Monday, October 4, 2010

A Few Highlights of the Last Mountain Ramble

The alpacas, Levi, Reese, Vinnie and Junio, from left to right



The llama, Hummer, and the two pygora goats, Marguerite and Bonk



The outdoor kitchen



My sleeping quarters



The Water Vehicle (a Cadillac hearse rigged with a very Mad Max style 200 gallon system in the back, complete with a tiny racing wheel and, yes, it handles like it wants to crash over these rutted dirt roads)



And of course my lovely sister Rose at farmer's market (I also have a stalwart soon-to-be oath-brother, Max, but for some reason I have no photos of him, and it's too bad because he looks as fierce as ever)...oh, and the jolly lady behind us is the phenomenal baker Gloria

Sunday, October 3, 2010

"The List"

WATER

house/barn catchment
rain barrels
glass drinking jugs
cistern (ferrocement?)


FOOD

gardens
fruit orchard
chickens
goat dairy
wood oven (horno)
mortars and pestles
hand grinders/mills
root cellar
beer brewing
apiary
bow and arrows
solar dehydrator
canning/pickling equipment
coffee trade (horseback caravan anyone?)


SHELTER

underground (or partially underground) winter home
open air summer lodge


CLOTHING

fiber and leather trade
wash tub, washboard and press


MUSIC/ART/BOOKS/ASTRONOMY

solar powered studio
dulcimers
accordions
piano
acoustic basses and guitars
paper making (and ink making/trade)
tattooing equipment on solar power
home library
star observatory with telescopes (a Schmidt-Cassegrain might be nice)
stone and plant labyrinth
astronomical hilltop stone calendar/festival monument


Any suggestions?

"The City"

It looks like I am a country boy at heart truly! I did not expect to return to Portland so heavyhearted, but the web and hum of machine and the thick threat of madness seemed to blanket every street as it took me back in the very first day from the high desert. I had accidentally booked my flight the same day as Harvest Festival, so while my brother Max was likely stuffing himself with homemade pie and local brisket, I was sitting on a plane awaiting traffic. I can hear his mocking laughter now. Oh, sweet brotherhood. The security at the airport in Albuquerque was the first shock back in to the reality of empire. As I held my hands above my head, the machine scanned me from head to toe and I blanked my thoughts as if they could read them as well. The jet I transferred to in Salt Lake City was a large state-of-the-art sleekster, complete with flat screens that automatically drew down from the ceiling in rows above the passengers, playing advertisements and television shows. I laughed to myself when I thought of the movie 2001 and remembered that it’s 2010 now. Oh, dear. I go from hauling water in buckets and cooking on an outdoor flame to sitting in a jet that puts to shame the space shuttle that was launched the year I was born. First night in the city, I went for a long walk to help me feel better. I had no destination, simply to reacquaint myself with the town and perhaps console myself with its beautiful aspects. Every other person I met on the street was drunk, high on crack, belligerent, suffering from mental illness or wrapped in a fog of sadness. I found myself tearing at my hair and murmuring out loud self-admonishments for planning to live again in the city. This walk was having the opposite effect! Without conscious effort, my feet led me across the Broadway Bridge straight to the train station. I stood before it, laughed at myself out loud, and looked at the tracks leading out of town longingly. I sang Hank Williams “Rambling Man”, threaded my way through Chinatown and meandered back to my apartment on the inner eastside. I found myself missing the mountains and the call of elk like a broken heart misses its love. I laid awake past midnight listening to the grind and screech of industry and trains on the river, then awoke four hours later with my sister and put hot water on the stove in the darkness before dawn. We laughed while talking of building houses and planting gardens on the mountainside. Now the birds are starting to sing and the sky is turning a soft grey-blue. I am reminding myself for the goal I set, the reason to be here: saving up for top surgery. I am reminding myself that the city is simply the human hive, like the anthill, and there is a kind of beauty in it, even through its suffering and dysfunction. In the meantime, I'll start a boy band, ride a bicycle, utilize one of the nation's finest library systems, and glean what I can from this dirty old town before it falls into the ocean. Besides, it's October, my very favorite month. The neighborhoods smell like wood fire and pumpkin pie. Seven months. That’s all. Then I am going back to school in New Mexico, living in a beautiful Spartan “Mansion” on the hilltop, planning the cabin of my dreams, eating fresh sheep cheese, drinking sweet honey mead and living the rest of my days as a mountain boy. Now I can deal with that.

Wednesday, September 29, 2010

A Few More Days of Desert

Childhood is coming back to me in flashes of sun and smells, earth, the texture of leaves. Sometimes I part the boughs of a pine and it's as if I am a small child:the world is enormous and unknown. I could fly through red windows of rock under a lavender sky. The waters are still pure and the dream world is more real than expanses of cracking parking lots. A great Thunderbird burns out of the sky and the machines are powerless. The desert is absolute and pure, cinnamon red and sage green, without boundary and definition. The sun herself sends the power of dream and life into rains, rainbows, bones and blood. The fire and vibrancy, the hardship and sharpness of this land draws me like the mouth of the serpent. The soft, mossy beauty of the Northwest has healed me and still holds its healing, but it is the desert that stokes fire in me, creation.

Elk bone moon, I'll return before the next summer solstice. For now, winter will wrap me in moss and mist and the crisp death cold of high desert December will wait.

Friday, September 10, 2010

A Month Back in the Mountains

High speed travel is such a strange thing to me. Tuesday night I walked home in the grey Portland rain and today I woke up to a honeyed sunrise over the blooming Zuni Mountains. On the way back from the airport a full double rainbow graced the valley and my friend Genevieve and I laughed because it was so beautiful we could hardly believe it. The black volcanic rock, wildflowers of every color, the golden light of the dying day, all of it was overwhelming. It was that familiar time warp when you feel like you're coming home, that years have passed and yet no time at all. Coming home. That's strange because I feel like every place I've ever been is home.

Much to my delight, Hummer the llama remembered me. He was excited to get his neck rubbed and kept giving me fragrant kisses with his buck-toothed mouth. The alpacas are so adorable I can hardly stand it. For the next few weeks I'll be cooking out of an outdoor kitchen under a netting. It's so very amazing to have the view of the valley from the propane stove, past which in the cliffs contains ancient ruins that I'll get to explore in the coming days. The Cadillac hearse that will serve as my water vehicle is even more pimp than I remember it!

It's good to see my family here, to see the "Mansion" on the hill hung with skulls, to look through the old chests of letters and keepsakes, but most especially, to see the universe at night and hear the wolves at dawn. Already I can feel the static of urbanity unraveling its tangles into the dry air. The woods quietly shuck it off of me like dead skin. Yes, a deep calm sense of home is here more than any other place I have been.

Monday, July 19, 2010

and what of hope?

slumberless,
hungerless,
i cannot sit to sup,
only walk through byways,
breathing to cool
the coals stoked
at the cradle
of my hips,
bringing fire and smoke
to the cage of ashes above.
i stop to weep
under a maple
with a prayer
that my arms alone
will be enough
to hold my being,
which is empty enough
to contain
the entire universe.

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Back at Work in the City

I work food service in a busy cafe in a hospital. It's good money most of the time but high action and high stress. The customers are all the nurses, interns, doctors, patients and other workers, everyone from the public transit to the construction workers on the riverfront. Today was one of those especially trying days where everyone had some special request, weren't happy about something in their personal life and taking it out on those around them or just plain rude. To boot, I haven't slept and have had a lot on my plate emotionally and physically. None of my other coworkers were particularly happy about the day either, but I gave out a few shoulders massages and tried to keep my spirits up. The whole point of me working there, besides the money of course, is to just be the as much a bright spot in these people's day as I can. Working in a hospital isn't easy when you're treated like a vending machine, as my manager put it, and people have lots of sadness, anxiety and fear about these physical traumas they've just gone through.

But just when I thought I wouldn't be able to make it through with a positive, giving attitude, of course, genuineness came through to the rescue. A man about old enough to be my father came in with his female companion and after a transaction full of complaint from her, he looked me in the eye and said something to the effect of this: so many people come through here, ailing and sad, and you are just smiling and so positive, it really makes a difference and I sure appreciate it. I must be hard, but with your attitude, I bet you're a lot older than you look. He looked at me like if I was his son, he'd be proud and he meant it. He was a salt of the earth type of man, with an outdoor tan, beard and layman's speak. His words touched me in such a way that will not fade for moons and moons. I felt tears come near when I brought it to memory as I cleaned up to close the cafe. This is why I do what I do. Not just to make a dollar or twenty. Just to give a little care to each person who walks in with all their rawness and offer something more than a cup of coffee, but an actual real connection with a compassionate human being. Thanks, man, I hope you do have a good night.

Sunday, May 30, 2010

To Portland on Sauvie Island




Shannon and I drove up in five days, car packed to the brim. We had only one blowout on Route 66, ironically close to the last place I had a blowout when I was moving across the country. It was Shannon's birthday too, so while the car was being rocked with semi-trucks passing us mere feet away on the highway and grit was blowing in our faces, I jacked up the car and sang happy birthday to her while she laughed. We stayed the night in Kingman, Arizona, the one place I had said I didn't want to stop. Funny things happen when you put aversions on. We ended up replacing all four tires due to wear and that our route would take us right through the Mojave Desert. We decided to cut across to Highway 1 and drive up the coast. On Highway 58 we stopped to pee in oil country and saw the pollution that is in my last post. Strange that this was one of the most beautiful hilly roads we had seen, fantastical and reminiscent of parts of the British Isles. Single trees and small cow herds stood on what seemed impossibly steep hills around the incredibly winding road. We stayed a rainy night near Hearst Castle in a little touristy town that seemed to scream for a Hitchcock twist. We spent a day in Oakland with some friends and had a great time seeing the neighborhoods and visiting. The last night on the road we were rained out. I woke up in a puddle and so we packed up and drove out of the campsite at a record 5:27am.

It seemed that we arrived in Portland in somewhat of a state of shock, grumpy from the road, broke and not ready for the bustle of the city. We took turns comforting each other and spazzing, probably for the first week, but our stay on Sauvie Island has been good. Our hosts are graciously sharing a smorgasbord of food and it has been wonderful reconnecting with friends. Shannon and I have planted, mowed, mulched, cooked, baked and helped out with the chickens and turkeys here, which has been a nice transition into the city. We watch the ships roll down the Colombia River and the ospreys catch fish. Next week we will be moving into a beautiful apartment above my friend's Waldorf school and I have already started work, so things are settling in only a week's time. The only thing that still remains strange to me is all this driving on highways, but once we move into the city proper I'll be back on my feet and out of the vehicle. Such a small city Portland is in the grand scheme of things, but it still seems overwhelming. The return to the country is inevitable, but I still look forward to this time here. And next week I get to fly to Brooklyn and see my best friend. It'll be my first time in New York or anywhere on the east coast. It seems laughable imagining me walking through the Big City with amazement and apprehension, not at me being there, but that it exists at all. From mountain trailer to NYC and from the desert to the Pacific Rainforest. I look forward to the next bend in the road!

Pictured on top is Mount St. Helens, Mount Hood in the middle and the old pump house with a passing ship on the Colombia.

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

May Day

It was May Day last year I flew in from the Pacific Northwest into Albuquerque and have been in the Southwest since. Last year I went from the airport straight to the Maypole dance at the Old School Gallery near Candy Kitchen, New Mexico. The sun came out and the snow stopped just for the dance and then came back again.

This year the snow folded us the same way, with the dance just clear of snow and the sun peeking out behind deep grey clouds showering snow in other parts of the valley. Dennis, with his fabulous pearl-snap shirt, jaunty cowboy hat with great feathers and salt-and-pepper beard, got up on the ladder to unbind the ribbons and I caught them to hand to the girls and women preparing to dance around the maypole. My sisters were around the pole, dressed in spring skirts and smiles. One of the ribbons snapped off and Dennis threw it around my shoulders, remarking with a laugh that I was the new maypole. Max later said I was the newest phallic symbol in town, ha! I wore the bright yellow-green ribbon the rest of the day. As the last ribbons came down from the pole crowned with roses, I ran back to the drum crescent and began to drum with the other men and the older women wearing pants. None of this was predetermined as far as gender or dress, it just happened naturally, without talking or arrangement, which I thought was interesting. I kept laughing with joy and also the irony that behind us, standing at the door of the gallery, was a large Zuni family observing our ceremony. The colorful ribbons braided with the weaving skips of the girls dancing and I laughed as our drumming sped up with the shortening of the ribbons, thinking about the Zuni family watching the white people's ceremonial dance of spring. How funny to think of this flip, how usually it is the other way around. The family joined us for dinner, a delicious feast of food all grown, raised and prepared by neighbors. Lamb stew, sheep cheesecake, smoked pork, beans, and corn chowder made with corn grown in Zuni. Stuffed and beaming, we rode back home and I still had the bright yellow streamer of the maypole around my neck. One year, one sun chariot, one circle of boyhood.

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Soon Enough...

My sister and I will be driving out to the Pacific Northwest in about two weeks. My feet are itching but a sadness is still in the pool at my center. The quiet, the ravens, the coyote moons, they will be here and I remind myself that I will be where the water is in the forest, so I don't have to miss them, I don't have to feel loss. The city, the city, the city rumbles like a distant train coming closer and there is some dread to the rising excitement, but it is all lovely, rushing being. I can visit and give song to the canyons in my dreams, even after I am off to the salt-laughter of the oceans.

Thursday, April 15, 2010

Four New Hens and Lots of Pickin'

Yesterday we got four new "buff ladies" we named Swanmay, Thrasher, Butch and Elvis. They seem to be integrating into the flock well, but they think their house is my trailer. Maybe they like the way it smells. On that note, I've been writing lots of songs about living the classy country life and such. I'll be posting more up on YouTube as the satellite on the trailer can handle the uploading...

Here's my newest one (recorded yesterday!) called Rich:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2qrgprXhNI

Friday, April 9, 2010

Planting Trees!


Today we planted new trees, native bushes and berries: thirteen bur oak, five serviceberries, nine hackberries and one New Mexico olive. We also transplanted our two apple trees last weekend. I think everybody's pretty happy with it all. Thanks Whooville and friends!

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Billy Ray's New Mexican Mocha (Workout Routine)


Boil water on the open flame or propane stove. (Tip: If your propane regulator is frozen from precipitation, while not recommended, you technically can dump boiling water on it to melt it and free up the gas line. It hasn't exploded yet...) While water is heating up, do twenty pushups, twenty crunches, five sets of mountain climbers and run in place or do jumping jacks until water is hot. Gingerly pour 12 ounces into warm Mason jar (if your jar is too cold it will bust...oops) with 2 tablespoons coffee, local from La Montañita Co-op or Ancient Way Cafe if you have grant money, otherwise Yuban in a big can is fine. Add a dash each of cardamom, cayenne, nutmeg and a few dashes of cinnamon.

You may decide to pamper your mountain mullet at this point to a little deep treatment with some olive or avocado oil. This is the desert after all, honey, we have to stay moisturized! Thanks Ma!

Let coffee sit in hot water while dancing like a superstar to one Lady Gaga song in athletic pants, a sleeveless tee, wrist warmers and a silver chain. If you're feeling really spunky and want some serious caffeine, follow it up with an ABBA song and include lots of spins and two finger air thrusts.

Strain with muslin or a tea strainer into whatever's fairly clean and jar shaped, add heaping spoonful of unsweetened cocoa and one heaping spoonful of local honey. Yes, alas, I am a honey purist, and perhaps this seems somewhat silly considering my apparent lack of concern with coffee and cocoa, but when you're financially challenged, you have to pick your battles. Stir and enjoy! You're now ready to haul water, chop wood and run through mountain valleys! Some would question whether you should drink coffee at all and your siblings might question your sanity, but here's to having a blast! Rock on, kings and queens!

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Mountain Time

Every time I step out into the windy hilltop surrounding my trailer, I feel like I am seeing it for the first time. The stars seem new to me and they have names that have never been spoken. The moon travels so fast through the sky. A week passes and it's been a year and yet only an hour. Rabbits freeze in the brush. I walk downwind and on stone, but still all the animals know where I am. The sun is wandering north again and it seems like yesterday I was three years old, milking a goat with my big sister, it seems like yesterday I was a little lizard-bird, watching the fall of the greatest lizard species on earth. Tomorrow I'll watch the great red sun set from Mars, the atmosphere of the sun expanding and engulfing the planet Mercury, thinking that once there were Sky People who came from Venus and Earth. I'll draw them on rocks and speak in flashes of chemicals.

Thursday, April 1, 2010

Dawn

Just before dawn I put the kettle on the flame and put Yo Yo Ma's solo works quietly on the speakers, a record I haven't listened to in years. By the time I poured a thick cup of coffee dashed with cardamom and cinnamon, the sky was transforming from grey into orange. As Yo Yo's cello wove a tender melody into the air, all at once I took my first sip of coffee at my doorstep, the sun peeked over the valley, turning the pines and junipers honey red, the Sanctuary wolves began to howl over the hills in the distance and our rooster, Rocky, squealed his wind-up toy crow, all in the space of a few heartbeats. Without thought or attachment, my eyes filled with tears. Being here in this moment is something artists since the dawn of time itself have attempted to express, that moment which connects you to everything that was and is and will be, all of its sorrow and delight, so raw that your heart breaks open.

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

The Mouth of the Train Back West?

The oceans and the rumbles of St. Helens keep calling me in my dreams to go back West. I have been weighing what it means to leave the desert. It means drawing myself inward, to glean from the cities what I can while they stand in their present form. It means finding something new about this thing called civilization that I've demonized so much in my mind. Isn't civilization just another structure of nature, like mounds of termites, hives of bees, hills of ants? Does it have to mean separation to live in a city? Frequent changes in geography help me understand my perspectives. What does it mean to live sustainably, really? Sustainability is a word that has been so overused and I think misses the point a bit in that it does not include the sheer passion for living that fires the simple life. It does not describe the cold slice of water from the well in the desert winter sun. It does not describe the feeling of triumph that sears through you when you have survived another sub-zero night without a heater and dawn sets the sky on fire through the frosted trees. These are things that don't have the same meaning when you can just turn on a faucet and crank up the central heat.

A year of living mostly without electricity and completely without running water has changed my life. This winter has been one of the harshest winters the old-timers of this place have seen in years and definitely the harshest winter I've ever experienced in my life. Multiple snowstorms left us stranded for weeks. We still sled water from a neighbor's tank and hike over a mile to the truck to pack groceries and feed on our backs. I got frostbite twice. Wet socks: don't do it. We haul water and split wood every few days. I bake four loaves of bread from scratch a week. Coyotes keep us up yipping during the fullest moons all night. I would do this every day of my life. I have felt so empowered by this experience. I feel a new confidence in all of the things life can throw me. Larger and larger things seem to be little inconveniences now, if not transformed to become something other than inconveniences altogether, but rather a challenge to live creatively!

I'm ready to see how this experience has transformed my perception of civilization. I know I'll be back, if not to this particular place, then back to the hills or the forest. Would I spend another winter in the mountain desert? Oh, hell yeah!

Thursday, February 25, 2010

Kahlil Gibran - On Death

In Memory of Our Friend Dream Eagle:

"You would know the secret of death.
But how shall you find it unless you seek it in the heart of life?
The owl whose night-bound eyes are blind unto the day cannot unveil the mystery of light.
If you would indeed behold the spirit of death, open your heart wide unto the body of life.
For life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one.


In the depth of your hopes and desires lies your silent knowledge of the beyond;
And like seeds dreaming beneath the snow your heart dreams of spring.
Trust the dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity.
Your fear of death is but the trembling of the shepherd when he stands before the king whose hand is to be laid upon him in honour.
Is the shepherd not joyful beneath his trembling, that he shall wear the mark of the king?
Yet is he not more mindful of his trembling?


For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun?
And what is it to cease breathing, but to free the breath from its restless tides, that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered?


Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing.
And when you have reached the mountain top, then you shall begin to climb.
And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance."