personal

Turning Inward-The Delicate Art of Survival.

~ m.caimbeul ~ 3 Comments

I’ve used this blog primarily for posting my digital doodles but feel the time has come to share a few thoughts.

While we are all aware that things have changed it’s not a simple change of inconvenience, it’s a major planetary transformation. The outcome will be dramatic. While the human capacity for hiding in complacency has worked in the past we no longer have that comfort, our cherished companion of apathy has turned against us. Life takes effort. If you can take your mind off of the distractions that only we humans have the luxury to pursue you’ll find all other life forms pursuing the delicate art of survival. If you’ve never had the opportunity to experience a time when you’re existence depended on the ability to rally the mystical forces of your inner self to battle that which was attempting to kill you you’ve never truly lived. When you’ve limped through life with the battle scares of what I call ‘a great encounter’ you have an opportunity to emerge with resentment or insights into a cosmic understanding.

When I was a medical engineer I had the opportunity to know many people who possessed the mystical insights necessary for daily survival. They all had one thing in common, the ability to apply the necessary effort to accomplish what most take for granted; eating, swallowing, breathing, regulating body temperature, evacuation of bowels and bladder, pers onal hygiene and voluntary physical movement.

I find it fascinating that I’ve lived to see the day when the able bodied socially accepted will have to swim in the murky waters previously reserved for the underprivileged, physically and mentally challenged social rejected. Thus providing them the opportunity for introspection into who they are and that which truly matters.

Waking up and not being able to move because some microbes are chewing up your important wiring forces you to focus and rally the internal forces that are only available when you’re alone with the self. Social isolation is a gift if you can embrace it, solitude is the doorway to the essence of who you truly are. Not the superficial image you’re used to seeing in the social mirror.

Regardless of financial affluence if you can’t spend it to buy convenience, physical and mental comfort, welcome to the world of poverty. A world where self delusion doesn’t exist, the poor know who they are only the rich don’t. I remember my ghetto days, not being able to find work because no one hired “cripples.” Not eating for seven days until I found enough change on the streets to buy a twenty cent bean burrito at Taco Bell. Hovering over an old toaster I found in an alley dumpster to get a little heat in the winter. Surviving a deep gash in the head by going to bed for a few days rather than a hospital emergency room. Going to a local hospital and sitting in a waiting area smoking the cigarettes left in the ashtrays while waiting for the patient food trays with uneaten meals to be left in the halls unattended for the golden moments of a bums smorgasbord.  The daily trips to the public library for five hours of warmth and studying philosophy and art history. I was poor but I was free, unencumbered by social dictates other than good manners, quietly gliding through life. The elation that accompanies a looseness of spirit is unequaled.

It took me twenty years of immense effort to become a socially accepted, highly respected and affluent medical engineer. It was never really an end goal, it was an experiment. Could I emerge from the limitations of an impoverished orphan with physical disabilities and mingle in the ivory towers of the rich and successful, and then leave it behind for a life of wilderness solitude.

A wilderness hermit isn’t suffering from a ‘Lock down’ or having to ‘practice’ social distancing.

Now I’m not implying that my past experiences were a planned exercise for the worldly events of today but they were the impetus to develop a simple minimalist lifestyle for 23 years that has placed me in an advantageous position.

This is the time to realize and accept the fallacy in governments and social infrastructures, to become aware of your inner self with its remarkable strengths, to appreciate loving companionship’s, to appreciate the beautiful calms in between storms of devastation, to abandon fear and embrace serendipitous happenstance like everything in nature does knowing that it’s a part of the great immensity.

The mystical winds are sweeping across the planet, I see it as a Grand Reclamation.

Fringe Dwellers

~ m.caimbeul ~ 16 Comments

As a rule you’ll never see them nor meet them. They aren’t among the homeless on the streets because they don’t interact with society or need to depend on it.

They live in the deep forests, jungles, mountains, remote deserts and other wilderness areas where people never go because those places are deemed inhospitable, and they are except for the fringe dwellers who’ve managed to survive where most others couldn’t. Paved roads, public utilities and services don’t exist nor are they needed or wanted. They have traded conventional living’s conveniences for time amongst nature, they are only governed by weather. No time restrictions, stress or difficult social interactions, they have merged with nature where they have become part of a mystical experience in being. Unlike Thoreau’s Walden pond they don’t do it for a year and then write a book. They quietly stay for 40 or 60 years or more because that’s what it takes to experience the magic that comes with surrendering to the mystical winds.

There are many reasons that contribute to such a lifestyle from wretched abuse, physical and mental inability to a simple desire to experience life alone absent of the restrictions that accompany the presence of others or societies dictates. There’s nothing wrong with enjoying a conventional life and there’s nothing wrong with being a fringe dweller the only thing that’s never made sense is the people living conventional lives and complaining rather than taking that first step into the unknown of change.

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Snakes can go anywhere they want.

Some of the animals above could kill you but always remember, they can sense your intentions. If you welcome them they’ll welcome you.

Commentary about hermits rest.

~ m.caimbeul ~ 25 Comments

Sometimes to see where you are you have to look back at where you’ve been. Don’t linger there, just take a quick glimpse, fill in any unaddressed hollows that could haunt you into the forevers.

Introspection while steeped in solitude is the best way I’ve found for unraveling the knots of self misconception.

In 1997 when I moved from the west coast of California to the high desert mountains of Arizona I traded seagulls and the ocean for ravens and the high desert sky.

I traded people and the city for the life of a recluse and the wilderness.

I spent 9 years in solitude.

It took 3 years of just sitting or aimlessly wandering the hills like an unteathered camel to wash away forty eight years of accumulations motivated by fear.

Almost half a century held captive by fear.

It took another three years to trade anger for compassion, sorry for joy and the intellect for intuition.

And another three years to end reification and set myself free from me.

Nine years facing the wall of introspective solitude.

Because I believe if you don’t take the time you forfeit the rhythm of simply being.

People have asked me how can you spend nine years in complete solitude.

The further out you go, the longer you stay and the longer you stay the less likely you are to find a reason to return.

Bender Wall Banger

~ m.caimbeul ~ 4 Comments

43 years ago when I was 25 and still a hippie artist, I lived in an old chicken coop that I converted with scrap wood and old windows into a 1200 square foot studio.

I painted in oils and carved stone.

Sometimes someone walks into your life and transforms you with one simple statement, Bender Wall Banger did just that.

As I’ve posted in the past I grew up on the streets without family, something that I now consider a gift that made me who I am. But back then I was uptight, depressed and angry, and most of my paintings reflected that mood. Dark colors, overly serious depressing subject matter. When people who had a normal middle class upbringing would comment on the dark colors and subject matter I ignored them, what did they know about life on the under belli of the beast.

Then I met Bender.

Bender had moved down from San Francisco to escape the tenderloin ghetto and try to clean-up her life in a Santa Cruz mountain cabin. She had lived on the streets since she was 13, she was an alcoholic, a junky and made her living as a hooker. A mutual friend (Diane) asked if I’d help her move.

When she came to my studio and looked at my paintings she asked why everything was so grim. I was floored. This ladies life had been even grimmer than mine, I couldn’t fall back on the old “What do you know about grim?” She forced me to see that while my life was currently very good I was stuck in the ghetto frame of mind. While I was standing in the light I hadn’t left the darkness.

The next day I built a 7 foot sculpture out of scrap wood. A colorful circus ring master with a big smile and his arms in the air. I put it by my front door and joined the circus of lightness.

My paintings became colorful humorous cartoons, in a mystical instant I left the grime behind.

A few months past and Diane stopped by and commented on the radical change in my work. I told her it was Bender’s questioning my grimness, if she could see the light there was no excuse for me not seeing it. I told Diane how Bender changed my life and would she tell her that I’d never forget it. She then informed me that Bender had shot and killed herself.

Sometimes you never get to verbally thank the people who have influenced you the most, but you can do it through actions. So I’m still painting colorful cartoons and every one of them says “Thanks, I’ll never forget you.”

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Bright Blessings Bender and may we Merry Meet again.

 

Spiritual humor.

~ m.caimbeul ~ 2 Comments

I’ve been absent from this site for a couple of days while setting up my other site where I enjoy doing doodles and spiritual humor. It’s so easy  to take our beliefs so serious that we lose sight of the value of humor.

I had a good friend many years ago who traveled to Indonesia to attend a four day spiritual retreat. The master had many profound things to teach but he spent a lot of time telling jokes. When questioned about this he replied that it was one of his teaching techniques. It’s impossible to laugh and think at the same time which clears the mind.

The great Zen master Seung Sahn said not to attach to ideas, throw them away. Ideas are created by thinking which takes us out of the moment and only the present moment is infinite time and space.

I’ve pondered that for years. When we think, we become the thought which insists on taking us along it’s narrow confines. We become the belief and behave accordingly.

Only the moment allows us to become madmen/women and go wherever we please and live like a lion, completely free from all fear.

Humor allows me to let go of the rudder and simply sail with the mystical winds that take us into the forever’s of infinite being.

Bright blessings,

mike and lori

Maximizing the minimal.

~ m.caimbeul ~ 8 Comments

I love simplicity. When I established Hermit’s Rest in ‘97 the lifestyle demanded simplicity and I embraced it. I even decided to find out just how simple simple could get, The Hindu holy men that sit naked in the temple alcoves with nothing but a mat, begging bowl and water cup are the practitioners of quintessential simplicity, however I’m not in India. Such behavior is frowned on here in the states so I had to compromise.

Simplicity is based on minimalism. I asked myself what do I really need to live a comfortable and sanitary life. For the first 17 years I lived alone with my Queensland Heeler ‘Gabbie’ who was perfectly content with a water bowl, food bowl and sleeping bench I made her, she was essentially a Hindu Siddha without the temple alcove.

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I also didn’t have much money because I gave my medical engineering practice in California to a colleague of mine and retired at 48. I decided having all the time in the world to spend was a richer and simpler life than having a stack of money to spend. I spent the first 22 years of my life dirt poor and didn’t become a successful engineer until I was 27. I went from being a hippie living in an old converted chicken coop with a yearly income of $720.00 dollars a year and a beat up ‘58 Ford pickup to a yuppie with a hillside home and Porsche. At the height of my silliness to overcome a life of poverty and try out social acceptance and success I wound up buying the restaurant where I had been the janitor 8 years before (the source of my hippie $720.00 a year income) and owning a Mercedes a BMW another restaurant and was working 120 hours a week. Two things saved me. One of my regular customers at the restaurant who was living in his VW bus asked me how much the Mercedes was costing me a month, I told him with payments, insurance, yearly registration and maintenance probably around $600.00 a month. He responded with “Hell Mike you only drive it to and from work. I’ll come pick you up and take you home for a hundred a month.” I bought him breakfast and he never had to pay for his coffee again, cheap price to pay for the wisdom of common sense. The other major influence was Paul Simons song, “Slip sliding away.” The lyrics “The closer you’re destination the more you slip slid away” hit the soul of my true self like a hammer. A year later I walked away from everything, bought an old motorhome and headed for the Arizona wilderness. My income dropped from $130,000 a year to $7,920 but my time account soared to unlimited heights and the elation experienced in freeing myself from all of the social trappings, along with returning to my true nature, made the adjustment easy.

When the only person you’re accountable to is your dog it leaves you with a lot of leeway in lifestyle choices.

I bought my property for a hundred dollars down and seventy-five dollars a month for eight years. The next step was to drive a hundred miles to the nearest city and trade the motorhome for a 1986 four wheel drive pickup with a six inch lift and 33” all terrain tires to navigate the unpaved roads. To replace the motorhome I bought an old twenty-four foot travel trailer, moved it on the property and covered it in concrete to keep it from falling apart as well as creating a trombe wall effect for passive solar heating and insulation. Three years later I saved up enough money to build an eighty square foot front room for reading, writing and whittling. I added large windows for the view which brings the outside in. The place may look a bit odd but it’s efficient, comfortable, easy to heat, keep cool and maintain. The total cost was $4,800. 


Three years ago I somehow managed to find a woman who found my company tolerable and this lifestyle had always been her dream. The post “Hide and watch” talks about how that remarkable event occurred. The house is 240 square feet that we find more than adequate.

Over the years and as I got older I allowed myself a few comforts. A composting toilet and I expanded the 65 watt solar system to 175 watts to run a laptop and small 12 volt refrigerator that’s about the size of a large ice chest. The place is still run off of just two 6 volt deep cycle golf cart batteries. Due to the open floor plan and it’s size our primary light source is a 4 watt LED ceiling fixture. We use an average of 350 watts of 12 volt electricity in 24 hours, that’s with the refrigerator, lighting, laptop and a 12 volt DVD player for a movie at night.

We have 2,300 gallons of water hauled  in once a year and stored in two large tanks. We’ve found if used conscientiously 6 gallons of water a day is adequate for drinking, cooking, bathing and the hand washing of clothes.

85 gallons of propane is delivered twice a year and in the winter it can average 20 degrees at night and 40 degrees during the day with the occasional below zero at night and 20 during the day. Once again the size of the place and simple passive solar heating help.

We don’t require much in the way of things other than basic supplies so we drive an average of 1,680 to 2,000 miles a year which allows us to spend time at home watching the wonderment of our natural surroundings and listening to the whispers of nature.

This lifestyle isn’t for everyone, and rightfully so, it has it’s challenges, and family obligations are a factor. I’ve posted this simply to show those who might feel trapped in a dead end life that what you get yourself into can always be backed out of and it doesn’t require much money. Simply a conviction that if you point your toes in the right direction all you have to do is start walking.

“When you live your dream you’ll find yourself dancing your joy in the stark moonlight casting an ever increasing shadow of being.”

Bright blessings and may we merry meet again,

Mike and Lori

Grow where you’ve been planted.

~ m.caimbeul ~ 2 Comments

“Destiny and fate fly in on the wings of mystery without the curtesy of an advanced notice.”

Our lives are like seeds scattered across the plains of existence carried by the mystical winds of ambiguity not the certainty we continuously grasp for. I think the delicate art of survival is about finding a belief that accommodates this reality as opposed to denying it.

The daisy pictured above didn’t say “Shit, stones. Why bother to bloom.” Instead it saw the earth below the stones. My life for the last 20 years of living in the wilderness has been dominated by nature and the wisdom I’ve gleaned from observing it without civilized distractions keeps me in a state of wonderment.

As a retired medical engineer I specialized in pediatric neural-muscular conditions. Over the years I had the pleasure to meet some very courageous human spirits who were born with or contracted serious conditions that left them trapped in uncooperative bodies and yet like the daisy they bloomed into remarkable human beings. To be able to make their lives more functional and comfortable was the greatest of gifts.

We are bombarded with a multiplicity of phenomena that’s never ending. I believe there are no definitive quantifiers or qualifiers to be found so I free myself from the looking because it removes me from our natural place in the oneness of participation.

Untying the knot of self delusion.

~ m.caimbeul ~ Leave a comment

I traded seagulls and the ocean for ravens and the high desert sky

I traded people and the city for the life of a recluse in the wilderness

It took three years of wandering in the hills of introspection to wash away a lifetime of fears

Almost half a century held captive by fear

It took another three years to trade anger for compassion, sorrow for joy and the intellect for the intuitive

And it took another three years to end reification and set myself free from me.

Nine years facing the wall of solitude.

Because I knew if I didn’t take the time I’d forfeit the rhythm in simply being.

Conditioned Mind; the disruptive house guest who won’t leave.

~ m.caimbeul ~ 2 Comments

I used to live my life confined by a conditioned mind and traveled in linear sequential time wreaking havoc with my preconceived convictions.

The impasse to joyous spiritual awakening.

The conditioned mind is an undisciplined mind narrowly fixed on its self generated thoughts hysterically racing you back and forth from one mundane thought to another.

It robs you of your vitality and renders your spirit into a hungry ghost frantically searching for what you already have but can no longer find or take solace  in.

Restore the original Celestrial mind with its open emptiness so when the demons of negative thoughts try and enter, it will be like thieves entering an empty house.