another poem

Thanks to Kellie Fiorello for the photo.  LOVE it!

01-26-10


The Way dies a thousand deaths

In the night of Kung-fu

Sex from below where the hadians dwell

And the sky collapses in right on top of you.

Sober’s got its judgements

And party’s got its crack

And the only way to fight

Is to never fight back

And never let them get a hold of you.

Loose like a sickle

Floating on the wind

Thrashing on the side

And on the other yet again

But the wise eye knows how to smile

And the wise eye knows when to laugh

Gentle as a peacock on the king’s garden path.

Cause the Way dies a thousand bloody deaths

In the violence of the night of kung-fu

But the wise man knows

What the fool knows as well:

That you don’t have to bloody die too.

Cause the Way’s gonna take good care of you.



High on THC I had a bomb in my pants,

My dick was getting harder and the bomb was going to flash.

Up in the sky lane my mind almost fell

Straight into the pit of the abyss of hell.

Then the Way came by and he was riding on a board

I didn’t have to call him sir I didn’t have to call him lord

You can call him Jesus if you really want to

I prefer Krishna but the Way’s got to do.

The Way said “dude, can I give you a lift”

I yelled “hell yeah!” and he lit up a spliff.

I was seeing things I’d never seen before:

The water on the ceiling and the wave hit the floor

And the Way rode it all the way in.

Yeah the Way rode it all the way in.

I saw him circle out again,

And said “I want to ride just like him.”

But the bomb in my pants still went off

Like a Jew on Christmas day or the day of Pentacost,

I don’t know which is worse

The heartbreaking scream let out of my lungs

Or the shake of bitches’ heads when they realize I’m just dumb,

But my mind didn’t fall into hell,

And the Way raised the rest of it as well,

Circling to the back he grabbed up all my loose slack

And he rode that fucker the whole way out of Hell,

And I hear he’s riding it out of there still.



The first thing I learned was how to hold the breath in my head

The second was to follow my cross down to the death.

The third was how to focus on my third eye blind

The father son and holy ghost of the kung-fu mind.

Cause the Way dies a thousand bloody deaths

In the stillness of the night of kung-fu

But the thing I learned is that it don’t mean a damn

Cause it don’t mean that you have got to bloody die too.



Myth can make or break a man

I’m still stumbling on the best I can

Terrified of fulfilling to the myth’s bitter end

The Way’s bloody path through the mists of dragon’s dens

Through the trees and in the forests of our lovers and our friends

Where the myths reach the boundaries of the end of all ends

And time becomes a knowledge that we cry in our sleep

As the lives that we walk suck us in too deep

And we can’t find our way home again

The myth’s the Way to suck us out the other end.

But I’d rather do my best to win.

Salvation is its own reward my friend.



I wish I was a soldier

Retired upon the shore

Drinking up my rum and talking about the war

Lord knows those guys have been through hell

And plenty of us still alive can tell

How we saw our fathers screaming in the night

Alight upon the fire of the flame of life

And the Way dies a thousand deaths my friend

And the Way will keep on dying to the bitter fucking end

Cause it’s faithful to the heaven in each of us as well

As it’s faithful to the justice of the deepest caves of hell

And the shadows on the walls are forever gonna tell

How the bomb dropped deep into the flames of the well

And made a million good souls wail.

Take the shortest Way you can out of hell

A short trip to salvation’s just as fucking good

As the longest road to heaven that’s been paved by the good

Salvation is its own reward my friend

Where the myths keep getting bigger

But the truth is still the end

And the world was on the brink of the last bitter end

When the Way came in covertly on a mission he was sent

To the dragon hearted woman and the coward that she did

In the ass and in the face and in the dick and in back rooms of crack dens

A good man falls mighty hard

But the Way doesn’t fail

And the Way doesn’t fall

Cause the Way rides it all the way in.

the Wu Shu of Oahu

01-28-10
For Christina:
The calling ocean
is the chime of the earth
ringing and bringing news of my love
through the music I hear
across the heart hearth of my mind.
The large world wide
seas of great divide,
the romance of sea-cliffed souls
in great, grey sky.
The wind of you blows through
my heart in great visions of loving,
deeply loving
truly loving across the sands of forever more,
a blue embrace of holy being
never to be lost and
like you,
eternally embraced.

The only thing that is as great as non-being is that-which-announces-non-being.  Indeed, many arge that such a thing does not exist, that it is an impossibility, but the only thing that proves the reality of that-which-announces-non-being as adequately as faith in its existence is absolute denial of its existence. 

01-29-10
From classical times until today
the world has opened and closed one and a half times,
but this has remained the same:
the Way of non-being is the Way of salvation. 

Senza Scarpe:

North Point of Oahu
Sunrise through pipelines of trees
Professional Zen.

The giant waves matched
only by the giantesse
of the empty ride. 

Shoeless in the sand
toeprints vanish in crumbs on
the steep hillside paths.

What can equal the
beauty of perfection?  No-
thing alone abides. 

living with the hippies

totally free ad (just because I dislike capitalism):
Greek Gods yogurt is the best yogurt I have ever eaten in my life.  It is the most refreshing thing I have ever consumed other than IBC Root Beer.  Try it out, you probably won't be sorry:
http://www.greekgodsyogurt.com/


01-22-10


I left Kailua-Kona on a clear day in mid January, cruising up highway 11 in my Toyota with a 9 foot surfboard strapped to the top like a kite in the breeze. I left barefooted, just like I try to leave every place when I depart, the dirt from the area is either sticking to me or it’s not, but I don’t want to carry it out on my shoes.

After some hiking in North Kohala I spent the night at the end of a dirt road on a beach called The Lighthouse. It wasn’t much of a beach, actually: like most of the coast here on the Big Island it consisted mostly of rocks and the surf was crashing hard against it. Not deterred by my own feelings of apprehension I grabbed my board and headed down to the rock line trying to find the right moment to glide in, but the waves got me before I could get them and dragged me and the board across 10 feet of rock, slicing my feet open pretty good in three different places. More determined than ever and paying no mind to my battered feet I thrust myself upon the next big wave and rode it out away from the rocks and over the first five footer that was coming in fast and threatening to send me back onto the shore. Finally I paused at the break and got my bearings with the shore and started hopping waves, only slowly learning how to time my stand-up so that I could slide down the face of the 10 footers. After getting pummeled a few times I remembered that I would need enough energy left to get myself back onto that rocky shoreline and headed into the shore, finding it was a lot easier to get out than to get in. Cold, adrenaline rocked, and tired I dragged myself and the board back up the cliffs and sat down to watch the four or five locals who were out kicking ass on the waves. I slept well that night—but only first after making sure to clean and disinfect my feet.

lovely feet,
golden browned and baked in jam
crust me over late at night
and remind me always who I am:
a man,
a man,
a barefoot man
in a barefoot land,
universe of God,
sweet all-pervasive. 
     
The next day I rode down through Hilo on the east side of the island and did some shopping, still determined on going barefoot even if I had some nasty cuts on my feet. I wrapped them in surgical tape and ended up at the southern most hostel in the United States with a bunch of WWOOFers and some old hippy surfers, a pathological liar, and the smallest full-grown cat I have ever seen. Since this is Hawaii they were all smoking hash and passing around joints and we cooked up a huge mackerel dinner with rice and zucchini and set in for a night of good stories and strange hallucinations. The THC turn finally took over my mind and I started seeing paradise in every reflection of every light and decided it was time to head in before I started seeing people inside of people. Seeing people inside of people is the scariest perception I ever had, except for that one time in jail when I saw a deputy walk through the holding area wrapped in a towel carrying a scrub brush. That was by far the worst, but seeing people inside of people is pretty bad too.

After that I drove back to Kona and promptly lost my keys in the ocean while sitting on top of an sea wall daydreaming about my upcoming travels. I had to stay a night in a cab driver’s house cause all of the hostels were full and the locksmith came the next day and let me in. Still, I must have walked a good 6 miles on bare and cut feet before finally getting back in the car, making sure to clean them often with peroxide and rewrap my bandages. They’ve just about healed by now, but not before Pahoa.

Pahoa is this little town on the east side of the island that is like hippy-mecca central. When hippies talk about dying and going to heaven they must mean Pahoa. There’s something off about a whole town of expanded consciousness and liberal thinking, dreadlocks and vegan pizzas. I say that with a lot of respect and love, but it's pretty damn plastic to me.  The farm I ended up at was called “Hedonisia” and I pitched a tent and commenced to trying to relocate my lost sense of direction. Not a very good place for that, I soon found out.

The first night I drank my first Guiness in almost two years and smoked a hit from a one-hitter some Alaskan kids had who were sleeping in the school bus on the property. School buses are mandatory in hippy-ville, if you didn’t know. I got to bed that night without too much damage and woke up the next day thinking “hm, let’s try that one again” and we commenced to getting torn up around 3 in the afternoon. It was a late night, full of drug runs and too much beer and I woke up the next day thankful for my years of sobriety and reminded once again about how important it is for me to stay sober on this trip around the world. I’m not saying that I won’t probably imbibe at some point, but I sure don’t want to make it a lifestyle, and if I did I would much prefer to just smoke weed and leave the alcohol alone.

After that party the last thing I wanted was another one and so my last night in Pahoa found me asleep early and up the next morning ready to get back to Kona. I had had enough hippies, enough expanded consciousness, enough tolerance and I don’t know what you would call it. For the most part I would call myself a liberal, but I'm not convinced Oz is the place for me.

Yo Oz,
I'm jonesin for a high
what'ch ya got in your pocket, brother
come and give my bowl a try.

And then we're trippin through the neighborhood
and everything is slick
got paradise in front of me
and babylon is shit.
except what'st that in the window there,
damn I wish I had me some cash.
Yo OZ you got a second bro,
to fix me with some stash?

Oz?
Oz?
OZ!!!
Damn, things just haven't been the same since Jerry died. 

Back in Kona I still couldn’t get into a hostel. But maybe that’s not a bad thing because I did get on in one of the oldest hotels of the area. It was built in 1929 by some Japanese immigrants and still bears the family name: Manago. The Manago family are in their third generation of ownership except whereas the first generation had names something like Niko and Makio or something Japanese like that the current generation are named simply “Dwight and Mary”. It’s a gorgeous building, with a little restaurant and a small Japanese garden in the back, no TV’s in the rooms (probably my favorite part), and I dreamed I was getting attacked by Ninjas when I was walking down the hall.   Today I was back at home down at Kealakekua Bay diving, and got some oranges from my former landlord’s daughter who also likes to go swimming down at the same spot.

Anyway, the whole point of the story is that back in Pahoa the ground is really soft and muddy because it rains all the time. The ocean is more aggressive, too, but that’s beside the point. The point is that I decided it would be a much better idea to walk around the muddy ground with flip-flops (or thongs) on rather then 1)drag the mud into the tent and more importantly 2) get my feet infected. There are some times when going senza scarpe you just have to choose for good hygiene and this was one of them.

Keep your feet clean.  If you take dirt with you clean it off before you hit the next town. 



To rhyme beside the sea of night


To take from wrong a bit of right

In speech and tongue that never lie

To stand alone, “tis I, tis I”.



“My love for you” is what I cry

“will never stop, will never die,”

To squeeze the chalised juice of sight

Then steal away into the night

And break away at dawn’s new day.



To rest upon a rose tilled way

Inside a mansion built for two

Just you and I, just me and you,

To stand at end of time and say,

“I walked the Way, and it was right.”

poem for Christina

The night is full of the new moon dark
But the breeze is soft and clear
I know that you are far away
But I want to keep you near.
Thousands of miles yet to go
Before we meet again,
Our love has lasted for so long
Will it be there in the end?

The night is full of strange new beds
But I remember ours.
The scent of you beside me sleeping,
The early morning charms.
Your bed is far and far away
Across an ageless sea,
But I am going the other way
From you to regain me. 

It sucks that this is so my love
That this is meant to be,
The clouds must follow where they must
Or they would not be free.
And so for freedom's sake we walk
Each our separate way,
I'm anxious for the us that waits
At the close of the journey's day.

The first day 14-01-09 (or 01-14-09 if you're not in North America)

(the theme song, "Barefootin' It" cover by The Shades Band)

7:05 pm: The first day is closing and I am without shoes.

Today I left the house and headed north from Kailua Kona to the area of the Big Island known as North Kohala, where the biggest city is called Hawi Town. I am just outside of Hawi town, and an outdoor adventure resort, which I acquired for 30 dollars rather than 85 for the night due to the owner having a completely empty establishment and me agreeing to do two hours of chores in the morning. They are really nice people.
This area is important for two reasons: it is the birthplace of King Kamehameha I of Hawaii, who united all of Hawaii in 1810 under his leadership; and it has the first oldest library on the island and the second largest in Hawaii, being built in 1929. However, the first oldest, also built in 1929, is no longer in the original building, so it doesn't count anymore (see my page for more information on libraries while I travel).

Hawi is an old sugar town, but it's major claim these days is that it is the last town on the road to the Pololu valley, which I hiked down today and is really spectacular:

(image by biketrouble--flickr)

The hike down was not long and full of terrific boulders and I saw one other barefooter doing the trail:

(image by S Carpenter--flickr)

This was the trail to the first valley.  The trail to the second valley is supposed to be even better, but they say Pololu eats people after the second valley so tomorrow I'm going back but only to the second valley.

The drive up from Kona was really bad because I had my 9' surfboard on softracks on the top of the car and the wind was fierce.  I'm going to have to tie it down to the front bumber or something to keep it stable.  But once I got out of the valley and into the mountains I forgot about the surfboard and was taken in by the lush greens and terrific animals that are in the area.  I saw a horse and a stork having a conversation with one another, which was the highlight of the trip, and the road up to Pololu has these little one-lane bridges you have to cross.  Really country, really Hawaiia, really cool.

Hawi sucked.  Tourist trap central.  Over priced everything and all disgruntled servers.  I had two green teas and did some homework. 

Finally, I made one important decision today and learned one important fact.  The decision was to buy a pair of Vibram barefoot shoes to take on the trip with me.  I'm not counting wearing these as going barefoot, but it's better than wearing shoes:

http://www.vibramfivefingers.com/

Check them out, they're pretty cool.

Also I realized that King Kamehameha, who united all of Hawaii, did it barefoot. 

Theme song--thanks Lyle!

"Barefootin It" cover by The Shades Band.  Somehow they remind me of Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem.

So I'm going to try going around the world without shoes and see how far I get.

So I've been living in Hawaii for about 6 months now and have built up a pretty good callus base for my feet from going most of the time without shoes. But now I'm going to head out on my around-the.world tour and I don't want to lose my calluses. So I decided to try it without shoes.
I'm starting tomorrow. I'll still be a few weeks in Hawaii, just getting things organized, but I officially vacate my home of residence tomorrow so that makes me on the road. I'm going to try to do five continents: North America (OK, only briefly), Europe, Asia, and Australia/New Zealand. That's if the money holds out. I'm not going the other way round for some personal reasons.

Hitting London in February without shoes does not sound very inviting to me, and I'm also concerned about not being allowed into the places that I want to go without shoes on. So we'll see how far I get. For all I know some security gaurd at the airport might make me put on shoes. Also, since I'll be using alot of communal restrooms, I wonder how long it will take me before I decide to put on my thongs (flip-flops) in the shower.

So I'm gonna pack a couple of pairs of shoes. Why not? Easier to discard them later then to get some when I need them.

The itenary is as follows:
Feb-May: Great Britain, including hikes in England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland (actually I want to skateboard Ireland in May, but no shoes).
June/July: Hiking from the Netherlands (OK, skate the Netherlands) over the Alps into Italy.
August-October: India/Nepal
December-? Australia/New Zealand.

Somewhere in there I want to make a trip to Sharm el-Sheikh on the Red Sea for some freediving, which I will also be doing in all of the above places.

How far will I get? Will I be forced to compromise? Will I decide to compromise? How bad is snow on the feet? Or really cold rain?

One caveat: I am taking my freediving fins. As I won't actually be walking in these I'm not counting it. But I also like no-fin diving so it might be that I decide to not use them. Once again, better to have them when I want them then not to have them at all.

So my initial thoughts are these:
What about some exotic diseases in some place like India?
I guess my answer is I need to make it through February in England before I can think about that.

And I guess night-clubs are out. I mean, there's no way I'd even try getting in without shoes. That'll save money at least....

So if I don't make it completely without shoes (not saying I will, not saying I won't, just saying), I will try to post reasons why I decided to wear shoes in what situations and hopefully have some good observations for others who might be coming in my footsteps. As far as I know this is the world's first attempted round-the-world trip without shoes.

Nathan