Dear friends...

“Friends are God's way of apologizing to us for our families.”

~ unknown
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That quote made me laugh because it is funny... and for me not true. I have a great and wonderful family and mostly they're family and friends. But for many I've known family was... well... a boil on their backside.

I've been blessed with some great friends. Some go back decades and a few have been steadfast over these many years. Some have become as close or closer than my blood relatives. Some, like Pablo, the bond goes beyond explanation. But Lord, thankee for my good friends!

One of my best all time buddies, legendary among my closest friends and family was my dog Lance.



Lance was with me for about 13 years... he was a fixture when I was working with Grampa Semu and the folks out at Muhu Tasen. He went with me to Opal Creek and down to southern Oregon for my year at Crump Lake, working for The Nature Conservancy. A great watchdog, a funny guy who wasn't big (he weighed in at about 35 - 40 pounds) he behaved like a King of Hounds. He understood a lot of English, could speak none, and was a great judge of character. As handsome as a dog can get Lance carried himself like a champion and was a true canine athlete.



When I started taking him out to Muhu Tasen, Grampa had a "no dogs" rule. But I was a single guy with no family and couldn't -- wouldn't -- leave Lance home alone. So Grampa made him stay in the truck and I could take him out, off the land, for his breaks. After about 2 or 3 months Grandfather recognized the quality of the dog Lance was and gave him permission to be one of "the dogs" while I was there.

Lance loved water, was a great swimmer, and never hesitated to get wet. If he had a drawback it was his tendency to chase cows (which came back to haunt him when he became a senior... we were living on 5 acres in the woods west of Eugene and had a neighbor who kept 3 cows. One day Lance took his doddering old self over, I guess, to harass the cows. I got a call from the neighbor while I was at work that Lance was in her field and that I better come and rescue him. "Rescue him?" I thought... well it was true, he needed rescuing. The 3 cows had him backed into a corner of the pasture and without his fresh legs and youthful vigor they had him buffaloed. Or cowed... a sad day I'm sure for a dog that never failed to get cows moving.)

But when he was young... he was fast, could jump and make it over a 6 foot fence... anywhere I could hike he could. Of course he was still a dog... but he had his guardian angels. On one of our many backpacking trips into the Manzana River area of the San Rafael Wilderness area of Central Cal he had managed to get a fox tail into his ear and it had worked itself deep enough to begin causing him grief. Unfortunately, it was dark and we had no tweezers and no flashlight. (OK... I know, safety first and all that...) But we used to hike into the Manzana under the full moon after the area had been closed for the season because of fire danger. At night we could see any forest rangers and hike right by 'em and get to our old Indian camp, where we would be out of sight from the trail... and heck, we were young and would never do anything like avoiding the government or its agents or agencies now...

Opal Creek tho' was Lance's home.



He fit that camp like a glove. The other camp dog, Turk, was a big old dog (probably a Bernese Mountain dog), neutered and gentle as could be and he and Lance were best buds. The only wrinkle was when George would come into camp bringing his dog Cody, a big old Doberman. Now Cody was a sweet dog in his own right... but for some reason, he and Lance just never hit it off, except with a bang. And a snarl and a major growl-a-thon and a wrestling match...

In fact those 3 dogs all died like within a year of each other. Turk was buried at camp, Lance was laid to rest on a ridge above the half-bridges and Cody... George owns a bit of property down river from camp near the Elkhorn golf course and when Cody died George took his backhoe and dug a pit that could fit Cody's favorite couch and laid Cody to rest on that couch.

Turk was Jawbone Flats' official greeter. He never failed to bark at a hiker but would usually do so while he was laying somewhere where he could see the road leading into camp. His "woof" was a "WOOF" and could be heard quite a ways away. But if we were in our cabins sometimes Turk would bark and not stop so we'd yell "Turk!" and he'd stop. When my daughter Robin was a baby in camp she grew up with Turk and Lance. Her first word came one day when Turk let out his usual "WOOF" and out of the blue Robin lets out with a "Turk!" Not "dad" or "mom"... "Turk"... heh...

Of course Lance and I shared many of the favorite spots in the west I'd acquired after years of exploration and discovery. My sidecreek in the Sierra foothills east of Fresno near Pine Flat Lake, the land east of Santa Maria off of Hwy 166 near the Cuyama Valley and of course the Guadalupe Dunes and Perfix/Paradise Beach. When I'd get dropped off at the Guad Dunes for a few days Lance of course would go too. And he loved that spot. Hiking the dunes or going down to Perfix... he was a fan of my fresh Perch, caught in the surf and cooked over an open fire skewered on a stick. When Marty and I would hike the dunes we'd generally hike to the highest dunes and take our breaks, admiring the view. Lance would inevitably fall asleep laying in the soft sand and warm sun. When he did Marty and I would sneak down the dune and hike up to the peak of the next dune and watch Lance, waiting for him to wake up. He'd wake up and look all around... then he'd see us and charge down the dune and sprint up to our new sittin' spot. It was one of our favorite Lance games.

Amazing, the bond of affection that grows between animals and humans. Lance was truly the best friend I've ever had. He is missed... but remembered with great love and gratitude for sharing his time here with me (and his many other human friends). A meeting of souls and a partnership that can never be duplicated but certainly was meant to happen... thanks Lance... I miss you my friend...

Ancestral grounds...

“We are lonesome animals. We spend all our life trying to be less lonesome. One of our ancient methods is to tell a story begging the listener to say -- and to feel -- ''Yes, that's the way it is, or at least that's the way I feel it. You're not as alone as you thought.''

~ John Steinbeck
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Took another trip to the coast on Monday with Marty. A rainy morning, cold, windy at the ocean...

Another visit to Heceta Head's north side Hobbit Beach. We first hiked up to the top of the ridge -- without the cameras because the rain was still falling pretty good -- along the lighthouse trail, a walk we hadn't done. What a nice trail. Uphill but with enough switchbacks that the slope wasn't too bad. Some great views through the trees, the ocean a constant sound as it crashed against the rocks, we found the ridge to be a wonderful place, a quiet place with an ancient grove of twisted and forked Sitka Spruce giving the place a timeless feel.

We had a great conversation about these kinds of places, how they give the sense of being out of time, of being in a place that has been as it is for millenia, of seeing it as hundreds of generations before us have seen it. And that sense of the ancient is very real, as we are ancient beings as well. As I said in the previous Perfix post, we all share a history of being indigenous -- native to some place -- that is special and revered. And standing among those old, old Spruce trees we knew that at one time, probably dating back to the days before the Europeans brought their boots stomping to this continent, that these trees were mere sprouts.

And when we got to the beach, we had it to ourselves. And that was no wonder as it was windy, a cold, biting north wind...

And being alone allowed that sense of seeing a place, especially a place as primordial as a beach, as it has been seen since... well... forever. The great sci-fi writer Piers Anthony covered the issue of ancestral memory (which I do believe in and suspect might be where that feeling of reincarnation arises from) in his books Orn, Chthon and others.

Here are a few pics from yesterday's hike. Enjoy!

































































As aways, any of MY images posted here are for sale as prints, or use commercially. NPOs can use fee-free, with permission. All images © Allan Erickson

beach bound... the Perfix place

“Someday, after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love, and then, for a second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire.”

~ Teilhard de Chardin
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(since posting this I've been in contact with one of the folks responsible for keeping the memory of the Dreamkeeper Cabin, Paradise/Perfix Beach and the Journal alive. I found Bill Buck's email address and asked for permission to post some of his pics from his gallery here. Turns out there was a reason the name "Bill Buck" sounded so familiar... we had met out at Grampa's place in 1988 during the summer after he had graduated from Righetti High School in Santa Maria. In his email he mentioned a "groundbreaking sweatlodge ceremony" he had attended out at Muhu Tasen. In 1988 I was very busy with Muhu Tasen and remembered a young fella named Bill Buck. He also mentioned another young man that had been there that summer, America, Abbie Hoffman's son. Gads, what a world and how small -- in spite of its 6 billion folks -- it really is. Made smaller by this wwweb thingy... So, since I posted this the other day, I've added a few more pics. Thanks Bill Buck!)

Bummer... I'm sitting here with my head racked by a cold. I've worked 7 days straight and I get to spend my 2 days off feeling crappy. I was gonna take a trip to the coast today with bro' Marty, tonight is the full moon, a lunar eclipse no less (just after sunset) and a minus tide at sunset. The temp is supposed to be in the 50s... sigh... I continue to conclude I was born 200 years or more too late. Unless I were to be a believer in reincarnation... but I'm not. I don't know. I know I've had dreams of places and times I've never been but such is the mystery. And a mystery I prefer to leave it. I suppose I may find out when I get to that point of passing over, which may, you know, be just a dark, final, dead-end. Not knowing what really lies at that point is one of the motivations for making this life worth the investment of sincerity in life's effort.

I mean really... when I think about Perfix Beach and what its like spending time there... comparing that to this modern day ratrace filled with war and massive starvation (still some 35,000 people a day dying from starvation and the diseases of malnutrition) I have to ask, "what have we really accomplished?" Have we improved the state of humanity? Do all our plastic googaws provide satisfaction? Have we accomplished anything worth writing home about? If the creator were to show up today, could we say "look at what we've done to your garden! Isn't it beautiful?" And mean it?

My attraction to -- and relationship with -- nature, relies on some inherent sense of belonging, of sharing. But working for a system that does not value what I do... really makes me a hypocrite. Unavoidable, but still...

Consider your most favorite spot in nature. How does it make you feel when you are there? How does even thinking about it make you feel? Now... consider if it had been a spot shared by generations of your family, with your ancestors' bones interred there as far back as memory itself... we all come from such places. Indigeneity lies at the root of all our family lines, somewhere way back when, we all were from somewhere... and every somewhere has such a place that is special, beautiful and sacred.

Perfix Beach is surrounded by sand dunes, in fact it takes a climb of several hundred feet to get to the top of those dunes. To the south access can be gained along the shore by scaling rocks from Pt. Sal and from the north by crossing Mussel Rock. but to get a sense of that place it must be viewed from above.

This is the view of Perfix from atop the Guad Dunes, looking south.

(These pics are borrowed from Bill Denneen, with permission, and their use is sincerely appreciated. Many thanks Bill! Here is the page of Bill's pics.)

Many, many times have I stood at this spot and marveled at that view, timeless, shared by so, so many... just behind this spot, tucked into one of the many folds of this massive hill of sand, lies an old midden mound.



Sometimes, atop these dunes the weather will expose a chert arrowhead.





From the very highest point of the dunes, on a clear day, looking east you see the Sierra Madre mountains and the Cuyama River cutting through them as it wends its way from the Cuyama Valley (Highway 166 follows the Cuyama River) and the drainages of the Caliente Hills, the Chorizzo Plains and Mt. Pinos. On the clearest of days Mt Pinos itself can be glimpsed, some 80 miles or so away.

Here is Bill, loaded with his backpack, standing at the slope that was the most direct descent to the beach. I ran into Bill a few times out here, often I was alone and he had groups of folks with him. A lot of times I would avoid people all together.

When you get down to the beach you cross a small creek that cuts off the Guad Dunes from the old Minetti property (which may have been purchased and included in the greater preservation efforts) and then down to the beach. When on the beach there is a small arch of rock:



and depending on the vagaries of the winter storms the arch may be nearly buried in sand or stand some 10' overhead. Winter storms move the levels of the beach sand up and down... changing the beach year to year.

Half way down the beach there used to stand a very unique cabin. Now gone, burned down, its demise a mystery which carries some rumors... the cabin was built up against the hill, above the highest of tide lines. I don't think I ever slept there but one time, prefering instead to camp at the top of the dunes, on the edge overlooking the creekbed and Minetti's property. For years there was a diary kept at the cabin which visitors signed and made unique entries... comments, poetry, drawings... and it took me years to find it online (after finding it once before) but thankfully, someone, I'm assuming Bill Buck, has made parts of that diary a webpage(s) of some interest for folks like me who remember:

NOTES FROM THE JOURNAL KEPT BY NRH
AT THE "DREAM SEEKER" CABIN





And when on Perfix Beach, which most likely has no other people on it, you enter a special world. A world I will get back to in the future, both literally and here on the blog. But for now... Perfix Beach is where I first met Pablo. Brought to meet me by Hoos nahil and Somis awil. I was fishing, camped at the dune top, and hanging out at the arch when they came around the hill, crossing Mussel Rock. A perfect place for a meeting that had great implications for a major turn in my life. Little did I know then that the short, mustached, and very winded and huffing man, dying for a cigarette, complaining about such a long walk was destined to become one of my best and closest friends. Unfortunately... I can't ask him if that walk was worth his effort. But... knowing the intertwining of destinies that was to come Pablo wouldn't have had it any other way.