Views from a car on a hill (or) Small goats and gardens and windows wide open.

Her dreams were so fantastical and impermanent that who in their right mind would dare to go along with her for the shorthaul - the complete insecurity in one perfect moment or brief brilliant scenario that might very well end or morph into something completely new at the drop of a copper leaf. But why not live it while the fantasy burns, and say in the end that we'd lived out our dream? One always wakes up in the end anyway and tomorrow will dream anew. But no one is sorry for waking up when promises of the next slumber hold so many more mysteries. So why be sad when one thing ends and another is allowed to begin? Why not hold hands and jump? Certain Native American tribes say that when you dream of falling, and you finally reach the bottom, that you make a wish for yourself and your people and it will come true. Let's leap many times, and realize many wishes.

On her knucles read, Holy Holy.

This week has been exceptional. Drew some tattoos on friends that other friends made permanent, wrestled a huge hackberry tree into kindling, saved a persimmon tree from an overly passionate passionflower vine, found autumn (it's been hiding for ages).

All day today off to add further to this list of pleasures...including but not limited to, art, dying lace curtains with turmeric root, making prickly pear jelly, contact papering my bedroom wall, and assembling my growing insect collection. Holy holy is the day!

Ammending the Soil

I'm startleable and excited all the time. It's good and I will not be disappointed if the startler is just a leaf vine or a ghost - or the wind in the trees. Because I embrace my time and opportunity for solitude and self education.

I feel wild like Tigerlily, and I want to un-tame myself now. I want to leave my hair a mess, run around half undressed and half dressed like a man - I want to kick things over with my boots and call like a warrior and howl at the moon.

I AM the person I want to be- though sometimes behind closed lips. I don't need to feel that I am understood, but I shouldn't either shy away for the fear of confusing or putting people off all the more.

Middle of the road, detached, fluid, existing in the pure light of all I am and nothing more but certainly nothing less. Romantic? Not I, perhaps only here.

I ENJOY! And I REVEL! and I REBEL! And I swoon and allure and consume! CHA!!!!!

The train doesn't sound the same. Even the hisssss. The thick air must muffle it. But does it still know me? Though I clearly remember it. I CAN still tame it. Rather, it will still take me wherever I should like to go. Just like a past lover, who loves unchanging but unpossessingly - and I may call on it when it pleases me because no matter the distance and time apart we. are. devoted.

In the areas where I am otherwise distracted, I need to fill in the spaces between - as precious and savory as the distractions might be. I continue to build my own foundation with the expectation that eventually it will be all I have, and in anticipation that one day, maybe even soon, this that I consider so savory will be no more.

...and when it is, I will find something new, and I will become excited again.

There is so much we can learn from eachother without speaking.

I want to communicate telepathically. I don't want to manipulate, I want to connect. And I want us to do this together - like two star siblings who fell to earth in the same place and in the same time.

Luna Sings the Blues

"Where do you go - when you close your eyes and sigh, or else they're far off and vacant?"

"No where. I am here. Inside this body. Inside this mind. This earth. This universe. I never left nor am I inclined towards any desire to leave. For when I go inward I am also projected in all directions outward. I am here and have always been here simply because there really is nowhere else to go."

Did she love him, or did she feel nothing at all for him or for any other man, being, as she had said that afternoon, free, like the wind or the sea?

I don't know many things but I know a few. I know that I am an artist, I know who my real friends are, I know that I don't give myself enough credit, and that my intuition, if I'm really honest about listening to what it's saying, always takes me to the right place at the appropriate time.

I first moved to Austin accompanied by my dear compadre, Clay. I remember him sprawled out on my bed as he returned gradually from a magical day trip. Oh, Clay, the charismatic drifter who befriended everybody and nobody on his gallivants around the world, his routine hitching around the country - no one, of course, was surprised when he ran off to join the circus. So you know, he's laying there all blissed out, with big child eyeballs (like cartoons ones shaped like big raindrops) thinking to us about his approaching 26th birthday and he says, "I always figured that I'd be done wandering like this by now. I'm closer to thirty than twenty and I just thought that I'd be settling down, you know, maybe thinking about getting married and starting a family or a job or something." (Clay, by the way - if you're reading - you actually did say this though you might deny it or forgot about it by now).

So now here I am two years later on my porch, across the street from a seedy college apartment complex and an elderly daycare center - and I'm exactly the same age as he was in my room that day. I'm still in a dead end service industry job that's completely unrelated to any of my passions by a long shot, doing art in my tiny roach infested bedroom, and I haven't come close to doing a crumb of what Clay had done by the time he was 25 (not to mention loads of other people I know and envy at least in the way of travel and spontaneous living).

I went to California recently and had dinner with another friend from back home who owned house, completed his doctorate, and had been sober for a year after returning from Detroit, Michigan which had landed him in a rehab center. He was stable, set up, worked something like 14 hours a day, had a cat, a girlfriend, a surfboard, a condo so close to the ocean you could nearly spit on it from his window. He told me that other friends had jobs at museums, or traveled the country with art exhibitions, were married or getting married, whatever, and I thought; I make sandwiches with no tip jar for a living, have an art degree, just broke up with another boyfriend, live paycheck to paycheck.

But he also told me that for some reason, he felt that twenty-five seems to have some combustible effect, "that things all of a sudden start to happen" at twenty-five. Maybe it's because we realize we're sick of living in roach infested houses, working menial jobs for just enough pay to pay the rent and bills and buy six packs of beer and cheap wine. Maybe at twenty-five we become honest about our potential and our mortality and our resentment or desire for our solitude. Or maybe we're just bored.

So. Twenty-five. I know in five years I'll look back at you, if I'm still around, and say, "oh how you were so young and beautiful and free of responsibility!" But here at twenty-five, I look to thirty, and beyond - tomorrow, ten minutes from now and say, "it's now or fucking never."

Vulture Magic

I just spent the larger part of this week camping with new and less new friends at a folk festival in Kerrville. I only planned on going for the weekend but found myself back there a second and third time as the week went on, scrambling to get shifts at work covered or moved so I could make the trip back again and then again. We spent the days at the river, trudging with beer on our heads to hidden dark green spring fed pools, and the nights hooping and howling in packs. I guess what I hadn't realized is how much the city and my stagnancy here is really getting to me. The cars, the routine, the worn paths back and forth to work and home (which is actually quite a loving and creative haven from it all usually) and to the other few places that I most often frequent - its all choking me. It's all driving me so mad that all I could do was escape and escape and escape to what Joe calls accusingly (but fairly accurately) a "hedonistic" place, a sort of Never Never Land - only in the rolling hill country of central Texas.

There's no one to blame in this dim scenario but me. I'm in a great town, surrounded by great people, probably spreading myself to thin and not searching or being nearly as contemplative as I should. Being stagnant, being content. Making money, spending money. The city, to my weak defense is cyclical and distracting and big and flashing and its weighing me down. I had to get out to realize what I was missing. And now all I want to do is leave it and travel and read and expand my spiritual exploration and let all of it, everything, go in search of the north wind that blew me in here and hasn't blown me out. There's just more. MORE more more - that I should be doing. I got caught, for good reason, but I'm no longer moving up, rather side to side on an endless horizontal plane going no where much at all.

Wait, that's not true. I've met wonderful inspiring people here who I don't intend to leave behind. In fact they are the ones that have pushed me, no, ushered me to this point. Long car drives discussing metaphysical experiences and music played late into the night to early mornings is all I could have possibly asked for from this relocation. Austin has provided me with everything I knew I needed when I left Arizona and probably isn't done putting teachers and lovers and companions into my path. I don't feel done with this place. In fact, I suspect that it still hasn't reached its apex, BUT I am a sign of fire, and an archer, centaur and my arrow for the time being has soared and fell beyond the mountain out of my sight and I must retrieve it, however far it takes me.



At the river one of the last days I spent in Kerville, we discovered a vulture dead and tangled in an oak tree. After some awe-full observation we collected some of the feathers that had fallen onto the ground beneath it and washed them in the water with soap we had brought along for bathing. Back to the campsites we waded, our tribe all adorned with one or more feathers either in our hair, hats, or in one case, a staff which had been made from bamboo growing along the riverside. In the bed of the truck headed back to the grounds someone worried that the vulture feathers might bring bad juju. But that idea didn't set with me. Upon returning home, to the city which I reveled so purely in my short-lived withdrawl from I looked up Vulture magic, and this is what it said:

The ancient greeks considered vultures to be descendants of the mythological "griffin," the king of the beasts and a protector from evil magic, and slander, and symbolized courage and leadership. In other cultures, like native American, the vulture or buzzard represented purification, as it literally "strips down to the bone," the feathers were also used at the end of shapeshifting ceremonies to "ground its participants and dispel evil" as it is thought to help break the connection between the two worlds of the living and the dead. In alchemy the symbol of the vulture reminds us that all suffering is natural, temporary, and necessary, and represented the connection between the psychic and cosmic energies on earth.

The vulture is the only predatory animal that DOES NOT KILL. It also does not eat other birds, even when they are already dead therefore they are looked upon as compassionate and noble creatures who serve a very important environmental roll that reduces diseases spread by carrions, the carcasses of dead animals. It is also one of the birds that is thought to soar through the air for the sheer joy of it - when it is not hunting at which time it flies tight circles around its target.

The vulture is indeed very powerful, that much is undeniable, but to say it has bad juju? The buzzard is just truly misunderstood and its popular reputation misused. I can feel the heat of the feather when I wear it in my hat. A slight pressure like a warm hand on the area of my head where, in the brim, the feather sits. Now what to do, how to liken the symbolism of this compassionate misinterpreted creature to my own situation? How to let it assist somehow the discernment of my current actions? Maybe I'll ask it to come to me in a dream, sleeping with the feather nearby.

Medicine Show

There have been lots of lovely smelling things brewing in the kitchen lately. I just finished my 200 hour herbal apprenticeship and the evidence of my final project has littered the counters and stove top for the larger part of the last several days. Now the second addition of the "Boss-Mom Botanical Collection" is complete and better than ever! And it will be shipping out to Arizona shortly to the Boss herself and her little bolt of thunder for the both of them to enjoy. Being the inspiration of the line comes with proper benefits, naturally.

Let me backtrack. Desert bound in February, I planned to swaddle and hoped to provide herbally inspired relief f one month to a dear girlfriend of mine who had been diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma a third of the way through her first pregnancy. I zealously proposed to compile a regiment of herbs to aid in cancer treatment that would not interfere with pregnancy, and herbs to aid in pregnancy that would not interfere with her chemotherapy (yes, folks - she was receiving regular chemotherapy sessions all the way through her pregnancy.) I packed my car full of all of the herbal medicine books I owned, along with all of my medicine making gear, and headed south west.

Long story short, when I got to Tucson, even though she was a good sport about my big intentions, it became quickly clear to me that what my friend needed most was someone to drive her around, watch True Romance and The Ellen Show with, occasionally pick up some McDonald's, and, of course, make lots of fun, luxurious, sweet smelling items to pamper her and her baby. Duh, Carla - this little lion of a lady had been in and out of hospitals, poked and prodded, quite literally sliced open, and pumped full of poisons so toxic that the hospital attendants had to wear space suits just to handle her used bedpan.

So, my project changed to the "Boss-Mom Botanical Gift Set" made once in Tucson, and since amended in Austin, Texas after some helpful feedback from "Boss-Mom" herself on the first batch (the name of the line is inspired by Carlee's desire to be referred to as "Boss" rather than "Mom" by her son, Max).

Here's the finished line, including *amendments and NEW additions!

Rose&Geranium Anti-Bacterial Baby Butt Rub:
Avocado Oil, Apricot Kernel oil, Calendula, Chamomile, Rose petals, Bee's Wax, Geranium EO
*Replaced avocado oil for sweet almond oil and olive oil. Replaced chamomile with St. John's wort. Added rose and tea tree EOs.

Sleepy Boy Herbal Milk Bath:
Hops, lavender, chamomile.
*Added dehydrated organic milk.

Baby Butt Pow(d)er:
Arrowroot powder, baking soda, calendula, slippery elm, yarrow, tea tree EO, lavender EO.
*Added comfrey, replaced lavender EO with rose and orange EOs.

Coconut Chamomile Mama&Baby Oil:
Avocado oil, sweet almond oil, coconut oil, apricot kernel oil, jojoba oil, chamomile, lavender, calendula.
*Chose not to make this again.

Baby Oil:
Jojoba oil, apricot kernel oil, lavender EO, chamomile EO.
*Chose not to make again.

Boss Mom Belly Balm:
Coconut oil, lavender flowers, bee's wax, rose and lavender infused distilled water.
*Chose not to make again, but used as an inspiration for Boss Mom Cream.

NEW! Lymphatic Relaxing Bath:
Epsom Salt, red clover, lavender, grapefruit EO, Texas cedar EO, geranium EO.


NEW! Colic Tea: Fennel, catnip, chamomile.


NEW! Courage Oil:
Grape seed oil with EOs of jasmine, cypress, vetiver, rosewood, chamomile, clove, frankinsence, and clove.


NEW! "Let them eat Cake!" Rose-Mint Cream:
Chamomile infused coconut oil, jojoba oil, rose infused distilled water, bee'swax, rose EO, peppermint EO.
(everyone that sampled this at the final class said it smelled like mint ice cream or cake)

I'm Going to Tell You Something and I'm Going to Tell You Why

The most beautiful strip in town extends between the Small Planet Bakery and El Charro Cafe, the longest operating restaurant in this half of the state. It's about a quarter mile in all and runs over the train tracks and the bridge that the city threatens to tear down every year since I've been here but never does. I live a block outside its boarders. Every day I pass through the most beautiful quarter mile in town and that's how I know that it is. I bike towards the sun on the eastern horizon in the morning and back into the sun on the western horizon at the day's end. When I cross the tracks headed west, the skinny fingered telephone poles slice into the orange setting sky, silhouetted like the sleek curve-less models on the covers of the magazines that carpet the bathroom floors of teenage girls. In either direction the train tracks extend over the arc of the world into an idealist's America that only the hobos know well.

I'm saying this all to Ginny as we lay on the grass in the park, some distance north of the most beautiful quarter mile in town while listening to The Kinks, "Sitting in the Midday Sun" on her cassette player. The song comes from a special
mix tape that she's made for this exact occasion. Ginny makes mix-tapes for every occasion; cleaning, sleeping, masturbating - no circumstance is too mundane to warrant a custom musical compilation in its honor. I pass a bottle of cheap red wine and she agrees that it is, indeed, the most beautiful quarter mile.

"I get it," she says. She's on her back like me, and trying to drink from the bottle without spilling it. She strains her neck to hold her head up but some dribbles down her cheek anyway. Wiping it with the back of her hand she sits up. " So, what you're going to tell me is the most beautiful strip in town, and why is because of the view or something,"
I just made up this game, just now while we were laying here - it's called, I'm Going to Tell You Something and I'm Going to Tell You Why.
"Yeah," I say. "That's basically it."
"I like that" she says.
She gets it.

Ginny is now propped up on one hand while she bites the nails on her other. She extends them to admire her handiwork; tiny chipped, black half moons for nails. She turns to me as I begin to sit up myself. I feel buzzed. Ginny chomps her gum and stares. I can tell that she's looking at her own reflection in my sunglasses and not at me. You can tell when that sort of thing is happening, the looker's gaze is always just a little off. She appears to look pleased at the far left corner of my eyebrow.

"I want to be Edie Sedgwick," she says.
"Don't worry," I tell her. "You are."

(Writers note: Epilogue: But Ginny, with her embellished quips and holy knuckles will never be Edie, she will never even be Ginny. She will only and always be Carolyn. Her given name. Carolyn Virgina - and now Max's mother. The title most majestic of them all. How paths change, how small those most beautiful quarter miles seem when thousands of whole miles separate me from them. Though small, just as beautiful. An intensely concentrated beauty - maybe the most potent of all is beauty in the smallest spaces. And oh, how they fit so nicely and remain so vivid and intact, those small beautiful spaces! Even when our heads fill up with futures.)