A retrospective approach to our Summer, part 2

From Dreamtime we stayed at our friend Kelly's house, a really nice place outside of Durango, Colorado. We got to stay there a few days and relax. He is such a sweet and generous guy and i really enjoyed time with him. When we were staying there he was doing live sound for a place called the Tara Mandala, a buddhist center. We talked about possibly working together in the future and he has a company that does computer networking, live sound, and recording.

Fantuzzi and Peace Tribe

We made our way down towards Santa Fe and arrived in about 4 hours. We got word that there was a Fantuzzi and Peace tribe show north of Santa Fe in the indian reservation lands. Fantuzzi has been very supportive and since we re-met at a party (the Mothership @ Healdesberg, CA,) around the time of the summer solstice, he has asked me to play with his band. I ended up being payed for the gig, and the performance took place at a round yoga studio. I helped set up and run sound for the band and we had a nice, intimate show. We stayed with the band that night.

It was now time to head to our long awaited destination for the summer, Casey's land in the Jemez mountains. We met up with him in White Rock outside of Los Alamos the next night, as he served us yummy raw pizza (sunflower seed crust, sprouts, spicy tomato topping etc.) This would mark a very good beginning to our culinary adventures. As you might know, this is where we picked up from on previous posts about our time up in the mountains. We ended up refining our culinary experience, as when you are up on a mountain, you have to prepare all of your own food...or someone does :) We made some amazing food up there!

Every week or so, we'd go to town, in different configurations of the three of us. Eventually I did about 3 days in Los Alamos, working on my computer and playing saxophone to make some side money. It turned out well and it was empowering to know I can make up around 20 dollars per hour just playing for fun on the street.

After a little less than a month of staying there we recently learned that Casey would be swept up by friends and brought to Burning Man and a whole slew of other festivals this year, to help raw chef and get his wisdom out there into the world. So with slight regret that we had to leave so soon, we got our plans ready to come to Santa Cruz, where I write this article. Actually, I was pretty excited, as much as i loved being up there, i didn't feel like i was in a good enough financial situation to be slowed down up there. However that's not to say i had great meditations, and really fell in love with the place. We worked on many little projects and had a really good dynamic going on, all of us learning what we needed to learn.

Journey to Santa Cruz, California

we got everything tied up and "winterized" at the house in Jemez, and we hit the road. Recently I had heard that my friend Tory and family were going to be in Albuquerque and Santa Fe around the time we were leaving. We spent some time in the public library, and the town was swarming (literally, like a bee colony) with tourists that nice Sunday. Later at night we stopped and got Pina Coladas while Tory was just getting into town. We coordinated whereabouts, and had a really great time, Ishka and Tory meeting for the first time and all of us were just catching each other up about the last two years of our lives. We walked her home to the townhouse they rented, which had a suprisingly spacious well decorated interior in contrast with its much more plain looking interior. That night, Ishka and I slept in our car up in the national forest mountains 10 minutes from town. The next morning we hit the road. Ishka got on the computer and did a great job at sending out the message we were still looking for a place to stay in Sedona. Well Ishka's magic worked, and our good friends Daniel and Rachel were renting a room near Sedona, so they invited us to come visit. We had spent some time with Daniel and Rachel at the Rainbow Gathering and have seen and loved them for the last couple of years.

Sedona, also known as Amazing Gorgeous Part of the World

We went on some fun adventures with our friends here. We went to one of the vortices or 'vortexes' of Sedona. These are high point areas which have been traditionally used to strengthen prayers and sending love out into the universe. We went to one of them. It was a high point indeed, with an amazing distant view of valleys and mesas and canyons, etc. you get the drift. No you don't, you'll have to go there to get the true drift.

We also went to the Chocolatree, an all raw vegan sort of place, with some amazingly decadent deserts, and room full of crystals. We didn't end up eating there as we weren't hungry enough yet. So we busted over to the Stupa.

A stupa is a structure that represents the mind and heart of all the Buddha's symbolically in one location, and it is filled with millions of prayers inside. One of Tibet's spiritual technologies, more and more are being built in the United States to inspire and create places of peace and worship. This stupa was of the Buddha Amitabha, the Buddha of Pure Infinite Light, with his sculpture appearing on the front. It was built on the beautiful red rocks of Sedona. We meditated and prayed, circumabulated, took pictures, saw some rabbits and some crazy birds, etc. I have been doing a mantra practice based on a form of Amitabha called Amitayus so it seemed very fitting do some of that practice there.

In Sedona area, we also went to a natural spring, which had some of the best drinking water I've had in all time; clear, mineralized and high energy. That night we went home and made a raw vegan cheesecake. It's the best!

We had so much fun that we stayed an extra day and night. We went up to Flagstaff. We visited some new-agey shops, and Daniel got a sample sound healing session. I pulled out my saxophone to play on the street corner, made about 50 cents and guitar pic before i realized how bad the location was. They were having a free dance night for the city, with a live swing band. I walked over, saxophone in hand, trying to be respectful and not imply that i was forcing myself on them, when immediately, the Saxophone player in the band waved his hand when he saw me, and motioned for me to come up to the microphone. HAH! So i played with them for the rest of the set, doing the swing band thing! loud honking saxophones! They also had a trombone player, drummer, guitarist/singer and bassist. We were making up a lot of horn parts on the fly, while the sax player would lean into me and teach me the upcoming ensemble lines during an open part. The usual. This is almost like a magician revealing how is tricks are performed haha! The next day we took left on our final approach to Santa Cruz.

Toppock

We stopped in Toppock on the last exit in Arizona on the border of California, where we ate a bite at a cheasy restaurant/ rv park. We were grateful for the air conditioning. I ordered french fries and Ishka ordered a side salad, NOT a garden salad. we ate 'em up and when the bill came back there was a little old garden salad on there for a dollar or two more. so we payed our bill and went to a little swimming spot under the highway bridge. It was really refreshing to jump in the somewhat cool river. We also were surrounded by kids and their supervisors on boats who came there to enjoy the extreme sports swing installed on the truss of the bridge. A boy even came up to Ishka and asked where we were from, which Ishka thought might have been inspired by the headwrap she was wearing which made her look very persian, or something like that...

Arrival

It was a straight shot to Santa Cruz, we decided to do it in one day and we did it and it was done and the lord said it was good. We arrived late at night to Michelle and Eric's new house, down a little dirt road (there's lots of dirt roads in my life these days.) We were welcomed cordially, a nice break for them as they were working very hard for Burning Man preparations.

A retrospective approach to our Summer, part 1

I'd like to fill in all the blanks and get you privy to our complete travels.

Here's a timeline documenting our Summer so far:

June: Cleaned house, Had a yard sale, filled storage in philo, Moved out, house sat with Ishka's mom, Donnamarie.

June. Left for the rainbow gathering. On our way south we saw our good friends Jen and Brockelle on the beautiful long winding road to San Francisco. Took our sweet time down the middle of California on route 5. Slept in the car at rest areas. Got on route 40, which is mostly historic route 66 (get your kicks!) Searched for a camp sight to sleep one night by the river (after hours and hours of Mojave desert. Stopped in a camp ground around Lake Havasu, on the border of California and Arizona. Payed our dues in the morning... after sleeping outside in sleeping bags on the beach.

Eventually arrived in Santa Fe, not realizing how close it was to Albuquerque. When we got there we stopped at the visitor center for a while, filling our water bottles and using the wi-fi to find some cool places to go, places to stock up on supplies we'd need, etc. We enjoyed the town but our first impression was "it's like Disney Land for adults!" (- Ishka.) Found a place to stay with a new friend, on the way to the gathering no less, after thoroughly enjoying this raw and ayurvedic (read:healthy indian) foods cafe called Annapurna's, a must visit if you ever get to Santa Fe. They do traditional indian cuisine, with many vegetarian, raw, vegan, gluten free options and specialties.

South of Santa Fe in a town called Los Cerillos:

We arrived at our friends house. That night we slept out on a trampoline, although a woman next door was yelling at her dog in a most cruel manner, and it kind of set up the sleep wrong. The stars were beautiful however, and by beautiful i mean very visible. Coincidently there was another guy, who seemed like one of the more grounded central folk at the rainbow gathering who was staying there also.

That morning we headed up to the Rainbow Gathering, it would be about 2 hours of driving, around the city of albuquerque, then up north eventually hitting the back roads, mountain pass and forest roads that you take to get up into the mountains. The hike in wasn't too bad this year, although Ishka was struggling a little bit with improper equipment. It lead to some cool experiments...

The Rainbow Gathering!

We had a blast this year. It's always a big mix of reuniting with old friends, making new ones, singing lots of songs, eating lots of good food, reasoning with others, sharing ideas, doing yoga, helping out in the kitchens, etc.

This year we both set camp behind and with A Honu Way Cafe. It was set up to be a raw foods cafe for everyone, and if you don't know about rainbow there is no money used. Donations are offered but the idea is to keep a lot of commerce out of it, and keep it a small-fealing centralized family oriented affair without businesses cropping up and ads being thrown in your face. You can imagine how nice it is to co-create an oasis of freely given goods and teachings. A variety of different economic ideals are in the minds of rainbow gatherers, but whether you are capitalist, socialist, or whatever...it doesn't really affect how you might enjoy a commerce-free environment and thats the point more than a political statement as some might interpret it. Personally I love the idea of currency, as representing an equalized exchange of goods and services. I may not be in favor of many policies surrounding this currency, for example a banking system where the banks only have to have 10% of the actual money being invested in them at any one time, because these things lead to instability. I am in favor of the use of money though, and i am willing to actively contribute to alternative forms of it that are not directly tied to current mainstream world banking and governmental legislation activity.

Anyway enough about money. The rainbow gathering is a time for meditation, being free from your previous constraints, doing some healing, that allows you to grow into a new inspiration for the Harvest cycle ahead.

July 7th. Most had left rainbow from our camp already. The camp had been taken down over the two days before and we were heading onward to the mission. The late campers do a great job every year of cleaning up the area and "naturalizing" which means doing things like returning rocks that were used around fires into more freeform patterns, and distributing the fire wood etc. to prevent fuel for forest fires. They return the land to as close to a pre-gathering as possible. It's pretty remarkable actually, some people have been documenting, going back to the land after a year or so and it appears that no one was there....a great goal to aspire towards for any woodland group.

From Rainbow, we headed north east to Taos, where we were invited to Tony's Circle House. They had a great performance of music, and so many of our friends got a chance to dance together before a final parting of ways. The house is beautiful and big, with a tall central ceiling made of wood beams in a spoke like a Chinese bamboo hat. Peace Tribe, Human, and MJ Greenmountain performed, top rate national acts. I was invited to play human's saxophone with him and also called on stage for peace tribe. Well it was a hit and I ended up playing a few more shows with them throughout the western festival circuit. We stayed there overnight along with a few others, and in the morning we jumped next door to...

The LAMA Foundation

Said to be where Ram Dass wrote "Be Here Now" we visited this beautiful community, one road down from the circle house. They have a full time crew of people living, working in the garden, and people on retreat. They have a most beautiful library of thousands of books, crammed into a room. Cob architecture with sparkly mica in the walls. A music room full of different instruments from guitars and mbiras to mrindringam and sitars. We didn't stay too long, and as we were driving down the path a whole band of teenagers were walking up for some sort of youth program. The cool kids were hanging way back in the pack of course...

Tribal Vision Festival

From the LAMA foundation, we headed to our next festival. A mom&pop festival (haha) set on the dusty desert lands outside of Taos for Four days. There was a gap the first day when we didn't have enough water. Not a lot of people came, i would guess a hundred or more at any one time, but I had a lot of fun. We kept describing it as Mad Max meets burning man or something of that sort. It was a bit unfocused and spread out, and the music acts were plentiful, but you had some old timer musicians going 'Why am I here?' when it was there turn to play to the crowd of 50 people. Then there was the dust. Although there were a few kind attempts to keep the dust down by spraying water, the dust on the dance floor was a health hazard really, and not so great for the singers who had to perform through it. Nonetheless, Ishka and I made the best of the whole time. I played with Human Revolution and Peace Tribe, made a new sound engineer friend who runs a company up in Durango. We also spent some real quality time with all there. The Casbah Teahouse set up there lounge, which was a combination chill performance venue, a tent fully rugged with lush pillows and beautiful middle eastern tables. they also provide good food and tea for the festival. I spent some quality time with some hare krishna's, and the food from them was great of course. I sold some imported jewelry there and we also generally slept in our friend Sunshine's Teepee. Thanks Sunshine!

Dreamtime Festival

Although Ishka had gone several times, this was my first time. We traveled up to I had heard and always wanted to go to this one. It is packed with tons of workshops, performances, lectures, food, etc. In exchange for tickets, we volunteered to work at the Maté bar. Upon arrival however, we queued for 2 hours as we waited to resolve our ticket situation. They had mailed our tickets prematurely to our mailing address in Mendocino, which we wouldn't have access to during this time period. So we waited and asked in as many ways we thought possible if we can gain access to the festival, and eventually this situation was relieved and we gained admittance. After that initial setback we were golden and smooth sailing the whole time. The Maté bar was a lot of fun, but because of absentee management some of the time, i felt like we were managing a lot more...We got all of our work done the first two days so we could enjoy the rest of the festival after that, and oh we enjoyed it alright! Some of my favorite things were the Astrological Drama... where astrology signs were acted out and seen from a variety of different angles annunciating in order to show their relationship. There was a beautiful golden and brass Buddha which sat about 5 feet tall and one night I had this amazing experience of communion sitting and praying and doing mantra in front of it. I developed a deeper faith and connection with him and my practice through that moment. I also had a great time playing saxophone with many bands...

The highlight was getting to play with one of the main acts, Lunar Fire. If you aren't familiar, they combine really wild and intensely enchanted music with fire performers creating a huge celebratory event wherever they play. I was called on stage with Fantuzzi as a guest performer and got such a rush. The crowd was at its peak with hundreds of people in the audience dancing in front of us. This was one of my favorite moments playing saxophone ever... and it was well received by the members of the band too.

to be continued...

The Best Day Ever...

EVERYDAY!!! yip yip!

We are taking a field trip to Santa Fe tomorrow to go to tons of galleries, AAAAANNNNNDDDDD to see the Chalk Farm Gallery, which houses some of the most prolific visionary/fantasy artisits of our time, including Michael Parks, my personal hero. I so excite!

We just completed a composting toilet on the property....and finished cobbing the walls upstairs. It looks awesome up there now, and Casey's gigantor library of delicious books is shelved and doesn't seem to take over the room anymore. nice.

We started digging out some ground adjacent to the kitchen to build a root cellar. The finished space will be about five to six feet deep, and about ten feet long by six feet wide. Unfortunately, this plan will not be realized by the end of summer like I was hoping cuz Casey just found out today that he IS definitely going to Burning Man, and that means he will be leaving in one week!

So, Nigel and I will most likely stay on the land to continue our own daily practices: painting, reading, kundalini yoga/meditation, writing, etc... until we decide it is time to move on. We won't be returning to CA until late September/early October, but we may venture to other places in the southwest to visit with friends, or perhaps find a sweet meditation retreat space to sanctify. At this point, I'm really feelin' that my biggest numero uno priority is to continue working on the Kuan Yin painting daily, and finish by summer's end. If that means we stay in Jemez Springs, so be it--just as long as we don't get dynamic duo fishbowl syndrome! :)

Loving you all so much, and I am dancing with many of you in my prayers, thoughts, and blesssings. Ahh.... peace!

keeping the poetree in m.ocean

We're up here in Jemez Springs, New Mexico, our somewhat homeward destination for the Summer. It's been a beautiful, fun, and generally easy going journey up to this point, which we'll keep you up to date with future picture posts. Right now, I want to share what is going on right now.

Today we set off to town, to go to the Zen center here. A trip to town is about 50 minutes by car, because of all the dirt roads. Luckilly we don't have to go to town that often. But today I wanted to go to connect with the Buddhist sangha. We arrived at the center (http://www.bmzc.org/) and a few of the members were going out to dinner, so it wasn't the best time. We were invited to come back Saturday and they are very busy for the Summer. Hopefully still, i will get some practice time in with them.

Here's a picture from our arrival at Gran's house where we met up with Casey en route to the mountains...The raw pizza that was presented to us:

So life up on the land, has been great: lots of time to work on projects, collective and personal. Ishka has been painting daily, a goal of hers that she's been wanting to get back to for so long. Casey has been buzzing around, making food, pick

ing up a friend, brewing tonics, and doing little projects while rotating through his endless list of to-dos. Currently we are about 2/3rds done building a storage shed, from a kit. I recently had a lot of fun, redesigning the labrynth in progress, moving stones. Now the design is complete it just needs a few more stones to fill it in.

Casey, Ishka, and I went down to Albuquerque last weekend. We were only up on casey's land for 3 days before we left for the city. Albuquerque is fun and almost all the stores use neon in their signs. We went to a raw foods gathering, stayed at a friend's beautiful house. This large house, had a full garden going in the front and a full garden growing in the back. It was a very inspiring example of how to use a lot of found objects in a useful and uncluttered way. The house-mates are working on a grey water system for watering the plants.

Now, don't forget to watch those speed limit signs in Albuquerque...They can get you:

(things that make you go hmm?!)

Now this is the moment you've all been waiting for, even if you didn't realize it yet. A picture of the Casey and Gran's house, where you will see lightning several times a week!

and...the Sun room!

Krishna has come yet again, to bless the lands! Hari bol!

ishka out travelling the other realms to complete her current master's piece!

What might come next? A view deeper into the house/fort? Or shall we take you back in time to the hills of dreams? <3

Onward Ho!

Greetings friends, family, loved ones.... galactic emissaries!

I am ENthusiastic about bringing our road travels to the web so that our journeys will not be a mystery to y'all! After two years of planting, rooting, flowering, and fruiting in Mendo, I am happy to be entering a new phase of this special decade of my Training & Traveling Twenties. 

Aaaaaaaaaaaaah.............

Our trip began on June 24th, this 2009, setting out for the warm and beauteous terrain of New Mexico for this year's Rainbow Gathering. We packed our car with what was most important for this summer: clothing, food, art supplies, and instruments. We took our time driving through southern Cali and Arizona, stopping at random rest stops to shut our eyes, or at a park or national forest to camp.

wow. There's so much to catch up on since we first began...

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the National Rainbow Gathering, it is an event that happens every July 4th (with weeks of prep before and after) to celebrate our Interdependence. Rainbow attracts a very diverse group of people, all seeking a place to gather and celebrate our individuality, cOMmunity, and our connection to each other and Mother Earth. The air is filled with music and song, smiles and tears, hope, and a feeling of relief.  Of course, not everything about Rainbow is so wonderful. There is also a lot of tobacco and alcohol use, and anarchist debauchery ripples out from various spheres throughout the grounds. 

The Rainbow experience is what you make of it. You can surround yourself with amazing friends and teachers, and sing and dance and play without much negativity coming your way. Rainbow is DIVERSE, and everyone who goes is representing some form of the Human Experience in some way or another. What is most incredible about being at one of these Gatherings is the overall sense of freedom I feel every time. 

There are kitchens set up throughout the place, all with a specific theme....the one Nigel and I camped with this year was called HonuWay (Honu means Turtle in Hawaiian). HonuWay. A Whole New Way to live at Rainbow. This camp was a conglomeration of Jerusalem Camp (mostly Hebrew tradition, including Shabat dinner on the Sabbath) and a bunch of Kundalini Yoga Raw Foodists who created a kitchen that served YUMMY raw food throughout the day for a week. Anyone can jump in and help out by preparing the food, serving it, cleaning up. You choose!

Anyway, I have so much more to say, but I will sign off with this introduction for now.... and some pics!

I send you my love, and I pray that we are all living our lives in Joy.

Also, we stopped by the Grand Canyon on our way! One word: Majestic.

~*~

ishka

~*~

Welcoming Ceremony

As all new endeavors need to be kicked off with good spirit and a splash of style, this is your mad orchestrator Nigel setting the stage for this new tandem blog! I'm excited to be a part of this collective co-creation and share our journeys with the world (or atleast... your world.) Since we have so many pictures and so much ground to catch you up on, we'll need to backtrack a bit. The journey starts during the beginning of this Summer as two lovers, Ishka and Nigel, launch from their cozy (but not always amicable) spot in Mendocino, CA. Their destination is the Santa Fe mountains of New Mexico, traveling under the inspiration umbrella of art creation, and planning to live with their close friend Casey who offered to host them for the Summer. What surprises may happen along the way! Oh the mystery! Tune in next post for the grand display of color and light via digital camera uploads.