Cold Hard Nature & The Moving Blood

'You gotta be fucking kiddin'!'  Windows

 Peak light!

 Leaves of light and water...

Death is all around.... Death? Are you crazy? There ain't no death here... What there is is a continuation of ontogenesis... decomposition-reconstitution... Death exists only for the ego-bound self...

In winter, it's imperative for any lifeform to warm itself up and engage its central heating system. The best and easiest way to do this is to move. The kinetic body is a warm body; a fluid body that is connected intimately with the airscape it is moving through. Oxygenation is vital for the blood to maintain its own kineticism. The 'moving blood' is what keeps us warm when we are out in freezing temperatures. In this way, and as the iceman Wim Hof regularly states, 'the cold is our warm friend'.

Yet, we have allowed this to be usurped by an excess of 'coats'. Nowadays the pet-like human doesn't have to move, he can just turn on the heating, or stick another jumper on. Moreover, we often discriminate against the cold and would lock it away if we could. Yet, this is just another turning away from Nature - another misunderstanding of what 'the cold' actually is - and another short fall from the aliveness we used to inhabit.

Artificial warmth has taken over our habitat - and made of the human a thing that can be clothed, decorated and manipulated into an ever more comfortable existence. Yet if comfort is not earned (true comfort is born out of discomfort and hardship) then it is a perversion of comfort, and simply adds to the top-heavy (out of kilter) disequilibrium that man has become. As John Carpenter astutely noticed in the eighties 'Man is the warmest place to hide'. And he is, because of all this anti-nature unnatural decoration and fashioning. One might even argue that at the heart of the horror of Carpenter's film, The Thing, is this anti-nature being called 'man', the consequence of being assimilated by the monster of modernity, and by unnatural comfort, ease, and convenience.

Indeed, man has made himself so warm that he has ceased evolving from the inside-out. He has become a tool amongst tools, unthinking, unfeeling, mechanical and disconnected. The 'thing' is born. Maybe, there's a reason why Carpenter set his story in Antarctica. The thing 'from outer space', apparently, is not too fond of the cold. Moreover, it flails about maddeningly when upset, and likes to 'assimilate' and consume.

Of course, the monster - the eponyomous thing - is modern man. Let's not forget that global warming is firstly a tale of human warming and the separation/alienation of the human animal from its natural habitat and ways. The ultimate in alien terror is man's own alienation from himself.

So, get that blood moving, embrace the cold, go easy on the coats...

The Towpath of Emptiness

It really is remarkable that, save perhaps for a kilometre or so of road between my flat in Cessnock and Kelvingrove Park, it is blissfully car-free all the way from my gaff to Edinburgh and the east coast. This is because of the wonderful green corridor that is the Firth and Forth Canal joining up at Falkirk with the Union Canal. Any city worth its salt will have several of these green corridors (ventilation shafts) coming in and out of the city. A city, let's remember, is only a city in contact and conviviality with what is not city!

Today, I'm just going as far as Kirkintilloch but I had forgotten how serene this canal is.

Rebirth on the Occident Express: Dumbreck to Drumfrochar and Back Again

The wonderful Dumbreck station complete with trees and flocks of long-tailed tits...! 13 minutes on the train will take you to Paisley Canal. From there, it's a five minute free-wheel down to Paisley Gilmour Street Station and the train to Drumfrochar which takes 21 minutes.

If you sit on the right side of the train you will have a magnificent view of the estuary as it opens out after Bishopton. It's one of Glasgow's great train station interstices, like between Patterton and Neislton or Lenzie and Croy, offering vast vistas over estuaries, hill and mountain ranges, and valleys.

Exiting Drumfrochar Station is a special experience with views across the estuary and the highlands. We're going uphill here onto the Old Largs Road and into the hinterland.






















Luxury grazing...

Looking back over the bucolic shire of Inverclyde towards Corlic Hill, Caircurran Hill and Dunrod Hill in centre distance.

Corlic Hill as viewed from Bridge of Weir.

Looking north from Elderslie.

I left Dumbreck on the 11:47, getting the onward 12:10 from Paisley Gilmour Street, arriving at Drumfrochar at 12:30. I returned here after a leisurely cycle at 14.45, a mere three hours after I left. When you consider some of the territory crossed, it seems remarkable that three hours is enough, but it is... and it's all the more amazing for it.

Encycling the Self: The Sorceror's Way

It's true that cycling doesn't just mean pedalling, but as the Greek kyklos suggests, it also means a circle, a wheel, or any circular body, circular motion, or cycle of events. This cycling of events (is 'event' even countable?) is perhaps of equal interest here to the pedalling. After all, the whole point of the pedalling or any locomotion, really, is to 'encycle' oneself, and to become solidarily at one with your natural environment, et plus ultra.

In other words, if your locomotive powers do not scrape off the varnish to reveal a universal underside, then perhaps it is an indulgence as Castaneda might put it.

The human, as with all animals and entities is not ego, nor is he cargo. He is simply 'go' itself, verbally. Life goes - in the beginning was the verb - it cannot but do anything else.

In the spirit of frugality and ultimate directness...

Fresh water mint aside the Loch Humphrey path...

 Looking down onto 'the second gate of dreaming' from the limerock...

    Henry Bell monument in the riverry distance...
 

Don Juan explained that sorcerors have a scrounging method. They intelligently redeploy their energy by cutting down anything they consider superfluous in their lives. They call this method the sorcerors' way. In essence, the sorcerors' way, as don Juan put it, is a chain of behavioural choices for dealing with the world, choices much more intelligent than those our progenitors taught us. These sorcerors' choices are designed to revamp our lives by altering our basic reactions about being alive.

[The Art of Dreaming, Carlos Castaneda]

Outflanking the Clouds

'Cloud-outflanking' is a skill all shamanic cyclists develop the more they cycle through the land (and sky). One develops a sense of movement, naturally, as one cycles naturally. Natural movement is the most natural thing on earth, yet the more modern we become the more we outsource that naturalness to unnaturalness, to sitting in a gym on a bike that goes nowhere.

Sorcery is all about sourcing your own, about getting into the 'earth' and avoiding 'world'. The world produces men, the earth brings forth wild creatures. I am 'of the earth' - a human - not the world (wer + alt, the age of man).

It is this chthonic aspect to being that reveals...

that allows one to outflank such things as clouds...

and to feel the approach of the weather before it happens.

Just like the ravens and the buzzards up here who never abandoned their open circuitry to the earth.

At the start of the Loch Humphrey path.

 Coming up the Loch Humphrey path, only clouds..

The obelisk in the shrouded distance is the monument to Henry Bell (of The Comet fame) erected in 1838.

A rare roll cloud cutting across the river...

At the top of the 'Bastard' the weather is wetter as we enter more deeply into the cloud canopy...

Wake & Bike : A Wild Breakfast

It's a fine thing to get up and get out (on your feet) without any dilly-dallying. Pigeons do it, as do most wild animals: they energize the bodymind first thing so that the rest of the day can benefit from it. It's the most natural ritual in the whole animal world.

It's as natural as sleeping, this wakeful energizing, this galvanizing of the body-mind-earth. Indeed, many animals simply must do it in order to warm up and re-ignite their internal engines. And eat!
In the wild, the locomotive break-fast precedes all other breaks of fasts...

The problem with humans, or rather 'man', is that he has created all manner of artificial devices and external engines (that disembody and pollute us) to do this for him, so instead of going out for a cycle or a jog, he opens the fridge, turns on the heating, or jumps in his car. Gradually, man moves away from the source until such a point where he no longer knows what or where that source is. The result is a move away from natural ways, and from overall Health, with a corresponding move towards unnatural (mechanical-synthetic) ways, and towards disease.

Yet, it is only by re-turning to the source, to the Natural Ways, that man will ever regain his humanity... and the synergy that reveals the great Revelation...

So the next time you're tempted to turn up the heating, put on an extra sweater, or jump into your big gas-guzzling car, get out into the airs, and breathe! Re-wild your self... Wildness enriches the spirit...

Have a wild breakfast!

 Wake and Bike!

Training Day: On the Way to Amalfi

I've said it before and I'll say it again: the rail network in Glasgow is great! And if, like me, you wish to get a little further out into the shires around the Glasgow strath, then train and bike it! Naturally, it helps if, like me, you live next to four different rail lines, and are fifteen minutes away from the city centre's hubs of Queen Street and Central stations. But even if you don't, in Glasgow, you're never far away from a railway. 

This morning, I jumped across the motorway and onto the train (with bike) ate Dumbreck station. From here, it's a mere 13 minutes along the bucolic backline to Paisley Canal and the Sustrans cycle way down to the coast. This morning, I decided to head for Langbank (or Amalfi as I have now named it) via Bridge of Weir and the leisure lanes of Renfrewshire.

The idyllic leisure lanes between Bridge of Weir and the Clyde.

The cloud cover brings with it a smorgasbord of effects and qualities which work their way into the bodymind rendering it no longer simply 'bodymind' but 'body-mind-earth'.

Suddenly, after a couple of hours of darkness, the light spills forth... atop Barscube Hill.

Up and over. Head down through Langbank golf course (there's a wee path-right of way that leads you down the 17 and 18th to the clubhouse. Then take the little steep lane on your right down to Langbank train station. 

Opposite the rock. Having the train to take you back after a fairly energetic cycle is always a joy! Thank-you again Scotrail ;)

The Floating Bicycle

Waiting for the raft....

Priority Seating

'Sitting is the new smoking' apparently....

Not if you're on a bicycle it ain't....

Prioritize your seating and sitting...

Learn to move under your own steam (with a little help from our rail friends)...

Puncture

No sooner had I taken this photo than I got a puncture some minutes later. Spooky, huh?

Still Plugging Away

The past couple of days, inspired by the changing weather, I headed north into the foothills of the fells, and the kilpatrick braes. Here are a few photos of the landforms, and the weather, and a beautiful little hut...

The Slacks

The Ridge of Boglairoch

 Cochno Hill and Greenside Reservoir

 Duncolm

 Dumgoyne and Dumfoyne

 Dumgoyne, Dumfoyne, and Duntreath Castle...

Dumgoyach, the bosky plug, and some standing stones, just off the West Highland Way.




























A little courtesy coffee hut full of goodies for weary travellers on the WHW... Wonderful :)

Lassooing the Horizon: Thorntonhall to Whitelee Windfarm

Finally, after years thinking about it, I got to Myres Hill within Whitelee Windfarm. I don't know why I had avoided it until now, because it is quite easy to get to, especially if you catapult yourself with the train up to Thorntonhall. In the map opposite, it's the turquoise lassoo coming up from Thorntonhall, and the turquoise line threading back down through the city to Cessnock. (I trained it from Pollokshaws West to Thorntonhall). Once past Eaglesham, the space begins. After Carrot Farm, I saw no-one until Whiteless Visitor Centre some several miles away. It is desolate up here, but this sort of desolation inspires me. Granted, the felled trees make some of this place look like a mass grave (it's mostly Forestry Commission plantation), as does the sinister sound from those turbines, but the space itself is worth it. And on a clear day, the views too.

The veiled horizon just out of Thorntonhall station approaching Eaglesham.

Carry straight through Eaglesham on the way there. On the way back you will emerge (hopefully) from Polnoon Avenue just there on the right after the pelican crossing.

Straight on here. Do not go left or you'll end up in Strathaven!

Take the right fork here towards Carrot Farm. 

Bleak.... but somehow beautiful.

From Myres Hill, looking down on a sliver of the city. From just below Myres Hill there are a few houses which have put signs up saying no through road (through their little plot). This is another example of residents not offering an alternative right of way whilst blocking up an existing one. This is not only illegal, but silly. Ignore the signs of dogs and the like and stroll through their little patch (it's only a couple of hundred metres). If anyone says anything about it being 'private land' remind them of the Scottish Outdoor Access Code, suggest that they read it online or download a copy. They have a responsibility to know the law of the land, and to behave accordingly. I mentioned this to the girl at the Whitelee Visitor Centre and she told me the residents have been spoken to about this. So there's no excuse.  Anyway, chances are you won't see anyone about.

Wind power!

It is a bit of labyrinth so take care not to get lost. The latest OS map has all the access roads and turbines marked and there is another map you can get from the Visitor Centre and which I have included here as a PDF link. The turbine numbers are marked and you can use them to guide you.

Looking north over Loch Goin.

Dunwan Hill from the back...

The road back down from Whitelee Visitor Centre is great! It has a dedicated cycle lane and is all downhill, all the way back down to the city. This is just approaching Eaglesham.