arcata and patrick's point

i hung around in orick for the first half of the day. i was invited by a friend of my host to go see his camp by the river. he has built a few little shelters out of willows, sand, found materials, and tarps. the joy he took in creating this for himself and his girlfriend was apparent and i was happy he'd shared it with me. how he was doing things was exciting to me as an example of a person getting creative with this difficult situation of homelessness. making the best of it. we sat and talked for a while there before heading back to the house for lunch.

it was my host's birthday, and as i headed off to arcata he was about to drive over to a friend's place to pick up a huge salmon that she had caught and was giving to him. he was rightfully very stoked.

i arrived at 'the green house' in arcata just as my friends, of the band shenandoah davis, were getting there. hugs and howdies. i was invited then to stay the night, just as i hoped would be the case. almost the first thing i did was go out a pick leaves and blossoms from the very lush growth of nasturtiums. the garden in the back yard held some nice heads of lettuce and mature arugula. in another spot kale, chard, and artichoke had been recently planted.
i took initiative in the kitchen and ended up being the only one besides danah, the cellist, cooking a simple, vegan meal for everyone. i thought i was just going to be a helper, but i was glad to have the honor of taking the lead. sharing food is a component of house shows i value greatly.
the music was a wonderful celebration of sound. the small audience was obviously soothed as i was. the dancing i did was mostly in spirit.


the next day was another cosmic day. this girl kristen drove us from arcata up to this little state park, patrick's point, where there is some sacred ground of the yurok tribe, and where there is a reconstructed yurok village i wanted to check out.
while sitting up on this huge 'ceremonial rock' i played the mbira i've brought on this trip and kristen played her singing bowls. we also meditated in silence, basking in the sun. a man came up while we were there. he asked us if we knew about this place's significance, and told us what he knew. said it is where two tectonic plates meet. a special energetic spot. meeting of the male and female aspects, where the people would come to have their marriages. our spirits proceeded to connect deeply and we talked about a lot of things, relating our experiences on the path, and about how we see this evolution of consciousness coming. he is about 50 and is from france, traveling from montreal to san diego currently. he had gotten a free beach cruiser along the way and was riding some, bussing some, staying at hiker-biker sites. having a totally cosmic, syncronistic experience similar to mine.during our hours together we shared food with him at his camp site and sat on another of the rock formations and talked while the sun did beautiful things with the clouds as it dipped towards the ocean. we parted with warm embraces.