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Trip to the Land

Four times I had journeyed to the Motherland, and yet still I had never been down to the creeks. This I was determined to change when we decided it was time to return to the land and camp again. We were all in need of a recharge, and some quiet time in nature. Things with the community have been very stressed, as we’d just won all this land at auction, but were now dealing with having to pay for it. The funds simply weren’t there. Our financial people (mainly Reina, but also a new addition to our team, a brilliant guy named Christopher) were in communication with lots of potential investors and/or benefactors, but getting someone to wire the funds immediately was a hard sell.

Rolando had just talked with the people down at the county tax office (from whom we were buying these parcels, ultimately) and won us another week to get the money in. He was totally worn out from having to raise money and coordinate this whole land acquisition effort that he was in serious need of some time away. The power of connecting with our Motherland cannot be conveyed.

This journey down to the land would also provide, after almost a month of waiting for the right time, the perfect situation for doing a sacred psilocybin ceremony. I spent most of the day on Saturday shopping and then prepping food for the whole crew, making some soup and a raw carrot cake, that was delicious, I knew from licking the spatula. My poor, delicious carrot cake. Ill fated, it was.

Samantha joined us for the camping trip. She and her boyfriend Chris are part of the core group of our community, and she’s a really cool girl. She too is more or less raw, and she told me when we met up with her at the campground near the entrance to our land that she brought some raw bean dip and salsas, as well as guacamole. Excellent!

We camped in a new place, off in the woods above the valley we usually went into. It was closer to the access point to the creek, and off the beaten track. The reason I had never gotten down to the creek before was that it was no easy journey, and those who have done it all told me that it’s very easy to get lost and that I should go with someone who’s been. I of course had no doubt in my ability to get down there and find my way back, but I had not ever really had the time it would take me when I was out at the land in the past. But this time, it was going to happen.

We decided to look for a place to camp up in the woods, not down in the valley we usually frequent. This would put us closer to the creek and give us better shade, for these days were getting hot. We drove around for a while, eventually finding the perfect spot. We set up our camp and got the fire started, warming the soup on a wood stove and eating our delicious raw food. In order to keep it away from the ants, I left the carrot cake on top of the truck, to be retrieved when the time was right.

We heard a car go by back by the main road (within the land, the road is more like a trail) and knew Rolando was on his way out. The problem was, he’d never be able to find us. We went to see if we could flag him down, but we couldn’t get to the road in time. Realizing that we had all the food, Adam and I decided to go after him in the truck and fetch him. We drove back into the valley and up the hill to where we knew he would be. Now that we didn’t have women and children aboard, I really opened her up and let Cowboy gallop across those bumpy roads. It was fun.

We found Rolando and let him back to our camp. When we pulled back up to where we had parked, something not of nature caught my eye. It was a perfect rectangle, a shape the Earth rarely creates. It looked like a metal cooking pan.

Doh! The carrot cake! Left on the top of the truck, destined for the dirt. But was it totally lost? Oh no. I scooped up every bit of it that wasn’t actually in contact with the dirt, getting just over half of it. “Blast!” I said. Now it was carrot pudding. It didn’t look very aesthetic anymore (it didn’t look great to begin with, but at least it was smooth and even) and it was half gone, but it would still be delicious.

We ate supper, and shortly after, Rolando took off. He wanted to spend some time alone on his Space of Love, over the hill from where we were camping. We bid him goodnight and kicked it long into the night, talking about all sorts of things, looking at the stars, and walking around. We ate our carrot cake mush with great relish. It was still really good. I even went back over to the fateful spot and scooped up an additional portion from the ground, less concerned with whatever might be in there. It boggles my mind that people think it’s disgusting and dirty to eat things like soil, pieces of wood or grass, or whatever else might be on the ground, yet they put aluminum, mercury, lead, fluoride, and processed plastics into their body every day without even batting an eye. You think because the official guys, with their fancy acronym department names and their unidentifiable little plastic bottles and seal-wrapped products, sell it to you and tell you that it’s safe that it actually is, but that’s the whole illusion. They’ve got us downing all sorts of toxins and poisons, pretending they’re helping us to be healthy. Don’t buy into this criminal scam, people!

Sorry, tangent-rant!

Camping is about the best thing

I woke at dawn and did my yoga, but wasted no time setting out for the creek. I wanted to scout the whole place out and get an idea of how to get there and back before we went with the whole crew. I knew there was lots of poison oak, so I wore long sleeves and brought my gloves, some clippers, and a machete. I followed the downward slope of the land, letting my instincts guide me to water. I could hear the falls off in the distance.

I came to the gorge, which wasn’t very severe in this particular area, but that was still a pretty steep drop with lots of sheer cliffs here and there. Rather than going along the top, I went straight down, having to go very slowly and carefully when I came to a big drop off. I made it down with only moderate difficulty and headed right for the water. It looked beautiful, flowing more like a river. There was a good sized rapid/waterfall right where I got to the water, and I sat admiring it for a while before moving on.

I followed the creek back upstream to where I knew a smaller creek met with it. This was the area we wanted to end up on our trip later that day. When I got to it, I was blown away. It was such a powerful place, alive with magic and flowing with gentle, clean waters. It was warming up, but it wasn’t yet hot enough for me to swim, so I just sat and contemplated the serene paradise around me for a bit, and then headed back up the hill. This would, I knew, be the difficult part of the journey, especially once we were toting Eva and Gaia. But we would be strengthened by the medicine, and we would be refreshed after a day by the water.

I made my way back to the camp, where only Adam was up. But soon the others came out, and Rolando showed back up too. He took us around in his Jeep to see the new parcels we had won at auction. One of them had a solar panel and the foundation for a building. Another had a cabin and a well. The other contained the geologically renowned agate flats, and the other gave us control of the gate that gave access to our land. We got out and walked around in several different spots, and were all very impressed with the new land we had acquired.

Rolando and Samantha had to get back to town, but Adam, Laura, the kids and I stayed, deciding we would probably just stay one more night. We wanted to go spend the day down by the creek, and who wants to have to break camp and drive home after a long exhausting day of hiking, swimming, and then climbing back out of a gorge?

I skipped lunch and did some meditating. Adam and I both wandered away from the camp a bit to eat our portions of the mushrooms, and Laura ate hers at camp. We all sat around relaxing, readying ourselves. When I felt the energy begin to stir, I smoked a bowl and packed up my satchel. Oranges, apples, nuts, water bottles, gloves, and go. Getting the family together took a bit more time, but eventually we were on the hike. By the time we had left the camp area behind, I was already vibrating with that good old feeling. The shrooms were kicking on, and the long journey had begun.

It was hot and the walking was difficult, with no real trail to follow, and lots of rocks to contend with. We moved slower than I ever walk, mainly because of Eva. Eventually I just hoisted her onto my shoulders and we picked up speed. We followed the gorge, heading for the gentlest area of slope, down by where the creeks meet. It seemed to take forever to get there, but we did, and we started our descent. It was slow going, because we were totally tripping and because Laura had Gaia in her arms and had to be helped a lot. Eva too needed much help, and though a part of me thought that I could already be at the water if I was just on my own, it dawned on me that my role in life had been changing, and that in this situation, I was one cell in a larger body, a part of this group. My strength in navigating the wilderness and finding the right spots was put to good use guiding us as we went, and it was my duty to give of myself and share my energy and strength with others.

When we finally came to the water, it was like a dream. I stripped down to my boxers very quickly and slid into the cool, shallow creek. It was really hot out, and I had been wearing long sleeves to protect from poison oak, and carrying Eva for much of the way.

We spent a while in this area before moving on, which was difficult. I literally had to haul little Eva out of the water. She was splashing and squirming around in the water like a little nature child, speaking her own child language and singing and laughing. But we eventually got her dressed again and we followed the creek down the terrain. I didn’t know how far it was, but I knew that this creek met with the bigger on, and that was where we were bound. (We wanted to get all the way in the water and actually swim and we couldn’t do that on this smaller creek.) It was a slower route to follow the creek bed itself, but it was far more interesting, and we came to several spots where we just chilled and got in the water again. Laura ended up in the water in her clothes, and I did too, though only after I slipped in while doing some interesting rock yoga over the creek.

As if lost in a dream paradise, we wandered slowly downstream, stopping when spots called to us, sitting quietly or talking and laughing, marveling at the beauty of this place and rejoicing in the random outrageous things we recalled from life in the Matrix. Here, we were as unplugged from that whole joke as one could possibly be.

When we got to the final spot, Eva knew it first. She insisted that this was the spot and she told me to put the poncho down. I couldn’t see the big creek yet, and I wasn’t sure. But I put it down anyway and left to scout things out more. Sure enough, there was the big creek. We had arrived. Laura wandered off upstream (of the big creek) while I stripped down naked and got right in. It was really cold, but it felt so good. I floated and swam against the current for a long time, lost in the liquid world. I got out and ran around, finding a place to sit on the rocks in the sun with my feet in the water.

I met up with Eva and Adam and we ate some fruit and lounged in the grass. (Indeed, we were in our garden paradise!) I went for some walks up the surrounding hills and back up the little creek bed. I ran and climbed, I chanted and sang. I meditated, I thought of my loved ones, and I thought of Anastasia. I felt her too, knowing that this was the kind of world she was talking about in those books, the kind of reality she lived in all the time. This was what it really was to be human.

Such a lovely gift is this life, and that afternoon we all knew it, through and through. We hiked back up the hill when the sun hit the tops of the trees, and we went slowly back. I was a bit concerned about getting there before dark, as we only had one flashlight and the camp would be hard to find in the dark, but we made it in plenty of time. We built a fire, ate supper, smoked some more, and reflected on the wonderful day. I felt so very at peace, and I thought about the many lessons I had learned that day. I got much clarification about my role in things in the community and in life, and I felt very rejuvenated by the waters, the exercise,, and the communication with nature.

Back at the camp, we ate some more food and reflected on the day. It was a good day, and we all felt totally awash in the power of it. Thank the Creator for such a life! Both Adam and Laura reported having seen several snakes, but not even worrying about them. I was sort of sad that I hadn’t seen any snakes. There are rattlers all over the land, but I saw none. Adam saw both a rattler and a little grass or creek snake (not poisonous.)

But then the next morning, as I was loading some things into the truck, I saw some movement in the grass. There slid by a three to four foot rattler, fat as a Red Bull can. I was actually standing on a big fallen log, and I jumped down to get my camera. The snake, of course, felt the vibration of my landing, and was alert to me. I went for my camera and returned to the log. To my surprise, he was coming right for me. I tried to shoot pics of him in the grass, but they didn’t come out all that great. He came right up to me and raised his head off the ground to see me up on the log. I put the camera away when he got within five feet, looking him right in the eye. Hello friend, I said to him with my mind. I mean you no harm. I’m only curious.

He slid under the log, and I crossed over to the other side. He had positioned himself in a coil in a small cave created by the curve of the log. With him now coiled up, I didn’t get within eight feet of him, and had no chance of getting a good picture. He never rattled, so I knew he wasn’t feeling aggressive, but he was definitely in the defensive, so I left him well alone. At least I got to see a snake though! Snakes are very magical creatures. By exploring our connection to them, we can learn much.

When we got back to town, a whole bunch of other things came up for us to deal with, and I’ve had several fun little mini-adventures since last weekend when this all went down, but I don’t have time to write about them now. Too bad, because I’m about to have a whole bunch more, and something really incredible is in the process of happening right now involving our community and our land acquisition. I’ll write about that more later.

Published by McCool on May 22nd, 2009 Tagged News