a transformative moment: inside jerusalem

when the thought first crossed my mind that it might be interesting

to ask around and see if my bloggy peeps would like to share their

experiencing of a transformative moment,

i wasn't entirely clear what i was going to share myself.

my own experience of transformative moments is usually something that isn't in the realm of, "man this is a wickedgood meal".

it could be,

but i think it's closer to something that frames the picture of your existence.

it's always there in some way shape or form.

so it's intimate.

~

the idea that i had in mind when i popped the idea of the meme proposal was to talk about how reading "siddhartha" by hermann hesse when i was in my late teens, really brought me round and past so much of what i had known or taken for granted to that point. how i discovered through that book that the buddha was once a real person.

no way!!! way!!

i learned how it was alright to know that there are so many other worlds

layered inside and around this one that we see and deal with all the time.

the changes that came out of that book . . . . .

so i figured, really all i needed to do was to refer to it, drop in a tasty quote or two,

throw a wiki citation to siddhartha and hermann and bammmm!!!!

i'm outta there!

but that didn't feel right. 'cause that's not what the golden fish has been about, nor will it be like that.

~

i'm going to tell you that i lay awake last night,

~

i was lying there.

it was a hot hot night.

flipping my body,

flipping my pillows,

flipping my mind.

nothing.

waiting for that fiery gotta get this outta my gut, heart, soul

wherever it comes from

feeling, intuition, insight, beauteous fractal,

or moment of pure fortune

when i remembered something

from the very same springtime

in which i read siddhartha.

in that very same springtime,

my brother and i went on a kayaking trip with some guys just out of university.

these were smart wild boys

a systems analyst and a couple of engineers.

they lived for the weekend.

load a couple of 'yaks on the roof of a rusty ford econoline

and boogie up to the madawaska river for a weekend of

whatever came their way.

my brother david and i sometimes went along with them.

into the wilderness.

you see, back then the madawaska was just a river.

a beautiful fairly wild river.

now it's a wild water reserve.

back then you pulled out where you pulled out,

you camped where you camped.

the river rose, the river fell.

you went with your gut.

you learned as you went.

dinners came in foil packages and needed water

and were usually washed down with cheap fizzy pink wine

and then sake or straight from the bottle rum.

evenings were spent playing on curlers in the river

until it got too dark or too cold and then back into the tent,

flick on the flashlights and read until sleep closed the curtains.

on this particular journey it was mid-spring,

the river was clear of ice - but just.

the water was absolutely frigid and we didn't wear wet suits like they do now.

we got in up at the top of the route and worked our way through

a couple of drop-and-pool rapids

until we came up on one that is manageable in the summer

because the water levels are lower.

the route is not only simple

but it's easy to see.

in full spring run-off,

there are choices.

two.

so.

out of respect

we got out of our kayaks and scouted the rapid.

it was big and full.

basically one big drop off to start

straight over a ledge into an area about twenty metres wide

comprised entirely of frothing churning water.

(you can see these at the bottom of waterfalls and dams.)

the water dives to the bottom

and flows along the river bed

coming up anywhere from a few metres to tens of metres down stream.

between the point where the water drops over the ledge

to where it re-emerges as a consistent and observable flow

is roiling boiling foamy water.

it holds you or whatever gets into it.

it's called "a keeper hole".

we scouted this all out

and made a decision to take a channel off to the right of a huge rock

that was barely visible under the volume of water.

it had a nice solid coloured tongue of water

that led 'round the outside edge of the hole

and carried you straight through to the next drop and pool.

i forget what we agreed to do after that.

as it turned out it didn't matter anyway.

we walked back up the river to the put-in for the kayaks,

climbed in, stretched out our legs

until they touched the braces,

slipped the skirt edges over the coaming of the kayak

and pushed out into the current.

we quickly found the main "tongue" of water

where the current was thick and strong,

did a few correcting strokes to set us up

and then paddled hard towards the edge of "jerusalem".

yeah "jerusalem" is what we knew it as.

as we got close enough to hear the rapid's roar

we passed some local teens who decided to chuck rocks at us as we flew past.

i remember thinking about the film "deliverance".

and then shot over the edge of the drop -

on the wrong side of the rock!

my "skirt" popped free

of the coaming

and i was thrown

into the churning maelstrom of icy frigid water

before i could take a breath.

my eyes were open

so i could see threads of water,

threads of all sizes

twisted into vortices

in all the shades of green and white,

bubbles,

millions of linked bubbles

swirled like blown glass, like frogs eggs,

but

nothing to hold onto.

every so often my head would pop above the water

and i would suck a mouthful of air

and water

and back under i'd go.

i didn't know what to do.

i read afterwards

you're supposed to try and dive for the bottom

and catch the current there.

that works -

if there are no forces at play in-between the surface and the river bottom .

in the time i was in the hole

i lost my shirt,

my shoes,

my socks,

got bruises up and down my arms

that we figure were from my body being banged around on the bottom,

whenever i was there.

i had no sense of what was up

or down.

by this time,

the other guys had made it to shore

and were watching helplessly as i was thrashed around inside this giant keeper.

well not helplessly.

i heard later that one of the guys

was taking photographs

and that somewhere out there are pictures

of my legs coming up,

my head and arms,

just an arm,

bits of my body

rising and falling inside jerusalem.

but something else happened while i was in there.

i've told a couple of people this particular part

because it's really mine

and because of what it is

it demands some sort of rationalization for some people,

which i don't want to give.

so you have to make your own.

if you need to.

i was inside jerusalem for what semed an eternity,

and there was a point at which i realized i was going to drown.

i wasn't getting air,

i couldn't see my way out and so i gave up.

and "gave up" sounds like quitting

but that isn't what it was.

it was a relaxing.

a letting go.

i felt my body form into a fetal position

and the water started to go quiet

and i felt calm.

so calm.

you and i might have known a calm like that as very young children.

when i let everything go in that calmness

i was very suddenly a hundred feet or so in the air above the scene.

i could see the river,

the land to either side of it,

i could see the rapid,

i could see me in it.

in fact i could see and then suddenly feel

the hundreds of little wires that attached my floating self

to my body in the river.

there were so many long thin wires

but the ones i could feel the strongest

extended from the centre of the palms of my hands

to somewhere in the me that was curled in the fetal position in jerusalem.

i felt no sadness.

in fact i felt nothing emotional

just a wavering connection to the body beneath me.

peacefulness.

and

deep calm.

then my head popped out of the water

and a man in a kayak

(ken from kingston i later found out)

was yelling at me

to grab the rope at the end of his kayak

and to let go if i felt myself being sucked back in.

i grabbed the rope

and watched as ken paddled furiously backwards back downstream

from where he had put in to rescue me

having paddled upstream against the force of the water

at his own risk

and all the time i knew i wasn't letting go of that rope

no matter what!!

they pulled me to shore

where i lay empty and drained.

bruised and with a headache that lasted the rest of the day.

but alive.

i knew then that i valued life.

i'd never really known

or needed to know how much.

i learned that death wasn't as horrible

as i had imagined.

that my knowing of otherness wasn't wrong

that there was more

much more to this world.

no more than i was aware of -

much more than i was being told.

i learned to value the moment.

the details.

to live as if each moment

was meant to be much more

than just another

easily ignored experience.

because each moment is "the big moment".

there you are!

thanks for sharing this with me.

steven