Why Do I Do This?

In the double seat in front of us was a black woman and her four children. A little girl with her hair braided in cornrows, with an elaborate set of strings and beads attached - like Cleopatra - looked back at us, smiling at my ridiculous beard. She said, "Where you goin' ?" I said, "Home."My friends and I build a fire with dead sticks from a nearby ironwood tree. Ironwood is slow growing, dense, very hard. A chunk from the heart of it will sink in water. We drink some beer. As the fire dies down we lay three T-bone steaks directly on the red coals, aboriginal style. They begin cooking themselves right away, no hesitation. We open and heat three cans of corn at the edge of the fire.The sun goes down. The air between us and the near mountains become visible as a medium, substance, a thing in itself, transparent but clearly four miles thick. The new, waxing moon, first quarter phrase, shaped like a shield, hangs in the sky at approximately the same point occupied by the sun when we first stopped here.We eat supper. Drink a little more beer. I produce a half pint of Jim Beam from the side pocket of my pack. We drink it, passing the bottle around the fire as the moon grows brighter, the evening more violet.Moonlight and bourbon. The plan was that the three three of us would camp here tonight and in the morning my friends would start driving back to California and I would start walking east toward Bagdad. One hundred and twenty miles by jeep trail, give or take a league, a mountain range now and then.By now the plan begins to seem absurd. Unnecessarily rigid. Why wait till morning, suggests the moon? Start at once, says the whiskey percolating through the purring storage cells of my brain.We finish the Beam. Shake hands, squeeze shoulder, kid around as I hoist the pack onto my back and pick up an extra gallon of water in a plastic jug. A final salute and I march off, the two men by the fire staring after me, silent with envy. Why aren't they coming too? Because they were not invited. "I vaunt to be alone," said Greta Garbo.A half mile from my friends I pause and give them my parting wolf howl, then a snatch song from Madame Butterfly. Un Bel di...He will return. Ah yes! But not just yet. Cruel of me to flaunt my job and pride. But I can't help it. I feel like Antaeus returned to earth. The power of the desert, of the planet, surges electricity up through my boots (Vietnam style jungle boots, old and worn) to heart and head and out through song into the moony sky, completing the circuit.Marching on, north, I follow this condemned jeep road as it meanders towards the mountains. Why do I do this sort of thing? I don't know. I've been doing this sort of thing for thirty-five years and still don't know why. Don't even care why. It's not logical - it's pathological. We go and on, our whole lives, never changing repeating ourselves with minor variations. We do not change. Bruckner spent his life writing the same symphony nine times, trying to get it just right. Seeking perfection, Mozart wrote his single symphony forty-eight times. We cannot change. Saul on the road to Damascus, struck by the lightning of revelation, turns his coat inside out, drops the S and adds the P, and goes right on. Right on fantasizing. And here Iam on the old devil's road to Bagdad. Under a clear sky. Marching. Singing. Marching.Tramp...Tramp...Tramp tramp tramp..................Why do I do this? (My feet hurt.) Why? Well, it's the need, I guess, for some sort of authentic experience. (My hip joint hurts.) As opposed to the merely synthetic experience of books, movies, TV, regular urban living. (My neck hurts.) To meet my God, my Maker once again, face to face, beneath my feet, beyond my arms, above my head. (Will there be water at Cabeza Tank?)- Edward Abbey, Beyond The Wall

Native American Church

TRUTH, LIKE THE AIR WE BREATHCOMES TO US COMPLIMENTS OF THE CREATORMAY IT ALWAYS BE SO *Ancient Spiritual tenets are to heal the body and spirit. Further, to teach impeccability, correct 'seeing', and power of Beingness. Peyote is not used to obtain 'visions' but to open portals to Reality. Always seeking centeredness within this existence. Peyote is the road back to the true Self. This should suffice in order to allow personal compreshension of this Sacrament *Wikipedia: Native American ChurchYoutube: Sacred PeyoteMP3: Gerald Primeaux - Two Harmonized Peyote Songs

Roadtrip - 1976

Lake Scott State Park:

Here you can find the ruins of El Cuartelejo, the only known Indian pueblo in Kansas and the northernmost one in North America.  It was established in the 1600s by Taos Indians and later occupied by Picuris Indians. Both groups were attracted to the area by the many large springs, one of which (Big Springs) can be reached by hiking on a short nature trail. This spring, which provides a flow of about 400 gallons per minute of 58 degree F water, has been stocked with rainbow trout. The area's unique wildlife species-the Scott riffle beetle-is a tiny, seldom-seen insect that lives in the springs feeding into the lake. Because this beetle is found nowhere else in the world, it has been listed as a Kansas endangered species.

Routt National Forest:

Established by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1905 as the Park Range Forest Reserve, the Routt National Forest includes 1,126,346 acres of Federal lands within its boundaries. The Forest is named in memory of Col. John N. Routt, the last territorial and first state Governor of Colorado.

White River National Forest:

Perhaps more than any other national forest, White River is dedicated to outdoor recreation. Aspen and Vail, two towns that exemplify basecamps at their most glamorous, nestle in its rugged folds. Trapper Lake and the surrounding Flat Tops Wilderness, is widely recognized as the birthplace of the modern concept of wilderness. The Maroon Bells, a collection of granite peaks near Aspen, signify the Rocky Mountains in the same way the Eiffel Tower does Paris.

1,000 Mile Journey

9 News Colorado:

It's been a long and lonely winter trek for a female wolf that separated from her pack in Yellowstone National Park five months ago.
The Colorado Department of Wildlife says a global position satellite collar, worn by the wolf, has helped them track her epic five-state journey, which has apparently brought her to Colorado in search of a mate. It says the wolf's last known location in Eagle County, is about 450 miles from its origin. The DOW estimates, however, that she may have walked an estimated total of 1,000 miles.

The 18-month-old female separated from her pack just north of the Yellowstone National Park boundary in September and traveled across five states, including Idaho, Wyoming, and Utah.It's not unusual for wolves to travel as far as 60 miles of their pack, but biologist have documented approximately 10 wolves since 1992 that have traveled more than 190 miles.

MP3: Marvin Gaye - Time To Get It Together

San Francisco Garter Snake

Golden Gate National Recreation Area:

The San Francisco Garter Snake has been called North America’s most beautiful serpent.  A fantastically colored species that does justice to its moniker, it is identified by its reddish-orange head with red, black, and blue racing stripes on its sides and back.Unfortunately this harmless and gorgeous critter isn’t easily seen, in part because it is on the brink of extinction.  Restricted primarily to San Mateo County, the species’ preferred habitats—wet and marshy habitats with access to upland areas—have been hit hard by agricultural, residential, commercial, and even recreational development.  There may be only one to two thousand individuals remaining in the wild today.

MP3: Incredible String Band - First Girl I Loved

I Been Downhearted Baby

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeva since the day we met.Good lord almighty. If there's an order you should do things today, clicking here should be on the top of your list. And if you don't have the time to watch five glorious minutes of BB and Lucille preaching to a large group of Sing Sing inmates on Thanksgiving day of 1972 - and clearly you do - then go to the 4:00 mark, watch for Joan Baez, and try to deal with how much more fun prison looks than being on the internet.

West With The Night

West With The Night by Beryl Markham, 1952:

"Night flying over charted country by the aid of instruments and radio guidance can still be a lonely business, but to fly in unbroken darkness without even the cold companionship of a pair of ear phones or the knowledge that somewhere ahead are lights and life and a well-marked airport is something more than just lonely. It is at times unreal to the point where the existence of other people seems not even a reasonable probability. The hills, the forests, the rocks, and the plains are one with the darkness, and the darkness is infinite. The Earth is no more your planet than is a distant star - if a star is shining; the plane is your planet and you are its sole inhabitant.Before such a flight it was this anticipation of aloneness more than any thought of physical danger that used to haunt me a little and make me wonder sometimes if mine was the most wonderful job in the world after all. I always concluded that lonely or not it was still free from the curse of boredom."

Ernest Hemingway on Beryl Markham:

"Did you read Beryl Markham's book, West With The Night? ...She has written so well, and marvellously well, that I was completely ashamed of myself as a writer. I felt that I was simply a carpenter with words, picking up whatever was furnished on the job and nailing them together and sometimes making an okay pig pen. But this girl, who is to my knowledge very unpleasant and we might even say a high-grade bitch, can write rings around all of us who consider ourselves as writers ... it really is a bloody wonderful book."

West With The Night - #8 On Nat Geo's 100 Greatest Adventure Books Of All TimeBuy it on Amazon