April 2010, in Some Walnut Shells

Spring storms blow in rough and wild but cannot quench my blistered feet blazing around the verdant trails. Wind and rain, flowers and sun, this tree huggin' soil worshipper zims that vernal edge singing the body electric, feeling real Walt Whitman up in here, Leaves Of Grass, up in here.

"Buddhas do not wash away ill deeds with water, Nor remove transmigrators' sufferings with their hands, Nor transfer their realization to others. Beings are freed through teachings of the truth, the nature of things. --Buddha

Swam Donner Lake at 9:00 AM 4/26/10 for ~1 minute. Yes, there was snow on the beach. Immersion in cold water is some crazy stuff. I do believe I liked it. Then I learned to snowboard; loved it.

Used to wait for my favorite pet wild freshwater crab sitting on the shore of San Francisquito Creek. I did not know one could find crabs in freshwater until she scuttled by my favorite creekside basking spot, little blue devil with her home under rock. I hope her descendants scuttle there still.

Kids' art takes me places people plumb forgot existed, and beyond. My son convinced me to roll down a steep grassy hill in Tilden Park with him, the one between the botanical garden and the Brazilian Room. Had completely forgotten how dizzy that can make a person, but now it's the freshest, way. Daughter did it too, of course - 1st time's free.

Son says "I wouldn't want to live in a little bitty world, and have a little bitty life, because then you would be born and die in like five minutes." Might be good enough for Alan Jackson, but we're looking for that step up.

"Surrealism is not a school of poetry but a movement of liberation, a way of rediscovering the language of innocence, a renewal of the primordial pact, poetry is the basic text, the foundation of the human order. Surrealism is revolutionary because it is a return to the beginning of all beginnings." --Octavio Paz

Chthonic. Look it up. Jung laughs with us while Faust and Faunus smile vacant past unthinkable dreams, or are those memories? Reflections of reflections through looking glasses and shattered knives.

"This life disappears only very quickly Like something written in water with a stick." - Buddha.

Found daughter trying to figure out the cover to Cheap Thrills by Big Brother and The Holding Company, yes the real album cover from 1967. First it brought back memories of myself trying to figure that art out, then I went ahead and actually looked at it. It has to the funniest album cover of all time. Long live R. Crumb. About Janis on the back my daughter said "She's happy."

"There ain't no money in poetry. That's what sets the poet free...cold dog soup and rainbow pie is all it takes me get me by." --Guy Clark Windy

Winter night, edge of Tomales Bay: no tent, old bag, let breeze in strong through zipper. tickling chill woke me every 20 -minutes - I laughed and thanked lucky stars for wil...d gifts, turned over to more ochre dreams.

Feeling inspired for more night hikes after last full moon traipse in the howling cold wind & pouring rain. Have finally realized, with a little help from a extraordinarily visionary friend, that we do not have to wait for any weather, moonphase, or water temperature to arrive.

"May we have the confidence of joy and delight When food and wealth accumulated with miserliness are left behind And we separate forever from cherished and longed-for friends, Going alone to a perilous situation." -The First Panchen Lama

Time Upon Time, Love Sings

Transitions sweet & bitter, still left with now and a thousand thoughts knocking at once. Back to loving gratitude, buzz of insects in the spring, wind in the trees. Purple flowers remind me of how wonderful life can feel, the depths of shared human experience, so good the smiles shine through the thickest of grays. Photos won't upload for now, hmmmmm

I Smell Spring

I smell spring stalking me through tall grass, flowers blooming on islands in the bay, spy hawks perched on crooked telephone poles. To hell with anxiety and tight chestedness, to love and mountain ranges with me, aloft with song and laughing. The world sits poised to open up to me with deep sincerity, and it brings tears of joy to my eyes.

White Lightning's Still the Biggest Thrill Around

This picture of Hurrican Wilma making risk-laden love to Puerto Rico back in October of 2005 remains one of my very favorites. Fall coconuts, fall, just don't fall on me.

This merry month of May it thrills me, riddles my muscles with pinball electricity, hurricane strength soul winds howling day & night, enough to drive a weaker mind mad. People tell me my facial expressions are often childlike, my friendship with danger juvenile, my fantasies adolescent, compliments that only goad me on. I have searched my whole life through, from infancy to Alzheimer's, and those giant stereo, rope swing into the lake, live on a boat fantasies keep coming back, wanting to dance past dawn. Fuddy dud fantasies, like living pain-free, can't hold a candle to good old storm-chasing, not for now anyway.

"Gone are the days when we stopped to decide
Where we should go, we just ride
Gone are the broken eyes we saw through in dreams
Gone, both dream and lie"

--excerpt from "Crazy Fingers" (Hunter/Garcia)

Heart of Spring

Topped 80 degrees in the wandering haze of West Oakland today. Spring has welcomed me into her heart of hearts. She dares me with fiery rays pouring out of her eyes to swim, swim, swim in the lakes and creeks. My vision goes blue, then gold, then clears to a Jackson Pollock depiction of myself walking along the rough asphalt path to the beach at Lake Temescal, the sound of ducks, people fishing on the opposite shore, gritty sand between my toes, that breeze off the bay rubbing me down, gentle now, not too cold, then plunge beneath the surface, off to swim with fishes.

This late April sunlight has me in the zone, singing to the stars, lighting candles at the feet of our wooden Buddha, ravenous for the bliss of deep meditation, whitewater roar of joy from a cave beneath a boulder right in the middle of the river, feeling love for even my enemies, don't ask me how, always hated those fuckers before.

Flower scents follow me for miles, play childhood games with me, tap me on the shoulder and then disappear, only to come back in 3 seconds to slap me with vague forgotten memories, make me want to cry and laugh and just lie there in the street like a old blind dog on a hot day, the fragrances know, have known me for years, tracked me across continents, genetic algorthyms for aromatic rings known as vernal spirits, ancestral floral allies from my grandmother's garden, microsopic fountains of youth that have come to show me the meaning of love, bless us with a hundred thousand more miracles, dole out reassurance that there're plenty more where those came from. The old story tells it that Jack from Jack and The Beanstalk had magic beans, but it turns out that that all them little seeds can wax magic if you work with them, fe fi fo fum.

This mood won't last forever, so I'm trying to make the most of it.

Vernal Visions

"If we keep a record of our dreams from day to day, we will soon learn to differentiate between those that are worthwhile and those that are not." --from Edgar Cayce's lecture on dreams, delivered January 18th, 1931

Dreams they haunt me plenty; waking, sleeping, childhood, dreams of old age, melted & tortured, boiled over and dried up, keeping me and mine awake with their rasping western death rattles sung in a round to layered drumming. Cayce speaks to my goal of sifting through the negative chattering chaff to glean the inspiration, and harvest the comfort. I have a few recurring dreams, but usually it's not the dream that recurrs, but the world in which that dream takes place. Sets of dreams take place with certain themes and associated qualities of light, some so blessed vivid or intensely emotional that I remember them better then my waking hours. Yes, a diary might help.

Spring has sprung yippee yo ky yay. While walking in the sun the earth below my feet became waxy and red, smelled delicious as I grokked that the world upon which I walked was my apple. I took a big juicy bite about the size of Asia, taking care not to bite where I walked, mmmmm that's good apple-world.

This waxing Aries moon has my canine side set on eternal vigilance. Earlier this evening it called me to it, out onto the dew covered deck in my bare feet, forced quick breaths, dilated pupils. The black Manx came trotting up, taking advantage of the open sliding glass door, followed by the bushy tailed Tuxedo cat. I did my best not to chase and taste them.

Little Gumba learns new words every day now, and crawls. Her favorite destinations are the dog water bowl in the kitchen and the cat food dispenser in the upstairs hallway.

Gumbo got two crowns for his Valentine's Day brawl bashed front teeth. I took him to the dentist. Mom and sister could have come along, but the boy insisted that just he and I go. On the way he asked me if I was scared. I said I wasn't, and asked him if he was scared. He said he was, so matter of factly it could have touched a heart of stone, but I just had a matter of fact talk about dentistry with him. It was all fine until they tried to get him to drink the oral sedation "juice". Turned out I had to hold his arms and legs while they clamped open his mouth and squirted syringe after syringe of the obviously vile tasting dope (demerol & verced) into his sputtering and screaming mouth. It was awful. He luckily made it through alive, and I got to hang out with the most innocently and unabashedly inebriated souls that ever lived. The kid stumbled around for hours, eyes aglaze, but we managed to avoid knocking the pricey new teeth out, or incurring any new pediatrician worthy injuries.