What did I do to end up here? The stories unfolded into memories held by you and me! Without your recollections, I am just a sum of my own biases. *smile*, as I lay in a hammock in northern Arizona and inhaling the water vapor left after a considerable monsoon storm, I reminisce about the driver’s side windshield wiper blade shearing off with rain pouring down and about ten miles outside of Payson, the intended camping spot having a road completely muddied by the rain and every camping spot with a truck already there, and returning back home thinking that I really should take a random road and camp instead of just driving for six hours this Saturday; FSR 615 required a three-point turn in the middle of the state route 87, but this spot was worth the trouble of getting here. No one is out here except for a posse of local yahoo kids (I was once one) going back and forth with their off-road toys…a four-wheeler, dirt bike, and others…
As I try to convey the details
My mind bursts onto a tangent
The efforts become a stream of consciousness lost in the terrain of wordiness.
I grieve for the lost clauses…maybe,,,someday,,,they will be reread.
Letters start inside of me…especially when I am driving somewhere. The plan was to write and send this (then unwritten) letter at the Winter Solstice 2022, and then the point in time became a summer solstice 2023, with plenty of nothing therein…four truths and one exaggeration herein. (this paragraph anyway)
The descriptors I prefer to use these days are Happy, Content, Resilient, Healthy, Alert, Helpful, and Cognizant. I am aware of the myriad of other feelings that can be triggered hard enough to replace any one or all these emotions. Journals spanning decades have many varieties of emotional maps portrayed to me, and a close reader may describe entries as either depressing or not depressing. *smile*, lately (the last several years), the trend is definitely the latter!
Lately, I really like paddle boarding lakes and rivers, camping by myself out in the tentacles of the wilderness, and hiking long distances over the course of one day. I earned a cool paddle board after trying many that did not float like my current boat does. One was recalled by the company, another flexed under the proper inflation psi, another did not have replacement fins after breaking two in the first week on the River, and another one just came unglued at the seams after a couple of uses. Now, I have a solid Nixy Monterey that I use on the Salt River, about fifteen miles away, and Saguaro Lake, about thirty miles away; other bodies of water are farther afield, but these are my mainstays and still have portions to explore.
Whew, I took some amazing hikes this year. I was literally without a soul in sight for about thirty of the 60 total miles I hiked one 3-day-stay at the Grand Canyon. I discovered the Tonto Trail is a wonderful connector of the big ups and downs along the Grand Canyon’s southern realms. I descended the Bright Angel trail in the early morning to about halfway down (2,500 feet of declination) to the Colorado River. I hiked along the Tonto Trail with nary a person for over twelve miles; I crossed beneath great edifices that the tourists above may have noticed my lonesome person walking along a trail barely noticeable to trained eyes above. I then mounted the Canyon via the South Kaibab trail, which let out at the edge of the Rim Trail which winds back to where I was sleeping. I walked out into the vast forest on the south rim given my legs were pretty shot after this big 24-mile day. I studied the interpretative pathway on the South Rim laden with markers denoting what five billion years would be like to walk and the types of rock available to see within the highly eroded canyon. I bought a book on the geology and am enjoying it currently…On my next escape there, I will probably go in the winter for some brr brrrrrrrr.
I trekked twelve miles into a pristine wilderness area called Aravaipa Canyon this summer; July 4th and 5th were gorgeous, and nobody was out there except for maybe 3-5 people tops. I maneuvered up a casual stream that has canyons as offshoots into the iconic Arizonan desert…I explored one that offered algae-laden pools of mucky water that invited me to jump into them as the scorching sun roasted me 25-30 degrees hotter than the shaded stream…I saw Creepshow 2 with that dock scene…I resisted the placid depths. I camped in a hammock and some large animal woke me up at 3am…there were bear warnings posted at the trailhead and a black bear just polished off someone north of me in Prescott, but it was probably a deer given how the footsteps crunched the leaves under foot. The water was never over my waist and probably 65 to 70 degrees. An Arizona chub is the protected species here that allows this sinuous oasis the nourishment to exist. I think the bastard mining operations all around it compromised to protect this area after severely stripping landscapes for one of Arizona’s five C’s, Copper. I wrote a fun essay about how Arizona should change the five Cs…I really should send it to the local newspaper.
On my birthday hike this year, 49! I conquered Madera Canyon with a 30ish mile jaunt from sunrise to sunset. The terrain sometimes reminded me of upstate NY with the steep hills eroded by sheer steepness, trees, water, and animals. Other parts of the hike evidenced widespread devastation of the burning of every tree but a few sparse charred leftovers. Other parts were craggy rocks from long-ago volcanism. Whatever once was, was erased when the volcanoes blew their tops millions of years ago…whatever is present is susceptible to wildfires engulfing tens of thousands of acres in one event. The riparian area here offered millions of chirps, a hundred lizards seen, and bear scat! There is a place in Arizona called Bearzona up near the Grand Canyon…it is a collection of bears on display, not necessarily all caught in Arizona.
Oh, what have I learned since the last update? Nothing sincerely new…mostly affirmations of what is already in the skill banks. Some outcomes are:
a cool sign I designed and created using metal mesh and white granite that spells out my micro-intentional community I live in called Sage Garden Ecovillas. It rests about ten feet in the air on the side of the four-plex’s parking lot.
Two months as a carpenter’s assistant working seven days a week building stuff with screws and saws.
Negotiating a new city program in Mesa when specific areas experience sincere damages and surrounding areas do not…my neighborhood (I am the community liaison and renamed it from North Center Revitalization Area to Chuparosa) was smashed a few weeks ago by a raging monsoon, but most of the damage was localized to about a few hundred square yards centered on my Chuparosa neighborhood.
Writing strategy documents for an insurance company to be prepared for universal managed care by focusing internal processes on preventative care rather than giving lip service to the idea via marketing materials.
Arriving at a fun process to convey my poetic core with a novel presentation of wordiness (here is one you can print out with instructions).
Challenging my Tao with obtuse situations (from my perspective they were obtuse) and arriving at calmness by exhaling the poignancy. Believe me, I get worked up like any person would about crappy/dangerous driving, stupid rules, and insulting, diminutive lectures by asshats, but I can *smile* and exhale instead of internalizing the rude behavior (my perspective is obviously biased toward my perspective, because from many vantage points, I am still sharp).
There is always a list we carry with ourselves and relative to our specific lives lived and spiritual interests…my list is not the same as your list…yet the ethoses we have are similar and from some perspectives, congruently inseparable. Will our lists change as decades become a handful or more? Mine have.
Well, intellectually I would like to be better than I am at the accomplishment game. If I were to reveal my journals more nakedly than I do already, a discerning reader would notice the methods used to achieve the lists are different nowadays. Historically, I employed an angst to push me into new realms…yet this angst came with the baggage of needing nicotine and alcohol to shear off the highs and make the lows sustainable. Hindsight is 20/20 if the new lenses are corrective…otherwise, hindsight is still out of focus and serves as justification for the whatevers.
A small bunch of pine needles just alit to my head…all the needles on the ground seem to be in groupings of three needles bound by a common stem that has released from a branch. This is just an observation as I breathe…I am sure the internet has an answer for me, but I do not have access to the internet out in the middle of my nowhere.
Covid has sure given pause to the status quo. Artificial Intelligence has refocused some of us to fear technology that could theoretically be even more apathetic than the extremes of human sociopathy, which has been proven to be genocidal with many independent verifications and repeatable experiments. In fact, so much genocide has occurred under human rule, the fear that a computer would do the same seems quite plausible, especially when the computers are made and programmed by humans! And the grand evolution of collective consciousness, personified as the Internet, seems to be anything but a negotiation of truths, ethics, and compassion. My late father would often make the point that a very religious person (Catholic, Hindu, Islamic, Christian, or Buddhist to name a few) would agree with a secular humanist about 90% of the time with regards to a universal code of ethics. If they could save the contentious elements for resolving later.
What kind of world would we have if the global faiths allowed agreement on 90% of the situations humanity faces as a species on Earth? My hypotheses of a future planet are generally optimistic as my understanding of humanity’s resilience is different than the world’s faith-based hegemonies. What is an ecological disaster? How does extinction differ from a mass extinction? When will humans realize that they are not the only sentience on this planet (I am not postulating that beings not evolved on earth are currently walking among us)? When will humans give up age-old gods to understand that the Earth is predictable, measurable, and malleable? When will we realize that we can get more for all of us if we stop fighting among ourselves for the limited amount of free time allotted to the masses?
Does a Chinese factory worker have anything in common with an American counterpart or with a Russian comrade? For this argument, the real question is: what do we all have in common? I see a wanton for Happiness and Healthiness as the pillars of existence that defines humanity irrespective of nationality, gender, ethnicity, faith, and economic caste. The cultural refinements that create Happiness and Healthiness are reconcilable with good-faith negotiations if we define there must be a definite platform for all people to enjoy being alive. How, How, How, this sounds like bullshit and will never be possible…humans are evil and self-serving and default to systems of dominance. I am always amazed how cynicism is given more room to be cosmically correct than optimism…is that cultural thing or a DNA thing?
Dismantling “What Is” should not be conceived as uprooting what we have done well. Maybe Taoesm is not defined by a heaven, a perfect balance achievable only by an omnipotent god to reward a chosen few. Religious dogma has differing origins with similarities with their tendencies to become mechanisms/ontological tools to justify authoritarianism. The origins of religious belief-systems are to unite people with commonalities that facilitate aggrandizement progressing from clan to tribe to nation to multi-national…albeit this is a very simplistic summation for a process that is messy and violent. There is so much to say here and right now, but I am thinking that my next project should be “How to Quit Anything in 20 pages”.
This is a piece of me…a passion to explain myself. I assume a few things, namely that you are interested. Secondly, I am coherent enough to digest. This is an outlet for me, as is all art for those that design it as a reflection of their mind’s interpretation of a moment that may last milliseconds to eons.
I wish I could wave a wand and share happiness and exchange more time together with those that helped me become me, presently me. A few deaths have commemorated the inevitability of life…people will come and go. Our loves may end and/or change as we become who we will become with different pasts affecting our current presences. My enemy is a rigidity for a perfection that will never be realized…my strength is a flexibility for appreciation of who I am. Thank you to those who read this letter. If I sparked a recollection of my *smile*, a pause in an absolute position you have, or a reinforcement of a tenet you hold dear, then you got what I hoped you would experience.
Cheers with a soda water and a lime and lemon,
CHARLIE
PS I am leaving facebook for a variety of reasons, but most importantly, I do not want to inadvertently be part of this company that helps prosecute women who seek abortion services. Some things are holy to me, and a woman’s right to choose her own health concerns is sacred to me. Please send me your email and phone number if you want (if I don’t already have it and you received this update on facebook messenger), and I can include you in future letters.
PSS *Smile*, if you prefer the current situation, then I understand that too. Seasons of a yesteryear are what they are…memories. Taoest1@gmail.com may become a taoest1 somewhere else; I am sure that if you search for it, a Taoest1 can be found.
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