Twallk 4 - Yesterday and Today

* * * * * * *Twallk In* * * * * * *

Just reached page 666 of The Beatles: The Biography before hitting the library today.  We're up to the Sgt. Pepper's sessions--the album that inspired me to become a musician.  The book is - besides being a kind of passe subject for most people; I hide the cover out of embarrassment (kidding) - EXTREMELY informative.  Best of all, it has revealed the true nature of what it took for the group (and themselves as individuals) to come to a place where they could influence the whole world.  I'd Read Shout!, Strawberry Fields (a Lennon biography) several photo journals and of course everything else I could get my hands onto, before reading this book.  What fascinates me most about history is the trends that are set in motion by small things; a kind of "butterfly effect" for social movements.  It can be bottom-up or top-down, but it always starts with a thought by one person.  All things were once thoughts.  On "Mercy Street" Peter Gabriel sang (please note my emphasis)...

Looking down on empty streets, all she can see
Are the dreams all made solid
Are the dreams all made real

All of the buildings, all of those cars
Were once just a dream
In somebody's head

She pictures the broken glass, she pictures the steam
She pictures a soul
With no leak at the seam

Lets take the boat out
Wait until darkness
Let's take the boat out
Wait until darkness comes

Nowhere in the corridors of pale green and grey
Nowhere in the suburbs
In the cold light of day

There in the midst of it so alive and alone
Words support like bone

Dreaming of mercy st.
Wear your inside out
Dreaming of mercy
In your daddy('s arms again
Dreaming of mercy st.
'swear they moved that sign
Dreaming of mercy
In your daddy's arms

It is a song that often haunts my mind.

Then the fire that spreads that thought - evolves it - in the outside world, is not primarily the work of the artist (writer, musician--whatever), but by the SUPPORTERS of those thought-originators.  In the case of The Beatles, it was almost always one phone call, one gift, one chance meeting, one extra effort made by names of supporters and friends who are forgotten now to history, that bridged the gap between lingering artistic inspiration and world wide acknowledgment of those ideas.  Often the Beatles did not fully appreciate just how much other people did for them (besides just buying their records).  I envision a new paradigm in this 21st Century, where everyone (or those who are interested) might rise TOGETHER as a recognized source.  Like a corporation, with folks moving up and down and sideways in the "business" to effect profound change.  The idea bringers could be on a par with the idea makers.  I'm running out of time with this, but I hope to delve into some further ideas of my own along these lines in the weeks to come.  And as always comments would be warmly welcomed.

* * * * * * *Twallk Out* * * * * * *

Twallk 3 - Now Iwallk in the Light

* * * * * * *Twallk In* * * * * * *

Beautiful day today.  The air is clear and warm, the breeze is light and refreshing.  I can smell the sea.  Sunlight dances off everything, like a shimmering extension from the Light of heaven.  In the Nitrogen Blue sky, gulls play.  In the green grass, pigeons frolic.  In the pond the baby ducks of May have turned into proud young drakes and hens of a promising future.  The world hovers...at peace.  Even a short peace is long enough...for hope to reassert itself.  Soon will come the autumn.  Grass is already yellowing, leaves are fading out of their green cloth and tie-dying themselves for the festivity of flight...and fall.  Truly a grand time is coming to the world!

A birthday prayer:  May we continue to look Up.  May the waters of life continue to quench our thirst.  I have been into the dark places of the earth.  I have hobbled through the tunnels of doubt.  I have wrestled with the uncertainties of myself.  I have thrown open the window that kept the air stale and have found the promise of spiritual liberty.  My soul is ready, fortified, full of thankful praise for the greater adventure I am crossing the threshold into.

I thank my Father, my Maker, my Leader...my Hero.  Now, as I enter the final act, I can muster the courage to follow Him anywhere He will ask me to go, do anything He asks me to do, be anyone He asks me to be.  My Lord is behind me, in front of me...and IN me.  Let my strength and experience flow from eyes and lips.  Let my voice continue without breaking.  Let my sadness and insecurity be washed away with the next rainstorm.  I surrender to the Light.  The future is HERE, NOW.  My hour is tolling.  I will rise beyond my limitations... for You.  For You, I will carry the Light until I am absorbed into it.  LOVE can still turn this lowly, undeserving man from his own self hatred and desire to die, into a reflector of peace and bringer of harmony as long as he holds his sWord close. 

Thank you, Father.  I will not let you down.

* * * * * * *Twallk Out* * * * * * *

Twallk 2 - Almost There

* * * * * * *Twallk In* * * * * * *

I'd like to briefly post what is happening with my situation, in an attempt to even further clarify why I'm doing what I'm doing.  I have been writing business plans as a means of employment for myself and the people involved with a coming investment company.  The first plan was for a small lounge.  This would have already been open and running at this point, had my partner not backed out, leaving me unpaid for a large amount for the completed plan that I'd written.  It was THIS unfortunate event that sealed my fate in April, causing me to have to leave my apartment.  But that is the nature of entrepreneurialism... And risk-takers from sea to shining sea have all been there at some point.  I myself have been there (let down by a business partner) TOO MANY times. The experience never lessens the disappointment.  But, it does forge my resolve like a piece of red steel; folded and pounded again and again upon the anvil of experience.  I HAVE done my time.  Now I am working on a new plan for a much more realistic venture.  Again, unfortunately, that is dragging for lack of a computer that I can use all day.  If my laptop had not died last week I would be nearly done with it.  People who have written me, thinking I'm just milling around, wandering aimlessly and unwilling to "work," need to understand what I've written above.  In the end my efforts will be seen for what they're worth.  I appreciate advice (even un-asked-for), but I am not kindly disposed to uninformed presumption.  And I have noticed that arrogance of that kind usually comes from folks who are SPIRITUALLY insecure.

So that more of us are on the same page from now on, let me run down the plan...  In September I hope to be renting a room in Buxton.  This will allow me to walk to Gorham and take the college bus into Portland.  Also, FINALLY, if this works out, I will have my two cats back again.  That alone will pull an enormous psychological weight off my back.  By mid-September I hope to open our new establishment in Portland (or close-by).  I will give more info on this once the plan is complete.  I have a new and wonderful partner and the idea is a great one, filling a need in Portland that has not been met.  I also will be getting more into recording, mastering and producing some music for a few friends and myself.  The Odyssey part of this year is coming to a close.  And a new chapter is going to begin.  But this blog will continue on even after I settle.  I plan to keep walking and reporting about the world out there, and the world in here.  I can say that this has all been a real eye-opener.  I've met a lot of great people, seen a lot of things and had experiences that I could not have had otherwise.  But I AM ready to settle back down again. 

This all has prepared me for next year when I plan to make a pilgrimage west to California for whatever it is that is going to happen in December.  It has been a good training and I have learned much about my fellow men and women.  I have learned that people ARE good.  I have also learned that there is a nearly impassable barrier that separates the open-minded from the closed-minded.  Those who prejudge - hold impossible expectations for others--while not seeing their own faults, are lost in the world of thing-worship, buy in (literally) to the conventional philosophies of a cultural the social leadership of inferior people we have elected as "gods" over us, and are too prideful to accept that without a profound change in their own minds they will suffer a shock that the rest of us will see as pitiful - will find no rationality about a planetary fate that is about to unfold before their astonished eyes.  They still have a chance to turn around--but they won't.  There will be no "end of the world," but those who have avoided the signs of the times may wish that there would be.  To the more enlightened, what is about to occur will simply be the most beautiful time in human history.  It will begin an age that lifts us out of our self-imposed darkness and transfers the Spirit of Truth like electricity across the planet.  This is my understanding thus far, and I know where-of I speak.  There are still a few posts left to go here, as..........Iwallk.

* * * * * * *Twallk Out* * * * * * *

Day of Wrest

Yesterday (Sunday) at 7:30 am I was parked in my usual place, when I can't go inside to buy coffee: the picnic table adjacent to Mill Creek Park.  Facing east toward Broadway, I had been devouring my Beatles biography for the last two days and I had ploughed through about another 50 pages or so until about 10:00 am.  The sun was bright and hot but the air was finally dry.  Under the shadows of the maples it appeared that I would be able to settle into a long read.  With no money and no laptop I thank my Maker for the ability to escape into books.

Suddenly, there was the sharp screech of brakes and I looked up to see a large Tacoma pickup hit what looked like bicyclist, because of some thing metal that seemed to gleam as it overturned.  I immediately shut the book and ran the 50 yards or so to see if I could help.  As I got closer a young woman in her twenties climbed out of the truck (which looked huge compared with her).  She put her hands up to her mouth and immediately ran back to the cab to grab her cell phone.  By the time I reached the road, several drivers had stopped to help.  One directed traffic and a middle age woman knelt down beside what I realized then was a little elderly lady with a pink coat and white sneakers who's cane was lying beside her.  It was VERY obvious that she had broken her ankle, because of its terrible angle.

The young driver was red as a apple and sobbing while she spoke on the phone.  It seemed like hours for the ambulance to come.  But it was actually only about five minutes; being right down the road anyway.  I stood out of the way on the sidewalk, ready to assist if I was needed, but the people around were doing a good job.  People change in an emergency.  They all - every one of them (besides the rubber-neckers driving slowly by) - was heroic and though strangers seemed to work together as a team.

The hit was not especially hard.  The elderly lady was not thrust backward, she simply fell where she was crossing.  The truck had not been moving very fast when it hit her, leading me to believe that the young woman behind the wheel had seen the lady but perhaps misjudged - in the bright sunlight - just how slow the she was moving.  There are retirement homes and elderly house apartments peppering that area.  Most of theses older folks use the crosswalk, but not this lady.  And Broadway is a very busy road with few drivers taking the time to slow down when pedestrians try to cross.  I know.  I've walked it a thousand times.  That is the direct walk to the South Portland Library.

When the police arrived they immediately set up a perimeter around the scene, with four of their cars.  A fire ambulance and another Medivac vehicle arrived.  The latter is the one the lady was moved into and taken away in.  One of the officers asked if I had witnessed the accident.  And since I did I was asked to fill out a statement.  This was an unusually short report (even with my annoying tendency to overwrite).  There just was not too much to the situation--cut and dried.

I handed the report to the officer and was standing right next to the very distraught driver; a pretty woman dressed for maybe for grocery shopping or to park and walk the trails around town, but with tear-stained eyes and shaking slightly.  I asked the officer if we were all set and he kindly thanked me.  But I was compelled to something in this poor young woman, who looked like all she wanted to do was shrink away to nothing.  One cannot image how badly she felt.  To her credit though most of the people realized that it was probably not her fault, since the elderly lady was taking a big risk crossing where she did.

Looking at the pitiful sight of this sad soul, my heart was touched and I was suddenly filled with an overwhelming feeling of optimism for her.  This event would change her life for the better somehow.  I was absolutely positive of it.  Something about what happened on this very day would lead her to follow a different path than one she had planned on.  And many people would secondarily benefit from it.  She would be depressed for awhile, but it would all work out all right. 

Without even thinking of protocol or the three police officers around us; actually without even thinking of anything at all, I walked over to her and put my hand on her shoulder very lightly.  She looked into my eyes with the pain of a wounded animal.  And I just said, "This hard time will eventually pass and you will be quite alright."  The words just came out!  It wasn't me.  I'm usually to shy for that kind of forwardness.  And the situation seemed inappropriate for me to be speaking with her.

The police all looked at me as if I'd just downloaded the Gospel of Luke.  It was weird and uncomfortable.  She did not smile.  She couldn't have then.  But I knew she heard what I said.  And I knew she would remember it. 

Upon reflection I realized that there was no better time than right at that moment to make tell her such a thing, since the unfortunate circumstances would be looped through her mind for weeks to come.

I returned to the picnic table, picked up my Beatles book, threw my back pack over my shoulder and slowly made my way to Knightville (Thomas Knight Park), where I sat down at the chess table and wept.



* * * * * * *



[Many other very strange things happened later that day that I don't have the time here at the Portland Public Library to write out...but I will eventually.]



Twallk 1 - Crossing the Desert

[Intro to "twallk":  I am starting a new kind of thread whose posts will be much shorter, and ongoing.  The title combines the idea of "Tweeting" (trying to keep the posts to two or three paragraphs) and "talking" with "walking" and "wall."  The idea for these posts arises from the recent and more permanent death of my laptop, which holds in its sacred HDD all (about eight) of my next posts here...not to mention all the spreadsheets (about 30) for a business I have been developing.  Just another bump on this cobblestone road of mine.  So, with all that in mind, here we go...]

* * * * * * *Twallk In* * * * *

The cloud cover was merciful this morning.  Yesterday beat the record for all observed high temperatures in Maine for the month of July.  It was 100 F (TD Bank in Portland displayed 108 F).  The sanctuary of the South Portland Public Library and its partially-functioning AC is of course very welcome.  Having a very hard time sapping the heat inside my mind though.  This one-step-forward-two-steps-back life is wearing me to the very threads.  Even my cloths aren't disintegrating as quickly as my satisfaction-level, and that's saying something since I sew-up a new hole in my shorts nearly every day.  As spiritually motivated as I can seem sometimes, it really is the lack of material security (and thus the power to overcome my circumstances) that lays me lower than anything else. 


In desperation for financial relief, I have been tempted to ask again for crumbs from my parents--who have given me ABSOLUTELY NOTHING for over 9 months now (not even moral support). Though they read this blog and know how much you all have appreciated it or found it entertaining (and have yourselves given generously), it is not worth their energy, nor does it apparently even enter their minds that THEY TOO could at least support the blog, despite their ignorant misconception of the philosophy behind my Odyssey. But I will resist begging for crumbs. I'd rather be starving and hold on to my melting dignity than lower myself to erroneously allowing them to think that their tightness is justified.

On a slightly happier note...Now that the sun is coming out I will remain here in the library most of the day.  I have begun The Beatles: The Biography, by Bob Spitz; a MASSIVE work (880 pages of text).  I'm a rather slow reader--only about 100 pages a day on average.  So this is going to take the better part of a week and a half to finish.  But it is extraordinarily well-written.  I simply can't put it down.  Most of you know how obsessed I am with the story, music and lives of the fab four.  So, finding this book is like manna from heaven. 

* * * * * * *Twallk Out* * * * * * *

The Write Way - Part 2

METHOD AND TECHNIQUE

ART AND CRAFT

Since I was a kid, besides wanting to write, I've been alternately interested in drawing, music composition and audio recording. These are all aspects of one creative process. Writing is most certainly an art form and its craft is in every way comparable to these other things, so for a little while I will use them as a metaphor and will consolidate them ALL as “art.”

Artistic method obviously starts with a basic concept inside your mind. And let no man ever tell you what subjects are “good” or “bad.” Non-artists are self-evidently defined in the artist's mind by their silly expectation that they are qualified to give you suggestions about what or how to create. We who have dealt with this unasked-for advice for all of our lives have learned ways of patiently putting up with it. One of the only real freedoms we have in this world is to for decide for ourselves what we express. Our creative work is always an embryo that may even take many years to gestate until it reaches the point where it is ready to be born.

Artists have something to say, no matter what medium they utilize to say it. They simply can't help themselves. Most don't make art for selfish reasons. The best artists genuinely want to GIVE to other people. Though they are frequently misunderstood and accused as being self-serving or eccentric, this usually isn't the case—at least in their minds. When the concept of the work-in-mind passes beyond pure contemplation and into the conscious need to express it, nothing can nor should stop the artist (or writer) from gratifying that need.

Many budding artists get frustrated when they try to craft their fledgling inner concept into a tangible, outer display. They can see it so clearly in their minds, but what they craft is just not making the point they intended it to. For what it's worth I have some advice about this also.

The great torment of the new artist is to see her projects started but never finished. Over time I've learned that it isn't so much a matter of the artist's talent, as much as it is the time and effort they are willing to put into their work that counts, because that is what actually completes projects. I was not born talented in any of my creative pursuits. But by shear dedication to the honing and molding of any project I was crafting - not stopping until it was as close as it could be to what was originally intended – I found I was able to occasionally, but not always, achieve a certain amount of quality to what I presented to the world as a finished product.

This is important to remember: Michelangelo used to say that when he was sculpting marble, he was simply liberating the final form from the prison of its slab of stone. This in not entirely a metaphor. In other words, if your destiny is to create great art, then it is already a for-gone conclusion that what stands today in front of you as a chunk of marble (or a blank page) will stand tomorrow – and maybe for hundreds of years to come – in a grand gallery, as “David” (or in the case of writing, Romeo and Juliet).

In my career as whatever-the-hell I am, I have found Michelangelo's explanation to be an exceedingly helpful one. When I drew as a child I would start with a pencil, lightly drawing the lines of the image I saw in my mind. Most of the time what I would draft initially was horrible. But with great effort, and confidence in myself to be able to FINISH my work, I would attack it, leaving the parts that worked alone, gradually darkening-in those lines until they were able to be drawn-over with a permanent pen. Then I'd erase and re-do the parts that didn't work, re-re-doing those over and over again in this same way until the image was complete. This is how one can train one's self.

I was never one of those people who could immediately put their imagination down in final form on a piece of drawing paper in one fall-swoop. But I was highly motivated by NEEDING to see on the outside what I saw on the inside. And, though I probably have more faults than positive attributes, I admit being happy to say that I am especially, even painfully, tenacious and I am not (under most circumstances) a quitter.

So take it from me, if you work hard enough and long enough even if you are not all that naturally proficient, you can still express what you want to express. It is only a function of TIME and EFFORT. And through hours, days, weeks, months and years of intensive repetition of this method of persistence you will suddenly find yourself BECOMING proficient, as if by a miracle. The hard work of sticking to it, no matter how frustrating it can get sometimes, WILL pay off and you will be completely surprised by your own ability to finish work after work in a shorter amount of time, and with less blood, sweat and tears expended; work that you once wished you could have done as efficiently as the other kids seemed to. And you will grow to reach higher standards of quality than you ever knew you could achieve. Believe it!

This doesn't mean people will find your work appealing. Nor does it mean that you will be successful in a career based on your artistry (or your writing). But, it does mean that you can be satisfied in your own mind with the fruit of your labors and that you were able to liberate the final form from a stone slab that was once only a thought.

I found all of this to be true when doing multi-track audio recording as well. My interest in audio recording was for purely experimental sound-craft, while using more conventional poetry to express my philosophies and personal experiences seemed to fit right in to the process. Now that process is relatively simple for me. I write the song, including the chord structure and lyrics, and have a pretty clear idea about what it should sound like, all inside my mind. I have had so much experience composing in this way now, that there is really no longer a need for physically working things out on an instrument. I do have to say that playing around on a guitar or piano is also a very fruitful way to come up with new ideas too. Yet, the primary crafting of the music can be done mentally.

When the work is ready to be “born,” I lay down a rough guitar line, synced to a “click track” (like the first pencil lines of a drawing). With digital technology it is easy to then take pieces that are of poor quality, setting A and B loop points, repeating that one section, improving it over and over again, until it is of what I consider to be passable quality.

This is just like making the lines that work in the drawing process more solid until they can be considered permanent. Once that recorded track is complete, the next one will be laid down (piano or drums or bass or vocals, etc...), with the same process being applied to each. Again, my music has not seemed to appeal to other people as I once hoped it would, but I AM satisfied that I have translated what were inner ideas into a reasonably close musical facsimile that can live on its own in the outside world.

The writing process is fundamentally the same as what I've said above about the artistic process. But, in some ways it is a bit easier.  Psychologically, it seems the most gratifying thing that I compose. This is because very often after drawing or recording music I feel like the work will be the latest, greatest thing to be beheld by other people. All the same, with further viewing or listening in the days that follow I notice that my enthusiasm for it wanes. And with some disappointment my fears for the perceived mediocrity of the work is often confirmed by the lack of enthusiasm from other people who it is presented to. This does not happen as often with my prose. The time spent on it usually pays off.  Am I more realistic about my writing? Do I have a better innate understanding of what appeals to readers? Do I have a greater facility for the process than with drawing or music? I have spent many a sleepless night searching for answers to these questions. I have never found them.

Getting back to my original point here, though, and applying it to your writing... You should write your rough draft not caring how it will read, initially. Then through time, effort and intentional crafting it will become what you want it to be. When it comes to starting a work: just keep writing. Fill the pages—that is your stone. Without the marble there can never be the “David.”

REWRITING AND EDITING YOUR WORK

Finally, comes the re-writing process; deleting the lines that don't work and replacing them with ones that do. The solidification begins to develop. And – very much like digital recording – cutting, copying and pasting, reorganizing and restructuring is made easy with modern word processing technology. The only time-consuming, but necessary, part of writing comes with editing by doing the complete “read-through.” This really is the place where things are cleaned up and primed for presentation. It only takes about three to four read-throughs to complete an essay of blog-able length.

For example, in this particular post I wrote down a basic draft (the sentence stage) quickly—about 4 pages at 14 point size, using the Georgia font; changing words in each sentence as best I could, but not spending too much time doing this, as I knew I would have several more chances to alter them. I read it through once (in the paragraph stage), changing what didn't work into what worked—deleting and replacing, cutting and pasting, moving whole paragraphs around if necessary. Then, upon the second read-through (the page stage) there were only a few things to change in that way. Upon the third read-through (the document stage) I was only changing one or two words per paragraph, mostly diversifying repetitiously used words with more uncommonly used synonyms. On the fourth read-through (the polishing stage) there were only a few changes to be made. I spell check continuously. Then, usually, I will do one final read-though when I go online to publish the post. Blogger has a crappy spell-check, but sometimes it will catch errors that were entered into my computer's dictionary by accident. If images or audio or video flash players are to be included that is when they are linked or uploaded. And, viola! A new post lives.

[It is so ironic to have published this with so many typos.  I think I snagged them all, but please forgive if not.  ONe thing that is really hard is catching your own typos.  Your eyes see what you MEANT instead of what is actually there...Please check in for the next post.]

The Write Way - Part 1

About a half dozen people have asked me about how I write. I'm flattered that they would care and I'd never really thought about the process very much. So, I took a few days to organize a rather-incomplete outline on the subject. I hope it can give at least a small idea. Someone wondered if I ever get writer's block (which I will address in “general statements”). A mother wanted advice about writing methods for her teenage daughter who (according to mom) has a similar writing style to mine (what I will refer to as “method and technique”). Another person wondered about how I argue for a position and why that is so important to me (what I will refer to as “argument and debate” in the following posts). So, I've written four posts that hope will address these things as I see them. I will attempt to integrate the very concepts I present IN to the writing of these posts. As you might expect from me I don't mind taking this opportunity to also inject my own philosophies into the discussion.

GENERAL STATEMENTS

CAVEAT

Please keep in mind that I'm not an English teacher and what I'm saying in these posts is only my way of handling writing. It most certainly is not the “right” way, because there is no “right” way (hence the spelling of the title). Also, even though I'm trying to sound authoritatively instructive, please take my “you should”s with a pinch of sea salt.

WRITER'S BLOCK—DON'T WORRY

First let me say that there was only one time in my life that I had writer's block. It was around 1993. To this day I have no idea why this happened. It was extremely frustrating and – in my typically anxious and melodramatic way – it made me question whether my ability to write words was gone forever. I wasn't writing prose at the time, only songs. The people who I looked to for support at the time were not particularly helpful or sympathetic. My ignorant and conservative parents said things like, “Well, maybe this means that you need to look for another career.” But my girlfriend, at the time – to her credit – encouraged me to focus on what was still left—music.

Nothing especially significant had happened that year to cause such paucity. I was still able to record an ambient (instrumental) album (that would end up being “Monsters of Light”). Thankfully, something about re-focusing all my energy on another form of expression did the trick for me. And, because of this, I was all the more inspired when the words started to return the following year; probably to the disappointment of my parents.

* * * * * * A Side Note to Parents Out There* * * * * * *

For godsakes don't crush the creative desires of your children! Ever! It is this kind of error that separates the generations and erects things like Berlin Walls and Guantanamo Razor Fences. Don't selfishly take advantage of their temporary inability to do what they truly love just to satisfy your own misguided ideas of what you want them to do. This paternalistic, anti-intellectual, over-bearing, manipulative and progress-killing attitude of the older generations over the younger ones who are still developing that has set up the process that has been burying the Light in this world. Marshall McLuhan (an underrated philosopher of the 20^th Century) called this kind of backward-looking, bad advice, “Trying to drive forward by using only the rear-view mirror.”

For too many years happiness has been sacrificed for hyper-practicality and – most-unfortunately – for the obsessive, but destructively-retarded misconception that security is only available to the money-junkies of the world. Sadly, many of the mods, beatniks and hippies who re-discovered this fact, after it was submerged in post-romanticism, ended up being the ones to do a 180 degree turn in the 1980's; re-building the shameful golden calf of materialism, while hypocritically insisting that MY generation worship it.

And so now OUR children (their grandchildren) claw at the walls of a baby-boomed, debt-based, consumerist, thing-fetish, earth-raping, culturally restrictive set of flimsy, falling-down economic and social systems that have only served the selfish interests of these boomers. They were willing to loot the future from their children and grandchildren to the point where they back up their junky's need for the morphine-of-money, with deadly menace of military and law-enforcement muscle. It is encouraging though to see that even with all the satanic confusion and hypocrisy that my generation was subjected to by our parents, we (who were once called, “Generation X”) have not lost what we found to be genuine and helpful about history's lessons. And I think we will be the FIRST generation since Eden to allow our children to find the happiness that God intended for those children, even if we have to tear down every wall and razor fence that our parents build to suppress it.

In all fairness, let me say that my greatest heroes were also part of that boomer generation. They were the ten percent or so that carried the Light through the years of the Reaganomics, oil-wars and neoconism of the last thirty years. And now their clear, open-mindedness and moral integrity have allowed them to pass their idealism on to us in full-force. My generation has been starving for it. And I believe WE will use it conquer the future.

* * * * * End of Side Note* * * * * * *

With the easing of my writer's block, it was as if my subconscious had built-up its reserves enough to supply the rest of my life to come. Thus, I cannot give a lot of advice about writer's block, except to say that if you feel you have something to say and you love writing, but a sandy dam has blocked the river from its normal flow, do other creative things... This will be like kneeling down and running one finger-trail from the wet side to the dry. Over time a small tickle of water will follow this trail over the top of that sandy barrier, slowly wearing it away, until the block can no longer withstand the pressure building up behind it. There is a reason for everything, and it is likely that your temporary block is the sign that your well is being filled with cleaner water than it started with. Be patient and the words will flow again.

WRITING EFFECTIVELY

Aside from being able to speak well, being able to write well is arguably the most valuable tool (and sometimes-weapon for self defense) that any individual has to influence the world around them.

Know yourself first. Who are you and how do you want people to perceive you? Get to know yourself, and you will get to know your writing. Every aspiring writer must figure out a system for her/himself that fits into the her/his thought process, while integrating a personal style that other people can really identify with. Your readers WILL draw conclusions (whether founded or unfounded) about who you are from the way you express yourself. Lord knows! And the residual impressions about yourself that you leave with your readers can last a very, VERY long time.

Next, decide what the context of your subject is. Carefully judge the atmosphere of the arena in which the presentation or discussion is taking place. Is it a concert hall constructed for entertainment and filled with a crowd of adoring fans? Is it a lecture hall filled with an academic audience who has shown up to peer-review your theories and philosophies? Or, is it a debating hall filled with a semi-hostile, divided and partially-undecided group of highly-charged arguers, assembled to compete for dominance over a controversial subject? Try to tailor your words to your readership, in accordance with your objective and based upon your venue.

For entertainment, use the professional stance of the well-executed performance and the brightly colored light show to set an emotive background. For demonstrations of theory and presentations of philosophy, use a well-measured, logical and unemotional style that plays upon people's natural sense of reason and their desire to integrate SOME of your concepts with what they have used intrinsically to build concepts of their own. And I will cover debate in great depth – a little later on, since I really consider it to be my forté.

[Please check in for the next post.]

Three Coins Left

In my never-ending quest to flay myself publicly, I offer the following post. It isn't pretty and it isn't a permanent “last word.” It IS what I need to express, because I have no other way to do so. Lucky you!

In days now gone and fading away, I had people who I could sit and talk with. I could share my problems and issues and they could share theirs with me. But I am no longer in a situation right where I can have long meaningful discussions with other warm bodies on a regular basis. It is with this in mind that I open a rarely-used pressure valve.

Last night I was reminded of why I have trust issues with people. Without going into too much detail, I took the emotional risk of indulging in a rare expectation; making the mistake of relying on another person to live up to it. And though they were not able to complete this, I knew in my heart that it was my own fault that I was so disappointed by their apparent callousness and disregard. It was not a big leap for me to become an afterthought. I simply re-learned why I prefer to be alone.

It isn't like I needed this lesson jammed down my throat, since the last two decades have given me ample opportunities not to fall into the same trap over and over again. Still, I suffer from that old fashioned notion that hope springs eternal for those who remain on this side of the grave. Yet the crushing of hope can happen too many times.

So, instead, I want to redefine hope. It is a finite bag of valuable golden coins that one is given in the early years of life. And though guilt and remorse are heavy bags indeed to carry around, hope can be the heaviest one of all. We ARE given enough to last about a hundred years; about as long as our bodies will last.

We go about spending it freely. We often squander it on the little things, but usually remain mindful that the remainder will be needed for more serious situations down the road. Most of us – myself included – are willing to exhaust great amounts of it when real, or imagined “life-threatening” lightening strikes. After many years, we learn to our horror that the bag never does seem to be replenished. Yes, new hope can be loaned but that kind of funding is made at a high rate of interest. And like obtaining a new mortgage in old age, when the bag begins to lighten we try to trick the banker by outliving what we are lent.

Now, those who have faith in a higher Power can utilize prayer in an attempt to be granted (rather than loaned) a reprieve from the suffering they face. But as with any grant the requirements are stringent and exacting. And a good history of using one's gains to help others is a must.

I believe in God. And I KNOW She/He (I'll use “He” in this post) desires nothing more than acceptance of his Plan for all of us and each of us. Over time I have discovered that I can hold an on-going conversational prayer, minute to minute as I focus the inner dialogue I have with myself into a carbon copy that God can then examine too. He will occasionally edit this document and sent it back through to me in the form of circumstances that I must then face and overcome. It is my experiential account that is thus recorded for any future grant application.

But I am only human, and not one of the best ones. So, I find myself in a rather constant state of failure and disappointment. A great book once said, “You must become immune to disappointment.” And it is this phrase more than any other that echoes in my mind as of late. It is quite simply the most difficult goal in my life. Many a martyr has gone to the gallows with a strong face held high and proudly wears a clean heart, knowing that what should be the ultimate disappointment is instead the beginning of a new and better life in heaven. They also know that their lives in the flesh were not wasted with a downcast countenance. I simply cannot measure up to that kind of nobility. I am weak and doubtful.

Tonight sought refuge in work as I always do when I'm disappointed. But it was not to be. My laptop died again and I was left abandoned and unable to sweeten the situation. For many hours I sat at the picnic table near the pump-station adjacent to Mill Creek Park, feeling the breeze and watching the most beautiful evening of the year pass me by without any hint of enjoyment in it. And like any movie about a romantic tragedy, there were couples walking by—stopping to kiss each other in front of me, families riding bikes together. Cars flying by with their radios blaring, filled with friends on their way to parties and bars. But even with all that and what should have been a picnic-table, self-pity party, a woe-is-me moment, instead I felt NOTHING. And the temptress called to me.......

I just want to be somebody's something; more than a writer that you click over to when your bored. People say, “You just need to try harder.” Yet, even when I TRY to get involved in the world that is receding from my life, I fail. What sickness afflicts the one who can't enjoy the moments of a beautiful evening? What malignant cancer metastasizes in the spirit of one who cannot love himself enough to believe that the mighty gift of communication that God has given him can't save him from his own despair?

God, I miss my cats.

When I was child I never could have guessed that my life would come to this? I guess most of us can ask that same question. But where most of us are consoled by playing the game, acting the roles, feeling the prescribed emotions, I am left dazzled by the blindness it requires.

Once, in a childhood moment, I floated on the mirror surface of a lake at sundown. All of everything that would occur was still open to me. I was going to be famous, travel to distant lands, have grand adventures, dine with beautiful women...Now as I look across to the still waters of the pond, with the little brown shapes of sleeping ducks and consumed by their own small dreams, it all comes back to me, then drains out like warm blood from a wound that does not have time to heal. Bleeding-out is just the symptom. The shallowness of temporary worth is ever-evaporating and ever-becoming more shallow.

I am no longer able to sufficiently judge the glances of women. I am no longer able to determine what is a flirt and what I just good manners. I'm losing touch with the strategy that is necessary for finding love. It has been too long perhaps. Just another mistake I've made...by waiting too long. When I read emails and comments left by women I might be interested in, my mind ads too many of those gold coins between each line. For the first time in my life...I am lonely for that kind of companionship. It used to be too easy. I was picky and arrogant. I look back on opportunities and just close my eyes...

Once the invisibility starts, it seems to be unstoppable. I feel like when Iwallk up to automatic doors at supermarkets I have to walk around and do a little dance to make them open. I know it is a metaphor, but it is a damn good one.

The stars shine now above the rustling leaves. Horns beep. The cars line up behind red lights and then move like a steal and glass worm, head first, then section by section, it wriggles and squirms out of site. Hours pass like minutes and the traffic lightens. The bar across the street erupts into a collective song.

I can't do it. I can't go there. And it isn't because I can't afford it. It isn't because I don't want a drink (drunk people are always willing to buy strangers a drink). And I am a good mingler. Charm isn't the problem. I'm just bored with it. I find it all stagnant and stultifying. What advancement could it bring me? A hangover? A night with a stranger? What for??

I'm not going to continue this empty Odyssey forever. I would be even more patient if there was some way to gauge what hour the bell would toll. But isn't that wish of every lonely and lost soul? There are plenty around. For a short time I thought I might be able to wake them...Now I'm not so sure.

I went diving deep inside and found my own self – my own soul – just like I was Asked to do. As I've said so many times before, I pulled it out of the darkness from where I had chained it so long ago in order to “fit in,” and have now wrapped it around my body for all to see.

But no body is looking. They are too “busy.” They are running around in the circles that satisfy them enough to not question the deepening ruts developing beneath their feet. I still believe they would care if a message of sufficient power could reach them. But I am apparently not the one to bring it. They have to wait for someone more brilliant and spiritually fragrant...someone who is not a foolish man.

At the distant reaches of the our local star cloud rushes forth the Answer. His entourage comes with great haste, for the New Advent is about to descend upon this dark and misled world. I wanted to lessen the shock that will attend this Arrival. I was called to do just that. But it seems I am far too weak; my voice is obscured by self-hatred.

I was asked to go out into the desert and now here I am, lost at last. I was asked to adorn myself in the skins of animals. I was asked to baptize believers in the light-pipe of electrons. But too much faith has been placed in a weakling. Why wasn't someone who hasn't fucked up everything in his life chosen? I wish this was merely a delusion of grandeur. But there is nothing grand about it; only the delusion is apparent.

These are the now-not-so private thoughts that crowd my incompetent mind on this, the most beautiful night of the year. I am only wondering out-loud. I am only wandering in the shadows. Father, if there is a way to salvage this assignment it might be good to let me know sooner rather than too-later.

I CAN take one more breath though, for You, my sweet Lord, and for you all. I have recovered that bag of gold coins. I open it in the dark. I reach inside and find three of them remaining; hardy enough to last forty more years. But enough to get a fix. Three last cigarettes. Three last ounces of rum. Three last hours of sex. To one who is addicted to hope, three is enough. It is enough to bridge the time needed for a few last tries.

Tonight I will remove one coin; gleaming, shining, pure and soft—a distant reminder of the glory that was once a full bag. I examine it in the violet moonlight and slip it into my pocket................... Then...............

Ahhhh...Warm water...I am young and floating on that lake again. And the sun is going down, flashes or orange and swirling birds sing above me...or are they angels? The future is bright again. I can still be famous, travel to distant lands, have grand adventures, dine with beautiful women...I WILL make it all happen. There is no more doubt. The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand. Rejoice!!

All Creatures Great and Wall - Flora - Part 2

WILD LETTUCE

Google Image: Wild Lettuce

Another of the more interesting plants that few people know about is wild lettuce (Lactuca virosa). Related to the garden lettuce (L. sativa) that we is so familiar to us, it grows everywhere (like A. vulgaris it is a wayside plant), shooting up about mid-July and flowering by the end of the month. Although it can be blanched and eaten, only the freshest, newest and most tender leaves should be used, to avoid bitterness and the sharp spines that form around the edges and bottoms of the leaves as they mature.

More interestingly, from an entheogenic perspective, the plant's flower tips can be cut off, allowing the “milk” (the plant's latex, hence the genus name “Lactuca”) to seep out. It can be dabbed onto a small mirror, left to dry and then scraped up (opium-like—the plant is sometimes called, “lettuce opium”) to be smoked or eaten as a mild sedative and sleep aid. Though, unlike garden lettuce who's milk actually does contain small amounts of morphine, L. virosa contains only a mild sedative lactone called, sesquiterpene, along with many flavinoids and coumarins. However, sesquiterpene does have morphine-like attributes. For instance, it can be used for pain relief and to suppress coughing, but lacks morphine's negative attribute of causing constipation.

For the last several years before leaving my last apartment, I would cut down and dry whole plants - after removing the dry dandelion-like seeds clusters (they have feathery “parachutes) and younger, yellow flowers - and then crushed them up (the de-flowered plants), boil them in water, reducing the mixture until the water was almost gone. Then I would transfer the thick liquid to a glass baking dish where it would be allowed to completely evaporate all of the remaining water. This left a dry extract that could be scraped up and redissolved in water as a bedtime tea to aid sleep.

It really worked quite well (I used between 500 mg and 1,000 mg per dose). The leaves themselves can be dried and smoked in a joint for a similar mildly sedating effect—though honestly when I tried this I felt nothing. If all those street people so desperate for a cheap buzz understood just how close it was to them, growing along every roadside in every temperate-zoned city, in the form of lettuce opium, they would be amazed.

Supposedly, people used this plant when opium poppies were not available. It's effect is substantially weaker than opium though. And although the literature will occasionally state that its use is “addictive,” it would be highly unrealistic for such a thing to occur. I mean, how many people have you ever heard of being addicted to wild lettuce?

It should be mentioned in the spirit of full disclosure that heavy internal exposure to lactones has been shown in laboratory animals to be a carcinogen—poor things; surely there are better ways of spending university grant money... Yet, occasional use for limited periods has never been linked to any ill effects in human beings. In fact wild lettuce extract (according to Chevallier) can be given to children to lessen excitability. On the down-side there is anecdotal evidence that wild lettuce use lowers libido in adults.

MILK THISTLE

Google Images: Milk Thistle

When I first explored Thomas Wright Park there was a new milk thistle (Silybum marianum) plant coming up near the rose bushes seen in the video in Part 1. But when I returned a week later it had been cut down. Milk thistle is green with milky white patches and covered with very sharp spines. It's seed pod is purple, spherical and geodesically spiny.

Although I have never done this, the seeds can be crushed and their oil extracted for medicinal use, especially to protect the liver. German biologists in the 1700's discovered that administering a concoction of thistle seeds just before, or within 48 hours after, ingestion of death cap mushrooms would protect the liver enough to prevent fatal exposure. There has been a recent vogue for milk thistle seed oil in recent years. And it has shown great promise in treating liver-related illnesses and diseases like hepatitis and jaundice.

The plant can grow to be well over seven feet in height. I used to have one that grew up beside my front door at my last apartment each summer. I noticed that by about mid-season it would begin to dry out prematurely. It was also infested with tiny red ants. It wasn't so much their influence that sapped the plant of life, but rather the even-tinier aphids that that the ants protected and milked for the sweet honey that emerged out of the aphid's back-side. Milk thistle is quite beautiful and impressive in its severe and spiny way.

TEA AND SALAD

Earlier in the spring there are pink lilac flowers growing all over the place. Like the rose petals, they can be eaten fresh for a sweet treat or left to dry and steeped for tea. Lilac, rose and mint makes a very nice tea or can be added together in a fruit salad to give it color and a floral fragrance.

You can (and I do) gather rose petals, hips, oregano, parsley, sage and mint for a very interesting and tasty salad, for free. To add a savory element to the salad, if you are near the ocean, cup-up some clean sea water and sprinkle it on your salad as a dressing.

The list of potential additives for this kind of salad goes on and on. If you have a clean source for dandelion greens they can be added too, but they should be blanched first to reduce the bitterness of the tannins which can upset the stomach in larger quantities. Last year I used to gather piles of dandelion greens , blanch them and boil them like spinach, seasoned with butter, lemon juice and salt and pepper. Chive beds can be found in old farm fields where they have been allowed to proliferate undisturbed.

On a recent walk through Mill Creek Park, I found other potential ingredients.

Clover flowers and greens can be used, violet flowers and greens and one of my favorites, sour grass. Sour grass can be identified by its rounded, up-pointed, arrow-like shape. Sometimes lately, when I don't get enough veggies during the week, I gather up a bunch of these herbs and flowers for a large salad in my grocery bag. At desperate times (like just recently as a matter of fact) a salad of sufficient size can satisfy hunger over most of the day.

Together with some discount french bread from Shaw’s ($0.75) and some free butter pads and strawberry jam packets from McDonald's, I separate the savory (oregano, sage, thyme, parsley, chives and sour grass—with a bit of sea watered added) from the sweet (mint, rose petals, lilac flowers, clover flowers and sometimes a big of wild apple), then make a salad of the former, eating it with bread and butter and put jam on some of the bread that I've saved, topping it off with sweet flower petals of the latter for dessert. It's a feast!

HUMAN NATURE

Nature provides abundant amounts of edible and medicinal alternatives to the mono-cultured supermarket items we are used to. It is true that supermarkets provide larger and more reliable sources of food from the plant kingdom than what is found in the gardens and parks of your local town or city. But, one must have money to buy these items. And unfortunately I do not have enough to consistently purchase healthy fruits and vegetables. So having knowledge about what IS offered for free by the plants Iwallk past every day has helped me when the stomach begins to rumble. I bagged about a pound of raspberries today to munch on my trip over the bridge to Portland.

Indeed even these naturalized and wild sources provide enough carbohydrates, vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, antibacterials, and in some cases even better nutritional supplements than those offered by supermarket plants. But the craving for higher protein, salt, fat and oil sources leaves little doubt in the mind that the scavenging and gathering plant diet of the habitual wanderer is in need of further diversity in order to truly be complete.

Thankfully, I live near the ocean and kelp, shellfish and fish could theoretically provide what is lacking (assuming a fishing pole were available and Red Tide was out of season). And I grudgingly admit to a very culturally-bound desire for restaurant and other prepared food, especially as I smell it being cooked all around me every day. On days with no food, it is a real – no-joking – kind of torment.

In all fairness, I'm not so sure that when I've lifted myself off the street and re-entered society's kitchens and dining rooms that plucking rose petals, stealing parsley from town planters and chewing on oregano sprigs will be a part of my life anymore.

I do, however, foresee that in my later years (if get to them) I will look back on this time of nomadic travel and all the lessons it taught about the green, and often delicious, world around me as the most naturally “tuned-in” dietary period I had lived through. And because of what I have seen and experienced I now KNOW that the plants ARE our fellow creatures. Their agenda matches ours: to live...and also to let live.

Because of this enlightenment something even tells me that when I am old I will long to be back outside, journeying from town to town, literally surviving from hand to mouth, being present at every beautiful sunset, having the joy of resting beside duck ponds and deep-water inlets, feeling the cool shade of large trees—with their rustling leaves, being caught in the rainy fierceness of a thunderstorm, feeling the wind blow my shirt and hair at the edge of high bridges and cliff-tops...

Ironically, all of this is a blessing I certainly do not have the luxury of fully appreciating right now as Iwallk. But to not have been here—in the NOW, doing what I am doing (following my Father's voice when He says, “Go forward!”); feeling the raw, weathered and profound spirit nakedness of Nature as she teaches and guides me through her pulsing, buzzing, roaring...and whispering...sweetness—that I might learn how to transfer my soul to the outside of myself for all to see, would have been the first nail in my coffin and the final rejection of the very meaning of human existence as it was originally intended: to drink FULLY the cup of experience in this world.

* * *

No one's life is long. But I intend to make mine as wide as it can be. That way...maybe...in harmony, you will remember me...for, God-willing, MY life will be a song.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL SOURCES

Booth, Martin, Cannabis: A History, Thomas Dunne Books, New York, 2004.

Booth, Martin, Opium: A History, St. Martin's Griffin, New York, 1999.

Chevallier, Andrew, Encyclopedia of Herbal Medicine, DK, New York, 2000.

Novak, F. A., The Pictorial Encyclopedia of Plants and Flowers, Crown Press,

New York, 1966, p. 395.

Sonday, Rebecca, Convolvulus arvensis (pdf), Plant Diversity Website, 2008.

Weier, T. Elliot, Stocking, C. Ralph, Barbour, Michel G., Botany: An

Introduction to Plant Biology, John Wiley and Sons, New York, 1974,

pp. 644-670.

Future On My Doorstep - Part 1

For some months now, even from the more settled days just before leaving my former residence to begin this Odyssey, I have been experiencing familiar but forgotten images - in both my dream life and while awake - of places and scenes that I've always known were in my future.  In my childhood I used to glimpse these same images with a casual wonder and was a bit surprised here at mid-life when they started to present themselves again.  Long ago in my adolescence I had discounted them by burying my soul.

Nevertheless, they appear to be back and only getting more vivid as what used to be the “future” seems to have dropped itself on my doorstep—and is knocking lightly at the door.  It is a visitor I'm trying to ignore.  But its gentle yet obvious presence just won't go away. 

I'm just a fool and it is in my nature have put off turning that doorknob; not ready for the enemy it will attract.  I'm not ready for what is to come, I realize I have to begin biting the bullet and facing the truth:  nothing is left for me in the conventional  lifestyles of the poor in spirit.   Still, left to my own low motivation in this regard, I would probably just sit down for the rest of my life with my back against the door, willing to put up with the proximity of this uninvited guest. 

Are these visions simply the inevitable resurgence of an original, involuntary reflection; a going-back to before the complexities of adulthood to finish comprehending what my boyhood-self could not grasp?  Maybe the boding revelation is stronger now, because it just so happens that I have involuntarily been “chosen” at this time to be Led off-stage and out through the complexity-curtain of a world filled to the brim with its own hubris. 

The devil has a little sister and she is a burnt monster with a festering hatred beyond all human conception.  Her moniker is, euphemistically referred to as: “modern life.”  She hides her gnashing teeth behind a prettily painted face, tireless and poised, ever-ready to consume all remaining residue of human naturalness and innocence wherever she might find them.  She is a succubus more dangerous now than she ever was in historic times, waiting for the rare chance to see a child of Light re-emerge within even one single man.  The child is special and in order to “fit in,” perhaps he once buried it deep within.  It is his neglected soul.  And he...is me. 

And nothing makes this twisted sister more lustful than smelling the soul's reemergence.  She harbors but one singular ambition: ripping it to shreds.  And even from thousands of miles away I smell the stench of her lust from below her waste...  She is following the future around the world from house to house—doorway to doorway—searching.  And now that the future waits on ME I know she must be approaching with great haste.  She tried to kidnap me twenty years ago—her and her brother.  She is loath to forget my past rejection of her.  And her big brother has detected a new opportunity.  That is why they keeping nudging their cousin trying to keep her awake as she still reclines in that back bedroom that I discussed some posts ago (see "Making dead Ends Meet").

A few years ago, after coming home from an uncertain hospital stay, I began to get brief but intense flashes, like personal archetypal impressions, colors and sparks of light I deemed to be from my earliest days.  I'd see a crayon and think of the first time I saw a whole box of crayon colors; all the potential that box held for expressing myself.  Particularly metallic colors, the trick of light as it is reflected off of copper, silver or gold.  Recuperating  at home, these impression made me think of Christmas decorations, tinsel, glass bulbs, or Easter baskets filled with tinfoil-covered chocolate eggs and iridescent plastic grass; anything that used to have “shininess” to it.  It made the false magic of those holidays HOLY-days.  There was something about the glint, the shimmer, the glisten that I just loved as a kid.  I was a bookish lad who could be left in one spot with toys or drawing utensils for hours, able to entertain myself through pure imagination.  I was content simply staring at something shiny or glowing, for long periods of time. 

Other memories come to mind...  My sister and I each had small spring-loaded alarm clocks rescued from the attic of my grandparent's house that had small dots of radium (believe it or not) painted on each number so they would glow at night.  Later in life I read an article about how many of the women factory workers who used to paint these clock dials eventually developed cancer and died prematurely due to radiation exposure.  But hey, that was “progress” in the industrial age!; born upon the tumor-covered hands and faces of young women who never had a chance to grow old.

I remember the Christmas I got a digital watch back when they were little red-lit digits - clock-radio style - was a real treat.  All the calculators back then were made with similar red glowing digits until LCD (liquid crystal displays) replaced them.  That was a sad day in my child-mind.  But I was happy again once those LCD's became  back-lit.  Seeing what is being done now with LCD technology (such as the very screen I am viewing as I write this post) would have blown my young mind.  My love of science stems from those days. 

I had a robot costume that my mom bought at K-mart with a little light bulb in the top of the mask, attached by a cord to a 9-volt battery sewed into the nylon belt of he shirt.  After the night was over I was quick to cut the whole apparatus out of the material and mask.  I played with that sucker continuously for days, shining it on different surfaces to see how it would reflect, clicking it on and off with the beat of music, touching it to my lip until it got hot, then removing it and letting it cool, and repeating the process over and over. 

My dad - who was a regional rep for Union Carbide and its subsidiary, Eveready, in the 1970's – came home with lots of cool promotional flashlights and other kinds of battery-lit fluorescent lights too.  They all went straight into my room whenever I could get my hands on them.  There was something so cold about fluorescent light, so blue and icy...  Every box store in every city owes its life to the bland rays of the synthetic fluorescent ceilings of the 1970's.  And what shopper hasn't had the grand pleasure of strolling through a 24-hour Walmart today at 3 am, in search of safety pins, feminine napkins or toilet paper and being illuminated from above by these frigid, flickering, often semi-burnt-out, glowing, mercury-filled, industrial, four-foot tubes of glory?  More progress I guess... 

I also LOVED any glowing object that I could “charge up” with a light and then turn off the light and to let it glow.  It was fascinating to me to see just how long the glow it would last.  I got a Frankenstein face with glowing eyes in a cereal box and hung it on my wall to observe at night.  Getting the glowing star stickers for my bedroom ceiling had to have been the highpoint of bedtime wonder.  When these objects got very dim I was never quite sure whether they were still glowing or if it was just an afterimage in my mind, or maybe just my imagination.  I suppose it was inevitable that I would be drawn to psychedelics as a teenager and an adult.

Most-beloved to me was the shimmer and shifting sunlight off tiny waves on the surface of water; what I've often called, “crystal waters.”  I knew even at my earliest wonderment that surely heaven must be filled with sunlit waters of this kind.  And this theory was partially confirmed in the hospital so many years later.  I will write a post about that experience eventually.

I don't know what it was about these things.  I guess it has to do with light in the most general and primordial sense; its reflections, refractions, the splitting of white light into color and the recombination of color back into the whiteness.  As I got a bit older and was able to travel with my family to different places, visionary-like images would flash before my third eye, catalyzed by the current scenes I was viewing then.  And it is THESE experiences that became the basis of what I have been seeing lately, spurred on by my re-awakening, post hospital.  All this leads me to the real subject at hand...

[For the next post in this thread I will delve into the specifics of these visions and images, along with my interpretation of what they might mean for me...and us.]

All Creatures Great and Wall - Flora - Part 1

As Iwallk I encounter every sort of life form. Often it is the plant kingdom that makes the biggest impression on me. Knowing a few things about botany, certain useful herbs and flowers seem to stick out everywhere. Admittedly plants are not “creatures,” per sé, but they still register at least in my mind as important living players in the environment. Some people DO think that they have a kind of consciousness (myself included). In fact, without getting in to it too much in this post, I have come to believe that each plant species has its own “spirit,” with all individuals in that species therefore being like a collective – if diffuse - personality. And so I will focus on the plants – the local flora – in these next two posts; moving on to a discussion about the local fauna in future posts.

MINT

Google Image: Spearmint with purple spires.

This year, spending most of my time in South Portland, I have seen a great preponderance of mint-like species (genus: Mentha, in the Lamiaceae family). The purple, pink or white flowers and the soft, green leaves of the spearmint plant (M. spicata) flourish in the cool, wet spring and sunny, humid summers here in Maine. For fresh breath, to settle one's stomach or just for some refreshment on a walk, I suggest pulling off about 3-4 inches of flowers from the tip of a mint spire. Make sure to check it for bugs (there shouldn't be many, as the volatile oils in mint makes the plant unappealing to insects). The taste is very strong, sweet like sugar initially and then morphing into a very “cool” long-lasting aftertaste. 

A handful of these flowers can certainly calm my stomach if I have eaten something especially rich or acidic. According to Andrew Chevallier's Encyclopedia of Herbal Medicine (2000), peppermint (a hybrid of M. aquatica) – a much stronger tasting plant with more of those volatile oils (menthol—35-55% and menthone—10-40%) - is even better for this purpose...

Peppermint is excellent for the digestive system, increasing the flow of digestive juices and bile and relaxing the muscles of the gut. It reduces colic, cramps and gas, it helps diarrhea and relieves a spastic colon (often the cause of constipation).

Someday I'd love to have a section of my future herb garden reserved only for collecting and growing mint. There are dozens of varieties and cultivars available now. As an example, one of my favorites is “Chocolate Mint.” It is a light green color with smaller leaves and it smells JUST like chocolate. I haven't seen it around much in recent years. It was kind of a fad back in the mid-1990's.

LAMIACEAE HERBS

Often people don't realize that many other species that we love for their culinary enhancement also enjoy co-membership in the Lamiaceae family. Oregano and marjoram (Origanum vulgare and O. majorana, respectively), sage (Salvia, a huge genus of over 900 species, S. officinalis, S. tricolor and S. splendens in the case of South Portland) and thyme (Thymus vulgaris) can be found growing in a “naturalized” state and as decorative ornamentation all over the place. Worth honorable mention, but belonging to a different genus (Apiaceae), is the wonderful and highly nutritious plant, parsley (Petroselinum crispum—a VERY healthy specimen of which is located in the plants on the little bridge near Hannaford's supermarket). The City of South Portland has populated many of its street-side planters with these herbs. And they grow quite readily, with very little assistance once planted. I have to admit helping myself to moderate amounts of these public displays. Often I return the next week and they are even bigger and bushier, perhaps thanks to my little white thefts.

Besides being used in cooking, the herbs of the Lamiaceae family were originally recognized for their medicinal properties, being very effective in treating various health problems. Today, the northern states in the US are not typically as well-known for their medicinal herbs as the southern states. This is probably due to the longer growing season down south. But it is truly surprising just how many medicinal and even entheogenic plants (“entheogenic” being a term that literally means, “generation of the god within,” used by ethnobotanists to describe traditionally psychoactive plants) grow in New England. Whether native or introduced, these plants now grow quite well in states like Maine. I've already described the benefits of mint. Briefly here is an overview of the medicinal benefits for the other plants mentioned above.

Oregano and Marjoram contain volatile oils (caracrol, thymol, betabisabolene, caryophyllene, linalool and borneol, among others) that are all powerful antiseptics. These two herbs stimulate the production of bile, help with flatulence and have been used for over a hundred years to treat respiratory conditions such as cough, tonsillitis, bronchitis and asthma.

Oregano growing in a planter, South Portland, Maine.

Marjoram growing in a planter, South Portland, Maine.

Sage contains up to 50% thujone (a psychoactive substance that if taken in excess can cause nerve damage, whose history will also be discussed in more detail later) and several diterpenes and triterpenes. It is estrogenic (easing hot flashes and dizziness during menopause), antiseptic, a mild tranquilizer, helps to prevent sweating and may help to delay the onset of Alzheimer's.

Google Image: Sage Tricolor.

Thyme contains volatile oils like thymol and methylchavicol along with several flavinoids. It is said to have anti-aging properties and extracts have been shown to have antibacterial activity which is helpful in the treatment of stomach ulcers.

Thyme growing in a planter, South Portland, Maine.

Parsley also contains volatile oils (20% myristicin, 18% apiole and many other terpenoids), flavinoids, phthalides, coumarins and significant amounts of vitamins A, C and E. Surprisingly, it also contains high levels of iron. It has diuretic properties, antioxidants too and is an anti-inflammatory. Parsley has the strange ability to mask strong odors, particularly garlic when they are eaten together. Frankly, there are so many other medicinal uses for parsley that listing them all would exceed the summary purpose of this post. I guess the point is: eat that sprig of parsley garnish. It may be even better for you that the food it sits beside! It should be noted that though the plant is very safe, caution should be taken when ingesting the seeds, which can be toxic in high doses.

Parsley growing in a planter, South Portland, Maine.

MUGWORT

Mugwort growing in Thomas Wright Park, South Portland, Maine.

On an recent visit to Thomas Knight Park in South Portland – a small grassy area featuring a small beach and rarely-used dock space under the Casco Bay Bridge – I was easily able to pick out three more plants growing there that could be used for other-than-decorative purposes.

Artemsia vulgaris, known in the 19^th Century, when thoroughly dried and smoked in a corn cob pipe, as “sailor's tobacco” (also known to be a mosquito repellant comparable to citronella when crushed fresh and sprinkled around a picnic area), is VERY abundant in this small park and in Maine generally. It likes the poor soil beside roadways – being referred to as a “wayside” plant. It's cousin, A. absinthium, is the herb famously distilled into the now re-legalized liquor known as, “absinthe.” All Artemisia species contain thujone, a psychoactive chemical whose effects at higher does can be compared to cannabis. But as stated above, and unlike cannabis, it can cause nerve damage in higher doses. For many decades absinthe (along with opium and hashish) was a favorite mind-expander of Parisian artists and writers around the turn of the 19^th to 20^th Century. Rumor had it that drinking it too often could make one insane. It was more likely that it was the large amounts of alcohol imbibed (rather than the thujone) that should be held responsible for any wackiness that ensued from the ingestion of absinthe.

The Thomas Wright Park plant, A. vulgaris (much weaker than A. absinthium), also known as “mugwort,” has other non-ingestable uses. Some people dry the plant, strip off the foliage and rub the leaves between their hands, creating a cotton-like material. That puffy material is then sewn into small pillows as a fragrant sleep aid. It is said to “inspire dreaming” and can be burned as an incense before bedtime for that purpose by either making a “smudge” (hot coals to which dried plant material is applied), forming a cone out of the soft material and lighting the tip, or just burning the dried stems like stick-incense. I have done all of these things many times and it certainly does have a gorgeous fragrance. It is interesting that the smell is also very similar to burning cannabis, though sweeter.

Traditionally, European anecdotes describe mugwort as being used to assist in childbirth by being tied to the left thigh of the mother while in delivery. It is unclear why the left thigh was chosen over the right. It was also said to speed up labor by tying it around the waist of the expectant mother, left to hang below the navel. There is some contradiction in the ancient literature between the Chinese application for preventing miscarriage and the European use as a uterine stimulant.

WILD ROSE

Wild Roses at Thomas Wright Park, South Portland, Maine.

At Thomas Wright Park, and all over the Maine coast, wild roses (genus: Rosa) bloom in great profusion. The most common ones (and the ones I refer to in this post) are pink or white petaled (R. rugosa). This has to be one of my favorite plants to encounter while walking. Its beautiful fragrance is really quite powerful and its petals can be collected to eat or dried and steeped for tea or crushed I a pile as a natural air freshener. Personally, I enjoy eating them.

Even though we casually call it “wild,” it is not native to North America or Europe. The rose plant originally comes from Mesopotamia, and Iran in particular, where it graced the courts of kings and sheiks. The Romans imported it and used it as food, eating the petals in salads. It was planted by the first European settlers and had no trouble adapting to the New England climate. Now it is considered a naturalized plant. The more primitive the rose, the more sweet and nutritious the petals are. The R. rugosa species of rose has the sweetest petals I have tasted. The pink flowers are a bit more fruity tasting than the white ones. In Thomas Wright Park there are dozens of rose bushes and a trip there for me usually consists of harvesting a plastic shopping bag full of bright pink petals. Rose have fallen out of favor today as a medicine, but they deserve to be re-examined as recent studies have shown them to have anti-depressant qualities. Even simply smelling the fragrance can raise one's spirits.

The hips (seeds pods that develop and mature first into green fruit early in July and then redden as autumn approaches) can be eaten raw, cooked or pickled. The outer shell of the hip is rather tough. And the seeds inside – though edible - are a bit corn or pomegranate-like in appearance (though smaller kernels) and in some species can have a bothersome hairiness to them. They tend to become more tough and are usually discarded in favor of the fleshier hip walls. The can also taste bit like apple—being from the same family. You would want to cut the green hips in July or wait until after frost in the fall if you want to harvest them in their reddened form. The post-frost harvest allows the freezing temperatures to break the cell membranes in the hip walls allowing for a softer texture. There are many ways to prepare rose hips. I am going to try blanching and pickling them fresh or using a brine solution. They can also be sauteed in olive oil with a little red wine, lemon grass, chives, salt and black pepper.

[Please check back for Part 2]

SOURCES

Booth, Martin, Cannabis: A History, Thomas Dunne Books, New York, 2004.

Booth, Martin, Opium: A History, St. Martin's Griffin, New York, 1999.

Chevallier, Andrew, Encyclopedia of Herbal Medicine, DK, New York, 2000.

Novak, F. A., The Pictorial Encyclopedia of Plants and Flowers, Crown Press,

        New York, 1966, p. 395.

Sonday, Rebecca, Convolvulus arvensis (pdf), Plant Diversity Website, 2008.

Weier, T. Elliot, Stocking, C. Ralph, Barbour, Michel G., Botany: An Introduction

        to Plant Biology, John Wiley and Sons, New York, 1974, pp. 644-670.