The Age of Jabberwok (Revival)
....."way beyond the Blue
one star belongs to you"...(EmmyLou).
Seven months since my last posting.
Over that time I have had the feeling that words no longer can be trusted, words no longer are trusted and arguments for and against things are trackless like the wind, always blowing, always going, but leaving no tracks. Shedding no bones. Lifting no pollen.
The rain comes down but grows no corn.
There is thunder in the night sky. Thunder and blood, made by machines, not by the mysteries of the angels. Old women hoist thier lives onto thier shoulders and run for the border. A cat coiled up in her purse.
The chili is worthy. Here I am having fresh lamb, vegetables from our garden and hand-made red chili for the Spring Equinox. There is some wine there. We made that also. We make and now sell hand made organic wine. Maybe 4,000 bottles this year.
The vegetables here, we have a winter garden that gives up a rich salad garden: carrots, spinach, dicon, several lettuce, onions, scallions...and also lemons, organges, tangerines and hazelnuts: oregano, mint, thyme, basil, all right here in our garden just outside the kitchen.
Socially we have seen almost no one. For more than two years now. Stress. Italians really love being together. And now we are not.
I lost my pension this year, around $800 US. My wife made to much money, by about 100 dolars or so. And I have to give them back, somehow, $20,000. These days I am a 73 year old Indian guy with really no money at all, a trickle. I have a fortune in art here, sculètures and paintings. But. Italians do not buy art. Not so you would notice, or make any money from. So it is all piled up. I am a rich poor man. A penniless prince. Another chief without any indians.
For the first time since around 1975 I have stopped writing poetry and posting online. I have been rendered spèeechless by the events of trump, of covid, of ukraine and putin, of mife paying $260 to fill up the gas tank and the electric bill going from $160 to $500. What the fuck can you say at this point?
And that's just me. I look around and discover, without any real joy, that me and my wife are way better off than a lot of people.
Maybe if they had red chili? For me it makes a difference. Red Chili and Starlight.
And corbread. Silvia makes a mean cornbread.
We made a new home for the sacred bundle, the sacred pipes, flutes, bells, rattles and eagle feathers,the two old drums. They all have their own nicho now. A space that used to be a great big oven 400 years ago...and now is a walk-in nicho for the mystery life. Made of hand cut volcanic stones.
I work right here, this is my work station. My cat is named Apache. You can see her there on the other side of the monitor, she is there, you have to look for her.
Over the winter my wife and I both read a number of books by Louise Erdrich, she in Italian and me in English. Erdrich is a master story teller. She reveals the most amazing things inside stories about regular people who happen to also have a finger or a toe or a shouder inside the mystery life. It is uncanny and magical.
I wrote and published several books. 4 volumes of writings on the sacred of the american indian and three volumes of art and photography.
I am doing some projects with an old friend, a master of chi kung and the I-Ching, Hon. Juan Li of Akasha Tao. We are doing this on Zoom. He and I participated in a powerful and unique ceremony with a group of Shinto Elders and Sword Masters in Japan in the 1980s. This ceremony involved numerous people and took years to complete. I will post more news about it and some links to the archive we are creating soon I hope, if the creek don't rise and the master of heaven does not snatch me away.
I am in the middle of diagnostic tests to perpare for possible surgery on my spine in about a month or so. If it all goes well I might be able to walk again in a normal way. That would be nice. But it is not yet a done deal. But in progress.
Out here,
way beyond the Blue.
