a raw, unpolished journal entry recounting events of march third

Yeup! Here we go again, down the long lost road at Sur, down the Pacific Coast Highway with Don/Dan (didn't really catch his name), down to smoke a lil' in the rain. Think I'm late in the tellin'? Well I am. Who cares? It's still crystallized in my skull. No real need to retell it. Really, no real need at all. But if I don't, this wonderful journal, (who only knows the tellin'), would have no idea how the story ends. There we were, walking south on the PCH, my camera in a plastic bag amongst empty plastic bottles. They were Dan's plastic bottles, with my camera in his bag of plastics. Big Blue was doing its thing on the right and we came up on this secluded spot a bit past Henry Miller's place to spark smoke under some trees. Dan's life had been changed since he discovered the Green Goddess. Prayer has made a deep impact in his life and he has observed how the choices he's made have affected him. In theory anyone can make good come out of any choice. But it's difficult to do it all on your own. We need support, we need faith, we need comraderaship, a sense of reinforcement that we are down the right path. All this he finds in the Green Goddess and he finds the Green Goddess through prayer. We both pray. Prayer and smoke and the fact that we are both in Big Sur under some tree about to spark smoke are the things we have in common. It all comes together, unites, when we take a moment of silence to prey for the smoke we are about to spark. He goes to speak to his Goddess, I retreat into myself, the All and Everything of my existence, right there, BAM, moment of silence and communion- two different hardwired paths into the illumined abyss juxtaposed, counterpointed against each other, existing in harmony side by side. The prayer is over. The sparks are flying over the smoke. Our minds soar. It stops raining. We float on clouds towards a cliff with a vista. Big Blue is being big and blue, hundreds of feet out and below. Far, yet near- crashing beneath the surface of our eyes. The vast expansiveness of it all-the infinite sky disappearing into the infinite ocean. There are no horizons, just one shade of infinity painted blue- like a porthole to heaven just opened up and we were not only observers, but participants, creators, pieces of the giant Big Blue puzzle in the sea, sky and beyond. Yea, it rocked. Don and i just stared-for seconds--minutes---almost hours-in silence and reverence. We sparked another wisp of smoke and began deep theological discussions about melting into the Godhead-about how it's always happening-right infront of us (and it was...it always is)-we just have to tune in-the ultimate musical progression of our souls- two steps beyond the material- ten leaps beyond the societal bullshit of self destruction and 'progress' through the embracement of pain and power. Silence....Silence...silence... A bird comes and joins us. "Look: it's a blue jay" I say. "No: it's a scrub jay" Dan says. Dan had to remind me five times before I got it right, before i shook of that natural inclination towards labelling every blue bird a Jay. It took FIVE times. Slow learner. The blu- The scrub Jay was divinely close. Too close for a normal bird's comfort- almost as if it were God itself checking in on the mystery of creation. And we were digging it. Diggin it hard. Every moment of it. The Presence was in us and in everything around us. We felt it in our hearts- in our souls- in our spirits yearning to fly off into the infinite blue and swoon with the birds. That bird, man, it just stayed there watching curious as hell with Holy Eyes. There was another doing its own thing down below- just hovering in the same spot by a lone tree in a field of bright green. A slice of Paradise. "The only differnce between this feeling and the feeling of Kauai," Dan says, "is that in Kauai you get this in all four directions." We only had one. He opens his arms wide and takes it all in- the moment- it all- everything in- into his arms. I'm stuck thinking about Kauai and how I'm going experience All Four Directions soon enough. That thought didn't really matter. Not the past, not the futre, just this....and this was blue...blue....the color of my soul. We examined several shrubs and herbs nearby. Nettle- good for tea. I learned- no-I was taught what poison oak really looked like: red, viny, slime, like a witch's backyard fence...We had to go...Dan needed to escape...to get to his mountain. He had stashes of beans in the Wilderness. There, he'd live for months....by himself....just him and the Green Goddess- learning life- reading the thoughts of the world- avoiding near and imminent catastrophe (it's going to happen soon)-adapting to the new way- the way of the Goddess-with beans and legumes- with plastic bags and empty bottles catching wind and rain...Then, back to Kauai but ultimately Oaxaca-the final triangular destination-off with the spirit of Maria Sabina-off with the green nitrous cannons of medicinal shrubs-off with wisdom- an ultimate final copulation with the Green Goddess. YES!! YES!! YES!!! Life never stands still. Sometimes it poses, for a moment- like that looong moment of stillness staring at the frozen wind with Dan and Big Blue. It got quiet between us after that- it was the stillness of it all.....