The writing, the writing. Always in the writing. If there’s anything I got back in Ojai it is my process of writing. That, and color. My all-black wardrobe has been smothered out in bright pinks, whites, and blues like the kind on Topa Topa mountain. And the voice, it has come back like a light that’s been lit inside of my torso, my rib cage, the cavities of my heart, and it shines brightly. It makes a sound and the sound is like the clicking of the keys on my laptop, like my mother always wrote about.
I am back in Los Angeles. The sounds here choke me out they come down on me like a thousand angry birds and drown out the voice, put out the light. I miss Ojai. I miss it. I miss it in my teeth in the length of my hair and the roots of my eyelashes. I miss it in the backs of my legs and the bottoms of my feet. I miss it so bad I am dying. I feel like a sage bundle hung up to dry out. I feel like I got shot in the head.
Estuary Gone 5/1/10 Lucy Madeline Ojai, CA
For the past few days I’ve been writing, silently in my mind, over and over, the things to say, the things I was seeing in my last days there. But I couldn’t pull myself away from the land long enough to sit down and write. I finally got footage of the swallows building their nests. And on that very last day, something beautiful found me. A gift from Happy Valley.
I woke up early, took a shower, made some tea, and prepared to leave for the morning. I walked up the long hill to where my sage grows. I had decided to make several bundles before I left as gifts and as tokens of remembrance. I made my way up the hill and saw that the estuary pond, which was full when I arrived, had dried out and left a brilliant green stain against the landscape. As I walked, I looked for a rattlesnake because, as they say, if it happens twice it will happen a third time. I moved carefully and found a patch of cleared ground right at the top of the hill before the path divides into two golden lines that curve down out of sight towards the sage-lined trail. The ground called to me and I lay down and felt my body sink into the dry hard earth beneath me. The sun was bright and the air was warm with a slight breeze. I could hear all the sounds that I love and that have become a part of me. The low drown of the bees on the wildflowers, the robins with their flute-sounding song, the cawing of the crows and the occasional call of a hawk. I could hear the wind and the tall golden grasses blowing; I could hear the earth itself in her moaning, beating, waiting and holding; the sound of life growing, up, and wild and into me. Life that spills and sounds and echoes forever and ever because it will never stop. Life Is. Life simply Is. Even back here in this loud city Life Is and Life Will Be. I have to hold on to that. Life is bigger than I am and goes on beyond me. And I am a part of that sound, that endless Sound of the universe. The song of Time.
Hawk on Road to Besant Hill School 5/2/10 Lucy Madeline Ojai, CA
I gathered my sage to make my last few bundles, evidence, captured and wrapped of my time there. Preserving the magic after the ritual has been performed, like shamans painting on cave walls. I had spools and spools of embroidery thread, feathers, turquoise, silver beads, needles, purple and yellow wildflowers, two kinds of sage, and two kinds of lavender scattered out on my work table in front of two laptops, cameras, and my other equipment. All that nature swallows up all that technology. This is how much wildness I need.
Man and Woman 5/2/10 Lucy Madeline Ojai, CA
I sat and wrapped and thought how funny it was that I had indeed not seen a rattlesnake on my walk. I considered for the first time that my saying was wrong. I was contemplating how profound this new information was to me when Susan, Kevin’s friend who was running the center while Kevin was away lecturing, came into the studio to see what kind of work I was up to. She told me she had just found a rattlesnake. It was right outside, against the wall of my studio. She asked me if I wanted to come see it. I grabbed my camera and went.
At first we couldn’t find it. Walking behind past the rose bushes to where the kilns are located, we peered into the corner behind a large water heater. “He must have moved, I guess. Or she.” Susan walked closer to get a better look. My heart was beating. My finger on the trigger of my camera. “Oh! There it is, it moved.” I walked closer to where she was pointing and the blackest most beautiful snake was coiled and coiled and coiled with a diamond shaped head resting on top with two slits cut out for eyes. The coil was fat and got thinner as it moved up. Its tail, or bottom half, was stretched out and resting on top of a hose. It was big. I walked closer to get a better shot. It was like my blood turned to ice and fire at the same time. Something very primal happens when a snake like that is so close. So much death and poison, sleeping. So beautiful and so dangerous. Totally wild. There is no reasoning with a rattlesnake.
Susan wanted to see it move. I moved back a few yards and she threw rocks at it. Small pebbles that hit the wall and gently tumbled down. Then I went over to look. I realized the stupidity of this. But something compelled me. The snake had tucked its head away. We went around the other side of the building to come at it from a different angle and I saw that in fact there were two snakes. Two snakes with alternating patterns lying together in the shade. The lighter colored one moved slowly, slowly, up to the other one and put her head right next to his. It was mythic, like DNA or the double snake or yin and yang. The two, always the two. Two horses two snakes two sage sticks. I had to zoom in all the way so it was hard to get a steady shot, but I took some more photos and we left them there. In peace.
So I finally got my rattlesnake picture. It was my going away present from Happy Valley and from Beato. And that reminder of the rattlesnake: take off your sunglasses and pay attention to the path you are walking on.
Everything feels different now. Different but good. It feels good to come home to a life. It is my life and it is a stable life. My survival is not dependant on the emotional and mental stability of any person. I’m not coming home wondering what the mood will be of the person waiting. There are people I love, and I love them. But they do not compose the bedrock upon which I have build my foundation. I am safe and I am secure. So I am happy. I waited and worked so long for something like this. Something real and beautiful. My room with my Indian print curtains and my little doll from Mexico, her hair made out of sunbeams. My Tibetan shawl hanging on the wall behind me, my wooden furniture my metal bed my art my bowls my incense my magic. My life.
I wonder if I am meant to find another rattlesnake to lie in the shade with? I wonder if I am meant to walk this path alone, or if that is even possible? I think my heart’s broken, or no, I’m pretty sure of it. I cried in my sleep last night. A white wild rose with nary a thorn, with her wild red heart in two pieces torn. I’m not sure what broke it or when. I’m not sure why or even what to do about it. I miss my Ojai, my other home, my wilderness my rattlesnakes. But I know I will go back.
Ojai Foundation - Night 4/30/10 Lucy Madeline Ojai, CA
I’m on my bed again, my great boat, my office, laid out with camera equipment, art supplies, books, and more thread. Two of my sage bundles need mending. Something in me needed mending, too. I think that’s what Happy Valley did. It mended me back up. All the broken out and disjointed pieces. All the adjustments I made to my natural order to fit into the world. I am still raw from the sutures, but I know I’ll be up and well in no time. California feels good, the sunlight. LA is still bright and Culver City still smells like the ocean sometimes.
Kevin says, “Even if you have to leave the real world, and go back to work and life in the city, I know that Happy Valley isn’t quite finished with you yet.”
I hope he’s right.
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