Ratatattat

Big Pharma wins out in the EU. Herbs and herbalists are to become extinct.
I rest my case. This little news flash was the one that made me finally throw my arms in the air, scream a loud scream and say fuck this screening of reality, a new channel is needed. There is only so much ongoing stupidity one can witness and this witness bows out of her role with not even a backward glance. Looking forward now, where is that asteroid? Surely she has heard my invitation, with compassion she must be zooming in.
Anih – elation has a certain appeal.



And some of you are aware that authority and I had our hands held together for a while. A little too tightly for my liking. None of that tenderness that I equate with getting intimate. Well the outcome of that is still in the offing, despite me pointing out to the chief that they searched a minor without a guardian present which is itself a big no-no.
Someone suggested going to legal wise that they would love to take this on. But then I would just be holding hands with lawyers. Umm think I will skip that one out. So we are still hanging and a good friend of mine I discovered yesterday has been spreading small town stories that Cian was found with Meth on him. Like it is not perversely satisfying enough that he was bus – but then to make it awful and damaging – I just don’t get that..
I am afraid I cut his balls off verbally – I don’t know if he will ever recover – and like all the other drowning wallowers in excrement around me – I don’t care. I just don’t care.




So then with the case for possession somewhere in the sidelines, I am asked by Tao and Cian if I will take them to Earth Dance on the weekend. They need a break from the smallness of our village and they have never partied and please will I…….. and for a moment or two a discussion between the ‘mature’ susan and well su as you know her takes place and guess who won?
So on Friday five of us set off, Alice through the looking glass again.
Now picture a scene of a traffic jam at the entrance to a huge camping site and bear in mind that I don’t know the last time I sat in traffic. Alien to me. Like you have to crawl forward really slowly, constantly focusing on what is front of you instead of the scenery around. Already the energy was pumping.

Set up tents about 100 meters apart. Within an hour there were umpteen tents separating us. Less and less personal space. Fortunately we were close to the banks of the river (well fortunate apart from the coldness) and so there was some space beyond which was like an oxygen mask to me. And on the other side was the peace tent – more on that later. And still the crowds came in. People with serious intention to get wasted to dismiss their limited selves and merge with the greater. I unfolded my very fucked up camping chair and proceed to feed my inner voyeur – oh what beauty suddenly I have thousands of people to watch. And watch I did with awe and wonder at the diversity and beauty that prevailed. And mostly there were extremely well prepared campers. My mouth hung open at how organized people could be. Wow. How easily we as humans make the space we sleep a home, how quickly we enmesh ourselves in the environ.

The peace tent or the hippie tent was the drink/drug/smoke free section which was the chill place and also the space where kids hung out. There was always a fire going and the best music was played there. And yet when the sun went down, or when the earth spun into darkness the rap stage started and I fell into hell. I had just signed a petition to legalize marijuana when the guy in charge of it handed over some Blueberry in a really cute tiny zip seal bag. Only used to homegrown I was intriqued to say the least. Hot footed it back to the tent, rolled up and three hits later found myself in hell. A friend of mine calls that stuff wheelchair weed and it is a pretty apt expression. It is 8 in the evening – any dormant paranoia is rising to the surface and my body and soul are being met with sound so vile and magnified that I fear psychosis. The brain is frantically trying to place it somewhere in some file, but it is unknown. I lie down and the earth is pushing up this sound into the body. And there is nothing I can do but lie there and breathe and just be with it. The temperature drops to 4 degrees and I am shivering despite having three layers of clothing on. And still the mother fucking goes on with cheering to accompany it.

For some strange reason I had taken my ipod with me. David Carse was playing. I listened to his description of falling asleep. He spoke to me through the billowing energies that we are never present to falling asleep. We become absent the moment we fall asleep, so we can only reappear from sleep but we can’t experience falling into it. He goes on further to say how death works the same way. The path to death can be uncomfortable, painful, profound, anything and yet death itself can never be experienced because that which would experience it is no longer there.
And then by some grace the peace tent starts drumming. I can hear 8 drums, such a rushing sound, how they follow each other, percussion rain. I strain to let that sound dominate. A waterfall of vibration.
As soon as it is heard, this center reappears. There is an acceptance, I can cope with it.
And on and off through the night my consciousness meets both sounds, the power of one and the healing of the other.

And as one does in such confined situations one gets to meet one’s neighbour. Mine was a father who had bought his daughter and her two friends .along. We shared a cup of coffee and said never again. The kids collectively would visit and then disappear.
Ever changing by the experience unfolding.



And then I walked around and got more into it. Everyone seemingly in ecstasy, aliveness prevailing.
It was quite interesting to see this mind working. It really is like a puppy without a leash for the first time in a park. First my mouth hung open at how organized it was and then it clamped shut when I saw the booze tent. Sure do drugs or do booze, but both together in a group size left a certain tension. Only created in this mind of course.
Then I wandered past stalls with some pretty impressive clothing, and pipes and all sorts. And there was this wonder of creativity and then mind said oh but this is just more fucking stuff. Can we not go away for three days and not purchase anything. Do you really need a t shirt – no matter how incandescent. And when I saw a van with an ATM in it – I thought oh of course - money, money, money. Now the purpose of this festival was peace and it was held in several places worldwide and at a certain time, there would be a link and a prayer for peace. Sweet idea. Spend spend and god will send seemed to be the motto. Bouncing concepts between the neurons, none of it with any validity, hey but puppies need to run and hence opinions are held.

Went back to the tent and borrowed my neighbours book on poetry and from those words dancing on the page I found myself transported – to a place of such feeling and realness, that I spent most of the day by the river, under a tree, whilst the music blared out, now with the second sound stage on. Pure trance. And because it was day and the lasers were not on, the Blue gum trees by their thousands added their own shimmering light to the festival. Powered by the sun, they glistened all day.


Now I realize that if I had to do it again, first choice would be to do what everyone else did straight away and head for the mind altering chemicals. But for some reason I was to be alienably straight amongst abandon. Tried to dance, but there was nothing this body could pick up on, the watcher was too involved. And still my eyes feasted on the happenings, on the glorious unfolding of a whole lot of people having a blast.

The link for peace was at one in the morning, which of course found me slumbering already. A nice gesture but not much validity. Someone told me the next morning that the peace tent had processed to the main stage where the music was turned off for the prayer and immediately the revelers shouted fuck off hippies we don’t want peace we want drugs. I guess it sums up things as they stand. Just get us high, give us stuff, let us forget ourselves and we don’t give a fuck about anything deeper or more human than that.
and…but those that had valiantly tried to carry their message to the masses in the light of morning looked crestfallen beyond belief.
So on the final day I spent my time in the peace tent, being part of what they were trying to create. Good music, good chai, great fires. Kids kidding, laughing, hula hoping.
And still somewhere there was an aspect of su cruising the dance floors waiting for someone to start playing music.

So what did I gain most from the stepping out – well awestruck kids who could not thank me enough, my inner wild woman getting a chance to be unwashed and wild and the following poem which clasped my heart in resonance….



LETTER FROM A CONTRACT WORKER

I wanted to write you a letter
my love,
a letter that would tell
of this desire
to see you
of this fear
of losing you
of this more than benevolence that i feel
of this indefinable ill that pursues me
of this yearning to which i live in total surrender

I wanted to write you a letter
my love,
a letter of intimate secrets
a letter of memories of you
of you
of your lips as red as henna
of your hair as black as mud
of your eyes as sweet as honey
of your breasts as hard as wild orange
of your lynx* gait
and of your caresses
such that i can find no better here
I wanted to write you a letter
my love,
that would recall the days in our haunts
our nights lost in the long grass
that would recall the shade falling on us from the plum
trees
the moon filtering the endless palm trees
that would recall the madness
of our passion
and the bitterness
of our separation...

I wanted to write you a letter
my love,
that you would read without sighing
that you would hide from papa Bombo
that you would withhold from mama Kieza
that you would reread without the coldness
of forgetting
a letter which in all Kilombo
no other would stand comparison...

I wanted to write you a letter
my love,
a letter that would be brought to you by the passing wind
a letter that the cashews and coffee trees
the hyenas and buffaloes
the alligators and grayling*
could understand
so that if the wind should lose it on the way
the beasts and plants
with pity of our sharp suffering
from song to song
lament to lament
gabble to gabble
would bring you pure and hot
the burning words
the sorrowful words of the letter i wanted to write you my love...

I wanted to write you a letter...

but oh my love, I cannot understand
why it is, why it is, why it is, my dear
that you cannot read
and I - oh the hopelessness! -cannot write!

António Jacinto an Angolan poet who was imprisoned for 20 years as a political prisoner. Upon his release he was appointed Minister of Culture and Education.


Footnote:
It seems almost daily that the household is embracing another creature.
Misty and Coz became proud parents to 3 youngsters - buddha, gastro and ripielo.
Before one could say quick separate them Misty was pregnant again and gave birth to 8. So she is on the chastity run with her young one's, and the two adult males have taken to parenting the teens and babes.

Watching these rats brings to light that they can access shangri la - there is harmony, playfulness, intelligence constantly on display with these creatures. Feel so bound to care for them and nourish them. Mostly others don't get this.

And with the births come the deaths. Only one of Abagail's babes survived. Jah. They all had a kind of seizure which lasted several hours and then they died. Quite uncanny how each in turn was landed in my hands to hold them in their death throes. It is not an easy thing to have a living being in the palm of your hand convulsing to death. With each of them I just tucked them into my bra. Skin on fur, heart to heart. Hummed and hummed.





Henny Penny in her brilliance laid her eggs in a large drum. She sat diligently for the 21 days and then her young hatched. Now how to get them out the drum so they can stroll around. That became a required routine - to place them in the drum at night and out into the garden in the morning.



And so life carries on. Have elected to continue sleeping in my tent. Iona and I have taken to the absence of thick solid walls. In the evening you will find us sitting outside in the garden around a fire. We are entertained by everything and then we crawl into this dome and drift off in and out with Rasta the rooster reassuring us of his presence from two in the morning onwards.

The unfolding dream continues.......