Quail Springs Month: Traveling, Arriving, Enjoying

On the road again... to the Cuyama Valley

...this time, I'm on the road (without Kerouac this time) with my Dianita camper mobile nook.  I picked her up at the farm house (many thanks to the Lucas' for letting me borrow her!), put all my things inside, and nos fuimos!  Well, kind of:

I paused for a spell with my dear sisterfriend Kat at the Oaxacan Festival in Oxnard. It was a good pause to see that the camper was working well, and after, I filled her up with gas (don't ask how much!).  On the drive, I listened to oldies -- "rolling like thunder" and "magic woman" and "don't know where I'm going, but know where I came from" -- and was feeling ready for anything.

I was also flooded with memories of traveling in a similar camper with my grandparents.  They had taken my sister and I across the states up from New Mexico to the Dakotas.  I remember Mt. Rushmore, Crazy Horse, and so many other sites.  I also remember how the soda tasted, the card games we played with Grammie laughing, and us belting out "when the saints go marching on."

Now with my camper roadtrip, I felt young and free and adventerous on my own.  The fear and anxiety I had been feeling while in L.A. left me, and I had this great sense of autonomy.  Safety nets transformed into webs of trust, and even when an accident closed down route 33, the delay became a party.  As we waited for the road to clear, I got to know other travelers, someone even had beers!  Later, when the hwy opened, I stopped with my new biker friends at a bar in the middle of nowhere en route to Quail Springs, and we played pool as I sipped a bloody mary.  I hadn't planned on going to the bar really, but one of my new biker friends was waiting at the bar turn off. How could I say no to a guy on a harley waiting for me at the crossroads?

me and nettles in the kitchen and common building

Now here at QS, I'm impressed by a lot.  It feels very synergistic.  I arrived an hour before dusk, and I set up my little Dianita in this lovely space under some trees and at the foot the mountain.  I've never had a place of my own really, and I took time to decorate, hang my beautiful things, and set up an altar of intention for my time here.  After a nummy dinner with the other apprentices and community, we had a full moon dance and drum circle.  I felt so welcome, and when someone brought out the lyrics to "please remember me," a favorite song of mine by Iron and Wine, I cried a bit; I just I belonged in this place with these people.  I had visited QS last year, and I felt that same energy then. It was good to feel it again, to feel this confirmation inside.

Next day (yesterday), I had some great expriences, including:
milking a goat,
sheparding the goats on a walk,
almost stepping on a rattlesnake,
collecting nettles and making a soup as well as a tonic for later medicinal use,
taking a short nap that turned into a long nap,
weeding around the garlic,
dancing in the wind,
and ......working on my dark mothers paper I haven't finished yet!

Today I've set the intention to write some more, both this blog and the paper, and I've also brought out Papa's guitar and am learning and sharing with friends songs of the past as well as of here and now.

My dream the first night was of a childhood friend (Adam Wolven, who represents for me a very "go explore" point of view and who I traveled with to Baja) telling me to "Go! Explore!" and last night I dreamt I was writing family and friends from Africa (which I've never been to but think represents newness, wildness).

And this is my mantra up here: to be wild, to be free, to be innocent, to trust my intuition, to love the moon, to love my body, and to just celebrate my whole self and the Earth in this dwelling place.