UNDER THE COUNCIL MADRONE (Yulupa to the Lost Coast)

Oct 2013

...I woke up in a hotel in Yulupa. It was cool and rainy, but the TVs said it was September.
Later that day I went outside and frolicked among some unusual plants, so reveling in the ways of folk here not pushing me to "keep moving" with the winds like in the other places I had been. A health food store was nearby, and amid the busy townspeople gathering food for the winter ahead, a couple of fellow travelers saw me and we shared our stories under some tall trees.  I learned that "Yulupa," known also as Santa Rosa, got its name from the golden sun sparkling on the waters.

Then I was on a bus headed north, and the news reporters kept saying something about a "government shutdown." The people around here ignored these claims and went about life as if this change had no effect.  Passing verdant vineyards and golden-hilled live oak savanna, I felt a rush of euphoria and understood this was the path my faerie guide had laid out for me.  At each stop, I wanted to get out and feel the air but I knew I would be left wherever I got off. Night came and the canopy of giant trees engulfed us on the curvy, hilly highway. It felt as if we all were together in waking dreamstate on the bus, "somewhere in between" realms, as in a long dark tunnel.
 This was the space-time that the orcs and wraiths and mercenaries could show their faces to those innocent or unaware, and take advantage of them.

I called out to my faerie guide, asking that for the next body of water I were to touch, if she would appear to me in sparkling form and take me away for "at least a moment." My destination would have flowing water and giant old trees, and I badly needed the recharge.
By the sunset of the following day, I had stood on the fallen trunk of the "Council Madrone," the largest Coast Madrone tree in the world; washed my face in the hillside spring waters, and stood on driftwood at the Mattole Lagoon, a magical place where the small river breaks the coastal mountains to the ocean.



My gracious host, a mama-bear woods elf coming into her own, fed me and gave me shelter in exchange for community and land help. With her outdoor furnace on the hilltop, we cooked and kept warm using hot-burning madrone tree branches.





About the place-name "Yulupa":
http://santarosa.towns.pressdemocrat.com/2012/07/news/place-names-how-yulupa-got-its-name/

coastline by the Mattole Lagoon.

About that "legendary peacemaker" the Council Madrone:
http://www.digthatcrazyfarout.com/madrone/

wandering goats led me on: crossing the moodswing vales

It all began with a trip to the Wandering Goat coffeebar in Eugene. wind, rains, and lonely days getting me down, this was an escape through a hole in a cloud from the escape I was in.
The 44th parallel, that hazy space where sun worship leads the way, even amid clouds and rain.
a sign that the trollbridges of the City of Roses could not keep me much longer.
and the rains and wind kept blowing, the grey winter coming soon and so with them my moodswing fell as well,
I needed the mountain, the pulse from deep inside it
I needed the sun, must open clouds to find it
but even on the way out through green swept vales she can't make up her mind
the angels have the honey, they're just so hard to find

ooh, Umpqua is a place on earth
land of the thousand cookies and waterfalls

but she still can't make up her mind
Siskiyou what are you trying to do? please let us through.

once there was sun: the Lower MacLeay Park, Portland

once, not so long ago, there was a warm sunny day after a rainstorm, a perfect day for a run through an urban wet forest. the Lower MacLeay is a gateway to Forest Park somewhere in the middle, between the zoo/arboretum complex and the wild ridge above saint johns bridge.
follow the amazing Balch Creek past the remains of a faerie house and up the canopy canyon...to the surprise of the Portland Audobon bird sanctuary. and the trail went on, chirps and big firs and fernhouses

and then taking the wildwood trail down to arboretum, up up hill until the Pittock Acres mansion opens up with that iconic Hooded and Tabored view of the cityscape, making it so worth the hike. rose-patch in front of downtown in front of Mt. Tabor, topped by Mt. Hood hiding behind a cloud. it's all here, in front of us.

miles and miles in black ballet flats: my first autumn day in Forest Park, Portland

...MILEPOST 17 or SO...

on a fallen tree in Forest Park
dewy mush fungus white pod things and longhair moss, green shag carpet and the hollies and ferns along the halloway
Clouds cover today for the first time since I arrived in town
Will today be the beginning of the rain?
I've heard people talk that it is coming, soon
The low constant roar of trucks on Saint Helens Road and Saint Johns Bridge
disappear and slence for a moment - was that the train? I'm deep in a forest.
Wait. the MAX goes through a tunnel deep beneath this Tualatin hill.
...Now I hear voices, human voices, sounds like a radio or phone. (?!)
I'm just taking pictures of mushrooms here, up there glistening in the sun.
what would the deer that ran by say?
I've walked to get here a long way.
Miles and miles in Ballet Flats.
I'm the guard of the fallen trees -
sword as splinter to the tramps
who pass though the moss house of faerys

Miles and Miles in ballet flats.
I walk this far to show you that
I can - alone and guided by no man

Miles and miles in ballet flats
I seek to find you, sister dear
whether playa or Under Ice
I feeel your heart pumping so near

For Faith is still a Flatiron, and I mean the mountain,
just before a quick storm
and Hope is Saint John, waiting for the bus over his bridge
in the rain again at 5 pm
and then there's Other sister, you,
sunning yourself on a piece of the rock you found at the base of an Altar that forms a Bridge
connecting the faerys from here but I've heard youmay fall -
no you'll swing like Wallenda on Tallulah but will NOT fall
if you are walking in Black Ballet Flats!!!

LEAF ERIKSEN
Among the firs which are not really firs, they look more like ferns (cause they're Western Red Cedars)
Ballet Slippers are a gift from the faerys, made by the gnomes.
Oh my, it's getting cloudy, if these shoes get wet, I have to find the Orc to make me a towel in his mill by the river below
(it's polluting the river, but he's a holdout from the old days,
he has a boat and he lives in Oswego and has several Beavers as Maids)
About the park

Osage-Orange 3: home again

HOME AGAIN

The Osage-orange tree's fruit which I discovered at Peachtree Creek in October and seemed to symbolize Harvest 2009 was taken back to the park. Rotten contentment.
Who knew it would inspire a song?
That - and the "Apples and Fireworks" store up in thar' hills with that singin' deer bust...

MAKE A WISH


when the great seamstress falls down on her knees
and spills all the apples she picked off the trees, the fireworks she bought
that she holds in her arms like a baby ignite and make light in the night
(and the appppples are rotten but they look white)
Down from the mountain she drove past a store
selling fruits and explosives and not much more
highway 25 dressed in a coat of orange grandfather's burgundy boots carry me
softly with his memory (it's been a year already)

and midwestern trees with an orange bark grow discreetly in an Atlanta suburban park
with a creek named after a fruit whose trees in this area have all been cut down
and no longer grow...
...and the girl in the band with a banjo in hand
drives an arrow-shaped van down the mountain
blues from a bow, it lands by a deer in the snow
"this is your chance," she says, "now let's go."

make a wish, make a wish, make a wish and place your fruit in the spiral
make a wish, make a wish, make a wish and hope that you'll be back tomorrow

won't you take me to a place to a far away place with nothing to remind me and I hope no one will find me but the gods in the garden and pay for my lodging cause I need recharging and ground me out like a telephone pole coming down from a mountaintop i am psyche so i was told bored of gourds and tired of boys

sunset
fawn rising

(if you have any questions about all of this, feel free to ask away!...)

Vogel in October / Leaf Watch GA

A little late, but....


Today is the final day of the Georgia State Parks' Autumn Leaf Watch contest.
(if you've taken photos of leaves at any of the state parks this fall)
Post your photos on Flickr - find out more at

http://www.gastateparks.org/LeafWatch/

VOGEL STATE PARK, GA - OCTOBER 2009

Vogel is the second-oldest Georgia State Park, developed by the CCC and a notable mountain tourist destination in the 1940's and 1950's. It's on the Nottelee River side of Blood Mountain, centered around the little Lake Trahlyta - though the park's several miles away from Trahlyta's grave/home/spring. There's a place to swim in the summer, but the waterfall below is really picturesque and only a short walk away!

photography by zbilly (Billy Gilbert)
wardrobe = "shamanic secretary"
special appearance by Petey the Puppy



2009 Arianna Fawn
RIP granddad

Autumn in North Georgia, Part 1: Deer Season

DEER SEASON
Fall 2009
Looking for that great salt-lick in the woods. All you silly hunters keep away!

All photography: zbilly (Billy Gilbert)
Custom deer dress by Hampton + Mascioli
Locations: Brasstown Bald (highest place in Georgia), Blood Mountain, Choestoe Valley




2009 Arianna Fawn