pest control

There's a van parked in the field of the house next door. The windshield guard reads: "no ifs, ants or bugs." I wonder if it can get rid of this pest living in my house that stares back at me when I look in the mirror.

Be forewarned: this bloodsucker is hard to pin down. Turn around and he's hopped in the car. There he is chasing the memory of a pretty face, burning, burnt thru a busy town. How many lives is it per gallon?

Don't hit the brakes says the tailgater. Life is supposed to be a blur says the blurry figure. No one has the time says the timekeeper. And emptiness is filled with consumption says the machine.

The scent of spent petrol fills the air. The mud slides, another poor soul gets buried...

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and it rained all night...

The rainforest finally got some rain. Walking among the ferns on the Frank Coggins this evening, I could sense relief in the air. The music of the mountain streams played loudly. The bright orange red-spotted newts were hanging out in their paradise and practicing their zen. A beautiful box turtle ducked into his shell as we passed by. The fog enveloped us as Uwharrie and I climbed up and out of the cove. This is a great place to call home.

The rain fell. Our second workday on the Palmetto Trail with the great folks of the Native Plant Society got postponed. We sat under the tin roof on the porch reading The Alchemist and composing music. The phone rang, a woman asked me my age and if I owned a color television. I thought: we control our reality until we surrender that control. And it got to be time for a walk. Yes, the rainforest finally got some rain.

snapshots

twin arches, big south fork national recreation area


a journey to jocassee...


fearlessly i ride jesse whilst sipping wine...


"The summer had inhaled
And held its breath too long."
-Marty Balin

eastward...

(updated photos on previous posts...)

out of gas amongst the arches, big south fork. a 10 mile run turned to hike. i long for home... homeward bound to an evening chat with the meandering bear, highlands black mocha stout, feels like a good move.



"Soon the chain reaction started in the parking lot
Waiting to bleed on the big streets
That bleed out on the highways and
Off to other cities built to store and
sell these plastic rocks
Well aren't you feeling real dirty
Sitting in the parking lot?"
-Modest Mouse

life @ lightspeed

Hey all, my head is spinning. I feel like I've aged 10 years in 4 days. REALIZATION HAPPENS. There is so much happening. This is really happening. I saw many things, things that don't make sense to me now, maybe they will to me later on if I'm lucky.

There are many things to talk about. We could talk about music and what makes a great artist. I was in the midst of many this weekend. It was happening so fast. Seu Jorge, Death Cab, Beck, Bela, and yes radiohead amongst others.

I think our existence boils down to the choice of whether we as individuals wish to escape the fantasy world or not. The artists I really appreciate are the ones that send us this message; the ones that ask us to transcend fantasy and come back to REALITY. I was in the midst of fantasy, i was in the midst of reality, I was in the midst of 90,000 people.

I realize we make choices everyday: essentially whether to go or to stay. I don't wish to forecast the near future here. Yes I tend to be pessimistic; bonnaroo isn't a good venue to change a pessimist to an optimist, at best it's a place to come to peace with things: to see the dancers on the sinking ship and to enjoy the show of a dying species I guess...

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In the funny-but-true papers: Bush's daughter attended radiohead's NYC show.
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There was too much fantasy for my tastes, but in retrospect, there was a whole lot of reality too. MESSAGES to read and write in action. I met some great folks. I saw many hitting the escape key. I watched a guy snort horse tranquilizer. I watched Beck brilliantly mock himself with marienettes. We're all muppets. Someone is pulling our strings... We like to imagine we have scissors.

Speaking of escape key ships, I saw a modern day ark this morning, all babbled up some opry hotel in Nashvegas with exotic plants, air-conditioning, an indoor circular river filled with the waters from a thousand rivers around the world. People were walking around: consuming and happy. The whole rig seemed primed and ready to lift off into space to start over building another desert.

an optimistic SUV parked outside the ark...

"and we're losing all touch, losing all touch, building a desert..." -modest mouse

It was good to see friends Damon and Rachel in Nashville.

radiohead live

60,000 people
8 hours packed
20 yards out
waiting for the epic
opener: there there
thom riding the reverb
jonny sampling live radio
national anthem
everything in its right place
amazing encore, great show...
worth the price of admission.

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westward...

june 13th:

dear ___________,
how are you? i am sending a brief message to let you know i am thinking of you. where am i? heaven, the cohutta wilderness. i am alone "deep in god's country" as a local woman put it to me and i can't agree more. i just got back from a 4? mile walk to the jacks river with just my towel and i got in surrounded by hemlocks at twilight. the last remaining light in the sky as i emerge from submersion and uplift my arms and sing praises: so alive! i pray for all loved ones, i pray for you. i pray for strength. i am just thankful for being alive. please, do not ever hesitate to get in a wild creek or river! i had a spicy meal of lentils, tuna, quinoa, onions and these deceptively hot peppers purchased in the last georgia town i came to. i went to the bathroom after dicing the veggies and suffered a burning you-know-what the rest of dinner, so too i accidently rubbed my eye, ouch. but it seemed only as though my body was purging and opening to the heavenly scents of this wilderness! i filled myself with the aroma of the forest and the waking brisk bath in the river. i walked back in the dark without a light, i picked up some litter, i came back to home, the vw bus. i intend to run 24 miles in the wilderness tomorrow, then drive thru chattanooga towards the savage gulf to explore one more day before bonnaroo. i think of you and hope you are well and living confidently in the knowledge that you are loved and prayed for and that you may have the courage to "move mountains" and by that i mean open minds to the truth that we are all one body on this wonderful earth. love and peace to you.

june 14th:

I started at 7:30? on a solo 24 mile run thru Cohutta wilderness, I miss having Uwharrie along, but I know she is in good hands. Uwharrie and for that matter, anyone who appreciates the flow of the forest would have loved this route. It starts up the Benton MacKaye trail to the top of Big Frog mountain in TN. Then it's time to strap in for the ride down down down to the Jacks River. Two dozen baptisms later and it's over. The run took me 5 hours, faster than I anticipated. I got back in the bus high on life and continued the tour thru NW GA. It got pretty hot and unpleasant on I-75 and I-24 thru Chattanoogy. So I got off and got wet in Foster Falls, an amazing swimming hole that I hope to see more of tomorrow. Things are getting stranger, the bus is bussing and the fuzz is fussing: Tracy City Police following the muppet mobile thru town. So I turn around and follow back. Camped out tonight at the CCC camp on the Fiery Gizzard trail outside Tracy City with a nice fire going. More fun in store tomorrow!

june 15th:

the fiery gizzard half-marathon got underway by 6 i think. not so sure of time, but certain that this is an enchanting 13 mile route thru majestic hemlock forests, pitch pine cliffs, and hidden swimming holes galore. even the official trail map description reads like a fairy tale. this would be a great place for a (challenging!) fun run marathon and half starting/finishing at foster falls campground. hmmmmm. i carried a bar of soap and change of cloths in my pack. after a cleansing dip in foster falls, i thumbed back to tracy city and got a ride in a '57 chevy truck. roy showed me around tracy city and then dropped me off back at the bus after three and a half hours of fun. now it's into the purple humid haze...

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question consumption

"We are accidents waiting to happen."

running to roan & realization

"Stop the car!" It was Friday night, and we were somewhere on the backroads between Burnsville and Erwin. With a full moon hidden behind dark silent towers of summer cumuli, a forest of shadows surrounded us.

"Hit the lights." It did not take long for eyes to adjust. All around us the forest glistened with the abdominal flourescence of billions of fire flies. A show like none other. And the weekend was just beginning...

Twelve hours later, we were crossing over the same ground. This time on foot in the daylight. How invigorating: the cleansing purity of running across these ridgelines teeming with all kinds of wonderful life!

Mile after mile, it started to happen. Our bodies began to fuse with the landscape, feeling more a part of the real body than before. Ah, Unaka! The smell of spruce!

And it happened to occur to me that the landscape is forever a part of our bodies: we are what we eat, breath, drink, touch. And how true it is that our bodies are divine gifts to us from God, a realization shared to us this Sunday by a brother in church.

It was a touching moment to see this old man in tears, admitting how he had not been a good steward of body. And then I woke up: neither have I... I've abused this great body, subjected it to unhealthy substances, polluted it with impurities.

I'm so grateful to have felt the connection this weekend during a 45 mile point-to-point run along the AT from the Nolichucky river to Roan Mountain, TN. And to be joined by Asheville adventure runner Adam Hill is always a great pleasure.

My parents met us in the afternoon sunshine atop Carvers gap where Uwharrie wrapped up her run at the 50K mark. We all hiked up to the summit of Round Bald enjoying the early rhododendron blooms along the way.

Adam and I finished this absolutely wonderful stretch of trail over Hump Mountain before a fierce thunderstorm struck. This 45 mile section is one of the most beautiful and challenging along the whole AT. Mile for mile, it is more difficult than the Smokies.

Many memorable exclamations were uttered during the infamous climb up the south side of Roan Mountain. But truly we are not climbing mountains as much as we are climbing ourselves. We rise above the challenges we set before us. We fall down and pick ourselves up. The great mountain before us is not an obstacle, it is a teacher. Afterall, the mountains do not come to us, we come to the mountains.

Check back for photos!

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choose your own adventure

fire fly lanterns in the night
messengers in their own right...

There's just too many adventures and too little time! Doing laundry, experimenting with energy bar concoctions and declining to explore today in preparation for the great outings to come.

My sister thinks I should go back to writing my own "choose your own adventure" books, something I was quite fond of doing with my friend Cornelius in elementary school.

Her idea: I should write environmental education CYOA books since I have neo-malthusian tendencies and whatnot.

So in celebration of the arrival of my Bonnaroo ticket, here's a click your own future short set to radiohead lyrics:

"i've got a message I can't read..."

"you're living in a fantasy world"

photos from a weekend well spent

before i busted my camera yet again...





(The great Bobby Fulcher: a true enlightened billie)

to love and let go

Dark lovely hemlocks
Waving goodbye
Needle fingers
Uplifted, uplifting
In the summer wind...

I dreamt quite vividly last night that I fell in love, and for the first time, I was at peace with letting go... Off into the world our ways parted, and it was OK. She understood me and I understood her. All my shortcomings revealed... Accepted and loved. (RIP sleep)

Working the Cumberland Trail with kind-hearted and free-spirited souls has truly been wonderful! All able-bodies: enjoy this experience!!! (three weeks left of Big Dig: cumberlandtrail.org)

Saturday's evening celebration included watermelon, live music, frisbee, volleyball... And then night swimming in peaceful Possum Creek while watching the sparks of a bonfire merge with a sea of stars.

Poor Uwharrie, she needs a eucalyptus necklace... Is this the natural frontline? So I hear. Yet I'll surrender again to the nasty chemicals hidden in the cabin closet, we are both tired of plucking ticks from all parts of body, so homeward bound we go. But first we're enjoying some exploring and building of trail in Frozen Head with our Americorps friends.

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paradise found

A beautiful 20+ mile run in the heart of the slickrock creek and citigo wildernesses today: a hemlock enchanted forest down stiffknee trail, after an unforgettable cruising ridge run on the Benton Mackaye, following the heath balds above big fat gap... This is the real world! Beauty, beauty everywhere.

I shall not stray far from a mountain stream as long as I run trails. The therapy of full five minute immersion in the cove "chambers" is a true miracle! And slickrock creek is full of miracles!

After slaying the dragon, it's onwards to old friends, square dancing, and lots of fun in the gorges of Soddy-Daisy.

We all live downstream...

"you're living in a fantasy world
you're living in a fantasy world
C-O-M-E B-A-C-K"

Turn off the computer,
step outside
get in the river
look upstream
it's happening now
there is no "they"
there is only us...

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national trails day

This weekend is a good opportunity to give back to the trails with a number of events to choose from around the country.

Still trying to decide which one for Uwharrie and I! Probably will take it back to the roots (and rocks) on the Cumberland Plateau.