Reminder to self -- between July 23rd and July 25th

Write on the snake in the pit full of rusted cans sometime.

July 21st, wildlife at the butte

The chipmunks I've baited up to my railing have today decided to start exploring the interior of my quarters. I was writing a letter to Eric O. when I heard a scratching at my East window. It had it's head turned sideways -- halfway through the window. It got in, and I stopped writing to watch.

Just now, I returned from a short walk to find the fatter of the two scampering, big eyed & fluffy, under my bed. I checked my pantries & apparently they hadn't been discovered yet. I had even put a note on the door to remind myself to close everything up when I left, but forgot one of the windows.

During my walk around the butte, I spotted my second snake. The first was a good-sized garder snack (black-yellow) up by the "X" on the helipad. The next, a brown checked snake (possibly even bigger) slid into a pile of rusted cans that I was inspecting, newly found. I think it was bigger -- it took a long time to drag itself over the tin into it's den. Impressive, patient animals.

July 21st, Preterist definition and an Eagle sighting

Preterist, n. .... 2. in theology, one who believes that the prophecies of the apocalypse have already been fulfilled.

****

15:20 hrs. Just spotted my first Golden Eagle today. Thought it was a Raven, until I got the glasses on it. It was flecked w/white -- probably newly fledged [I now know that a young Golden is an important omen in the Lakotah way, known as a Spotted Eagle]. Seemed nearly full size. Blessed Be!

July 20th -- eyes of cows

I'd recently written in a letter to my mother that I was pretty sure I was smart. I'm not too sure "smart" is accurate now. Thinking about it, "enthusiastic" & "passionate" came up. Something bred out of the majority of society.

You can see its lack in the eyes of cows.

Not that I'm not a cow, I may just be one of the ones that wanders off a bit to stare at the trees outside the barbed wire -- or one of those rangy-horned, sagebrush cows that scamper indelicately off when you're hiking in the Puebelo Mountains. Ones who've gone to seed a bit, whose meat is used for jerky & their hide for boot leather -- still dim, but Remembering, nonetheless.

The eyes of a deer, or an elk -- that's an entirely different story; one I hesitate to even start in on. The depth of a deer's gaze, the sex in the elk's (of course I'm thinking here of a full-antlered stag in the rut -- pounding the ground with his powerful, impatient steps, ripping up bushes for practice and release). I'm not ever going to go into it, I don't have the time to write such a volume -- or the maturity. My feet are still unhaired, and my hands soft. I'll wait until the bottoms of my feet are shod in thick leather, and my hands tawny & strong & brown like a rancher's tanned grip.

July 18th, insect teaching

(after finishing a small writing)

"It's so simple you see" -- the fly hovers between transparent wing clouds, swings back and forth in front of the mountains,
"It's just life, that's all. It's not a hard thing to do at all."

He flies away, and leaves me at the desk to write this down.

July ? again, extirpating nasty image from head

I couldn't get the image out of my head, so I'll write it. I had been riding along in a green forest-service truck, and the driver was talking about all kinds of "waste-birds" -- crows, starlings, gulls.

The gulls were the worst, he said, they would cover the field all white when he turned it over -- digging around for bugs and whatnot. "Shit, we hated them dammed things. We'd sit on the back of the tractor with .22's and just picked em off, one by one. Then we'd plow them under."

Then, sensing my ecologically correct attitude, he said "they eat up all the eggs. They did a study, where they put poisoned eggs in dummy nests, and killed off a whole load of 'em, and you know what? The waterfowl population that year doubled. I hate them dam birds."

"I remember seein' em, dead, around the sewage-treatment plant. I guess they'd get into the used condoms. They'd pull 'em out of the treatment ponds, and then couldn't digest 'em"

The image seared into my brain, like a hot brand. Now to get it out...

A slick commotion of white & grey features, bright beak & eye lowered down to the surface of the roiling shit-stew, dredging a worm-looking thing, transparent neon orange, from the muck. Then swallowing it down as it flew away, it tasting not only like the sewage below, but with a texture meaty and satisfying. It felt good and substantial in the stomach. The seagull flying away, full and satisfied.

A couple days later, the same seagull stumbling around on the cement next to the piping & meters at the treatment pond. It's hot out, and the bird is delirious from all the toxins re-circulating in his bloodstream, the rubber lodged somewhere in its lower intestine, plugging him. His world sways & flashes & drops about him as the delirium gets worse.

Soon, an organ just pops, ruptures -- the pain increasing to a pitch unimaginable to our culture anatomies. The shock aiding it to pull free of the strong magnetic attraction of the body, of matter, and allowing it to fly away, towards the sun -- the big garbage dump in the sky.

Fri. 20th June

This morning, I awoke with Marley's "Exodus" turning immaculately in my mind.

Every day has a different flavor and this morning's Tai Chi and Meditation were no exception. I allowed myself to fall 3 times during a right-leg kick, to relax myself enough to finally pull it off without pulling my center of gravity off to my hindside.

The meditation was good and long, but I found myself spending most of my time strategizing letters to Prescott college, or thinking Evergreen might be an option, etc. I didn't clear up as much as yesterday -- if that can be quantitatively discussed.

My water is ready. One minute.

****

I'm beginning to really love oats.

So, my walk back was eventful. I slowly walked, tugging at a rusted eyebolt sticking out of the ground (thinking of P.B. and how he loved things-rusted). It was set in concrete.

I stopped walking to roll up the right pant-leg of my gie -- and there was a yellow, triangular arachnid on it. I at first thought it was a huge tick, for it had a bloated triangular body, and all its legs were gathered up around its tiny head. But the legs, long and nimble, gave it away as a Crab Spider. It was gorgeous. It had an incredibly luminous-soft lemon-yellow body, with a tiny tangerine-colored pinstripe around it's abdomen. I gathered it up in my hands, heading for the nearest Beargrass flower cluster I could find. It was the closest color I could see in the surrounding landscape that would afford the spider camouflage.

It jumped out of my hand and scrambled into the grass.

Now, I'm here with a ready-to-eat bowl of oatmeal to my left. Goodbye for now.

****

"I think nothing is of any value in books excepting the transcendental and extraordinary. If a man is inflamed and carried away by his thought, to the degree that he forgets the authors and public and heeds only his one dream which holds him like an insanity, let me read his [poem], and you may have all the arguments and histories and criticism."

---"The Poet" in Complete Writings p. 248, William Everson

No date -- Snyder poetry

[There is first a copy of "Tasting the Snow" by Gary Snyder in the journal -- it's from the book The Back Country, and since I'm no good at HTML formatting at the moment I won't slaughter it by trying to set it in text here. Great poem though, read it if you can.]

I broke through something today. Something's cleaned out. It was a good day. I'm washed (action), and clean. Something's cleansed. Thank you, day.

*********

Over on the ridge that joins the butte to my South, the birds are all riled up. Almost like there's something coming up. Yelling, and jumping around. Maybe a bobcat or lynx is making its way up to the butte -- a bear. I'm sure that's what it sounds like when I'm walking around -- clumsy in my hiking boots.

*********

Tonight, lantern out, lying in bed, staring at the moon. I felt my vocation swell within me. I felt a contentment that I was on the path, *my* path. It became evident to me and I smiled. Thank you.

[At this point there is an arrow, pointing to the next page. It's a transcription of Snyder's translation of Miyazawa Kenji's "Moon, Son of Heaven." This is also in The Back Country. The last line is "So -- I -- hail the moon as Emperor Moon, this is not mere personification." Love that line to this day.]