here's a little piece of crap i wrote on a piece of paper when i was in a car a couple weeks ago.............
driving through Santa Barbara oh my gosh
so much yucky California
whiteness sunshiney pueblos palms,
the sunshine here poisons,
it rots, spoils the heart
with entitlement
and self-satisfaction
fermenting

I'm not bitter,
I'm pissed.
that all these motherfucking white people
look at this land and see paradise--
sun, salt, surf, tanlines, SUVs,
colonial walks,

This state, and all it promises,
a sick joke,
only made more disturbing
by its reality
---------------------------=============+++-

back in oregon now and indeed my California Cough is gone... plagued me for weeks.!
im here in portland feeling as uninspired the likes of which i have not felt in months,
wtf? why am i here?
i am bleeding,
bleeding as of last night,
i find that my emotional template during these weeks (these irregular, when are you where are you i need you blood when when, weeks) shifts to joylessness
ugh
i dont even know what i stand on
i have not danced because it is winter, because people like to dance at night and i like to sleep with the sun
that is my excuse
this life does not work,
the life of living in a kitchen and listening to music, dancing singing,
getting on the computer to look for homes,
and getting sad
nope nope nope
when i see wy'east (mt hood)
or the moon moon
look at me from over there i say
hey
what?
oh
fuck





can i please be grounded enough to speak to this person from my gut
to be here with my heart
and say hi

and can i also be crazy fucked up enough
to glue feathers to my ass
strap on my heels
and burrow into the soil?

PRE-ASPIRATION INSTRUCTIONS

4. Please try to have a bowel movement the evening before or the morning of your procedure.



...and here I fail. I only have 7 hours left to prove myself.

topsoil is my prophet

"Then an old man, a keeper of an inn, said, Speak to us of Eating and Drinking.
And he said:
Would that you could live on the fragrance of the earth, and like an air plant be sustained by the light.
But since you must kill to eat, and rob the newly born of its mother's milk to quench your thirst, let it then be an act of worship,
And let your board stand an altar on which the pure and the innocent of the forest and plain are sacrificed for that which is purer and still more innocent in man.

When you kill a beast say to him in your heart,
"By the same power that slays you, I too am slain; and I too shall be consumed.
For the law that delivered you into my hand shall deliver me into a mightier hand.
Your blood and my blood is naught but the sap that feeds the tree of heaven."

And when you crush an apple with your teeth, say to it in your heart,
"Your seeds shall live in my body,
And the buds of your tomorrow shall blossom in my heart,
And your fragrance shall be my breath,
And together we shall rejoice through all the seasons."

And in the autumn, when you gather the grapes of your vineyard for the winepress, say in your heart,
"I too am a vineyard, and my fruit shall be gathered for the winepress,
And like new wine I shall be kept in eternal vessels."
And in winter, when you draw the wine, let there be in your heart a song for each cup;
And let there be in the song a remembrance for the autumn days, and for the vineyard, and for the winepress."

from "the prophet"


i love to hear your voices from afar! what pleasure, what warm reminders of our shared and overlapping and distantly tied worlds.

i am settling into the simple pleasures here--a jar full of warm goat milk, feeding the bunnies corn husks before i sit down to my oatmeal, farmer's cheese with bee balm flowers, cold cold hands while i strain the sprouted wheat for the chickens, tucking the beans and tomatoes in at night, wandering into the woods to find baby trees to water and talk to. my relationships with each person spiralling and growing in richness and depth as we skip from bare facts of our lives to the architecture of our dreams and desire,
small consensual touches and warmths, testaments to our humanness,
always pandora in the background (now sponsored by starbucks...?)
and golden sunrises and sunsets,
i am learning always to ask for help (opalyn, i'm not ready to twist off the head of a chicken yet...but i skinned a chicken yesterday, undressed this beautiful hermaphroditic silent bird without seduction but with solemnity and love and a thankfulness for my own fragile skin, contained blood, moments to live in the world.)
i am reminding myself always of how my body and mind are interwoven...
fighting anxiety with sun salutes,
finding peace in stacking firewood, wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow of poop-straw (the most valuable of the ignoble resources), chopping, plucking, clipping,
khalil says "you work that you may keep pace with the earth and the soul of the earth.
for to be idle is to become a stranger unto the seasons, and to step out of life's procession, that marches in majesty and proud submission toward the infinite.
...to love life through labour is to be intimate with life's inmost secret.
...and what is it to work with love?
it is to weave the cloth with threads drawn from your heart, even as if your beloved were to wear that cloth.
it is to build a house with affection, even as if your beloved were to dwell in that house.
it is to sow seeds with tenderness and reap the harvest with joy, even as if your beloved were to eat the fruit.
it is to charge all things you fashion with a breath of your own spirit,
and to know that all the blessed dead are standing about you and watching.
...work is love made visible."

we are redefining work!
as i move away from jobs, embrace the in-betweens of alleys, dumpsters, travelling, excess, closed loop systems, living from my labor,
i am finding my sanity and peace here in living in the service of life, flourishing in parallel to flourishing.

i have been here for a month! (today is windward's 33rd anniversary.) halfway through my time, stronger arms and heart, my body used to tiny pleasures and tears and small pains and love and missing--these things that never run out.