Don't think of rattlesnakes

this week's update begins with a

poem ...

Sheepherder Coffee
by Sam Hamill

I used to like sheepherder coffee,
a cup of grounds in my old enameled pot,
then three cups of water and a fire,

and when it’s hot, boiling into froth,
a half cup of cold water
to bring the grounds to the bottom.

It was strong and bitter and good
as I squatted on the riverbank,
under the great redwoods, all those years ago.

Some days, it was nearly all I got.
i was happy with my dog,
and cases of books in my funky truck.

But when I think of that posture now,
i can’t help but think
of Palestinians huddled in their ruins,

the Afghan shepherd with his bleating goats,
the widow weeping, sending off her sons,
the Tibetan monk who can’t go home.

There are fewer names for coffee
than for love. Squatting, they drink,
thinking, waiting for whatever comes.

from The Steelhead Special, Working Class Cultural and Literary Review, issue # 47
PO Box 6816, Eureka CA 95502 / steelie@asis.com


what i'm reading these days ...
Requiem for a People: the Rogue Indians and the Frontiersmen, Stephen Beckham (1971). History of first encounters between settlers [such an innocuous word; invaders is more apt] and the native Americans living in the 1850’s in what is now southwest Oregon. Countless massacres and disease reduced the estimated population at that time from 10,000 to about 2000 in 4 or 5 years. i was intrigued by one story of an Indian raid on a party of soldiers on a beach, who lit a cannon at the very last instant, which killed the headman and 13 others in a single blast. The headman’s body was the only one not claimed by the Indians, and the whites discovered when they went to bury it themselves that it was a blonde-haired and freckled “Indian,” later assumed to have been the survivor of a Russian shipwreck that had occurred a few years earlier. And check this out:

The boom of California in the 1850’s brought a lively trade in produce, mail, and passengers to the Pacific coast. Steamers and sailing ships connected Panama, San Francisco, Portland, and the Hawaiian Islands. By 1851 one of these small steamers, a one-stack vessel named the Sea Gull, was a regular on the San Francisco – Portland route. Captain William Tichenor of the Sea Gull, sailing for miles along the unsettled [by whites!] coasts of n. California and s. Oregon, saw that a shipping port … that would serve as a base for the pack trains to carry supplies to the mining camps on the upper Klamath River, would be a profitable undertaking … [and] hired a crew of nine men in Portland to be the landing party and founders of a town that he hoped to establish at Port Orford.

Tichenor was later the first white man to bring his wife and children to live in the area.

Days of War, Nights of Love: Crimethink for Beginners (2001). Radical manifesto for those who’ve got a suspicion that there might just be a way to go through life more joyfully if one could just figure out how to live without having to sell one’s soul to the oligarchy. An excerpt from the intro webpage at crimethinc.com:

Now Entering Cyberia (Population: Zero) -- A Note on the Medium -- Due to your vague interest in these matters which have been deemed antisocial by the new thought police, you have been exiled to Cyberia. You may believe your visit to be voluntary, but ask yourself: if you could live—in real time, in full color, without a 'net'—the revolt and transformation you fantasize about, would you be here, contemplating and trading in mere representations of such things? The new isolation chambers and interrogation rooms largely need no judicial procedures or law enforcement to fill them—we confine ourselves to these office cubicles, internet cafes, and lonely bedrooms willingly, even believing ourselves to have found access to our dreams and desires here. Not to criticize you, of course—since obviously I am in the same situation as you, similarly self-exiled. But let's use this time in the wilderness as the political prisoners of old did: not to get accustomed to it, not to build new lives around this voluntary amputation, but to educate ourselves, increase our powers and connections, so when we can return to society we will be armed with new tools for dismantling and reconceiving it. Let us take the world itself back, rather than the "information superhighways" upon which we are being herded so quickly away from it, so one day there will be no need for anyone to return here besides misguided historians and other archeologists of the cursed graveyards of the past.

Copies: $8 postage-paid from CrimethInc. HQ, 2965 Rangewood Dr., Atlanta, GA 30345.

Dreams are Wiser than Men (1987), ed. by Richard Russo. A collection of poems and essays on dreams. A number of people recount their dreams, and if you do borrow or purchase a copy of this book, don’t miss Elizabeth Rose Campbell’s 10-page essay, On Dreams, in which she recounts many of the dreams she’s had over the years. In one dream, she is watching as if on a movie screen one of the summer vacations she’d spent as a 4-year-old with her parents and sister, recalling vividly the sound of the crashing surf, the feel of her father’s hand in hers, etc.

My access, as witness dreamer, seems unlimited. I study myself as a four-year-old very carefully, particularly my eyes. She [her 4-year-old self] seems to know I’m there, to strut for me, to become Ms. Mischievous. At the point when I recognize her awareness of me as witness, we merge. My grandparents are sitting on the beach with my parents. All of them are wearing hats; they are laughing and talking. My grandmother calls out to me, “Come here you rascal!” Even then she and I were the rascals, I think to myself as I run to her. I am exploding with comprehensions, standing in my four-year-old body with adult memory intact, the flexibility or non-existence of linear time somehow bound up with the roar of the ocean.

Heady, wonderful stuff. Russo writes [p. 2] Dreams, like all human experience, have intrinsic value apart from any interpretation we may make of them. Instead of asking what dreams can do for us, ask how we may honor the dream.

Every night i read just before going to sleep to encourage myself in the remembering and recording of dreams. Those of us who ignore their dreams are overlooking a potentially valuable source of information, not only about themselves and what's happening around in their lives, but possibly about their future as well. Does it matter to have an opinion or believe in some theory about dreams' significance, or about where they come from? Before attempting an answer to either of those questions, it would be a good idea to have an idea of what one is dreaming about; how many of us these days do?

i wonder how different my life might be if i lived in a society where more people valued dreams, and the first thing one talked about in the morning was what one had dreamt the night before.

The Power of Myth, Joseph Campbell with Bill Moyers (1988). Wow. This is a book i would love to have on my shelves, were i to actually own any (shelves). i skimmed a huge chunk of this fantastic book this afternoon, and came across the Meaning of Life! Here it is. (Got a pen?!) The experience of eternity right here and now, in all things, whether thought of as good or as evil, is the function of life. i also especially enjoyed the tale Campbell told [pp. 62-64] from the Upanishads about the god Indra, who thought himself something special for having slain a monster, and so decides to have a special palace built for himself by the carpenter of the gods.

But every time Indra comes to inspect it, he has bigger ideas about how splendid and grandiose the palace should be. Finally the carpenter says, ‘My god, we are both immortal, and there is no end to his desires. I am caught for eternity.’ So he decides to go to Brahma, the creator god, and complain.

It goes on quite a bit from there, but at this point i chuckled, and was even more completely drawn into the tale. It was better than watching a good movie! Read this book, there i said it.

As you can tell i’ve been reading a lot lately, and for a couple of reasons. One is we’ve got a week-long break from classes, and it feels like a holiday, although we work/study participants still have to report for work, which there is less of, since a fair number of students and teachers have skedaddled.

But i realized this afternoon by the pool that it’s also been an escape from having to think about the possible repercussions of an unpleasantness which occurred this past Friday night, and which i will summarize for you in next week’s update, when i expect to have had some closure. i don’t mean to be mysterious, coy, playful – well, yes i do – but i AM a story-teller, i DO want you hanging on the edge of your seat until next week, and it will be a better story when i’ve got the ending to tell you simultaneously. All right so i’m a tease, whuttaya gonna do about it?

For this week, i would only like to add that i had another eventful bike-trip to visit Sandy, again two-way, again spending the night at Mike’s. Zack was at the house when i arrived and when i asked if there was any work for me he said, “i think you should spend some time with Sandy first!” and i told him that’s just what i was hoping to do, esp. with the heat of the day making work at that time a bit more strenuous.

So i’m about to take Sandy down to the watering hole when Zack says, “Watch out for rattlesnakes today!” And i go, “TODAY? What do you mean today?!” And he explained that due to recent weather conditions, and given the place where we were headed, it was somewhat more likely that we might see one. Or some. “Just keep your eyes open and you’ll be all right,” he attempted to re-assure me.

i was fine, but once we arrived at the spot, i did say a prayer to my guardian angels to protect us, and -- although Jeff and Zack saw a pregnant rattlesnake later in the day on the same stretch of road that Sandy and i’d walked -- Sandy and i never saw a one. And man, i'm telling you, i was really tip-toeing around, and looking all over pretty slowly and carefully! Talk about a Zen-like awareness of one's environment. {Here snakey snakey snakey snakey! sounds SO different from Here kitty kitty kitty kitty!}

After i’d given Sandy a little bath in the cool water, i called Janet at 5:15 her time, and was pleasantly surprised to find her still at work. We had a great little chat, which livened up the rest of my day. It is SO good to get back in touch with and hear the voices of old friends.

s.o.w., an email from Monsieur Lance Savage raises the possibility that that boy and his guy might be comin’ this way for 3 days in the first week of August, to which i can only reply: WOO-HOO! They’re planning on going to Gay Pride in Vancouver 7/31 and have plans to fly to Detroit from Portland 8/10, but i don’t know their plans beyond that. These two will get the royal treatment should they actually be able to make it down here from Portland. One of the world’s premiere annual reggae concerts, Reggae on the River, just happens to take place that weekend. They will definitely be taken through the Avenue of the Redwoods, and i’d be awfully surprised if we didn’t also fit in some camping, i’m thinking along Shelter Cove, or the Lost Coast near Bear Harbor. Haven’t been there yet, but Heartwoodies have already attested to the sublime nature of these places, both not more than an hour’s drive west.

Before i left Mike’s place (i.e., while i still had cell-phone reception) i also called up my brother Scott who Kathy had told me would be celebrating his birthday [a week late] that weekend, and had a nice chat with him for about ten minutes. i now have about 15 minutes of talk-time left, so no worries about not using up any of those units before they expire 8/30! Anyone want to chat, just give a call between 10 am Friday and about noon Saturday, Pacific time of course. 585/298 4447.

OH, one more thing about my visit with Sandy (for now): the bike ride back. i was going really fast down this twisty stretch of shaded road, when all of a sudden i startled these two fawn who were feeding on the side of a steep slope at the side of a road! They took off running, but had nowhere to go except in the same direction i was going, and for a couple of seconds i was terrified that one or both would veer to the left onto the road causing a collision and my wiping-out, potentially fatal at the speed i was going. But they ran to a point where the terrain leveled out, and just as suddenly veered right and disappeared into the forest. THAT was a major WHEW!

Another scare was at the bottom of a steep hill that veers right around a blind curve. Because the road at this point goes steeply uphill again, i was going very fast trying to gain as much inertia as possible to carry me up the upcoming hill. When i noticed the recently filled-in [with sand] pothole, it was too late to bypass it and i had to hit it head-on, which caused my water-bottle to again pop out, the first of 3 times it did this before i’d gotten safely back to Heartwood.

The 5 miles of dirt road that ends at Heartwood has become even more treacherous since they recently regraded it to reduce some of the washboard and potholes (good), and laid down gravel and stone here and there (bad). One of the good side-effects of this is a significant reduction both coming and going of the BQ [boredom-quotient].

All right it’s going on 9 pm Tuesday and i’ve got a global audience wondering where the hell this week’s post is, so it’s off to the Lodge to find an internet connection and put this baby to bed. Jusqu’a la semaine prochaine … [see you next week]

love, the soUrcerer