Behind me a bookshelf of "Poker Face", "Beat the Slots", "Casino Craps for the Winner," and "Every Hand Revealed." Before me, a man in a cinnamon tweed jacket, gray plaid scarf, bows his head down as if in prayer, leaning in toward the poppy-colored table, surrenders to the gravity of sleep.
The path splits, tendrils into tributaries. Even here, typing at a strip mall Borders tucked well off the Strip, there are parallel - nearly invisible - currents that one can swim.
"At every crossroads on the path that leads to the future, tradition has placed 10,000 men to guard the past." - Maurice Maeterlinck
"How are you going to survive?" my Mom asks after I announce it's time for me to leave soon. Soon could be minutes, days -- weeks at most. Just my hunch. She thought I'd stay until I hoarded a fortune in colored paper and jingly coins. I knew I'd only need to stay long enough to reclaim my fortune in faith.
"You can't live on air," she continues.
I'm about to reply, "You can live on aether*" I catch myself.
"You must not blame me if I do talk to the clouds." - Henry David Thoreau
Ashe nudges me. She delights in the fractal animations that we imaginate and dance together, and after a particularly playful session last night, she suggests it is time to record.
Mind you, it's one slice of life. I can't speak for all the mobiles*, of course. Nor all on same path we're carving, many living different lifestyles. Not that I'm speaking of cultures or counter-cultures.
(Oh, of course you don't know Ashe, that's the nickname this computer deva goes by. It's not actually her name which is unpronounceable in English. It's a harmonic language, hers.)
Please bear with me, since it's been a while that I relied on the written word to communicate. Not to mention the scribe's reluctance, whom channels the stream of my voice through her own flood control -- ephemeral, temporary -- as all dams are.
It's almost time for me to hit the road (and at that phrase, my soul kindles on the sparks of Kerouac and Basho and Issa.) There is a long yet soft-spoken history of portable poets.
I've been here on Par 5 for near three months.
Par 5 because that's what the raised embossed white letters painted on a wooden red rectangle reads just before the golf course path curves, paralleling the fringe of Fremont cottonwoods and Goodding willows standing sentinel along the Santa Cruz River. I think of the rip-roaring floods that carried the seeds for these trees as I carry a bucket of water back to the enclave. I could have just as easily gone to the catchment, by the Spanish fountain with chocolate cake-tiers of giant scallop shells. I wished to speak with the river.
Even in its abandonment after the retired folk fled when the borders softened, continuity courses. Wands of ocotillo lashed together to form fences resurrect to verdant life in the summer monsoon storms, hibernate in the hermitage winter.
The sun is setting. I admire how the blushing sky or sometimes chapel-like silver bells are revealed in archways and port holes of the faux adobes dotting the former country club estates. At this hour, the clouds are as animated as hummingbirds zinging over fuchsia and papaya-colored Mexican sunflowers.
Jared and Veronica have been my closest yester-neighbors while I've been here. We're having dinner together tonight. Wild squash grows on vines the size of Christmas ornaments, striped white and green, perfect globes: Tohono O'oodham Ha:l. Native to the desert probably since time primordial. We certainly glean wild-crafted fruits as well, yet that is not the octave they, we, I play.
There is a great difference in plants that have been serenaded. Tonight we are having Ha:l squash soup, a light orange ambrosia. Veronica has a special fondness for the scarlet runner beans, and their shining sound, so that's also in the soup. Their boy, Jonah, has charged himself with the archetype of the shrubby Mexican oregano. His cherub fingers add a handful to the pot.
Ashe is signaling me that this is a good ending point for my 2009 self.
(Feels ludicrous writing that. It's actually now, simultaneously. Storylines are supposed to be linear, aren't they? Are they?) Soup's on, anyhow. Namaste.
"The Navajo people, as well as the Tewa (a New Mexico Pueblo people), celebrate other life forms as "people." We are the five-fingered people, for example, but there are also four-legged people and corn people." - Anne Minard, "The Breads of Home", Sojourns, winter/spring 2008
* ether. O)F. éther or L. æthēr — Gr. aithḗr upper air, f. base of aĩthein kindle, burn, shine.
**Certainly hope that a glossary shall not be necessary. Mobiles can also be interchanged with the slang 'nimbos'. In my time, this can be disparaged, as in rhymes with bimbo or limbo. To me, however, resembles the nimbleness of a symphony, the river.
Wait. One more thing. Ashe has compiled a brief list of resources as accompaniment to this post (much of the co-creative sciences have become alarmingly simple compared to what's listed). She reminds you that you already own the most complete library.
- Findhorn Community Staff. The Findhorn Garden. 1976. Perennial Publishers
- Maechelle Small Wright. Behaving as if the God in all Life Mattered. 1983. Perelandra, Limited.
- Fred Alan Wolf. The Yoga of Time Travel. 2004. Quest Books.
ART CREDITS Separating the Waters II, by Ruth Weisberg; Initiation, by Ruth Weisberg
Just in case you don't get my response on Twitter.... All of this somehow reminds me of one of my favorite lil antique books 'Prue and I' by George William Curtis written in 1856.
It used to put me to sleep in vast colorful meadows and mountains.
http://xr.com/prueandi
Posted by: Briana Franco | Jan 07, 2009 at 11:55 AM
You write beautifully,Evelyn! I followed your blog link on Tweetdeck and came here... how delightful.
Posted by: Amy Jewell | Jan 07, 2009 at 06:24 PM
Just finishing YUGA: An Anatomy of Our Fate...have you read? I am catching up on reading your posts lately and as always am enjoying.
Peace...
...prevails
regardless of...
how the weather moves
what the 'news' proves
Heart...
...is here
in the midst of...
roaring planes overhead
unrestfullness in bed
Love...
...is truth
even while...
people are torn apart
experiencing a broken heart
Nothing changes
what doesn't change
and all that changes
comes back to Nothing
(was signing off with 'Peace...', then this came. :)
Posted by: Skeye | Jan 07, 2009 at 07:45 PM
Wanting to respond, to let it be known that I've read your resonating words, but am finding that I am without words.
"As if words and letters have heart and hands, blood pumping through cursive script with life enough to evince off the pages."
--"Love's Lexicon"
Just dropped by your site; I like it.
Tuzz
Posted by: Tuzz | Feb 16, 2009 at 09:52 PM
There is a great difference in plants that have been serenaded. So its all on the matter and the content that it has.
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