RELEASE

RELEASE

RELEASE WINTER SOLSTICE 2012

Photos and Story by Dave Washer

Welcome to the Center of the Universe (Winter Solstice 2012)

It is two days before the winter solstice and it has been raining for three days and before that, two days and after today’s small window of sunshine, it will rain for another two days. They are calling for flash floods in some parts, but for now the sun has opened a blue hole over my home, the thick wall of grey has parted and small ethereal wisps of clouds move up and down through the valley like phantom ghosts. I have been trying to get into writing, but I am walking in circles like a dog trying to lie down. I look for my cup of coffee that has certainly gone cold. I had made a promise to write this morning.

The self-imposed solstice deadline-- but now this blue hole in the sky, the sun sending its long God finger rays onto the hillside--is making me antsy.

I can’t find a place to start, so I open up Facebook on my iphone and start to type a message to Henry.

Hola Hijo,

Rained like crazy last night. The weather that I read says it dropped 15” in some places up north. Napa river, Russian River, Pengrove & other places-- all flooded. Landslides, power lines down. Here it blew like hell and put down about 3” in 6 hours. Very spectacular and ominous.

Anne spent the night and we stayed up until 3:30am talking and smooching while the wind and rain banged on the window like an old wolf trying to huff and puff its way in. Mi casa is plenty sturdy and cozy. Now it’s starting to clear. I’m trying to write today, but I’m all messed up on how to start. Year ago today I bet, coming up on Solstice, I had this strong feeling about what 2012 would bring. Strange to meet the closing of the year as these days get shorter and shorter. I remember our conversations well, driving through storm and wind the back way to your house, talking about all the auspicious markings of the coming year and about the importance of releasing Phoebe’s spirit. Somehow we both knew it was time. Now you’re in Amsterdam and I’m on my crow’s nest hilltop watching these crazy clouds rip across the sky at breakneck speed. We are the lucky ones. Life is good right now. You’re making your way through love and adventure, finding you’re life, where each decision holds so much truth and relevance. You’ve had such an amazing year and you worked at it with such fortitude and diligence. Your art show still shakes me as one of the greatest moments of being a dad. Watching you do it on your own. You have a lots of grace hijo. Lots of Confidence and Courage. Sometimes things move swiftly and smoothly. No doubt. At 21 things must look on one side hopeless and on the other so full of potential.

Sometimes things are crooked and flooded with insane crazy shit and you can’t even cross the street. Cross the street? Hell, you flew the coop and crossed all the way to Amsterdam. Love is a good way to cross. You don’t have to write back, I understand your wings are open. Stay away from that sun young icarus. Ha ha, I know, fly high… just the parental says watch for the melting bees wax wings. You make sculpture candles with it… Anyway, I just be babbling now….love you miss you…

Love, papa

2 I attach a photo of a waterfall that I took on yesterday’s rain hike and hit send. However, the phone goes all glitchie and the message disappears in front of my eyes. I do this two times and give up. Obviously he’s not supposed to get this.

Technology really sucks sometimes. I look at the clock and it is just past 2:30. Still early afternoon. Fuck it! I want to go out and look at the flooding rivers, the fallen branches, the saturated hillside and all waterfalls plastered in wet ferns. Anne said she’d be at her party (I didn’t want to go to) by 4:00. We said we’d meet at the cliff near the bent Cypress overlooking Muir Beach at sunset. I miss her already, so I leave my humble hilltop and head out.

My red car is decorated with bright lime-green lichen and tree-litter, it almost feels like a Christmas holiday. I smell pine needles and wood fires. The roads are slick and wet with pine needles, branches and lichen strewn across the streets like organic confetti from a night-time celebration that instead of parades, marching bands, floats and fanfare contain lightening and thunder, rain and wind, howling and fallen limbs, electrical outages and flooding rivers. I feel like a fucking float and I’m laughing.

As I turn onto Sir Francis Drake there is a young female hitchhiker with a sign that says Inveness. I pull over and throw the trash of cookie wrappers, receipts and small tools on the front seat into the back seat.

“Hi,” she says “I’m going to Point Reyes.” I say, “I can take you close to Inverness. Point Reyes is almost Inverness. Either way, welcome to our center of the universe.”

“Well, thank you. I guess.” she says, closing the door.

She is young, light olive skin, long dark hair with a swath of bleached blonde down her left side and diagonal fuchsia highlights around her ear and shoulder.

“Where you heading in Inverness?” I ask.

“I have some friends there, going to spend a couple of days relaxing and hiking. I’m going to Redwood Street, I think that’s it.”

“Well you got today and tomorrow. Supposed to be more rain on Tuesday,” I say rolling down my window. I can see the Lagunitas Creek. It is a deep chocolate brown and it looks more like a sinuous animal than a translucent bubbling creek

that salmon were spawning just a few weeks ago. It is well below flood stage, but still alive and lethal with the chaos of the water’s natural power. Here on the road we seem safe, but all the same I reach over and put on my seat belt and glance over to make sure her’s is fastened.

“Quite a storm we had last night,” she says.

“Yeah, I live up the hill back there. Storm really came through last night. I just moved in to this great place. Total view into this valley. All I see is trees, not a house. Storm just banged all night on the windows. It was awesome.”

“Oh you’re lucky, that sounds awesome for sure. I’m coming from the east bay. It hit over there pretty hard too. I see you have a BRC sticker on your car.”

“A what sticker?” I’m not sure I heard her.

“BRC, you know Black Rock City, Burning Man. You go to burning man?

“Oh, that BRC sticker, didn’t know I had one of them… yeah I went. Did you go this year?” I ask her.

“Yeah, I did,” she says, “and you?”

“What did you think of the temple this year?” I ask, instead of answering her question.

“It was amazing. I mean from a distance it looked real cool, but when you got close, it was so detailed and intricate, it was insane. Way different than last year. Yeah, I really like this one. Hella cool, way better than last year’s!”

“Yeah, I worked on the temple, part of the temple crew,” I say trying to sound modest.

“Really? What did you do on it?”

“You know, just worked. I’m a friend, hmm, good friends, with the David Best, you know the artist behind the temples. He’s like a family friend, he and his wife Maggie and their daughter Molly. Dave and I’ve done a few projects together.

In fact we’ve got one in Point Reyes, up the road a bit. I’m a part of the temple crew. You know there’s a lot of people who helped on this thing. Some had skills, some didn’t. I was one that had a few skills and was good friends with David.”

I pause for a moment to try to understand where I want to go with this.

There is so much that centers on this fulcrum of information. She understands the relevance of the Temple at Burning Man. I don’t have to explain that part of how

it is the spiritual center of the Playa. Do I talk about why David is a family friend because of his unrelenting support and the memorials for Phoebe on his Sonoma Mountain Home? Do I talk about Phoebe? Do I talk about the indescribable magic of building something this magnificent, this huge? Do I talk about the remarkable people, the touching friendships, the relationships that grow out of something like this?

“I worked on the pre-build up in Windsor. I came out early and helped build it on the playa, and I was one of the people who got to be inside to light it on fire.”

“Wow, that is pretty significant!” she says with a respectful tone in her voice.

“Yeah, I’m a total Burning Man Rock Star.” I say joking and making fun of myself. “My name is Dave, What’s yours?”

“I’m Anastasia, but my playa name is Cypress, friends call me Cypress.” She reaches out her hand.

“Well you can call me Dash then.” We shake with one solid movement.

I drive up to a flagman with a slow sign. He waves and lets a motorcycle pass and I start to follow but he yells at me and turns the sign around to stop.

There is a large tree in the road with just a small area to get around. At the moment there is a large truck pulled up next to it and the road is blocked while workmen are fastening cables to it. The river is exploding on my right and a narrow waterfall is cascading down through the sword ferns on my left. Cypress is not in a hurry. I’m not in a hurry. The man with the stop sign is glaring at me, but it doesn’t bother me in the least.

3 “I lost my daughter 4 years ago,” I realize that that is wrong “4 ½ years ago…” I correct myself. Time marches on. I roll my window down and the water sounds loud and exciting. Sometimes there is no subtle way to bring up the information about the death of my daughter Phoebe. It is just best to say it straight and then fill in the details after I judge where people stand in the world of loss and grief. I look at Cypress for a moment. She is attractive in her own unique way, young and innocent looking but with a worldly look that gives her an incongruous edge. She seems articulate, although in our brief conversation, this is an assumption I am making from other inarticulate signals. “How old are you?” I ask.

“Twenty four.” She says.

“Hmm, Phoebe would be twenty five now.”

“I’m twenty five in a few weeks… Dash… I’m so sorry for your loss,” she says and I can tell she means it.

“Phoebe was twenty when she left us.”

“Wow,” she whispers under her breath.

“There are a lot of reasons to be a part of the temple. The loss of Phoebe was certainly a big part of it. Her loss was catastrophic for sure. A crazy painful world.

Total Helpless and Falling. But I try to tell the story now in a different way. I mean, in one hand there is the helpless and grief and loss but in this other hand…” I’m not driving so I put my two hands out over the steering wheel. “In this other hand, it’s gratitude, appreciation, wonder and magic. Building this temple for me wasn’t about releasing my grief it was about dropping into a magical world surrounded in wonder and gratitude held in this hand. My relationship to the temple was a big

part of what this year’s been about. Big year this 2012!”

I laugh, I am not feeling heavy handed with this. There is a lightness in the conversation that assumes that there is a world that exists that wonder and magic exist and we are all players in it.

“Yes, yes, so true. I was part of a installation this year also. I had some loss, not like yours, but still it shook me up. I was a clothes designer working for a design house in LA at the time and I realized that this job was sucking my life force so I quit and worked with the Opulent Temple camp.”

“I spent a lot of time dancing there! What art piece did you do?”

“I was part of a team, we made these 20 foot towers out of plastic and ribbons. It was amazing to be a part of it. To go out early and be a part of burning man as someone who was creating a piece of it. I loved it. So much more meaningful than just going there to party.

“Yeah, but it doesn’t pay very well,” I jest.

“I was paid pretty well at my LA design job, so I’ve been able to take some time off.”

“2012 was a remarkable year for that kind of thing!”

“No kidding.” She laughs and then holds a big smile. The workers are still trying to do something with the log and chains. It is beyond my interest to what they are doing.

“I swear, it would be exactly a year ago today that I realized that 2012 was going to be a special, uhh auspicious might be a better word, year.”

The road workman walks towards my car holding his caution stop sign and leans towards my window. “It’s going to be a few minutes before you can pass through.” I nod and turn off my engine.

The quiet is engaging without the sound of the engine. It is not a silent quiet. It is a quiet that contains the harmonious relationships of things that flow into sound-- the flooding river roaring across rocks and its shore, the temporary waterfalls cascading down the steep drainages, the tall shadowy redwoods still dripping nuggets of liquid onto the roof of the truck, the sound of breaths, the sound of air, the sound of birds, the sound something intangible that holds the web in the fold of its sound.

“Nice,” I say. Birds somewhere in the trees are calling.

“What a difference.” And we rest in that place for a few minutes.

“I’m not sure what day it is… but I’d bet you it would be a year to this day, a year to this moment when I realized that, that that…” I stutter looking for the right way to launch this thought. “Let me start from the beginning…”

“Sure, take your time.” Cypress looks my way and for a moment our eyes meet. Nothing provocative, just that moment where eyes meet and there is an exchange that says somewhere outside of language that indeed we are part of the same tribe. I see you.

“I lost my daughter 4 ½ years ago, April 14th, 2008. That date grooved into my psyche forever. Solstice is the marking of winter and now April 14 the marking of another gateway to spring. There are no more religious holidays, they’ve all been co-opted by Wallmarts and government decreed vacation days. After this kind of loss the family nostalgia thing can be too fucking hard. But Solstice, that’s something real, that’s the solar calendar, the event of closing and beginning our most relevant cycles. That’s something to celebrate, it’s all we got left really. Funny how solstice is about darkness and spring is about light… but I have the emotional response that is backwards. I embrace going into the darkness as this introspective time, a place to hunker in with my family and loved ones. It’s thick and rich.

Going into the light and the flowers and the new growth is such a reminder of the exceptional pain that can come with irrevocable change. The reminder of how impermanent life is, the young flowers, and new lambs are so cute, so beautiful and then they so quickly…. Are gone. We are here for such a short time-- Geology time. Daughter 20, my dad getting close to 90… hard to say what these years in this bodily form mean. We’re totally dusted in the wind. Hmmm.”

I pause and take a deep breath.

“In 20 years Phoebe was an astounding artist. Prolific in a way that is hard to explain. She was my guide, from birth she showed up like that. I filtered everything through her. How would Phoebe like this? I’d do a color palette for my clothing line and I ask Phoebe when she was three years old… hey what colors do

you like? Guide, Guardian angel, Saint, My own private Jesus—she was all these things. There is something remarkable in that. I mean I’ve felt her presence so strongly, since birth and since her death, sometimes-- dreams, inspirations, signals, signs, some things intangible, some absolutely eye popping unexplainable magic.

But with all that-- I had a realization, like epiphany, that to hold it, even though I kind of thrived on the power and mystery of it, had to change. I didn’t want to let that go, the grief card you carry with you. But I saw something different in the light of this year, 2012. I knew it was a year of release. I saw that by holding onto her as my saint, or guardian angel, as powerful as that was, is a kind of binding the spirit to me. Holding her and…. Holding me, holding me in grief. There was this pivotal moment that I saw it. Her spirit as light as this indeterminable force, or energy or whatever you might say expanding and moving outward, and it was

remarkable and on the other side I saw her again as my daughter, all the phases of her ages, 3 years, 7 years, 10 years, 17 years, 20 years. Ha! It just occurs to me as I say it like that‌ Phoebe has arrived in my dreams in all those ages since that moment!�

I pause with that feeling.

There are goose bumps on my forearms. I know this feeling and although this has been a year of release I welcome the knowledge of presence and the familiar nudge of yes you are moving in the current, bless you dad. Tears well up.

I’m not sure Cypress will notice nor do I care. These are emotions of gratitude, not of grief or loss. This is a gift that I carry with me now-- Helplessness and sorrow one side of my world and wonder, gratitude and appreciation on the other. I know that this is a pertinent, real and healing force.

“ Dash, I lost my grandfather this year,” she says. “He practically raised me.

I’ve had dreams where it seems like he’s come to visit me. I believe that the spirit is a force that comes back to heal us. He was part Native American you know. In that tradition the spirit will stay around to help guide and heal those who are in pain from loss. I believe that. I’ve had a kind of tough few years too. Not like yours, but yeah, this has turned into a real good year for me. Your temple happened to be an important part” “Not my temple. David likes to say we built it for one person. We built it for you! Yeah, definitely something going on. Mayan Calendar, Year of the Dragon, building the temple of Juno, Blue states win the elections, giants win the world series, ha ha lots of stuff happening around these parts.”

The man with the sign waves turns it around from stop to slow and I turn the ignition back on and put the car into gear. The truck moves through the curves with a nice growl and speed. The pine needles on the asphalt silence the road noise so there is a feeling of moving through space in a flying silver metallic capsule. I am liking technology again as we turn through the corners.

“This has been my rock star year though. Ever since that realization it seems like I’ve been receiving one gift after another. Lots of exciting adventures: I rode road bikes across Italy with my brothers, I rode mountain bikes on the Umpquah river trail in Oregon, Road in Moab Utah and 6 supported days on the Colorado Trail, dude that’s 6 days above 11,000 feet-- try running up stairs and then breathing through a straw. I built wooden temples, wrote stories, crafted DNA ladders out of Manzanita. I built alters for Weddings and Memorials.

Spoke Prayers and Marked Ceremonies at events. I wrote stories and crafted books. Then of course there was the Temple of Juno and Burning Man. And now the biggest gift is I’ve finally landed on that hill above where I found you and I have fallen into a deepening and beautiful love with a woman I adore. I feel like I’ve

waited a long time for these things to happen like this.”

“Yo Dash! Well, you must obviously deserve it.”

“Nice of you to say that, thank you very much! Same to you.”

“Well, I’m heading out to Inverness to be with some wonderful people I care about.”

“I’m heading down the coast to meet Anne on a cliff overlooking the ocean.”

“Nice, new love is so magical.”

“Nice you have friends you love in Inverness.”

“We be lucky.”

“Ha, not lucky, no luck on this. When we move in love things happen that just seem right, you know what I mean.”

“Totally Dash.”

4 There is a sign that says flooding ahead. I slow the car down.

“But there are always road blocks, floods and fallen trees that keep you from getting to that other side.”

The water has flowed over the bank of the creek and has flooded about a hundred yards of the road before us. It is hard to tell if it’s passable or not. How deep? The water is still and not moving. It is mucky and brown. We roll to a stop and pause to reconnoiter. I am trying to gauge the situation, but in that brief moment a young buck with a young set of two point antlers steps from the clearing in the woods and slowly walks across the center of the flooding. He is neither warned by our presence nor concerned at the condition of the road. In his world there are no worries here. There is no concern of what food to eat, what road to take, what direction to head, a fear about what lays ahead, or a concern about what he has left behind. He moves across the water in a matter of grace and confidence.

“Wow, that’s fucking cool!”

Cypress pulls out her iphone and pushes a couple of app buttons and takes a photo, she slides her finger and twirls them across the screen like some magical incantation. She holds her camera up and shows me the photo. Her camera has picked up sun light rays coming through the trees that I hadn’t noticed. They look like hard edged translucent fingers. The greens are brighter and the water has swirls that have sharp contrast. The shape of the buck has a shimmer around it that almost looks like an aura. The corners are blurry, the image look like a dream.

“Wow, that’s cool. How you do that?”

“Instagram filters.”

“Filters are good. It’s like proof that there are things going on at all times that are not visible to the naked eye or explainable by human language” “duh.” She laughs.

“Okay, were going through this.” I drive slow and the water is up to the middle of the tires, but we move through slowly and get to the other side. I drive another mile and there is a part of the road that has slid out making it one lane.

There is a stop sign to control traffic. Each car goes by one at a time.

We wait our turn.

“I heard this the other night. This story teller Michael Meade, he works with traditional stories and myths. He was talking about the why the world is not going to end. You know, the Mayan calendar and all that.”

“Well Dash, we only have a few days to find out.” Cypress says laughing.

“Ha ha, yeah.” I say. “So he said a few things that I really like. We arrive on this road here and we leave from this road here. In the mean-time, there are three areas to it. In the first area its like our life in this car, we drive around, we go to work, we go to our home, we raise our family, we eat our food, we have birthdays and weddings. We fall in love and have babies. It’s this daily life thing. Not a bad place, but if that is all there is, if we only have that area functioning in our life it gets pretty unsatisfying. So there is this other place and it’s in the third area. It’s like you and I are traveling on this road to get there now. I’m traveling to see love on a cliff at sunset and you’re traveling to find friendship and walk in nature. It’s that place that love brings, that walking in the woods creates, that meditation and yoga inspire, riding my bike down a steep rocky trail, watching sunrise at burning man, even playing a perfect game of golf. It is that experience of indefinable spirit, an openness of mind and body, of transformational moments where your body comes alive with an electric buzz of optimistic expectations, confidence and connection. It’s that moment where the world no longer feels isolating and threatening but alive, interconnected and part of spirit that is larger than all of pieces in that first area. Its that place that contains all the spirits and animals and gods, and elements of the universe, something huge and luminescent.” I’m a bit excited.

Recently words flow much more smoothly and I can see the light at the end of the tunnel as I speak a sentence. This has been a long journey-- This road of grief. But there is an element that has deepened with my connection to understanding from the heart and bones. Sometimes it comes out like a giant runon sentence. There’s a thin line between words that get lost in narcissistic love of the sound of your own voice or the careful tracking of your words that emerge from a meaningful place and experience. I’m leaning up against the sound of my own voice by rephrasing a poet, but I can tell she gets my meaning.

“That’s beautiful! But what about that second area. You forgot that one.”

“Layer two is this landslide, it’s that flooding, it’s that log in the middle of the road. All a person really wants is to get from the first area to the third area, but then surprise there is this second place that’s filled with obstructions-- fear and anger caused by a society that conditions people to live in boxes they can’t afford, it’s an archaic political system that has no communication, it’s the War on Wallstreet with an out of balance economy and our 2% ownership, it’s our tenuous environment trampled by shortsighted needs, it’s Hurricane Sandy, Melting Glaciers, breast cancer, genetically modified food, its losing your job, losing your grandfather, losing your daughter, losing your way. Life has this way like this brown river to just flow between the areas making it seem impossible to get to the other side. It’s like we’re living on a lonely island. Sometimes, we find a secret crack, a small boat and we cross over, we land on the other side and we feel the blessings it offers. But it doesn’t last. Impermanence and change are universal, a force and a fact. You can never cross the same way twice. Here’s the deal-- It’s what’s making this year so remarkable, for me at least, the path to the other side is getting easier to find, more small boats, more cracks and rock climbers with knowledge of the moves. On the other hand the things that are obstacles are more and more evasive, insidious and destructive. But they are becoming obvious. They are being acknowledged as obsolete. That’s what the Mayan calendar was saying.

It’s not the end of the world, it’s the end of a system. The end of a system that has manifested it’s own destiny of careless destruction by imploding within itself. It’s not like the world just fucking ends. Change happens in sequences and patterns not in linear page turns. The environment is not on the verge of collapse it’s on the verge of change. Everything is looked at so literal in our society. Black and White rules with talking heads proclaiming and promoting these fucking fear based hysterias. Is the world going to end? Are we all going to die? Well yes we are. But is it hail and brimstone, Nuclear war, Melting ice caps, or the God Damn Mayan Calendar and its the fucking the end of the world? No it’s this system of a reality based on these discordant elements moving through the effluent river in the second area.

“Fuck, I’m ranting. Way too much coffee. Sorry about that.”

“No, no. Dash, I totally see it like that. It’s the fears we get layered with that are the real damage. It keeps us from action. It keeps us from being the real person we truly are, well I can say it better than that, meaningful, solid, truthful….

It’s like the difference when someone asks you how you’re doing. If you’re stuck in first area, your answer will be yeah, dude I’m good, all good, but if you land in layer three, you’re like great, man, fucking great.”

We both laugh.

“Get stuck in that place in the middle and man, that’s really fucked up,” she adds.

“You know, it’s like we are teetering at the fulcrum of a huge moment, it’s kind of graphic right now, with all the talk about the end of the world, the things that happened after the blue states won the election, the gut wrenching tragedy in Connecticut, my god 20 children….” I say that and loose my train of thought. Deep Breath.

“We have to be people of action. Even if it’s just buying organic non GMO food and making healthy snacks for your friends. Everyone has got to start somewhere and get through this part.

“Hey Cypress, I have to get gas in Point Reyes. It is just a few minutes out of your way. If I get gas I can take you to where you’re going in Inverness. Do you have time for that?

“I’m hitchhiking. I only have time. You will have to let me give you money for gas though.”

“No that’s cool.”

“You’re sure? I’d like to.”

“No worries.”

5

I pull up to the Point Reyes Gas Station, say hello to the old grizzled grey haired guy behind the counter, drop some cash down and grimace at the $5.25 a gallon price.

“I’ve got my little theory about how you check in about the levels of great, good, and it sucks!” I say as I watch the gallons and dollars revolve around like a rigged Nevada slot machine.

“Oh sure, I bet you do!” she laughs.

“Well that’s the problem of landing in a stranger’s car. You never know what kind of weird people you might meet on your journey.”

“Well that’s the chance you take when you move out of trust and not out of fear. Yeah, but when I saw your Burning Man and Give Bees a Chance sticker, I figured you’d be an interesting guy. I’m pretty lucky on how good things find me.”

“No luck in this world… You know it’s like I say to my kids, The universe provides but you have to do a little nudging. Doors will open, but you have to give them a little nudge before they open for you. That’s not luck.”

“Yeah, I’m pretty good at nudging.”

I put about $25.00 of gas in the tank. The old man behind the counter gives me a wave of his hand. I wave back, open the door of my truck and climb in. “I’d like to show you something, if you don’t mind.”

“Sure,” she says without hesitation. And we drive a few blocks around the Cowgirl Creamery and pull up to a vacant lot across from the Point Reyes Community Center.

“Here it is.”

We walk towards Our Lady of the Harbor. She sits in a field across from the Point Reye’s Dance Palace. There are some things that are just bigger than the sum of their parts. This art piece has certainly had that affect. It is the Virgin Mary inside an old boat that we reclaimed from the Inverness yacht club. It is stood up on it’s end and emerging out of some faux boulders. There are benches around her. There are names of children who have left our planet far too early inscribed on them. I point to one.

“There’s Phoebe’s name,” I say. “We made this for the family’s that have lost children.” The virgin is standing, emerging from the rocks.

There is debris, spilled oil and dead fish around her feet yet she casts a

benevolent gaze upward. There is a Star of David above her head. There is a community garden behind her. In the spring there are wildflowers that grow along the fence. Even though she is the most beloved catholic saint, there is a feeling here that she is larger than a religious icon but something universal.

“Dash, she’s beautiful.”

I sit on the bench. The sun is shining and it feels good to have the heat on my back. Cypress sits next to me.

“I made this with David Best. It was supposed to be temporary installation, but the community put up enough money to purchase it for permanent. She nudged a lot of doors for me.”

“Yeah, I can imagine.”

We sit in silence with a space that if filled by the contrast of colors between vivid grass and brilliant sky, the contrast between gardens and boat, virgin and rocks, spilled oil and bent flowers, miraculous beauty and the tragic young names carved into the benches, two people who don’t know the other but are sitting in comfortable silence. I say a silent prayer in my head, it just falls in my lap.

Holding silence like holding water, like holding the elegant patterns of leaves and bird wings in flight, that sacred moment as a drop of dew is balanced before it drops onto the grass. Thank you to all who can share this place with me.

“You know the fall from grace is a powerful experience,” I say.

Pause, I’m not sure where I want to go with this thought. My life has been a long road. A kind of spiritual journey. I’ve always felt that, but life has a way of taking you on many circuitous routes along the way. Some not so spiritual, some not so significant. But these last four years have been extreme. Losing a daughter is not a place that you can hide and you either lose yourself completely or you step into a new world and you look at it in a way that is full of something intangible. Something that is filled with spirit. With a deep breath I take this moment in. The story behind the creation of the art piece, the edible garden, the 10 yards of donated Pt Reyes organic compost I brought in to sheet mulch for wildflowers, the organic agriculture and livestock in the hills in front of me. the pristine

nature and habitat breathing and growing in the hills and coast behind me. This small west Marin town that calls their community center the dance palace… I was right to call it the center of the universe. The healing is starting here. I am next to a young person who is traveling and seeing a world in many ways for the first time.

I am seeing the world again for the first time. Each blade of grass, each ray of light bouncing off the tip of this boat. Each cloud moving across the blue sky. Each bird flying and soaring over my shoulder. All this I feel like it is the first time.

I am humbled and I realize the more I know the less I understand. I am grateful for this humility. Dash is 57, Cypress is 24. At this moment we are feeling and acknowledging the same things. My trip just a bit longer and circuitous than hers.

“You know there is this list, it is the list that the world is so afraid of…”

I begin speaking again. I’m saying this not to her, not to me, but to this place I am sitting in. I would not call this a prayer, but an acknowledgement. The muse comes in many forms. Perhaps she is sitting next to me. Perhaps it is this virgin looking out towards me. Perhaps it’s the man I made this with, Perhaps it is a woman waiting for me on a cliff overlooking the horizon, Perhaps it’s my daughter, perhaps it was my breakfast…. The world moves like a river and at this moment the flow is easy for me to follow. I feel strong and healthy, alive and well.

I feel full of confidence that moves with humility. I feel quiet and still. These are good things.

“I lost my daughter, my wife had an affair with a man in HI and lied to me and the kids for 6 months, I left my home, I had huge IRS debts and no savings, I had no work, no money, my stomach became wrapped in a knot and I felt like I had the flue for months. I left the house with nothing, no money, no stuff, no health. I sold my bikes and bought a small sailboat that a friend help me purchase. Loss of daughter, loss of family, loss of home, loss of financial security, loss of health— that is a list people go to war to protect themselves from ever getting close to. It’s the basis for all fear. In some ways I could feel sorry for myself, wave that list around, grieving dad cuckold husband broken business snotty nose—martyr me, not my fault, boo hoo, please feel sorry for me. It’s like one step away from being homeless or landing on the psych-ward. When you get to that point, something

happens. At least for me. I knew I wasn’t going to stay in that place. I heard the universe say—‘Pay attention Dave, watch the world from here, release your fear.

This challenge is your gift.’ It’s that place where all the things you hold close to you have been stripped away and you are lying on your back on the floor naked and you are asking God or who ever will listen to bail you out. But then you stop asking and you just pay attention. You look up at your table, the one you have eaten on for so long and took for granted. Suddenly you’re seeing it from this new angle. You’re on the floor looking up. You see how the legs are attached. You see how the wood is laminated together. You see a stamp that says where it was made and who made it. You see the story and it’s complexity, it’s beauty. You drive down the road and you see the world moving at a different pace and all the signs and sounds asking for your business and your attention and they all are pieced together in this abstract way that you see differently. You are not in that crazy river, that second area of insanity. You’re over here in this field, on your knees, staring at a blade of grass. Ha… just thought of this…”

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field.

I’ll meet you there.

“Rumi right?” Cypress states.

“Nice. Perfect you know that.”

“One of my favorite poets, for sure. Living in a boat sounds nice though.

I’ve always wanted to live in a boat.”

“She was like a cocoon, held in this hand and rocked like a baby. It has its moments, it does have its romantic charm. I wanted the kids to not see their dad living in some kind of flea infested apartment, a friends couch or whatever. You’d be surprised how many people say they always wanted to live in a boat. That dreamy notion of sailing into the horizon. When the shit hits the fan it’s just me and the ocean baby. But they’re stinky, small and you got to shit in a bag and carry it out each morning.”

“Ugh!” she says.

“Well, you get used to anything.” I say. “It wasn’t that bad for me really. I

asked one of my successful brother for help. He’s like ‘brother’s don’t lend brother’s money for rent. You’re one of the most creative guys I know, you want me to invest in an idea… lets talk.

I’ll loan you money for a fishing pole and you go out and catch fish. In the mean time I like use my credit card for huge amounts and I have a lot of gift cards… I’ll send you some of those.

“The next week I get an envelope in the mail and it’s has like $800 worth of Whole Food gift cards. My other brother sends me an iphone and pays for the service. It’s like I’m poor and devastated but I have all this great healthy food and a bottle of wine to live on. Even at the low points you can be grateful. I visited my friends David and Maggie on the hill and David and I talked and we decided to build this piece in front of you. It changed a lot of people’s lives. It changed mine.

“It’s something special, for sure.”

“The Divorce came final in May and my wife isn’t a bad person, grief has this way of separating our selves from our selves, she needed her own way to escape and find herself. I don’t blame her. We’re all finding healing. The kids are finding theirs and finding me again in their own way. Learning how to make relationship with a dad or step dad that is meaningful. Work has picked up, since then I’ve had three major and wonderful and profitable projects, all over $130,000. Great Clients, beautiful homes with views of water, and all projects I’m incredibly proud of. I’ve had time to travel and explore the world with my brothers, my lovers and my friends. I bought a new mountain bike that has changed how I navigate my landscape, build the temple, art projects, writing stories, great health, great friends, great loves…. I have had this amazing year with so many gifts. And with all that, I’ve landed in a magical home on a mountaintop and I’m in relationship with beautiful woman who loves me deeply, who sees me for who I am, and who I want to be. There is a lot of love here. But… I feel it all started when I said this is the year I release the spirit of my daughter Phoebe.”

“That’s big stuff,” she sighs deeply. “I’m feeling….”

The word emotional falls under her breath. I can see her eyes dampen in the corners. She doesn’t wipe them. A small thin shining line runs down her cheek. She is smiling.

6 “People were really concerned about me for a long time. How you doing Dave? You know so often you get asked that question. What’s up, how you doing?

Most times you just say Good so you don’t have to engage. Sometimes you mutter okay, not bad. Maybe on an occasion you blurt out, Fucking Great dude! Really it’s just easies to ignore the question. Then sometimes it’s asked in a different way… where someone looks directly into your eyes and says squarely right to your heart, ‘Hey Dave, how are you really doing man?’ I am a fortunate man as I have family, dear friends and a group of elders who can ask it like that. I started asking my self this question. ‘Hey Self, what’s going on, how are you doing?’ When I had that place where I understood the thin veil between psychic homelessness and the extraordinary bounty of gifts-- I had this small revelation about how this works in my life. My own personal little tracking mechanism” “Hmmm do tell, sounds intriguing. Is it like some dark secret or are you free to explain the sorcerers magic?”

“Sorry, I could tell you the secret of Dash’s Three over Three Secrets for Living Right but then I’d have to drop you off in Nevada or something….”

We both laugh.

“Kind of simple really, It has three parts and each part has three areas inside it. If all three of these things are working-- man you say, Great! If only two are working you say, good, okay. If all three are out of whack you just sort of bow you’re head and say could be better. Without a safety net, loose all three and things can turn… suicidal, homeless or psychic breakdown.”

“Alright, you got me hooked now… what are these three things?”

“Okay, but first I have a disclaimer. It is easiest if I tell you it like a list rather than a story. But a reflecting on a list is compartmentalizing a thought. It’s an easy way to describe something. Like that Michael Meade thing…. Easy to describe the three areas, or levels or phases, or what have you but the world doesn’t move like that. There are tenbilliontrillionsquared levels and infinite phases within all these things. We want to put every thing in a box so it’s easy to package and understand. But that just shuts the process down. The universe can’t expand. Life goes into the second layer. The Mayan Calendar of destruction is misconstrued.

No! We live in a web not a system of layers!

“Okay, okay, I get it. Put a box around it and it’s no longer real, we 20 somethings get that, it’s you old farts that are into making the box thing. I get it.

So please go on. You may continue Dash” “Okay this is just for me. This works for me. I’m not saying it works for you.”

“Dude you’re killing me, I’m all ears.” She is laughing.

“Okay, okay, sorry,” I say in a small kid voice. “First one is Prosperity.

That is how are you making it in this world, how are you allowing the universe to provide. Like I said there are three parts to what makes prosperity. So obviously, there is your vocation. How is my work? Am I profitable and sustainable? Second is my creativity engaged? What work am I doing that is sustaining the creative fire in my belly? Third is service. What work am I doing that gives something back, something to my community, my environment or the children, elders or animals who are living here?”

“I like that, our work, our art our service to the community. Prosperity is a good word. Not about success based on money and things, but prosperity based on

the abundance of your life, the richness within it,” she says.

“Nice. Yeah, It can be tricky. It’s surprising how difficult life is when you don’t have enough money to pay for your rent or afford to buy healthy food.”

“Balance act for sure. So number two?”

“Relationships, how are your relationships?”

“Hmmm, yeah that’s a big one for sure.”

“I actually believe that relationships are our biggest teachers. They make you confront your biggest fears. They are instant triggers to our deepest scars” “Yeah, Definitely challenge your communication skills and hit all the buttons. So what are the three areas in relationships?”

First one is you’re deep intimate love. How is the love between you and your partner, your boyfriend, girlfriend, wife, husband? How is that wonderful passionate, sexual, love of the heart and soul of another human being? How’s the passion, the communication, the commitment? Second, there is family. How is the relationship between your inner circle of biological family and the ones that are your closest friends that you hold so dearly in their thoughts? Are they healthy?

Are they speaking to you, are they close or are they far? Third is that outer layer of people, the folks you come in contact in your daily travels. Those you work with or work for, and clients, employees, truck drivers, waitresses, teachers, fellow travelers, bike riders, hikers.” “hitchhikers too?”

“Ha ha… yeah. That too.

“The third area is Health. Physical Health, Mental Health and Spiritual Health. Kind of a Body, Mind and Spirit check in. Physical, I check in on how is my immune system and stamina doing. I ride a bike and that is a huge deal for me.

How strong and resilient is my body. How is my diet, my weight, my aches and pains, how is my body doing? Mental Health is how am I feeling, am I happy, sad, depressed, exuberant, social, isolated? Spiritual Health is a bit more vague really.

I can only really say this for myself how it works for me. I ask myself how is my faith, how is my relationship to the unexplainable, the vast web of intricate layers, my sense of the Great Spirit’s hand on my shoulder as I move through this planet.

And privately, I ask about Phoebe and I tell her I miss her.”

When I say I miss her, I feel a tingle over my body, the hair stands up on my arms and I get caught in a flood of emotion. I am not expecting it as my eyes open with tears clinging to their edges and my breathing becomes syncopated and deep. My chest opens to the moment and I quietly release a small sob. My hands rest on my knees. Cypress gently pats my left hand. So often people think that crying is a form of pain, the manifestation of deep sadness, but truly, if you go into it deeper than that it is an overwhelming emotion of gratitude, sadness is there, it’s always there, but that just deepens the love, it becomes a flooding of astounding, unimaginable appreciation, our frail human bodies have no choice to understand so we release. It’s a beautiful thing. Never tell a grieving person no no honey, don’t cry.

“No it’s fine.” I delicately move my hand. “You know I am so thankful when this happens. These are tears of gratitude. I feel her presence, I feel so much love.

Of course I miss her, but the tears are this overwhelming mix of emotions. I am so humbled by it all.”

“That’s kind of the key isn’t it? You know humility. You have all these things you check on but if you’re arrogant about it, some kind of ego competitive look at me thing. It’s kind of a ridiculous system you’ve made. But I can see this from your perspective and it’s rather beautiful. Thank you Dash for sharing so much, about your daughter and bringing me to this special place.”

“That’s very sweet,” I say. She squeezes my hand again and lets go.

“We should move on,” I say.

“Sure,” she says.

7 We begin to drive around south edge of Tomales Bay and head towards Inverness. We are driving in a comfortable silence.

“So Cypress how’s your 2012 been? How you be feelin’ heading into the dark corner.”

“Well, I’m feeling incredibly blessed actually. Oh lets see… My prosperity is doing good, not great. I’ve just taken a break from working for my family up in Willits so cash is good, I’m heading right now to meet some people I adore and love and we’re planning next year’s art project, although the relationship thing is complicated, me and my old-lady are taking a break at the moment, we both are sort of spreading our wings, but it’s all very sweet and full of love, so that’s right there on good. I feel incredibly healthy and alive… Yeah, dude I’m fucking great!

Probably make a fire on the beach for solstice with some friends. How about you Dash, how’s your 2012 been?”

There is a group of bike riders on the road. I recognize some of the jerseys as friends I ride with. I give my horn a friendly honk and they recognize the red truck and wave back as they keep their heads down and pedal in a tight single file line. It is not a day for most people to ride but here are my die-hard bike friends spinning through the long shadows of a wet late autumn afternoon returning home from climbing Mount Vision in Point Reyes.

“I meant to ask you, do you have other kids?” “ I have two step kids, Max and Jordan, I raised since they were wee little ones and a son, phoebe’s brother, Henry. Max and Henry are both 21 and Jordan is your age, 24. Jordan and Phoebe were like sister best friends. Jordan lives in Brooklyn, in love with a DJ/actor or something, she’s always vague, and is interning editing and reviewing scripts for a film & TV production company, Max is going to school in Santa Cruz and is into rock climbing, guitar and geology, Henry is off on his romantic/life adventure in Amsterdam. They’re all spreading their wings and finding their way. Sometimes a bit of a rocky path, but still, all healthy and open. Nothing is easy being in your early twenties, but then on the

other hand the adventure of life is there for the taking and mishaps are just part of the journey and just open other doors. They struggle, but they’re thriving. Who doesn’t though?”

“I’ve always felt in my life when one door closes another door opens.”

Cypress says. “It’s a labyrinth, but intricate and exciting. It’s not easy walking into the unknown. This is kind of a scary place,” she pauses. “I’m not sure what I want to do with myself. I had a good job, paid well as a clothes designer, but it was sucking the life out of me. I want to do my own designs. I’m not trying to let it get me down, something will happen.”

“Clothes design can suck the juice out of the marrow. I know it well. I had a clothing company for 19 years. Man that seems like a long time ago. I’ve reinvented myself several times since then. I know what that’s about. Reinvention is a solid thing to know, pay attention to that. It’s not like starting over, or going back to go.”

“So what do you do now then? “ “I’m a landscape contractor, design and build gardens for people. I actually like it a lot, work outside, speak Spanish, design habitats and installations, dirty fingernails. I’m fortunate to be able to work in an area like this. Lots of inspiration and good clients.”

“I love gardening and plants, I could definitely go the route, for now I’m just sort of moving in a current that seems to push me to one beautiful place to the next.

I just need to focus on my art. Make a commitment to something see where it goes.

I’m ready for that.”

“One of my greatest thrills this year was watching my son Henry. School wasn’t really working for him. School is good for some, not so good for others. He comes to his mother and me and says he wants to take time off from school and instead do an art show. I’m nervous, I mean, I like the idea of a college education, kind have always pushed that, I know that if he quits it’s unlikely he goes back.

I think of college as not a way to get a job, but a way to learn how to think and creatively see the world so that you can understand how to make your job. He’s a great kid, but he can get spacey and lack the fortitude to follow something all the way through.”

“Like every 21 year old I’ve ever met.”

“Well yeah, He’s twenty when he decides to quit and do his art show. When Phoebe was that age she already had a couple of art shows and was on her way as an artist. He love’s the old renaissance painters and can stare at these paintings for hours and talk to me about their use of light. ‘I love the light dad, I love the contrast, see how it is so subtly defined with the dark shading here…’ He has that rare gift to be able to paint what he sees. But you have to understand, Phoebe’s shadow in some ways is too big, inspiring yes, but it’s complex and different for a sibling-- it’s like, wow, how do I live up to this image. She’s bigger than life.

It’s not true of course, but still there is an understated but high expectation that comes with this. As a dad, I’m nervous that failure could really be a disheartening disaster. But you don’t say no, at least we don’t. Follow your dreams I say. But then Henry decides he’s not creating paintings or illustrations, he wants to do wood carving and furthermore he wants to do mechanical sculptures that have movement. It’s like he wants to reinvent himself, or discover something within him that’s is his own. If he paints (which is easy for him) he’s down a path already taken by his sister, and even other artists for that matter. Here he wants something that is all his own. It’s early December when we’re talking about it. He’s 20 years old. He makes a declaration, ‘I want my show on my birthday, for my 21st birthday I want to do a solo art show!’”

“Wow that’s great. Brave even. How’d he do, I mean how was the show.”

“Fucking home run. But it wasn’t easy…. He has to teach himself wood carving, find tools, what kind of wood to use, then he has to figure out how to animate the sculptures using cranks and gears and pulleys and strings and levers, oh my god it was insane. He’d make a complete mock up out of cardboard and it would take him weeks. And if he didn’t like it he’d start over. I’m like over here in the corner looking at my watch. May 15th deadline dude. But somehow he figures it out and get’s into this flow of his work. He has this house behind his mom’s that he turns into a studio. It was like a haven for his friends to hang out, total slacker world, you know usually just filled with beer cans, empty bottles, stale burritos, cigarette butts on coke cans and roaches…. But now its like filled with wood and art tools and wood tools, sketches and mock-ups and pieces of metal. He’s working into the night hunched over a light with a small tool or some sandpaper. He’s in this rare world.

He says, ‘Dad, I hate leaving my studio, leaving my work, the world seems so stale and desperate out there, it depresses me.’

I respond with, ‘I know, one of the most beautiful things in the world is to be isolated into you’re creativity to see the world through the vision of you’re creations. That is the authenticity, the self absorption, the narcissism, that makes an artist….’”

I pause for a moment. I pull up in front of a store called Spirit Matters. The outside area is made with driftwood, whalebones, abalone shells, stones and shells, there are shelves of Buddhas and spiritual sculptures for sale outside, inside is a soft lit store with more items, totems, icons, books, candles, ceremonial elements.

“I need to go inside this store for a second I have a friend I have to talk to for a moment. You’ll like this place.”

“Sure, why stop now?”

8 Cypress passes by a line of wood carvings and concrete castings. “Wow this place is amazing. Aren’t they worried that people might steal these things when they’re closed?”

“I guess people around here respect property. It fits in with the surroundings.

You sell sacred, you believe sacred. Spirit has it’s own rules of protection. I don’t ever lock my door. If you believe in spirit and love, then you manifest spirit and love. Think fear and doubt… then you better put these things away at night.

Might only last a week then. Besides I know these people, they have some good help.” We walk inside. Cypress looks like a little kid in a candy store, picking up feathers and paintings.

She whispers, “It feels like a temple with a cash register in here.”

I pick up some Palo Santo and a bottle of Aqua Florida. I give my friend Said (pronounced Saheed) an embrace and tell him about the double vision mountain bike ride I’m planning . We make a plan and I pay for my things. On the way out the door there are two driftwood chairs with the last rays of the afternoon light hitting them like a spotlight. We both sit in the chairs in a unanimous silent decision.

I am feeling that this day is unfolding, unrolling, in a way that has merit and meaning. Surrounded by these spiritual icons only adds to the obvious aspects.

My life seems to have taken the aspect of a road trip with nothing but signals and symbols that are constantly crossing its path, pointing the way. I wonder if it is part of the remarkable nature of this particular timing in my life or has it always been this way and I’ve just been too jaded to notice. Either way, the two chairs are the only place with a bath of light, an obvious place to continue. I’m noticing in a silent non-verbal appreciation.

“What about Henry,” Cypress interrupts my thoughts. “How was the show?”

“I called it Henry’s bar mitzvah-art show. It became his own self-imposed rites of passage. It was one of the most beautiful things… as a father to watch, to participate, in…. There was a point when he began to see it, no more like feel it, as a personal journey and it became imperative for him to release Phoebe’s shadow. He never said it this way. For him it was different. But it surprised me how direct he became about it. You know, we had our understanding that this was an important year, like there was an opening here to release her. I thought of it in a ceremonial way, but he added the aspect of its time to let her ashes go. His mom is not of the same mind here…. For her this journey of grief has been long and arduous. She has been overcome with exhaustion. It’s so hard on her. She has the ashes in a room and won’t let them go. Henry sees that it is time and that this ceremony of release needs to include releasing his sister’s ashes. I know how this is going to go. His mom is non-relenting to this subject, her fear, her grief, her love, her despair, her maternal wiring, will not allow this part of Phoebe to be taken from her. But we make a time for the three of us to sit together. I’m looking around Henry’s studio. I haven’t been there for a while and I’m shocked at some of the creations that he has made—a hand with a stigmata whose long fingers wave at you when your turn a wheel made out of Manzanita; a pair of teeth that make a loud clanking noise as you turn a handle made from an old rusted gate valve; a carved aqua blue head squished into a rectangular box that has a centipede crawling out of it’s nose and when you turn the handle it wiggles back and forth, there are cardboard boxes with plastic gears, there are half shaped heads of dogs and people and fish and chickens scattered around on shelves and tables. It’s the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen. It’s like that fucking Hugo movie.

“I mindlessly pick up a small box with a pair of teeth that chomp and some things I had assumed were fastened to it fall on the floor which I hurriedly gather up and replace.

‘Where’s the triangle dad?’

‘What triangle?’

“The triangle that was right here.”

‘I don’t remember a triangle.’

‘It was here.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Of course I’m sure. It’s an important piece.’

‘It must be here, shit. We can find it’ “We all get on our hands and knees looking between the dust bunnies and sawdust. The three of us are on our hands and knees looking for the triangle.

We look, we sweep, we look again, we sweep again, but we never find it. We look on our hands and knees the fruitless search is frustrating but it’s easier than the conversation that needs to take place. Finally we all sit and face each other, frustrated, tired and confused.

“Mom on the couch, Henry on a small stool, I’m sitting on a wooden chair. Henry leans forward hands on knees and starts to speak to his mother with a focused stare. I know I need to be silent. Speaking here would make this a two against one and that would end badly. This is between them. As a father I’ve watched my son move through so many phases, some growing pains, some miraculous moments of inspiration. He is claiming something as he leans forward begins to speak. I feel like his sister is in the room listening. Henry is speaking but I am having a hard time concentrating on his words. Language is only part of the communication that is strung between the dance between son and mother, the son asking for something he needs for his freedom the mother reluctant to be able to release what he is asking.

‘Mom, I need this.’

‘I’m sorry I can’t.’

‘It is important to me.’

‘I know, I know’ ‘I’m 20, I’m the same age phoebe was when she died.’

Mom is in tears Henry eyes are red and glassy, soon he will be in tears “I know I know,” she says “Mom I need to release Phoebe before I am older than she was before she died!”

“When Henry says this I instantly heave in my chest and feel the flood of emotions that are pounding through the room. Until this moment I had not understood the depth of his commitment or the way the story was unfolding for him. This room full of his art, his creations, his stuff, his young life, such chaos from the outside, but in this moment I am in awe that his language is coming from such a clear place and somehow the artistic chaos in the room is tied together with a thousand strings and the knots are clean and clear. The triangle is not in the room. It is lost. Henry knows it, I know it. Mom is in such pain, tears roll down her cheeks. She does not have the words to explain the feeling in her bones. I am thinking Henry will back off, stand away from fear of the emotional outburst that is set on this tenuous precipice. But he is clear and determined to say his piece. The dad is silently watching. The mother is painfully listening.

‘I need to release Phoebe. Her ashes are the physical form of her life on this planet. It is time to let the ashes go mom. This is important to me.’

‘I’m the mother, I’m the mother, you don’t understand what it is for me. I can’t let the ashes go. I can’t.’

‘You’re being selfish, Phoebe would not want this, she would not want you holding onto to her like this, she would not want to be ashes set on a shelf. She would not want it like this.’

‘Henry! I’m the mother you don’t understand. I’d do anything for you. I’d jump in front of a speeding bullet without a thought for you. But I can’t do this! I can’t I can’t I can’t! I can’t let her go. I’m not ready. I’m not ready. I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready, but I’m not ready now. Don’t ask me anymore. I can’t stand this.’

She stands up sobbing as if she is going to bolt out of the room.

I finally speak up and convince her to stay. Henry’s moment has passed. He has said what he needed to say. Mom has made her claim. The air in the room has been released. I am back in my chair. The room has softened as if a cloud has moved across the sky and filtered sunlight beams through the windows and the room feels bigger. Mom adds in a whisper.

‘If, if, if I was ever to let her go, I’ve thought maybe, maybe this tree in Point Reyes where we put David Becker.’

I know this tree. I was there. Our first friend to die of AIDs, so long ago now.

‘Great, great… you and Henry take a walk to that tree…. Maybe after the new year you guys can go out there together….’

I stop speaking. This is one of those stories for me that hold so much meaning. But I’m sure it is way too personal for someone else to find interesting.

I feel a bit uncomfortable after I finish telling it. I have been indulgent with the sound of my own voice again. The light has suddenly turned to shade, I stand up to go. I look at Cypress and she seems lost in thought.

“So Dash, what happened?” She blurts out. “Did they find the tree, did Henry get his wish?” She says looking up at me.

We stand in front of a line of Buddhas.

“Ironically, the oak tree had died and fallen over. Kind of back to square one. But in a way it didn’t matter.”

We start to walk now and I’m talking as we cross the street.

“My fatherly moment was after that conversation in the room, I stayed after with Hen. I was such a proud father at that moment. I felt I had witnessed a transformational moment, rites of passage. I let the moment settle. It was getting close to the deadline of Henry’s show and I had volunteered to help him, sand, cut, carve, paint, whatever he needed to get his pieces ready. Late into the night, he is working against his self-imposed deadline. He is so handsome and proud. He hasn’t wanted me helping or being parental with advice. He wants to do it on his own. I have held my tongue and with as much parental reserve as I can muster have kept my distance. But then he asks, Dad I could use some help and we are drinking beer and working together into the early hours of morning.

“The world shapes shift into a workshop of ideas. We are talking and laughing. I ask his permission to talk about the triangle day. He reluctantly agrees, but can tell he is open to hear what I have to say. He is listening.

‘Henry I am so proud of how clearly you spoke to your mother. It’s so difficult to speak clearly about complex emotions, things that swirl around our belly like butterflies and winter winds. It’s so difficult to put words to things. And then in the face of something where you know the conversation will be painful. To face that, takes a certain kind of courage. It is an art that only a few people can do well. Seriously. You spoke your truth. Sounds woo woo, sorry, all I want to say, is that you may get or not get what you asked for. Sometimes there is no changing that. But you said what you needed to say, and you said it from your heart and you said it clearly. That is the key, that is a gift. That is your release, that is you’re moment. I saw something powerful and amazing. I’m not sure I could have done that. So proud of you hijo.’

“Henry is sanding a carved head. He barely looks up.

‘Thanks Dad.’ ‘You never did find that triangle did you?’

‘Well, actually I just found a different triangle and I like it better.’

“We look at each other. I know it’s himself he’s found. I say nothing and we both hold each other eyes. Sometimes the best thing in the world is when you see someone clearly and they see you and in that moment you both are. It is that simple.”

“Dash, there are moments when being a Dad must be a good thing.”

“Yes, there are those moments.”

9

turns.

We are driving through Inverness, the road is wet and shiny as it twists and

“Things have worked out well from all this for Henry. He goes to Burning man leaves me a note: ‘Dad found Belgium love, leaving now. Can you bring my bike home?’

I call him, ‘hey Hijo, what’s Belgium love? You find a waffle on 3:30 and G?” “Met a girl from Belgium dad. She’s like the nicest person I ever met. She lives in Amsterdam.”

“So you going to Amsterdam?”

“Thinking about it.”

“What does she say?”

“She says she loves me and is willing to pay half my ticket.”

“Ha, go go! But don’t let her pay half your ticket. Let me do that!”

“Oh my god” she says laughing. “that is so fucking beautiful. You and Henry both fell in love at burning man. You both are on these beautiful adventures.

“What about mom, how’s she doing?”

“You know, it’s hard to say. She holds Phoebe so tightly. There is something about holding a spirit too close. A binding. She’s so tired now, kind of depressed. She’s something special and I admire her, and she sits like a bodesatvah at the gate of our daughter’s door. But I’m not sure if she would even call it healthy. It is a bit of a place to reflect on how grief can move in different directions.”

“Oh Oh directions, I forgot, Turn back there,” Cypress says pointing to a sign we pass that says Redwood Lane.

“That orange van is our burning man art car.”

I turn the car around and park in the driveway. She gather’s her stuff.

We lean towards each other and give a hug and light pats on the back. She puts my name and info into her iphone.

“I’ll friend you on Facebook!” she says.

“Yeah, for sure.”

We have talked for an hour or so and there is a friendship that somehow appears. It may be we cross paths again, it may be we go on. The trajectory of lives grow another ring on the tree of our experience. We take this onward.

“Thank you,” she says.

I nod my head yes “Yeah.”

“Hope we see each other again.”

“I’m sure we will.”

She walks out and heads up the path. She doesn’t turn around and skips towards the house. She reminds me of the deer we saw earlier, so easily going her way, not a fear to where she’s going not a care about where she’s been.

I pull out of the drive way and drive down the coast towards my appointment with the sunset.

10 I am alone in the car and I plug in my music on shuffle and crank up the volume. The first song that comes on is one that reminds me so much of Phoebe that I can’t help but believe that there is more at work than the itunes shuffle mechanism. Spinning Away, by Brian Eno. When she was alive I would call her every time this song came on and tell her I loved her, or play it on the answer machine if she didn’t answer. I don’t know why this song is important. She didn’t either.

“Dad, why do you think of me with this song, I don’t get it?” She’d laugh.

I’m smiling now, I’m thinking of her again, but also my chest feels cavernous and my breath is reeling.

Driving Hwy 1: The mythical hwy of my youth. Ken Kessey, on the further bus; Keroac, On the road; Brautigan, trout fishing in America…. The myriad stories of my life seem to unravel from here. This is a long journey-- I will never understand if this ride is painfully long or incredibly short. My mind wanders as the little red truck speeds down the wet hwy and I recall my travels and my friends.

Faces and places stand out as large photographs smiling at me. Colors, shade and shapes of places I have been, things I have seen, and people who have shown up along side me—all seem to be hanging off the moss covered branches that cover the sides of the road like the colorful crowd packed on the sidewalk at a New Year’s day Parade. I drive and listen to the music. The wheels don’t seem to be touching the ground anymore. Tears form in the corners of my eyes.

There is a moment where life becomes bigger than the pieces that fit together. Something expansive. Something unexplainable. The truck seems to be picking up speed now. The hair on my arms is standing on edge. The curves of the road bend and then stretch out like long dark ribbons while the luminescent road stripes flash through the windshield like a hypnotic strobe light. I’m mesmerized. I’m dizzy. I’m speeding.

Faces are flashing. Stripes are pulsing. The road is turning. There is a railing. I am spinning. The car is out of control. I’m going to hit the bridge. I’m going over the bridge. Over the bridge. Over the bridge.

Into space, into nothingness, towards the water below, black like ink.

Blackness.

Flash! I am suspended in time. Flash! I am weightless in black space. Flash! The world turns dark, dark dark as if it no longer exists.

The second hand stops. The water below is waiting.

Clutching, I try to find the boundaries that form congruent lines and clean edges and sharp corners but they dissolve like melting wax.

There is the glimmer of light reflecting as a distant shining star, or as the small flicker of a candle, but emanates in the far corner, but it is not a corner, it seems like a corner but there is no space so there is no corner, there is just a sense of light, there is just a sense of space that is shifting. There is light. There. are no corners There is infinite space.

My fear of death, my fear of pain, my fear of consequence has left my body. I sense this in my bones. Death is facing me, not as something that is eminent, not as something that is threatening, but as an expansion and release of my body. I am free. The shining metallic red truck no longer exists. And I am like the Space Odyssey Astronaut suspended in space, the smallest silver thread holding me to the planet I was born to.

I know this: Phoebe is in that light.

I have imagined this moment a thousand times. The light of an angel traveling towards me. I have leapt the fence. I have crashed the barrier. I have destroyed the bridges that hold the pieces of my reality together. I have landed in the web. I am in the matrix. I have crossed to the other side. I am in the spirit realm. She has fallen from her ocean edge cliff and in a world where time goes forwards and backwards and sideways her spirit is also there. She has no thread. She is white. She has no form. She is ethereal. She has no voice.

She is omniscient. As if in a dream. This is not a dream. My consciousness is soft as a last breath.

10.1 In dreams I know when her transformational form comes to me.

When the dreams first began I’d become transfixed at how beautiful she is.

How happy I am that I am there with her. Again. Then the dream opens a bit and suddenly I panic this is a dream it’s not real. It’s like the Roadrunner cartoon running in air until he finally realizes that this can’t be reality and oops he’s dropping. I began to go to bed each night and meditate on allowing my consciousness to collapse if a dream of her arrived, meditate on allowing my consciousness to subside, make my will to be as soft as a kitten’s touch.

First the dream pulled back like the infused vapor that dances in a spiral above my steeping tea blending slowly back into the dark. Eventually consciousness lightens and dreams stay longer.

11 How easily I am suspended in this place. There is no longer a truck or driver, no bridge or railing.

Somewhere out there he has driven over the edge and is facing his death or something that will put him close to that. But over on this side he sees the luminescent strings that glimmer like a spider web in the early morning light when the rays of sun hit the strings and the drops of water sparkle like a billion trillion diamonds, like a universe within itself.

I can climb this ladder. Consciousness is no longer my barrier.

“Hi dad.” I hear a voice.

The feeling of euphoria is indescribable.

The space around me is simultaneously expansive and subatomic. The web is intricate and the fluorescent lines resonate with waves of vibrational sound rather than physical appearance.

Looking within the florescence is like falling inside a crystal prism and looking between the dark space is like flying into the star lit soup of the Milky-way until both forms indistinguishable and there is no dark space or lines.

It is and then it isn’t.

I hear a voice with no language attached to it, I hear the nothingness of reverberating sound. Communication is a vibrational form.

I see blue then I see pink then I see white then I see grey then I see another and another and this within milliseconds or is it countless hours….

“Am I dead?

(Sweet laughter-- the sound of soft bells) “I didn’t think so.”

(Air and space-- a wave of warmth, acknowledgement) “Have you been waiting for me?)

(Swirling warmth-- tones of blues turn it into a shape) “I knew you’ve been here all this time.”

(Something is smiling-- feels like a kitten rubbing against my neck) “Thank you.”

(Diamond like particles-- shake from somewhere above and cascade downward) “I knew this place was here.”

(Particles shimmer-- and begin to move into amorphous shapes) I watch the shapes move like the murmuration of Starlings. It is a dance of light and colors. I suddenly realize that I am watching something beyond comprehension and that even though I know I will try to explain it later, there will be no explanations. My voice can’t say it. My bones feel it.

The shapes and colors shift and roll, there is the sound of music within the shapes, there are a thousands points of luminescence. She is dancing for me. She is swirling and moving. She transforms her shape into a form of angel, then of bird, then of star, then of child, then of woman, then of ancient, then of horse, then of cat, then of bee, then of a giant wave cascading. Then of countless things, how can I remember? There is a lightness and there is a scene of family, there is a fireplace burning. There is a forest, there are bears, there is a campfire‌. Astonishing, and it seems to go on like this forever. Is still going on.

I hear a voice that is not a voice I hear a thought that is not a thought I hear a word this not a word. I feel a vibration that has no physical touch, I feel an emotion that has no center, I feel my body when I have no body. She is singing to me in the dance.

(Here I am-- Floating amongst the brilliant stars) (Here I am-- Traveling through the deep forests) (Here I am-- Swimming in the oceanic waters) (Here I am-- Running on the rocky trails) (Here I am-- Flying through the filtered clouds) (Here I am-- Holding the hands of a young child) (Here I am-- Smiling into the eyes of love) (Here I am-- Cradled in the arms of the old woman) (Here I am-- Touching the cradle of our birth) (Here I am-- Following the bee to the flower) (Here I am-- Following the angel through the cold winds)

“Thank you darling.”

I know I know something but I know I know nothing.

My body is full of my daughter’s love. She has left her body that belonged to this world, she has hovered in this realm where protection and healing can be found and she is dancing this story, this dream, this held moment between the layers.

“It is time for you to go on now isn’t it?” I ask.

Slowly something changes. It is like the sun has moved behind a cloud, or the wind has changed direction, or the details are blurring. I am trying to hold on to it but I this moment could not last forever. I try to hear the words in the song that is still humming somewhere in the distance.

“Dad, you have been brave and courageous and true with your love.

You’ve made mistakes, you’ve traveled a crooked road but you found me through my bread crumbs of love and light. Release those you love and you will find the center of your heart to love ever deepening. I am transcending onward now.

“Look after Henry and mom, max and Jordan, look after all those we love so well. There is a center in your heart to this. You are always in this place and we all move through this place, we start here, we end here, we arrive in this place together. It is right here dad. The Center of this world is a beautiful and healing place. We have these bodies for such a short time. Be true to it and learn your lessons. Time for you to go back to yours now. You are doing the right things.

Continue in love and light dad. I love you. I love you. I love you”

I hear a voice, but I know it is my voice.

Have I said these things, they are what I want to believe she is saying to me, perhaps she is.

Perhaps she did.

Do I care?

Do I believe?

What is Faith then?

(Dad, I am transcending onward now) (I love you, I love you, I love you)

Faith is the balance between the knowable and the unknowable, the speakable and the unspeakable, the touchable and the untouchable.

Faith is the courage to hold two balls of fire in the palm of your hands and know they are real but will not burn.

Faith is to know that you travel through a universe of spirit and love that is benevolent and huge.

Faith is the tear that germinates the heirloom seed as we watch humanity diverge and duck away from the balance inherent in our planet.

Faith is the hand that is always held out to those who have fallen.

Faith is the ability to learn, to teach, and to reinvent.

Faith is the confidence that truth and humility are the same things and you’re your actions are irrevocable and touch everything.

Faith is in each moment, car ride, biking through the forest, making love to your partner, holding a baby, eating wholesome food, creating art, mediation, yoga, massage, working in the garden, walking on the beach, touching an animal, watching the sunrise, speaking mindfully, dancing, singing, arriving, leaving, traveling, dreaming, building.‌ Everything holds within it the simultaneous realms of ideas and spirit.

Faith is that there are really no religious holidays but we show up anyway because we love our families.

Faith is that everything is connected Faith understands there no language to describe time or space Faith understands there is no language to describe God, or spirit, or realm, or light or faith itself.

Faith is that the simple things are just as important as the overwhelming huge insurmountable things.

12 And then I’m driving in the truck again.

I’m driving south around the crooked turn that goes across the bridge on hwy 1. I stop on the other-side of the bridge. A sign indicates there are Spawning Salmon. A few years ago they no longer returned here. I look over the railing and there are two swimming in place against the current hiding near the roots of a willow tree. There are black birds with brilliant orange patches under their wings in its branches. I hear, before I see, a large grey and white Osprey circling overhead. There is a splash in the distance and the shining silver reflection of sun on fur shows the otter’s head turning towards me and then is gone. I breathe deep the clean clear air. Speechless.

I am the luckiest man in the world.

(Correction Dad, there is no luck) I hear a voice whisper in the wind that suddenly appears and shake the leaves.

I lean against the bridge. I laugh or cry can’t tell. Moving on again. I drive towards the sunset.

There is a woman I love there, waiting for me on a cliff near the bent cypress trees with secrets in her arms.

The orange ball of fire held in the palm of the horizon.

Another Solstice, another turning of the wheel. The bees wax candles still burn. The music still plays. The faces along the road are still smiling as I drive on. I have had one of the greatest years of my life. A year of release and adventure of love and good fortune. Solstice begins tomorrow, we’ll see what this next year brings. I will make a good dinner for people I care about, go to bed early and ride my bike from my house out into the hills somewhere into the center of the universe.

(Out in that field, I’ll meet you there)

COLORADO TRAIL (Elv. 12,200)

UMPQUAH RIVER TRAIL OR

ITALY

Meet you at the cliff, near the bent Cypress at Sunset...