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.
Taking the long way round is a delight when the long way is as serene and scenic as this one. I've always maintained that the physical routes you take in life determine your psyche, so a route through the hills compared with a route alongside a busy roadway is like comparing the mind of the Buddha to that of an office manager. Never take a road when there is a more peaceful route available in other words, and I have stuck by this rule for the past twenty years even if it does mean an hour (or two) instead of fifteen minutes. In other words, don't drive, dérive! Don't psycho, cycle!
Basically, from the pink stone on left to white pebble on right via the black stone at top... This way we avoid all the noise and built-upness and collect instead space, wilderness, and nothingness.
Collect enough nothingness and you yourself will become nothing (as everything).
Pedals make petals, just as cycling and using your own steam as Nature intended - flowing - creates flowers. And this is the great flower - fed by these locomotive routes (roots) through the strath, and consisting of hundreds if not thousands of petals.
My block mounted map with some inner and outer perch sites. (Murray Scott at Scotia Visuals in Finnieston did it for about £75 in 2012).
Short circuits short circuit! They cause a break in the otherwise smooth functioning of a given circuit. The given circuit here is of course the circus and the sideshow (society) that man has made for himself through the wilful exploitation of Nature, and which has turned him into a geek. So, the short circuit is essential for anyone wishing to get away from the freakshow not just physically but psychologically and spiritually. And around the Glasgow strath, short circuits (into the hills and back again) abound. Indeed, for the past twenty or so years I have been performing the short circuit (the pastoral excursion by train, bicycle, and on foot) as a religious exercise. Because it is. Spirit derives from breathing naturally and aboriginally. Cleanliness of mind (which allows you to feel this spirit) derives from natural spaces and your own locomotion into them. So that when you cycle into the hills, alone, unworlded, and embodied, you recollect this spirit by the bucketload, and you realise through the shock to your system that full-blown Nature presents us with what a madhouse and disneyland society and civilization actually are.
Moreover, and as you can see, each circuit seems to add another petal to the overall flow-er that is the animal in harmony with its natural environment. This is my flower - the fruit of all those enquiries and travails. And you can have one too, if you apply the same discipline and quest for vision and wisdom.
