May.  Little blue jellyfish (Velella velella).  You are born with your sail fixed at the perfect angle for the prevailing winds to drive you parallel to the coast your entire life.  But this week a slight shift in the wind has driven millions of you sailors up onto the beach to die.  I walk for miles on a carpet of your bodies to get to the cabin.   

     I sweep out the cabin and arrange my things.  I see the mice have eaten a part of the book again.  I wish there was some way to retrieve the lost writings.  But look, there are new carvings on the walls and floor:

     "Enjoy life, you children of God." 

     A little frog on the porch sits by me in the sun.  We watch the ocean together.  We have done this before, on other trips.  A black stripe runs from the tip of his nose through his eye to his shoulder.  Today he's the color of bleached wood.

     I watch him as I come and go.  He is motionless for five hours.  I can see his heart beating through his thin skin.  I watch it as I check my pulse and find it is in perfect time with my own.  He watches as I take a hot shower from my solar water bag hung in the sun from a rafter. 

    Sunset.  The empty beach is no longer smooth and white. MILLIONS of foot prints of creatures of all kinds suddenly appear, as the small hollows begin to fill with shadow. 

    Night.  The frog has moved under the plank.

    Morning.  There must be death.  Otherwise everything would soon fill up and there would be no room for anything else.  The panorama of infinite variety could not exist.

    All understanding is perishable.  It needs constant renewal through thought and meditation, just as the cabin needs fresh nails to keep it from tumbling down to the beach.

    South of the cabin a small cave goes back into the cliff.  The level of the beach moves up and down with the storms and for a long time I had to crawl in on hands and knees.  Today I can walk in standing up.  I fill my pots from water dripping from the roof.  Looking back out I see the ocean, beach, and the sky, framed in black.

    Hundreds of pelicans circling near shore, diving, one after another.  Shoom!  Shoom!  Shoom!  Into the sea with wings tucked close in.  Many come up with fish.  Some days...I feel like one of the fish.

    Eternal life lies in seeds

 *  *  *  *  *

    On the porch sits a huge trash bag full of cans and bottles left by others as though set on the curb for garbage pick up day.  I put the bags in a hole on the beach with driftwood and burn it.  The fire burns the tin off the cans so they rust away easy.  When everything gets down to coals, I dash the glass bottles with cold water to stress fracture them, so they crumble away easy.  Later in the book someone writes not to do that because of air pollution...

    We are organs of the organism of life.
 

 *  *  *  *  *

    Find new writings on the walls:

    "DON'T FIGHT.  UNITE."

    A green monster has been painted on the wall with day-glo paint.  There is also some obscene graffiti on the wall that is challenged by the Orcutt Skate Thrashers and the Reverend Brothers of the Psychic Few.  Someone has spray painted over some of the older obscenities.  Someone else has written,

     "So-What's with all this brown spray paint censorship?  Even out here someone wants to tell you how to think, what to see, and how to feel..."

     All this has happened since my last trip and I am not part of it, although I do lean toward freedom of expression.  Finally I fall back and remember my Big Sur Mantra:

     "Don't discriminate-all things are the same-and are equally valid."

     Night.  The pack rat who lives in the cabin kept me awake all night dragging things around and rearranging them to its liking.  Clang!  Clang!  Clang!  And in the morning I find my Sierra cup has been moved several times across the cabin and left in the frying pan.  My pencil is gone.  The pack rat has taken it and left in its place a rusty tin can lid!

     The next day is hot.  Time stands still. 

     Evening.  The sun is touching the horizon.  But it is not where it appears to be.  It takes time for the light of the sun to get here and by the time it does, the sun has already moved one diameter away from where it appears to be.  Nothing, absolutely nothing, is exactly as it appears to be...

     At twilight I watch a solitary bat diving into the insects that hover in the still air behind the cabin.  Then it swoops out in front of the porch where I am sitting into the light breeze and down the beach a ways, to let the squadron of insects regroup.  He makes a long loop and then comes back into the insects again.  Again and again he does this as the red sun melts into an ocean that has turned silver.  The glowing squiggles in my cup are the reflections of the moon above, dancing in my wine.

     July.  Arrive to find large piles of twigs on the cabin floor.  The mice are no longer content to build their nests under the cabin floor.  I sweep it all out with the broom.

     In the book I read:

     "This place is alive with silence and music and wonderment!  I feel the very soul of the earth, alive with the sound of the universe!  I thank you for the experience to express my thoughts of aliveness and freedom!  P.B."

    "Around another star, in another super cluster, another blue planet.  A place like this.  Conscious beings thinking same thoughts that bound across the abyss of nothingness.  By love and joy, right here in front of you, at this instant, all places and all times co-exist.  -Unknown author."

     I almost never see anyone here.  It is only through the eyes of the others who come here that I can see aspects of this place that are hidden from me.  Their eyes transform their vision into the words and artwork that is on these pages.  I am very grateful that they have taken the time to share with me.  They have all expanded my view and understanding.   

     Once in awhile I come here to find the book has been taken.  When that happens, I miss my contact with all those who I have met only through the pages of this book.  But if I look long enough, I can usually find something new that has been carved or written on the walls of the cabin...  

    Also in the book is a neat drawing by R & M showing the beach and surf. 

     Today I am suffering from too much greed.  I have to wonder, "Just how much life does one really need to experience?"

     I search the cabin walls for new truths scribed by others.  I find none.  This means I will just have to look inside myself.  Which I should be doing anyway...

     As soon as it gets dark, the mice get busy.  After a noisy night, I awake in the morning to find the mice have dragged all the twigs back in that I swept out.  During my mostly sleepless night, they have rebuilt their nest piles on the floor again, right next to my head.  Fine.  This is just a short trip and I'll be leaving this afternoon anyway. 

     August.  I am late coming in.  A bee on the high trail works alone at dusk.  Her labors beyond the call of duty will make her wings ragged and earn her an early death.  But we are fortunate that all bees are not lazy like me.  Otherwise, there would be no honey.

     I see the first obscene graffiti on the cabin wall and am filled with strange sadness.  I feel like vandals have discovered this place.  Then I think how, in some way, the graffiti must be important to those who made it.  Therefore, it must, in some way be valid...

     Enough food has been left on the shelves in the cabin to last me for more than a week.  Everything is in abundance, except TIME.  Someone has left a whole loaf of bread on the shelf.  I take it to the beach and feed the gulls...

     N.B. has made another neat drawing in the book, showing the porch of the cabin...

     The big mama pack rat has now been named "Molly" by B.J. who drew a picture of her and her family in the book.

     Night.  Every 4.5 seconds the lighthouse at Avila makes bright stabs from the coast north of the cabin. 

     A large ship stops out in the ocean.  It is a couple of miles away, straight out from the cabin.  When I finally go to bed, it is still there.  I am up a few times in the night to look at the stars and the night, and saw the ship still sitting there.  I wondered if there is some kind of small radio transmitter and receiver with frequencies where you could talk to the ships.  Something small and light enough to carry in a pack. 

     I never get lonely out here, but sometimes I think it would be fun to be sitting on the porch out here late at night and talk to the ships going up and down the coast.  I'd like to find out where they have been and where they are going, and what their names are.  Right now I'd like to be able to talk to someone on that large ship just sitting out there in the night, several miles off the coast, and find out what they are doing and why they are not moving.

     I sleep late.  When I finally get up, the ship is gone.

     Late January, 1987.  From the high point above Mussel Rock, I watch the California Gray whales heading south.  They spout and frolic.  They hold their tails up for several seconds at a time, before slipping under on this cold rainy day.  I wish I were going south for the winter with them.

     Clouds build as I get to the cabin and I hurry to fill my pots before the water gets muddy from the rain.  A minus tide tempts me to try for some mussels for tomorrow's lunch.  Poor timing of the waves and I am soaked.  There'll be no sitting on the porch tonight.  And no mussels either!

     Clothes are cold and wet.  In bed at sundown.  A moth thinks my candle is the moon and circles it, trying to use it for navigation.  His correcting angle is less than 90 degrees and he spirals in, smacks the glass, and skids fluttering on the cabin floor.  He only wants to get home, and tries again.  And again.  Finally he dives through the slit at the top of the lantern, straight into the flame and molten wax, kamikaze style.  Zzzzt!  Candle's out.  So is the moth.  Time to go to sleep anyway...

     During the night the rain comes through the roof slats.  I get up and hurry to hang a plastic sheet for a canopy over my bed, beneath the leaky roof.  Awake now, I relight the candle and read in the book:

     "Change what you think stands in the way of yourself and understanding.  Be aware.  THINK!  B.B."

      The next morning the frying pan is full of water.  Most of the day is spent drying clothes over a fire built with wet wood, which needs constant tending.  More rain.  Bitter cold wind all day.  Like last night, there'll be no star gazing, setting on the porch, or walking on the beach tonight either.  I'm in bed early again.  Still, I'm having a great time.  The Captains of Industry and the Empire Builders can have it; this rainy shack on the beach is giving me everything I really need. 

     Morning.  The storm has placed a huge brown sphere on the beach, right next to the cabin.  It's as big as I am tall.  I try to roll it and it's so heavy I can't even budge it.  It's pocked, and dented like an asteroid, and rusted from its travels on the ocean.  I "bong" on it with a rock.  Must be a giant spore from outer space... posing as a runaway buoy!

     It will take off again, on the next high tide, for more world traveling.

     In the book there is a drawing and some writing by J.  And I read that B.J. has also been here again, and has also left a another drawing in the book showing some mussels and surf perch.  The drawing is titled, "Food from the Sea."

     For me, part of the internalization of this place is the sacrament of drinking the water and carefully utilizing a bit of the natural foods here.  In the journal I see that other people are doing the same thing:

     "...Spent two nights here.  Last night I made a fish stew with the water seeping from the hillside, spinach growing wild around the cabin, stripped perch from the sea, mussels from Mussel Rock, wild lettuce from the water fall.  And carrots and celery from home.

     September.  I dug up the pink rutilated quartz crystal with gold threads running through it that I buried under the cabin floor.  I left it there for a year to gather energy.

     Evening.  In my continuing life's effort to travel lighter and get everything down to just absolute essentials, I have resolved to leave my space age ultra-lite spinning reel and collapsible pole behind.  I am now fishing with only a hand line wrapped around a corona bottle I found on the beach.  The line is tied around the neck, which is used as a handle.  The line is then wound around the fat part of the bottle.  The bottle is held by the neck with one hand while the hook and sinker are cast into the surf with the other.

     As I am fishing, I watch dolphins as they jump clear out of the waves, frolicking in their journey north.  I catch a nice surf perch for supper and lay it on the beach.  I turn away for just a few seconds and a sneaky gull quickly pecked out his eyes.  Okay I guess.  They can no longer see, and were just going to waste anyhow.

     After eating the fish I thought about the sinker and hook I lost earlier, on a bad throw.  I visualized some poor fish taking the bait and being hooked to the lost sinker.  Decided then and there to crimp the barbs on all my hooks with needlenose pliers, or by using the back of my knife blade against a stone.  Now the fish can probably get off.  It will also easier to release fish, if I want to.

     I never liked the thing of having to kill things to eat. I realized that there had to be a way of at least partially dealing with it, and developed a haiku mantra for (hopefully) minimizing the karma of killing and eating fish, or anything:

     "Oh noble fish

      thank you for dying to be

      a part of my life."

     I keep the Corona bottle stashed in the bushes near the cabin.  Who would want it anyway?  Its nice not having to pack a bunch of fishing stuff in my pack and still be able to catch fish.  Right now I wish everything in my life could be that way: Free.  Simple.  Extremely useful.  Like a discarded Corona bottle.

     For some reason, the Corona bottle always makes me remember a young man who came here during one of my stays and brought nothing with him except a jacket.  I was packing to leave when he showed up.  He was much more of an ascetic than I am, and purposely didn't even bring food, water, or even matches.  He didn't even have a blanket. 

     I showed him the canned food on the shelves, and a blanket and some plastic sheeting that someone had left in the cabin.  I showed him the matches and utensils, but he wasn't interested in any of it.  He wanted to avoid the distractions of shelter, fire tending, food preparation, or even eating.  He would stay here for a few days with absolutely nothing and meditate.  He would be sustained by the spirit of Point Sal.  He said it was something he had done before and that it was the only path that worked for him.  I could see that he was very serious.

     We visited while I loaded my pack for the trip out.  I thought about my loading all my goodies back in my pack, with even a little of my Pesenti Estate Bottled Cabernet left to sip when I got to Mussel Rock, talking to a man who didn't need or want a tin cup to get water at the dripping springs.  Or even a discarded Corona bottle stashed in the brush near the cabin to catch fish with.

     I still remember how I was struck with the distinct feeling that I am not trying nearly hard enough 

*  *  *  *   

     In the book I see that J. has been here and stayed for twenty days.  I am a bit envious, as the longest I can stay at one time is five days.  He wrote a lot in the book and even wrote a song about the cabin.  One night he wrote:

     "...It must be close to nine or ten p.m.  I was just sitting and writing when I heard the most wicked sound I've ever heard.  It was some kind of wild animal, growling.  By the sound of it, it was less than twenty feet up the side of the hill.  It literally made my hair stand up, not to mention sending a cold chill up my back.  I don't think I'll sleep real good tonight.  It's a good thing I took a nap earlier today.  Tomorrow I'm going to make a spear..." 

     At the end of his stay he wrote, "How to make a better world:  1st, find yourself.  2nd, love what you find.  3rd, love others for what they are.  And together we can make a better world."

     In the book I see that a few surfers have somehow managed to get boards in here:

     "...We surfed this morning.  Poor shape but lots of power.  R & M from Orcutt."

    Also in the book, one of the surfers writes that he is sharing a "spell" that can be used for good surfing.  But the spell itself is written in a strange language I cannot read. 

    In the mornings I always walk down to the water's edge to see the crisp tracks of the raccoons and other creatures that prowl on the wet part of the beach at night.  In the journal I read that K. has had an encounter with one of the resident raccoons that lives near the cabin:

     "So I says to myself, 'Self, you just got to be smarter than that rat, Miss Molly.  So I made a bowl and filled it up with food, thinking that Miss Molly would eat so much that she would get a belly ache and then I wouldn't have to worry about her getting into my pack and eating MY food.  Wrong.  Miss Molly wears the mask of a raccoon..."