestive name, and yes, people DID skinny dip!), a stange place called Diversion Dam, and that was probably as far as the “mainstream” people would go. Oh, some dared to walk about a hundred yards up from Diversion Dam, but since nothing was there, they would inevitably turn back.
36 We would go way beyond that. We had days where we would hike way beyond. I had found a small beach, with a small swimming hole, torquoise jacuzzis, diving rocks, and places to lie down and read. The rocks made nice chairs and sofas, and in the summer there were virtually no people, except others who were all reading and contemplating. There was one particular jacuzzi that if you put a toe hold on a rock, you had a water chair that lifted you above all the rocks. It was like a jacuzzi sofa. After around a half hour your entire body turned liquid. It’s probably still up there; I just haven’t gone up in years. Amazing.37 Anyway, It was an incredible time for reflecting on life, on where I was going in life, and on so many things.
38 And years later I look out at the world with the same eyes, and sometimes I still watch people chase after madness and insanity in heroic efforts to make sense of things.
39 I look back at that small period of time in my life and still feel it was perhaps some of the most important lessons I ever learned. I was cut off from society for almost two weeks at a time, lived on almost nothing, and at night, I would climb on the roof of our old house, pick up my Yamaha, and sing to the stars and to the crickets.
40 And yes, that’s the same Yamaha that sits in my living room to this day, the one I affectionately named “Scratch”, because it has bumps and scratches from all the beautiful places I’ve played it.
41 It’s sort of the Willie Nelson of my guitars, if that helps.
42 I look back at that small period in my life and realize too how lucky I was to have had the opportunity just once on this planet to understand absolute peace and tranquility.
43 I read a lot, and even took days off, but each time I hiked through that canyon, it was amazing. No backpacks. No water. Very little food, maybe some fruit. No cars. Just long summer days thinking, reading, and learning.
44 We now have Facebook, and Wiki definitions of “Chi”.
45 I laugh.
46 I think that’s it for today. I think I’ll pick up Scratch when I get home and hammer out some good old tunes. I have a new set of strings and a couple of old picks.
47 You guys have a good weekend. Hope you find your own Chi.
48 Peace.
~H~
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