Dream seekers

if you did not believe in magic

you would not

have come

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NRH

P.O.Box 49

Oceano, CA.

93445 

     Early February, 1985...

     On my first three day trip to the cabin, I become frantic to experience this before it's too late.  Very soon now condos will overlook this beach.  There will be fat ladies lying in the sun with poodles and transistor radios.

     The cabin was built almost entirely with 2 X 4 timbers that washed up on the beach.  Some of the end stubs still have traces of dull red paint.  Little globs of tar are sticking to the wood from lying on the beach. 

     My simple air mattress makes the wood floor very comfortable.  And, a little south of the cabin, are the hanging gardens of Point Sal.  Water drips from the curtains of water cress hanging from the rocky cliff.  I eat water cress as I wait for the dripping water to fill my cooking pots.  I also sample the Sea Rocket, New Zealand Spinach, Yarrow, Plantain, Sow Thistle, and Cattail roots.

     Outside the shack is a surf worn whale vertebrae and a bronze fishing float.  Treasures of the sea.  Art objects of the cabin.  I resist taking them.  I don't want anymore things to take care of.

     Coming to places like this you go very deep inside yourself, because after awhile, there's nowhere else to go.

     I make lots of coffee.  This is a thing done by people who have lots of time, and done by those who don't, but pretend they do.

     My pack stove is slightly larger than a soup can.  I don't have to burn the world traveling driftwood, which is temporarily resting on the beach, so there is less impact on the environment.  The half pint of fuel I will use while I am here leaves only a half-pint sized hollow, very deep beneath the earth's skin.    

     Spring.  After the winter storms let up, I loaded my pack and headed back to the cabin.  In my pack is a hammer and some nails to fix loose boards.  When I got to the cabin, I found two guys were already there.  They had three dogs with them and were all set up to spend the night.

     Always before, I never had to share with anyone and would have the place to myself.  As it turned out, this would be the only time I ever came to the cabin to find someone else already there.  We talked for awhile and they invited me to stay.

     They have been melting all the old candle stubs from the cabin shelf into holes in a rock they found on the beach.  The holes in the soft rock were made originally by rock boring mollusks (Zirfaea).  A paper match is put into each hole before the wax is poured, to make wicks.   

     Before that, they spent 3 hours gathering a huge pile of all the plastic stuff that has floated up on the beach.  I help them dig a big hole to dump it all into, just below the high tide line.  We drink wine and wait until one in the morning for high tide.  Just before the tide comes in the pile is lit.  It burns down into coals, just before the first wave sweeps up the beach.  The wave pours into the hole.  We cheer as a huge steam geyser roars and shoots up.

     The dogs are excited.  They run on the beach, chasing sparkles of phosphorus.  They pounce and bite, getting mouthfuls of sand.

     Our other small fire on the beach burns with rainbow flames of lime green and violet purple.  Must be something in the sand.  In the flames I see the divine mother of all my desire. 

     In the journal I place a drawing of a woman that I found painted on the backside of a guard rail at Salmon Creek, in Big Sur, many years ago.  The lettering beneath it proclaims that "GOD IS A LADY."

    Coming out at high tide, I hike along the cliff at Mussel Rock Ravine.  I step across the creek that drops down off the cliff.  The tide is high enough that the waterfall is going right into the ocean.  Right then the sun comes out, after a week in hiding.

    July.  North of the cabin, I took a shower at the waterfall, one of the very few on the west coast that falls directly into the ocean at high tide.  I lay naked in the sun as swallows dive from their mud nests, a few inches from the cataract. 

    Alone, I find myself looking up and down the beach.  Somehow I keep expecting someone, only there's no one there.  I do this the whole time I am here.

    Two little green frogs, the size of quarters, sit placidly in the cabin like Buddhas.  Their eyelids open when you peer at them.  They don't move.  They just sit.

    I read in the journal:

    "Two years ago I first came to this spot.  From then on I knew this was the place to get away from it all, to think clear, and wonder how many more years I will be able to use this.  The place looks great, so let's keep it that way.  Please take all trash you bring with you.  B & J" 

     Night, sitting on the porch.  The off shore drilling rig far out at sea looks like a small city, floating on the ocean with a tower of lights coming out of the center.  It is plainly seen in my 8X monocular.  Nice white lights, red sunset, black sea. 

    After a couple of hours on the porch, it's time to turn in.  Back in the cabin, I light some of the paper match wicks in the stone with holes that were filled with the wax by the two guys in the cabin on my last trip.  I only light about six of them.  It really fills the cabin with light.  A great candelabra of stone that is perfect for this place!  I move it around the cabin for different light and shadow effects.  I watch it awhile, then light my brass candle lantern and blow out the wicks on the stone.  Want to leave some of it for others to enjoy...

    In my bedroll, I watch the mice scurry in the light of my candle lantern.  They are rambunctious tonight, fighting over a trail mix wrapper.  A few lonely ants slowly meander on the boards of the cabin floor, working the night shift.  I enjoy the soft music of the surf.

    The next day I eagerly collect writings by different people on the cabin walls:

    "Never enjoyed being so bored."

    Found a 16 ounce can of Budweiser on the beach coming in.  The paint on the can is worn from tumbling in the surf.  I cool it in a large plastic bucket filled with seawater.  At night I drink the beer, and accidentally kick the bucket.  Sudden flash of little stars of phosphorus in the water.  Kick it again.  Wow, same thing!  And again.  Fun light show in the cabin!

    At 2 a.m. the moon  was blood red from the fire at Santa Margarita.  Light grey ashes have traveled from thirty miles away to waft through the cracks in the cabin walls and settle on my bedroll. 

    I boiled a pot of New Zealand Spinach that grows around the cabin.  Dropped in one bouillion cube, squeezed a little lemon juice, shut off the stove and let it cool.  Absolutely delicious!

    I think how you can never be free unless you can learn to live without women and cars.  But, freedom without women and cars is like death without life.  At least for now...

    The little green frogs are still sitting there on the shelf.  Before I leave, I put my journal on the shelf beside them.  They have moved only their eyelids since I have been here.  They watch me as I pack up and leave.

     September-Autumnal Equinox. My watch quit running.  Now I worry about being picked up on time, two days from now.    

     Equinox Sunset.  In the cabin, I watch the setting sun shining through the porthole of the west wall.  A patch of light moves across the north east wall.  Suddenly I see that one of the winged eyes drawn in pencil is perfectly framed by the patch of light.  I watch as the light patch quickly dims as the sun drops below the horizon.  Faint, fainter, gone...

     What an excellent calendar marker!  A great light show!  I simply have to know who did this!  How will I ever know?  What mysteries abound here!!!  

     That night I hear coyotes howling high on the bluff above the cabin.

     I think how the keeping of secrets is just a game we play... but only with  ourselves.  Ultimately, everything is ONE and knitted together at the source.  So, how can anything not be known?

     October.  Deer tracks at the spring at Mussel Rock, and raccoon tracks all around the cabin.  Someone has left a can of cranberry sauce on the shelf, which I resist the whole time I am here.  I collect the new writings and carvings on the cabin walls:

     "God is everything you sense."

     I sit on the porch, watching a perfect sunset.  One of the little green frogs startles me by dropping from the eave all the way to the porch, making a loud "plop."  I don't bother him.  He just sits there beside me, a foot away, and we both watch the sunset.

     Very hot night.  While walking on the beach, the light breeze shifts back and forth.  Cool patches of fog and sea air suddenly give way to hot wind carrying sweet pungent smell of sage from the cliffs above the beach.

     Sleeping soundly, until BOOM!  I wake to the heavy crash of surf.  The continuous off shore winds causes the waves to stand and hold until they are almost on the dry sand.  When they collapse they shake the cabin, BOOM!  I get up at 3:30 a.m. to watch the surf in the moonlight.

    The morning sun makes rainbows in the fine mist that is pulled off the tops of the waves by the off shore wind.  I go out immediately after having coffee and catch 3 nice silver barred surf perch on my ultra-lite spinning outfit with 4 pound test line.  I fry them up in a ten inch skillet that is in the cabin.  I marinate them with grapefruit juice from trees in my back yard.      I feel desperation as the time to leave draws near.  Beach cabin, you are like a pretty girl.  I know that time will erase you.  I am frantic to experience you before it's too late!

    October.  The beach cabin has become the crystal of my soul, in which I can see a clear reflection of myself.

    I see how we sometimes bend the truth a little, to let something remain awhile longer, just as a gust of wind moves the pelican's dive just enough to miss the fish.

    Today the wind is howling.  Powerful blasts catch the waterfall in mid-air, before it falls on the beach.  The stream is hurled back up, over the cliff.  A curving shower of diamond rainbow droplets splashes back into the stream it came from.

    Afternoon.  Naked in the sun.  I watch the life and death struggle of a black ant and winged aphid as a squad of fourteen sand flies hovers motionlessly in the still air on the lee side of the cabin.

    I think how the pursuit of desire is like gathering the pretty wet stones on this beach, which dry quickly.  Before your eyes you see them becoming very plain and dull.  Today I am very much in tune with Buddhist concepts...

    Night.  Tonight I am the most selfish man in the world with this beach and ocean all to myself.  My belly is full with wine and canned stew and wild yarrow tea.  I'm lazy, but at least I am not adding or taking away from anything that is going on in the world.  And tomorrow I will be in...

                   GUADALUPE ...

                   UNCHANGED SINCE THE FORTIES

                   WITH ART DECO BUILDINGS DOWNTOWN

                   AND ZOOT SUITERS STANDING ON THE STREET

                   AT NIGHT

                   MARIACHIS PLAYING

                   LA PALOMA CU CURU

                   AT YOUR SWEET SMILE

                   AS I FORGET HAPPY TIMES

                   BEING LONELY AND COMPLETELY EMPTY

                   ON THE DESERTED BEACH

                   JUST A FEW MILES

                   TO THE WEST...    

    I have been using a green gallon jug I found on the beach for water.   Packing to leave, I hide it under the cabin. 

    MAY-1986.  The porch is partly burned away by someone's unattended fire.  First sign of death for the cabin.

    A new flag flies from the mast head of the cabin.  Purple top and flesh-colored bottom.  The confederate flag that used to be there is shredded, hanging from the iceplant growing on the cliff below the cabin.

    The mice have enjoyed this book.  They have chewed up the first four pages to build their nests.  Good thing I brought an extra copy.  People have written in the book:

    "Thank God there isn't a road into here.  It keeps all the destroyers away.  This cabin is a work of art, and so is this beach.  R. & S."

    This place is now like a lover.  I feel guilt for ignoring my favorite camps up on the Big Sur River, which are other lovers I have not visited for a long time.

    Night.  A new drilling rig out on the ocean!  The planet Venus is setting in the sea, close to the horizon, near the lights of the rig.  A strange conjunction of the planet of love, and man's need for energy.

    At three in the morning I awake to watch the annual meteor shower that streams forth from Aquarius every fourth of May

 Nothing but thick fog.  Back to sleep...

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