A journal is mostly for its author… something to do at night when the outdoor adventure turns inward. And the field notes for this account have already served that purpose for me, teaching me to attend fully to NOW all along the Way. And when I don’t, the “clumsy thing” happens, and feedback is usually immediate. In one case I spraining my ankle as soon as I got in a big hurry (on the south jetty of the Columbia.) In two other cases it was delayed a bit as hangovers after partying too hearty with Humbolt  pot growers on the beach at Crescent City in one case, and then after drinking with the fishermen on the waterfront at Newport. (I’m still working on my own personal version of moderation with alcohol, and this Journey has helped me work on it with without affecting anyone else, like my wife for instance.)
However, the other reason for a journal is for others to benefit from the wisdom which Spirit/Earth teaches along the way. This is not a “travel log” for “tourist information”, though the places visited provide the setting for the inspirations. The beauty of the journey requires more poetry and pictures than offered here. I almost wore  out “Awesome!” in the field notes. Anyway, the reader can skip the “wonders-of-nature” parts at any time and go directly to the wisdom lessons by scanning ahead. (But, of course the Beauty, the Journey and the Wisdom all play as one reality in direct experience.)

I’ll start off with field notes as written on the way.
Haceta Beach, Florence: Just a spot to see the sea after seeing that there was no sea view I wanted in my R.V. park search. Seeing only “No Trespassing” signs, I went to my old family favorite beach access by Driftwood Shores Hotel. Of course the “Day Use Only” public parking lot put me off, so I pulled straight across the road to the private driveway of an absentee owner (grass was growing well in the driveway). I knocked on the door to be sure and to offer money; and I spent my first night secure from “official” harassment.

A flaming crescent moon sunk into the sea at low tide as I walked maybe three hundred yards out on the flat beach, retreating as needed to keep my feet dry, and tasted the sea foam as I washed my face in the edge of the surf. A prayer went out without anyone praying it. (Prayer speaks as divine poetry through one who has no illusions of “self” praying.}

After visiting an old friend at the “Cobbler’s Bench” in old town Bandon in one of the oldest buildings in Bandon, filled with “history” and the rich smell of leather, I hung out on the overlooks of the spectacular rock formations offshore. Then I went on down to the California redwoods and found Jed Smith Redwoods on the River State Park.
Awe- inspiring redwoods and a big rock on the edge of the river (way low from drought) beckoned me for morning communion after coffee. A bright morning sun sparkled on the river… and prayers went out again to all my personal loved ones and for world peace… as swords rattle for war against Iraq. (Again, this is a “channeling” of The Oneness through this one… not like, “I’m so pious ‘cause 'I' pray a lot," which is ego’s version of prayer.}

[It’s true that “my ego bubble” ‘popped’ years ago, so this is not a journey to “find myself”… there is no “self”… but to ground and embody the Light of the One and the Body of the Mother in this individual more gracefully, to become a more clear channel for this life as a living example of what I have taught in my website … just to be clear about the purpose of this journey and this journal.]

Crescent Beach; high overview…  “No Overnight Parking”… I did anyway… no problem …but the next day hangover… so I slept into the afternoon and then drove a short one to Elk Prairie Redwood Campground (which is a jump ahead of the story.)
Met new friends at Crescent City… the pot growers  (who were proud of their cultivating expertise and shared the fruits of the harvest generously)… and a young woman with whom I shared a sunset and a lot of  cannabis…and some meaningful mental perspectives and spiritual visions. If she came back (a local) in the morning, as invited for coffee, I wouldn’t have been conscious anyway in my camper bed over the pickup cab.

So, for my recovery, I slept, drove, then soaked up the sun in a lawn chair with about 150 elk grazing in the camp meadow in front of me. Then I found another site by a little stream…backed right up to streamside… and gazed at some giant ancient redwoods along the banks. My body and soul were miraculously restored through this whole day!

  Next morning was sparkling clear “inside” and outdoors.  I took  “Revelation Trail” through some more amazing redwood forest then headed on south to Patrick’s Point State Park. On the way I turned in to a park entrance when the restroom cleaner was just on his way out, and upon my inquiry, he advised me that vandals and thieves were hiding in the bushes recently and breaking into people’s rigs when they were away on the beach. “Thank you for the warning,” I gratefully acknowledged his “word to the wise” and went on down the road to, as it turned out, my favorite coastal park of the whole journey.
High offshore rock formations to make the soul soar! Long  vistas up and down the coast.  A rock that looks like a whale’s head, mouth agape with a big fish in it! Wedding Rock, a prominence with a wide rock trail (part stone masonry, part natural rock and soil) out to it (a hundred yards out from shoreline,) and a stone masonry and natural stone “marriage altar” near the top. I climbed to the natural stone apex and sat.

The Goddess/ Mother ‘said’, “Breathe! We are One Spirit.
                                               “Ground! We are One Body.
And Father Sun shone brightly on the scene and ‘said’,
                                                “Witness! We are One Being.

And prayers went out again for personal loved ones, for all of us as one beloved universal Family, and for world peace! Mother Earth spun and danced around Father Sun and He disappeared again into the Pacific in a blaze of glory across the whole sky. I wept in joy.
(What a difference no hangover makes!  Making progress with this old program!)

My favorite walking stick, a slender, beautifully curved madrone, was stolen this night as it leaned against the camper ladder. I bid it farewell and later got that my “man with a walking stick” persona was over until I actually need it (for hiking and maybe later for aging knees… which are getting younger with glucosamine care… thank the Mother/ Goddess!)

The Journey now turns toward “my mystic mountain” (we have “history”!)… Mt. Shasta!  Leaving Pat’s Point very stoned next a.m. after “prayers on Wedding Rock”… Yes, it just happens “through me.” The less illusion of personal volition the better.

Through the enchanted Trinity River Valley to Whiskey Lake Marina near Redding. Gave the “new” pickup a real workout over those passes. A longer day of driving heading inland to Shasta.  She “called me” on this trip in the first place, and “Divine Whim” routed me down the coast for Beauty and Grounding with the Goddess. But the truck pulled it like she was one with the Mother she was climbing and rolling over.

Then 7000 feet up the 14000 foot mountain to the end of the plowed road, with 12 ft. embankments of snow where the blower plows had cleared the lot at Bunny Flats… the best close-up half way up her beautifully snow-draped slopes.
She is a mountain of bright white Light. Magnificent! Majestic! The archetype of a beautiful, symmetrical, snow-covered mountain! Another incarnation of the Goddess!
And  “I” was again One with Her! A great honor and joy! A perfectly grounding experience “capped” with the “open crown” in Unity Consciousness!
 

And the Prayer For World Peace came that sunset, as the afterglow bathed Her in soft violet light. We all wept (me, sun, earth, and later moon and stars) for the sorry state of hatred factions headed into another big war. And then we sang! And the OM came from the heart and crown at once… from Mountain, Sun and Earth at once… and through this one, honored to pray AS the Mountain from the Mountain and on the Mountain all at once.

An Amazing Grace!! And then Half Moon Goddess came out with the brightest starlight possible (above the densest atmosphere)… and made Shasta sparkle “like a diamond “ on the Earth… sparkling her beauty back to the stars. AWESOME!!  And I strolled the lot several times that night…“dancing with the Goddess and the stars.” Half-Moon in full silver halo smiles the Goddess blessing upon the whole scene, and “All of This I Am!”.

From this unity came a continuing prayer for world peace… the larger purpose for the whole journey.

And the sunrise was equally awe-inspiring as She turned again into pure White Light.
Inner Council had me take off my shades and see the Light Whole, un-polarized.
(Lots going on here… I Am One with the Mountain… Earth… Cosmos… Mother…. Goddess!!!)
My “sensitive eyes” opened to the full spectrum, bright and beautiful and adjusted with no strain (a small miracle for my eyes!)

The old “inside: me ;…outside: not me” program melted down from apparent duality into actual Unity again. (As I said, the bubble of “self” popped years ago, but old programs/ personae acting out characters separate from the Whole come back out of sheer inertia for many years,…(like they gradually run out of steam because there is no “fire under the boiler”, but the pressure very gradually releases from the tank.)
[Maybe it will take a full ten years from ’94 for all the outgrown habits (pressure) to finally run out of steam. A number like 10 years popped up as a nice round number for full transformation of non-serving roles into fully atoned (at One-ed) World- serving ones.]
Meanwhile the head still “trips” on itself and this one falls occasionally into pseudo-separateness… only to re-awaken in Unity. Divine “hide and seek!”

Seeing clearly again now.
                Breathe!……Ground!….  Open Crown!…...See!…………Be!
                One Spirit…One Body…One Cosmos!….One Light!…One Being!

This road trip highlighted the awareness that “my decisions” along the way, small moments to next-destination-crossroads are, when in this grace, made by The One through “this one.” When “out of grace” (the “clumsy thing” like hangovers and sprained ankle), the head trip  has again “fallen” into the illusion of separateness… just for the sake of the drama, apparently! But what an honor and a joy to be One with Her Majesty to channel such a prayer at such a time!

I said I had “history” with this mountain. I was first “called” to Her in 1980 on a vision quest to clarify the Great Pyramid prophecy. It clarified in a “Vision through the (chronographic) Great Step”, and is written up in my unpublished M.S., The Crystal Capstone, and summarized on my website on the “Cosmic Wave” pages.

My second calling to Her high slopes was during the Gulf War. It was my first world-service shamanic journey. In trance, with two close friends drumming, I had “gone out” from the mountain to the desert and comforted souls of soldiers just “killed in action” as the ground war there swiftly killed multitudes in the desert sand. We heard the news the next day when we came off the Mountain, but I was there in real time by Shasta’s (God/dess’s) grace.

So, as the Bush administration prepares for another invasion, apparently hardened against the inevitability that multitudes of innocent civilians will die, (same callous disregard for the lives of innocent civilians as demonstrated by the 9/11 terrorists!), we are again called to pray for peace.
I made it back to Eugene in time for Valentine’s Day with my Sweetie and the peace rally the next day,… but I’m ahead of the story again.

The “Who Chooses” highlighting went like this: Down from the mountain to refill my propane tanks and recharge the camper battery. The old tanks can't be refilled, and new tanks cost twice as much in Shasta City as in Yreka, 30 miles north. So I chased down the $50 savings, stopping at the last excellent mountain-view rest stop for lunch on the way. I had vaguely intended to spend several days on and near Shasta, but after all the inspirational viewing on approach and departure and the awesome afternoon, night, and morning on the mountain, She said, “Goodbye” after lunch, and there was no pull to go back.

So I continued north on the freeway to Ashland and got a hot tip from a brother at a gas station that Hot Springs R.V. camp is where the Indians, hippies, and homeless hang out. It was perfect! Hot natural mineral water showers, sauna, and a chilly swimming pool. (They are just finishing a big community hot tub, and private ones are available for extra $. ) It was “clothing optional”, so everyone went natural. A beautiful woman put water with essential oils on the hot rocks and we all baked and sweated and breathed the healing aromas. Sweet!
With two rounds of this… shower-sauna-shower-pool… I was clean and clear and one hearted with all. We shared stories of deep value to each and all, including my sharing of the Shasta prayer. We sang and chanted and loved each other soul to soul. What an unexpected blessing! So it goes with “no personal volition.” He/She guides the flow every moment when “self” is surrendered into the flow of grace.

But then come the clumsy moments later down the road! ...the hangover in Newport and the sprained ankle at the mouth of the Columbia… In the meanwhile…

I stayed an afternoon and night on the Rogue River. Got a little inebriated and very stoned… communed with the River… not a “fall from grace”, but very close to the edge!! Noticed a chunk of asphalt pavement with a white stripe still on it on the riverbank. “Ugly” and out of place as highway debris (in the most literal sense) among the round river rocks… but “beautiful” in its own way as smooth-riding highway for the journey.

 The “internal weather”, “fair to partly cloudy” that night, had cleared up early next morning. I made it home  early afternoon on Lovers Day to take my lover out to ”dinner and a movie” along with one of our land mates (another yurt resident on our 80 acre land trust.) It’s all Family… yet very lovely with close loved ones! The next evening we all celebrated my sister-in law’s 60th birthday with a big family gathering. This was after full participation in the Eugene peace rally  that day.
Estimates varied from 2500 to 6000 strong as we filled the Federal Building plaza and the streets around "government central" (city and county buildings) in Dountown Eugene. (And world wide of course we stood for peace in great numbers.)
The police were filming from their  headquarters rooftop across the street from plaza. The M.C. kidded with them, “I’ll take a bunch of 8x10s for all of us for our grandchildren after we win the peace!” We all had great “attitude.” I waved peace signs from both hands all afternoon, especially to the mobile cameramen and the rooftop Big Brother watching… recording for “Homeland Security” files, no doubt, now that we are no longer “land of the free” but a police state in “wartime.” (We could all be considered "traitors" by the new Gestapo, enforcers of the new "Patriot Act", which  jeopardizes our constitutional right to dissent.) Just to be clear… it is time to stand for peace...FEARLESSLY!!!

 One of the prayers from Shasta was powerful and clear, “ LET NO INNOCENTS  DIE !” True warriors trained in stealth must find all terrorists and “bring them to justice” before a real World Court.  Special forces with perfect “intelligence” and a mandate to capture certified terrorists if possible is the answer to real terrorism… not just to “ask nice” for them to stop killing innocent civilians! And, of course “we” must not kill ANY non-combatant civilians in the process. (Zero tolerance for “co-lateral casualties!”) Then, of course the whole system of capitalist exploitation, opulent over-consumption by the wealthy and rape of Earth’s resources must cease… as well as fighting over religious beliefs and different names for God.
End of political sermon.

Well, the Journey takes off again the day after the rally and birthday party to the northern coast via Corvallis to Waldport. I find a beautiful ocean view near Seal Rock and overnight next to the “No Overnight Parking” sign at Driftwood Park.(not for the sake of defiance or even saving the $18 fee at official R.V. parks, tho that is nice, but I am led on this Journey to the best views for Goddess/ Ocean / Sky “worship” for each camp.)
Then to Newport, where I enjoy the day at Nye Beach watching the surf roll in and people at leisure and of course, the gulls playing “pecking order” landing on the parking lot posts! Late in the day, as the weather turns windy and wet, I invite a homeless brother, who has been begging with a sign at the public restrooms all afternoon, to a smoke in the camper.
Nice guy. We get stoned and share road stories. (He’s in a tent in the brush nearby and just bumming… without the money or comfy home on wheels.) But we know we are brothers “free” to live totally by spiritual guidance, each in our own way. For him too there is nothing left of “self”…Just the Flow of Now. We recognize that Oneness in each other, neither in “personal need” but living in the moment as individual expressions of the One Being… (When Grace is Flowing and one is selfless… between “clumsy” episodes!)

Speaking of which…
Next, I run out of beer and drive to the old town bay-front and spend the night drinking with some fishermen and getting them stoned too! A good time, it seemed, but too much again to drink, and I slept it off until early afternoon again. (Worker’s Union building gravel parking lot overlooking the bay was a fine refuge from the fee-takers and “No Trespassing” enforcers (and I was way too drunk to drive anywhere)… But The Flow of the great “Tao” takes care of fools and drunks, and I crashed in my comfy camper bed a block uphill from the tavern.
A hippie brother had lived there in his VW bus for a month or so without harassment, he said, and would watch my rig for $5 while I was in the tavern. Good deal. Glad to help each other out!  (This could have been seen as a “protection racket” scam like,  “$5 or harm ‘may come’ to your rig.”. But his vibration was friendly, as was mine, and we didn’t go there.. It’s divine “trickle down “ economics.)

Recovery day was spent, after a short day of driving (starting around 3pm), at the public beach at Pacific City, next to a brewery, just to “rub it in” a little it seemed… and I gazed at the sunset near a huge offshore rock shaped like the Rock of Gibraltar . Went and had a beer after that just to check in with the people happening in the brewpub. Couldn’t finish the beer. Couldn’t see the point of going further up the coast. The wind blew hard that night and rocked me to sleep as the rain drove hard against the window.

Next day was sparkling clear again in the inner realm (more minor miracles!) though mostly rainy and windy on the beaches until  lunch on the south beach at Seaside when the sun came out and invited me to a picnic table. There it came clear that I was being led to the end of the road on the Oregon coast, and I started warming to the anticipation of camping where the Great Columbia meets the Sea. (I often commune with the Willamette in Eugene and “see” that it is all one seamless water all the way out to where it joins the Great Pacific.)

So I found the last peninsula on my home state coast, found  Fort Stevens State Park to have no view of river or ocean, and finally found the end of road and land at the south jetty of the Big River (the Clatsop Spit.). No “No” signs, and a big elevated viewing platform.
I parked, got stoned, went ecstatic and communed with River-Joining-Ocean… scattered rain and wind… then a nice clearing in the west making a rainbow in the east. The prayer of gratitude speaks itself.
This parking lot is maybe 400 yards from the tip of land where river and jetty meet. A stream and a large bog lie between end of road and actual land’s end. I am pulled to find a way to get there without wading the stream (maybe hip deep at its most shallow) and being wet and cold for the sunset at the tip.
I scale the large rip-rap boulders where the stream meets the jetty. Slippery. Hazardous climbing. Very carefully. (I’m naturally surefooted since growing up in the Colorado Rockies.) I make the point (rather pleased with my surefootedness) and I sit, absorbing the scene as the Great River becomes One with the Great Ocean.
Two surfers in wet suits can’t seem to catch a wave in nearly an hour. I see another rain- storm coming south across the river-mouth…  several miles across.

Knowing  that the boulders will be even slicker when the rain hits, I start out the long way around the huge bog.  With no clear trail and tough footing in the marsh grass, I search for a shorter route through edge of the bog. The storm hits with a hard rain. I pick a way through wet slick driftwood lining the edge of the bog.  Progress is challenging. I’m getting soaked, and I shift gears to hurry home. When I hit “high gear” and wasn’t picking each step as carefully, I stepped on a half submerged piece of slimy driftwood hidden by a layer of marsh grass, slipped and fell. Ouch! Left ankle twists painfully and calf knots up. I shake it off, stand and test it. Too fresh to tell, but I can still walk, so I make a “bee line” through the swamp, wade the stream (hip deep in water after all!) and slog /hobble on back to the cozy little camper with the thermostatically controlled propane furnace (and freezer for ice for the ankle.)

The convalescence and contemplation begin. I get that the hurry-up and being less careful were the set-up for “clumsy.” Also that my little “I’m so surefooted” smug-shot (an old ego trip from years past revisiting) was due for some corrective trimming.

I first got into dry cloths and turned up the heat. For an old outdoor camper like me I fully appreciated the convenience, especially during a rain-storm with winds picking up and rocking the camper again. Then I put water in trays in the freezer, turned it up, put a cold pickle jar from the fridge on the ankle, elevated it and kicked back. Definitely here for the night and back home down the freeway tomorrow. I kept ice on it most of the night and the swelling was minimal. All I had left to do was hobble from camper to cab and drive home….

But for now there was just sitting. I once figured that, before ’94 when I quit “regular formal meditation”, I had “logged” over 12000 hours of “flying time” in the transcendental dimension of meditation ( only 5 years of that as a “TM” …“registered trademark”…  meditator and the last 20 years or so just  Being… and listening to an inner steady tone that I was born with for focus as needed to return to the Great Silence , the “fertile Void”.) So I returned easily and happily to a long session, just sitting… Being still… Just Being!!!…  Then  after several hours, I  returned in a spontaneous contemplation of the spiritual symbolism  revealed through this Journey. (This was “Journey’s End” in the “Wonders of Nature” sense with only the trip down the pike remaining for the return home….and caring for the healing of the injury.)

The whole Journey made an “8” on the map.  Eugene, Florence, Arcata, Redding, Shasta, Eugene (south loop), and… Waldport, Astoria, Portland, Eugene (north loop.) Coastal wonders on the west side and I-5 on the east.
The vertical infinity sign is one interpretation… Infinite  Oneness being expressed gracefully as the Journey of Life. Similar symbolism in Hebrew numerology with 8 being the “Anointed One” the One blessed with divine consciousness in human form…
A beautiful symbol for Spirit/Earth Harmony especially for anyone who 'groks' how the Infinite 8 unites "Heaven and Earth" in two loops as one symbol.

The “lesson” of Spirit/Earth in a nutshell was, again: