Shul

Shul in Tibetan is defined as "an impression: a mark that remains after that which made it has passed by; a footprint, for example. Shul is used to describe the scarred hollow in the ground where a house once stood, the channel worn through rock where a river runs in flood, the indentation in the grass where an animal slept last night, the torn ruins of a lost civilization. All these are shul: the impression of something that used to be there."

There's this place I go to fish, go to get away from it all that always brings this word to mind. It's a lake made from an old rock quarry. Set in a beautiful but desolate setting, the lake seems natural, like it has always been there, part of the landscape. Like the way Machu Picchu or an old lighthouse becomes the landscape in the way a metal pole barn or a cell tower can never be. The "impression" of the old quarry, just a big empty place a mile from the road.



The same word Shul in Yiddish means temple and for me this also fits. A temple in the way John Muir saw nature as a temple. John Muir said the clearest way into the universe is through a forest wilderness. Among the dark pines on the hill overlooking the lake I am far more likely to set for a bit and ponder whether or not I've lived a good life than I've ever been prone to do in a man made church. I'm also just as likely, here away from distraction, to spend an hour trying lure after lure trying to unlock the secrets to the lakes fishing. But maybe thats right too, in the way zen teaches us how we can learn to live our lives well by paying real full attention to each task we do, to Live each momment in the now. Or maybe I'm just an old sentimental fool trying to find meaning in a pretty place just because I love it.

The secret this last trip lay with a rebel minnow plug. The first three casts netted three fish. On the first cast a fish struck and I said aloud to myself, "Well, there's one", and then "well, there's two" and so found myself doing something I allmost never do, which is count how many fish I caught. This place has always been generous with fish and I knew I caught alot here. But I try to make a pointed effort to not count. How is catching eleven fish less somehow than catching twelve? The image of tournament bass fishing as shown on TV has always been distasteful to me, and I found a fascination in just how caught up in the numbers I became as the mornings fishing went on. It wasn't just a bass, it was number twenty two or twenty six instead of the fish that so hit so hard by the log or the bass that jumped twice. Later someone asked me how I did and I said "I caught Thirty One" and realised I'd learned a lesson, that obsessing on numbers, how many, how big, can take something away from a trip, at least for me. I'd taken my place of refuge, my "shul" and turned it into something else. Something less than wind in treetops, less the play of morning light on the water, less than the excitement of the strike or the shrill cry of a hawk overhead. But I'd come and found out something about myself and why I fish, why I like it here so much where I'm almost always alone, fishing with just the sky and the pines as witness.