The BlackBird

There was once a black bird. He was a handsome bird. Strong and brave. Life for the Blackbird was lacking. Something missing. One day he encountered a red bird. A lovely bird as well. The Redbird would sing so well. It danced around looking for food and mating in ways the Blackbird could only dream about. The Blackbird made study of the Redbird. He learnt their songs. He practiced thier ways, and learned their stories. The Blackbird dressed himself up as a Redbird and went out into the world as a Redbird. All the birds knew him to be a redbird. Presenting himself in that way the blackbird became a redbird in all aspects of his life and being. But in time in little ways his deception lead to trouble. The blackbird became quick to anger. He had constructed lies about his heritage and his life. Those lies which set him free to become the Redbird began to ensnare him and tangle his wings. His life as a redbird became hard. What was once easy and set him free has begun to imprison the blackbird. His true nature would show through, and not even his true nature but the worst parts of himself it seemed. Everyone could now see through his lies and his deception. Exposed he went away in shame.
Strange thing is that had the blackbird learned the ways and the songs and the being of the redbird and presented himself as a blackbird the redbirds would have welcomed him just as well.

WhirlWind Dreamer

Born long ago in the romanticized world of idylic peace and prosperity where no worries would come as everything was abundant and life was full. Born was little rabbit Whirlwind Dreamer. Moving all the time, rushing about like his namesake the whirlwind...

Setting forth on a dawning day

Darkness fades for a moment and bright white light fills the room. Jerking around with legs akimbo and arms stretching for the clock, brighter light fills the eyes, squint and focus sharp, it is 5:38. Drop the thin metallic phone which serves as alarm clock and watcher of sleep. I suppose I should name her one of these days. Something that attached that extension needs a name. But what do you call a phone. Was it Persephone, the Greek goddess of something?

Roll over a few more minutes. Darkness rises again. Hard buzz now of a clock made in China. The instructions read like a poor translation of the karma sutra and setting it was troubling. There appears to be no way to turn off the alarm so every morning (Saturday and Sunday too) that thing goes off at 6:03. It is not blaring but loud enough to stir one to push the button on the back of the device to silence the bleating. 6:07 just a eyes close and the head drifts the alarm of the now Persephone goes off. A melodic tune to be sure but hardly worth the waking. Tragic too is there is no snooze on either device. Second shot on getting up to that phone, past there and we are one our own. Now, Maggie will holler if she sees no stirring on my end of the house. As I will turn on the living room lights to be sure she has awaken from her slumber on those dark mornings.

Shower. The bed is high. Almost too high. You know a high bed is one where standing it would be easy to take a lover while she is lying down. This bed is just a bit too high. Not that I would know by experience but… So rolling out of bed the floor is a longer drop then ever expected with a mind still fuzzy from sleep. Dim hallway, two steps to a sliding red door. I keep the doors closed because of the little dog, Shelby. I am afraid she will come in and poo in the night. The bathroom is small. Well lit with just two bulbs. I take off my bed clothes, turn on the shower to hot. The shower takes a long time for the hot water to go through the propane fired heater across the house and out the head. Time enough to tinkle, at this time of the morning too I must sit to pee because my balance is too sleep filled.

The shower stall is tiny. I step in and draw the curtain. A bit of water always sprays out when I open the curtain. A brown mat of the floor soaks up the misdirected waters. There is room only to turn around. Usually hitting the temperature control handle when turning the water turns cold for a moment. Warmth upon my thighs, then back, then shoulders, then head as I step under the flow of the water. A bottle of MOP – modern organic products Lemongrass shampoo is on the floor of the shower. Bending over with a slight twist, so as not the turn the water to cold again I grasp the small rectangle bottle, click as the lid flips up. A small amount of shampoo into the palm and soap up the hair. With an extra minute of time fingers rub the shampoo through the hair a little longer fingernails stroke the scalp. Rinse. Then the MOP matching conditioner. This is the time for forget about the faucet handle and a chilly blast of water spills over my right shoulder. Apply the conditioner and a green and blue plastic scrubby thing gets covered in “Kiss My Face Peaceful Patchouli” body wash. The green side is slightly courser than the blue and the drizzle of the liquid soap spans the line between the colors. Scrub all over, this thing feels really good against the flesh. Rough, it wakens the senses. The smell of the patchouli in the hot water permeates the olfactory and heady dreams of hippy chicks return. Rinse.

Stepping out of the shower into the frigid by comparison seventy degree air is liberating. The towel hanging on a white hook with a bird on top of it on the wall. Wrap this long towel around the shoulders and another green smaller towel around the waist. Green towels for the waist. Other color towels for the body. Any other colors? The greenest to the waist, browns next. Keep this pattern for no discernible reason. I am really not OCD. Really.

Harold Crick. When I think of brushing my teeth I now think of Harold Crick. But first…

Bill Tre

Moments in time. Snapshots from the past. Memories barely remembered. And so it is.
Objects come and go in our lives. What do they mean? What are they except guideposts?
Born of experience.

I have spoken to you of Bill Tre.

Bill Tre is in prison. He shot a man in Reno just to watch him die...no that is that Johnny Cash song. Bill knocked over a convience store. He got in a fight with an officer. And he robbed a pizza man. One, two, three strikes.
Bill Tre got a car from his father. It was a blue old thing. It had a Jesus sticker on the bumper. Gary said keep that sticker on there so you will remember wherefrom the gift did come.
Bill Tre had some tattoos. "You know they say the body is a temple. If that is so my tattoos are the stained glass."
Bill Tre would walk. With each step he would say the Senerity Prayer. God, Grant me, The Serenity, to accept, the things, I can not, change, the courage, to change, the things, I can, and the, wisdom, to know, the difference.
Bill Tre would sing, pray, live with full force.
I visited him once in prison. He was locked in solitary.
He started taking classes in prison.
Good man.

Dead Center

I have spoken to you of the dead center.

Perhaps something is put into motion long ago. There is an understanding of that thing at that time and it is considered on occasion. Then that thing returns to us with new understandings and new meanings.

I was out in the country one day. I had gone out to pray and some friends came by to pick me up and return me to the house. I was in the passenger seat. Judy was driving the brown truck. Dave Brush was in the truck bed. Judy Judy was driving at a decent clip for a washed out dirt road. All of the sudden the truck came to a halting stop. The front wheels had come off the road and slide down into a rut. High Center. Everyone in the cab seemed okay. Dave flew forward and hit the cab of the truck dislocating his shoulder. We walked back to the house and sent out a crew after lunch to retrieve the truck. Common occurrence it is in the country to hit high center. One of the many reasons I carry a handyman jack in the back of the truck.

Sitting at breakfast this summer. Bacon, eggs, toast. Delicious. Eggs cooked in the fat of the bacon. Bread soaking up the grease. Plenty of Tabasco. Pine trees also scent the warm morning air. It was a summer of revelation and awakening. Little pieces coming together to paint a picture of life. Things unseen coming out of the shadows and clarity of focus upon those items dulled by constant recognition. Leaves shimmer with a new life of the spirit.

Carl said something about being on dead center. I know what happens to a truck on dead center it stops forward movement. Coming to that place is not bad. Philosophically, I thought that the center was the goal. The middle road. I found the middle road and walked it well. Letting loose of the highs and lows. No emotion. No fear. No questions. No movement. Just centered, right there. The goal. Centered. Seeing now, the center is good but it too requires movement. It requires having emotion and living life. It is a peaceful place but that center I found led me to high center. Dead Center. Right there in the middle but dead. So how to come about being centered, being in the middle but alive? Go through the emotions. Surf the waves of the high and the low. Embrace life and all the offerings. Venture out to the four corners but return to that place of comfort in the middle ready again to move.

Honor Society

I have spoken to you of honor society.

In eighth grade I made Honor Society. I had grades decent enough to earn me this honor. I suppose it was a 4.0 grade point average.

There was going to be a ceremony for those who made it to honor society. I told my mother I did not want to attend but she insisted. I spoke with my school counselor and asked to be excused from the ceremony. She insisted that I attend.

I went to the ceremony. It was in the gym at the school. We were all gathered together. I don’t remember the details.

I never made grades good enough to make it into honor society again.

Today, I am making the Honor Society assembly program. I have to make it every year since I know how to layout Microsoft word in three columns. Irony?

I was working on another story today about waiting. It turned into a pity party so I may/may not return to that one.

Philo

I have spoken to you of Philo.

The first summer of Sundance. I was alone in the truck. Summer free. Sundance had come to its completion and adventure was at hand. My brother let me use his pickup. It was brown. A great truck really. I think it finally died last year. I left out of Mission sometime in July. Heading west across the plains and spiritual places of the Siouan speaking tribes. Close Encounters does no justice to Devils Tower.

Driving on to Seattle. There I met up with an old lover. Time had made the relationship grow apart as with the distance of half a continent. They say to not make a change in the first year of sobriety. I had met her the first week of being clean and it filled a place inside left empty. A year later now and the damage done. Really, I seemed to be a much worse person sober then drunk. The alcohol and drugs served as a buffer on my thinking and actions. Without that blanket of fog in my mind and without the tools of a spiritual life my first year in was destructive to others and to the self.

I grab the ferry to Lopez Island. Stephen White is living in a tree house on the island. I do not know where it is really. I drive and drive. Hitting all the sights on this little place, reminiscent of a small cape town. I picked up a hitchhiker going to the communal house on the island. A place that looked tempting to get lost for a while. There was a beautiful summer camp there, on a small inlet. Teepees lined the shore and artwork hung on the walls of the longhouse. There was an AA meeting in a small white church or community building. Three or four old guys were gathered. Talking about what I don’t remember but kind in letting a strange traveler join them for an hour. I had posted a note at the service station on the far side of the island and the next day Stephen had answered with directions to his tree house.

When I arrived there it was in need of some repair. Stephen had taken to Tequila by this time and was hitting a half empty bottle pretty hard. Never having known him to drink before, his mood was ill and his astute control of the universe somewhat shaky. He dried out over the next couple of days as we patched holes in the floor and roof of this abode. We set out for Seattle again and said goodbye to that city for what would be twelve more years.

I would be heading back to Oklahoma to start fall classes and the White Man was heading back to the Cape or Guatemala or South Carolina or New Orleans or Hawaii or somewhere in-between. I would get him to somewhere along the way. Highway 101 down the coast and my nerves were nearly shot. Close proximity with this dude and no substances to take the edge off was nearly to much for me. I had known Stephen Temple when I was deep into the sacrament of ganja and the elusive effects of psychotropics. With a mind barely a year above the haze I was still most difficult to interact with (the past use of was is not appropriate, am).

We cruised down the coast. California, the golden shore. Remember events and times and small glimpses of that journey. Sleeping in the truck under bridges, Stephen in the bed and I in the cab; police waking us early one morning.

Through the redwood forests. Black birds shimmery blue. Trees too large for the land around them.

Over hills and the coast.

Philo, between Ft. Bragg and San Francisco. A non descript town. Up a mountain. Around a dirt road. Through a broken gate. The home of the commune of Spinners. This place is strange. A setting of what a commune of hippy kids following a spiritual path should be. A stereotypical place. A large building for gathering and eating and working. Smaller buildings with segregated sleep quarters. A smallish temple for prayer. The Spinners took a myriad of beliefs and infused them together. A basis of Krishna and Sufism, guided by the lyrics and music of the Grateful Dead, and partaking in the sacrament of the Rastafarians.

Joseph led the Spinners and gave them a place to be. Something to believe in. Purpose. They made clothing to sell. They kept a garden. They sang, danced, chanted, prayed, and dined together in relative harmony. They would travel around the country side and get things unwanted and unneeded; being castoffs of society they created everything from the castoffs of society. They came to this piece of land somehow and developed it and it fit their lifestyle and philosophy.

Morning prayer was always a delight. Gathering in the temple and chanting and drums and dancing. Praise. Jia Jia, Hare Hare, Jia Jia Hare Hare, hare Hare St. Francisco, Jai jai, Hare hare. I did not partake in the sacrament any longer and that did not seem to be a problem. I left them a copy of the big book for their fairly extensive library of spiritual books. They were interested in sweating and the Lakota rituals from which I had just returned. I did not feel like an outsider being with them. They were open and accepting. They would have been a great group to study on communal/spiritual living in the early 1990’s.

A hill. Someone had driven a bus off the road and down this hill. Wedged it into a tree. It was an odd thing to see. Why they did not get it towed out, I will never know. Anyway, down the hill a way, through the trees there was a pond not really a pond but a natural pool of water. It was fed by a fairly large waterfall. Surrounded by trees. Sun splotched in and lit this place well and the trees provided cool shade on warm rocks. Large blackish boulders at the edge of the pool. Climb into the fresh cool water. Clear. Flowing. This water beautiful. Crawling out of the water and spread out on a warm boulder. Sun drying skin and hair. Cool breeze raising flesh bumps. Sitting up on this stone. Feet over the side barely touching the water.

The moment shifts. I am sitting on this rock but not sitting on this rock. I am above me and turning. Up traveling to the tops to trees. Looking down at myself and this pool of water and the water fall and the green leaves, and the black boulders and I know how small I am in this universe. I know how large the spirit is truly.

Stopping in Santa Cruz to see the devastation of the Earthquake of 1989. There was a great Hindi restaurant there that would open on Sunday morning and serve free breakfast to anyone who came. San Francisco, we wandered the city for a few days. Based out of an old Cape Cod’ders home. This dude was like a nuclear physicist or something. He was it great speakers and loud sounds. He had this pendulum hanging in the living room and when the earth would move it would trace in the sand.

I went to Lyle Tuttle’s Tattoo museum and hung out down by the wharf. Some place there would put plastic alligators in the drinks and a friend of a friend worked there. Golden Gate Park and memories or the trippy days we spent in the city just a couple of years before.

We went on down to Lompoc. We called upon Bob and Marilyn Tate. They fed us dinner and gave us beds for a couple of nights. Bob got a kick out of Stephen. He was wearing a coon skin cap. We went to the beach with Ben Tate and tried to surf but to no avail. The Tate’s house had not changed in many years since I was last there. Very pretty place, lush with plants, dark brown paneling on the walls in the den. I remember getting along with Rachael Tate for the first time on this trip. Being adults made a difference because seeing the Tate’s in the summers growing up she and I were always aloof and adversarial. Marilyn passed away a little over a year ago. Seeing Bob, a retired school teacher, this summer was sad and his loneliness was palatable it coupled poorly with my loneliness. The kids are both married with children and seem to be doing well.

It is back to Oklahoma then. I don’t really remember from the coast back home. Being home I am not even sure what came next.

Strange. Stephen and I stopped in Cordell. We went to the swimming pool and cooled off and sat in the sun. It was a lovely day and I imagine that people were wondering where two long haired hippie freaks had come from to end up in this pool in this little town. We went to the Methodist Church and I saw Florence Edwards. For some reason it was a calling to go see her at that time. Necessary. Mary, her daughter, had passed away the year before. I do not think I really said anything but just needed to be there. I don’t know what Florence would have thought about my life and the way I was who it was I had grown up to be. I wonder that now. What would she think of this life she helped direct for those few years of youth that made the most permeate impact upon the psyche. I believe that is why ice cream and coffee are my comfort foods. The memories of growing up and the feelings of joy at the Edward’s home. One day I will write a book about Florence, or the idea that Florence embodied. She was the cookie lady. I think every child growing needs to have a cookie lady.