Burning Man: Call the playa (973) 737-BURN
A man who is not on fire is nothing.
That kind of person is ridiculous and two-dimensional.
He must be on fire even if he makes a fool of himself.
A flame must burn somewhere,
otherwise no light shines,
there is no warmth,
there is nothing.
Carl Jung
“Oh the places you’ll go!” — the walking man in 2011
“Omnia mutantur, nihil interit”
(Everything changes, nothing perishes)
― Ovid, Metamorphoses
Here in the northern hemisphere, summer has one more month, but when school starts, like it is today at Ventura College, it feels like fall. Days are getting shorter, nights longer, and we’re back from our summer adventures. The season is changing.
“Energy can be transformed from one form to another,
but can be neither created nor destroyed.”
― 1st Law of Thermodynamics
My summer travel included skiing and hiking trips to Big Bear and Mammoth, plus two days exploring Amsterdam and two weeks in Tanzania with several days trekking to and climbing up Mt Kilimanjaro, which at 19,340′ is the tallest free standing mountain in the world and is known as “The Roof of Africa.” More on that here.
in climbing Kilimanjaro I achieved a lifelong dream
Even before one trip is over, my imagination is already planning future trips, and while I am not sure yet if I’m going to Burning Man this year, many of my friends are– and they are busy “packing all the things” including fabulous art projects built by a group of artists from Art City, Ventura as well as projects by Deniz Nicole of Ventura and Valerie Mallory of Oakland.
the Mutant Vehicle known as the Mighty Zenith
And I can’t forget the Mighty Zenith– the giant TV mutant vehicle that will be prowling the playa days and night and is the creation of sTeVe Knauff and Rosel Weedn. Plus the gifts! Check out these starfish by Maria Lucila:
pendants for gifting at 2019 Burning Man by Ventura area artist Maria Lucila
The theme this year at Burning Man is “Metamorphoses” — from the Burning Man Journal: Read more…
Buen Camino Adventure on Anglesey
A Buen Camino on an Adventure on Anglesey
- Hidden in ferns in a cow pasture near a seaside castle.
- Inside a Wendy House beside a lighthouse.
- At a mile-long sloping campground above a beach in town.
- Inside a caravan full of ivy and snails in the yard of a pub.
- A campground near a vineyard.
- A campground on a sheep’s pasture with views of the ocean and the ferries coming and going from Dublin to Holyhead.
- A garden in a parsonage.
These are all places where we slept as my son and I backpacked for eight days and 90 miles August 2018 going from train station to train station along the Wales Coastal Path on the Island of Anglesey or Ynys Môn. Read more…
Father’s Day 2019 Full Moon at Refugio State Beach north of Santa Barbara, CA c. Gwendolyn Alley
For Calling the Spirit Back from Wandering the Earth in Its Human Feet
by Joy Harjo
Put down that bag of potato chips, that white bread, that bottle of pop.
Turn off that cellphone, computer, and remote control.
Open the door, then close it behind you.
Take a breath offered by friendly winds. They travel the earth gathering essences of plants to clean.
Give it back with gratitude.
If you sing it will give your spirit lift to fly to the stars’ ears and back.
Acknowledge this earth who has cared for you since you were a dream planting itself precisely within your parents’ desire.
Let your moccasin feet take you to the encampment of the guardians who have known you before time, who will be there after time. They sit before the fire that has been there without time.
Let the earth stabilize your postcolonial insecure jitters.
Be respectful of the small insects, birds and animal people who accompany you.
Ask their forgiveness for the harm we humans have brought down upon them.
Don’t worry.
The heart knows the way though there may be high-rises, interstates, checkpoints, armed soldiers, massacres, wars, and those who will despise you because they despise themselves.
The journey might take you a few hours, a day, a year, a few years, a hundred, a thousand or even more.
Watch your mind. Without training it might run away and leave your heart for the immense human feast set by the thieves of time.
Do not hold regrets.
When you find your way to the circle, to the fire kept burning by the keepers of your soul, you will be welcomed.
You must clean yourself with cedar, sage, or other healing plant.
Cut the ties you have to failure and shame.
Let go the pain you are holding in your mind, your shoulders, your heart, all the way to your feet. Let go the pain of your ancestors to make way for those who are heading in our direction.
Ask for forgiveness.
Call upon the help of those who love you. These helpers take many forms: animal, element, bird, angel, saint, stone, or ancestor.
Call your spirit back. It may be caught in corners and creases of shame, judgment, and human abuse.
You must call in a way that your spirit will want to return.
Speak to it as you would to a beloved child.
Welcome your spirit back from its wandering. It may return in pieces, in tatters. Gather them together. They will be happy to be found after being lost for so long.
Your spirit will need to sleep awhile after it is bathed and given clean clothes.
Now you can have a party. Invite everyone you know who loves and supports you. Keep room for those who have no place else to go.
Make a giveaway, and remember, keep the speeches short.
Then, you must do this: help the next person find their way through the dark.
Congratulations to Poet Joy Harjo, member of the Muscogee Creek Nation, who will become the first Native American U.S. Poet Laureate this fall. Harjo is a poet and a musician who says:
“You hit words together with rhythm and sound quality and fierce playfulness,” Harjo told NPR in describing her poetry and writing process.
According to NPR, Harjo’s goals as the country’s 23rd poet laureate consultant in poetry include bringing about “a healing of people speaking to each other, with each other.” She sees poetry exchanges as a way to accomplish this:
“I really believe if people sit together and hear their deepest feelings and thoughts beyond political divisiveness, it makes connections. There’s connections made that can’t be made with politicized language.”
Let us call our spirits back from wandering. Let us gather around a kitchen table. This is how we could save the world.
According to the about page on her website, “Joy Harjo was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma and is a member of the Mvskoke Nation. Her seven books of poetry, which includes such well-known titles as How We Became Human- New and Selected Poems, The Woman Who Fell From the Sky, and She Had Some Horseshave garnered many awards. These include the New Mexico Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts, the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Native Writers Circle of the Americas; and the William Carlos Williams Award from the Poetry Society of America.”
Learn more about Joy Harjo’s books and music on her official site. Watch for her latest book of poetry coming out this August, An American Sunrise will be published in August.
Where I’m Calling From
May 2019, Arroyo Verde Park, Ventura, CA
I come from Ventura, California
from hiking through cattle to Two Trees,
seeing Channel Islands float in the sea,
eucalyptus at Mound, quad at Buena.
I come from Aspen, La Honda, Taos,
Palo Alto, Menlo Park, Mountain View,
Los Altos, Peet’s coffee, Ridge Winery,
Stanford, Santa Cruz, Reno, Jackson Hole.
I come from driving school halls delivering
fresh student newspapers, from reciting
poetry on hay bales at Renaissance Faires
in Agoura, Larkspur, Novato, from
climbing Collegiate Peaks Colorado
Yale, Harvard, Columbia, Princeton,
Yosemite granite and gym plastic,
Gibraltar sandstone, monkey bars, school roofs.
I come from mud between my toes, hail on
my head, sagebrush in my cuffs, hot springs in
my curls. From burrowing owls, red tails,
spotted owls, bush tits, Hollywood finches,
peregrine falcons, wrens. From sycamores,
cecil bruner’s, rose geraniums, pine.
From crows nests, trailers, vans, stucco, tents.
From Santa Anas and El Ninos. From
Sierra, Rockies, Tetons, Pingora,
Castleton Spire, Cascades, Mojave,
Great Basin, Coachella, Black Rock City,
Telescope Peak, Wheeler Peak, Badwater,
oceanwater. From sweat. From tears. From dew.
“We’re no longer citizens, we’re consumers,” pointed out Patagonia founder and owner Yvon Chouinard at Ventura College on Earth Day, April 22, 2019.
“Webster’s says someone who’s a consumer is someone who destroys,” he continued.
I took a break from writing my Earth Day piece that was published in the local paper (and reprinted with some addendums and photographs here) to listen to Yvon Chouinard’s wide ranging conversation with his long time friend and business associate Rick Ridgeway. He also engaged with student questions, and gave away copies of his new book, Some Stories: Lessons from the Edge of Business and Sport. Read more…
After being planted by volunteers, shrubs and wildflowers like these lupine naturalized in a vacant lot 1570 Thompson in Ventura CA.
After 20 years, Ventura California’s Midtown Monarch Paradise Park is no more.
RIP Midtown Monarch Paradise Park
On Earth Day April 22, 2019, I watched from my home as the excavator scooped up the remains of the twenty year old Midtown Monarch Paradise Park, a Wildlife Habitat Demonstration Garden in Midtown Ventura CA funded by two Earth Day grants and built by the community on a vacant city lot and hillside near the terminus of Prince Barranca at Ocean Ave Park. This heartbreaking event helps to explain my absence from this blog… the noise alone is enough to break anyone’s concentration.
…a wildlife habitat demonstration garden now dead Read more…
