midnight mooning, here's the list

1. woah, it's going to be okay!
2. "you should know that even though all things are liberated and not tied to anything, they abie in their own phenomenal expression." (Dōgen--this is actually very comforting to me)
and
3. "as for cities--they are (to those who can see) old tree trunks, riverbed gravels, oil seeps, landslide scrapes, blowdowns and burns, the leavings after floods, coal colonies, paper-wasp nests, beehives, rotting logs, watercourses, rock-cleavage lines, ledge trata layers, guano heaps, feeding fenzies, courting and strutting bowers, lookout rocks, ad ground-squirrel apartments. and for a few people they are also palaces." (gary snyder in the practice of the wild which i am reading and really enjoying right now)
4. idleness and mystery and stillness and the full moon and curiosity are so important. i am stepping off my ambiguity pedestal and toward desire and fire and water and the steam and smoke where they meet and walking mountains and being on the internet at midnight seeing my memories and loves and desires reflected back in a thousand tabs--oh silly but sometimes true-feeling this tool of the modern world, of our increasingly visible subconsciousnesses--i believe in german transqueer radical radio and rilke and bread and work and magic and new tattoos across knowing flesh and pain and slowness and quickness.
5. things have been rough lately and often hard. in a knowingly privileged and marginally unstable kind of way.
6. of place: wood floors. the altar moved to the next room over. it is night and the neighbors are doing some kind of loud popping project in the garage and talking about race on their porch. the walls are red and i ate a tiny plum that dropped from the tree in our front yard. there is an herb spiral and kale plants and lots of tomato blossoms. the cherries are dropping in neighboring blocks and yarrow in flower. raspberries are out, gold and red! and salmonberries! and strawberries too! and oregon grapes not too far (not that those are nearly as tasty but still). it has been sunny off and on, rainy occasionally, gray here and there often, warm but never quite hot per se, the doors are open here in the day and closed at night--it is chilly but i will sleep outside tonight.
7. STRANGERCAT i will write a poem about you soon.

it's always sunny in the east bay

yuppie coffeedrinkers laugh
and down the street "the cutest kids in the bay" go to the church of religious science to walk the labyrinth and munch raw vegan maple cookies
and three blocks away is the hot mess haus--a hot mess of punk-hippy-homesteader-crafty-zinester-plantloving-injeramaking-radical-searching souls...
seems like everything here is either a few blocks or a few minutes away (nonprofit bike co-ops free paint free produce free people infoshops bookstores fancy haus sugarplum mansion pink purple blue haus the jam factory strong roots garden healthy hearts garden sliding scale farmstands phat beets farmers market in a school parking lot grove schafter park's basketball court)
and rosalyn stopped by with her shopping cart this morning and gave kevin a plant and some bagels. ron came by last night and asked for another veggie dog cause it blew his mind. and ahmed gave us a free beer for a plateful of bbq food!
not much more exactly except an abundance of small beautiful details--what a world (! / ?! / ???) i have fallen into here, of possibilities for living creatively, loudly, quietly. and maybe life is easier in the sun, and maybe that's okay? and still this morning it was hard to get out of bed, hard to get out of the haus--not for any good reasons except black mold on the back of my neck and the toilet's exploding and all those other small pleasures.
ah well...it's always sunny in the east bay.

moments from the first eight days

tonight i am weary...spend hours picking dusty-shiny red apples (and ate too many)
so for now here are some pictures of my world from the past few days.
i am finding a rhythm, drawing and yoga-ing and making bread,
working on digging this big square hole and gardening and feeding the bunnies.
there is much silence here, and some storytelling. things are slowly busy.
we have in abundance: carrots, soft white wheat flour, apples, pears, goat milk/cheese/yogurt, cucumbers, kale, chicken eggs, buckets, giant plastic containers that smell like chocolate hydrowhey or mint syrup.
my body is glad to be here, glad to be working and moving and lifting,
to be strong,


my new friends are in a constant cuddle pile.


my other new friends!


my new human friends slaughtering chickens...i degutted one. strange, beautiful, fragile, strong, confusing, wearying.


my househome, named "opus"...decorated within with bandannas and the smell of lemongrass and a pile of mango chili lollipops.


bread! i just discovered vital wheat gluten which, since we mill all our flour here (from soft white winter wheat and hard red winter wheat), is all whole wheat...and all whole wheat flour makes a dense (delicious) bread. more experiments with refrigerated dough (an alternative to kneading...i'm reading this breadbook by hertzberg & francois) in the works.

sarah proposed putting up a dreamwall-piece-of-paper.
ethan prefers nonverbal communication and is thinking about making pine needle soup.
we talk about when we were stoners and "sustainability" and derrick jensen.
still,
there are half cigarettes and
lots of toast
and lots of hellos and goodbyes
and talking about dreams in the morning.

Sitting in the shed at the front of the property, looking out over the orchard (figs, bloody peaches, apples) with the eucalyptus trees, hills, and spotless blue sky in the background. It's funny how ingrained in city life most of us are (most of my life was) that such a simple description of where I'm living now can sound all bucolic and charming.

Yesterday my alarm woke me at 5:30. Half of my dome is transparent so I'm always conscious of the light outside, and it was definitely still completely dark. Courageously rolled out from under my down comforter, did a headstand to get the blood rushing, and stumbled out of my dome to check the water tanks down the hill. My dome is the Far Dome, named informatively for being way the fuck out there in the middle of the woods, next to the spring which supplies the property with most of its water. After guessing the water level based on the sound the rock makes as I hit it against the side of the tank, I guessed my way along the steep up-and-down path to the yurt, losing my way in the dark on deceptive racoon or deer paths and sliding back among the fallen leaves to scope out the right way. Twenty minutes later I've made it to the yurt and the sky is more blue than black. Make myself some almond-butter raspberry oatmeal, brush my teeth, and go out to the garden for the morning's instructions. Yesterday was the first harvest (fall equinox, full moon), and so we stood under the greenhouse for hours de-leafing , our fingers numb in the morning cold. Finally the sun comes up and we move to yellow-leafing, sticking our faces into the fragrant plants, trying not to get our fingers too sticky.

After the lunch break we helped clean up the house and collect flowers for the harvest party. We're overwhelmed with an abundance of zuchinni, so I made zuchinni bread and zuchinni baba ghanoush for the party while the boys and Felicia harvested ducks. Various friends of Adrian and Felicia's came up from around mendocino county and nevada city, and we enjoyed good wine and food from the land.

I feel blessed to have found this spot-- my little white dome was already stocked with firewood when I showed up, so I'll be warm all winter. I can farm, breathe in eucalyptus, work with plants, and get paid for it. I successfully chopped my first piece of firewood the other day; and though there were no repeated successes, I'm confident that I'll keep learning. There's a funny mix of folks here: Adrian and Felicia who own the land, have a big house with buffalo skins and tribal carpets at the top of the hill, and are both incredibly knowledgeable about farming; Shane, our sweet carpenter, Dave, a really hard worker who shows his good heart by teasing incessantly (oh, azya, I heard you're gonna be making us all french toast every morning), Tim and Kayla, both quiet and productive, who went to liberal arts-y schools and then turned farmers, and Kate--- silly dancer masseuse and fierce firewood chopper. She showed me the form for girls (or smaller people) to chop wood-- sweep the axe up and around and bend your knees while bringing it down on the log.

I'm trying to figure out a rhythm here where I can have the energy to do yoga, read, and write while also doing heavy physical labor and keeping myself nourished (and walking home at night!) It's also an abrupt shift to be in a different social environment. Last night everyone talked about farming, past experiences, mutual friends--- and of course I'm out of the loop. I got used to feeling so comfortable in social situations in Chicago and at burning man, and now I'm reminded of my shy, introspective self. But parties are rare here. I want to focus on the land, learning about the plants, becoming observant to pests and animal tracks, harvesting wild herbs.

More thoughts on the culture of mendocino county to come. For now

1. Eating local is a passion.

2. Ruffles are in style.

Live and learn.