whew...Lesson of the Flies

Whew…

When I think of how my loved ones must be responding to the recent craziness at Angel Lake, I am a little embarrassed and also cautious to not let this story dominate my mind nor this memoir that I am writing. And being stuck on the ledge at over 9 thousand feet, needing to be rescued and then, after one is safe on the ground, watching the helicopter that brought your saviors crash right next to one’s campsite is dramatic to the point of absurdity. Truly such a significant day will be played out (raw and fresh) in the minds and hearts of everyone that witnessed the event and I certainly will not fail to also ponder and glean from what God has graced us to suffer and live through, especially to take time to be thankful of life and to guard all life more carefully in the future.

Thankfully no one was seriously hurt though James, the fireman who helped me off the mountain, may never want to get into a helicopter again.

The Lesson of the Flies:

(That morning of the infamous Angel Lake hike)

Straightening up my tent, I struggled to get the flies out. The sun had risen and my tent glowed orange. I had opened the tent door for air and breeze to make sleeping in easier (say till 7 instead of 6) The flies had come in but as I got out of bed (making the bed in preparation for the next night) I wanted to close the door to keep any bugs coming in during the day. Trouble was, there was already about 25 flies flying persistently towards the screened roof and nothing (not sprinkling water nor hand scooping) would convince them that the open door was the only way out of the tent. The flies and I speak a different language. While their God-given instinct to fly towards a light source works well in the world God has made…it doesn’t apply for human-made spaces that I understood and moved in. To them up at the highest point of light is the way out even though mesh blocked that path and this instinct was so rigidly set that they would not explore the tent for alternate paths. Furthermore, my attempts to save them were perceived by the flies to be attacks on their lives—another instance in which a usually life-preserving instinct worked against them.

Before I realized why the flies were persisting in using the roof as an escape I felt like God knowing what the flies needed to know for survival but was frustrated with my inability communicate with the flies who would soon die like their brothers and sisters already on the floor. I decided that I must learn their language and when I realized that instinct was driving them…I removed everything from the tent and then lifted the true exit to the sky. The flies immediately (and I think gratefully) flew out of the tent! I prayed:

“As I was merciful to the flies, please be merciful to me God. Speak my language when I cannot understand yours.”

In the hours that followed…I hiked where I should not have gone. I could not see how difficult the hike was from the ground. When I was stuck and every instinct in me cried to go up or even across more of the mountain than I had crossed I heard God say there is danger above and below and to the right and to the left but if you stay where you are, you will be safe. I like, the flies, wanted to climb above because up always feels better than down on a mountain like that but my vision was limited and I later found out that had I done so, I would have met another impasse and this one with no safe waiting place. Rescuers came…rappelled me down and then later crashed near my campsite.

They were not badly hurt

Campers were not hurt and we all had opportunity to thank God and help each other

And that night we all slept loving our loved ones more because we knew what we could have lost.

Praise God

New Beginnings!

I have boxes marked for Colorado (leaving soon August)

I have boxes (mostly books cause it is hard to find English in print sometimes) to be shipped only God knows where

Clothes

Books

and (eventually art supplies)

These are under the back patio&

Life has now become so simple

My room is in this in-between place of not belonging to anyone

The unknown is simple

If one does not fear it

If I die, then I go to Christ

If I am wounded then God will make something beautiful of the wound

I am not afraid it all

& this leaving everything to go I do not know where

feels so normal

Cool Talking/Divine Meeting

Woman

5ft11in

not much more than 100lbs

approaches

me

She asks

AREyoujewish

and then speaks

to me in hebrew

before i can say

no i am not jewish by faith

only blood

perhaps

but then she

says

i love your necklace

and i say

tHank=yOu

She asks

ARE YOU MARRIED?

She tells me

about

dI VORCE

&

SADNESS

and how her faith is blood

without the heart

and how she cannot eat

i speak with her

about protein shakes&

my faith and how I am wearing

hanukuh candles, a star of david and a fish

because

i am Christian

she leaves

but later returns

because....

she has lost

a ring

most precious to her mother

she is distraught

and i am praying

more for her than for the ring

for the ring is only a symbol

of all the other things she has lost

i pray

and i help her look for the ring

and i tell her

you are more precious than the ring

and your mother would be more upset if something happened to you

she hugs me and again praises my necklace

i put it around her neck

praying that it goes around her heart also

Today is the 15th day of the trip and I haven't written anything for about a week (since James C. joined us actually)...guess it is because we kept either having to deal with rain or got to camp so late that I didn't have the energy to write once things got settled...

...not that I am blaming anybody.

I am really glad that I came and that I am doing this. I hope these crazy kind of writings make sense. The short access times to a computers necessitates that I write at a breakneck speed and plus I don't concentrate well in public places and there just are not any private ones for the traveler in need of an electric socket.

ODE to James for being willing to carry this heavy laptop...James Dyer, James Comfort has gone back home just to clarify things.

This past week described very briefly in "Intermission" was really a time of adjustment for me.

The days blur together and so it is difficult to pull out separate events as being part of such and such day so here I will not try to do that. I will instead write what comes to my head because there are reasons why some events come to our heads and others do not. I believe I remember these stories because they fall under a theme or because they speak of universal truths...

Ok enough disclaimers

Theme of Human Kindness

One of the things about a trip like this is that kindness is a very practical virtue rather than something to talk about. We don't talk about how the world needs kindness...we do it and we start within our mini tribe.

Yes I am part of some crazy mini tribe.

I want to thank my incredible team.

Last week when we were in Santa Cruz that final night...I had left my walking stick behind (my teammates could twitter about all the stuff I am always losing).

"OOOH $%#T"

was my rather carnal response.

I was greatly upset as the stick is handmade--a gift from my Dad. Plus I suffer from occasional vertigo because of some inner nerve damage connected with my hearing loss so I depend on that stick! It was either get on the bus and leave it behind or go back and miss what we thought was the last bus out. James graciously offered to get the stick for me and the group was willing to stay another rainy night in Santa Cruz for me but I told them no...turned out we had missed the bus already anyway and I was able to get the staff and then we all got on another bus...Not only that but we were able to look at cool art since the next bus was three hours later.

That meant so much to me that they were willing to do that!

Thankful

I am thankful for the gray sky of a day in which I have no desire to go into the ocean. It feels wonderful to sit here and write. As one with ADHD, I depend on bad weather sometimes to help me focus on things like sitting and reflecting.

Theme of Enjoying Art:

One of the things that I really want from the trip is to be where we are and have opportunity to both absorb and create things of beauty (landscapes/painting/installations/words/deeds)

Art and History Museum:

Admission: Free

Theme: surfing and more surfing/history of early settlers of Santa Cruz

Did you know that Santa Cruz is the first place in the continental U.S. to have surfers (introduced by Hawaiian visitors)?

Way COOL!

I want to surf and be inside the tubes with the wave crashing over my head!

Photos

Paintings

Installations

(some of them moved)

I was in awe

Art truly feeds the soul, even to the point that I can be tired and hungry and I will not feel either when I contemplate art.

So it is cool that a week later in Pacifica we went to the opening night of Art on Fire (which included a 40 minute Belly Dancing performance). Did you know that Belly dancing was taught by mothers to their daughters?

I love getting inside the heads of others and it was fun to see the work of other artists--lifted the day above the ordinariness of packing, cooking, eating and trying to stay warm. You see...it has been the ordinariness that is so challenging.

Ask about the night I fought with my tent because the ground was bumpy or when I accidentally knocked over the propane stove while cooking dinner on a hill in the dark.

We may be spiritual beings having a material experience but often it is the irritations of the physical/material realm (like being cold, tired, hungry and/or in pain) that make it difficult to act spiritually.

Intermission

Special thanks to James Comfort for his good humor and ready smile

Also you are the first that I've met that likes that ocean as much as I do!

We went to a small town Presidia or some such where we sold jewelry...walked and you with that outrageous pack and us drinking gatorade to lighten your load (was hard but someone had to do it SMILE)...Also another town that James Dyer mispronounced in so many ways that I cannot remember the name of where they did not have real groceries but only things like Aunt Georgia's precious Blackberry preserves for 10 bucks and so on...

We slept next to the ocean whose personality changed with every new site and we slept under Pine trees [which I (unfortunately) am allergic too but (fortunately) Poison Oak is too and refuses to grow there ) and you got to hear me fight with my tent which I had fallen into for the umpteenth time...and so on

Thanks for sharing a week with us from Davenport to Pacifica.

April 3rd or the Day JAMES C. CAME

James Comfort came today...Unfortunately Meg couldn't make it.

Yesterday was the first time that I really felt peeved about the sleeping situation...We came into Davenport after taking a bus out of Santa Cruz and it was freaking dark and there was PosionOak on the ground ( A lot of P.O. on this coast and I hate the plant!)

OK OK

'

I can get a little rabid about the whole Poison Oak thing but the stuff is painful and takes me months to get over and that is with access to a shower and a washing machine...

I don't have either here

But I do feel like God is helping me put stuff like that in perspective...P.O. is like sin//don't wanna underestimate it but you don't want to go around hating plants because some of them are poisonous...like at the time of writing this I am actually in Pacifica and I had gone on a beautiful hike before the rain started//everywhere gorgeous plants and yes some of them P.O. but I can't miss out on the good out of fear of the bad

So...Poison Oak is a good metaphor for sin

Better to err on the side of caution

but don't get paranoid either

So back to remembering and back to the original journal notes///

I woke up in this new beautiful spot in Davenport (having felt freaked and having explained to Nick and James in detail why I felt freaked) and I thought

I am having breakfast by a beautiful beach

I do not have to drive somewhere beautiful

I am here in somewhere beautiful

I miss a few of the routines at my parents home and I certainly miss my parents.

//also talked metaphysics on the phone about morality or the metaphysics of morality

Here morality consists of:

Helping your teammate pack his tent or pick up his bag

Sharing food

Being patient with each other

Morality is a do here

and not an idea

Incredible to be here///swim bathe in this ocean

feel like the salt is purifying me

and the cold of it is small payment for being part of its largeness

and its power.

I spent the morning doing doing and doing

I have to get my Ya Ya's out in order to be content to sit here, content to reflect.

Writing seems boring now.

I think I want to build a sand sculpture

Had a great talk with the guys last night...communion (pineapple juice and corn tortillas) in the tent with candles.

Realizing how much time it takes to get things done...when one doesn't have a car.

Puts life on a more human scale

James C is an awesome person...We walked up the road (long and uphill to find a beach with huge scary waves). He packed way too much stuff///his bag was bigger than me. Came within 10 feet of the tent at 2 in the morning...don't think I've been that freaked in a long time. I like the ocean when I go to it but I shudder when it comes to me. Am I that way with God? Nah. I like it when God comes to me. He doesn't overwhelm me with a 20 ft wave. He has all kinds of water in this world...Gentle pools for toddlers and these waves for the terminally insane.

May I be one of those terminally insane.

April 2, 2010

Yesterday was April Fool's day and I played a prank that (in retrospect) really made me re-consider the tradition of fooling one's friends. It may be overrated.

We walked thru Santa Cruz with our packs looking for a good place to cook lunch and the sell the jewelry we had made. Unfortunately just as we were about to get settled on the board walk we saw a ill humored police officer giving a woman a ticket for selling beautiful necklaces (gorgeous cords with huge purple and green teardrop stones)...

So much for that idea. And with that and with all the signs saying things like:

No littering

No Loitering

No camping

Violators will be arrested

So much for easy breezy hippie town

I would think that selling what you have (if you cannot afford rent, overhead and all ) would be a way for people out of work to doing something enriching and keep them from needing to panhandle...one could even work one's way up.

But obviously the powers of commerce do not lay in the hands of ordinary people.

WHY?

People come to places like Santa Cruz to experience alternate cultures. Buying cool stuff from hippies with dreadlocks is one of the fun things to do here. If I want delightfully amateurish jewelry, I'll buy from them...If I want high end stuff, I'll go to a store...don't see how the two venues have to compete...now if the stores want to sell stuff that is mass produced but seems like it might have been made by an artisy hippie that is another story...I don't understand the conflict

Whoa...

We also had a scary moment in which James was threaten by a 4ft10in guy with too much vodka in him...Guy kept bragging about his baseball bats (arms) and how he was going to slug them into James. I stood up with my walking stick, put my pepper spray in my pocket...but James did a great job at diffusing the situation and the guy finally walked away once he saw none of us were going to take the bait.

It felt good to know that I had a plan in my head and wasn't afraid at all.

We also lost the wonderful peas that James had cooked but the walk back to Natural Bridges was so beautiful that we quickly forgot about the beans and the crazy midget

Susanne

March 31st, 2001

God thank you for such a great night. I really enjoyed having:

_ A dry tent

_Warm clean sleeping bag

_ Peace in my heart

Thank you

I got a chance to wake up and read your beautiful scriptures.

It really excited me to read how the wise men saw _Your_ star in the east.

They came from another place and were not Israelites...I think of all the people in the Bible other than you Jesus, I would like to meet these men.

Laying here in this tent, I feel a kinship to these travelers, these nomads...

...maybe meeting them would make me keenly aware of how much we do not share in common

But I think that there is (in common) that sense of awe of the sacred.

So many good people in the scriptures.

Your words Christ are beautiful.

Thank you for the time to reflect.

Help me

Open my eyes, ears & heart to the needs of others....

Let me be so satisfied in your love for me that I have no fear of rejection from people.

open

Open

Open

and More Open

Singing with Nick (We sang a spiritual) and it was beautiful to hear our very different voices singing the same words of faith.

Went this morning to walk/jog

Wilder State Park

This park really impressed me...Love seeing dunes covered with every sort of mossy/textured/flowered growing thing...realized that the oft barren dunes I have experienced before was the result of too many people walking...not intending harm but too many of them...here signs prohibit any path but the trail and as a result the dunes are not barren but luxurious in all their flora...Animals too (rabbits and birds of kinds I have never seen) WOW! Many of them are endangered and it is an honor to get so close.

Awe of Waves also

I Am talking sheer cliffs with 20 foot waves

AWE

WOW WOWWow!

As a person who feels like an endangered species, as one educated but still unsure of how to make a living who feels different from others...and as a member of a group that is on the fringe, it feels right being here in this bird refugee.

I stand near a flock of birds not wanting to interfere with their space but desire to look again and be again overwelmed by these waves overcomes my shyness. I move closer and in groups of two or three the birds fly off with every step I take towards them, until the boldest remain. Ultimately all of them are gone and I stand alone at the edge of the cliff mildly ashamed to have frightened the birds.

poetry: Ann Lauterbach from _Or to Begin Again_

The great stalks are alert, their

shambles piled: maybe another parade

An evident gray, a slow march

and legions rudderless; an ordinary flow

These none of them quite real, none present,

like mischief in a dream: the blue garment, the rusty blade

Came late or have you come late or are you, you are late

Then on into wakened sobriety's itch.

The great stalks move slightly, They press back

Waiting folds upward into a shape

To be seen later , or not seen, not now, not later

Take hold of this garment, this was said

The thrust of these instructions.

Take hold of this blade

(read at 4am in a tent with the rain and howling wind)

((read in utter awe and contentment))

March 29th

(transcribed)

It is almost two in the afternoon...Today I painted two small landscapes...on my backpack (view of Natural Bridges where God had saved me from drowning a few years ago...so good to be here and again and be thankful.

We could tell that it might rain today so we left the beach...

Thank you God for last night. It was special staying at a beach where you saved me from drowning.

food (camp food) Garbonzo Bean Stew with seaweed, mushroom (shitake) and assorted veggies

and /I am so proud/ corn dumplings stuffed with pepper jack cheese

It is important to have a good simple hot meal at the end of the day

Sitting here @Borders...

LOOKING through the Santa Cruz weeklies

trying to find events and so on. I am sad that Ellen left us. The first three days of anything are the hardest.

Again...yes

Yesterday was a blessing. I had prayed for ice tea and got to drink it twice. Amazing how being tired and out of one's everyday domain makes the simple pleasures (that often bore me) so fantastic. Comfort here is such that I could take a nap (haven't slept all that great these past few days).

Lots of things to think about.

Like each of us on the team have different gifts

Gotta jam...need to find a place before dark

Love you all...thank you for your prayers

xoxoxoxox Susanne

California Central Bay: Log 1But i am so

O3/28/2010 Transcribed from Travel Journal

Beautiful

Mustard Greens

Yellow and Bright

We are in a field of them...we see them, smell them and had some for dinner. Salinas River Wildlife Refuge

Yesterday I thought about burdens...

About how the pack is too heavy for me and then I realized I had packed it. Nobody had packed it for me.

As I reflect on this trip...this walking, getting closer to God and developing as both an artist and as a Christian I am tempted to over anaylize. I want this to be so significant but maybe I need to learn how to just be. All day long I am walking and seeing in the things that I see metaphors for life...and in my mind I try to articulate these things so that they will bless and help other people. But you know what in all this, I am a spectator of my own life instead of being in the moment.

I think of yesterday at the ocean with Ellen...It felt like God was playing with us in the water...The waves came from all directions...each step (and you cannot see the bottom) is different...high water

low water and...that too feels like a metaphor.

God is like the ocean

or...

rather the ocean is like God

Because he made the ocean.

A challenge for sure (both God and the ocean)

but also a joy

deep

shallow

deep

splashing

This morning I washed dishes with God.

It was joyful

(as if)

God was saying

"What do you need a faucet for?

I'll rinse for you"

And so God rinsed the dishes for me.

Thank you Jesus

Had a nice conversation with a man here...

He seemed excited about what we are doing...

He said:

"You'll be fine. What you are doing now you'll (remember? appreciate?)

more than any dumb job.

Feels like maybe...

a lot of people do things for work that they feel alienated from

...that strikes me as being a form of prostitution.

I want a job that I believe in...

Here I am laying down on the cement writing. It is the front of a coffee shop that just closed.

Sun feels good

&

I know that when the sun goes down

again...it will

not be warm anymore.

basic

simple

feels like being connected to the body again.

Jesus....

Thank you for my parents

thank you for their

support and love.

I really want to make them proud.

I have been exclaiming some form of

"LOOK it's BEAUTIFUL"

all day long

&I hope that my comrades are not overtaxed

It has been hard carrying a lot of weight. My feet hurt but I am glad that I am out here doing this.

Open my heart

Jesus so that I can hear you.

I love you.

UNTITLED POem

The other night

I was trying to finish

an application

that I had been working on all day long...

Was:

tired

screen weary

and sick

of being indoors

Then the phone rings

it is a man taking a poll

We accidentally disconnect

I decide (with some thought)

that I'd just as soon not

phone rings

the second call (I ignore)

phone rings

the third call (machine eats)

phone RINGS RINGS RINGS

i amsopissed

"YOUCAN"TDOTHISTOPEOPLE"

and then

the next day

i think

man

maybe hates his job

maybe took it

onlybecause there was n o t h ing else

and then i am sorry as i imagine

his hurt feelings

and his wounded manhood

wounded further by me

Tear out the "shoulds"

(Copied from notes written to self while on break from teaching as a sub) a week ago?

It is cold and grey outside (at least at the time of writing this) but inside I feel a renewed sense of life. If I focused on what I still need to accomplish in life [full time career, established relationship with a member of the opposite sex] I might feel discouraged but when I look at what I have accomplished [traveled around the world under unusual circumstances, obtained a couple of University degrees, made many friends] I feel good about those things. Whatever else it is, my life is not boring.

I get the opportunity to engage in projects of creativity on a regular basis. I absolutely adore the people that I choose to worship Christ with...

....Writing Today

Re-reading these notes, I realize I have so much to be thankful for...I love my friends. Just yesterday I went with friends Nick and James to sit at a park and paint and make bracelets for an upcoming walking trip. We were soon joined by various individuals living outdoors. They shared stories and created art together. This one woman and her gorgeous pit bull named "Pretty Dog" stands out in my mind. She wanted to refresh her memory of how to tie macrame knots. As she worked on a piece with bright pink beads, she regaled us with stories of how she once put her Pit Bull into a tutu and how her and her son protected each other. She beamed with pride to show us her affection for her kids [one son and one "daughter" (the dog) ...It was a endearing and universal picture of motherhood even as it was a little unusual as many mothers live in dwellings with their children.

I sat there continuing on doing art and feeling honored to experience yet another several hours of humanity and to have two good friends there to share it with.

Life is, for me, an adventure...I am going to challenge myself to daily I tear out any "shoulds" that are interfering with my "coulds."

Pretty soon I will be going on a walk that will be different than any walk that I have walked before. It is something in-between a "Walk-a-bout in the Aboriginal sense and a yuppie/artist backpacking trip. I'll tell you more later.