In one Yosemite dawn along the Merced River I met test tube twins from London who said they were teased at school that they had no souls.
Crescendos of white granite gathered in the gold given by the sun's rise. These twins now young women, gazed up from their wading in this River of Mercy. I saw their eyes animate this home they were being given.
A place where the minutiae of their test tubed zygotic zeal swelled over filling this valley like great waterfalls surging into river.
And in return this morning of immense valley flowed into them sketching indelible song lines in notes of fir, sequoia, ponderosa, aspen and red wood shaping a soul scape that opens like a colossal caress that says you can always come home here no matter how darkly dwindled or far away you've gone.
This valley becomes an ancestral call to gather. The place you come to inherit. I have seen the levity of your birthright float up from the dull and the dismal pit and lift your gaze upward.
I have seen you all coming home from the fray: The twins, burlesque fire spitting hoola hoopers, a guy in a faux leopard coat with head phones dancing to his Half Dome muse, a San Francisco fire fighter, a ghetto kid labeled as a disorder to his school, an ex CIA agent, a guy who cleans the church, roller derby queens from Liverpool, Chief Tenaya's children, Desert Storm veteran from Missouri, ex NYC model with her two boys, from China a grand daughter taking her grand father, descendent of Oregon Trail pioneer, great great grandson of a Buffalo soldier.
You all bow or nod or just stand there still and eventually have to shuffle back on the bus eyes shimmering with a lake mirroring this pursuance of a soul.
Mardi Gras!
Roll call on Mardi Gras morning was at 5 am as I rolled away from the swamp to head on down to see the Zulu King! I rode my bike through the streets of New Orleans. What a thrill an Iowa farm boy weaving in and out of traffic jams to get to where the parade was assembling and where it started. The parade began with the 100 member Southern University band sending out a clarion call of brass that must have pierced the cold gray sky. The plumes on their marching hats conducted rays of sunshine as they marched under the live oaks. The first sun we had seen after a week of rain. Soon after came the Zulu king himself and of course the queen. Spike Lee was the honorary king and busied himself throwing beads. I caught a coconut!
Perhaps the biggest thrill of the day came as the sun was setting and I came onto a Mardi Gras Indian chief under the I-10 overpass near Cajun Seafood with his entourage of spy and flag boys! Soon he was confronted by another Chief and a taunting swirling dance of colorful feathers, beads, drum beats and singing ensued. Wild Tchoupitoulas! I was touched to feel up close the inter-generational family tradition of artful work that makes that dance happen year after year, generation after generation. I imagined the hours and hours of intricate sewing that went into the costume. The love and dedication of family members coming together after coming home from work in their Northside shotgun style home: Killin em dead with needle and thread! This was a life of creating not just passive consuming! I cried to see the chief's daughter come up to him with a towel and wipe the sweat from his face during a pause from carrying his head dress. And the future chief! A little guy who could have been barely two banging on a tambourine, exclaiming the rhythm that he heard from the womb! I could feel the strength and grace of it all holding this family together. I laughed to see the traffic jam on St Bernard Ave that the Indian face off caused. And yet no one honked this is just what we do in this neighborhood on Mardi Gras day. Indians!!!!!! Fighting in the streets!!!
After we followed the Chief on down the street toward his home in the twilight. I sat on the side walk just outside a home that had a makeshift sign tacked to the side of the house. I picked out the $7 plate of red beans and rice with a slab of catfish. Served up right from the home kitchen of Belinda and Troy. What a lovely end to a lovely day to eat my plate of food on the sidewalk as the neighborhood homes began to turn on lights. I got to talking with Troy and Belinda and told them I was gearing up to bring volunteers to plant cypress trees on the Northshore. I asked them if they could cook up some rice n beans with some volunteers and share with us a bit about the history of their neighborhood and issues facing it today. They were happy to oblige saying, " The church channel was saying to me this morning to expect a stranger coming with good news. We all can learn from one another."
"Mardi Gras is the love of life. It is the harmonic convergence of our food, our music, our creativity, our eccentricity, our neighborhoods and our joy of living. All at once" Chris Rose
Love from New Orleans.
Wetland Restoration
The air is thickening down here with Mardi Gras merriment and the occasional warm day brings out the dank of the swamp. I am definitely at the apex of my career trajectory as I'm living in the Merry Green Marvel under a bridge down by the river! But I'm at least with gravel underneath not sinking all that pure green joy into the swamp. I'm slogging away meeting with folks and cooking up projects for next Fall season.
My love for cypress swamp grows with each kayak paddle. I felt I was watching the dawn of creation as I watched the moon rise through the bare trees out of this primal soup the last few nights. I remember other times of my life needing to find swamp or a place where the going is hard just to provide the physical metaphor for the journey through this crazy world.
The other night I ventured off the river into an area flooded by recent rains. I ran out of easy passage water and began bushwhacking the kayak getting hung up on cypress knees and pushing through thorny strip ya naked vines. I got what I sub consciously needed: Lost. I felt frustrated and a growing need to quell the panic impulse or at least the self consciousness of how stupid it would look to Be seen. As I pulled away on trees and pushed with my paddle I wasn’t sure where I was going and if I’d make it back out to the river before dark. I used setting sun to reconnoiter. On a tangle of thorny vine I saw a little snake all coiled up. I’m pretty sure it was the poisonous kind, but I felt sympathy for it more than anything. Most likely displaced from its winter slumber by the flood. It was clinging to that vine just inches above the cold water. I wondered how it would make it through the cold night. The sun was sinking fast.
When I finally could see the river there was surge of exhilaration siphoning off the last of the adrenaline. I paddled off into a side swamp and waited for the moon rise. The chill that came with the evening fog started to settle in and I felt it in my bones. I switched on my head lamp and was amazed to see sparkles in my high beam coming off the tree trunks near where the high water mark lapped up. I felt transported into another constellation! Curious I paddled closer and found that each sparkle was a spider! I was in the swamp orbiting with thousands of spiders!
I’ve never forgotten the phrase from the Lakota that says, “It is a good day to die.” Why would they want to issue a death wish to the sun rise? Now maybe I understand the death we give ourselves over to as the way to real freedom and peace. Yes there is the good fight and much to live for, but carrying the worldly weight grinds us down. When I can accept that death is the most natural occurrence everyday in nature then maybe that frees up more heart space for faith. They say faith sees best in the dark. How else can I explain the myriad of diamond glow in the swamp that night? I paddled home riding the swift current of the flooded river watching the moon rise though thin clouds making it look like gauze on a wounded weary world. Let’s call it wetland restoration.
Notes from the Adventure Bus
Super Moon
Tortoises can live for over 100 years. This one raises
its head and with a wink of a blinkless eye a sparkle blooms
from the sags and wrinkles and worries of a weary world. A
sparkle that says, “Why not?” Why not ride this Yum Yum bus.
Climb aboard this is a yes to Yeehaw! Yes to shedding old skin.
Yes to stepping out of comfort zones. Inhibitions cracked
like the eagle of soon to be six foot wings busting through a hard
shell with open maw ready to “Eat More Food!” And we all get
to ride this born again bus, incubating in the ripe dimthuey
of smelly socks, snores , sneezes and sighs. And Yes! To riding
no matter where we’re from, or who we worship or how deep
we’ve drunk of the very cup of trembling. This bus is out to prove
that Happiness floats as we wade on in, back to Mama, bobbering
with shrimp and fly larvae in a lime green brine as Tufus, of course,
can’t help but trumpet, “Yum, Yum!” Yum Yum to curry seasoned
with the spice of a sunset that takes us in , no matter how small we are,
no matter how our hearts have numbed and pulls us up to scampering
on tip toes every which way because it’s so everywhere and suddenly
we are everywhere and with everyone who has ever loved us. Earth! We
grab for cell phones to try and text a photo but not even the vroom of devices
can keep up with this feeling as still more dappled dusk divines
into the pulse of a heart becoming a river braiding its way into story:
and then! and then! and then! And you’re still talking about the sunset!
And then: Even when there’s dishes to do a musical medley breaks
out in the musical notes of what a heart can gather like the smell
of Ponderosa Pine, the shine of morning sun on obsidian, Aspen giving
their gold away, towering crescendos of white granite, meadows
called Tuolumne (To All o’ Me), and spires of trees at night stirring
the stars into a milkiness that dawns. And these songlines imprint
your soul so that in those moments when it’s utterly dark and you’re
furthest away, you find a memory floating up inside you like a moon,
you thought was clouded over, slowly emerges from a total eclipse
and you catch yourself humming, “Yum. Yum!”