A FOGGY DAY ON THE MOUNTAIN

crow feather

This is the feather a crow left me yesterday on the walkway to the donkey gate. 11.5 inches. It was waiting on a rock I walk on. It brought to mind a cat leaving a mouse on the walkway for me to find, a gift, a reminder of friendship, of the bond between us. I feel the same about the crow feather. My Air Bellows crows know I'm the one throwing out seeds for them. They don't get enough to live on, but it makes a good snack to a crow out looking for something to eat. Crows are to me the essence of bird. They are a silhouette of bird with a beautiful flow of flying. One day, years ago when my road was gravel, I turned down Waterfall Road a half mile from the house and a crow took up flying above where a hood ornament might have been, just a few feet in front of the windshield. I watched its bird body bob up and down with the wing beats; it looked around at me from one side, then the other. A red-tailed hawk did the same thing in the same place another time. They gave me the sensation of flying directly behind them. Of course, I know the crow that placed the feather on my walkway did not intentionally put the feather where I found it. The crow was in the white pine above, possibly preening its feathers. I'm surprised a crow came this close to the house. I never see a crow in my small forest around the house. I don't know why they stay out of the bird feeding area. I can only guess they're uncomfortable in a place they can't see out of. They prefer it out in the open where they can see in all directions, or high in trees. I started feeding them the other side of the road where they could scan both directions up the road after seeing a couple of crows at different times walking in the road out front, looking into the bird feeding area with a longing to have some seeds, but hesitant to step in among the thick growth. I imagine the feather floated down through the tree's branches from up high and happened to land where I'd see it first thing in the morning. I don't like to assume the crow was communicating with me in its mind. I also don't like to assume it was not.

 

rhododendron in the fog

 

A beautiful, damp, foggy day all day long. I went out with camera and made some pictures in my small wooded area. The fog gives the trees, the leaves, the branches a sense that they were drawn on plain white paper. I can see the above as a Japanese ink drawing. The fog makes trees appear to be drawn on paper too. It's in fog I think I see trees best. Yet, there is nothing like a vibrant green tree  in June, the leaves fresh with the yellow-green of spring in them. Distances are loaded with details, though in the fog the details of distance are eliminated, leaving the subject itself, the tree to stand in its own beauty. Asters are blooming now. Meadows all over the county are loaded with Queen Anne's lace. A big meadow white with Queen Anne's lace is a stunning sight. A meadow full of Black Eyed Susans is a beautiful sight to behold, too. Joe Pye flowers are opening. They grow on stalks up to ten feet with pointed leaves that ring the stem all the way up. Big cluster of pink flowers on top that attracts butterflies. They flower for a few weeks, and in that time they have an aura of fluttering butterfly wings, yellow, black, orange and blue. The birds, chipmunks and squirrels are quiet today. Rarely do I see a bird today. Outside with the camera I saw a cardinal hopping around in the maple tree, hiding behind the trunk and branches, anxious for me to go back to my barn; he wanted to visit the cantina. I only saw the donkeys at carrot time. They disappeared in the foggy meadow. Something about the fog makes me feel safe, like under a big down comforter in winter, like sitting here in my mancave with walls covered with paintings and photographs, shelves and shelves of cds and several stacks of books. Memories, associations, five African masks, two of them "authentic." The one with pointed teeth I feel is about balance. It's on the wall where I can see it much of the time. It's my reminder of interior balance. People coming in here that don't know me become visibly uncomfortable seeing the masks.

joe pye

 

A memory surfaced of a morning at seven when two guys came to the door. I happened to be up. They were with the work crew working on a new house up the road. This was something like fifteen years ago. These were from back in a holler hillbillies, the kind you only see in town for court. No real crimes, just gettin into shit. Driving drunk, carrying a small amount of reefer, breaking and entering for liquor, beating up a girlfriend, the people of court day. They were good guys, pleasant and friendly. One of them had a J and we passed it around while we talked. It turned out one of them had heard I was a white witch. He explained that's the good kind. He heard that good things happened to people that have to do with me. First I ever heard of that. I'm recalling a time maybe seven or eight years ago at the table with friends Jr Maxwell and Jean Philips. We were good friends who got together in the evening after work for drinks with Jr. I told them of the experience. When I said good things happen to people around me, both answered, That's right. I still don't get it, don't see it, don't understand it. All the better. Best not to pay it any mind. If it is so, in whatever degree, it is something passing through me that is not me. It only means I allow the flow of whatever it is. I've got these two complete strangers in my house, don't recall ever seeing either of them before, 7 in the morning getting high and telling me I'm a white witch. The one who brought it up said he was in a place in his life where he needed something good to happen and hoped stopping in to see me would help. Whatever. I don't think about it because I don't want to start thinking I can control whatever it is. After much thought, I have come to believe that if there is something to it, it's because I pray inside for everyone I know, everyone I meet. Not on my knees smelling farts in the chair cushion at prayer meeting; merely a notation, a request to notice this person. Missionarizing I absolutely forbid myself. I find talking with a missionary attitude the ultimate in arrogance. All it's saying is, if you don't have what I have, you aint got nothin--you're going to hell, so there! The guys stuck around for an hour or so, I was glad to be acquainted with them on friendly terms. They decided not to go to work and went up the road in the other direction.   

 

rhododendron

 

In the years when I roamed these mountains on foot with dog companion Aster, a good dog to walk with, I came upon several stacks of rocks I can only call cairns. They were deep in the woods the other side of the Parkway and up the hill to the east of Brinegar's Cabin. It's about half a mile from the house. They are largely flat stones stacked in a circle and upward like a big barrel with a curved top, solid stone made of hundreds of rocks. I think of them as cairns, landmarks and monuments to the man who cleared the field maybe a couple centuries ago by cutting the trees, pulling up the stumps with horses and chains, picking  up the rocks, throwing them onto a wagon a horse or an ox was pulling. I wanted to photograph them in fog and snow. We had a couple inches of wet snow and a little fog. I headed out with Aster to cross the farm next door on foot and the Parkway. Easy walk, beautiful day. I found the cairns with snow lining every rock. They were beautiful. The fog gave them a timeless sense. They could be Neolithic or just a century ago, or any time in between. I couldn't find my way out. Walked in circles. Kept coming back to the same places. It became frustrating. I was not going to spend the night in the freezing forest in snow. It was not going to happen. After much walking, I realized I was getting nowhere walking. I stopped walking. Walking wasn't getting me out, so let's try not walking. I knew I wanted to go north. Looked at the trees for moss on the north side. Moss grew all the way around the trees. The sky was a cloud of fog. I stood gaping, wondering how standing still was going to help. A hole opened in the fog just big enough to show the sun and closed. It told me where south was. I went north and walked out of the woods in a bee line telling self if I want to go walking any distance on a foggy day, I'd do well to learn how to use a compass. Fog is treacherous for driving and divine for walking. It's a good day to stay at home in a sweater and heavy socks, the second day of August.  

path to a bird feeder

 

 

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LOOKING FOR WHO I AM

eye am eye

The lead question for day 2 of blogathon: Who are you and what do you see your work as "being?" What I hear in my head is the Who: Who are you? Who-who? Who-who? The funny part for me is that I hold being-who-you-are as number one. Everybody seems to automatically know what it means to be-who-you-are. I take it for granted I know who I am. But, when it comes to answering a direct question, I don't know what to say. I like the Rasta answer: I am I. It sounds pretty, but it's a cheap shot. It's like defining beer by saying beer is beer. What constitutes I? Blake said the eyes are the windows to the soul. No doubt about it. Here is a picture of my window. This picture of my left eye was taken by a 5 year old boy, Landon. I gave him the camera to take some pictures and he took pictures of my eyes. I'd been taking pictures of him, so he took pictures of me. I'll start here, with Landon, the five year old. I've known Landon's daddy, Justin, since Justin was a baby. His mother and dad were my friends. Justin was my child friend when he was little, my teenage friend, my wild friend in his wide-open years, and now his kids are my friends. I like kids. I like it when a child shows me toys and dolls. I like to see a child smile and laugh. I like a child to show off for me; do a dance, sing a song, throw a ball. I feel like I understand a child is every bit as conscious as I am. My few memories from very early childhood are of adults who listened when I talked. I listen closely when a child tells me something, anything. The Justin I knew all through his childhood is the same Justin I know now. I'm glad to see who he is now at age 30 is the same as who he was when he was 5. What I'm looking for in self to answer who I am is that something that has been who-I-am since birth, the thread that runs through a string of beads, aspects of self.

landon, 5

 

For anyone acquainted with reading horoscopes, this tells who I am in brief; Sun-Taurus, Moon-Cancer, Ascendant-Sagittarius, 19May1942SanDiego8:52pm.  Taurus is my main drive. A Taurus is like a donkey in that if he doesn't want to do it, it aint gonna happen. I've got stubborn in abundance. I have no problem with it, same as a donkey doesn't have a problem with it. Somebody wants me to jump through a ring of fire, I'm not going to do it if I don't want to. Call me a wuss, call me a pussy, call me a jerk-off, I'll laugh out loud; you're just barking to hear your head roar. It really pisses off anyone I get involved with in any kind of way who thinks controlling me is the way to go. I dove into six years of psychotherapy to find out what was motivating my attraction to women looking for somebody to control. Bingo: mommy. That wasn't all I went through the process for. It felt like the next thing on my path. Know thyself. It took. I learned a very great deal. And now the psychotherapist is a valued friend. Still, it's difficult looking for who I am to put into words, instead of just feeling intuitive about it. Perhaps the most important part to me of who I am is a lover of God. And where who I am is concerned in the God department, I go my own way. I cuss, I drink liquor, I do all the things somebody who claims a spiritual path is not supposed to do. Who says? I cuss because I like the spice and music in language. I drink because I like the bite of straight liquor, not to get drunk. A church would not accept my refusal to give up my sins. They're not sins to me. They're everyday life. God doesn't want us to walk a tightrope over a pit of crocodiles unless you're Philippe Petit and want to do it for the fun there is in it.

 

caterpillar watches the birds

 

What I have found that it could be about the poor that God loves is the poor live close to the bone. They don't pretend. They want to say every forbidden word there ever was and they know how to do it. The poor are animated by their humanity. They have nothing else. Want to get drunk and sprawl face-down in the dirt, go for it, do what you gotta do. Nothing about social climbing attracts God's attention. Fake people God stays asleep to. God waits for the individual to come to the end of needing to fake it. God waits. I've spent my adult life wondering what it is about the poor that God loves so much. Meher Baba, when he was in the body, sitting receiving people who came to see him in a long line or individually, he always stood up when greeting an American black person. The very people the white people look down on so forcefully. I don't attempt to be God-like by imitating saintly behavior. Makes me barf to think about acting sweet all the time. By the example of King David I've learned it isn't being nice that God loves. It's being yourself, it's following your own light, it's allowing the people around to follow their own light, it's getting shit-faced drunk if I feel like it. Last time that happened was sitting at the kitchen table with my friend Jr Maxwell, who was 82 at the time, New Year's Eve. We decided to spend the evening at the table talking like we did over our drams of white liquor, the best on this earth. By midnight our foreheads were on the table and we were laughing because everything was funny. I believe God thought it was funny too. One afternoon I stopped by his house and saw, in alarm, the storm door open a little ways and his foot was holding it open, him on the floor. I went to him fast as I could go. First thought: heart attack. I saw his glass was sitting upright on the floor beside his hand. I knew he was all right. He went down slowly and sat his glass on the floor on his way down. I did the stupid thing, woke him up and tried to help him up. No. He was fine where he was. OK. I put some bluegrass on the cd player of fiddlers he used to play banjo with. He stayed on the floor and lay there with a serene smile on his face for probably an hour. He was where he wanted to be. When he was ready, he got up.

a recent painting of jr maxwell

I had to take a break. Went over to Justin's with Melvin to see the race at Phoenix. Good race today. Play time with the kids. I went with the question of who I am in mind, thought I'd observe self amidst my closest friends, people I would die for. Self was content and happy the whole time. I look at them in the line of the people I have been close with over years, people gone for many years. In each generation I have seen the waning of mountain culture from generation to generation. Yet the culture continues through very different circumstances such that the culture is still very much alive in the mountain people. I am a naturalized hillbilly. I came from flatland culture, but adopted hillbilly culture for my own. I'm still relatively comfortable with people of urban/suburban culture, but am at home among my hillbilly friends. I don't see their culture a lesser version of city culture. I see it unique unto itself with its own history. An individual's humanity is important among mountain people. We know each other for who we are. I came to the mountains as a monk going to a monastery. In my imagination I identified in the early years with Chinese poet Han Shan, known only for his hundred poems that make the book Cold Mountain. He was a monk who lived in the mountains of southern China. I don't tell this. It's just my own personal self-image. I live quietly on a back road and stay to myself nearly all the time. On Sundays I go see Justin's family and sometimes on Friday night drive to Woodlawn, Virginia, to hear some good music of the region. On trips to town for drug store or grocery store or anything, I'll stop in at the coffee shop and see who's there. Who I am looks for the god in everyone I meet and I like to connect with others in that way. Not by talking about God. Rather by simply being open. Several years ago, I don't know about now, I had the name all over the county of a "white witch." Word was that good things happened to people who spent time around me. I had a guy I didn't know come to my door at 7 one morning because he needed a change in his life, needed whatever it is. I've heard it in different ways from different people. The consensus is that good things happen to people who know me. I don't pay it any mind. If there is something coming through me, I would ruin it attempting to take control of it. I just leave it be and pay it no mind.

round and round

 

 

 

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