The OS behind the actions: How intentions can corrupt a growth path

I'd been finding a good balance here in Pensacola, between being productive at work, getting to the coffee shop and doing some writing, going to the gym, meditation and spiritual practice, gym, walks and other things.  It's made my days very full and fulfilling, I've moved into a place of connecting with my community instead of just escaping into fishing and withdrawal.

I'm moving from a place of loneliness and isolation into a place of integration and genuinely listening to and following my heart.  I've upgraded my wardrobe, my lifting, my writing and my overall life.

All of which brought me to yesterday morning.  I woke up early and decided to "just go" and fish Johnson Beach.  First problem, the road was closed, because I was too early.  Second, it was dark and setting up is a pain at that time.  Third, it was cold in the morning, in the fifties, and I never like fishing in that kind of weather.

And finally, I was tired.  My system was deeply fatigued.  Yes, the new experiences I've added have made my life here more rich, but I hadn't left myself any space to, well, space things out and allow my experiences to integrate.  It was not manic, but in that vein.

And eventually "following my heart" becomes "following the schedule." Natural increases in strength become "max out because that's what I do."  And eventually the body and system have enough.

The body has a way of telling me it's tired or strained.  One is the cortisol spike at 3am.  This isn't a "go with it" event, this is a "you're off track" event.  My system is stuck, either in inaction or unconscious action/reaction.

So here I was, on this beach, in the cold, finding myself not really appreciating the beauty around me, but very much in my head and trying to ignore my body, which was telling me it was tired, cold and sore.  But hey, the glasses and hat are a nice new look.

I managed to catch a couple decent fish, it wasn't a bust, but I just wasn't feeling the experience.  I brought Orion stones and the meditations felt forced.  Everything felt out of place. 

As I was bringing in my lines to go home, one of my poles started bending - a strong but gentle bend.  I thought I had seaweed, but it was sort of moving, very gently.  I kept nudging it in and noticed a sea turtle had become caught in my line.

I kept nudging this gentle creature to the shoreline, worried my line would break or the creature would get scared and struggle and I'd have a stalemate on my hands. Instead, as the turtle got to the shorebreak, she turned herself and extracted herself from the line, leaving my rig and line (and her) intact, and off she went.  

It was a beautiful experience.  Yes, I felt anxiety and concern for the turtle.  I also felt uncertainty.  But I followed my higher instinct and the turtle's movement until we were able to disentangle.  

This was a sign - both that I'd allowed my higher self to get snared by an abusive pattern (which led to my fatigue and presence on the beach in the first place), and how to disentangle.

The turtle is aligned with my higher self - slow, gentle, it rides the currents, it doesn't fight them.  It doesn't overreact with fear, it trusts the process and conserves its energy to act when appropriate.  It carries an innate wisdom that lives in the moment without being owned by it.

And it was that slow, gentle, wise self that got me out of that situation, that saw me off the beach, that came home and went back to sleep until I had my baseline energy back.  This is the pace of my higher self, it is slow, it rides the current.  It is gentle and wise and not governed by fear or reactive patterns.  It is the living embodiment of heart's desire.

And yet this can get snared.  Habit, emotional drain, fatigue, anxiety, these can cause the higher self to get hijacked until a good heart-centered stack becomes another to-do list for the ego and the same things that elevated me now drain me.

The heart has many desires, many new experiences it wants to enjoy.  And yet, a wise higher self knows to follow the current.  There is a time for action, a time for courage, a time for "doing," but stay in the current, move with it, glide, nudge.  The old turtle didn't get there by darting to and fro, or going as fast as it could.  

And that's the wisdom coming through from my higher self: slow down, find the flow and ride it, nudge, don't force.  And know your loyalty is to your higher self, not the individual items on your wish/to-do list. 

 

Pensacola Beach Sunset

The surf fishing on Sunday wasn't anything to write home about.  Nothing but June grass, not a single bite.  But the beach is beautiful and the sunset energy is amazing.

This is my home. I've spent a lot of money and effort to make it my home, and sometimes it feels like it's a waste or going nowhere.  But when I'm out here in my element, it makes sense.  Every time I come out I have to spend some time on the beach, no matter how the time of year or quality of fishing.  I need this energy.

And I need the Pensacola side.  Perdido Key is nice and good for fishing, but the water is murky and it lacks that emerald shine of the Pensacola side.  

Growing up in Southern California, it's taking me some time to get used to south-facing beaches.  Whether it's on the beach or on the kayak (and it's usually on the kayak), the sunsets are extraordinary.  The clean energy, the way the clouds shade the sun with gorgeous red, pink and orange hues, the nature all around, it's a special feeling.

This is my base, the foundation for my energy work and creative flow.  I bring this back with me to California until I can fully move out here and completely meld into this environment.

I have a gym here now - World Gym.  I love it.  It's a lot more laid-back than the UFC in Torrance, which is kind of a madhouse and way too loud, but a good place to lift.  I have a couple coffee shops I like, some areas I like to walk.  Fishing is no longer the foundation, it's something I do, along with other things and the days flow quickly and smoothly.

And this is the source of my current creative and energetic evolution.  The new novels, the emergence of Kaelen'Zur, the personal evolution, all sprung forth from here.  Which really is to say it sprung forth from my heart, my true center, because I chose this.  All of this. 

I finally, fully feel like my true self.  I am home.

Fishing is My Church

 I just got back from a nearly two-week Florida vacation with my youngest son - lots of fishing, a great bonding experience.  I go there a lot now, and I fish there a lot.  It's become my spiritual sanctuary, the place where I do my best spiritual work, find the deepest connection to God and discover the deepest insights.  

Some of this is because it's my home - I have a house here, that I've talked about before.  Some is because, even when I'm working here (this is my first vacation here in over a year), I'm much more relaxed and available for spiritual practice.  And for a while I thought the fishing was a distraction, but it isn't.  Fishing is an integral part of this spiritual practice, it is the pathway to my spiritual practice. 

When I was a little kid and first getting good at fishing, my dad would say that this was when I was fully myself, where I'd let go of whatever stress, fears or negative thoughts that were getting in the way and fully be myself.  Much later in life I learned to cultivate a connection to my spiritual core through meditative practice and breathwork, and I found it felt similar.  

Consciously combining the two energies elevates my vibration and spiritual connection to the highest levels.  I can accomplish this without fishing, but with fishing it's effortless.  It's where I find presence, peace and a connection to the source of life.  It connects me to a primal, ancestral energy that is deep and profound and reminds me that life does not begin or end in this lifetime and this life is a small piece of an infinite timeline and we are each a small but essential piece of the universal energy, God energy.

If you look at the picture you can see very strong crown chakra energy in both of us and I'm fully grounded and present.  In this moment I'm not consciously practicing spirituality, but I'm living in it, I'm in my "church." 

In my Florida home, fishing is a critical part of my meditative practice.  I meditate and pray for a fruitful fishing experience, ask for guidance on when and where, fillet fish as a meditative practice, and bring the feelings and experience back into my nightly meditation and prayer.  

Fish are a key part of the Buddhist spiritual practice, and a key part of my altar spaces. I have carefully-chosen fish statues, carefully placed on each altar space.  I require regular presence with water - lakes, streams and especially the ocean - for spiritual cleansing and renewal. Water itself is a critical part of Buddhism and my spiritual practice.  Fish are a critical element of the New Testament and a symbol of Christ.  

It took me a while to fully realize the deep personal spiritual importance of fishing.  It's more than something I do or a hobby, it is a part of me.  It's my gateway to God and to my own path.

Empty House Vision Revisited

I was thinking again about that "empty house" vision I posted about in 2019.  Thinking about all the changes that happened in my life between then and now, and how that vision, and my relationship to it, has changed.

And as I thought about it, I also thought about Bob Dylan.  Because he is one of my favorite musicians.  He was very influential when I was in high school, inspiring me to write poetry and try my hand at writing novels.  Recently I rediscovered my love for his music and the impact of "Highway 61 Revisited," which brings me back to here.  

This is my house.  The backside.  In a once-in-a-lifetime snowstorm.  It's often unoccupied.  The rest of the time it's just me.  And it's not empty.

 

This was my house in Thailand.  Put every penny I had into it at the time, and then some.  It's now always occupied and not mine anymore.

A house has been a critical part of my evolution pretty much since I got out of college.  Bought a house right away with my first wife and after the divorce I made sure she could keep it so our son would have a stable place to grow up.  It served its purpose - he's grown up to be a great young man and a father of his own.  That house was always a piece of crap - old, busted, terrible area - but I loved owning a home and making it a home and missed it when I left.  

For years I tried to find myself in various ways, and had some successes and setbacks.  I found a spiritual home in Thailand as I was evolving in my spiritual journey.  I ended up paying to have a house built in an area my wife wanted (which I wouldn't have built there if I knew then what I know now).  It's a nice house - simple but beautiful, a really good house.  The only problem is, while Thailand might be my spiritual home, I realized at some point I would never live there.  Her family ended up moving in and retiring there and it's worked out well for them.  So what I thought was my spiritual and "forever" home was a (VERY expensive) stepping stone for me and a home for a really nice family that's had to suffer a lot through their lives and deserves happiness in their later years.  

It was around that time when I wrote about the "empty house" vision.  You see, while I'd been creating homes for others, this was a period in my life when, once again, I had no home.  I knew California certainly wasn't my home and had grown to resent it.  Thailand wasn't my home.  And as much as I tried to "have a home" in each area, the universe drew me in another direction.

Sometimes the interpretation is too obvious to consider.  I really needed a home.  A man needs a house of his own.  And I'd being giving away, well, pieces of myself, to others.  Acts of love but also acts of neglect toward myself. They were fulfilled, I was empty.

I started exploring Florida in 2021-22 and at the end of 22 bought a house in Pensacola, Florida.  My plan was to use this as a toehold in Florida, rent it out and figure out later what to do with the equity when the time was right.

And in this case, the universe again pushed me in a different direction, first by hooking me into the Florida lifestyle and then by "blessing" me with shitty, unreliable tenants who completely trashed the beautiful little house and then left without paying their rent.

So, out of love for the house, the area and lifestyle and frustration with being a landlord, I decided to take the house back to live in, even if only a little bit.  I took the house back for me.  

And that decision turned out to be magical. 

The first thing I did when starting to furnish the place was to create a meditative/spiritual space.  But I've grown to discover that every aspect of the house, and my experiences there, has had a huge spiritual impact on me.

Yes, I've been going there alone, for the most part.  Sometimes I'd bring my son and we'd share vacation time.  The rest of the time it's just me.  But I had a home now.  And it feels like home.  It's cathartic, it's grounding, it's inspirational and fulfilling.  Filling.  Yes, that "empty house" is being filled, with every jet-lagged trip, with more and more experiences, energy and revelations.  And furniture and art and stuff.

It's like the soil where I can take root and grow.  And I didn't even really know how much I needed this.  Some people love a nomadic life.  I need a castle.  Even if that castle is a three-bedroom house in Pensacola.  Maybe especially so. And I've made it into my castle.

And much like the king, I don't spend much time in it.  But it's there.  And because it's there and I do return, I'm starting to find myself growing into the kind of man who can command a castle.  I'm challenging myself to grow and deepen.  I'm rediscovering practices I'd put aside that now "stick," perhaps because the practices are no longer theoretical, they're tangible.

When I wrote about the "empty house," I asked myself how can I create something out of emptiness?  The answer is so simple, you bring an intention into that emptiness.  You speak the word and the universe begins creating that thing, sometimes at cross purposes with your "plans."

I literally created three homes out of nothing - NOTHING.  I was basically broke when we bought the first house, and it saw a life come into this world, grow up, and create life of his own.  I created a house in Thailand out of nothing - again I was broke.  I created this house in Pensacola basically out of an intention to live in Florida.  And then the intention materialized when I thought I "wasn't ready."

And I still lie awake in bed (not so much these days, but up until early 2025), worrying about how I'm going to make this work, that I'm going broke on this "pipe dream," paying rent and a mortgage, flying out all the time.  And yet, somehow, it's not just working - I'm flourishing.  All those lessons I tried to learn that felt so hard years ago, that I "gave up," are coming online, almost like they were always there and I just needed to be in a place to accept them.  

Suddenly I wake up and realize, I'm not just fishing and escaping reality.  I'm fucking BUILDING a reality, for the first time in YEARS I have a reality.  Maybe a fishing rod is my magic wand and I just couldn't accept that something I truly enjoy for myself could actually be the foundation of my evolutionary work.  That limiting belief that "fishing is just a hobby" or "fishing is an escape" or "fishing isn't sexy" is just, well, someone else's bullshit and not mine.  

Fishing is an integral part of me.  Even filleting fish is a spiritual practice for me - I used to say meditative, but it's even more primal than that.  It's a connection to the source and cycle of life, where my soul's essence connects with the earth's life essence.  I connect with the sun, I connect with the wind, I connect with the water, I connect with life, and my soul connects with it all.  

That is powerful, sexy shit.  

I always wondered why some women would look at me "that way" when I'm sunburnt, hands covered in fish and bait slime, dirty, tired, hauling my kayak or surf cart back to the car, or why my wife likes that I fish.  Maybe they're sensing that deeper energy running through me, that I hadn't even been aware is there.

When I was a kid, I remember my dad saying how much he loved watching me fish or coming back from a day fishing.  He said that's when I was my real self.  I think... yeah.  That's right.

And so, my life is filling up.  My "house," and actual house, is filling up.  And the emptiness is gone.  And I'm consciously figuring out how to create "something out of nothing."  And I've been doing it pretty much my whole life.