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 ;)
I always chuckle when I hear the word short-sighted. 'You're having a laugh,' I say. 'You can see the sun, can't you?' But seriously, think about it. How far can you actually see? Is your vision infinite if there is no friction to stop it? Last night I saw the moon and was transfixed at how far I could see. And then I realised earlier on I had seen the sun which is far more distant than the moon. I then thought of the other senses. Hearing for instance. Why can I not hear to the moon? Is it because there is nothing to hear but silence or is there too much 'friction' in between my ears and the moon? Maybe I can hear to the moon, or even the sun. Maybe my hearing too, like my eyesight and vision, is infinite. But then I think of my sense of smell. Surely, that isn't infinite, for if it were I would be overloaded with the olfactory. So, maybe your vision is unique amongst the senses in that it is infinite already, and the only reason you appear to be unaware of this is because there is too much 'friction' (and perhaps fiction) in your life. This friction is 'heat' and 'excitement' and 'pleasure' and 'that which chafes' (Being). Yet, if you manage to remain unchafed and cool, as is your aboriginal condition, everything would appear to man as it is - infinite. And then that vision will be transmuted into wisdom.
It's no surprise that the word city rhymes with the word shitty. After all, the city as a wasteful, crowded, and pollutive entity, shits all over the environment. The word shitty thus could well be an alternative spelling for the word city. But I digress. As a wild entity the pollutive is not to be accommodated, least of all celebrated. It is, rather, to be avoided. Why? Because the shitty shits all over your body-mind-earth system, fills you full of waste (that which is extraneous and non-essential), and filthies you to the point where you develop a tough external carapace that prevents the real from penetrating. This means that you can't see properly, you can't hear properly, and you can't understand properly. Your vision is thus limited and distorted by the filthy contaminated windows that you look out of. The key to cleaning those windows is Nature. Nature renews and cleanses. This is Nature's essence and all who bathe in it are reborn as pristine, spotless entities. But Nature does not exist - cannot exist - within an ever-filthying environment. Nature rather, like the wild animals - the ravens, the woodpeckers, the deer et al., exists outside the city. So, if you live in the city you need to go collect it. And it is only by collecting Nature, by moving through and with Nature under your own steam, that you will ever cleanse yourself and get rid of that godawful carapace.
Be warned. Cleaning your windows may involve receiving the rain.
Ok, so maybe this is a little hairy to turn into a game, but they've turned you into game so go figure. I'm talking of getting cars to honk their horn at you not to signify their opinion on any political matter but due to you outflanking them and annoying them as a wild cyclist. This may mean skipping red lights when they do not, or just generally irritating them by taking up the whole lane (to prevent dangerous overtaking). Whatever the case, in the wild cycling game it's ten points a pump, and whoever gets a thousand points (on a single excursion) first is the winner.
As a wild cyclist I regularly skip red lights because I can see everything. In a car, not so, because you're in a car. Sometimes car drivers will get annoyed at this and honk their horn, or, like the waiting car driver shouted today, 'red light'. To this I simply smile and tell them that as soon as they stop defiling the Earth and their own bodies, and polluting the air my children breathe (I don't have any children but for the sake of argument), they can skip red lights too. Boy, you should see their faces.
Holy moly... this guys looks mental! And yet...
This is the cycopath... the creature that cycles. He counts himself amongst the wild animals and the plants, and other creatures that cycle. Cycling you see has little to do with the bicycle and everything to do with attending to the essential and the wilderness within. This is the real excursion: the incursion within.. and you can only achieve this when you rid yourself of all unnecessary distractions, the frivolous and the non-essential. When this habit is retained through years of practice - when the habit becomes you so that it becomes your behaviour - then the cycopath is realized. And the 'pussyfoot' - those eco-existential infants who are carried, prammed, and stretchered, who no longer know how to walk (or indeed cycle) because their whole Being has been 'pussified' under the dangerous dialectic of ease-disease and Nature domination, annihilated once and for all.
What a great route from Kilpatrick train station to Milngavie train station via Duncolm (401m), the desolate Kilpatrick plateau, and the official middle of nowhere. Three hours is all it took and yet... such experiences cannot be quantified in temporal language. There is ecstasy up here in the solitude, space, and silence, and so necessarily one becomes extemporized and ecstatic. This is one of the many existential curiosities to be had when engaging the self in the wilderness: isolation. This is the true wilderness of your own savage interior, and it offers us the opportunity to explore it, and come to grips with our real self. So, excursions like this are not just physical, or indeed mental, but spiritual and existential. Going into the hills, and exploring one's own wild interior, has never been more urgent.
Cycling Meditations: Kilpatrick to Milngavie via Duncolm
(see route map here)
79 minutes. That's all it took to cycle beautifully and languidly (granted, I had the wind behind me) from Paisley Canal to Langbank via Elderslie, Bridge of Weir, Kilmalcom, and Finlaystone Park. That's less than the running time of a shit movie. Or even a good one for that matter. But the real movie is of course here, on the saddle, watching the world disappear as a new dimension emerges. This is how you 'alive' and switch yourself on. Your bodymindspirit is a lamp, and it needs to be switched on before it can radiate its light. This is done by embodying yourself and eschewing the carry-cots that man has filled the world with. 80 minutes is all it takes to get that heart energised. And if you cannot afford eighty minutes out of one thousand four hundred and forty (24 hours) then you are in deep trouble, for it means that you get up in the morning but never actually wake up. And with this apparition of aliveness, your heart (and your soul) remains asleep.
The aim of life, the French actress Jeanne Moreau once said, was to die in good health.
'I am going to die very young, maybe 70, maybe 80, maybe 90, but I shall be very young.'
I had just written a short piece from this very platform a couple of weeks ago on the 'Halo' that suddenly appeared above my head (the shadow of the bicycle wheel), and now we have this, a solar halo, a pretty rare celestial phenomenon which is formed by hexagonal ice crystals refracting light in the sky — 22 degrees from the sun. It was quite amazing actually, seeing as it is the first time I have ever seen one this clearly. Everyone else missed it staring as they were into their hands - this is what happens when you decant your being into a smartphone and allow it to dominate your awareness and life. I however never miss anything since I do not possess a smartphone or a smart anything for that matter. My being is not part of the machinery of progress that weakens and destroys the animal and the animate, but part of the universe. And so that is what I see.
The Crosshairs of Being Alive.... from Paisley Canal
I had always thought of Billy Connolly as a sort of ugly guy in terms of physical appearance. Whether it was his unkempt hair and beard or general slovenliness which he embraced in his earlier years I can remember thinking this ain't no Adonis. And yet, yesterday, I came across a photo of Billy in his forties where he looks quite debonair if not actually handsome. The reason for this, I believe, is self-evident from the photograph.
All who cycle are wizards...
Taking the train to Dalmuir from Partick means you miss out on traipsing through half the built-up suburbs. It also means you are deposited into Nature at the Firth and Forth Canal which you can follow until Kilpatrick about a mile away. Here, you cut up through the wonderful Lusset Glen, under the Erskine Bridge, past the train station and the bowling green, and onto the Loch Humphrey path. This is how you avoid the city even when you live in the middle of it.
Cycle the LHP up to the gateless gate and then veer off into the hanging wood where you can cycle up to Castaneda's waterfall. From here, it gets a little steep and so getting off the bike might be a good idea. Follow the path up, always taking the steepest route upwards (there are several paths veering hither and thither). Once up beyond the braes, you can get a eyeful of the city to the west and the estuary to the east. To the north too you have an ocean of heather and not a human soul about.
This is the 'gold medal': the sun, and your enlightenment (you are lighter after all that effort are you not?). Now, you are 'first' and not 'second' as in seconded into an aberrant way of being down there in the de-natured city. Up here amidst the primordial and the primal, you cannot be second as in sectioned from your Self. As the word primal suggest, there is only first place up here. There is only gold. There is no silver or bronze.
Meditation in movement: the battle for awareness continues...
The gold medal, typically, is for those who are 'first'. 'First', typically, is the primal, and the primal is the wild and that which has not suffered the ignominy of (being seconded into) domestication and/or industrialisation. As such, the gold medal is for those who get out of the city (the sectioned, the secular, and the seconded) and into the wild, and into the warrior.
