Waiting

I am obligated to hold off on publishing  A Morningstar romance until it is reviewed by Pam or Larry. I committed myself to do so... hold on.

A Morningstar Romance

I sent off copies of the manuscript of A Morningstar Romance to Larry Read and Pam Hanna, as promised. It is essentially what I posted on this site but I cleaned up the typos and grammar as best I could and will be submitting it to be published upon their review. I enjoyed writing it and reliving those magical months from February until June of 1970 on the high plateau that was cut through by the Rio Grand north of the town of Taos New Mexico. I wasn't  there very long at all chronologically but it was as though I'd passed a lifetime on the mesa at Morningstar and it was a memory that was beginning to fade before I wrote the novel, A Time Ago and Then. I also thought that some of these people might still be around and hoped that they would enjoy reading the experience of light and joy from one of the those who merely passed through Morningstar East.

     It was in trying to build a model of The Kiva that inspired me to write this memoir and it was in seeking out photos of Morningstar New Mexico that I made contact with Pam Hanna (Read). This was one of those serendipitous things because, unknown to me at the time, it was her then husband, Larry Read, that came up with the design for the Kiva. My model shows eight timbers but I was to find out from Pam that it was actually ten timbers that made up the self-supporting architecture of the roof. The hole it covered was dynamited out of the hard soil and then the tiers were dug out by hand below an adobe brick wall of a few feet that circled the hole. The wall had placed in it windows made of wine bottles planted there for stained glass lighting that made the Kiva a small cathedral. A non-supporting pole with steps cut in it went through the hole at the center of the roof to the ground for entering and exiting.

     There are plenty pics of the shelters in the original Morningstar West in Sonoma County but I still have not been able to find many pictures of the pueblo, or magical Kiva, at Morningstar New Mexico. Though I have a good memory of the Kiva, I only have a vague idea of how the actual pueblo was laid out in detail other than it was a triangle arrangement with about three rooms in each wing. One wing on the north side stood alone but the two other wings were joined in a sideways V with the south wing positioned east/west. In the midst of these was a small plaza where the grain grinder became the communal place to pick up on whatever was going on. There was also an adobe oven outside...maybe twenty feet to the north and on the east side of the pueblo where flat-breads and so on were baked. I am hoping someone will help me round out this short memoir before I go to publishing it.

     I call this memoir a romance because, in on sense, it is a love story. In another more classical concept of a romance it is a faded looking back to an ideal memory. It is painterly romantic for the beauty and powerful landscape it all takes place in. It romanticizes the people to some degree because I remember so little that I give only a glazed over perspective of their most positive qualities in my memoir. I do so because I've heard enough about the negative aspects of communal attempts at creating an alternative social and spiritual reality. The influence of psychedelic drugs, the misuse and positive use of them, had to be touched on, however, because so much that drove us all to the high mesa above Arroyo Hondo had to do with a spiritual quest that opened our minds via LSD and other mind-altering natural substances. The negativity of my own alcoholism was featured too because I felt the need to explain why I couldn't stay there and had to move on. It is all covered in this blog that I used as a rough draft.

Departure

     Dennis wasn’t around the fire-pit at the parking lot all that much. His bailiwick was mostly at the Kiva where he spoke of Jamaica and how one could go to the mountains there and hang out with the growers of Jamaican weed. He had a good grasp of the history of the country and seemed to know a lot about the people. Not too many of us had smoked what would become known as the “bud” of the plant so Dennis was able to intrigue a few of us about his experience. He told us about how these people in the mountains held onto the “bud” and exported only the “shake”. He knew some of them and was welcome in their homes.

     We sat and listened intently as he told us a bit of the history of the island: how the Spanish exploited the natives there from Columbus on; how they had fled the Spanish to the Cockpit Country in the mountains; how after that the British brought the slave trade, big time, to the island that some of the slaves escaped to the Cock-pit Country too; how these people mixed with the natives to become what is known as Rastafarians. Furthermore, what sealed the deal was what he told us about how some Rastas believed that white hippies were the reincarnation of the Indians who were wiped out by the Spaniards. Therefore, for the most part, we would be welcome in the Cockpit Country even though not so much in Kingston where mountain myths hold less sway. Rasta culture and Reggie music wasn’t heard off yet, so these people with marijuana spliffs tucked into the weave of hair matted into dreadlocks sounded exotic enough to be discovered for ourselves. I wanted to go and had visions of myself settling down in the mountains with a beautiful black Rasta woman to make babies and smoke the bud from marijuana grown off the wild land of my front porch.

We had not yet heard of Reggie Music

     During this period of making plans for departure we got a strange visit from a man at the dome. I remember that dried fruit and nuts were all he ate. That didn't seem so strange to me then as almost everyone I'd met in those days was on some sort of esoteric diet. It wasn't strange either that he carried with him a set of Tarot cards. Several times people had done things like throw coins, or sticks, reading I-Ching or cards for us, but this was different. The guy said he wanted to do a reading for me... just one reading... but for me. He fasted a day and then sat down in the dome and laid out the cards. His reading said I would be imprisoned by the end of July for three months and that I would go through a very dark period for several months after that. However, he said that I would come through it all well enough. I don't remember much more about the reading but it turned out to be more than prescient... his reading was absolutely on target... down to the details of months and the depth of the journey. I disregarded it at the time but I would be able to digest his reading since then and am in awe of it. The tribulations of those times can be read about in A Time Ago and Then from the chapters following our experiences in Jamaica and the curse of Hoss Baz.

     I talked with Byron about leaving; about how my drinking was getting out of hand and that I felt I was being called to go to Jamaica. Byron agreed that I should go where the spirit takes me and that there was only so much room in New Mexico. I began planning with Stanley and Dennis to figure out how we were going to get there. I had applied for unemployment benefits when I first arrived at the mesa but I never followed through. It turned out that it was probably a good thing because, with those back checks, we had plenty to get us to Jamaica.

     There were five of us… Dennis would need no help because he would sell his little Hillman in Miami that we’d all crammed ourselves into for the trip across America. My checks paid the airfare for the rest of us. Two were turned back at customs so that made for three getting through to another adventure free wheeling through the mountains and seashores of what was then an island paradise. That was how we left Taos, New Mexico and, though I’d always planned on going back, I never returned. Dennis stayed in Jamaica while Stan and I made it back to Miami where my troubles had just begun. This was the place I entered under a mountain of despair described in Gilgamesh… the oldest account of suffering on record.

     This adventure took me through a couple of years wandering until I lit in Santa Barbara, California. Santa Brabara has been my home since then (except for a couple of years when I took a job facilitating prison arts at Vacaville for the Arts in Corrections Program) but I have found a spiritual vortex in this place almost equal to what I experienced in Taos.

Arroyo Hondo Incident

     Something happened after Magic Mary’s bash that must have unraveled me. I spent more and more time at the fire-pit at the parking lot and less time anywhere else. There was an almost constant quest for spare change enough to make a run down to Arroyo Hondo for a jug. It is hard to imagine how it was done because, after all, it was mostly a minus-cash economy. However, most often, someone came up with a little extra from whatever money they had coming in, or maybe a new arrival… a hippy tourist or two… I couldn’t have kept myself drunk all the time but, whenever I could, I was.

     Now, I gotta say something about Red Mountain wine. It had a twist-off cap… no cork sniffin’ here… It was sold in one gallon jugs that were to be tipped over to one's lips on the fore-arm and anchored with a finger through the ear. Burgundy was the usual fare and it cost a whopping $1.89. It was cheap and nourishing in a sad way. We passed the jug around that same as we would a joint in a communal manner but the most sanitary minded among us wiped the brim off with their sleeve before taking a toke. Sometimes a hit or two or ten of acid would spike it off on special occasions but most of the time it was consumed straight out of the jug.

     Someone, I don’t recall who, left a 1949 International Harvester flatbed truck in the parking lot and gave me the keys. I recon that whoever had the keys in their possession had ownership of the truck. It was perfect for hauling people into Taos or making runs down to Arroyo Hondo for a jug or two of Red Mountain. Many good intelligent people have no idea how to double clutch a stick shift truck and that was also a good deal of why I was given the keys.

      Most of the drinking was pretty non-violent but there were sometimes flare ups now and then. Once, a few of us had been sitting inside of one of the vans parked by the fire pit. I think we were probably getting ready to ride into Taos. One of the regulars was called Red for his red locks of hair braided and beaded. He was a Vet too, with some pretty heavy… walking time-bomb… Viet Nam War baggage… wearing a fringed deerskin jacket and a belt with a k-bar knife… he could be somewhat menacing. The van had a wood floor and, while we were waiting to get rolling, Red pulled out his knife and proceeded to flick it… sticking it to the floor… he did so deliberately getting closer and closer to some of us sitting cross legged in the cramped van. One flick put the knife between my knees, barely missing me. Though it was well aimed I was getting tirte of his intimidation and as soon as the knife stuck I went into automatic reflexive action flying across the van and with both hands around his neck U flattened him to the floor boards. “I don’t need a fucking knife to take you out Red... God damn you… now back off!”

     Red avoided me as much as he could after that incident and I too avoided making eye contact with him. But there was an evening when the us boyos were hanging out at the fire pit and we’d collected enough for a jug of wine. Gleefully, I headed down the winding dirt track from the mesa through the village on to the gas station/store where highway three cut through town. Down and back because of the road, I lumbered in the truck all the way up to the parking lot… it was about a forty-five minute trip. Passing the jug, unopened, across and over the fire pit, a spark popped up out of a stick like it was a spitting viper… it caught me on the forearm and I let go of the jug just as another hand almost grasped it. I’m telling ya, that damned jug went down to meet one of the stones around the pit to a bloodycrashingshardsaflyin’red-winesplashing end. Silence hung over those who saw it all happen like they were witness to the death of a dear one.

     The silence was broken with the first insult, “You fuckin’ fool… What are we gonna do now?”
Then Red said, without hesitation, “That one was for Mother Earth…Now, we’re gonna pool our cash for another one… that’s what were gonna do now.” He was referring to the custom we had borrowed from our Native Pueblo friends… even for the most hard core winos… to spill the first of a jug to the earth out of respect for Mama Earth.

     So, Red and I got back in the truck with enough cash for one jug from the group and another jug I got myself with money I had intended to use for a sack of pinto beans… oh well, food or wine… wine won the debate that night. I atoned for my crime well enough then and there were no hard feelings. That, the incident with ole Crewcut, and another one down at the saloon in Arroyo Hondo were the only occasions where anyone resorted to violence in any of the time I was there at the mesa in spite of all the drinking. 

     The showdown at the saloon was the other time I saw the naked face of violence threaten to undermine the ideal I’d hoped top find on the high plateau of Taos. One evening a bunch of us went down to the joint on the highway down in Arroyo Hondo. I don’t recall why but we all were hanging out in the bar and dancing to the juke box. The cowboys; and, what I suppose would be considered rednecks, sat in their booths watching us with evil eyes…. commenting snidely. Beatrice was there dancing with Willie… his Afro and skin color disturbed them greatly…. We could hear words like “nigger-lovers" and so on… I also remember that Linda and Joe with his braided jet-black Native hair called for some insults too… "white whore", "Injun" and etc. There had to be seven or eight of us… out-numbered the cowboys… but that didn’t stop them from commenting louder about how we smelled and how hard it was to discern whether or not we were girls or boys.

     It got a bit nasty so we all decided it would be best to leave after a few more cowboys entered the place. It was then, as we were leaving, that some pushing and shoving on the way to the truck called for some action. Joe got to the truck first and pulled out a tire iron and swung it in front of the most aggressive taunt-monger, holding him off until we got in the truck. They feared a wild “Injun” wielding iron enough that we were able to depart unscathed. The truck bounced and graveled up the road to the mesa with a tense crew looking back through the dust cloud to see if we were being followed. It was a the unashamed bias and racism that fueled the aggression and it was perhaps the first time I’d been exposed to the venom most people of color were quite sadly accustomed to. I was white-by conflicted... was I really non-violent or was I allowing myself to be protected by Willie and Joe?