Entries this day: Dream Lunch Ride_bike San_Antonio btna gin_in_luarca_asturias

Dream

8:48am EDT Wednesday 9 October 2002

(dream)

With my Aunt Madeleine in a parking lot at her car, kinda inside a building with some water nearby, and she started to get ill or fall under water and I couldn't really keep her afloat, so I hollered at someone to call 911, but they ignored me, so I grabbed her phone and called 911 while trying to keep her from sinking and the operator was all, "you have to call a different number" and she wouldn't connect me. I got really mad and was all, "just fucking connect me to the number; my aunt is fucking drowning here!"

She never connected me, but some lady saw our plight and was willing to help, and put Madeleine in her van but left me in the water, which was no problem cause I got out easily.

I'm glad it was a dream.

Lunch

12:11pm EDT Wednesday 9 October 2002

This morning Abbey led me through the process of barging into the kitchen to munch eggs for breakfast. I'm still not totally confident in this co-op environment, so I offered to help the lunch cook cook.

Renee was the lead cook with help from two or three others plus me. We prepared a lovely "all vegan meal of curried okara and (cute!) peas, baked squash (prize if you can name the types), steamed spinach and garlic sauce, brown rice" as I wrote on the menu for the meal.

I'm super glad to be helpful in the co-op and feel much better about munching with them.

- - - -

At this moment, Abs is (checking email, but she was) transcribing notes from a class. Lunch begins at 12:20 (just a few minutes).

Ride bike

10:02pm EDT Wednesday 9 October 2002

Today I rode my bike for about an hour on a bike trail near campus. The trail is not raw dirt as I suspected, but smooth asphalt about 5 feet wide, with stop signs at street intersections and guard rails along deep ditches.

The highlight of the ride was a railroad tressel above the bike trail. I hauled my bike through thick brush and briars up the hill to the tracks. Rode along the tracks across both tressels (one goes over the bike trail, the other goes over a street) and it was pretty neat. The um, the tressel over the street had a sign on it, something like BUILT BY KING BRIDGES 1906. The date is the only thing I remember for certain.

San Antonio

8:20pm EDT Wednesday 9 October 2002

I might not go to San Antonio Rally, for reasons that I choose not to disclose at this moment, or ever maybe. Well, maybe in ten years.

I think it has nothing to do with some people who spoke to Steve through Jennifer Nichols-Payne, and who spoke to me through Doug Strong. I do intend to be at Houston Rally.

I feel sad about not going. Some youth have specifically asked about me going and I've been saying yes, but now I might not be.

Poop. I have trouble seeing the goldenness in this, which I trust is part of all things in my life. But I'm still looking and trusting..

10:10pm

Okay, I've decided I'm not going. This decision gives me the freedom to not worry about being back in time for the rally just to find out that I cannot attend.

Makes sense to me.

btna

9:12pm EDT Wednesday 9 October 2002

Oh this was funny: Phone rang, Abbey got it. It was for Betina, one of her housemates. Last night when I originally thought her name was Petina, I was corrected and Abbey said they sometimes abbreviate it at B'tina, or maybe even Btna. I said, "booty, tits and ass?" and Betina was all, "why do you have to emphasize the booty so much?" And Abbey came up with Boots Tits And Ass, with jokes around knocking boots.

So anyway there was a call for Betina, and while Sarah was looking for her, Abbey said "boots tits and ass" and the caller almost certainly could have heard, but hopefully didn't know Abbey was talking about Betina, cause the caller was Betina's dad.

We laughed a lot when Abbey hung up.

gin in luarca asturias

from: gin
date: 09 oct 2002
subj: Gin in Luarca, Asturias

 Hello SunShine Lovers,

     May the change of the season and the tides of your life inspire
your creative soul.  It seems the colder it gets, the more pronounced
the directional energy flow becomes. Nature displays it all,  the
secrets and surreal miracles of life surround us. The dancing trees
with their chlorophyll drained leaves spiraling to the ground, and
their blood- the sap draining back into the roots, reminds me of  how
my second autumn of life- so close to the currents of nature- has made
me more aware of my own waning season of the year.  I want to practice
less questioning and doubt.   It has been my motto to prevail with
¨energia que sobre¨.  To continue with my own force that is not just
enough to get me through a day, but to feel the pulse of the power and
know i will have plenty left over, no matter what i might run into.  I
woke up this morning in a $12 hotel.  I took a hot bath, then got back
into bed at 6am.  I turned on the tv to see what time it was, when it
might be getting light outside, and the headline news was the major
flooding to the east.  Over the region where i am was a white
dot.  The weather woman said it was going to snow.  I turned off the
tube, laughed a little and went back to sleep.  I woke up and the sun
was shining.  The crystal ball is not always right. 

     I found a foot path yesterday!!! Shiny blue hand-made ceramic
tiles with painted pale yellow sea shells on them guided me off the
highway onto a dirt road which later turned into a foot path, that
later went over the mountain through a long stretch of tall cactus
like plants called ¨toxos¨ (x=sch) in Gallego.  I later found out this
plant has at least a dozen names in this region.  I have known this
plant since the day i walked out of Burgos, my first encounter
with it outside of Espinosa (which means prickly).  The painful pass
over the mountain yesterday helped my original theory of the history
of the ¨camino¨. 

        The current legend of the ¨Camino de Santiago de Compostella¨
has to do with the lost cranium of Jesus of Nazareth's first cousin,
Saint James.  I have heard the story several times, and it is so
outlandish that every pilgrim that has set out from the far reaches of
Europe and other areas, in search of the bones of Saint James, have
all been considered over the pail crazy (if we were not already). 
Someday I will get the official ¨scoop¨on the story and send it on to
you.  In preparation for the ¨camino¨, i refused to read anything
about the trail, the history, the points of interest, etc.   I wanted
to discover it for myself, thinking that i could have plenty of time
after my walk to read the stories of others.  When I set out last
summer from Normandy, in the North of France, I quickly learned how
easily it was to get lost, even with a map and a compass.  By the time
I had made it across Bretagne to a river, I knew would take me to the
Atlantic,  I was ready to do what ever it took to stay by the river
and make it to the ocean to reduce my daily hours of absolute
lostness. Part of my journey is about trying to feel what I believe
the ancients could have felt.  I know the old ¨camino¨and the
reason pilgrims originally made this trip was to make it to
Finisterre, the ¨end of the earth¨.  It seems as absurd to us that
once the earth was considered flat, as it must have seemed to them
that the earth could be round.  Since the Christians imposed the story
of Saint James, and the calculations proved to skeptical  minds that
the earth was not flat, the journey to the ¨end of the earth¨ has been
cut short by 130 kilometers or so, to Santiago.  I do hope the story
of Saint James is true, and Robin Hood existed, but their stories
remain as inspirations to people through out the ages and help guide
people to new levels of compassion and adventure. 

       And the French coast turned to swamp.... then the mountains got
taller and taller and the brush got so thick it was impassable. 
Rivers that were only crossable between low tide and high tide, when
the water was not rushing in or out, needed to be crossed.  I bet lots
of pilgrims learned to swim, and many drowned.  At the other side of
the river was more swamp, months of swamp.  Here, the ¨toxos¨ are
blood letting.  I survived my days hike yesterday, in a downpour,
 with my poncho wrapped like a duster and chaps around my legs.  I was
still bleeding.  Those things make stinging nettles feel like
tickling feathers.  Here, the mountains are not small, and everything
is green and strong.  In a matter of days any cleared trail could be
taken over by the flora.  I have not seen any fauna (except a frog and
a bird).  So, on with my theory.  I hope this interests some of
you...   I think in the old days the pilgrims (or the ponderers, or
wanderers) tried to get to Finisterre or Santiago de Compostella with
the sea to their (our) right.  If and when they (we) made it (they say
at least 10% did not-due to their death),  I bet they were willing to
take any trail other than the one by the coast to make the return trip
to their place of origin.  Thus, the ¨French Trail¨ was blazed further
to the south, mostly out of the mountains and in the practically
desert regions of Burgos, La Rioja, and Lyon.  What would be better,
lots of water, or no water?  What is better, to see the ends of
creation, the known limits of our existence and endurance, or let it
pass untested?  To soothe my own madness i will quote another
lyric, ¨it is better to regret something you have done than something
you haven't done...¨. 

       I think i will save Galicia for another year.  I am almost
there. I will make it, then re-evaluate my trail.   If i am going to
keep out of ¨illegal alien¨status i don't have time to reach
¨Finisterre¨ anyway.  I have had it my way, over every large mountain
(except the one i was scared off of).  To guard my health i
have consumed vitamin C and raw garlic almost daily since i started
the pilgrimage.  My vitamin C requirements are now off the scale.  I
have pushed my body to her limits, and she has served me well. 
Galicia is a few days away.  It is my golden fleece, and as green as a
leprechaun's love.  It is possible that the things i am searching for,
i will always search for, knowing very well they are all within.  I
want to deal with my hate and my rage and my fear and doubts as well
as confront the beauty and creativity that i keep locked up.  In large
that is why I like to walk alone. I want to trace those branches
to their roots.  They are mine.   

     Last winter i caught my self wondering who the mothers and the
grandmothers confide in.  Who's shoulder do they cry on when the
stability they maintain is feeling too heavy.  I walked off the
mountain to call my mom and ask her.  In these last weeks I have met
several special women. Among them was a very old woman who recently
lost her husband of 65 years.  We talked and i found myself holding
her, she was shaking and in tears, knowing her future was full of sad
and lonely nights without her man.  Regarding death, I have found
there are no real consolations, only lots of tears and time.  Another
woman, a mother of 4- her youngest son 17 years old.  She owned one of
the hostels I stayed in.  The mother of thousands of pilgrims over the
last 12 years.  I had never seen an ¨owner¨ of any of the 4 or 5
hostels i had stayed in, they were all just burned-out employees.  I
stayed with her until the rain almost stopped late in the afternoon
the next day.  I arrived on her porch in a cold and heavy storm the
night before.  She was having a nervous breakdown, and had attempted
suicide a few days earlier.  She let me make her lunch, and give her
an alignment and then hold her in her tears and feel her fears.  I am
blessed to know who holds the mothers and grandmothers when they need
to be held, we do.  Those people that can, that will, that is why we
are here. 

       Love to You and your Mothers...      ultreïa, gin