JOURNEY BACK TO THE FOUNDATION

Pounding Stone at Confluence of Kings River and Big Creek:
Pine Flat Reservoir in Drought Year

FLOODS

I submerged myself
In the reservoir, plunging
Down the denuded slope into
The canyon emptied by drought,
And settled on a pounding stone 
At the confluence,
Where a newt floated
In a mortar next to a pestle,

Newt and Pestle in a Mortar

An ancient trail leading
West toward another abandoned
Village, and east toward the flats
Through a thick, underwater crop
Of cockleburs that flourish
Wherever the reservoir
Has chewed away the woodlands,
A chimney looming alone
With the name Chuck Morris
Chiseled twice before the house
Drowned and floated away.
Forty years ago, my family
Migrated from L.A., all
Of us in a van winding 
Around the reservoir a month
later. We settled on a spot
Near the flats and while
My father fished, I stumbled
On a web and gazed transfixed
At the intricate tapestry until
I glimpsed a bulbous spider.
I fled as if I’d encountered
The frightful weaver
Of our fate, and I found
Upstream the foundation
Of a ranch house, the concrete
Broken up by the roots
Of oak trees that claimed
The former rooms, the rest
Of the house swept away
By floods over the years.

Foundation of House in Floodplain

And there I heard the voice
Of my daimon: “You will
Be back in thirty-five years.”
Thirty-five years later
I returned after several floods
Had torn through the canyon
Sweeping over our favorite
Hole. One year, I teetered, 
Amazed by the force 
Of the flood and sensing
A hush underneath the roar,
A silence rising as the flood
Slowly subsided. By then
Most of the people in that van
Were gone, my father,
Grandparents, and uncle side
By side in Clovis Cemetery,
My brother in another state,
My father, forty years ago,
Always facing the depths--
I could not tell him
Of the voice from my soul
Or how I could feel him
Tuning his soul to the quiet
Rhythms of water as he
Cast his line and waited....
I no longer grasp water
Or miss the webs
Torn by the wind
Or even attempt to cast
A line as I immerse myself
In the quiet, spiders marching out
Of a crack and wobbling
Toward me, a timeless peace
Drenching the floodplain....

FINDING MY POWER

Chakra

RUNNING WITH MY POWER

I hike where even humus breathes slightly, 
huge trees exhaling a breath that cleanses
the darkened shrubs of my lungs
and awakens flowers of energy

all over my body. I feel
the drumming deep in roots and rocks
as snowmelt cascades down the slopes,
the blood of other creatures pounding

in my ears, coursing through countless
veins, the heartbeat of mother earth pulsing
in bushes and trees, in the bobcat staring
at me from across the creek, in the strider 

Bobcat in Late Spring Flowers

sliding away from the bank 
on a skin of light. There I find
my power, releasing black spiders
from my subtle body through a hole

in my back, healing myself through grief
and forgiveness, cleansing 
the astral flowers of my aura
until they open for the powers 

of the Gods. Together, my power
and I strut through a meadow 
to the ruins of a stone house
as coyotes cut loose a howl, 

Confluence

and we dash over hills on ancient trails
from pounding stone to pounding stone, 
feeling our way through a cave where I see
brilliant archetypes: a pure, white,

four-petaled flower burgeoning
into a flower with countless petals, 
the four elements blossoming into 
the thousand-petaled lotus; a gray

Lemniscate

figure eight, floating above my head;
and a golden-equal armed cross, the archangels
at each end slowly growing clearer.
I emerge from the cave to find

rituals that invoke the archangels, 
the four elements flowing into me
so that I feel the power of those forces
embodied as human forms

with mighty wings, all a flowing,
a balancing, as I lounge 
on a pounding stone at the edge 
of the cliff and pray for release

from attachment and desire. I am
a hawk floating high 
above the oaks, my body towering
into the heavens, assuming the form

of Amoun-Ra, my own head the fiery head
of a hawk, my aura flung beyond the edges
of the solar system, the sun beating down,
speaking with heat of manifold creatures

Seven Pestles Near Pounding Stone

in its light. Seven pestles wait, placed
neatly on a rock near the pounding stone.
Once I was certain the Earth
would soon be free of us,

everything that I and so many others 
fighting for in ruins--but now 
I stand on the pounding stone
under the living sun, awakening 

the Tree of Life within myself, 
making a brilliant cross of light,
a wren foraging a few feet away, 
huge astral antlers branching 

from my head, an inverted rainbow 
in my heart, a flock of bushtits 
descending on an oak, so close:
I am no more threatening than the sun.

INVOKING AN OVER SOUL

Over Soul

SHAMAN AT BIG CREEK

Leaping from rock to slippery,
Unstable rock in Big Creek,
I cross in search of artifacts,
Scrambling up a steep slope
To find shotgun shells sprinkled
On a house pit, mortars claimed
By humus and moss. Trampled and
Uneven, a trail snakes along a cliff
To a confluence where I choose
A faint path unmolested by cattle,
The trail soon vanishing under dry
Sycamore leaves webbed by tribes
Of spiders. Poison oak blocks
One side and a buckeye looms
On the other side of the ravine,
So I grab a long, dry branch and hoist
Myself onto a boulder that topples
To the stream bed after I leap
To another rock. Nobody knows
Where I am. I scramble higher,
Grasping grass and roots, in my first
Initiation by this stream, finding
Primeval woodlands above the lip
Of the waterfall, and I plod forward,
Without much faith in my feet,
Sure that I'm being watched by
Something, animal or spirit,
Not human. When I discover

Pestles

A pounding stone with two pestles,
I am afraid. A skirt of dried earth
And moss clings to each tapered
Stone after I pull them from the cups.
Like some shaman, I feel an Over-Soul
Is aware of me, and there has not yet
been a parley. A rattlesnake, 
Camouflaged by roots that stick out
From the embankment, shatters
The stillness and slithers
Into its hole, the Over-Soul
Aware of me like I
Am aware of the snake. 
I open my senses
To feel what it's like
To be a newt or frog or snake
Or waterfall or redbud reflected
In still water, and I let
An image of her rise from a deep pool.

Pounding Stone

I fashion a living image for her spirit
To ensoul, her hair winding down 
To her feet like rivulets, 
A crown of moons in different 
Phases, a bobcat at her feet, 
Doves fluttering nearby, green robes
Gleaming with embroidery
Of gem-like flowers, behind her
A towering oak, the branches
Like streams, its trunk
A river plunged into earth.
I invoke awkwardly
At first, then more powerfully
As I stand on the pounding stone
With her form in my imagination--
For the Over-Soul to pour her essence
Into my soul, a small channel
Into the soul of the race. At first
I am black, primordial ooze,
Fetid decay, suddenly warm
And compact, webbed by veins,
Then rivulets trickling down
The ravines into still pools
And down to a river that once
Flowed to an ocean under an ocean
Of breath, and then I am all
The plants and animals, one love
Of everything ever connected
To this stream, the solar fire
Scorching my soul to a clinker,
The Over-Soul suddenly
Pouring into me
A timeless peace.

NEAR A POUNDING STONE, I SENSE A WILDCAT WATCHING ME

Mushrooms by Stream

ONE SHALLOW  MORTAR

Where a rivulet spills down a cliff,
a pounding stone with one shallow mortar
not far from three village sites: Banished
or by choice, someone survived here alone,

no telling how long ago. A coyote
eyes me from deer brush across the stream
in a place so tranquil I’m tempted again 
to alienate my tribe: I sense

an Over Soul and see in my mind’s eye 
a golden, equal-armed cross resonating
with cosmic harmony. Pressing my face
against the earth to gaze 

at tiny mushrooms in the moss, 
I feel what it’s like to be mushrooms, 
moss, water, stone: Within
the World Soul we are linked together. 

I feel something staring at me
and see a wildcat in my mind’s eye.
Moments later I watch a mountain lion 
pounce upon a squirrel.