I’m doing some much needed renovations on a place over the summer. The stains, damage and general degradation leads me to believe it’s seen way better days, but when I found this writing hidden away on an upper corner near a bedroom closet, the thought crossed my mind that it may have seen worse as well…
Then again, whether we struggle to spell it or not, haven’t we all felt it sometime?
Ha! Za-zing, Mom!
Last night I dragged my hand through a sandy beach and noticed three eggs nestled in a few inches down. The shell seemed soft on the one I noticed was moving. I poked it with my fingernail and a little slit opened up. Immediately three barely formed turtles pushed their way through. They weren’t sea turtles like I might have expected, but closer to tortoises.
Then I heard the waves behind me crashing much closer than moments before and I looked to see an unexpected tide coming in surprisingly fast and high as a wall. Water rushed over the shoreline towards us and I worried they were too small to navigate this sudden onslaught so early in life. I picked them up and hurried home to care for them until the waters calmed.
Last night I dreamed of a “star miner” frustrated with his work.
As my girlfriend and I slept in our bedroom, which had a glass dome ceiling, we were awoken by a brawny guy in filthy coveralls and a ball cap who had broken into our home just to lay in the spare bed at the other end of the room and bitch about his job. He was employed by a company that – based on Eastern astrology – was contracted to tap into distant stars so their light energy could be harnessed and used here on Earth. He was upset because his work was tiring and the smaller stars he’d been assigned to provided little resource. He angrily threw an index finger toward a brighter star and said with conviction, “It’s those big, fucking Chinese dots we need to drain!”
I woke up and rolled my eyes at the idea we’d take an oil mentality to the cosmos.
For all the years I’ve spent as a Manitoban, even living a couple of them in Winnipeg, today was the first time I set foot on the grounds of the Manitoba Legislative Building. Being privy to its interesting origins and with it basically being in my back yard, perhaps I should have visited sooner, but there was just something about a mass of people in an altered state of consciousness amidst such sacred architecture that drew me to finally check it out today.
Although I’ve yet to enter the building, even from the outside the structure is absolutely breathtaking up close, sculpted of Tyndall limestone from when the area was an inland sea, complete with traces of marine fossils. I’ll go back soon by myself and then take a deeper look with Frank Albo on his tour this summer.
The 2010 Cosmic Tigger… released on 4/20 and on the loose! Watch for it!
Prints available here!
This was created as a joint effort with an ayahuasquero friend of mine, Jim Sanders, who also wrote an accompanying icaro for it. His teacher, Maestro Juan Flores, has traditionally united art with song in developing medicine used for healing.
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Cruising down the Trans Canada Highway between Brandon and Winnipeg, approaching The Half Way Tree, I realized how often this landmark has found its way into my life lately. I’ve been doing a lot of traveling back n’ forth to see my two favorite smiles and although I’m sure almost every western Manitoban knows about this tree, it wasn’t until now that it had any real relevance in my life, so I took a picture. Then I remembered how I’d once went to school with a girl who felt strongly enough about it that she wrote a song…
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In case I’d forgotten her name, which I hadn’t, a few minutes later on the barren highway on a Monday afternoon a van passed me to remind me. So, it just felt natural that I should come home and honor The Half Way Tree and this song about it by Kim Reimer…
