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	<title><![CDATA[Bamboo Bills essays on " Life and Fly Fishing "]]></title>
	<link>http://bamboobill.bravejournal.com</link>
	<ttl>30</ttl>
	<description><![CDATA[   Photo by Tina HenselSmall  By  Bamboo Bill                                                                          Most of us have followed the wrong Gods home at some time or another.  Reflection upon ones own mind can be paralyzing in as much as enlightening.  Freedom becomes something definable in the material sense of the word but indefinable when one couples the “mind” into the question.     Having spent most of this life wondering around inspecting the nuts and bolts of my own existence I have had to draw upon humanity as a frame of reference, namely the American society.  Spending a little time on bent knees in your own yard can be one hell of an adventure.      When ones ego grows rapidly and starts to displace the essence of God some pretty strange behavior can manifest.  The I begins to be Self Righteous and seeks to dominate the material world around it.  This fits nicely into the capitalistic engine that we all seem to fuel.  The word BIG becomes the operative word.  It has an entire family of words, such as Biggest, best, fastest, swiftest and so on.     What we don’t realize is that we, along with most of our neighbors tend to glorify all the Bigness of our life.  Yet as a society we are seemingly void of happiness.  The treadmill of having more, consuming more than another eats at our very souls like a slow cancer.  This treadmill provides for bigger government which cuts us deeper so the taxes can be extracted.  When you finally see the truth, you either jump into the fire and die happy with all those material possessions or you run to high ground. Once you reach high ground  your country, fellow man and big government define you as a misfit.       I had four karate studios that ran full time and I was known as one of the few karate instructors who turned their love for the martial arts into a vocation not just a hobby.  As time went along,  my ego grew and grew , daily I struggled magnificently to be caption Kirk of the Star Ship Enterprise, metaphorically speaking.  My body worked well and my mind seemed clear as a mountain stream in mid August.  All was well in my BIG life.     Then one day I left it all for reasons that are only clear to me now years later.  My ego had gotten to Big,   to heavy and therefore I knew I must cast off the material world that I had attached myself to.  I spent a few years working on bamboo rods living frugally sometimes on the edge of invisibility.  There  was a sense of  loneliness but at the same time a quite calm  entered my life.  I delt with the loneliness because I knew it was self imposed.   One is born into this life alone and certainly dies alone.        Years after my journey,  I met an old time friend and past student.   In conversation he said, “Bill you have a little life”.  Those words have never left me.  This friend of mine is a warrior and has fought many battles that successful self employed people always do.  I respect him for the man that he is for the total sacrifice for  his family.   His life has been hell the past few years and I won’t get into it.  He has the Big life that he fights to maintain everyday and I have a Little Life that is relatively simply to maintain.   But let me say now, the Small life is not easy,  the words simple and easy somehow don’t always equate in our throw away society that is laced with instant gratification.     Now I seek not the big fish, not the holly waters,  the big money, the big title, the big toys, the newest gadget or the big house.  I seek the small in almost everything I do.  I’m happier on this journey of being a pilgrim traveling along the road of life that society would define as a minimalist.  It is kind of like realizing that a Zen Koan has no true meaning other than it is a tool to get the Zen student to recognize the foolishness of involving the mind in activities that are meaningless.  For some of us once we figured this out we left the temple.     When I was thirty my body was fast, strong with the libido running high and my teeth were all there and white. Time went at a slower pace.  Today at 55 my teeth are leaving me at an increasing faster rate and time is traveling faster also. Interesting   comparison isn’t it.   Life is coming to an end like a stream meandering down through a valley always moving always descending. A blink of the eye and I will begin another journey.     The Small is found everywhere: the red wing Black Bird with its song at dusk, my dogs excitement for the wild nature around her as we walk along a stream, the cry of a mountain lion right before dawn, a trout’s wink before he takes my fly, a crescent moon that reminds me just to smile, a Golden  Eagle in flight, the sound of silence embedded in the deep woods, that feel of a plan in my hands, a gentle poem that I wrote so many years ago when read it touches my very own soul as if I read it for the very first time.  The small is found in the void of the big and the finger of God is there.     		]]></description>
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		<title><![CDATA[The September Gods Smiled Down Upon Me]]></title>
		<link>http://bamboobill.bravejournal.com/entry/25347/</link>
		<description><![CDATA[The September Gods Smiled Down Upon Me  By  Bamboo Bill          I was into a good fish,  a rainbow trout that had weight.  Shadow and I had just entered Zen Moments pool and...]]></description>
		<pubDate>Sun, 30 Sep 2007 04:14:12 +0000</pubDate>
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		<title><![CDATA[Brook Trout and the Aspens of September]]></title>
		<link>http://bamboobill.bravejournal.com/entry/25290/</link>
		<description><![CDATA[  Photo by Tina Huffman Brook Trout and Aspens of September  ByBamboo Bill              The fall equinox is only a few days away.  But I have  noticed that the lush green growth...]]></description>
		<pubDate>Wed, 26 Sep 2007 15:26:48 +0000</pubDate>
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		<title><![CDATA[Paradise Or was t Just Imagination]]></title>
		<link>http://bamboobill.bravejournal.com/entry/24642/</link>
		<description><![CDATA[Paradise Or Was It Just...]]></description>
		<pubDate>Thu, 23 Aug 2007 01:07:09 +0000</pubDate>
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		<title><![CDATA[Insearch Of Starlight Creek]]></title>
		<link>http://bamboobill.bravejournal.com/entry/24557/</link>
		<description><![CDATA[   In Search Of Starlight Creek  A work of Fiction – Another Rick Jason story   By  Bamboo Bill     It had been a hot August night and   Rick sat outside with one of his best...]]></description>
		<pubDate>Sat, 18 Aug 2007 00:36:34 +0000</pubDate>
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		<title><![CDATA[Hazel Creek]]></title>
		<link>http://bamboobill.bravejournal.com/entry/24556/</link>
		<description><![CDATA[Photo by John Trout   Hazel Creek and Old Scrapbooks  By  Bamboo Bill           Do you know what it feels like to witness nature in all its beauty and realize that if you...]]></description>
		<pubDate>Sat, 18 Aug 2007 00:30:59 +0000</pubDate>
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		<title><![CDATA[To Kill or not To Kill]]></title>
		<link>http://bamboobill.bravejournal.com/entry/24551/</link>
		<description><![CDATA[   Photo by Tina Huffman   To Kill or Not to Kill  By   Bamboo Bill        My mother sat me down one day and told me in no uncertain terms, “You are not poor” she said,...]]></description>
		<pubDate>Fri, 17 Aug 2007 22:22:55 +0000</pubDate>
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		<title><![CDATA["Where it begins I can't begin to know it"]]></title>
		<link>http://bamboobill.bravejournal.com/entry/24549/</link>
		<description><![CDATA[   Photo by Tina Huffman“Where it begins I can’t begin to know it”  Two Stories About Bamboo Fly Rods  By  Bamboo Bill        Bamboo rod makers know well where a rod...]]></description>
		<pubDate>Fri, 17 Aug 2007 22:07:52 +0000</pubDate>
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		<title><![CDATA[Those Little Creeks]]></title>
		<link>http://bamboobill.bravejournal.com/entry/24542/</link>
		<description><![CDATA[Those Little Creeks  By  Bamboo Bill            I love those little creeks with wild trout in them.  You may ask what does he mean by small creek.  That’s a fair enough...]]></description>
		<pubDate>Fri, 17 Aug 2007 14:19:21 +0000</pubDate>
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		<title><![CDATA[Bacon, eggs and back to Mr. Reliable]]></title>
		<link>http://bamboobill.bravejournal.com/entry/24541/</link>
		<description><![CDATA[   Bacon and Eggs and back to Mr. Reliable  By  Bamboo Bill     When it comes to morning time around a camp site there are two things that I really love. One is the smell of...]]></description>
		<pubDate>Fri, 17 Aug 2007 14:06:21 +0000</pubDate>
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		<title><![CDATA[Days with Grand Father "The Arrival"]]></title>
		<link>http://bamboobill.bravejournal.com/entry/24540/</link>
		<description><![CDATA[Days with Grand Father  The Arrival  By  Bamboo Bill     It was a hot Florida day and I being the ripe old age of 8 was waiting for the teacher to call on me to read my essay...]]></description>
		<pubDate>Fri, 17 Aug 2007 13:39:44 +0000</pubDate>
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