The Three Wise Humen

NOW this is the law of the jungle, as old and as true as the sky,
And the wolf that shall keep it may prosper, but the wolf that shall break it must die.
As the creeper that girdles the tree trunk, the law runneth forward and back;
For the strength of the pack is the wolf, and the strength of the wolf is the pack.

Rudyard Kipling, The Law for the Wolves




Human, from the Latin humus meaning soil.
Man, the human without the humus, without a soul.
Corporate power is in the body...
Human roots within his own internal engines....

The pathfinder plies his trade into himself.
The brain is the body, the body the brain.
The cyclist is art.
The person who allows his self to be carried, inert.

There's something very different in terms of fluid dynamics when cycling on your own and cycling in a pack. There is a strength and confidence that comes from the latter that does not necessarily emerge in the former. There is also an added motivating force which comes out of being together as a single working coordinating body. I once wrote in a moment of lightness that animals do not speak, rather, they coordinate, and it is here, when cycling together as a small group of three, that you realize this. Talking, when cycling at 25 miles an hour with gaps as large as a hundred metres between you and the next cyclist, is just not practical. Hand signals are not much better when you need both of them on the handlebars. The talking rather comes in teh form of coordination, moving and momentum, and holding the dynamic of the pack.

There are three cyclists to be sure yet there is but one force. When coming down from the hills into the city, this force, with the wind behind and the benefit of gravity, can be quite something, and one wonders when weaving in and out of these big dirty cars holed up at traffic lights, with their overweight and under-oxygenated 'drivers' (flabby bodies, flaccid minds), why everyone isn't cycling. There is plenty of space after all. Glasgow is not London. We have hills and helter-skelters, B roads and back-roads that have had enlightenment conferred upon them by their upgrades, the motorways. Coming down from Glasgow's southern periphery for instance, just behind Newton Mearns, is a superlative slalom that doesn't just hone the body-mind in terms of navigation, but which powers up the bodymind in terms of its openness to the elements and gravity. There are forces here, on a bicycle, that one just cannot fathom when hidden behind a plagiarizing engine that is not yours. The auto-mobile is you, not some machine that pollutes and rapes your matricial Earth, and ultimately, you.

There are moments of exquisite emptiness in this peripheral aura of well-being, in this feeling of great and vital coordination. One enters a more awake state, by necessity, of being. One's wits and coordination are heightened, as is the ability to think on one's feet (or better, to think with one's whole body). A small pack of three, a cycling triumvirate, is all you need to imagine yourself as a member of a great flock of geese caressing the clouds as they travel the planet, each individual taking its turn, quite naturally, to be on point, at the head of the field, powering through.

The nomadic ways of early humans have been surrendered to sedation and illusion. The human has lost its way and become man, an abbreviated version of what he originally is. You get a sense of this, out there is the misty hills of Eastwood, the human, the nomad, the natural and wild one inside... the full force of the pack.

In a world beset by carraiges and being carried, cycling-walking-moving-under-your-own-steam, can be a real revolutionary act.

As can foraging for your own food... healthy natural organic healing food... for the mind, soul, or body.

Flask

It's about time I dedicated a post to my trusty flask. It's a wonderful thing a flask, not just because of that strange sounding word, but because of its ability to retain heat, or equally cold. Anyone who has ever cycled in winter will know that heat-retention is a tricky thing, and so flasks are pretty clever devices. Prior to owning a flask (quite possibly, pound for pound, the best thing I have ever bought) I used to have to find coffee shops en route to pimp my cardio up. To be sure, I enjoyed this process of caffeinated discovery, but it did begin to annoy when I needed a boost but couldn't find any cafes. The flask then seemed the obvious choice....

Atop the Kilpatrick Braes. Nothing beats climbing a hill with a full flask of hot steaming java (and some dark chocolate secreted into one's rucksack)... The bliss at the top, a combination of harvesting those endorphins and smoothing it off with the coffee, is like nothing I have ever experienced in even the most scenic coffee shop. Here, the views, the space, the solitude (which reveals a council of togetherness with all things), collude to make the next half hour or so the most timeless you have (n)ever had. 'Having coffee with a hill,' I once wrote, 'can be a real interesting experience.'

Looking west from the same spot as above. All my cycling excursions I once mused are simply an excuse to find great spots to enjoy good coffee...

 See what happens when your back's turned...

They come from all over. It's that good...!

This is the one that started it a few years ago atop Duncarnock Mount one overcast Sunday in September. I can recall it as if it were yesterday. This is what happens when you energize your self, your experience becomes embedded in the body, without the need for 'memory'. I can almost taste the air that afternoon, and I can certainly recollect sitting there gazing across and through the sacred strath, with java in hand, thinking 'no coffee shop can touch this, the serenity, the space, the aloneness that metamorphoses into an all-one-ness. No art can touch this, nevermind coffee shops. There are no words in spite of my feeble attempts. There is only the breathing, the inhaling-exhaling-conjoining... With a flask in my hand and the valley at my feet, I hold council with all.... How could you not remember that?

Swanning it by the river...

Thorntonhall Circular via the Golden Room

From where I live in Cessnock, it's a beautiful cycle to the train station at Pollokshaws West through the wonderful Pollok Country Park. All the bodymind needs to open it up and galvanize! The train to Thorntonhall takes around 15 minutes. By that time, the city has more or less vanished and been vanquished by the countryside.

Some common ink-caps in Pollok Wood. Apparently very tasty, but be warned, they contain a chemical called coprine which prevents the breakdown of alcohol in the body, so do not drink during, or for two days after they are consumed.

Roots & Routes: Milngavie to Cessnock via Paradise

The word paradise derives from the Sanskrit paradesha meaning elevated region. As far as this is concerned, the whole of Glasgow's periphery is heavenly. This is the joy of living next to a river, in the centre of a valley. The only way out is up! And up invariably means, if you're operating on an organic level, energizing the body-mind. Let's not forget that cardio is a primal activity. It releases you into a wider domain, so that by the time you get up here, the braes, the fells, the hills, you have elevated your self to another dimension of world, one that is peaceful, serene, and emphatically alive.

...

Sunday morning, late September. It's dark outside, overcast, looks like it's going to rain. I ponder a relaxing day in, writing, reading, drinking coffee... But I know that a cycle in the peripheral hills would be the thing to do. I ponder again, this time on the numerous routes I have at my disposal in and around Glasgow. Will I go north, get the train to Milngavie and set off from there? South, get the train to Barrhead from Pollokshaws West, and head up into the Lochliboside hills? South-west, jump the train at Dumbreck to Paisley Canal and head up the Glennifer Braes, or perhaps onto the Sustrans cycle way down to the coast? Or, north-west, the old favourite, train it from Partick to Dalmuir and head into the Kilpatrick Hills? Or east, get the train to Lanark and head up Fire Mountain, the inimitable Tinto Hill..?

So many possibilities. I've got the whole place covered. Thanks in part to the second largest rail network in Britain after London. 

After a few minutes pondering, I decide on north.

No sooner have I left the flat than the sun comes out.... a sign surely?

Then when I get up to Mugdock and down to Strathblane, the sun is pouring down, dappled here and there by soft floating clouds. The difference between now and an hour ago is vast, so vast that I can't believe I was actually thinking about staying in. The Ballagan Burn glints in the sunlight, the sound of its gently trickling water enough to galvanise any dampened spirit.

Nearby, rainbows are coming in and out of consciousness. The dark clouds appear to be moving north away from where I am, and sure enough, as I head up to Lennox Forest the sky clears and the sun is out in force.

All the time, I'm wondering where everyone is. The paths and roads are empty.

Down the back of Blairskaith, into the quiet back lanes of Baldernock Parish, I come across a burnt out car in the middle of the road. There's a fridge in the lane beside it. Clearly, (someone has dumped a bin bag full of rubbish inside the car - do people just drive around with bags of rubbish?), the car has been there for a few days at least. The local constabulary obviously have their hands full. At any rate, I am happy, because the only good car is a burnt out one. At least they dumped it in the middle of the road this time with less damage to the surrounding nature. But, yes, if you want a joy-ride, maybe try the bicycle next time...

Coming back through Balmuildy Wood I discover a lone Whooper swan in the river. It seems a little shy, so I let it be. It's a great little path this, quiet, devoid of people... almost a secret spot that no-one knows about, except the migrating geese and swans, and the rooks and crows who roost in the tall trees beside Killermont Golf Course. Oh, and the kingfishers.... As I finish off the last of the coffee in my flask, the sun comes out again and lights up the whole river with what looks like constellations of glinting stars. The river is a thick brown colour, full of silt and goodness, and is flowing with all the force of a planet. It reminds me of something T.S. Eliot once wrote in his Quartets: I do not know much about gods, but I think that the river is a strong brown god...

It's a magical moment that reminds me of a short b/w French film called Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge (appropriated by The Twilight Zone). If you haven't seen it, check it out. You won't be disappointed.

I move on through the muddy shrub-laden path wishing I had a machete (Himalayan Balsam and Japanese Knotweed are taking over!), down to the back of John Paul Academy. Unfortunately, the lane is a real quagmire thanks to the local horse-riding population, so beware. Through Maryhill and onto the canal path at the five locks. From there it's a straightforward cycle home down through Kelvingrove Park and down past the Hydro. A little over four hours after I left the house this morning and I'm back, with a bodymind that can only be described as ecstatic. The head-space that a cycle like this creates is incomparable to anything you might get in a closed gym on a treadmill. Indeed, I stopped going to gyms for this reason, realizing that I am no longer a 'pet' of the corrupt capitalist system, but a fully-fledged animal whose wildness is coming on in leaps and bounds. 'Savagery enriches the spririt,' writes Jesus Sepulveda in his excoriating thesis on modernity The Garden of Peculiarities. Gyms are for pets. The outdoors, on the other hand, the hills, the coast, the woods....

Meditations on the Plateaux

 ... in modern civilization everything tends to suffocate the heroic sense of life. Everything is more or less mechanized, spiritually impoverished, and reduced to a prudent and regulated association of beings who are needy and have lost their self-sufficiency. The contact between man's deep and free powers and the powers of things and of nature has been cut off; metropolitan life petrifies everything, syncopates every breath, and contaminates every spiritual 'well'.

Julius Evola, Meditations on the Peaks

The area in question is that region up behind Paisley, Johnstone, and to the west of Neilston.

A rare sighting: a cyclist (homo bicyclus: a red-listed endangered species) on the Mossneuk Road between Foreside and Seargentlaw... 

The whole plateaux up here - and the gentle hills (Lochliboside, Fereneze et al.) - have a sort of primal quality to them. Part of this, no doubt, is due to the sheer emptiness of the region, I rarely see anyone up here at all (the occasional van, tractor, the odd rare cyclist; there are nets in place to catch the stragglers who have an idea of escaping the city - the car parks at Foreside, Seargentlaw, and the main car park in the sky off the B775 coming up from Paisley).

Additionally, there is the rolling weather which rolls as much as the hills. It is an exposed place, and all this elemental exposure does something to the cycling body-mind which rolls on through it as it rolls on through you. There is an expansion that occurs because of this, or perhaps it is a dissolution. Either way, you are not yourself. You are much more spacious than that. Add in the cardio that is required to get up here (cardio let's not forget is a primal activity), and you've got yourself a bona fide existential playground for the open-body-minded cyclist.

From Seargentlaw looking south....

Neilston Pad drifting in and out of consciousness...

Up here, alone, energized, invigorated, spaced out, timed out, awake, ventilated, refreshed, conjoined... one is emphatically 'in contact with'...... 

The contact between man's deep and free powers and the powers of things and of nature which had been cut off by the workaday world's restrictive patterns begins to re-assert itself within your mind. This contact - with nothing - is all important. But of course, it's not nothing. There are fields and animals, birds and trees, plants, wildflowers... growth and decay. Movement and breathing. 

The Great Flow!

The magical Foreside Road ascending from the Gateside Road...

Nielston in the mist.... from Fereneze Road.  

The great essayist, poet, stravaiger, Kenneth White lived down there in Neilston for a bit when he was a young lad. White now lives in Brittany, France, but not before this place marked him as a child.... Check out his The Wanderer & his Charts or his Collected Poems Open World.... Marvellous and insightful stuff, the insight gained from many years of solitary walking and elemental contact.

 Hartfield Moss.

The primordial lump of Walls Hill Fort that was an Iron Age homestead only adds to the mystical quality of these roads. In fact, this is the quietest road I have cycled, not a human soul to be seen, although plenty of cows, sheep and birds.

The roads of genius, the great walker (and occasional painter-poet) William Blake once wrote, are the roads without improvement.

Wild Flow-er

Oh Wild Flowers!

I am one of you -

I am a plant 

              with roots

      who moves....

The more you cycle, the sort of slow cycling into the hills that I champion, emphatically into Nature (and not onto some dusty treadmill in a windowless basement), the more you realize that you and the wild flowers are essentially the same.

Indeed, the word 'same' comes from the same Proto-Indo-European root as the word Samsara, and the word Samsara means, literally, to flow through.... 

'Identity' (deriving ultimately from the Latin idem meaning 'same'), one could then surmise, is simply a matter of flowing...

Flowing and flowering...  the (semi) wild flow-er by the B818 on his way round the Campsie Fells.

Like Living in the Country

On the way back to Paisley Canal from an afternoon's cycling I caught myself saying, 'It's like living in the country.... except better.'

Better, because I don't live in the country. I actually live in Cessnock which if it isn't in the city centre is not too far off it. Which makes things all the more remarkable really. Because, with bike + train (not forgetting Glasgow's extensive rail network), I can without too much problem get into open country within ten or fifteen minutes from where I am. Amazing!

This morning, I took the little back-line train from Dumbreck to Paisley Canal whereupon I cycled up to the Glennifer Braes. The train took 13 minutes, and the cycle up took about the same again. Within half an hour, in other words, I was in heaven: not only had I begun to harvest those precious endorphins released by that uphill cycle, but now I was facing an abyssal amount of space overlooking the strath. 

At this moment, which actually exists outside of time, there is the sublime and the divine.... Now, if you lived in the country, you wouldn't have this 'getting into the country', and I often think that this getting there is half the battle (against your manufactured self). Indeed, it was Hugh McDonald (who has a monument up here in the Glennifer Braes somewhere and who lived in Paisley for a bit) who wrote in his Rambles Round Glasgow in the 1850s that those who already live in the country are apt to become too familiar with it, and thus destroy any sense of vitality. Not so for someone coming from the city.

As the German mystic/cobbler Jakob Boehme once wrote, you need to proceed through hell in order to reach heaven. 

Looking across Lapwing loch to Seargentlaw and the back of Paisley Golf Course, Glennifer Braes.

The great alley of beech trees up behind Johnstone...

The burnt-out car park up behind Howwood..... looking across to Nether Broadfield. I don't know what happens here when the sun goes down, but during the daytime it is a place of absolute serenity.

In spite of the main road, Howwood still retains a modicum of charm....

Howwood, with the outlook tower (Kenmuir Temple) in the centre distance.