Rut; *Shared* vision; Without entertainment, what-- ?

[This is written at Grandma Ann's house in San Diego. I took the 0640 train back from Santa Barbara yesterday (-$33, -$2.50).]

A list of things to do before I leave.

1. Wash various things.
2. Contact LM
3. Find W2s, etc.
4. Deposit check
5. H202
6. Tooth brush
7. Notepad
8. 
   

Everything else can wait.

Plan is to go to court on Friday. See if I can do something other than pay $381. Doing so will cost $2+$2+$8+$2.5+$2+a day maybe--until they tell me the new penalty--if there is a different one possible. Legal Aid in San Diego was helpful. They said if you plead guilty to a misdemeanor, infraction, felony--all those are criminal offenses (when applying for jobs they often ask about these).

Friday night, visit Point Loma grandparents.

Saturday?

Sunday? could go to World Beat Sangha. Not sure-- [have sort of lost that sangha love I felt before; just have Santa Barbara-ish love now.]

Monday?

. . .

Wednesday: catch the 0610am train to Santa Barbara! (-$33, -$2.50)

---

Begged David from the sangha for the ride to Escondido--

Begged a guy on the train for his paper.

Recognizing need (?) for entertainment. . . [could I talk to people?]

---

***Some time after posting that last post--

--near the top of Angostura Pass--

--I lost the cable that lets me charge my cell phone and palm/clié/pda.--

[so I type this on my old sony vaio subnotebook with fan, drive noise, laying on my back--a pulsing bass, ding from apts out back.]***

---

The next morning I noted it missing. I walked all the way back up (6-7mi rt) after hanging my pack from a line over a branch. Did not find the cable.

So I had a week+'s worth of food, but only one partial charge on my ebook reader.

---

Long ago I figured there would be a break in the [technomadic] technology at some point. [de-tech-ed]

---

I stuck it out for a little while.

---

But still, I came back (at least two+ days) before I had run out of food.

---

I did take some time to be visionary. To practice self-inquiry rather than self-escape.

---

[From the notepad:

Culture comes from energy use.

Mood, etc., from ~ (mood, state) of organisms eaten. (had eaten a wild snake).

Divine, how can I use my mind constructive?

use form, create space,
space that was right in front of noses, unseen.

]

I got to contemplating an old writing of mine, "Ten Steps to a New Vision." (because it mentions spending "40 days and nights at our desert retreat center"; because it was from a time when I was willingly visionary--when I was engaging in, not avoiding, creative thought. )

I considered that "developing a vision" wasn't the best pointer--I needed to develop a shared vision. . . (otherwise I could just be insane perhaps).

How do I develop a shared vision?

By sharing others' visions.

Whose visions can I share?

-----
[Here begins the initial attempt at writing about the visioning forced on me by lack of entertainment. The part above is a later attempt begun after realizing I'd left some parts out in what follows.]

First I thought a bit about my last post. And the Los Padres Walkers idea.

Do I really want to have others to walk with?

If I do--with whom would others want to walk? Not a whiner.

They, I ask of people with whom they are considering spending time:

- Is s/he content?

- Does s/he stay still?

- Does s/he have a vision I can share?

- Does this relate to a developmental path? [at Quail Springs: build house, grow food, make living; at Sunburst: spiritual path; mainstream society: money, career, family; academic paths; Tom Brown Jr's school and Grandfather: development of spiritual, nature awareness, caretaking ability.]

[(Are the following qualities important: is s/he) compassionate? loving? thoughtful?]

---

Develop own developmental path. . .

Many existing developmental paths:

increase in development corresponds to increase in consumption.

[e.g.: developmental paths of achieving wealth, status, fame, power.]

how to have a developmental progression that corresponds to increase in service -- service to others (enabling them to consume less?) [is consumption inherently a problem or just the type of --- ?]

[the writing went like this:

most ↑ devel ↑ consumption
how to ↑ devel ↑ serve
how serve?
serve to ↓ consumpt?

Don't know]

---

That was basically it.

I also added "perhaps sit together once or twice per day" to the 'shared spiritual path' of Los Padres Walkers. I changed 'decision making' to: "by consensus (by elders in case of emergency)".

---

I did mentally compare myself when I was dreaming of organizing, leading, world-changing (as back in 1995 - 7, as with "the being group"), to now.

---

So here is the only plan I have in the world:


(1) The replacement part I need to charge cell phone should be here soon--Monday or Tuesday. (happily I had an extra cable here (San Diego) so I could charge the ebook reader. . . [and resume reading Arthur C. Clarke.])

(2) Return to Santa Barbara.

(3) Go to interview to see if I can get Food Stamps.

(4) Get address at UPS Store or other mail box place.

(5) Get new cell phone number in Santa Barbara (805) area code.

(6) Apply for jobs--One interested me: tutoring with Americorps. Also: attending people with developmental disabilities [the location is wonderful: an ocean- and marsh-surrounded peninsula on a large campus near UCSB with many abandoned buildings. . .]. Both are part time.

The Americorps job requires written references. I may not apply in that case.

I may want experience working with people with developmental disabilities. . . so I could later be a part of a Camphill Community.

Plus, With people With developmental disabilities, as opposed to non-developmentally disabled kids, I will be serving people who are emancipated.

I think you understand.

---

The main reason I can consider working in Santa Barbara: I can walk from beach to mountain trailhead in 1:15; there is plenty of open space for camping out even within the city; there are plenty of grilles with wood chip mulch nearby (fuel) for cooking; it is a nice place.

---

If I had a ton of money?

It would probably still be time to start working [in a new way]. (probably still would be camping out?)

I do not think I'm ready to endlessly wander the forest. I may avoid any commitment to a/that 3-week walk this summer.

---

So that's it.

---

The book[s] I got to reading this past trip was Arthur C. Clarke's
_2001: A Space Odyssey_, _2010: Odyssey Two_, _2061: Odyssey Three_, _3001: The Final Odyssey_.

"HAL" is one of those chilling/astonishing _Infinite Jest_ connections my mind came up with. . .

---

So why am I destitute without entertainment? I used to think I could deal with solitary imprisonment. . .

I could dance, meditate. . .

Sing. . .

[why can Clarke create this astonishing imaginary story while I must fall asleep for an engaging release from solitary forest existence [a dream]?]

---

There is a relational component of self, of mind. It is that fifth contemplation--"the sangha eye."

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So, these words show a bit of where I'm.

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Without entertainment, what--?

[that I left, briefly, the mindless habit energies of my 4602Seminole rut to spend time writing here. . . (~hope?)]

---

[To be fair: there had been a growing backlog of stuff to accomplish by returning here--one main goal: getting rid of some extra winter gear I'd been carrying: 3lb sleeping bag, umbrella, . . .]

stopping, breathing, smiling, acting

[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.



---



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--



---



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.



---



Is my vision the Los Padres Walkers? The wilderness awareness people who are interested in the idea are not lit-reading forest layabouts. . . ?



---



I looked a bit more at Obama's _Audacity_.



---



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.



---



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.



---



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.



---



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.



---



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.



---



There are extensive bike trails, well-used.



---



A breath and a smile,

Photos up; Los Padres Walkers community listing created

Finally the photos from since February 11 or so are captioned and rotated!

San Diego - LA - Piru 2008-02-12 to 17

Hike to Quail Springs 2008-02-17 to 22

Quail Springs to Spirit Pine (Figueroa Mountain)

Figueroa Mtn to Sunburst to Refugio Beach State Park 2008-03-28

The main big news though is that I posted a listing on ic.org for a new community, "Los Padres Walkers":

http://directory.ic.org/22140/Los_Padres_Walkers
and I set up a google group as well:
http://groups.google.com/group/lpws

What remains is to announce it.

There's a lot more that could be written. Well, below I paste about the only writing I've done though, a letter to a member of the Sunburst community. The rest is in the captions for the photos.

I plan to announce Los Padres Walkers to:

• SoCal Indigenous Living & Origin Skills
• Dharma Hikers / Walking Sangha
• Derrick Jensen lists / primitive skills lists.

That's probably enough. Tentatively I'm planning to resupply and get back into the forest for another two weeks. This has been a ton of computer time though. Not sure I'll get to the announcing before I head to the forest again. And I wanted to send thank you notes / photos or at least emails to a few people now that the photos are taken care of. I may not be doing so many photos from now on.

Here's that email I wrote:

Heiko,

thank you for sharing your time with me and for being a teacher. For giving me _Grandfather_ [by Tom Brown], for sharing about Sunburst, for that time together on on the porch when you reminded me of divine intention.

Friday, I walked down Route 1 after morning meditation and walking the labrynth. It wasn't more than two hours to the adobe at Las Cruces. I went up to the hot springs, rested there a long while, got out, began to read _Grandfather_.

Later I followed the Trespass Trail--washed out (impassable), overgrown, but there is good water along the way, and I came out around 5pm along the coast. Now I'm at Refugio SP.

If you get a chance, please thank the rest of Sunburst for me for being so welcoming.

I was up on the hill that last afternoon, and came down again to help out a bit. I bet I'd like to help more people walk in the forest (or just sit still in the forest). And I realized you were walking in your forest, so I went to participate.

Thanks for giving me your email address!

Please have anyone looking for a walking (or forest-sitting) companion email or call me. We can sit at times and share mindfulness practices and just enjoy being out here together. It really is wonderful out here.

I think I saw three young condors this morning along the beach drying their wings or warming up--wings outstretched (imposing).

Thank you for the beautiful natural building you and Michelle helped make happen and for the permaculture ideas/awareness you shared.

I'm enjoying _Grandfather_--the clarity of purpose "to make things better for future generations by caretaking creation".

I enjoyed getting to read a bit of Paulson's (sp?) _Christ Consciousness_ and see a bit how your stories related to his.

It was wonderful to visit Alicia and Thomas and see their picture of Francia at Lemuria/Olgivy--and to meet Patty (sp?) and hear her words about living, working in community being a way to realize divine intent. And I value Barbara's sharing with me an essence of Sunburst's mission--the keyhole, with the practices or elements supporting progression to Christ Consciousness. (and Helge's showing me around
the ranch! And Francia's sharing about the farmer who knows Chumash rock art sites--)

It is great to see how your focus on growing and selling good organic food has led to such well-being for your community (I noticed at least some beautiful teeth--some or most communities I've been visiting have neglected dental care perhaps). And to meet people who have been growing organic food for years.

Heiko, I'm rambling--thanks for sharing with me--I feel that partly (it was divine intention that) I came to Sunburst to learn from you.

a breath and a smile,

No plan, no destination;in forest -4/21?

I made it to Cold Springs Saddle (3401')from near Milpas St & 101 in Santa Barbara with what could be enough food for three weeks.



I wish I had written my grandma before I left town.



There is a post I finished at ~7:45PM 3/30 (Monday) that won't be published until this evening. . . I used the delayed publishing/post-dating feature.



So the main thing is: this may be the last heard from me until 4/21. More likely though I'll check in from a mountaintop or leave the forest by 4/14 or even earlier.



The last attempt to carry two weeks of food was a fiasco. . .



This time I mis-measured and may have brought twice as many legumes as I would eat in two weeks (almost 2 cups dry/day).



I'm somewhat greedy for expanses of time free from structure and free from carland and from the calorie/food addiction/preoccupation that often distracts me when I am in communities or urban areas.



After a week of this how will I feel?



A lot will be considered/ thought about out here besides food. . . (or the mind may quickly run out and be still/silent. And then? Read? Climb mountain to check/send email?)



I'll finish Tom Brown's _Grandfather_. Maybe _Infinite Jest_.



I'll enjoy sleeping outside without worrying about cops or about car or people noise or bright lights.



I'll drink good water. Collect good greens. Get lots of rest.



I'll be at Forbush Camp tonight. Then I think I'll head to Little Caliente Hot Springs. After that I could go eastish toward Ojai, or westish to Cachuma Saddle. I may move slowly at first due to pack being heavy.



I'll let the "Los Padres Walkers" community idea sit (groups.google.com/group/lpws). If it is still with me after a while, I may make a better list of where to announce it.



I won't take as many pictures--the old ones give the basic idea.



Enjoy the next three weeks!



Oh, Leslie M and I and others possibly are still planning that three-week mindfulness sangha Sierras walk in about August.



If I want alternatives to paying the $381 ticket, I should go to Vista/Escondido by 5/11.



[Partly, the Los Padres Walkers idea comes from my reaction to the various communities I visited, to not wanting to stay in those communities. Partly it comes from that monk (Zoima?) in _The Brothers Karamazov_'s injunction to take responsibility for everyone and everything. I don't want to be escapist. I want to help the others, who, like me, were stuck in buldings, behind computers, in carland, in private property land, in "highest and best use" land, in excessive calories land. In the land where people try to attract and retain mates and reproduce, reproduce, attract, copy.]



[I'm sorry to have once again defined myself in opposition to aspects of existence which are a part of me and which I need. I'd better present my exploration as seeking greater diversity and as seeking the appropriate degree of life's elements for my own situation.



Another thought, maybe not related, follows.

Haiko left me with a pointer: what I experience, the divine/spirit does also. We are its eyes and ears (and hands and mind).]



[Let me also add, while I'm going on and on, I still have no clue what to make of Quail Springs. No clue. I let it fade from my mind. I take no initiative in planning to return (I wait until you want to walk there with me). Though anything I can say about it is positive. The story I have developed: they live (interpersonally) as if they had already attained the permaculture ideal of abundance. Tears came attempting to explain this--"What did I do to deserve this? --it's like your mother" (how the ideal of mother loves). So often they express welcoming and appreciation. And there must be some mistake; they must have changed their minds by now--



But aside from my not comprehending or relaxing into their way, my unease may come more from not fully aligning/resonating with their (or anyone's?) building, planting, staying put, eating, working, and car-using projects.



So I'll paste in here some writing I attempted during the 2.5 weeks I was there:



--begin paste--

Asunto: no longr write



Why I can no longer write. But I said, "I wish every one could know what I know here." Could I write, a few more would.



Amazing clichés. Amazing people. Royalty [of character, soul, aspiration]. Melodramatization. Expression. Criticism. Self-satire. Inspire solidity, confidence.



Madness. Madness. How can this exist. How can such fine people be here with me? Be serving me? Cooking for me? Gourmets. Teaching me. Charging others not me. Why am I community, guest, appreciated, served, taught, and learned from by some, accepted as part of the worthy diversity, even as I feel. . .



Need I write more. . . ?



I will not stay? I will hobble on? Back to an old way "I" can comprehend more? More suited to. . . confidence, solidity.



--end paste--]



[It costs a quarter to post this, regardless of length.]



[Ben and Raffi just left. Ben, the informal, undercover mayor of I.V. (Isla Vista). Run the parks, they say. Lots of good stories. Driving out to Pendola where there's a hot tub they say. I could have gone. Said a bunch of 'Nam vets migrate on horse down here from Yosemite for the winter (others drive/ride). He'll meet them at Pendola. I see a Pendola Debris Dam on the Bryan Conant's map, but no hot springs. Do they mean Little Caliente? Ben gave me tips on how to get fed and how not to get caught by the cops camping in IV (if it looks good to you. . . ). I wanted to ask about the UCSB police too, but he answered something different. Isla Vista's a good place. So many places I could hang out.]



A breath and a smile,