Journal: Sonoma Mountain

I couldn't help but notice the beauty of late afternoon in early spring when enough winter light keeps a certain suspense in the air, shadows not quite juxtaposed in equal measurements.

But the yellow light of mustard in shadow, is moving into green, until you can no longer detect the difference of new grass in sunlight, or mustard in shadow. Both take on that greeny light that transparent depths of summer pools. 

Maps of the seasons on the grass, the edges of the mountain. St. Helena's shoulders. How much better I understand the earth when I hike in the hills. 

Sonoma Mountain. I carry a bruise the size of a football on my side when we panicked,diving for cover as a truck cruised by too slow on the fireroad—we're trespassers.

I have trouble with the notion of those, unworthy of the land, having financial ownership of it, imposing also spiritual ownership of the land. We are stewards here, all of us.

John's foot uncovers a flake of obsidian, a gift from the first stewards of this land.

imagine this place with no fences, no houses.

Piecing together the tiny yards into a quilt, I get a glimpse of what it must've been like here, but I want to see large tracts of unsliced, undigested land. 

I bring back pumice from the summit of Sonoma Mountain near the top of the ridge, there is a natural megalith, like a large tooth. I wrap my body around it clockwise, then counter clockwise—cycle of the seasons. 

So many dead to appease. Dave, my grandmother, Ron, the drowned man of Puerto Escondido. All those dead in the jungles and dirt roads of Central America. 

I have nine months more of grieving for my grandmother and within that time, I'll continue to move rocks from summit to summit because it's the only thing that seems worthwhile doing. I said a prayer for the dead, and the undead. And the wounded I think. 

The last aborigine who knew the burial rights, had no one to bury him, no one to pass the tribal information onto, and the last artist cannot share the significance of the stories to the uninitiated. So with his death, 40,000 years of uninterrupted poetry was put to rest. I want to tell him it isn't all lost, this voiceless approach to the universe, can you hear and understand it isn't gone forever?

Yes, 40,000 years of dreamtime lost. Look what we white folks have done to this place in 150 years. 40,000 years from now, will anything but plastic survive us?

And Homo sapiens, a mere drop in the bucket of time. We are the AIDS virus of the earth. Not much to be thankful for. The ozone it disappears, how much did I kill with today's cup of coffee, shared with Fred?