CURRENT MISSION

To be healthy and compassionate. To listen. To appreciate my surroundings. To spend time with nature. To practice mindfulness.

ABOUT ME

I'm a Canadian currently living in Victoria, BC and studying to become an RMT.

PHILOSOPHY

This land like a mirror turns you inward
And you become a forest in a furtive lake;
The dark pines of your mind reach downward,
You dream in the green of your time,
Your memory is a row of sinking pines.

Explorer, you tell yourself, this is not what you came for
Although it is good here, and green;
You had meant to move with a kind of largeness,
You had planned a heavy grace, an anguished dream.

But the dark pines of your mind dip deeper
And you are sinking, sinking, sleeper
In an elementary world;
There is something down there and you want it told.

- Dark Pines Under Water, Gwendolyn MacEwen

Now the summer is passed,
it might never have been;
It is warm in the sun,
but it isn't enough;

All that I could attain,
like a five-fingered leaf,
fell straight into my hand,
but it isn't enough;

Neither evil nor good
has yet vanished in vain;
It all burned and was light,
but it isn't enough;

Life has been like a shield
and has offered protection;
I have been very lucky,
but it isn't enough;

The leaves were not burned,
the boughs were not broken;
The day shines like glass,
but it isn't enough.

- Stalker, Stalker

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

- The Guest House, Rumi

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

The Peace of Wild Things, Wendell Berry

I think over again my small adventures,
...My fears,
Those small ones that seemed so big.
For all the vital things I had to get and to reach.
And yet there is only one great thing,
The only thing.

To live to see...the great day that dawns
And the light that fills the world.

- Inuit Song

Ah to be alive
on a mid-September morn
fording a stream
barefoot, pants rolled up,
holding boots, pack on,
sunshine, ice in the shallows,
northern rockies.

Rustle and shimmer of icy creek waters
stones turn underfoot, small and hard as toes
cold nose dripping
singing inside
creek music, heart music,
smell of sun on gravel.

I pledge allegiance

I pledge allegiance to the soil
of Turtle Island,

and to the beings who thereon dwell

one ecosystem

in diversity
under the sun
With joyful interpenetration for all.

- For All, Gary Snyder

The human body, at peace with itself,
Is more precious than the rarest gem.
Cherish your body - it is yours this time only.
The human form is won with difficulty,
It is easy to lose.
All worldly things are brief,
Like lightning in the sky;
This life you must know
As the tiny splash of a raindrop;
A thing of beauty that disappears
Even as it comes into being.
Therefore set your goal;
Make use of every day and night
To achieve it.

- Tsongkhapa

I am not I.
I am this one
Walking beside me whom I do not see,
Whom at times I manage to visit,
And whom at other times I forget;
Who remains calm and silent while I talk,
And forgives, gently, when I hate,
Who walks where I am not,
Who will remain standing when I die.

- Light and Shadows, Juan Ramón Jiménez

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

- Wild Geese, Mary Oliver

I see a vision of a great rucksack revolution thousands or even millions of young Americans wandering around with rucksacks, going up to mountains to pray, making children laugh and old men glad, making young girls happy and old girls happier, all of ’em Zen Lunatics who go about writing poems that happen to appear in their heads for no reason and also by being kind and also by strange unexpected acts keep giving visions of eternal freedom to everybody and to all living creatures...

- The Dharma Bums, Jack Kerouac

Let us live
Among the white clouds and scarlet woodlands,
Singing together
Songs of the Great Peace.

- Zen Notes, Teiwa shu

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

To host traveller; to find hosts if I go travelling

Interests

Tetris

Music, Movies, and Books

2021
The Living - Annie Dillard
The Doors of Perception - Aldous Huxley
King Leopold's Ghost - Adam Hochschild

2020
Seeing that Frees - Rob Burbea
The King of Elfland's Daughter - Lord Dunsany
The Way of Zen - Alan Watts
The Lost Language of Plants - Stephen Harrod Buhner
The Spell of the Sensuous - David Abram
Job's Body - Deane Juhan

2019
The Courage to be Disliked - Fumitake Koga and Ichiro Kishimi
The Abundance of Less - Andy Couturier
Desert Notes/River Notes - Barry Lopez
The Courage to Be - Paul Tillich
The Denial of Death - Ernest Becker
Sex at Dawn - Christopher Ryan, Cacilda Jethá
Wandering God - Morris Berman
Coming to Our Senses - Morris Berman
The Reenchantment of the World - Morris Berman
Horizon - Barry Lopez

2018
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek - Annie Dillard
Sapiens/Homo Deus - Yuval Noah Harari
Of Wolves and Men - Barry Lopez

2017
The Ascent of Humanity - Charles Eisenstein
The Once and Future World - JB Mackinnon

2015
The Power of Myth - Joseph Campbell

2014
East of Eden - John Steinbeck
Arctic Dreams - Barry Lopez

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Made it through a rough time in my life.

Teach, Learn, Share

Also a host at:
https://www.warmshowers.org/users/joe.campbell

Written about my travels at:
https://goflowjoe.wordpress.com/

What I Can Share with Hosts

I am a massage therapist in training, so if you are willing and comfortable, and if I have the time, I would be glad to give you a massage. I have a table and all the necessary accoutrements. It is certainly not compulsory, but please consider the idea if you request to stay with me.

Countries I’ve Visited

Canada, Japan, New Zealand, Philippines, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Pierre and Miquelon, Taiwan, United States

Countries I’ve Lived In

Canada, South Korea