I'm using the prefix de- here to mean 'completely', and so delightful in my fanciful etymology means completely full of light. And so far, this winter 2022-23, that's what it's been. I can't remember a winter so delightful and completely full of light, and this winter light is the most exquisite of all light.
The ungreat teacher teaches you how to be ungreat. This teaching is a crucial component in the devastation of the bodymindearth system that we can see at the outset of the 21st century. But that's not all the ungreat teacher teaches us. It also teaches you how to ignore, how to disrespect, how to seal off and separate (that which cannot be sealed off and separated), how to violate and pollute, how to disable and deform, how to be herdlike and petty, how to obey and serve (a rapacious and harmful machine), how to damage, how to enslave, how to discourage (Being), how to defile and de-flower Being, how to murder conviviality and biodiversity, and how to disregard the greatest teacher there is: Nature And who is this great ungreat teacher I hear you ask. Who or what is this ungreatful specimen?
And the answer comes back: Why... the car of course.
The light cycle is the light sabre... and the light sabre... is the life-saver. But what does it mean to 'save life'? This! is the all-important question (and quest).
To save life is as it might suggest to not kill life and to not destroy it. Already then we are dealing with negatives since our whole civiliation is founded upon one: the ego and the resulting dualism that emerges from this split. We are dealing with 'not doing' as much as we are with doing. Indeed, what we are really seeking here is to not do to the point where doing (as original Being) occurs by itself. So, to save is a sort of subraction, a taking away and a taking off, a disrobing, of all the shit and non-sense that has been foisted on you. And believe me, that's a lot! So, too save life is to re-move and re-fuse, as in moving the body out of the prammed society and the transported-deported animal, and back into its own body, fusing it once again with its original matrix of Being: the primal and the first. And it's only when we become first again, and more importantly, when we shake off the seconded and sectioned (and secular), that we will 'save life'.
So, what are you waiting for?!
Without these routes (these roots) I would probably not be here. Whether that non-being would manifest in death or an office job is neither here nor there. The point is that Being itself would have been rescinded.
Indeed, in the era of cancel culture one wonders if Being itself has been cancelled because it steps on too many capitalist toes. Which is why we need to get it back again. And the best way to recover Being is by uncovering your roots which have been waylaid by too much progressive capitalist uneconomic nonsense.
And this route (root) between Barrhead and Paisley Canal - up and over the Fereneze Hills - is worth its weight in air (there is no 'weight' only levity up here)...
What a day! The light in January....!!!
And since the trains are on strike we're on the bike all the way. So, it's off to Paisley by the back 'road'.
I was just reading about Manhattan in New York and how it is a native Amerindian word meaning, the land of little hills. And here between Cessnock and Paisley there are hills afoot. There is Bellahouston Hill, Corkerhill, Mosspark hill, Dykebar Hill, Huntershill, Ralston hill, Saucelhill, Barshaw Hill, Honeybog Hill, Hillington (hill), Cardonald Hill, Berryknowes Hill... That's a fair few hills but when you're on a bicycle you feel them all intimately. And it is this hilly intimacy that renders you sane and healthy. And that light!!!
At my gentle pace, the whole route, there and back, took two and half hours, but, as always, with routes like these, it might as well have been timeless.
Oh what joy it is to have deep roots, or equally spacious routes. Routes are roots after all so you need to take care of them. The biggest problem for man today (as always) is 'being carried by another'. This carraige is actually a miscarriage of being because you are not doin it yourself. Ask the animals if you don't believe me. Ask Nature herself! Nature is the carrier, the only carrier. And it is this carrier that has generated 'you' thus far. However, during the past few hundred years Nature's informing has been usurped by the machine's. The result is that the human has become not in-formed (as would be the case had he remained true to the Earth) but de-formed since now he relies upon external power sources that not only deplete him but the environment that houses him. So, develop your routes, and deepen those roots! And ply them regularly!
Normally, I skip out the city by using the train, but today the train people are on strike and so I went through the hell-realm myself. But it ain't so bad in spite of how it looks. Sure, a lot of these 'neighbourhoods' are jam-packed full of cars and tenements but that kinda makes the streets cycle-friendly cause no car can actually go fast on them due to parked cars and the single-track nature of most residential streets accordingly. And so, it ain't so bad, and it's actually quite nice (for a wild cyclist) cycling on roads for the smoothness. And when you think of all the hoods I cycled through - Pollokshields, Dumbreck, Langside, Newlands, Giffnock, Muirend, Castlemilk, Simshill, Cathcart, Shawlands - in less than two hours, it's quite amazing the territory that you can cover on a bicycle compared to say on foot. And then there are the four parks I cycled through: Pollok Country Park, Netherlee Park, Queens Park, and Maxwell Park, all apart from perhaps the last large spacious areas with plenty of peace and green. And so, an hour and forty five minutes door to door and by the time I got back I was levitating..! This is because I have deep clean routes.
Imagine seeing a priest and giving him the shoulder as he walked by you. That's how I feel when cars menace me, by creeping up behind me when there's no space to overtake (today, it was on a steep short single track road) and stalking me like a hunter stalks its prey. Why can't car drivers show cyclists and walkers (the non-polluters and thus holy people) the necessary respect? Lord knows, walkers and cyclists, in the era of the state of the art pram, have earned it. Why then would you threaten this person (and shoulder this priest) for being holy and healthy? Why? Because all car drivers (and this is the essence of being carried) inhabit an infantile consciousness that has not yet flourished and flowered. As such, they are an impatient lot and cannot wait to get past you. But really, all car drivers should be stopping completely in order to allow the cyclist or walker the necessary space with which to finish their climb. And in that stopping, they should all get out of their vehicles and kneel before the holy man, and thank them for setting a fine example and not shitting all over their children's air.
Sometimes the camera sees you in a different light than you see yourself, and this different light is closer to the Reality of things...
All flesh is grass..
And a blade of grass the journeywork of stars...
Wise and hard are those who align their selves with the land and its elements...
Unwise and malleable are those who do not.
Are you a wizard then, or just soft in the head?
Ok, so I decided to avoid the train today and simply cycle all the way up to the wind turbine in the Cathkin Braes and back. I took a new route after Pollok Country Park thru Newlands and Muirend and into Netherlee park. Here I crossed the White Cart Water at the snuff mill bridge and headed on thru to Castlemilk. From here, I rejoined my usual path up to the turbine. Then, it was simply straight back down thru Simshill, Cathcart, Langside, and finally stopping at Queens Park to meet my father and brother for a coffee.
Just watching David Goggins, endurance runner, talk about how his knees, after thousands of miles of running on hard surfaces, are now fucked. His book title, 'Can't Hurt Me' sounds as if it may be a parody. It's then he mentions swimming... that if he can't run, he'll swim. I tell him he should have started cycling and avoided that impact that has reduced his knees to mush. But even to cycle, or swim, you need your knees, perhaps the most important joint in the whole body since this is what you are, a walking entity. So, cycle, don't run. Running is for morons who don't know how to cycle.
Ok, so it took me an age to finally get it up on the wall, but I did it and now it is at home. It's a wonderful piece of craftsmanship the frame, and one day I may just put it back together again. But for the moment it is a flying bike that is caught in a state of suspended animation.
Remember bicycle stands? I think some bikes still do them, and I guess they're pretty good. But my bike doesn't have one, and so I improvise. This is what the hills do to you: they help you see and 'vise'. This 'vise' comes in the form of improvising, supervising, and ad-vising (yourself)... and standing up for that Self. Hence the stand...
To smile is to wonder. This is what smile means coming from the Latin mirari, to wonder. Animals perhaps do not wonder as people do (not a bad thing because it does not carry them away), and so do not smile. But maybe the smile is not a good thing. Maybe the animals do not smile because they are still in touch with their animal and healthy selves. Maybe man smiles because he thinks he knows something (or doesn't know something). Either way, the thinking is the problem. So, maybe the smile is not a good thing. Maybe, like the green light, it gives the go ahead for more 'pollution', wonder itself being a sort of polluting of the aboriginal mind. Or maybe, I'm just glad to get away from the pollution. Which is why I smile every time I'm in the hills.
The halo confers wholeness upon the animal, or is it the other way around? At any rate, all animals have halos for they are already whole and unsplit by artifice. Animals still breathe as Nature intended, they locomote and move under their own steam. They do not emote like man does for their moving blood dispels such pathological acts as emotionality. Nor do animals ego for they already go. By contrast, Man has thrown his halo in the wheelie bin and bought a car, or a gas chamber if you prefer that has now replaced his heart, and by extension his brain. Man's spirit is thus nowhere to be found for it is buried beneath so much nonsense. The halo which is there to crown the spirit is also nowhere to be found. But for those who still breathe, like an eagle breathes, like a leopard breathes, the halo is never far away.
I'm an improvisor, a gifted creator.. all I know is that we are constantly being born. This is a line in Patricia Highsmith's Ripley's Game, spoken by an imitable John Malkovich in the movie of the same name. It's a line (and film) that has stuck with me for some of these pertinent insights. Because we are being born at evry moment, this is what Nature is, birth, birth... birth. Look the word up if you don't believe me. And so it is, that we are all improvisors and gifted creators, and if you're not then you've been barking up the wrong tree and aligned yourself with a system that does not renew you at every moment. So, when the train conductor closed the doors on me at Barrhead station yesterday I had no choice but to get off at the next station some six miles down the line at Dunlop, and improvise. Luckily, I know my routes, and there is a lovely cycle route from Dunlop to Neilston on the old drove road that Rabbie Burns et al. used to take from Ayr. It's completely car free and people free and full of widescreen views across the shires. What's more, I had the wind directly behind me and it was a gust. The route took less than an hour though it appeared timeless when I cycled it. I arrived at Neilston train station to see the train arrive and then whisk me down to Muirend via some breathtaking vistas across the strath. At Muirend, I headed thru Newlands and into Pollok Country Park. I was home before I knew it, and yet...
Don't hang about to get shouted at or hit. Do your thing - roar, wing-mirror, finger - and then skidaddle. You're not here for a conversation. On a bicycle you are no longer top of the food chain if you are sharing the road with monsters. Realise this and embed it in your flesh. This is how you become a Kung Fu master on a bicycle: by embracing Cycle (or equally Cycho) Fu. Cycle Fu is about using your brain, responding in the moment, and moving on. Thankfully, as an endorphinated being (who 'moves on' as Nature intended), this is not difficult to do since 'braining' and 'moving on' are part of your original condition. It's the other guy, the unendorphinated brain-damaged having, in his big catalytic wheelchair, who wants to stay and 'discuss' matters, who gets all e-motional (because he's given up his own motion). But don't be distracted by this appeal to your ego. Be 'motional' not 'emotional'. All car drivers are monsters who want to devour you. Just do your thing and get the fuck out of there.
We've all been there. Waiting to get on a plane and then suddenly the rush of morons skipping in front of you. Well, today, it wasn't a plane but a train and the impatient was a well-dressed man in his sixties. In spite of me (and bicycle) standing right next to the train door as it opened, he managed to step to the side of me and attempt to get in before me. I immediately told him to get back, that there was a queue, and that patience was a virtue. He told me not to get excited. And so, when I got on the train in front of him with bicycle underarm, I whipped my tail (the rear wheel) and hit him on the leg. 'Oops, sorry', I said. 'Didn't see you there.'
Today, another train strike compels me to bike it up to the Cathkin Braes again. It's a fine cycle uphill through many communities (that now look like car parks) and some wide car-less roads. All in all, there and back, takes less time than a shit movie (about 80 minutes). And on the way back coming down through Croftfoot I manage without even trying a 'double cruising bicycle overtake' with two cars that are at least 500m apart. This was due to the wind behind me and the fact that Castlemilk Drive is a long winding emphatically downhill traffic-calmed ski-slope. Possibly the best downhill you will ever have. And the fact that it's got speed bumps on it which the cyclist can obviously avoid (but which cars cannot, at least not at speed) means that any overtaking that is done is without consequences (car drivers do not like to get overtaken). So, for all the wild cyclists out there, who want to give car drivers some of their own nonsense back, you could do a lot worse than cycling down Castlemilk Drive.
It's no coincidence (there are no coincidences!) that the day I arrive at the train station only to find that the train people are on strike (again) and there are no trains I see big Brad's mugshot on the side of two buses advertizing his latest romp/caper in the film Bullet Train. I should have taken a photo to prove it but I didn't. But who cares. It was another moment of serendipity (and there are plenty on these pastoral excursions au velo) and so I was happy. And so, having the bike with me, I took off via Cathcart, Simshill the milk of the castle (Castlemilk), up to the seat on top of the valley (Queen Mary's apparently). It was only an hour and on coming back via Croftfoot (a new way back) boy oh boy what discoveries were to be found along the way....
Passing through (Mount) Florida, bike & beer.... say no more ;)
