Baal Helene

Baal Helene has done some remodeling here in my hometown and so I haven’t been able to deliver a show since Thursday. All is well. I have returned to primitive living and been doing a lot of reading. I finished the Queen’s Conjurer by Woolley. It’s a biography of John Dee. It’s a wonderful read that really connected some dots with how consciousness triangulates reason and animism for the sake of reality. More to come.

I am reading Burning the Buddha currrently. It focuses on the Lotus Sutra which has been a source of inspiration for so many self-immolations since 396 AD. This book chronicles each monk in a local context giving insight into how each sacrifice shaped local reality after it happened. From miraculous flowers and trees blooming to healing waters and ghost bells, the epicenter changes everyone who witnessed what happened. It makes me wonder if Ted Kaczynski would have immolated himself if we had this option in society. It makes me wonder the same about some of the school shootings.

I don’t know when things will be back online as far as the show but I look forward to sharing more. I had a good momentum going.

People here are behaving well in the storm. My bedroom window crashed open Thursday night while I was fast asleep. Within minutes my floor was soaked with water from the Gulf of Mexico. Baal blew a path from my den and into my bedroom. I am glad I was here because it could have done so much worse had I not battened down the hatches. I spend the next few hours on watch listening to trees fall around me as I negotiated the best place to stand. I was half asleep and mostly on autopilot. It reminded me of being on watch sailing through a thunderstorm.

When the sun rose nearly every tree in my yard was gone. They miraculously curled around my house like dried pasta. I feel blessed to have only lost one window and a rug. My driveway is awol but the new view is freaking amazing! I have all of this new morning light thanks to Helene. I had promised the elm tree when I bought this place I would never cut her down. She’s down now but my hands are clean. The deer are eating her leaves right now. I will miss her, my twin oak, and all of his fledglings. I lost three Beech trees behind me and I still can’t figure out why one of them fell sideways instead of downhill on top of my roof.

You can smell the ocean in the air still. It’s like lightning struck and of the people are alive and responding. I have coffee but if things don’t improve by next week I will have to kill someone. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.

-James