Hello to any who might look before I am gone. I have returned, finally, after almost a year of travels all over the place to my tiny cabin tucked so far away from the rest of the world. It is amazing to be back in this wild valley where bears out number humans two to one. After seeing how it is in the far away places, beautiful and terrible at once in those cities of the southern world (that is south of the us/canada border) home feels incredibly stable. The course of life continues here, oblivious or so it seems to the outside world.

Since I have been back I have spent as much time as possible outside. The masters have emerged from their winter's sleep, descending from the high mountains to leave track marks in the snow. In a small valley that I have renamed Zozus, or "the place where dreams are made" I ran into one of the giants as he made his way from his winter den. We stood there on the slope, looking at one another for a moment before he turned swiftly and climbed back up the mountain. I felt sad that he couldn't read me. Couldn't he see that I wasn't there to take away his life the way the hunters would, and that in fact I would be honored to walk alongside the great being, just for a day to understand the world as he does. But perhaps he did read me. Maybe he felt my heart quicken at his presence. Perhaps he knew that inside I did harbor not only reverence but also fear and until I can move with out that emotion in his company he will flee from me.

So yes, this is the end of my SG time. I wanted to be more faithful with this journal while traveling but it was hard. Checking the porn site from public libraries and internet cafes doesn't really work. But I liked being part of this and feel good that I was able to connect with the souls that I did through here. I am venturing south again this summer: Goa party outside SF in late May, north of Vancouver BC in July, Shambhala music fest in August. Maybe I will see some of you there?

I tried to put a less abstract pic up but to no avail. Maybe I will try again before this goes.

Much love

Hello from the dusty realm of sandstone and snakes, the Desert Southwest. I wonder how many of you out there will read this entry as it has been forever since I last posted and many of you may think that I have dropped off the face of the earth. And in a sense it is true; I have fled the world of SG for quite some time in order to simply pursue life free from the computer screen. It is not to say that I no longer cyber, it's just that the tangible (rather than virtual) has been, well, tangible. So a crew and I have ventured into the southern parts, away from Alaska for a time to indulge in this strange southerly world. My days are varied, sometimes falling asleep to the song of coyotes and at other times dancing all night to cyber shamanic tribal trance with the beautiful people of Portland, SF, Seattle, Las Vegas, and LA. As I continue to make my rounds I am going to start looking for you as well as I think SG is about to become a part of my life once more.

Nearly three weeks since I last posted! In recent days other things have taken precedence_war, growth, and spring. While there is still two feet of snow on the ground in this part of the valley the change is happening. Everyday a new bird begins advertising his presence through song (varied thrush, golden crowned kinglet, and this morning the first song sparrow of the season). And the days are markedly longer. Twilight lingered this evening until 9:45pm and in another month or so we will have almost 24 hours of functional daylight.

I went to the coast this afternoon. Rumor has it that a few coastal grizzlies have emerged from their winter slumber and are shambling along the banks in search of a long awaited meal. From the canal I followed a bear trail through ancient stands of spruce and hemlock and over moss covered detritus. A small stream flowed beneath a slab of ice. Standing on it I could feel a subtle resonance--the movement of subsurface water trickling from the highlands.

Walking further along the stream I found clump of devil's club. Like velcro each wand had a wad of long silver hair attached to it_a collection taken from the backs of grizzlies as they moved through last season.

No fresh bear sign today_seems a bit too early. Still, this fecund rain forest is awakening.

Soon they will be here…

The Equinox

Sking through slush on the river flats the electricity hangs thick_you could hear it in the song of chickadees and feel it in the intensity of light. Within cottonwood buds the smell of that familiar resin, bubbling in preparation for rebirth. In this place where natural rhythms will not be ignored, every change is palpable_each season demarcated by a seemingly abrupt and potent event.

But I am not in a bubble, for underlying my awe at the power of place a heaviness looms in knowing that bombs fall and that anxiety reigns in the hearts of those so far from me. And a deeper gloom exists in the knowledge that the world has cried out in opposition yet the rulers continue, un-hesitantly, answering to no one.

Today I drove the 60 miles to fill the truck's tank and it feels so gross to be in this skin.

Long ago I cast aside guilt yet, oddly, this evening it has returned.

While I peck on the porn site brown skins are bombed.

Shock and Awe.

Running, but not far enough.

I met her at the food coop. I was fresh from the industrial cauldron of Detroit and in my first year of studies into terrestrial plant ecology. She was tall, dark and handsome, wearing a pair of clunky hiking boots, green fatigues, and ocelot patterned hair cropped close. In the instant her ice colored eyes fell upon me my plans shifted_soon my studies faltered, my job quit, and previous relationships became neglected.

Intimacy. I wondered incessantly about details: what did she look like slurping spaghetti? How did her skin smell under the perfume of a warm summer sun? This sort of understanding is not derived from mere question and answer but from the sharing of close quarters_from the intensity of intimate exchange.

Today, responsibilities shirked once more, deadlines missed. Aren't I supposed to be writing something for that magazine? Wasn't there a newspaper article due…yesterday? Yes, but nothing is as important as searching your contours, nothing as necessary as moving across the brilliance of your snow covered skin. Beyond the next curve lies that which I have yet to explore.

Someone watches as I go through this…again. Yesterday we discussed my intentions of climbing the high peaks above my confluence country cabin. She asked why I was so inclined to enter that realm of deep snow and strong wind. What was so important about that vantage, she wondered.
I answered, "Intimacy."

Darkness has descended upon my neighborhood of Sitka spruce and black cottonwood as I peck out these words on the computer terminal. The Cramps blare from the compact disk player positioned in the corner of the cabin. Somehow it seems odd to be here, in the midst of what would otherwise be ultimate quiet, listening to "I want some new kind of kick."

I remember the first time I heard The Cramps. I was 11 years old and my mom, my brother and me were living in the back of a maroon colored Chevy Caprice Classic, on the outskirts of Los Angeles, California. Though the car was a four door with two wide bench seats, it was still a bit constraining for my kid sized brain and volcano like energy. Being confined to the car, the radio was often a major source of adventure_especially during L.A.'s underground sonic revolution, circa 1981.

In my mind I can still picture it, 1:30 in the morning, mom curled in the passenger seat, brother sleeping in the back. I am wide awake and erupting as the smell of diesel exhaust from the 405 intermingles with my family's collective breath condensating on the interior. Captured within this sticky dampness I want nothing more than stimulus beyond my physical surroundings so I turn on the radio, pressing from station to station. Way down the dial, in what was the seedy realm of low frequency lurked the brooding voice of Lux Interior, the tumultuous treble of dual guitars, and a primitive trap set pounding out 1 2 rhythm. I had discovered The Cramps. Soon my life took a dramatic turn.

Voodoo Idol.

Garbage Man.

The Crusher.

Cold in this cabin! I have been away for several days so the temperature inside reads 22 degrees. Within an hour, however, the woodstove will heat this place to a sweltering 80 degrees and I will then begin my system of sophisticated heat regulation by opening the windows, dampening the fire, and shutting down the flue. Definitely not as easy as turning the dial on the thermostat but the heat is free save for the energy that went in to sawing, splitting, and stacking the firewood.

I have just returned from Whitehorse, Yukon. This is the capitol city of the territory and harbors some 25,000 people (roughly 85% of this vastly large landscape's human population). The next biggest town, some 8 hours away, is Watson Lake, with 1,500 souls. There's lots of country in between.

You could say that up here, above the 60th parallel, we are a geographically isolated bunch, separated by many miles of mountains, tundra, and forest. Aside from a whole lot of walking in the woods, many of us go awhile before getting a taste of "culture." And while this might sound scary to an SGer from San Francisco, it's okay to us for we know the meaning of quality rather than quantity. What I am saying is that way out here, when a big event is happening, even if it is 500 miles away, bush dwellers board up their camps and make a beeline to the rendezvous site, ready to whoop it up like you city slickers have never known (I can say this because I operate in both the urban and wild worlds).

Over the past four days Whitehorse (ironically progressive_no different than Seattle except that it is miniscule in size, population, and impact, and its in the middle of the circumpolar boreal fucking forest) hosted the Frostbite Music Fest, an assemblage of musicians from all over Canada, representing all genres from hip hop to punk, folk to emo, and even a little country and western (but not too much). At the fest, ravers danced beside rednecks, bush freaks welcomed bull dykes, and the celebratory atmosphere was probably more authentic than any Detroit dance party I have ever experienced. We smile, laugh, and interact in a manner not possible in the context of cool that I practiced in the big cities of the south (hey, to me, Portland is as far south as Georgia is to Chicago!).

After Frostbite, it took six hours of driving through the St. Elias and Coast Mountain Ranges before crossing the Alaska/Canada border and reaching my little cabin. The road was empty, as always, and in 300 miles of travel I passed but two other cars. I am satisfied with my dose of the big city, for the time being, feeling fortunate to live this life…

I have been absent. No new journal entry for a week and only a handful of posts. This community is easy to become enveloped in. As O said, so many voices...so many participants worth knowing. And while this is the first time I have ever paid to participate in such a network, this thing is undeniably unique. So much so, in fact, that there are times when I find it difficult to tear myself away. But then I look outside, toward the peaks of this northern wilderness just beyond the cabin window and the cyber connection ceases.

The Yukon Territory and the high northwestern corner of British Columbia have ensnared me. Places that I used to dream of--places immeasurably removed from my former life in Olympia--are now a mere 30 miles from my home here in Alaska's Chilkat Valley. Up there, above treeline, the world is blanketed in white and the topography of the tundra is deceptively subdued. Today, under the fog's flat light, I found myself falling. Yet, during the drop, the sense of vertigo was so pronounced that I didn't know it was happening until I hit the ground (does this somehow have relevance to my last post?).

After a day in the wind and snow I am back home, sitting near the woodstove crackling with buring birchsticks. My fingers and toes tingle with that prickly sensation I can only describe as skin thaw. My face is windburned and there are deep creases imbedded near the outer edges of my eyes from a day's worth of squinting at the sun. Yes, today you could say that I look weathered--that I have been touched by wind, sun, and mountain. The evidence of immersion in landscape is imprinted upon my face and etched into the fibers of my muscles. In the truest sense I live the life of an outsider...a life I wholeheartedly embrace.

Questions:
Have you ever been so in love that nothing seemed as important as this single attraction? Have you ever fallen so hard that even if you tried, you couldn't help but give yourself up to full immersion? Have you ever been so engaged that all you wanted was to know more?

A friend recently asked me why I did it--why I felt the need to move northward, 2,000 miles from the big city to the "emptiness" of Alaska. She wondered what I might be running from. Having always appreciated access to music, culture, and a network of friends why would I impose such a great barrier of physical distance between myself and the other?

Yet, after much quesitoning I came to the conclusion that I am not running from anything but, rather, I am running to something. In this place of mountains and rivers the routine doesn't involve check out lines and traffic, but, instead, is made up of interactions with the wild beasts of the woods. And while I can't sway in a smoke filled room to the rhythm of my favorite band (that will have to wait until next month), here in the northcountry my breath is deep as I walk with humility and reverence for the incomprehensible vastness around me.

More than anything, coming here has meant coming home. A return to a life so basic that fulfillment is not something you strive for but is something that simply is.