A Fool's Progress

We are here at the Old Mermaid Sanctuary! Yay! The coyotes are howling. The moon is spilling milky light all across the sanctuary. Mmmmm.

We left LA county early this morning. We had frost on the car and snow dusted the tops of the nearby mountains. We drove and drove, away from the cities and into the desert. We listened to the radio. Satish Kumar was on NPR. It was an interesting interview, primarily because the interviewer just didn't seem to understand Kumar and he sounded frustrated. "What do you mean you're never stressed? What do you mean you never hurry? How is that possible?" And Kumar said he did everything slowly. "Don't you feel the burden of trying to change the world?" Kumar said he wasn't trying to change the world—and yes, indeed that would be a burden. "I serve the world," he said. "I don't try to change it."

Wow. And wow. And more wows! I felt one of those quantum shifts people are always talking about.

To be in service to the world rather than trying to change it. All at once I understood when people said they were in service to God. It didn't have to be a groveling on their knees kind of service. It's what I feel about the Earth, about the world. I do want to be in service to the Earth! Trying to change the world suddenly felt like incredible hubris; me saying I wanted to change the world was like someone else saying they wanted to change God, I supposed.

To serve the world. To serve the world.

Later a big ole truck roared past me, too close, too loud. For a moment, I wanted to scream at him, give him some appropriate sign language. But then I thought, "Does that serve the world?" And I knew it didn't. My annoyance disappeared and I continued on my journey.

We got to my dad's place around 3:30. I got to see two of my sisters, one of my bros-in-law, and my mother's psycho cat. (The psycho cat is another story.) It was good to be with everyone. Mario and I gave my dad one of the computers that had made me sick, the one from Craigslist. He was a happy camper. It felt nice to be of service to my poppy.

Now we're in Tucson, or just outside, on the foothills of the foothills of the Rincons. We brought in all of our stuff, and then we went out into the moonlight. We said hello to the horses, then hello to the Quail House, the place where I wrote Church of the Old Mermaids. Something ran in front of us in the moonlight. Desert faeries? A mountain lion? Coyote? Only fools walk in the desert at night.



Time for dreams. We're listening to KXCI, Tucson's community radio. I'm so tired I think I've fallen into a kind of trance. I know the dj is speaking English, but I can't understand a word he's saying.

Outside somewhere it is snowing. Somewhere else it is raining. And the mountains are dreaming. Shhh. If you listen too hard, you will never hear them. If you don't try to listen, you will never hear them.

Something is happening here. And there.

May You Dream in Beauty, Babies!