California

I think this'll be a long one. Winding and curvy like Hwy 1 along the coast north of Fort Bragg.
California.
My brother suggested I read The Talisman by Steven King, before leaving, back in the spring. It's about a quest - but for what? A thing called the Talisman, which could unite two worlds, cure a sick woman, help a boy become himself. And more.
I suppose I am trying to unite two worlds as well, or I have, or I am seeing I don't need to because it's already done.
As I mentioned in my last Captain's log - I recently came across a journal entry from May or so - "I WANT TO GO TO CALIFORNIA".
I did.
I loved it there. I didn't want to stay any longer. Didn't need to live there. I thought that was why I was going - to scope it out for masters programs, maybe stick around for a year or two, but no. I miss it, in the way you miss a lover that you didn't part from badly, or well - you just parted.
California I'm coming home
I'm going to see the folks I dig
I'll even kiss a Sunset pig
California I'm coming home
Indeed, it is home, for a dreamer. But I don't need to be there, it is in my heart.
Funny, so many people said great things about it, but many also scorned it - the big cities, the class divisons, the violence - all true.
But it is the land of dreams. I spent a month and a week there, it changed my life.
I drove in on Hwy 101 from Oregon in mid August, crossed the bridge with the golden bears on it, took a picture of myself riding one, and another pic in front of the sign - 'You have entered California.' A dream come true. Simple dreams - it's not a hard place to get to, but you never know in life - I tend to enter the satisfaction of a dream with childlike joy. Thankfully ;)
I camped in the redwoods, under California stars, hiked amongst them, talked to them, talked to people around. But only in a superficial way, I was not looking for any connection - just to be. That song, by Billy Bragg - I had been listening to for a month or two by this time,
I'd like to rest my heavy head tonight
On a bed of California stars
There's some words to relate to California - 'like to..', 'going to..' - future-oriented, looking to a place soon ahead. I am in California in my heart, I hope I always will be.
The first time I went there was six months ago - I went to a conference in Tofino in May - on Ethnobiology - it was filled with Indiana Jonses and real life Shamans. I only had a week off, which I resented, and resolved to do all the things I wanted to do anyway. I wanted to go to California, I'd been to BC already, I love it, but my soul was yearning for someplace new. I flew into LA, at one am on a Friday, rented a car and drove to Surf City Hostel at Hermosa Beach. Went out and walked around with the drunk teenagers and ate a wrap, laughed at the whole thing - the fact that I should have been nervous in such a setting. It wasn't bravery - it was joy. At being alive and someplace new, on an adventure!
Drove up the coast to San Fran the next day, and took a train from there the following night - the Starlight Express to Seattle, and a bus to Canada.
Everyone in the world dreams of going there, being there, living there. Wealth, and beautiful weather, 'perfect people,' gorgeous landscape; just the energy.
In the Talisman there was another world, a parallel reality - "The Territories". I could certaianly feel it in Califonria. I spent a lot of time alone out doors. I went to Berkely to finish and publish a paper on depleted uranuim munitions - bomb and tank shells tipped with uranium left over from the nuclear power generation process. My paper argued that they are illegal according to international law, and that states could, in the future, be held responsible for their use. I went to Berekely for their library, since I am no longer a student or employed, I don't have access to great online datatbaes etc. What I found there was - my paper! Someone else published it already!! Ha, a minor setback, a fleshowound! I cut yor bloody leg off..
Enough Monty Python (for anyone who didn't pick that up..). I had put a lot of work into it, and hung some hopes on it too. It left me in Berkeley with some time on my hands, and the need to think. I spent a day in Tilden Park. I started reading, in Oregon the night before entering Cali and going to Berkeley, The Way of the Peaceful Warrior. What had restrained me so long from starting it? Everyone wanted me to ;)
The main character, on the first page, is also going to Berkeley, mind you - as a student. Funny coincidence.
I spent an afternoon and evening at Point Reyes - it was cool and the wind was cutting, the sun was bright like one of those lamps in the post office that shines through everything, shining through me. I felt transparent; the wind and sun and sand all passing through me. I walked into the setting sun along the beach with the wind in my face trying to push me back. I was lost in the beauty of it all.
Two young women rode by on horses, galloping, then walking. They stopped and chatted later, pretty and bright, making fun of each other because one fell off her horse. I walked out to the end of the beach, a long walk. A cove lay before me, inland, with huge cliffs on the other side. Outland - the sea, the holy sea.
That first time I came, back in May, on my drive up from LA to San Fran I stopped at a place I later named Talisman Break, a bit of park with a river and gravelly beach at the bottom of some cliffs. It was my only real nature stop in a 14 hr driving day. Well, that and the elephant seal beach - but who could miss giant animals laying on each other and farting?
Talisman Break is a magical place, I have learned they are scattered throughout California. Like gates to another world, but it is inside - it is choosing to live our dreams, living in the world of our dreams.
Will you take me as I am,
strung out on another man?
California comin home...
Yes, yes it will.
It was a sunny day, as I drove in I got a random text message from an old girlfriend back home, and said  sorry, I'm in California. I parked, met some nice Mexican people and we took each other's pictures. Then I walked around the bend in the rock, over the stream/river, and - pow! I was a child again, and the adult I want to be. I walked, in awe, dug the loose rock in the cliff face, touched the sea, picked up some pebbles and had a leak, and thought, 'here I am.'
I played a bit and ran around, at one with nature, forgetting. I walked back around the corner, crossing the river, I jumped from rock to rock, probably talking to myself and the river, and God, I squatted down, and in baptism of the beauty splashed water on my face and head, pushed my hair back, laughed, stood. I started springing again, then, startled, came up and kind of snapped back to reality - a person! Wtf? (Ah yes, this is a public park, not 'Pat's Playground':) A hippy guy sitting by the river was looking at me, I said, 'beautiful place huh?' He said, 'ookedike oo wwer iiggninit' I said "what?" He said, carefully - "looked like you were digging it." I laughed quietly, thought, I am home. Said, "yep, I guess I got a little lost in my own world," he smiled, I went my way.
On my second visit - Aug/Sept - I made a friend in Berkeley - a street artist, a really good artist, an older English guy full of piss n vinegar, and piercing intelligence. I helped him with his tables and we talked about girls, art, politics.
I spent a few days in Santa Cruz with a new friend - what did I call him in a previous blog?.. Karachi! We swam and talked about spiritual stuff and the law, he introduced me to the Bhagwan. That's where I got poison oak (he warned me) which changed my course a bit, keeping me in California past my birthday, which was not really the plan. But clearly was the plan.
It was good, I went to Long Beach, south of LA, and stayed with an old friend. He was great, a champion host - on my worst poison oak suffering days, he'd get up in the morning say, "do your stuff, take a shower, coat yourself in ointment etc - then we'll figure out what we're going to do today for Fun!" And we would. It was a lot of fun.
I stayed with him over two weeks, partied, healed, danced, met a lot of great people. Learned - I learned a lot from Mike - another 'silver fox' on my journey. Also met his friend Lou - who travelled the world for 10 years straight, his passports from 1965-75 have glued in extra pages for all the stamps - from countries that don't even exist anymore. Pretty inspiring.
Then it was time to move on, I had a friend in Canada I had to come back and help move, so I packed up and took the cool (temperature-wise) roads, for my rash. Stopped again at Talisman Break, Mt. Shasta, stayed in little cheap hotels - 30$ a night, clean and with showers. I don't know where they were, I got in after dark, left as soon as I woke up. But they treated me well.
There was a ridge on that Mountain, sharp and straight. At 8 or 9,000 ft I found a 100' length of new climbing rope (as I mentioned in a previous blog), I hadn't seen this connection before:
Throw me a line, if I reach it in time
Meet you up there where the path runs straight and high
This journey, ever more so - is full of meaningful coincidences. I keep naming different starting points to it - how about this one? - reading Synchronicity by Carl Jung three times when I was thirteen - which lead to my moment of clarity about my life, which has lead me here.
I said to a friend the other night - "I started this blog about my outer journey, but it turned out to be more about my inner journey." She said, "that's really what is always is, isn't it?"
That was my time in California, what was it all for? Everyone on Earth dreams about it, and rightly so. It is a place of giant landscapes, breathtaking natural beauty, and young culture, which has its disadvantages, but - never looks back, disregards the past, indeed, watch out. When "the children of the sun begin to awake."
I got what I went for - woken up - to my own dreams, to being who I am - the point of this whole process.
Like BC, and the summer I spent there 17 years ago - it's in me now, and I will return to it many times.
Like that summer in BC on the beach, it has revealed to me: the limitlessness of life, and ourselves.

Find a queen without a king
They say she plays guitar and cries and sings, la-la-la-la
Ride a white mare in the footsteps of dawn
Tryin' to find a woman who's never, never, never been born
Standin' on a hill in the mountain of dreams
Tellin' myself it's not as hard, hard, hard as it seems