The Owl Man Again

Went the visit the Owl Man today. Hadn’t actually planned to walk so far up the creek, but as I was laying in the crutch of a fallen log, playing my flute below the Mean Man’s Road, I saw a guy with a military-issue pack on his back walking by. He stopped and listened to the sound of my music, trying to figure out where it was coming from, but his ears were apparently less-attuned than most;  either that, or I’m pretty good at not being spotted, even while playing a dual-toned flute. 

He never spotted me.

But I got a good look at him, and I nearly choked. He looked so much like Grizzly Bear that I felt my hair stand on end. I’d spent my previous night venting to the girls on Rion’s front porch about how much of a dick that guy was to me, and every single one of them agreed that, “Hey, even if you do see him, he’s not worth a smile in passing. Oh, and punch him if he tries to talk to you.”

Seeing this guy on the road made me feel uncomfortable. No one is allowed on the road to begin with, and he was walking up there as if he owned it. I wondered if maybe he worked for the company at the top of the mountain. I wondered if he’d spot the Owl Man at his place by the creek, and I wondered if I should run ahead and warn him. But the Owl Man was a smooth-talker and a vigilant forest-dweller. He knew how to avoid conflict, and he knew how to avoid being seen.

Nevertheless, I put my flute back in the caribou hoof carrying case and scrambled up the trail, leaping and ducking and climbing up the rocks along the creek until I reached a spot where the path leveled out with the Mean Man’s Road. Though I knew it was a bad idea, I climbed up onto the roadside and hurried up to the area where the Owl Man was sure to be.

And sure enough, I spotted him with his dog, Sita, down the embankment not far from the road. He had been taking a creek bath and was wearing no pants, but thankfully, his shirt was long enough to cover everything. I called his name to let him know I was there, and Sita growled protectively as I headed down to meet them. The Owl Man put his shorts back on as Sita and I played fetch in the sand, then he packed a bowl in my pipe and we smoked and talked. He asked about my classes, and I told him about the park ranger who tried to arrest me. We concluded that he was a twisted man.

Earlier in the week, I had met a woman who’d been walking her two dogs along a vacant trail, and the ranger tried to give her a $400.00 fine because the pooches weren't on a leash. One was an Akita and the other was a Pit Bull. The ranger cited them as ‘dangerous’ breeds and even tried to increase the fine as a result, though thankfully, the tag was reduced to $200.00 in court because the woman brought the dogs with her to prove that they were friendly.

Later in the conversation, I thought I saw the guy with the military pack again, and Sita stared up the road in the same direction, but her head back down on her paws after a brief glance. I figured it was nothing, but said to the Owl Man, “I’ve been seeing ghosts everywhere today.”

“What kind of ghosts,” he asked curiously, taking a long drag on the pipe before handing it back to me.

I laughed. “Just thought I saw someone walking up here earlier that looked just like a guy I knew. An enemy of sorts.”

“You have enemies?” the Owl Man asked curiously. I shrugged. “Only one. And he’s not really an enemy, he’s just…” I fumbled for words, which the Owl Man found for me: “He’s just the subject of your intimate dislike.” And I had to smile.

But just then, Sita and I spotted movement on the Mean Man’s Road again. It was the guy who looked like Grizzly Bear. He stopped when he neared us, and I looked up at him with scrutiny, trying to tell if it was him or not. He looked so uncannily like him that I felt my hands ball into fists. But I said “Hey!” and the guy hurried off.

“Was it him?” the Owl Man asked. I shook my head. “Would he come here for you?” he ventured. And I shrugged again. “Doubt it,” I admitted, “But I came to know him all the places I wander. We went for a lot of hikes together out here.”

“You’re just worried that he’ll know where you are,” Owl Man observed with a knowing nod, “like you’ll find some part of him remaining out here.”

I agreed. But we both seemed satisfied that the traveler was not Grizz, and we smoked a few more bowls before I headed off back down the creek, promising to return next week. I moved low to the ground as I went, crouching on the rocks and listening ahead over the sound of the running water, just in case the traveler had left the roadside and was now moving along the creek as well.

Sure enough, as I leapt atop a particularly large boulder and perched momentarily, he was standing in the pool just a few yards downstream, looking somewhat startled by my sudden and quiet appearance. Knowing now that it was not Grizzly Bear, I merely paid him little mind and leapt down from the boulder to a smaller rock and continued on. By the time I got halfway to his former location, he’d disappeared up onto the road again and was hurrying away, almost as if he didn’t want to be seen.

I found this a little odd, but kept on going, running low to the ground and being as silent as possible. Though I wasn't running to or from anything, I figured it was good to stay in practice, as moving through terrain such as that is difficult and requires a quick eye and quicker feet.

Once I reached the pavement at the roadside, I adopted my normal stride and headed back to town.

Past a storefront, I heard someone call out, “Hey, miss!” and when I turned, a scrappy street man was standing there with a huge smile on his face. “You dropped you smile,” He informed me cheerily.

“I hope you picked it up for me,” I replied, and we ended up going to the nearby pizza place for lunch. It was apparent that, as a street man, he’d done a few too many drugs, and it had messed with his brain to extent that it was hard to keep up with him in conversation. His thoughts were like packing peanuts swept up in a wind tunnel. But he was happy and had a permanent smile on his face, which I appreciated. I gave him half of my pizza, since he was kind enough to pay for it in the first place, and I knew he needed it more than me. I’d have gotten it for myself, but he insisted. “Not every day you get to buy lunch for a pretty lady,” he said, and then added, “You actually look like that Avril chick, the singer chick, ya know? Like, if you were shorter by a few inches, and had a sweatshirt on with the hood up, I’d have sworn you were her. Met her at a bar once in Hollywood….” And his story went on from there.

Back at the dorms, I dropped my flute bag on the bed and paced the room a time or two. It was deathly boring here. I felt fidgety and depressed almost instantly, and would have gone back out for another walk, but I was getting a headache and my body was exhausted from my walk to see the Owl Man. To keep from going insane, I opted to take a nap and woke up when it grew dark outside.

Reflecting back on the day, I can say that it was pretty eventful and rather mind-opening. Strange things happen when I play that flute of mine, and the City of Ashland has a strange way of taking care of my wounds for me. I only hope that with the coming of winter, the depression and boredom won’t grow too much worse. I have, after all, lost many of my friends to the workforce, and Rion’s house, though always open to me, has been a place of drama since he broke up with his girlfriend. On the bright side, there is always the Owl Man, and I always have my music to keep me company….

Burning Man: The Man Burns

I stood, leaning forward over the open hole of the porta-potty toilet. Someone had ripped the lid off the seat, which I thought was kind of funny as I retched and tried to hurl. But nothing came up and I nearly choked instead.
This was a battle between me and my body: I knew what I needed to do, but something inside me was not co-operating. Something inside me did not want to come out.

I closed my eyes and focused on the spinning sensation which overwhelmed by brain. I was really, really, really high.

And I really needed to vomit.

But even with my eyes closed, focusing on the pain, I couldn't do it. This ugliness inside me wanted to hold on for a moment longer and I suddenly felt angry at it. I wanted it out so bad that I felt myself shaking.

So I rocked my head back and forth quite violently, making myself feel affectively sicker. I tried again to throw up, but only managed to make a hideous choking sound, which drew the attention of someone in the stall next to me.

“Y’okay?” they asked.

“Never been better,” I shot back sarcastically, then closed my eyes and shook my head around again.

This time, as I leaned over the bowl, I thought about things that made me feel sick: Roller-coasters that spin, cheddar cheese, peanuts, Dani—

And I finally hurled.

Several times.

When I was done, my headlamp caught the color of my vomit and I recoiled, nearly falling backward – it wasn’t the color of my food as I’d expected. It was instead the color of Grizzly Bear’s personality.

As a synesthete, it’s hard to describe the emotion I feel when I see a color in “real life” that I see for a number, letter, or person I usually see only in my head. I once saw the color of my own cartilage and it was the color of my 2s. So even though I was a bloody mess, I pointed it out to the doc, who probably thought I was crazy.

Anyhow, seeing Grizzly Bear’s personality color escape from my body in that manner made me feel shocked, amazed, and totally relieved.

It was over.
I could move on now.

I had literally expelled him from my life in the most perfect, fitting way imaginable: Staring into a disgusting porta-potty on the Playa at Burning Man, the very night they had set the Man on fire.

This is what the veteran Burners call “Playa Magic”. It’s the crazy, divine co-incidences that leaves us thinking and questioning all we know about ourselves, our lives, and our spirituality.

Such is the way of Burning Man.

Burning Man: The Temple at Sunset

Dancing Wolf was full of light, and joy, and secret pain. The wolf skin headdress he wore was antique, but I could tell that he had taken immensely good care of it. Wolf, he said, was an animal he held a deep connection with.

We talked about totem animals, the powers which draw people together, and the passages we experience as spiritual being from one stage of existence to the next.

These are things I do not normally talk about. Having once lived in a religiously-oppressive country, going to a Christian school which taught me that John Lennon and Frank Sinatra were advocates of Satan, and attending a church lead by a minister who stole money from the congregation, I naturally find it hard to speak openly about my spiritual beliefs.

Yet the fact that Dancing Wolf was wearing a wolf skin headdress and I was wearing a cougar skin headdress probably had something to do with the sense of ease I felt around him. We talked of Shamanism, and the power of music and dreams.

He walked back to camp with me, and along the way, we curiously asked a few passersby what their totem animals were. We were oddly pleased to find that most people openly shared theirs with us, and that the rest were simply curious to know what a totem animal was to begin with. There was no ridicule, no resistance, and no awkwardness about it. Naturally, the couple with animal skins on their heads would be the ones to ask such questions.

A few days later, I ran into Dancing Wolf again, this time accompanied by a pretty little lady called Singing Bird. I joined them as they walked to the Temple with a couple of drums, a watermelon, and the knife clipped to my wolverine tail keychain.

At the Temple, I cut up the watermelon into small pieces. We ate about half of it between the three of us, and then handed out the rest to the people meditating and praying within the main tower, beneath the gongs and bells which rang and chimed with the help of automated mallets and drumsticks. Once all the watermelon had been handed out, the three of us sat down in the center of the open-aired room and Dancing Wolf began to play his drum as Singing Bird and I set up a small alter of crystals and feathers and white sage.

Then, we began to sing.

And pretty soon, a few others within the temple joined in. It was haunting and harmonious, and Dancing Wolf's drumbeat was loud and perfectly clear in the still Playa air. The song changed and evolved as we continued, until we were howling and chanting and clapping out hands in time to the music, and many others from the Temple had joined us. One man was even playing violin.

I have no idea how to explain it. The sounds which came from my mouth during the chants and humming were wavering and powerful unlike any other time I've sang. Not even being on stage has drawn such sounds from me and it was beautiful. I felt beautiful. And when our song ended, many people came up to the three of us and touched our shoulders and thanked us.

I had been a part of something which had drawn tears to others' eyes. I had been a part of the magic that had drawn me to Burning Man in the first place. But the magic didn't end there.

Later on, as Dancing Wolf, Singing Bird, and I were walking across the Playa in search of food, Dancing Wolf mentioned that he was craving sushi. "Try to focus on finding sushi. Maybe the Playa will manifest some for us!" he joked.

But as we neared the esplanade, he spotted something on the ground in a little green package, still sealed and undamaged....

It was a box of dried and salted seaweed used for wrapping sushi rolls.

We all smiled and shared it amongst ourselves before parting ways. I didn't see Dancing Wolf or Singing Bird again, but they certainly left a mark on me that I hope will not soon fade.

BURNING MAN: Rights of Passage

They're crunching the numbers. Some said that 30,000 people swarmed the desert that is Black Rock City, but I heard from some of the 'officials' that nearly 100,000 showed up.

Rights of Passage marked the first year that Burning Man tickets completely sold out, and the wait in line to enter the Playa was over 4 hours long.

The bus in front with "ON TO BURN NOW" is the one that I arrived in, but this photo was taken from their sister bus, "Swamp Thing". We were drinking and getting high before we even reached the gate, and I cannot describe in words how happy I felt to be there, even though we'd arrived at 4:00 in the morning and I'd had virtually no sleep through the night.

The wait didn't bother me; it was like one big party - just another part of the event, which we were all glad to be a part of.

At the final barricade before entering Black Rock City, we were stopped by two old men, buck naked aside from the hats on their heads and bandannas around their necks. They pulled all us so-called "virgins" off the bus, hugged us in their nude glory, and then had us strip down to our undergarments and roll around in the Playa dust - this was initiation.

Thereafter, we were handed a huge metal mallet and instructed to strike a massive metal gong, at which time we shouter aloud, "I'M NO LONGER A VIRGIN!"

The naked man closest to me grabbed my bare shoulder and told me, "Welcome to Black Rock City. You can do anything you want here." And I felt free.

Burning Man is magic. It is a social experiment gone horribly, horribly right. It is ANARCHY, and perfection, and a restoration of one's faith in humanity. There is no money, no computers, no cell phones, and yet, everyone is in a state of week-long bliss. It changed my life.

On a Dare...

I've never kept a blog before. 

I'm doing so on a dare, under the condition that I keep at it for at least 6 months and see where it takes me. I don't know if I'll be able to stay persistent enough to maintain much of a following, but I do know that my life is far from 'normal', and should therefore prove to be somewhat entertaining. 

For starters, there's my job. I'm a freelance artist with a focus in taxidermy. I use recycled animal parts to create all manner of unusual and unique items, and I find my job very rewarding. 

It's an opportunity to give "new life" to an animal which has passed on, though I refuse to support trophy hunters or fur farms. It's hard for some people to accept, I know, but the way I see it, letting any part of any animal go to waste is disrespectful to that animal.

I guess it started as a personal interest in claws, teeth, and bones. They tell stories if you know how to read them. When I began making jewelry out of them, I would often make more items than I could wear, which is why I turned to eBay in an effort to sell my wares. But eBay was expensive and complicated and there was no sense of community there, which is why I eventually opened a shop with Etsy instead. 

From Etsy, my business began to expand, allowing me to delve into new projects using various different materials. Today, I specialize in making animal skin headdresses and fur tail keychains, though I often have a few claws, teeth, and photography prints in stock, as well. 

Full black wolf skin headdress commissioned by a friend. 

Working with wildlife parts is not only rewarding in that it's fun business. You can also gain an intimate understanding of the animals whose bones or skin you're working with. I can tell what species a fur coat was made from just by the texture of the hairs, even if it's been dyed or sheared, and can identify the difference between a fake tiger tooth and a real one just by looking at a picture of it. I've actually considered a career in wildlife forensics as a result, which is one of the main reasons I chose to attend Southern Oregon University in Ashland. 

As a result of my job, my life is very closely-intertwined with nature, wildlife, and death. I spend much of my free time running around in the Siskiyou Wilderness, photographing wildlife, and meditating on life in general. But I also allow myself to have a bit of fun with my job, which is why I sometimes show up at the 7/11 across the street at odd hours of the night with a coyote pelt on my head to buy all their beef jerky. I've even snowboarded with a wolf on, and was once questioned by police while sporting a mountain lion headdress.

Aside from my strange job, there's also the fact that I have a neurological condition called Synesthesia. To put it simply, I see colors in my head for various triggers such as numbers, letters, days of the week, and months of the year. I also see colors for personalities, music, and even orgasms. It's apparently rather rare, though I tend to think more people have it than are aware of it. After all, I thought it was perfectly normal to see these color until I was 17, when my physics teacher briefly mentioned it during a lecture on optics. After that, I began to focus more intimately on the colors in my head, and have now identified that I've got at least thirteen different forms of the condition. 

What I see while listening to the song "Goodbye Blue Sky" by Pink Floyd. 

Commissioned by David Coalburn

Then, there's the travel. I've done a lot of it, visiting and living in such places as Jakarta, Malaysia, Lombok, Singapore, England, Wales, Cuba, and the Cayman Islands. Along the way, I've met many fantastic people and animals, and it has certainly changed who I am as a person. I don't think I could ever stop travelling now that I've got a thirst for it, which worries me in some ways and keeps me excited in others. Being in college now, travel is not something I have either time or money for, yet I somehow manage to seek out adventure nonetheless, often in the form of camping excursions and road trips with friends. 

In short, my life is rather quirky and unique - often playing out like some kind of adventure novel. I have no idea how I've been so lucky to experience all the things I have, but I do know that I never want it to stop. I'm having too much fun already, and I'm nowhere close to running out of steam!