Love to the god within

Oh yes, it's been terribly long since my last post. Those who know me know that, 1)I love to write, and 2)I have never been in the habit of keeping a diary, especially a public one. That said, there are so many wonderful, magical people in my life, and some of them must be curious how things are going here at the Columbia House.

Alisa pointed out at last week's coop meeting (so well attended. Thanks to all of you!) that there are good people who would like to be associated with the coop we're building - and that's going rather well, thank you - but who stay away from it because of the name. "Holy Road House" just puts them off. She pointed out that we get regular friends-requests on MySpace from religious groups because of our name too. We are not a religious organization, which is apparent to all coop members. We are affiliated with no religions and have no interest in such relationships. To us, religion, like nationalism, is divisive. It separates and judges people and rejects those who are not part of their club.

To be fair, we have our biases too. We're not terribly supportive of people who don't share our progressive point of view on social justice, as an example. We try to love everybody equally, but prefer those who have found the personal courage to let themselves find and express their creative sides, who have expressed distaste for the subjugations of corporate culture, and of Walmart culture for that matter. We resonate with people who are willing to acknowledge and accept and explore their spirituality, but again, not those who express that through religiosity.

Does this make us hypocrites? This is tricky ground for us all - not just those of us drawn to the HolyRoad Tours coop concept, but all of us, even the most open minded and progressive of us. One thing that mitigates this for us is the fact that most if not all of us have come to understand that each and every person on earth, regardless of his or her level of consciousness or politics, is an expression of an Inner Truth. Hinduism has a convenient word for this: nameste. We recognize and give thanks to the god within you, within each and every one of you. This includes those caught in the cogs of The Machine, those still wearing the Mask (as Lizzie likes to put it).

I'm not willing to say this is enough to absolve us of our lingering prejudices. But it's an important step in the right direction - toward unity, toward sharing and cooperation. Toward peace.

Well, I guess I just had to explore that a bit. On a lighter note, I will indulge myself by a bit of boasting: I came home yesterday with close to a dozen bags of groceries. On my motorscooter. A personal best for me. And it wasn't that hard. Though one more bag probably would have been too much. I will, in future, probably shop more often and carry less each time. My message here is not a new one for me, but I want to repeat it: if you live in a city, either sell your car or at least park it and only use it when you really need to travel far and fast. A small cheap, fuel efficient motor scooter is not only Earth-friendly, it's a ton of fun!

tweedle dee tweedle dum

so many things going on and going on like a sit down today and talk about the celebrating peace party which is a party of course so party we will by all playing together in the sandpit building temples to the moon

love from the holy road house don't forget our show saturday 9pm at mojos the hucksters

Holy Road Whirlwind

Well it's been, what, almost two weeks since Lizzie and Baba returned to Missouri and the Columbia Holy Road House. I've been living in the center of a cyclone, it seems - an odd place to be but not a bad one. Rather calm in a busy sort of way, as a matter of fact. Except for today, when I took everything, and I mean everything, out of the kitchen pantry and piled it on the kitchen table and tore the shelves out and scrubbed them and plugged a gaping mouse hole ... and then went out to play music and left the whole mess still a mess. But hey, that's life sometimes in the center of the cyclone.

We had a fine potluck gathering the Wednesday after their return, during which we talked about the coop and especially doing regular potluck and open mic nights at the Columbia house. Then we went to the back of the garden and planted a tree along with some of Lizzie's mom's ashes - a true blessing on our house and our efforts.

After playing a fund raising event with Hilary Scott tonight, I got to enjoy some of my friends, the Sphere of Prometheus, spin fire. This was very cool indeed.

May Flowers

Saturday in Columbia Missouri. Is it like Saturday where you're from? Probably but the Holy Road House is hushed in anticipation of the return of its favorite son and daughter: Lizzie and Baba are coming back this week.

Prepare to join us this Wednesday evening for a potluck and jammin' and laughin' and kickin'. Much to do to get ready, much more to do once they're back. We have some serious playfulness coming up.

Meanwhile, our own lovely mistress ultra hostess Firedancer bought and installed some flowerage that is, for the moment only, nearly as beautiful as she is.

Karma

One of my favorite zen stories:

There is the story of the man who had murdered ninety-nine people before he met a holy man. Thereafter he retired to sit beneath a tree beside a well traveled path. One day a warrior on his way to conquer the next town stopped before the man and demanded he move from his place beneath the tree. When the man refused, the soldier drew his sword, and the man rose from his place and murdered the warrior with his hands. He had killed a hundred men, but in killing the last he saved a hundred souls who would have died in the town. Immediately upon killing the soldier, the murderer was released from the karma of his acts and achieved satori.

So it goes.

Stories About Stories

Everyone knows I'm crazy for stories. Can't get enough of them. What is it that makes them so irresistable? I know I'm not alone -- our whole culture, our whole species is crazy for stories. We need them like we need air and water. I'm not at all sure we could live for very long if we somehow totally lost access to stories.

Our lives are stories, and we tell those stories to ourselves and to each other constantly. Virtually every conversation anyone has is a story or part of a story about ourselves and about others. Stories validate us, they remind us we're alive, but they're even more than that. We're creating our stories as we go, on the fly, moment by moment. This episode, now this one, and the next one, and this little complication, and now this huge dramatic moment, and our recovery from that, and the story goes on. And on.

So, although I have dedicated myself recently to the task of making up stories, of creating them for amusement and entertainment and maybe even enlightenment, it turns out I'm only one of many. One of billions, as a matter of fact. Which is quite all right with me.

One of the things I have bumped into, trying to learn how to tell stories, is the idea that it's possible to reflect on our lives and see them as unfolding stories, and that we have the power then to rise higher and higher into our real roles as storytellers of our own lives. We can, and probably should, get good at creating our own stories.

Psychologists call it "scripting your life". That's only one phrase to describe it, but it's a useful one. Cast yourself as the highly likeable and wonderfully competent lead in your own play: the play of your life. Then script it every day, every moment even. It's fun being a playwrite. Try it!

Okay. I want to indulge myself for a moment and share a story I just wrote (rewrote, actually - I drafted most of it long ago. It just needed to be completed). You can fine it here.

Love from the Holy Road House.

Remembering Stones

Consider this:

That all of your knowledge is like stones lying in a field. Where did they come from?

You didn't put them there. They erupted -- are continually erupting -- from the earth's bowels, from the soil itself, which is a fine matrix of crushed stones, old knowledge, edges worn away by endless exposure to the light of the sun, the pressures of water and wind, and the ceaseless, restless shifting of the earth itself.

Pick them up and build with them. Build a castle. Build walls, build mills and line wells, build your homes. Live in them, raise your children and animals in them. Line your gardens with them and shape your tools from them. They are endless and they are yours.

In time they will crumble back to the earth and with the help of the sun and moon, they will feed you. Know that they are the substance which feeds you, the substance that protects you. Know that they are the substance of which you are composed and to which you return.

Lay no store in knowledge. It is nothing. Like the stones, it is only earth and sun and moon. It is only the all of everything and only emptyness. You may value knowledge, but only for a moment. More than that disallows it, prevents it, subverts it into something other than its origins. Knowledge is only consciousness. It is the field itself in which you lay. Cultivate it, then forget about it.

As the poet says, "Work without doing."

Out Of My Mind

A fantasy:

   ”Hello Doc?" On the telephone.
   "Yes, Dr. Finster here."
   "Oh, okay. Say doc, I want you to do something for me. Do you think you would?"
   "Well, give it a try. What do you want me to do?"
   "I want you to declare me mindless."
   "What?"
   "I don't have a mind, doc. I want you to declare me mindless. Got it?"
   "I can't."
   "Why not?"
   "Wait a minute. Is this a joke?"
   "Not unless it's on me. Yesterday I had a mind. Today I don't. I've lost it. It's gone. Just, poof! "
   "Are you trying to tell me you're insane?"
   "Sorry doc, I really don't know what 'insane' means. I know that I don't mind at all that my mind has disappeared. Quite a burden lifted, if you ask me. But it would really help me out if you would go ahead and fill out a paper declaring me mindless. I can probably draw some sort of social security benefit or something. After all, it won't do any good to go to my job now, will it."
   The doctor had an idea. "Why don't you come down to my office and I'll examine you and if it looks to me like your mind is gone, I'll sign you into the state hospital." That'll do the trick, he thought to himself.
   "Can't you take my word for it? Who should know better than I?”
   "If you're mindless you're not going to know anything, are you."
   "Oh, you've got that all wrong, doc. See, I'm not my mind. I'm me."
   But that doesn't convince the doctor and he hangs up. What can I say? There's nothing mindless about modern medicine, is there.

Troubadors Weekend

Alisa and I tripped over to Bellville Illinois Saturday to visit our great friend Suzibird and her menagerie of parrots. Then up to Edwardsville to the oddly named "Stagger Inn" cafe and bar for what turned out to be a wonder show featuring the Duct Tape Duo Trio, this time as a quartet with our buddy Jeff Wheeler, and following them, the amazing Troubadors of Divine Bliss.

Folks kept buying me drinks and despite that, I had a great time. The next day we enjoyed a fine breakfast of scrambled eggs with pepperjack cheese and bagels, then went to an art fair and were fully awakened finally by Roscoe Beano and seven of his friends and family (again featuring Jeff Wheeler on djembe). Incredible wild energy all around, especially for that time of day.

Sad to say, I accidentally deleted all my photos of the Troubadors, but they will be back. I look forward to hosting them at the Holy Road House this fall. I believe they are hosting Lizzie and Baba as I write this at their place in Indiana. They completely blew me away, even though I was prepped to expect that to happen. Two of the smartest and bravest women I've met.

Long Bet and Spiritwalker

"The Long Bets Foundation - make long-term predictions and hope someone will bet against it. Winnings go to the winner's choice of charities. This is a partial spin-off from The Long Now Foundation, which is building a 10,000-year Clock and tools for a 10,000-year Library. Long Bets is one of the Library tools. A Stewart Brand project."

and

Hank Wesselman, Spirit Walker: Messages from the Future (and related books)

"Hank Wesselman is a physical anthropologist (UC-Berkeley) whose career activities include research with teams in Africa’s Great Rift Valley where Lucy and other early human ancestors have been discovered. His background as a physical anthropologist concerned with long-term ecological change plays a role in these books, but their real import has to do with a very different path--one of spontaneous and then deliberate shamanistic experiences that reveal a dramatically different future for humanity." (review by Michael Winkleman. quoted without permission)

More later.

The Tops of Our Heads Are Missing

Well, they just left. Another great national touring group - the Fat Little Bastards. They came, they played, they left, and a small number of us in Columbia are trying to piece our lives back together. Never has this town heard sounds like we heard last night. Part jazz, part classical, part fusion, part rock, part world music. All of it with incredible energy and amazing musianship. And this on the tiny downtown stage in the Blue Fugue.
Three very talented and well trained young musicians from Boston and Brooklyn, and cool fun guys too. Andrew Stern on guitar, Eric Platz on drums, and Noah Jarrett (yes, Keith's son!) on upright bass. This was music that normally we would only hear on the stage at Jesse Hall or possibly the Missouri Theater - big stage, big audience. Instead, there were maybe a dozen of us in the bar who were mesmerized, with maybe that many again outside staring through the big open window in awe and amazement.

And they were kind enough to say good things about Mike's Peanut Butter Pancakes the next morning. I am glowing with pride just to have met these guys.


I've been lazy about blogging, but it's all good. Yesterday Alisa came over and we worked on setting up the Holy Road House production office on the first floor. She and I are tripping to St. Louis this weekend to enjoy and party with the Troubadors of Divine Bliss, our Louisville friends, mend some fences and solidify some friendships, and just have fun.

It's turned cool so I'll be spending more time outdoors today and tomorrow, mowing, raking, trimming. Flowers are everywhere. The Garden of Eden seems determined to spring back into existance. Enjoy it, everybody, I know I am.

Food, Computers, Books

Obviously my life revolves around food. And monitors and keyboards. And books. It occurs to me that in this way, my life hasn't changed as much as I imagined it might. I certainly am a creature of habit. And of appetities.

And I can never tell where inspiration for words will come from. This morning it came from my skillet. I have never been a great cook, I will be the first to admit, but I've always enjoyed cooking when it's been thrust upon me. And living alone has encouraged me to cook more, even if only for myself. And doing so, I've determined that I have a real talent for cooking. I'm getting really good at it, see. So I've decided to share my skills with the world. I will start adding some of my favorite recipes to this blog. Don't look for them every time - great work takes time to mature and of course I'm picky so I'll only present the best and most useful ones for your enjoyment. I should add that my recipes will be of most interest and use to people like me, in my sort of situation: a bachelor male living mostly by myself. So, without further ado, here is my first contribution.

Scrambled Eggs
This one is easy enough to get you started, in case you are a single male, say a young man just out on your own, or suddenly divorced (through no fault of your own, I'm sure), or you've just gotten out of prison and you can't find a roommate. Just follow these simple directions:

1. Put two or three eggs in a pan.
2. Plan to cook them over-easy (you know about that: it's what the cooks at Denny's do all the time. You may know one of them actually, as many of them probably got out of jail about the time you did).
3. Forget to grease the pan.
4. Flip the eggs.

The result: perfect scrambled eggs.

Of course, this raises a new question: how to get the residue of the eggs out of the pan, since you probably scooped up as much of the eggs as you could and sat down and ate them, forgetting to turn off the heat under the skillet so now they're stuck on there like tar on rice-paper. There are a couple of things you can do that are pretty easy:

1. Wait for a hail storm. Put your pan out in the yard and let the hail clean it. This has the additional advantage that the rain that usually follows the hail will help clean out what's left. If there's no rain, you may be able to count on a neighborhood dog coming along and licking it clean.
2. If you're lucky enough to be living in a house with a clothes dryer (sorry all you jailbirds, I know how unlikely this is), then just place the pan, along with a good hefty shovelful of sand, in the dryer. Turn it on and let it work for, oh, maybe an hour or so. Note: this works best with skillets with steel or wood handles. Plastic, not so good.
   

That's it. Next time: the easy way to make Bird's Nest Soup.

We Are What We Eat

Well, Mike Clark's done it again - fixed a fabulous meal at the Holy Road House. His favorite, shrimp curry on jasmine rice. Um um. That, and fine conversation and orienteering (Manhattan, Staten Island, Brooklyn and Queens, the Bronx - I've always been curious where they lay in relation to each other).

So good food, good friendship, good information. This house just keeps feeding me in so many ways.

Bean is back too - another old friend on hand.

Worked on a strange story today from my childhood. Short short version: I had to talk one of my best friends (when I was about fourteen) out of killing his father (truth). More than once. Curious the sorts of things that shape us when we're young.

Quiche Music

Is quiche a form of kitsch? A kitchen seems a good place to contemplate quiche, especially a kitchen filled with kitsch, don't you think? The aroma of kitsch, nothing like the aroma of quiche, fills my mind when I think of silly Americana like, oh, brass hen heads or candleabra under the table, say, or glass jars for syrup which resemble a stereotype of Aunt Jemima, full round skirt under her broad apron, all edges worn away by centuries of relentless daily work.

Kitsch is fun, but quiche is delicious, especially fresh, hot out of the oven and steaming, crust a golden brown that crumbles when you look at it wrong. Eggs and spinach and brocolli and sea salt and ground pepper and paprika on top. Should have had mushrooms but those all went in the salad, along with the last of the leftover onion, which is why these two are onion-free quiches too, and no cheese either, simply because I didn't think to put it in. That's what happens when you're hungry and in a hurry to fix lunch and you don't take time to meditate properly on what the contents of the perfect quiche might be. Good quiche today, but not perfect.

Good life today, if not perfect. Friends over for dinner - Alisa and her son Skye, such a cool kid, and Pam, who showed up a trifle late but actually right on time. Alisa brought fresh fruit - an unexpected treat of strawberries and pineapple, which we cut into finger sized bits. I fetched a bag of powdered sugar and that made the perfect dip. Pam brought her regular, carrots and broccoli (uncooked) but with a special treat: a jar of Guiltless Gormet Roasted Garlic Hummus dip and to call this a treat would be like calling a tornado a mild draft. Although its effect on one's taste buds is arguably more subtle than a whirlwind.

Regardless. We talked Coop. We talked Magazine. We talked Burning Man and boyfriends and booking local bands and beluga (not really, I just like that word). We talked about the joys of sharing and encouraging and uplifting and empowering, and how some people just don't get that and can't stand to hear it. But some do and we talked about the felicity of friendships and fine feathered friends. Finally, we agreed to brainstorm the magazine into existance, starting with e-mail and then with sit-downs and lists and such. I sent Alisa home with a teeshirt one of my daughters bequeathed me, a tie-dye with a huge plant leaf on the front. I wonder what that could have been.

As for me, I managed to finish loading approximately 35 gigs of wave files from our last C3 show into my PC and have completed the first mix pass. That and enlisting my best friend in the task of critiquing the story arc of my novel and I'd call this a pretty successful day.

Although what makes a successful day? Perhaps remembering to feed the fish and water the plants and make a grocery list, which I also did. Maybe taking time to read a fantastic short story in the New Yorker, which I did not do, but which holds the promise of improving tomorrow just that little bit. Every day is a successful day when you remember to Remember, when it dawns on you at least once to recall that we're creating our reality here, bit by tiny bit, moment by tiny moment, and that every moment is this moment and no other.

To tomorrow then, which I fully expect to be another today, another opportunity to live in the Now.

The Music of Summer Rain Rising

Spring is well here and summer is coming on quickly. Missouri weather is odd though: fifty degrees at night, mid-eighties during the day. After spending more than twenty years living in air conditioning both at home and work, I'm pleased that living without it so far has been so easy. The Tumbleweed Hotel is cool during the day on the basement and first floors, warmer on the second, and plenty warm on the top floor starting about nine or ten a.m. and lasting often well past midnight.

This is the way I lived my youth. Cross breezes from open windows, hanging out on the porch, especially around sundown. Fans. The home I was raised in was stone and the bottom floor was cool mostly, even on the warmest days. So I find myself reminded of my childhood and young teen years here in so many ways. I couldn't have hoped for more: both a throwback and a throw forward, changes upon changes, encouraged to abandon old grooves and habits, finding new and better ways to live. And especially so when the house is filled with the bustle and energy and joy of young lives. I am dragged, screaming and giggling with the fun of it all, back to my youth by this new life. Howlelluja!!

The gardeners have shown up again - the community gardeners, not the Holy Road Gardeners, but I look forward to their return too - and have staked out small plots in the newly plowed ground next to our house. Suddenly half-grown tomatoe plants appear, complete with circular vine cages. Good time for this: days are still mostly cool, and it seems we get at least a few minutes of rain every day.

I finally found two bags of bird seed in the barn and now the birds are all over their feeders. It's like they and the squirrels were watching from afar, waiting for the feeders to reappear, and when they did, they all threw a huge party in the yard. All kinds of birds and squirrels - they all seem to get along with each other without squabbling, a relief to this old man, having already raised my kids and dealt with my share of hungry infants. I wish I had a good camera with a telephoto lens. I can't get close enough to this colorful mix of partyers to get a picture of them. The small black and yellow feeder is dominated by small black and yellow birds, some kind of small finches maybe, who clearly own that feeder and rarely allow other birds close to it. Other birds, all kinds but especially redbirds and robins, crowd the larger feeder and knock plenty of seed to the ground, where the squirrels wait and feast. A happy synergy that makes it fun to watch from the kitchen window as I wash dishes.

Shane, my former bandmate, dropped by yesterday. He wants to get a new band going - almost anything will do, as long as he gets to write and blow the sax and sing his songs. So the next project is starting to shape itself, as I knew it would. He and Kathy, the hot punk drummer friend of ours, and maybe Stuart on guitar. We'll see.

Another great year for music in Columbia is emerging. It's irresistable, as always - like steam rising from the streets after a hot summer day's rain.

Mother's Day in the Rain

What a pleasure it is to be able to sit and watch the storm roll in, watch the rain hit, smell the wet on the wind, hear the hiss of the downpour, and not have to run inside. Front porches - a past necessity, and a present gift, at least here at the Tumbleweed Hotel.

It was a two-gig weekend, and long gigs at that, a total of ten hours on stage this Friday and Saturday nights at a restaurant in the Ozarks. Cinco de Mayo, Mexican New Year. I saw exactly two Mexican-Americans at that party, but considering the place featured worse than average food at high-class prices, I'm not surpised. Who except those determined to drink until they were thoroughly obnoxious would go to a place like that. Well, I did, but I was paid pretty well to be there, and I had exactly one beer. As a band member, I not only had to work my butt off and put up with drunks, I was given the privilage of paying full price for anything I consumed. A dollar-sixty for a small cup of coffee? Okay, I see how this goes.

But I got to see some old friends and pretty much enjoyed the music both nights. I have no real reason to complain and every reason to be grateful.

Today I slept late and tidied my room while listenening to Ira Glass's This American Life on NPR. The challenge for the day: cut the long long grass before the storm hit. I did it, but just barely. Tomorrow I rake.

It's Mother's Day. Best to you, mom. Love, your kid.

Irises in the Rain

I was pleasantly surprised this morning to see white irises blooming next to the Holy Road Barn. Maybe I should have expected them - they are a spring flower, but I think they bloom earlier than this. Regardless, they are lovely. I can't bring myself to pick them - maybe tomorrow for the Wednesday potluck.

There's not often much to say about my days in the Holy Road House. It's writing each morning, work for the house and coop in the afternoons, and a lot of that work, like today, is repetative and hardly interesting enough to talk about, and the result, like my story drafts, are often not ready for prime time. Nonetheless I made good progress today on readying the Tumbleweed Cabaret web site for Lizzie and Baba.

I don't know who's coming tomorrow for the potluck, but I'm going to prepare something special, something other than soup or stew this time. Something interesting.

Here's the second of ten exercises:

II.

Martin la Folet turned his face to the wind and sniffed. Rank, he thought, as usual. One would not want to go there. He quickly banished the image of the docks and their rough company that formed in his mind – he'd left all that and he preferred to think of the waterfront and the ocean, if he thought of it at all, as a foreigner might: simple romantic scenes of pleasure and indulgence painted in cooling pastels. It was as if he had never been there, really, a neat trick of the mind if one simply chose to look at it that way. The past was the past and long gone, and this was now, a new day brimming with opportunity. Martin stepped smartly in his new pointed leather boots toward that part of the city which was now his destiny. Without turning his head, he glimpsed another businessman, like himself, who was surely admiring this tall well-turned young man in the new suit, dark hair neatly cropped, thin face with sharp nose facing straight ahead as he walked crisply toward the Evans Imports Co. office building in the heart of the city's commercial district.

Happy Happy Gus

Gus is a happy betta this morning. Gus has new clean water in a clean bowl. Gus is wagging his fins and tail happily. Gus even smiles at me when he comes up for air. I feel like a good little boy for figuring out what Gus needed before told me by turning upside down.

Today I started revising one of my short stories. Bit of a tough slog, that, but I got the first couple of pages down, and that's a start. My instinct is that I've only just begun to climb this hill of fiction writing, though I've done it off and on, mostly off, for close to ... uh, I'd rather not say how many years. I remember a similar slog when learning to play an instrument. It was effortless to hear the music in my head, I just needed years of study and practice to figure out how to make it come out of my hands as well. And I have ideas for stories, even novels. The trick is to discover the way to make it come out on paper in ways that will grip a reader and make them not want to let go even when it ends.

All of this is on my mind because I spent much of this afternoon reading advice from writers and editors and publishers and such about how to write well and market the result. Ah, I always did like Kindergarten. I always preferred to stand at the bottom of the slide and see if I could climb up its slick surface. Way too easy to just climb the stairs in back and slide down, fer cryin' out loud.

For those doublessly not interested, the second exercise paragraph will have to wait until I convert it from open source to Microsoft's proprietary doc format, which I may never do now, as I'm absurdly, irrationally mad at Microsoft for not supporting Open Office docs natively when you open Word. C'mon Redmond. You guys should be way better than that.

Liberation Road

Greed has imprisoned us. United we can liberate ourselves!

Despite the rain, the community garden is progressing quickly. Huge boxes have been built and I'm curious how they're going to be used. Compost? Raised bed gardens? Coffins for giants? Time will tell.

The most interesting thing going on here, other than daily work on the Tumbleweed Cabaret web site (not complete, so no public link yet) is something I probably shouldn't mention. Suffice to say Lizzie and Baba will return to what I'm sure will be a pleasant surprise, courtesy of our Holy Road Gardener, Mike Clark.

Okay, the first of a brief series of exercises I did recently in an effort to find the "voice" I'm looking for for my novel. Each day I'll post a new one. Each is only a paragraph long and each is entirely different from the others.

I.
Wednesday was for him a slightly strange day, a day not quite like the other days. For one thing, it was the day his Auntie Bell invited over her friend, an older women wearing a pink and lavender flower print dress and rather grand hat with a long needle that went all the way through the top and seemed to pierce her head. When she arrived, breathing heavily and perspiring, the first thing she did was pull the long needle out and hold it in one hand while removing the hat with their other, waving the brim briskly in front of her face while chattering loudly to Auntie Bell. Mikey couldn't take his eyes off the needle until she had reinserted it in her head, primped her hair in back, and turned to him. “Oh my goodness!” she gushed, taking one giant step toward him and advancing on him like a Patton tank, grabbing his paralyzed frame in both hands and planting a massive wet kiss that seemed to cover half his face. “Isn't he just the cutest little thing!” As if suddenly rising to the surface of a slime clotted lake after nearly drowning, Mikey was careful to hold his breath until he could reach up with his arm and wipe the wet from his face. The guest, who had retreated an enormous distance by then, said, “It's all right dear. Bell, what an an adorable child! Is he Meg's? Your grandchild?” She then tottered off to the kitchen for coffee and pastry and rarely ever gave Mikey a glance after that, to his great relief.

Potluck Wednesday at the Holy Road House

The last couple of days has been all about cooking. Cooking food, cooking up ideas for how to improve the House. Yesterday I cooked up not one but three quiches. Denise dropped by and we shared most of one, fresh from the oven. Yum. Today is potluck day but I thought no one would show up. But Pam called and came over about 6 p.m., then Bean walked in the door. I made my first ever totally vegetarian stew and it turned out great. Scott Wilson and Kaos both called, checking in, saying howdy, and Kaos says he'll drop off a disc with photos on his way to work tomorrow so I can put them on the web. Made an appointment with Matt to mix the Cabaret audio this Saturday too. Bean is staying upstairs the rest of this week. The three of us talked about the coop, the "collective", a term Bean used and it felt good so I used it too, what it means to us, what we hope to contribute and get from it all. A good spirited discussion, even with just three of us. We miss Lizzie and Baba but the House has its own spirit which speaks to us and through us and affirms the vision of lives made healthier and more fulfilling through cooperative and creative efforts.

I shared a couple of my stories with Pam, who was an appreciative audience, and I sent her off with a copy of "Rabbit's Story". She is struggling to create too - compositions, the passion of her youth, as writing is of mine.

We grow creatively by doing and by sharing. Cooking, sharing, eating together. The Holy Road House and the emerging coop makes this all much easier to do. I thank the spirits of north, east, south, and west once again before going to bed.

Groundbreaking Monday

This morning the Community Gardening folk showed up and got down to it. They hammered together three large boxes, in which I assume they will pour dirt and plant seeds. Very like the way I'd like to do our garden, but they are doing it on a large scale. They also tilled the soil all day and well into the evening. It's going to be some garden next door, count on it.

It seemed a long day today in this huge quiet house, too quiet, so I loaded WinAmp and my favorite "XRG-Radio" playlist and let it play all day. That helped, but not enough. I was at odds with myself and found it hard to focus. But tomorrow is another day and I plan to make the best of it. I also have a small gig with Hilary in the afternoon, and playing a bit of music has always been good for me - it clarifies the soul, you might say.

Empty House Syndrome

Baba is in Brooklyn (I think) and Lizzie is on the road to points east, especially to rejoin Baba and perform the Cabaret. Darhma Dog is riding with her; both are watching out for Officer Hagerty and hiking and driving. Me, I'm alone in this huge house for the first time.

I still feel like I'm getting used to the place - still finding myself here. And making that happen means developing my daily routines - writing, meditating, yoga, cleaning up, doing laundry, fixing meals, finding places for my stuff, much of which is still scattered on the floor of my room. But every day I feel more at home, more a part of the place and the movement behind the place (which I'm also still discovering and I think partly defining along with Lizzie and Baba and the Garderners).

But today is Sunday and I was up late last night playing a gig with the Hilary Scott Band at the Martini Bar, and I'm feeling mostly lazy. And it's Earth Day, so it's as if (in my imagination) a huge part of Columbia has turned out to celebrate my birthday today, and I have yet to wander down to the party, where, quite appropriately and with the exception of a few friends, I will be completely ignored. A fun little zen fantasy, then.

All I've done today that's useful is work on setting up my workstation and wash sheets from last week. Tomorrow the real fun begins, including morning writing, vacuuming the house, finish stripping beds and doing laundry, putting things away, and working on the Tumbleweed Cabaret web site. And except for some of the grunt work, it's all fun stuff. I still start my days here with a smile and whispered gratitude given to all four corners of the compass. Our new lives and emergent realities best begin with moments of thankfulness and with smiles, preferably with laughter. The curious effect of all of this for me is that I feel so much more relaxed around other people - more than I have in years. I feel so much more real.

All quite amazing. Thank you Lizzie. Thank you Baba. Thank you Holy Road House. Thank you Alisa and James and Alysia and Ron and Brandon and Mike and Bean and all the Holy Road Gardeners and Denise and Joni and Alicia and the ghosts around me. Life has gotten so very much more interesting.

Antibalas Has Left the House

I've never made pancakes for a dozen people before, and I've never seen them devoured as eagerly or as fast as this morning between 9-10 a.m. These guys were up and showered and fed and on the road by 10:15, and we had handshakes and hugs all around.

Lizzie was up late - very late - until everyone had come down from their performance highs and crashed. She apparently had friendly words with our local constable about the jamming going on in the back yard in the middle of the night. Officer Hagerty may haunt her, but I'm pretty sure this one was friendly enough.

Then back to work on the Tumbleweed Cabaret web site and other odd jobs, after picking up the Spit, which just got an oil change.

The tension of the day, which we always managed to turn into fun work, is that Lizzie is leaving tomorrow, hittin' the road, adios amigos for the moment, and there's so much she needs to do. But we decided this morning that as every moment is Now, that the time between starting a job and finishing it must be Now, which is the same Now as Now, and therefore of infinately, unmeasurably, short duration. In other words, all of the work is already long done, and we're running around, busy as hens, remembering that it's already done.

And I can't say that's much easier than actually a doing the work. But one of my favorite zen sayings is, "work without doing!". So easier or not, I think we're on the right track.

Antibalas is In the House

Tiring but amazing day: the band arrived about 2 in the afternoon. Seven or eight guys with large bags and cool gentlemanly ways, on the road for the last three weeks at least. Lizzie gathered them around, gave them a whirlwind tour of the house, took a walk downtown with some, and the rest of the afternoon they settled into claiming bed and floor space, e-mail checking, baths, and cool conversations. They're an Afro-dance horn band from ... all over probably. They're playing as I write but I caught their first set. Eleven musicians on stage, great energy and rhythms and horn lines and solos - couldn't ask for more.

Finished a story I like this morning. Posted it so some friends can give me feedback but I've already edited it and now must update my post. Lesson: don't be hasty with posting stories, even when I think they're done.

All this means Lizzie and I didn't make much progress on the Tumbleweed Cabaret site today but we did work on the story over breakfast which was much fun.

Groggy and tired tonight - today all day really. Denise came by and treated me to a birthday dinner at Murry's - a real treat and delicious, but I'm rather happy to report that my stomach has been shrinking and smaller meals are now more satisfying than feasts. Then she went to rehearsal with the Alan Beason Big Band and when she was finished we went up to the Blue Note for a bit of dancing and jiggling to Antibolus. Hope I'm spelling the name of the band right.

Night all, must sleep now.

Groovy Tuesday

Here's what I learned today, or rather relearned, as I knew this but had forgotten it: it's possible to do work, useful stuff, things which build an organization, and have it be as much or more fun than "play". Which, of course, it becomes when you are blessed with an opportunity to do tasks that feel meaningful. It helps if you also know how to do these things and can therefore not sweat bullets to get them done.

So that's how my first real "professional" day at the Holy Road House went. First I created the broad architecture and data relationships for an online tool to track projects and measure the contributions and resource use by each coop member. In effect, to create our internal barter and currency system.

Then this afternoon I worked with Lizzie to design and build the splash and menu pages for the Tumbleweed Cabaret web site. It's still being designed, so be patient if you link all the way down into it -- the pages probably will change. But Lizzie and Baba and I were all excited that by the second day of our planning and structured work week, we have already built a new web site and have a strong beginning for one of our most important management tools.

Then the universe rewards us with a brief but refreshing night out. My friend Bruce Poe called me to say he had won two tickets to the Old Crow Medicine Show at the Blue Note, worth more than $20 each! and would I like to have them because he can't go? Duh, yes thanks! They are a five-piece string band doing energetic hoedowns of old time and jugband and bluegrass style and originals and the place is completely packed. We enjoy a set and the retire, old fogies that we are, to the House for peace and quiet. Actually it was getting late and very hot in there and ... well enough excuses. We went, we saw, we were briefly awestruck as is our wont, we returned. Sort of like the description the Tibetan Buddhists have for our incarnations on earth. Get born, squeal like pigs while jumping up and down, get tired, do other things for a while, then fall over and return to the bardo, the mental place between. Or not.

So, a productive day that's also a fun day. Let this be the pattern, thank you very much.

A New Kind of Monday

G'morning love, I walked to Lakota this morning and explored the charms of a 21 chapter outline, poured what I know of the Lazlo Kovaks story into it to see how it fit, and it seemed to fit, and walked back and lo on the seat of my scooter, a gift from Denise - a keyboard and mouse for my downstairs PC. No more pulling the plugs out two or three times a day and plugging them into the other machine to either write or to check e-mail and blog. I am so grateful, as i say and sing each morning upon rising and walking.

A nice bit of business planning and thinking session this morning with Lizzie, then grocery shopping and a bit of cleanup after lunch with Lizzie and Mike Cooper and Bart Bean and spirited conversation; work with the interns a bit and they're great: they sweep the floors and stairs and get out stains and I do the kitchen and bathroom and the house is feeling better by the moment. Then to work on house biz, right? But my good friend and former bandmate Shane Ferguson calls and drops in. He needs to know the three chords he's making on guitar - bar chords with the fingers in an E position, so what is this chord? Well, I say, it's an A. Then a C. Then a G, then a D. And he checks and, yes, behold, the progression is A C G D all right, how cool!

And a nice chat and Shane offers to make his famous home-made apple pie for our Wednesday potluck and I'm excited because I've had his apple pie, see, with ice cream no less, and you bet I'm gonna get those apples tomorrow and have them all cut up for him Wednesday afternoon.

Nice visit and Shane finally leaves. Back to work, right? Back to the task at hand, back to House biz. And the doorbell rings and it's my friend Brian, who I have not seen in many too many moons and have missed and we hug and talk and talk and talk and go downstairs and listen to the entire C3 show from last week and talk and talk. And finally it's well after 10 p.m. and I realize I haven't done this evening's blog yet.

So here I am, wrestling with a straight keyboard when I'm so used to the split one and my fingers don't quite know where to go yet. And the lesson of the day seems to be, live it moment by moment. Instead of planning the House Coop today, I spent it doing it. There's always tomorrow for the rest, right?

I yam grateful, so grateful, so grateful yall ... night night.

Cooper's Landing Kind of Day

Baba is off to the east coast this morning - early this morning. Lizzie said there was some confusion about his flight, but that he finally caught it okay.

After a week of cool wet weather, we finally got a break. Sunny, temp maybe 60 degrees or so, so Lizzie and I hopped in the Jeep and headed down to Cooper's Landing to catch IlyAimee, the duo from Baltimore our friend Suzibird is friends with. This, it turned out, was a Very Good Thing to Do.

I took lots of pictures with my cell phone but don't have the cable at the moment to load them into my 'puter, so I'll have to add those later. The music was wondrously good: a guy and a girl, both sing and play guitar, and she plays jimbe, and they do all three with amazing skill and style. They're on tour, these two, and drove in last night from Boulder, and they're on their way to St. Louis and points east, if I have it right. Acoustic originals with a distinct driving acoustic funk-rock style.

During their set, our old river friend Sparky launched his houseboat - a huge thing with murals painted on the sides, very styling river cruiser. It was a little distracting, watching this big thing inch its way down the landing into the river, and again I got cool shots of the whole thing and I'll post them when I can. Very colorful. The band was very game, making supportive comments and not visibly put out because their audience kept looking to their left to see the launch.

Mike Cooper video'd their show and burned them a DVD of it within an hour after it was over. All high-definition video at that. It's remarkable how high-tech Cooper has become in the last year or so.

Back to town so Lizzie could take a walk with the Dharma Dog and I could scoot off to Hilary Scott rehearsal for a gig at Martini Bar this Saturday night. Fun, sunny, relaxing Sunday today. But we both miss our Baba -- Lizzie doubtless more than me, but the house is altogether too quiet without him. I promised him I'd blog daily while he's gone, so some of them may just ramble on about the house and the day, and that's no doubt okay.

From His Ashes Another Legend is Born

Sad news today, at least sad in the sense of "what a loss for me! I'll never get to see his smile again!" Truth is, while I'll miss Bob Dyer, one of Missouri's finest musicians, songwriters, historians, and Great Friends, I don't think I'll have any trouble recalling his warmth and his smile.

So Bob has passed, from the corporeal to the legendary, and halleluja to him! I wish him the best in his journey to and through the bardo. He's gonna leave quite a few souls there chuckling with his stories, I have no doubt. See you in the next round, Bob!

Here's a link to his bio page on Big Canoe, his publishing entity. And while this page, Eye Candy for Missouri, isn't his work (it's a gift to us from the Missouri Folklore Society), it so much reminds me of Bob and his passion for Missouri history, especially the history of the Missouri River and the Booneville, MO area.

Meanwhile, back here at the ranch, things are hopping, but when has it ever not been? Lizzie and Baba are hard at work, and I mean hard at work, editing video material of the Tumbleweed Cabaret (shot by Scott Wilson) in preparation for Baba's trip to the east coast next week. These guys never slow down, much less stop for a breath, yet the nature of their work feeds so much energy to them, to us all, that it's like standing in Tesla's legendary lab, electricity popping all around you and all you have to do is reach out a hand and smile in order to see real lightening.

So, for the moment, the best I can do is stand back in awe and be supportive as much as possible. Doing laundry, sweeping floors, cooking. Beats computer programming by a country mile. ;-)

C3 V17 Performance Rocked

Actually it was more like it "jazzed," but that doesn't quite communicate the beauty and excitement of the night. Too bad Phil couldn't make it, and Bob, but the rest of us, along with Pete Szkolka, played what was for me an amazing if relatively low-to-medium key night of keyboard heavy, swirling and driving rhythms, melodies, and harmonies. Fine applause (thanks!) after each jam, all of us surrounded by the most amazing blacklight-enhanced paintings. After everyone left this morning, I went to the basement and played back the whole night's music. More than once.

It's still magic, folks, after all these years.

Meanwhile, back at the farm, it's time to start kickin' it hard, creating the reality that flows from the vision. I (we) have a huge DO list that gets longer everyday. It's mostly little things like, oh, helping artists and loving people in our community to free themselves to follow their bliss; facilitate the formation of a loving cooperative community that spans the globe, each energy contributing to and multiplying the energy of the others; find ways to do all this sustainably, with appropriate technologies, integrating the power of symbols and myths into our daily lives, learning to breath properly. Little things like that.

See ya on the rainbow slide!

C3 Plays the Holy Road House!

I'm very proud to be associated with the Holy Road House, as anyone who knows me knows all too well. So it's a special honor and privilage to host C3's Psychoto-electro Arkestra here tonight. We're featuring local hero Pete Szkolka as guest artist, and will be spotlighting (literally) the artwork of Tim Spurling (I hope I spelled it right, Tim). And if you're coming tonight, we have a surprise for you.

Prepping for this show has kept me distracted and busy, and I've missed some evening blogging. Baba's parents came down this week from Wisconsin. Their goal: enjoy the mild warm Missouri Spring weather as well as visit, tell tall tales, make us all laugh, and much more. And wouldn't you know, as soon as they arrived the weather turned cold. Shivering, freezing cold. But they braved it all with good humor. Very kind and fun folk. I very much enjoyed both Nancy and Joe.

Given all the excitement, my morning writing routine has suffered, but I had a good moment yesterday when I found myself sketching the outline for a new short story, or maybe not so short a story. I never know until it gets going, and this one has enough twists and turns and a large enough arc to be quite a bit more than a short story. I'm still teaching myself this stuff, the craft of story telling. Quite the challenge but the morning yesterday felt like a real success, a breakthrough even. I took as my inspiration Isaac Asimov's advice to writers, "Start with the ending first, and work backwards." So I outlined my story from back to front, which felt very odd indeed at first, but which very much did the trick. Thanks Issac!

I celebrated with a small breakfast at Ernies on the way back, then into full prep for the show.

A Short Song

This morning I read a very short piece I wrote. Lizzie and Baba were enthusiastic, so I thought I'd share it here. It's no big thing, just a tiny exercise in placing my mind to a new place. In this case, I wondered what might emerge if a spider could speak her experience. It turned out that she didn't speak, she sang.

Spider's Song

our home this bell inner shell curved well of love babies strung beads across center motion clapper sways rocking our children with ringing love as we collect meals sweet meat of flies torn life giving flesh no strife we live short sweet lives our home a shell of warmth and motion and song

we know not of others but as selves as one as food we love the bringers of blood for our children their final moments a chorus song of ecstatic singing agony we hear love with each tug and vibration we thank them-us and sing back their lives to them we feel as they feel as we are all one song life unto death unto life and yet again the vibration of eternal strings

our children stir and pour forth a flood of smallest silent clicks on shell of home we see and almost feel them crawl over and around and past us waves of waves of smallest blessings each one and all turn in alarm at brightness and heat as they reach outer rim and feel air pick them into its arms and carry up and down and all directions are one direction spreading collapsing union separation entangled in so many arms at once

and our mother odor leads them back now to tangled torn web our joy to spin to wholeness as over and again we learn to talk each to the many and our loving food hosts always to each of us feed our dreams the dreams we love we love we love

Basement Venue Emerges from the Dust

This week has been all about preparing the basement of the Holy Road House for the upcoming C3 show, as mentioned in earlier blogs. But tonight it really came together. The PA and monitors are in place and tested, though my monitor amp doesn't seem to work. But I can borrow one for the show, so no worry. The Holy Road Gardeners gathered tonight for some of Lizzie's great soup and Pam's rice casserole, then we all went downstairs and found ways to improve the space. The result is just amazing. In a couple of hours or so, we put up lights, installed dividers and curtains around unsightly fixtures like the furnace, and best of all, cleaned up and organized the outer pantry/laundry area.

Our new friend Tim came by to see about hanging some of his art work on the walls for this Saturday's show. Word is they are black-light friendly, which fits the mood of the basement as well as C3 performance style. More about that on Friday when he brings his art over and hangs it.

The news of the week for me is that we (Denise, her mom and brother and I) are booked to fly to Hawaii on July 18 for Joni's wedding and two weeks in paradise. It's one adventure after another around here these days.

Lizzie loaned me a book I had read probably thirty years ago and which arguably changed my life then: Illusions by Richard Bach, author of Jonathan Livingston Seagull. I can't put it down. It's the story of a reluctant messiah who barnstorms the Midwest US with a biplane, giving ten-minute rides to rural townspeople for $3.00 each. The book is once again making my brain glow a bright orange and may, as it has done before, leave me at least temporarily incapable of feeling negative about anything. It, like so much media I find today (but this book is thirty years old!) is affirming the C3 core concept: thoughts are things. We create our own reality. What amazing times to live in as the stew pot of transcendence grows to a boil.

Anti-Entropy in Action

I know it must get tiresome to read, blog after blog, "I've had such a wonderful day!" No one can have a good time all the time.

I had another great day today.

But for a little different reason than my usual. Today I began to see the basement of the Holy Road House emerge into a livable space, and one where we can make great music - and will this Saturday night with the Convergence Conspiracy Collective's Psychoto-electro Arkestra.

It's a teen dream lounge: private, quiet, TV and VCR and DVD and surround sound music. Double bed and couch and coffee table. And, in the same room (hee hee), a performance stage and recording studio! How cool is that!

Okay. But I'm not a teen, at least not in years. But I am a musician, and I do like movies on TV and a place to, you know, relax and stuff, and this place has got that happening. And it's just dusty and messy enough to be truly comfortable. So I guess that tells you what kind of slob I must be at heart. I admit it and I'm not ashamed of it.

I also assembled my new PC up in my room this morning. Doesn't work yet, but hey it looks so cool with its Ninja blade logo over the side fan, its ultra hotrod CPU and all black and shiny chrome case. I felt the way I used to feel as a kid in my room putting together a new plastic jet plane from a kit, patiently applying the decals with my glue-smudged fingers. What joy.

So if it's good to feel like a kid once in a while, then this was, you know, a really great day.

Who Would Have Thought

I had an amazing day today. Specifically a couple of hours this afternoon at Scott Wilson's, C3's documentarian. But even more amazing and fulfilling was the fact that I was able to come home and share my excitement with friends I love. That's the best part of this story for me.

Scott had asked me to come over for a "talking head" video session related to the Convergence Conspiracy Collective. He had no specific idea what I might talk about, and neither did I. I approached it the way I approach our Psychoto-electro Arkestra performances: as pure improv, trusting the moment to manifest what was right for that moment.

And of course it did. I spoke for maybe ten minutes or so entirely in the voice of Lazlo Kovaks, the subject of the unfolding tale, Where in the World is Lazlo Kovaks. "I" just went away. Turned over the stage to Lazlo. Let him enter my body and mind and speak with my voice. It went so perfectly, as how could it not? It was Lazlo. He knows what to say. He remembers it all. He spoke without a break, without hesitation, emphasizing certain words and phrases to bring certain ideas to the surface of our attention. He was the timeless master. All I had to do was let him speak, and listen and learn.

Then I changed my shirt, shifted the point a view a bit, and let Michael, the protagonist of the tale, the one telling the story to us all, speak. He was not Lazlo. He was Michael, a mid-thirties vagabond writer chosen by Lazlo to tell the story to the world. Michael is finding his way, a little hesitant about the whole thing, still not ready to understand or buy in to the more amazing aspects, but too much the pragmatist to ignore the facts either, however fantastic. So Michael spent a few minutes, gesturing with his hands, not always able to look into the camera (unlike Lazlo), telling how he met Lazlo, what he learned from him first-hand before Lazlo disappeared.

Okay, I've now acted two distinct parts, allowed myself to become two distinct people. I'm now me, whoever the hell that is, and I now understand a couple things I didn't understand before I went to Scott's. One, that I'm able to suspend myself and immerse myself in my character, that I'm able to act. Believe me, this is a revelation coming from someone who became convinced in his youth that he could not act, could never act, could never get out of his own head long enough to let a character emerge. This is an amazing revelation to me. Second, I glimpsed what I suspect every actor experiences: a fine, momentary transcendence, a liberation of self, of personality, which comes with this kind of surrender to an Author. It doesn't matter, ultimately, Who the Author is. It could be this person I think of as "me". It could be some other. It could be the voice of the universe speaking to us. It has been all of those at one time or another, I think for each of us.

So I came home amazed and high and grinning. Lizzie and Baba were generous and centered enough to hear my story and to respond with celebration.

Beware: celebration happens here.

Life in the Orchestra Pit

Tuesday Bones took Lizzie and Baba and Dharma Dog and me to the Martin Luther King Memorial. We walked and danced and sang and played music down the Katie Trail, to the bemusement of the joggers and bicyclers.

What's it like living in a theater, a rehearsal hall, a writer's colony, a performace venue, a house full of astonishingly creative and lively souls? And this weekend more than ever. Our houseguests include six lovely people from Louisville the Soapbox Sirens, here to perform and share their joy. Tonight is the first performance of Lizzie's and Baba's Tumbleweed Cabaret, Acts One and Two. They have been scripting and rehearsing intensively all week, and I mean all day and most of the evening. They've pulled James, our great friend and fellow thespian, into the show, and I mean it literally when I say he wears many, many hats.

Alicia and Ron came by with a huge pot of spaghetti and sauce, ready to feed us all. FD showed up this morning, fresh and glowing, ready to jump in and do everything. What a gal. Huge smiles, encouraging hugs, generous energy. Bones, who is now also part of the Cabaret. People, smiles, warmth all around. Involving, a little exhausting sometimes, literally head spinning. Baba, point man on all things practical as well as musical, the engine that drives it all, the vehicle, in a sense, for Lizzie's driving vision.

I sit quietly in front of my computer listening to chatter, singing, guitar playing in the background. Lizzie has just finished what is likely the last run-through of tonight's show (note: nope. At least one more coming up as I write ...) and, like the matador preparing to face the bull, can now retire, relax, refocus, concentrate, cleanse, whatever she does to ready herself.

It's raining as I write, again. It has been doing this for over a week, off and on. Baba put out grass seed and covered it with straw a couple of days ago, and now the rain gently falls on it. Tulips burst forth yesterday, or today, not sure. I rise and walk downtown every morning as usual and I don't always open my eyes as I should. I chant as I walk: "Thank you, thank you, thank you for this day!" In time with my steps. I'm not awake yet and it's not until the walk back that I really appreciate the amazing flowers blooming all around me. Spring, it's such a natural high.

Yesterday I finished the first draft of my first short story. I've put it away and will go back to it in a couple of weeks and re-read it and probably rewrite it. This morning, on a whim and to clear my mind from the mainstream realism I've been drafting the last couple of weeks, I wrote as many tiny playlets as possible. Five "plays" - short description of a stage set and character, in some cases a bit of dialog and action. Each more whimsical than the last. Like I said, I'm living in a theater.

Climbing the Mountain - Slowly

Every day takes on a new and different character here from my former life. Wednesdays, at least for now, is Get All the Holy Road Gardners Together to Howl day. Tonight we had a wonderful dinner and talk with core members Alisa, Kaos, Mike Clark, Pam, Alicia and Ron, and Shane Ferguson, who gave a fun talk about his organization, Access Arts. We even had a drop in by Dick Cravens, who came over to loan me a monitor for my upstairs tower. Then we all convened to the kitchen and whacked out the final paint job. Mike Clark has amazing energy, both as a "house artist" and as a visionary contributor to the Holy Road.

This is what my walk toward town looks like these days. The bus station and beyond. This morning I was walking to breakfast at Ernie's, a new exercise for me and an old, old one for some Columbians. This is close to deja-vu for me. When I first moved to this town in 1980, we discovered Ernie's immediately and right away knew we were among intelligent, copacetic souls.

I spent my first night on the third floor of the Tumbleweed Hotel. I'm still getting in shape but for now that walk up - and down - and up - and down again was wearing. Good for me, this physical exercise, after years of too little of it. I couldn't sleep well and woke up late. So off to Ernie's and coffee and eggs.

Mike Clark and Baba and Lizzie primed the kitchen walls yesterday while I set up my PC and got to work on a friend's web site, a long overdue project. Baba has been doing short videos of this project, amazingly fun and well done. You can view them on his blog.

All in all, another fine long day on the Road.

Stormy Weather, Sort Of

Yesterday and today it rained off and on. Brief but intense showers followed by sunshine. It reminded me a lot of my days on the island of Guam in the south Pacific, where this happened often, almost every day. A sudden overcast, a brief furious blast of water from the sky, followed almost immediately by sun and clear sky.

Yesterday I ran errands on my scooter and got all wet. Drenched. Today I did the same thing. I rode a long way across town to get groceries under increasingly darkening skys. While in the store it apparently rained - briefly. When I came out, it had stopped and I was able to ride home again without getting anything more than an occassional spatter.

Saturday I received the DVD of "The Secret" I had ordered. Very cool. Funny and cool and oh so true in the ways that are important. So I should admit that, before I left today to get groceries, I put an image in my mind: I would ride to the store and back and would return dry. Did it work? You bet it did. Okay, I know how silly that sounds, and you could be right. If I had held in idea in my mind: "Today I will not be attacked by a werewolf!", and if I had made it through the day without getting attacked by a werewolf, could I claim that I created that reality?

But I know on so many levels that it's true: we create our own reality with our thoughts. It was the rather sudden realization that this is really true, that it really works whether we mean it to or not, that we must learn to take responsibility and learn to focus and control our thoughts and feelings in order to bring into existance the best reality we can for ourselves and the world -- that was the moment I was inspired to create the Convergence Conspiracy Collective - a union of artists and musicians who were willing to at least entertain that notion, and to celebrate it loudly.

Mike Clark and Lizzie and Baba and I finished mud daubing the kitchen walls tonight. Tomorrow we sand and prime, and paint them a lovely basil-pesto green the day after that. It's fun working together on a project to improve our space, make the Holy Road House, the Tumbleweed Hotel, an even more inviting and livable space.

Truth is I found myself spacing out while doing the work, and wondering why. Then I realized I was replaying old, old programs instilled in me when I was very young. I dislike doing wall work because it takes me back to when my dad pushed me hard to do it, though I felt clumsy and inadequate at it and really wanted to be off hiking the woods or writing stories or playing with my mates. Childish reactions to my dad's efforts to discipline me into productive work. So feelings of sluggishness and mild guilt kept creeping up on me. It's unusual for me to feel that way about anything. I take the experience as part of a healing process - part of discovering and acknowledging those old scripts and reactions and replacing them, healing them, forgiving myself and my dad for my childish irresponsibilities.

My my. The lessons keep on keeping on. Learning every day. I love this life!

One Full Week in the Tumbleweed Hotel

The "Holy Road House" is still that, and probably always will be to me. But it's also the "Tumbleweed Hotel" as Lizzie's performance evolves, and I very much like that name too.

I moved in last Sunday afternoon. It's been a week. Of course it's too early to have set down real roots or carved real grooves here. Of course I'm still a newbie (my life story, innit!). But it feels like I'm putting down roots. It feels like I've already begun to find new rhythms, to carve the new Song of my Life.

Our weekly show last evening featured Lezlie Revelle from Kansas City performing her original songs. Sweet, intelligent, courageous. Then Lizzie and Tony performed Act Two of the Tumbleweed Cabaret to a fun houseful of supportive folk. It was moving - smoothly presented (endless scripting and rehearsals paid off, you guys!), felt intimate and closely felt, evoking Tears of Remembrance in us all. James served as Greek Chorus at the opener and demonstrated his own well honed dramatic skills.

But that was just the highlight of the week for me. I am howling, inside and out, every time I think about how bountiful the universe is and has been, and how much joy and wisdom seems to be blossoming forth on this planet, and especially at this place, the Tumbleweed Hotel in Columbia, Missouri, USA, planet Giaia. I look forward to living in the NOW each week, month, year doing this work.

First Friday

Short one tonight. Too much fun, too much good wine and even better company.

I made great progress today on my first short story since moving into the Holy Road House, but the best part of the day was when Scott and Laura came over. Tony fixed us all an amazingly fine meal - a very carefully made salad, assembled on each plate individually, featuring some of his favorite Wisconsin herbs and spices, and he fixed his now famous quasadeas (sp?). Some fun conversation followed, then we convened to the guest room (which I've been occupying temporarily) to watch the video of Lizzie and Tony's most recent performance of the Tumbleweed Cabaret. Video work was great and the whole thing was made even better by the audio mix provide by Matt. Altogether a fine show, and for me better than the original because I could hear all the words and follow the story much more easily.

Act Two of the Cabaret happens here tomorrow night and we're all very excited about it. Tony and Lizzie have been working hard on the script and rehearsing it intensely, like the serious troupers they are. Stay tuned. This adventure is kicking into an even higher gear every day.

Three Howlers In One Day

One of the signs of right livelihood is that progress seems to get easier. Successes come, when they come, with the ease of a perfect dumpling sliding down one's throat. Today validated that for me not once, but three times.

First, I finally managed to get up early - 6 a.m. - and get down to writing at Lakota (my favorite spot so far) well before 7. The short story I started a couple of days ago demanded to be continued. I wrote for maybe an hour, but something was wrong. I couldn't see what happened to my character past a certain point, and it was turning into yet another internal monologue, another pseudo-journal entry. So I stopped. Slightly hungry by now, I pondered buying a small breakfast at Lakota, but it just looked too much, too early. So I put on my jacket and went out the door.

It was raining. Lightly, off and on, but enough that partway down the street I had to haul out my cheap umbrella. The wind immediately caught it and whipped it inside out, exactly like a cartoon umbrella. This had never happened to me before. So, cool, wet, and windy, I made my way to the local library. My goal: find out where Columbia's social security office is located.

Along the way, I pondered the situation of my story's character. I kept getting distracted though. Finally, at the library, I had a bagel for breakfast and got the address and phone number of the Social Security Administration office.

It seemed like the morning was going to be a bust. The story wouldn't move, the SS office was in a part of town I was not about to go to, even on my scooter, especially in the rain, and I really wanted to get my application for social security retirement benefits going. So I started walking back to the Holy Road House, umbrella held in front of me like some protective shield. Along the way, I started talking out the story plot to myself, out loud. It was like a conversation - I'd explain one part, then reply to that with another perspective, and then yet another. All the while I'm thinking, "Okay, I'm now a geezer with wet pants walking the city with a broken umbrella shouting out loud to no one. I'm now the people I used to stare at from my car when driving back from the mall."

But the self-talk worked. I found the ideas I needed to reshape the story and to carry it to a conclusion. I was able to visualize the ending (as Asimov suggests writers do), and then to shape the story to get to that point. I had an outline in my mind. This was my first great Howl of the day.

I then did some role-playing with Lizzie in the kitchen as she fine tuned the script for the Tumbleweed Cabaret.

The second success was finally getting a clue and going to the social security web site, where I was able to submit my application online. I was done in less than an hour, when I had earlier been convinced that I would have to go to some stuffy office and sit around until called, etc. etc. Howl number two for the day!

Then FD came over and after crashing and banging on drums and percussion toys with Lizzie and Tony, we went to the basement of the House and proceeded to clear and clean and organize close to half the space. Major Howl number three!

Then dinner and fine conversation with FD, to celebrate and thank her for her great help, and it's home to this blog and to bed. A good day, my friends, and a fine glow. I feel more blessed than I can say.