Another Gift From the Amazon

The richness of the Amazon cannot be overstated... Millions of species interpenetrating, the densest and most diverse ecosystem in the world. Ancient civilizations of staggering technological and cosmological advancement. An estimated 3,000 unique languages over the many centuries. Plants that open the soul (Ayahuasca). Plants that cure cancer (maybe). And also this joyful albino man and his merry band playing some genuinely silly music, guaranteed to put a twinkle in your eye! Magicians were usually hermits, and his name's Hermeto.

Tidepooling (nature journal 12/I/11)

When I go to the water it happens to be low tide, what wonder! I walk my favorite stretch of pools and beach: where cormorants dip, harbor seals prostrate on rocks, and anemones abound. When the water is at its most withdrawn, when the tides inhale deeply, big pools are formed way out between rocks usually invisible. They are little oceans of their own, sand bottomed, clear and calm. Sea grass sways softly.

A barely dead gumboot chiton lies belly/foot up in a small pool, and hermit crabs diligently dine there, she is meal and table and the gumboot will disappear by tiny clawfull. Ah detrivores, how I admire the scavengers of this (and every) ecosystem. They live like kings and do no harm. I wouldn’t be surprised to find “waste not, want not” hanging cross-stitched on the inside of a crab shell, or behind a bark beetle’s wing.

Under a stone above the water line there is a bright purple rock crab, about the size of my fist. Sneaking my hand around his claws I actually manage to pick him up. Black eyes sit on opposite sides of his body, he seems to grimace, even though he lacks a face, he reminds me somehow of an old sorcerer, maybe he is. I must admit I want to eat him. I get an ancient hungry feeling often at the tide pools; they are teaming with slow moving, high calorie life, that is nearly alledible raw… Today I nearly sucked a limpet right out of its shell.

There are a lot of stranded creatures under the rocks above the water, and when I move I can hear them scuttle to find a safer place, totally unseen. I am picking up trash, but thinking of abalone shells, it is my custom to ask my totem (the sea otter) for a shell or two for my home alter, she usually obliges.

Next to a tin-can-top there is a shiny fragment of abalone, quite lovely, but just a little piece, so I toss it in the water. The water ripples out, and just below the rings there is a beautiful and big abalone the size of my whole hand, sitting plain as day on the sand. Of course it had been cracked by an otter, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. After I scoop it up I find another iridescent shell to my left wedged between two rocks, smaller, but whole. Then in a pool to my right I see another abalone, shiny side down, with a bright turquoise outer shell, which is completely new to me, I have only ever known them to be red or black. Overjoyed by the trinity I try to collect this Holy Ghost, but when I get my hand around it’s shell the abalone sucks down tight to the rock, it is alive, and won’t budge for anything! I can almost feel that playful otter swim up behind me and say “you can’t have it all at once.” So that turquoise abalone sits on its own alter, a future sacrifice, like everyone else.

"For All" by Gary Snyder

Ah to be alive

on a mid-September morn

fording a stream

barefoot, pants rolled up,

holding boots, pack on,

sunshine, ice in the shallows,

northern rockies.

Rustle and shimmer of icy creek waters

stones turn underfoot, small and hard as toes

cold nose dripping

singing inside

creek music, heart music,

smell of sun on gravel.

I pledge allegiance

I pledge allegiance to the soil

of Turtle Island,

and to the beings who thereon dwell

one ecosystem

in diversity

under the sun

With joyful interpenetration for all.

True Resumés - give up the charade, you're so much more

For me there is no greater repository of collective deception than the resumé. Of course there is the obvious embellishment of “accomplishments”, the stretching of employment times to fill in gaps, and often there is outright lying about employment, skills, and education. But there is another level of deception too. The simple act of submitting to this formulaic evaluation of self, displaying data about oneself that fits someone else’s standards, rather than your own… this is the greater deception.

To get hyperbolic about it just for a second… creating a resumé can diminish the truth of the dynamic and exceptional nature of your existence and experience. These documents need a thorough cleansing, and it’s gonna take a lot of sage!

So I have made my own “soul resume” my “native-self resume” which is, after all, limited, but infinitely more expansive than the humdrum. Truth be told, thinking about things, events, and abilities I feel joyfully connected to actually made me feel great! So I recommend you give it a try. Make a resumé for “things” you are really proud of, stuff that feels real, meaningful, and wonderful. We can shuck the husk of a severely stunted goal/production oriented world-view. Burn your old resumé and let this phoenix rise from the ashes.

My new resume is here (as a PDF) and reconstructed in text below. Anyone hiring?

[Follow up assignment: Send your new resumé to an organization/person/company you’ve always wanted to work for but don’t feel qualified to. OR send it to the CEO of a terrible company, just for fun.]

_____________________________________

FLETCHER TUM TUCKER

address: Dodge Mini Van, Big Sur, CA ||| phone: limited ||| email: fletcher@birdbysnow.com

SPIRIT ANIMAL(S): Sea Otter / Pine Martin / Bobcat /

California Condor / Red-tailed Hawk / Brown Pelican

MINERAL: Petrified Wood / Amber / Obsidian

SHELL: Abalone

ALLY: Mushroom / Ayahuasca

NONCORPOREAL FAMILIAR: Gnome

MYTHIC HERO: Robin Hood / Merlin

SUN SIGN: Aires

MOON SIGN: Gemini

RISING SIGN: Leo

NATIVE GREETING: Hug / High-five

EDUCATION

27 years drawing breath – 22 years wilderness contemplation – 10 years serious consciousness contemplation – 8 years traditional Japanese Jujitsu practice/training – 9 years mature art practice – 6 years of musical engagement & song questing – 6 years of tutelage with my Allies – 6 years of world travel

• 1996 Achieve 1^st degree black belt in Jujitsu – Seibukan Dojo – Monterey, CA
• 2005 Graduate from UCSC, high honors – Santa Cruz, CA
• 2005-2011 Seven musical tours through eleven countries – US & Europe
• 2007 Meeting with Ayahuasca – Oslo, Norway
• 2008 Discover the works of Gary Snyder – Pacific Grove, CA
• 2010 Natural Building Intensive – Boonville, CA

APPLICABLE SKILLS

• Pine-needle basketry
• Reading
• Writing
• Thinking
• Waiting
• Web design
• Adobe Photoshop
• Information stores focusing on: zoology & life sciences, music, art history, pop culture, eastern thought/esoterica, poetry, jokes
• Tide pooling / finding abalone shells
• Building fires
• Recording, arranging, designing & producing records
• Advanced knowledge of: guitar, jews harps, dulcimer, looping pedal
• Cursory knowledge of: banjo, piano, percussion, over-tone singing
• Oil painting, printmaking (intaglio, block, stone lithography), drawing, photography
• Regional botanical & geologic knowledge
• Building structures with earthen materials
• Silly noise expert

references furnished upon request

Yugen Movie VIII (anti-viral video)

Bird Miracle / Wild Wizards

From the cliffs I watched a white egret stand in the tide-pools below, head down, watching, waiting. Patient seems a paltry word for this bird, but it was the virtue she bespoke to me. This is how she makes a living, fills her belly, by casting no shadow, by attracting minimal attention, by standing still & observing.

I am not sure what term of venery (or plural noun) is correct for egrets (I believe it is a siege of herons) but why not a patience of egrets, or perhaps a stillness, or even better: a meditation…

I have even seen them seem to defy the physical laws, like some Tantric demigod, standing on the ocean’s surface on spindly stilts, actually supported by the tangled top of a kelp forest. Again standing perfectly still, waiting for a careless sea creature to flit close to the surface.

As far as I know no mantra is uttered, no esoteric forces summoned, the egret simply stands on the majik of the world itself, which, of course, she co-creates. Giant gas filled algae, hollow avian bones, and millions of years of interpenetration offer up this majik trick. The salt water, the kelp & the sunlight that it reaches toward, the bird & its brood, and the crab or fish it hopes to catch… they cast the spell that makes an egret walk on water; they are the wild wizards.

Ascension Sessions - mystic, wild, live videos from Bird By Snow (IFC exclusive premiere)

Here is a link to the IFC premiere page... and here are the videos, in their words "Grab hold of your chakras we're heading into the spirit world."

October 16th 2010, Fletcher Tucker, Spencer Owen, Rob Little, and Noël Vietor, hike to a remote and mystic oak grove three miles above the Pacific Ocean in Big Sur, California. Here Fletcher and Noël build a hanging sculpture which is to become the focal point of a live performance by Bird By Snow (Fletcher, Spencer, Rob). Fog fills the sacred space and erases the already distant outside world. Video shot by Noël on a Japanese toy camera. Concept by Fletcher & Noël. Editing by Fletcher. Ceramic chimes (at the bottom of the sculpture) made by Stephen Tucker. Costumes dyed by Noël, using California native plants harvested from the very trail that leads to this performance site.