Nadir

1:34, Had Nadir experience -- or inverted plateau.

You.

Dark, Low, Wide, receptive.

Dark cave poolswim.

Cold mud boot walking.

Wet rain walk.

Drink mist shadow night.

Wonderful.

Surprise find on a hike

[This entry appears to have been worked a bit before it hit the journal. By the language (suddenly florid, then normal -- jerky) I think I may have been trying to bring it up to a "real" writing piece but hadn't finished]

July 23:

Walking down a rocky forest service road, mostly stream, anomaly caught the side of my eye. Down in the red cushion of fir needles and small ferns. Not believing the image, I walked back to the spot and confirmed -- a perfect sky-blue egg; fallen from some wind-thrashed limb above. It sat, cold, amongst the flat ground you find under conifers.

We stood around it, like the crowd at the manger, full of awe and indecision. We cruched, hugging our knees.

Too perfect this thing. A beautiful, unreal blue -- a little elliptical globe sitting like a king in the leaves, or a planet.

Not believing what I did, I watched as my hand reached across my gaze and picked it up -- as though it were made of blown gauze, and my pulse would be strong enough to crush it.

Heavy, like a stone. And so blue. A white & green smear of birdshit confirmed its terrestrial origin, relieving both of us, I'm sure. Like turquoise, it sat in my crisscrossed palm. It picked up my heat, cooling the center of my hand.

Its appearance had thrown us into Dream. It was too powerful -- our brains couldn't avoid mythology and hologram. We stood, transparent as thought, held by its powerful gravity.

Briefly, I thought I should take it back with me, pierce it -- blow it out & send it off to my grandfather, who has a penchant for these things. He would look it over carefully, through glasses & over pipestem -- wander to a shelf, pulling carefully a book. After he identified the species, making sure in his head it was correct for my bioregion & elevation and season, he would place it on a shelf, above his stereo, next to the tintypes of my great grandmothers, and and old-yellowed lamp globe. It would sit, dusty & pristine, amongst fossils and rocks, in my grandfather's house.

The weight in my hand, the smell of the trees, and the density of the wet earth under my bootsoles returned; and I decided to put it down.

My companion and I continued our cold, grey walk -- returing to find it, solid, on top of the gravel pile where I had hoped it would be easy to spot.

We returned it to its cold nest of wet needles, with a roof of fern boughs.

Later on, we returned and took pictures of it where it lay, and in each other's hand -- even that felt tenuously incorrect.

We laid it carefully back, wishing it to a roving skunk's teeth, or bobcat.

----- [to be continuted]

Journaling a streaking incident after too many days cooped up, continued.

As I wrote that, the wind picked up -- it might be 20 Mph. It's teasing though, it dropped off again as I stopped writing, picking up again as I start writing now.

As, as I walked back, I wanted more & more to take off my clothes; the more it rained the more I wanted my shirt off. I saw the lookout tower in the distance -- always reminding me of Thai architecture with its winged-hat look.

I got to the top of the stairs of the tower, the wind stronger up here, and rain; and I stripped in the doorway. The soaked backpack & timer by the propane heater.

HA! I got out there on a good gust in between sentences --

Ok -- soaked backpack in front of the propane & wool pantlegs too. I debated whether I should head down naked, or carrying shorts. Just in case a truck headed up the road when I was downstairs. I'd decided to go down & grab a full water container in either case. Eventually, I wrapped up a pair of shorts & stuck them in my mouth like a Pika carrying grass. I dove out the door into the howling wind and rain.

It was just like cold-water swimming. Once you were in, you were fine. I jogged downstairs,m ridiculous with my shorts in my mouth. I walked around in the dewy grass for a minute, the wind not so strong down there, and then put one of the 5-gallon water container on my head. I ran back 7up the stiars, my shorts in my mouth, and my water balanced on my head w/one hand like a Haitian.

What a great time.

Getting out in the rain after too many days cooped up, no date

Think I'm gonna dress up & take a walk. I've huddled in this propane-warm cabin too long -- I'm going outside for a walk. Got 2 hours before the next check-in. I'll take my radio just in case. I wanna get wet and cold, come in & watch the steam rising from my drying wool pants, and enjoy myself.

And this time I remembered to close windows to keep out brave, fat chipmunks.

****

Man -- I feel GREAT! just took a walk down about a mile or so to see what I could see. I feel so much better now.

On the path/road not 1/2 mile from here I found carnivore shit. Looked too big for coyote. Maybe Cat? I pray -- it's not far if it is.

Further down, after doing a second radio check to make sure I was still in contact w/ Mt. Hood Dispatch, I walked down the 400 Rd. I made about 1/2 mile -- no grouse by the way -- and it started to drizzle. I headed back, joyous as ever. I was just dripping with joy. When I turned around, the road looked completely different. Now uphill, now curving to the *right* -- so I didn't put my slingshot away -- who could tell if there were any grouse on *this* road or not?

On the way down -- I'd found some lichen that was in the road, blown off a tree. It was so seaworthy -- shaped just like some sea lettuce I've seen. My mind raced -- sea -- up here -- evolution.

I walked back, and it started to rain seriously, and I smiled at the change. I forgot all about the electronics in my backpack -- didn't worry about them at least.

I came to a boulder overhanging a ledge, headed Southwest -- into the wind. I walked out & stood, arms to the side -- huge smile. I felt *so* good, it felt so good to have the wind strong against me, reminded me of the times when I've felt the sentience of the wind -- when I related to it as a spirit. I walked back -- happy.

[to be continued]

July 20th, perfection in small things, life as art

It all looks like art if you do it right. Even the putting down of a book; it will angle jsut right in the light, casting a long, meaningful shadow. Everything becomes perfectly placed, as in a movie set -- perfectly chaotic, even.

"It revolves around staying with it." To some, a vibrating, warm energy that flows as an orange column & excites the nerves when aligned with; to others, a calm loving pheeling in the diaphragm. The flowing "rightness."

Staying there, all becomes art.

****

Just as we've all heard eight trillion times, it involves forgetting. Actions consummate themselves, are final and satisfying *in and of themselves.* Life becomes sex, a pleasurable, active, forgetting and involvement.

July 15, The Weather and I, Dancing

(I wrote a cathartic, painful letter to an ex-lover -- and the weather cleared a bit & then closed in -- and now the storm is above me, and I'm fasting, and the rain increases as I want to write faster and faster, not knowing even what I'd say -- just trying to let this stuff come through me -- what this weather resonates, what it says within me -- that I can't tell the outside from the inside -- that as I looked out the window of the lookout, I expected windshield wipers to come on and clean my view -- that that's a perfect analogy to my consciousness, that I even took a walk around the catwalk, but came back in. That it's raining outside. That I'm alone, and it's raining outside. That the current of a poem I heard a few times before is coming into my mindpan. That I can't, don't want, to control it. That the rain and thunder and dripping is a percussive orchestra -- that there are rhythms there, that I'm relating them, that they enter me, that I am relating them, that there is a rhythm here, that I want to express it.)

****

I'm becoming ecstatic, I imagine myself listening again to that poem (I'll write down the name later -- I've got it on tape). I imagine it affecting my whole life's work; I imagine academics & professors discussing the influence, rationalizing it; that, when asked, I just scream out "Because it got it, it got me -- right in the gut. It got me right in the gut, and I stayed there, and that it gave me a hard-on, and it gave me a context when I was ecstatic."

And then I come to a realization -- there are forms of writing that I've read and only partially digested, that give the ecstatic experience context, aesthetic context. They give me a structure to let this feeling out into. They build structures that resonate and allow me to communicate when I'm ecstatic. That I need to read those that illuminate me most -- those that give me a stiffy.

Lopez comes first to mind. Erdrich poetry. Sometimes Rilke. I can't see the ecstatic crunching down into form and words as easily in Rilke sometimes. Who else -- who else do i walk away from with a hard on. Lopez -- man -- he gets me like few others. Lopez -- and someone else, there is someone else, who I can't think of -- who makes me pace & rant after reading them. I did that after Chaim Potok -- but that was mood, & company, & timing. Lopez always does that for me. Rilke used to. Erdrich can. I'm going to nap -- to dream.

w/love, Bp