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.