A Living Magazine - Day 118 to 121 - Days of Resting in Peace

I've lumped these together, as they were unusually uneventful days. Each was spent exploring and researching the southern states I'd be soon passing through.

I also worked on mastering some songs by a musician I met in Portland, Oregon who calls himself "ANOWAV" (pronounced "ann-oh-wave"). He graciously asked me to sell his mp3's for him.

I listened to his first song, "Mother Fracker", about a hundred times. It tells about a morally questionable natural gas middle manager who imagines that fracking (hydraulic fracturing - "...the process of drilling down into the earth before a high-pressure water mixture is directed at the rock to release the gas inside. Water, sand and chemicals are injected into the rock at high pressure which allows the gas to flow out to the head of the well.--Wikipedia") is like having rough sex with Mother Earth, and that she - in his fantasy - likes it. The song certainly makes a lot of points at once. Strange music--alternative, electronic, almost like dance music, with backwards and forwards drums, and... Well, you'll hear it soon enough. It may not be for the easily disturbed.

On my walks around Plymouth and New Hope, I thought much about all the places I've been. Looking back on the year, it felt very much like a dream; in that way that so much can occur in such a short period of time (a subject about which I recently wrote). I often find myself suddenly recalling a random day in some town where I spent time. This phenomenon had been happening for a while, but the frequency of these moments is apparently increasing. Whenever it happens I am reminded about how difficult it will be to go back to a settled existence at some point. I have no fear of anything, save, the mundane prospect of trying to be domestic again. However, all of that is still along way off, thank God.

On the other hand, I seem to also find myself fantasizing about a hoped-for future further down the line. And, since my life has essentially become quite literally an open book in these last few years, I'm going to tell you some of these dreams; dreams of a peace of mind I have never experienced. They are not elaborate...

* Having my own two children run up and jump in bed with me and my wife on a chilly Saturday morning; all of us knowing that we were going to do something fun as a family that day. 

* Spending the final days of autumn curing meat and fish, canning and pickling vegetables, and making hard cider for winter storage and use. 

* Waking up on a snowy morning, running downstairs to start the woodstove, then running back up to climb in bed, waiting for the house to warm up.

* Growing tropical plants in my heated greenhouse during the very dead of winter. 

* Waking up each spring day and preparing the fields and gardens for planting the family's crop. 

* Having a drink on the back patio, as the sun sets over my own fruit bushes and trees. 

* Leaving my little cottage for a few months each year to visit all the friends I've met on the journeys. 

* In late summer, cutting, chopping and splitting wood for heat fuel over the winter. 

* Harvesting each day in the early autumn, and then walking the perimeter of the property with my dogs and any cats who might care to come along. 

* Working in my studio by oil lamp light, recording music, writing books, and researching as much as I can about reality.

Then? Do the list all over again...

If I pass on to the Mansion Worlds before these things come to fruition, I want you all to really KNOW what I longed for. I want you to appreciate that my ambition is intended to end in simplicity; not a big house, complex schedule, yard filled with expensive "toys", pretentious posing and comparing statuses at social events...

PEACE and LOVE. I don't only want to see the world drenched in these things, I also want them to saturate my own life. If I had a prayer that could be exclusively selfish, it would be for what you have just read.

My past life - you know, the one that was killing me in Maine before I left - is passing away. I am becoming new. I feel this newness expanding throughout my soul now. And, as that soul slowly migrates from the inside to the outside, I am also trying to make the things around me new as well; that I might touch them and somehow animate their material forms--make even that which seems dead, alive again. That is the idea anyway.

Allyson and I talked about so many things; such a broad spectrum. She expressed sometimes being worried about me when I'm occasionally out of touch on these adventures. And, we discussed what I might want if something should suddenly take my life on earth away.

I can't remember what I told her at the time. Since then, though, I've thought a lot about it. And, at this point, I don't mind sharing what I have discussed with my mother and sister in the past. It will be the only time I do so here on this blog.

If something happens to me while out here, firstly, please understand that I could never have asked for a better time to pass into the Light. I am doing what I love. I might bitch and complain a lot, but there is nothing that could be more appropriate to me than dying while doing what I believe in.

Please don't take the following as morbid, it is meant to be pragmatic...

If my body is around still, I'd like it to be cremated as soon as possible. I'd like the ashes spread around an apple tree somewhere, isolated by itself in a field. Then I'd like those of you who might care, to have a celebration, a party. I'd be happiest to look over from the other side and see you laughing, not crying. After all, we will be together again eventually, and when we meet in the Light, it will last forever.

The following are lyrics to a song I wrote in my freshman year of college, at the University of Maine at Farmington. The last two lines would make a nice epitaph...

ASHES AND DUST
Words and Music by Alex Wall 

Take my ashes home please
To a place with grass and apple trees
Where the sun will kiss the earth I miss
And the wind will blow with ease 

Brush away the leaves
Float me on the breeze
Just smile and walk away
Make it a joyous day 

Let the dusts wash over me
In the place with grass and apple trees
Where the sun will kiss the earth I miss
And the wind will blow with ease 

Now nothing can go wrong
Noone's life is long
In Harmony, remember me
For my life, it was a song

Thanks for reading this rather personal post. In the next one we will return to the adventure! The last part of the Living Magazine journey has begun!