Aging, not that I'm very old, just enjoying the high of the "over 50" domain of life, has smacked me into noticing small subtleties about myself. Those indentured servants of my psyche that are finally surfacing and playing out their wiles in daily life. Things like forgetting my sunglasses in the coffee shop, almost using foot-fungal creme on my toothbrush, and not caring if my hair is combed: these are all ok and normal for A 50+ guy to be dealing with! It's the napkin mystery that's got me truly hooked up. When I was a young boy growing up in the late 1950's and early 60's, well, actually even beyond those cognitively transformative years, my father and other initimidating men who smoke unfiltered Lucky Strikes and Camels, would sit in restaurants and draw on napkins. While they did this I drank my chocolate milk and stayed quiet. I sensed something important was in the works. Usually it was about floor plans, digging dirt, moving dirt, the angle of respose from which an 8 point buck was shot; all very manly and growing-chest-hair-producing images in my chocolate milk brain. Napkins were the most accessible sketch mats in the restaurant (no real man would carry paper or a notebook) and I always wondered what the always -female waitress would think about these masculine hieroglyphics (I wonder if a museum of masculine angst-art should be erected in their honor). So, it was quite an eye-opener for me the other day when I found myself drawing on a napkin, yes, in a restaurant, in order to design the plans for our garden. I swear some things "are not ready before their time", including that part of masculine aging that reverts to it's most foundational building blocks on the journey from boyhood to manhood. This indeed, is the joy of creating our myths as men. The mystic and essential mythologies that create us as men, that shape us as we sleep, accompany our waking dreams and somewhere between muscle and sinew, romance and pain, shape us into story tellers and embellishers of the hero's journey. Let's raise our glasses high gentlemen, to all who draw on napkins and devise our schemes for life.

Most things seem to be moving very fast. At least that's how I percieve them. Cars hiss by my window..."(The Doors) It seems that most of us talk fast, think fast, drive fast, live fast. The signs of encouragement to have our inner clock set at an increased rate are numerous and blatant; Buy this SUV NOW! Hurry down to the bank and change your mortgage rate before it's too late! The examples are numerous and go on ad nauseum. I was not made for fast. I'm not sure anyone was. It is only when I slow down to the rhythm of the earth and it's pulse that I regain sensibility and balance. These days something down deep, "from whence my true self emanates"
(Pierre Teilhard deChardin), there is a rebelliousness that is rising to fight the complacent tendency to fall into fast. Fast makes me sick, head-spinning, crazy sick. Carl Jung once said, "Hurry is not of the devil, it is the devil". No, not me, I was not made for fast. I was made for balance and poise, to dig deeper and listen to the vibes that keep me at home within myself and the world.

Yesterday I was revived. Saved a bit more from myself. That part of me that sometimes loves to bathe in cynicism. The part that looks for confirmation of my disbelief in the goodness of humanity. Old stuff. Like junk in a dusty trunk, I'm still rummaging through the broken reasons to doubt grace and hope. But, as the day revealed it's secrets, I found myself being tamed by the Merciful Presence. Sweet green oxygen awoke me to the cheerful, woodsy tune of the new day. Sunbeams made me squint, eye-slits washed clean with Vitamin D. Skin warm, breath deep, brow kissed by shifting light exchanges from trees swaying to the rhythm of earth mother heart beat. Driving into rising Sol, an elderly woman up ahead, out of her car in the middle of the country road, bent over with a stick in her hand, prodding something. "I don't want him to get hit", she cackled, as she gently coaxed the dark turtle off the pavement and into the tall grass. "Bless you for caring", I said, and moved along, a little piece of the hope puzzle in place. All day grace notes sang out; a chipmunk, stripy and quick, visited me at a picnic table. A deer casually walked out from the woods in front of my jeep and looked big-eyed at me as if to say, "What's on your mind?" Later, sliding sun in the west, heading on it's other side of the earth patrol, a tree toad with green spots on my kayak needing a ride to the nearest spruce limb. She thanked me and winked a slippery eye in flirting gratitude. Twilight, crow above caws out four snappy bird syllables. The first star shines behind the tree he has made his night tower. Distant crow number two hollers back two drawn out cries. This goes on for awhile when suddenly the night tower crow snaps out five and flys into the purple night. Stars blaze and the wheel of eternity turns. Sweet navy blue oxygen fills my lungs and I know that I'm not alone.

Some days, like one of my favorites Neil Young has said, "I came down from the mystic mountain, I got lost on the human highway", I feel lost. Too much rat-race, nervous-knuckle traffic for me. So, I've been training myself to exit all the madness. My friend John, a Buddhist monk, writer and poet, has taught me some of the very basic disciplines of "zazen", seated meditation in the Zen tradition. I do poorly at it, but have soaked in enough to get by with some gratifying results, enough to change my consciousness. That's one way. Greasing myself up and stretching out on the sandy shore by the Big Lake is another. Cracking open the throttle of my Harley and clocking 80 plus is stupid, but get's me centered. I go places. "Thinking is the best way to travel" as one rock group tossed out in a song three decades ago. I do this. A lot. I let myself go away to many unusual locations. I could go on about this, but some are secret and I'm not sure I want anyone else to go there. But, one place that I go that should be free access to all: the canyon. I go away to a remote canyon in a dry and arid land. Dust, rock, rugged thoughts, coyote moon casting long shadows of cactus onto the ghost-white night sand. There I sit and hum south-of-the-border-songs to no one. I hear flamenco guitars cry and echo around the canyon walls. If I exit earth and am conscious of it, I want to have my lift-off to eternity right there. This is one of my favorite exits to take off from the frantic human highway. I come back from the canyon a better person, more aligned with my star, it's transit lines centered deep between my eyes, gracing me with balance and hope. I see myself in a canyon sometimes.