An article by Sha'Tara - local writer and friend.

  Finding One's Voice

[thoughts from    ~burning woman~    Sha'Tara]
 
In retrospect, and to this point, I can say that I've had a long and perhaps slightly above normal interesting life.  Not in great accomplishments or heroic acts, but in so many smaller things that add up.  Yes I realize that such an intro seems to indicate I'm entering the dreaded pre-senility phase of looking back over my past and engaging the feelings and emotions such a retrograde (degenerative) endeavor tends to bring about.  Rest assured, this is not about my past, and what I have to say should apply to anyone. 
 
OK, let me see if I can get myself out of that one!  First, a short 'travelogue' from a day on the River.
 
Yesterday, by way of 'training' a new type of sea kayak—long and very narrow, meaning less stability, more speed—I decided to take it on my yearly 'Harrison Run' as I call it.  Basically a grueling paddle up and then down, 3 rivers.  First, down the Hope river to the River (the Fraser), upstream in roiling high water for some ten or so miles, using every trick learned from years of paddling to make it into the Harrison river for another approximate ten miles of fairly fast but steady current until reaching the source which is Harrison Lake proper, then a little coasting around to the resort at the south end of the lake and back down again.  Nine hours this time, not counting the half hour spent basking in the warm air on a sand bar halfway to the lake. 
 
The kayak performed marvelously, especially in the rising chop and waves on the way back (the wind usually picks up from the west in the afternoons and yesterday was no exception) giving me the best time ever.  Tracks as if it were on rails.  Narrow kayaks tend to 'wobble' on flat water but with my survival gear carefully stowed fore and aft in the bottom, it provided just the right amount of ballast to remove the wobbling effect completely.  That makes it easier on the spine—less counterbalancing to do. 
 
It was a light cloudy day for the most part, so basically an ideal situation.  The wildlife encountered included a seal performing a game on what we call a 'dead head'—a partially submerged log that tends to bob up and down endlessly, disappearing under water only to bounce back up again.  The seal was riding the head of that log, balancing itself with tail and flippers outstretched, then hugging the log as it plunged under the water to re-emerge and perform the same game.  Interesting and comical.  I saw one loon (a common, though not so common here) and except for tree swallows and the just arrived cedar waxwings, surprisingly few birds.  Heard calls I identified as warblers and of course the beautiful song of the black headed grosbeak and the unmistakable drumming of the flicker (red-shafted in this part of the world).  Raptors (birds of prey) were few also: a couple of eagles, one osprey, some vultures.  Otherwise the usual assortment of stellers jays, robins, white crowned sparrows.  Very few ducks, mostly mallards, some Canada geese, one wood duck and a pair of common mergansers.  
 
By any measure, a 'perfect' day on the water.  And yet I arrived home troubled.  I couldn't place the reason, so went through the motions of stowing everything away, showering and eating dinner.  The feeling remained, turning to sorrow.  Still I could not see why.  Not until this morning when I awoke from a series of very graphic and telling dreams.  Then I knew.
 
Whether life is at its best (as it certainly was for me yesterday) or its worst, it is still, and only, just a life on earth.  One life, lived by the seat of the pants, lived in sufferance, that is, in basic submission or acceptance of what is, or in hope that some power or force will cause a change to make things better, or in blind hedonism with no care for the effect one's behavior has on the environment (by environment I also include relationships). Life with a frightening beginning and as assured an ending.  And then?  Well, never mind, 'and then' –that comes later.
 
The 'normal' thing to do at this point is to look over your life, try to get some kind of assessment of what it was all about, what you did, what you did with it… and why.  A life with a reason to be?  Yes.  Discovering a personal life that bit by bit, step by step, became made up of truly personal events, not just 'happenings' cobbled together from flotsam and jetsam picked from the common garbage heap of 'collectibles' offered for sale by headline hunters, power mongers, would-be preachers, teachers, leaders, healers, wheelers and dealers of banking, business, gaming houses and entertainment.
 
That's about it: discovering those moments that were truly mine.  Thoughts, ideas, goals: purpose—not taken from the vats of commonly accepted belief or performance to be mindlessly paraded around living room, arena or street but personal enough to be called reality.  To recognize that it is those moments that I can call my life.
 
"I think, therefore I am" from the Latin, "Cogito, ergo sum"; "Je pense, donc je suis," (Rene Descartes).
 
To 'be' is not just to be able to think, it's to be able to think FOR ONESELF.  It's not to get all excited or emotional over what someone else said or did, says or does.  It's not something found by Googling the Internet.  It's to reason it all out in one's mind—alone and without interference.  After looking at all that was offered over one's life, it's to peel off the layers of each offering and keep the one pearl if such can be found, or discard the whole thing, even if, say, ten years were invested supporting that particular ideal. 
 
If you haven't made it yours through trial and tribulation; through testing and personal validation; through taking it apart and re-designing it in a way that fits your own particular mindset, when the time comes and you need this thing, it will not hold up but fold like a cheap suit.  Whatever it be, of sports heroes, of politicians, of religious leaders, of scientific theories, of the greatest philosophies or the greatest love story… if you haven't written this stuff into your own personal theme of life with your own sweat and blood; if you haven't found your own voice and trained it to sing this one song, and if from this you still haven't found what your particular, specific and sacred purpose is…
 
…you haven't lived at all.  You have gone through the motions but chosen to remain a spectator.
 
"It is the task of the living to give meaning to the sacrifices of the dead." [-](White Gold Wielder by Stephen R. Donaldson)

…and I would add in the brackets above: [not to make a profit from those sacrifices]