life is ever new

yesterday was a day to question. i had followed the winding road for two days to arrive at tafraoute - a market town 1000m above sea level in a wide valley in the anti-atlas.  it is a centre of peace and is surrounded by rocky granite outcrops and huge scattered boulders (some of them rounded like prehistoric eggs).  i found a secluded valley not far from town where to light a fire and sleep at night. 

it was yesterday when the question arose in my mind: what do i do here?

that question had never arisen before. my plan had always been to head to south to warmer climes.  i had spend several days here; each day it was warm and sunny and each night it was clear and starry.  i had taken delight in avoiding the question of overall purpose, but yesterday it became manifest and made me feel unsettled. the simple joys of life (feeling sun on skin, eating well, etc) suddently seemed to lack a super-justification and became insuficient. i saw the whole of my life streching out in front of me, overhung by the question:  what do i do?

i had finished reading the only book i carried with me. 
i thought: maybe i could begin cycling back up north again, but i knew it would be cold up there.
i thought: maybe i could get in touch with a couchsurfer and share my time with somebody friendly.

i considered this option and thought: why is it unsettling for me to be here alone and not have anything concrete to do?  i began to realise the importance of purpose for a human life. i also realised that all instances of engaging in an activity - be it relating to another person or reading a book - were simply ways of entertaining the mind; constructing towers of meaning to distract us from facing alone the vast, silent, unfathomable, implacable, intractable, irresoluble mystery that is life.

it is very good that we let ourselves get caught up in all sorts of meaningful activities, but it was sobering to be confronted with the alternative.   i was made to think of nietzsche's void at the centre of life.

today i awoke still feeling somewhat unsettled by yesterday's ponderous question.   without any plan for the day, i clumb to the top of a big boulder

i sat there for a while.
i felt the warm sun on my skin.
i saw a butterfly fluttering by.
i listened to the birds singing.

somehow the old sensation infiltrated into me that these simple sensations were justification in themselves.
andrea had asked the question in the andalusian sierra:  what are we looking for in life? why so much searching?  i had just observed a cat sniffing everywhich object in great curiosity and replied "we are just like cats, full of curiosity and desire to explore the world".

ah, happy is the man who is content to spend his life sniffing things with curiosity!

it is the great blessing of humans to have been given a higher consciousness than the animals and to be so given to comprehending things.   it seems ungrateful to lament the complications that may then result from our high levels of consciousness. 

nike have adopted an injunction with universal applicability:  just do it.

act.  the path of life lies in action.  of some sort

my friend lavanya has her own personal slogan:  just have faith.

faith in what?
- in the Infinite Goodness of the universe,
(notwithstanding the riddle that is searching for an adequate meaning of goodness.
but: definitions without experience are unworthy.  a piece of fruit can be intellectually contemplated, but cannot be known without taking a bite.)


amid all these words the recognition will arise that all these words are insufficient
they are perhaps a way of playing with ideas, or skirting round a great silent truth.

Juan Mascaro has a way with words:
the silent voice of the eternal is perpetually whispering in us his melodies everlasting.  The radience of the Infinite is everywhere, but our ears cannot hear and our eyes cannot see: the Eternal cannot be grasped by the transient senses or the transient mind.  This is beautifully expressed in the Taittiriya Upanishads: 'words and mind go to him, but reach him not and return.  But he who know the joy of Brahman fears no more'.

blessed is the one who has faith, for she will inherit the kingdom of heaven.
also blessed is the one who questions, for that is all he can do.

the author of the Rig Veda questions humbly:
Who knows the truth? Who can tell whence and how arose the universe?
Only the god who sees in highest heaven: only he knows whence came this universe, and whether it was made or uncreated.  He only knows, or perhaps he knows not.


i had clumb to the top of a big pinnacle of rock and sat looking at the tiny winding streets of the village below. from the mountain track came a woman dressed in a dark shawl followed by a small boy.  i suddenly realised that the boy must be able to see me for he was waving his arm and looking up to where i was sitting.  i gave him a big wave back. 
the woman looked up but quickly looked down again and followed the path into the village.  every few metres the boy would turn around and wave at me, and i waved back at him with a big smile on my face.



where did the coin that is in my hand come from?
what choice it gives me in the market place!



i am cycling along the street in tafroute.  a man with a dark beard and a big blue robe calls out to me: nomade francais?    i pause as i wheel slowly past him and then call out: oui! and smile.

he returns my smile.



from the top of the large rock butress i first hear, and then see a group of younsters moving across the valley.  their quick footsteps on the grainy granite grit echo through the clean air.  a small boy runs in front.  from this height; their passage seems smooth, almost as if they were gliding, only slowing down slightly to cross the dry rills of dried-up water courses.  these are the first people i have seen entering this valley in days
i see that they are making directly for the stand of palm trees where i have tied up my bike.   i watch their progress with apprehension and ask myself: why are they moving so quickly? do they know that my passport and credit card and key for my bike lock are hidden under the gravel?
i begin to pick my way down the big face of rock. the sun is sinking and with relief i see them passing by the palm trees and describing a big loop and are now making towards the very spot where i will descend.  i see that it is in fact a family.  they climb on top of a big boulder and begin to pull out things for a picnic.
i like to be respectful of the dress code which i observe all around me.  no limb skin is shown - always trousers and long sleeves.  but today, in my unfrequented valley, i have wanted to surreptitiously disrespect the dress code and to feel some sun on my skin while i scramble over the rocks.  consequently i am only wearing a thin berber head scarf around my waste, in the fashion of a skirt, and when the father calls out from the boulder "ciao! voulez-vous du pain?" and i accept and make my way over, the first thing i say is to apologise for my lack of clothes.
he offers me bread and cake and a cup of warm sugary milk from a flask.  i have to decline at first, but accept when he insists.  moroccans are very giving and very accepting when it comes to sharing food, something i am very glad to participate in.  in a guide book to morocco i read that it is considered impolite to eat on public transport without first offering to all the other passangers.  it is customary for them to decline the first and second offer but to then accept the third.  i was keen to test this out on the night bus journey with francis and caitlin to marrakesh and as we broke open our bread, olive oil and dried fruit i began to offer to the nearby passangers.  after offering a second time i felt it would actually be impertinent to insist further.  i could hear a low chuckle come from francis' seat as we ate our bread alone.  "i was sure that guidebook commentary was spurious" he said later.

i sit a little awkwardly with my shawl-skirt and perceive the two girls suppress their giggles.  the man says he noticed my bike.  he has spent some time in italy working and communicates half in french half in italien with me. the mother, covered in her black shawl, makes no contact with me.  however, after conversing among themselves, the father says: my wife wants to know: why do you sleep out here at night when it is so cold?
i smile and give myself time to think.
i love nature - i say. - being among the mountains, and sleeping under the stars.
the father nods comprehensively.  - yes, the europeans are like that - he says.
- us moroccans are different.

i think: why is desire for contact with nature culturally dependant?  if i was brought up in morocco, would i still love to sleep under the stars?...but that question is idle. i had to have british parents.
is my love of nature something i have learned from my surroundings, a sentiment begun perhaps with the european romantics, with poets like Keats who, in the words of Julio Cortazar "walked tirelessly, to rest by a stream in the woods, beneath the sun or the moon, exposing themselves to the influx of shapes and sounds and fleeting elements" and continued with the US nature-lovers such as Thoreau, Emerson and Whitman?


i thank the family for sharing their picnic and gather my skirts, heading back to my palm encampment in the gathering gloom, wondering if the woman might have suspected that i was running away from the law, with my unconventional desire to hide out in a secluded valley.