Somebody should tell George Bush there's a shit load of oil in Zimbabwe...

...at Beinn Breac, chasing waterfalls, wild wind grasses, snow flurries & collies. There were kayaks leaving for Canna, a million miles below, pin-dots in the silver slipstream of open seas. It was odd...upsetting. To be up in these reeks & no longer be able to climb as my soul dictates, I looked back down toward the seas & followed kayaks heading out West - E9, E8, V this & that....I started giggling - suddenly I was to far away from the twin important reasons for being, floundering in no mans land. With no kayak to hand below & no face to scale above, I had in an odd moment of clarity - & became that most loathsome beast, a reluctant hillwalker yomping with sangwies, yet without purpose. A twitcher without an anorak.

A Black Mesa of sorts, yet not a bad back garden to have, & go to hell in...overall...
Sometimes, it dawns on you creeping.

Weakness can be a great thing, & strength is nothing when you see through into your true self. The creature you always were. When a man is just born, he is weak & flexible, when he dies, he is hard & insensitive. When a tree is growing, it's tender & pliant, but when it's dry & hard, it dies. Ergo, hardness & strength are death's companions. Pliancy & weakness are expressions of the freshness of being & what has hardened never wins in the journey of discovering its true nature... Weakness embraces the new era - Hardness just cuases you to throw lumps of iron at your own head & drag the old era around, like a stone in a net...
Inside the dust ridden sunlit halls of finality & conclusion, the mystic waits & says, you are what you love, not what loves you...

An ataireachd bhuan -A’ sluaisreadh gaineamh na tràgh’d

Thus, these mountains & unscalable walls that claimed my youth, are no longer an encircling prison of black toothed bastion, more a shelter, a shawl around my shoulders, a mother to run to out of the school gates, a random ghillie kill, a sermon, or a well executed frost proof L96A1 acquisition, a shelter from the inane flood of human interference, a tower of fierce insanity providing this silent creature with new perspectives of the road ahead...& peace, for the sea is all around. Oil paintings come in many forms, just as there are two moons. Sorley, the baying hound screamed, Coin is madaidhean-allaidh from the abyss...& all my empty beer cans are staring at me like little puppies waiting for treats...

Climb well young Jedi. Kayak further. Who can truly number the wild stones & the free seas? What foolish beautiful architecture we pin to the world...

R U S H
R o l l t h e B o n e s

Sometimes, Amnesia Lane is a total trip...When I last played this at volume, I was soloing in an aluminium Grumman open canoe, accidently liberated from a high court judge, on several occasions, heading from Scotland to the South coast of England... & following burns into streams, lochs into lakes & abhainn into rivers. There was occasion to shadow the coastline 2 miles out at sea through the darklight, build clay ovens in river banks, snare animals, eat stray dogs, gutt illegal salmon from protected waters & saw trees to negotiate impasses on long forgotten canals West, through MoD land, eventually navigating into Wales & the Black Mountains. A few thousand miles without one visit to a local Coop. It's a legend of a story inside the local island enviroment. It ignited those artifacts strewn at the feet of mankinds base core, & brought further recognition to those same simple elements that empower the soul, overwriting seas of endless modern day pish...forever. In the worst moments, it was fun, in the best...it changed & challenged me. In mediocre moments, I hated anything more technological than a Swedish strike & my side arm/knife. By the end of it all I could perform 10 Storm Rolls in 15 seconds & balance brace an 18ft metal canadian open hippo with great dexterity & solo E7. Wierder moments involved full on goose defence, the theft of a wheelbarrow, several random poultry murders, the taking of a sheep & hoofing it across a field at speed with 160 strawberries breakdancing in my jumper.
To cap it all, the SCU wanted to give me a few awards for what in reality, was a struggle, self-engineered to better know myself, my anger & irreverence...typical. I should of got an award for getting through those years, through death & empty shelled self-congratulating society. Like Forrest Gump, my answer was plain sighted: One day, & for no particular reason, I decided to go runniiiing...
Since then, I have covered at least 8,000 sea kayaking miles, often surviving off the land & shores, teaching in quiet form, big bad men with guns, since there is no need for shopping in society when you can shop in the wild & live healthier. It's not a great feat, unless you live in front of a TV, taxes, cars & societys conceptualization of the norm. Man the primate, is in danger of going asleep in front of all the toys he created to keep him awake...
If somebody ever writes an article on self sustainable kayaking I will probably die laughing since it's real title would arguably be, How I Didn't See a TV or Drive My Car For A Week...

Anyhoos...I was... intemperate in my youth....& my youth, is a long time leaving. I guess they call it spirit after a certain age...It's strange how an album can reel you back to an acute moment of otherwise invisible life tapestry. Bloody kayakers aye...Now, where did I put that air guitar...

Why are we here? becuase we're here... roll the bones
Why does it happen? becuase it happens...roll the bones
-Geddy Lee-