[I stopped on the way up from 205' (Stevens Park) to 3390' (Angostura Pass) to not just focus on breathing and smiling (haven't been?), to say hi!]
We have arrived, we are home. Abide here, between heartbeats, between breaths.
I was in Santa Barbara for three nights and now am back in the hills.
In the five contemplations before eating, there is this:
"5. We accept this food so that we may nurture our sisterhood and brotherhood, strengthen our sangha, and nourish our ideal of serving all beings."
Everything can be seen as eating--eating of life. Though I'm often alone out here, I do consider how my actions can strengthen our sangha.
One way: writing a bit of what I learn. Much of it cannot be written. By going through repeated cycles of cooking, of eating, of sleeping, of weather, of trails, of walking, of resting, reading, repairing, resupplying, route choosing and finding--of leaving car-land and returning there and dwelling, urban houseless--of emailing, Internetting, and of leaving that behind--of discoveries found only because I walk--of frustrations, compulsions, recovery from and watching these, and of renewal of the feeling of love for wandering, for waking up another day somewhere I've never woken up before, a day ahead of--?.
The main lessons (? --from the 12 or so days out):
1. Bring or hunt more animal protein. Previous trip had one egg per day. For this one: two+ per day. Plus I scavenged a lot of animal foods while in town--and still have about 1lb Vons meatloaf, pounds of various cheeses (mascarpone, fontina). No sour cream this time, but the 4 lbs of non-Altadeena s.c. (trader joe's) worked well for me [last trip].
Because I am buying for a week or two at a time, I could now do more controlled dietary planning in terms of getting recommended amounts of fat, protein, etc.
2. Plan for three meals per day.
I did not move this last trip for ~6 days: I had one camp, read _Infinite Jest_, began to reread it, [then left,] began _Hamlet_.
Reading _IJ_ took a long time. 4+ days straight (and I was already a good ways into it). While the sun didn't exactly yo-yo, it was a bit as if I was on a multi-day drug binge or had succumbed to "the entertainment".
And it is designed to be re-read, a different book the second time. And attempting to understand the gestalt behind the work--the mind chews on the events of the story, tries to make a plausible story of where the author was coming from, tries to understand the mythology of the text, and the parallels pop up--with _Hamlet_, with creation myths, with Greek myths, with hypotheses about the author's new mythology presented here [in _IJ_], and the mind works in the background, popping in later, astonishing or amusing with a new guess about a new reason _IJ_ is the way it is.
Now I left all that behind when food got low and I had to walk and walk and then encounter and explore the city again and resupply in it--but soon I return to just mind, watching mind, and when I have enough of that, returning, perhaps, to _IJ_, to other stories, to some _IJ_ commentary on the web I plucked (downloaded) for the clié (palm).
Tentative Plans: Angosturo Pass -> Devils Cyn Trl -> Gibraltar Trl -> Cottam, Blue Cyn -> coming out Monday @ Romero Cyn.
I may try to stay longer. I think I have way more carbs than needed for 6 days. But I made an appointment. More on that later (~when I comment on the photos).
I took steps this time in town to learn SB as if it will be a long-term base for me, without a house.
Replaced decaying plastic water bottles. Visited a laundry mat. Surfed the web a bit for places I might look into working for.
Someone did email me about Los Padres Walkers, but I've taken no more steps to announce it.
Still working on organizing the 3-week Sierras trip with Leslie M., whom I've not met; wrote her a bit more about my prefs--and always wonder if that's the end? or will that greater revealing be accepted[, tolerated, allowed as only approximation].
Have yet to solve haircut issues. Needing new shoes. Need to mend pants. Those resupply / regeneration desires.
I did write my dad's mom. Both she and my mom's dad broke bones--clavicle, hip--since I've been gone. They both should live with other old folks/ more people, I think, but they don't.
I may return to San Diego May 1-11. May 1 is, I think, sdfoodnotawns.com's big conference. And maybe I can avoid paying $381 for that ticket, plus other assorted business--maps for planning trips; shoe, hat renewing--things for which an address helps. But returning there is risky rut-wise. Tho the longer I'm away, the more times I've left there, the less I fear sticking. Why go so far to return? Learn to live here, handle address-related desires here--
--
I got to watch the body get exhausted, not want to move, and then recover and do very well just from eating more of the food I brought + foraged greens.
I watched the mind cycle into period of frustration, frustration, frustration, with many little things, then out of that again into love.
I may be developing a more John Heron-like (or perhaps integral-like) view of helpful life practice: rather than seeking to bring a kind of mindfulness to all one's living, focus on cycling the mind and body and experience.
Rinsing in the cold stream is a way to reset mind from focus on little frustrations. Dealing with rain, hail (a cycle of body experience of weather) brings mind to whole focus on sense-experience rather than the somewhat mindless silent mental counting I fall into when hiking when mind is not wandering.
Yeah, so I have no job and am making no money.
The places I might apply to involve working with youth.
My issue is partly that I'm exploring a life I'm pretty sure most parents aren't to keen on their kids exploring.
My life is also a bit of an affront to those following the permaculture way of growing food, caring for land.
I don't need to look at it that way--
I still value the products of others' labor. Is there a way I can contribute?
I, perhaps, most want to serve the emancipated adult who finds mainstream life not fitting--
They could look here to see an alternative.
They could walk with me at some point--a hobo school unschool / Los Padres Walkers.
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Inspired by _Infinite Jest_, I also briefly looked more into Food Addicts in Recovery and Overeaters Anonymous--oa.org, foodaddicts.org--both of which have SB-area meetings, Thurs eve, Sat morning.
Tricky with food is how to define succumbing to The Disease--not as simple as whether one has drunk, inhaled, shot up, gambled, etc., something.
My urban disease might now be 'looking in dumpsters'. [restraint begins there]
Well--
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Lyn @ Quail Springs was grateful someone encouraged the green ambassador kids not to fret about what they want to be doing in 20 years. What do I want to do now? Follow that. Lyn was grateful for getting that suggestion herself at some point.
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Is my vision the Los Padres Walkers? The wilderness awareness people who are interested in the idea are not lit-reading forest layabouts. . . ?
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I looked a bit more at Obama's _Audacity_.
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I walked by a shooting range / junkyard free-for-all on Forest Service land, at the top of the hill here, top of the watershed: shot-out monitors, TVs looking over a waved bowl [contoured in rising swells] w/ fragments of plastic, glass, florescent skeet clay--[an] expanse of unmade mosaic with tattered scarecrows of traffic cones, protruding posts, old tables, platforms, with things on them being smithereened--mini-epicenters of the unmade mosaic; a white-bread girl in white skirt with red earmuffs and a silver six-shooter; gangsters with their SUVs and AK-47s [the skinny country guys had the AKs--? The black/hispanic SUV guys, handguns?]; white prep boys in Carharts with shotguns and pigeon-launcher; and everyone else. The shots and their echoes sounding like rounds tearing the air somewhere nearby.
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I just stopped, one night, and slept near a tunnel under the freeway, earplugs in, nice spot [eucalyptus grove] but for the rushing noise. It was time to just stop.
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I spent a night in a monastery, a free one, where the monks go to bed by 1930 on Sundays, in clothes not their own, just showered, and rise in shifts of 20 at a time beginning at 0430. Later they have a few minutes to eat oatmeal, milk, generic-Os, the milk-glass emptied, a bit of coffee, before the sanctuary closes at ~0600, and they go out to their good work, sun unrisen.
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There is a race of master builders of earthworks for BMX bicycles in this town. In neglected spots of oak-groved, pepper-treed open space along Las Positas Rd, Arroyo Burro Creek; one with a live Buddha, smoking something, overlooking it from an arundo cane alcove early on a quiet Sunday.
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And master painters of concrete walls on the embakment between rail- and high-way.
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There is coastal bluff open space for dogs and flute-busker Milo. There is SBfoodnotlawns.org and west-side food-shed google group and a kiosk/bulletin board with built-in free box on Camino De La Luz, which has a pedestrian bridge at the end into Mesa Park where I saw Milo again.
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There are extensive bike trails, well-used.
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A breath and a smile,
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