love and forgiveness

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Every being has an identity and a purpose. To live up to his purpose, every being has the power of self-control, and that’s where spiritual power begins. When some of these fundamental things are learned, the time will be right for more to be revealed and spiritual power will come again to this land.

- Rolling Thunder

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Tantay relatives!

This post is for the many good hearts I was lucky enough to meet and share 5 days (for me) "camping" in the wilds of New Mexico.

First, thank you to you all (and you know who you are;) for one of the most profound weeks in my life (I'm 67teen). Seriously...

I was honored to be asked and delighted that creator provided me with another opportunity for an adventure in my life. Opportunity often won't wait long for a reply so I'm glad this came together so quickly.

Way back when, I was breaking up with a woman I had lived with for years. It was a really foggy day (San Joaquin Valley tule fog) in Fresno and I knew if I headed east to the foothills I could get me some sunshine.

I know a spot that has some fine rock gardens on one side of the road and on the other side a cluster of bedrock mortars - maybe 100 or so - were perched on this fine, oak studded knoll. 

It always saddens me to visit these old family sites knowing that once families lived on and near this beautiful spot. A small creek flows nearby all year and the oak grassland landscape is like home to me. 

But even there that day, the fog didn't want to clear. And I could relate. 

So I sat down on a rock and soon started to talking to those that aren't, but are, there. And then overhead a patch of blue opened up and a bald eagle flew through the opening and I made a mistake, one probably more than a few us have made, I asked for something.

Lordy. 

My life was in turmoil, not in a bad way but just... well, tumultuous.

And what I asked for? Change.

I know, "oops."

But...

... it all has worked and here I am in a place that my need for change has lead me. I've moved from Oregon after 30 years and I'm now living in California with my family in an inter-generational household, from 1 to 71.

And it is here and the change it took me to get here that lead to my being at that ceremony in New Mexico. And it was there that almost all of y'all came into my life. From my first meeting of Grandfather Semu at Redwind until now I found myself totally at home with strangers that were almost instantly not strangers but family. 

What I know of the native people of Turtle Island I know both from book learnin' and life experience.

I am a far different man today precisely because I took the step of introducing myself to a man I didn't know and found myself with another brother. I usually say 1/2 brothers because we do really have the same mother... I mean really...

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and here's the shot I was bragging on to some of you

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To ALL my relations

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A well-known scientist (some say it was Bertrand Russell) once gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the Earth orbits around the Sun and how the Sun, in turn, orbits around the center of a vast collection of stars called our Galaxy. At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said, "What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise." The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, "What is the tortoise standing on?" "You're very clever, young man, very clever," said the old lady, "but it's turtles all the way down!"

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Christmas 2015

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You are an explorer, and you represent our species, and the greatest good you can do is to bring back a new idea, because our world is endangered by the absence of good ideas. Our world is in crisis because of the absence of consciousness.

- Terence McKenna

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For me, over these 6 decades come and gone, this season is a triad of "holidays" (holy days). Dec 21 is both the day I mark as the Winter Solstice and my mother Vivian's (RIP) birthday.

Of course these days my mom's birthday is kinda sad as I do miss her, very much. She was such a good soul and having to raise me along with my 2 1/2 siblings must have been quite the challenge.

The Winter's Solstice... aaah... this is me. Long ago I slipped into the life stream of the natural world. And that world is one that exists not just as material but as the core of my heart, mind and soul. 

I love the earth. More than my mom, my family or my friends. 

Nature is all. It is all we have and all that we have has come from her. The life here on our planet is absolutely connected to life everywhere. There is no other, there is but here. Infinite life expands in all directions - macro and micro.

But Christmas... sigh... 

... Christmas was great as a kid. Innocence makes so much believable. But Christmas is like the Kachinas. It dances into the village costumed and caricaturized. Dancing a lie, a myth but telling the story. Only when an individual is old enough are they made aware that the Kachinas are their relatives, their neighbors. The masks come off.

For me the mask came off Christmas when I started doing sweatlodge and traveling with the plant medicines, the entheogenic spirits. 

I can't in good conscience share the "joy" of giving. Our consumption will be our doom. It's as simple as that. While many of my friends understand this, the majority of modern humans are clueless. For 40 years I've been at odds with the society around me. Heck, I've flung my body at that wall more than once.

And it's never been easy! I mean I sure don't want to be the Grinch. I don't want to spoil anyone's enjoyment, especially the children's. So my kids were raised celebrating Christmas. But once we moved into the farm celebrating Christmas became an enigma. It was mid-winter, energy bills are high, I'm raising 2 kids (teenagers!) by myself and I don't believe in it. 

Luckily (?) I've never had an issue being a bit different. It was tough maturing into it but the same process was always involved - "how many sheep does it hold?" Because of me being me fighting to save an old growth forest or being a hippie working for an environmental organization in the middle of conservative ranching country or driving a truck with pot leaves painted all over it when pot was still illegal (ughhh, gross!) takes a certain amount of crazy. The rewards tho'... that's the kind.

AND driving that truck (20' flatbed loaded with tons of lumber) for almost 5 years with no violations shows a certain level of skill. 

I'm not trying to change anybody. I do work hard on occasion trying to change minds - and hearts - but mostly I want to enjoy this lifetime's sojourn on a beautiful planet. A planet I call home and mother.

Merry Christmas!

(self portrait)

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Please, if you like this, visit my other blogs as well:

AE, photographer (my photography)

Good Dog (drug war) (drug war)

Eugene Emeralds at Civic Stadium (Eugene Emeralds baseball)

for those who enjoy my work with Courtney

My Oregon Muse (adult content)

and my Facebook

My photography on FB

Thanks for visiting, feel free to leave me a comment or share with your friends.

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Psychedelics are illegal not because a loving government is concerned that you may jump out of a third story window. Psychedelics are illegal because they dissolve opinion structures and culturally laid down models of behaviour and information processing. They open you up to the possibility that everything you know is wrong.

- Terence McKenna

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