El Camino Real

My eldest nephew - his father/my brother now long deceased - has just this weekend sent me an email broaching a bit of a to-him embarrassing subject; to wit: Since we are all getting along in our ages, what should 'the family' do if anything should happen that I, er, ceased to communicate with him?  (He is the only member of my family that I maintain any sort of connection with.  And his 'family,' besides his two (younger) sisters and (younger) brother on his father's side, is basically his mother's and her subsequent husband's brood.)  Touched by his familial concern, I emailed him back:  

Mar. 8

Hi (blank)

Thanks for the words of concern, and support.  I guess one does have to think of that sort of thing when one starts getting a bit long in the tooth, as it were.  But hell's bells, I'm fit as a fiddle.  (Love the expressions in the English language.) The Good Lord willin' and the creeks don't rise, I'm still here for a spell.  Haven't finished my work yet.  But a bird can fall off its perch jus' lak thet, I do understand.  (Although I do take Co Q-10 for the ol' ticker…)  So I'll give it some thought. 

To answer your query more directly: No, I don't have any more contact with any Stanfields.  No 'relations' around that I know of.  Wouldn't impose on them if I did.  When I have given this sort of thing any sort of thought, I remind myself that I have always liked the idea that I read somewhere, of how, when an Eskimo grandmother feels that it's her time, she just quietly one night leaves the 'hearth' (or stays behind as the family moves on) and finds an ice floe to go sit on until she falls off her perch, as it were.  Me, I've always liked the High Country, and can remember some of that good stuff at Boy Scout Summer Camp, many moons ago now, at a place here in So Cal called Camp Tauquitz (or some sort of spelling like that).  I'm sure that I could find out about its location, with a little research.  So that's where I'm likely to end up, if I have any say in the matter.  Sitting with my back up against a tall tree.  Or having toppled over by then...

But perhaps you need to know something about me, dear Nephew.  And yes, good that you have brought up the subject.  You see, I'm a firm believer that we humans are in for a major change, coming up real soon now, and it will include such matters as 'death and dying' - i.e., health and longevity.  How to clear ourselves of dis-ease and such; and go exploring our universe with and from a greater alignment with Spirit, for lack of a better word.  All of which is to say - and as I've already said - that I feel that I'm still going to be around for a while yet. 

Wouldn't want to miss all the fun.

Best, from your appreciative (although not too overtly affectionate)

Uncle Duane 

--                

But it - in conjunction with where I have been going in my blogs of late - put me to mind of what I consider that 'work' to be, and where I have come from in order to get to this point, on the verge of my work kicking in in earnest.  And then a 'blast from the past' unsettled me.

It came in the form of a film released in 1952 - the year that I was released from high school, and started out on my mature years and its journey in earnest.  To back up a bit: In the quiet, retired stage of my life that I am living in at the moment, having returned to the smallish town where I spent most of my formative years, on the coast in Southern California, after living in other parts of the L.A. area post-university and post-military service days (as a conscientious objector therein; another story) and then moving out of the country en toto to live in a spiritual community in the north of Scotland for a goodly chunk of my adult life, essentially waiting for just such a time as this - a transformative time for America and the world (NOT the "fundamental transformation" of America that Barack Obama has set out to perform; although that is an essential part of this story, which, if you will bear with me, I will be getting to shortly) - I have seized on a relatively cheap source of entertainment to keep me company as I await my debut on the national and then international stage.  Some people could play solitaire.  I have chosen to buy some of the household-type products made available to the public via a company that runs a Lotto-type operation on the Internet, by way of some email opportunities to make a fortune.  The odds for that are not very good; but in the meantime, of being let down yet once again - for that strike-it-rich bonanza that would allow me to contribute the amounts of money that I would like to have to help straighten out the political picture in the U.S., and from that base, ultimately the world - I have taken advantage of their easy-shopping offers sufficiently enough to have amassed a small boxful of music CDs, Michael Flatley''s 'Lord of the Dance' DVD,1 and two collections of oldie-but-goodie movies, one of 'Leading Ladies' and one of 'Leading Men'.  

There are some good o-b-g's among them, and some stinkers; but it's all a trip down memory lane, at a fair price.  Anyway: this early evening I came home from an afternoon spent at my local park, getting in some reading in the welcome March sunshine (we have had a bit of a rainy spell.  Good for the flowers and drought conditions - hopefully falling where it can be captured for the latter - but hard on the likes of 'cabin fever'), and decided to 'go' for a film before dinner.  (A good choice for tonight's meal: pizza.)2  I chose one from the Leading Men's collection, titled 'The Lady Says No', starring David Niven and Joan Caulfield.  And had to give up after only a few minutes, it was so bad.  

Such rubbish.  Did we really think that way in the early '50s??  Or was it why I had never heard of it at the time anyway…

In any event: in its defense, I need to make a disclosure: It could have been mostly the geographical setting that did me in.  

Niven is a photographer for some magazine or other, who's traveling north on The Coast Highway in California, towing a trailer, towards Carmel, where lives the female author who has written a big seller-of-the-moment with the same title as the film.  There is first some silly stuff about some party-girl and soldier hitchhikers on their way for a night out in Monterey; and then the next morning there are beachside shots on the Monterey/Carmel Peninsula, where Niven is going to take some shots of Caulfield for his magazine's feature on her.  Which caused me to have had enough of the film; and which brought back memories…

I have walked that road in my past.  Having already walked (largely) a southern route across the country, from L.A. to Washington D.C. - ' to see the president and draw to his attention that the way to rid ourselves of all our aches and evils is to do away with money,' as I put it in a 'letter to the editor' at newspaper offices that I passed all the way across the country - and then, having taken a bit of a break, I felt the urge to set out again, with the same message, across the northern half of the continent and country this time.  Walking through a month of near-constant rain, in the February of the year (I think this was in '63.  My original 'message trip' was in the fall of 1961, as I recall), I took a break of a day in the Carmel area, at a relative's, to let a blister heal - or at least give it a bit of a break - before setting off again; and whilst there, I walked down to the nearby beach.

It was At Asilomar, as I entitled a short poem that I wrote at the time about the experience; standing a bit above and away from the pounding surf, feeling the power of Mother Nature, and watching the seagulls wheel and cry overhead…

…and then went on my Way.  

People walk the El Camino Real in Spain in this day and age, on pilgrimage, for whatever reasons.

That was mine, in California; and for the reason given.  To deliver a message. 

Coming due now.       

I am here to tell the world - again - that the way to rid ourselves of all our aches and evils is to do away with money.

And I mean for it to stick this time.

Or give up on humanity.  And simply go find a perch to sit on, for a spell.  And fall off of.  And thus get out of this relative hellhole.  Where the inhabitants, having become too enamored of the material realm, have forgotten what it's all about.

Which is to live by God's way.  ('Not my will but Thine be done…')  Not theirs.

And thus, go home again.

Instead of merely around and around and around, on the Wheel of Rebirth.  That keeps them entertained for awhile.

For awhile.

Until Reality sets in.

Or not.

Your choice.

-

P.S. For the record: I gave up that walk soon afterward - in Watsonville; the Artichoke Capital of the World, as I recall.  In part because of my blister; but also because I realized that I could do some basic research and look up all the small-town newspaper addresses along that Way, and send them my message that way.  I had been hoping to meet people along the way, that I could share my message with; but my previous experience, in having taken a southern route across the country, made me realize that that wasn't going to happen, to any great extent.  Besides, I knew that it would take some years (I figured, at the time, about thirty) for 'the message' to 'take', both in terms of education, and in terms of historical circumstances. 

     So I was off on that estimation by twenty-one years.  Took longer for humanity to set the scene - and hit the skids - than I figured.  But - same outcome.

     And the best is yet to come.       

              

---

footnotes:

1 Michael Flatley does a great job with his Irish Dance troupe on this DVD, as on an earlier one of his/theirs.

     Have I ever shared in these pages that one of my favorite activities at the spiritual community where I lived and worked for many years, in Scotland - awaiting my day on the world scene - was to dance and to lead something that was called Sacred Dance??  ('Folk dance with a deeper appreciation of how the movements relate to the life experience.')  

     If not, I'll get to it someday.  It's a key part of and to my story.     

2 Don't get me wrong.  Usually I eat well - a big salad, with a lot of different ingredients, and with either a hard-boiled egg or a chunk of cheese to go with it.  But every once in awhile I decide to spell 'the usual' with either a filet-o-fish from the local Mac's, or a Medium pizza, that lasts me for four meals.

     (As to the latter: I used to go to my local Pizza Hut, which makes a really nice pizza; but somewhat recently they raised their prices enormously - the price of their Medium went from $8 with one topping overnight to $10.  That simply can't be accounted for by an increase of costs to them; inflation is not running at that level.  Yet.  So I switched to Domino's.  I have to walk further to get to them, but a) that's not a bad thing, and b) it has been a delight to switch.  Not only do they also make a good pizza, but they give two extra toppings for the same price as the old Pizza Hut Medium.  Hooray for competition.

     Now, there may be a factor here that I should consider, that perhaps they are using illegal alien labor, and associated labor costs.  And that would be a worry.  But I don't know how to find that sort of thing out.  And in the meantime…